Robert Hall

Niches within niches....what next, an SLX ultra performance crossover?

Add'l cars: Frank Bullitt's '68 Mustang. Driver's '73 Chevelle (from Drive) Roads: The Million Dollar Highway stretch of US 550 in Colorado US 24 between Leadville and Minturn, Colorado US 40 between I-70 and Winter Park, Colorado lots of E. Ohio roads--US22, 416, 800, 39, 799, 513.. Highway 1 from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo, Ca

Saw a solid, straight '64 Olds F85 2dr sedan this afternoon...could have been the original light blue paint, w nearly 50 years of sun fade...

I've seen them in a fairly affluent/trendy area mostly (Scottsdale) and in the college town I work in now (Tempe).

I like pretty much any '60s Caddy..esp. the '67-68 and '69-70. Always thought the '67-68 Caprice roofline resembled the '67-68 CdV... looks like a solid car from the one pic.

I remember that episode...couldn't recall if it was Armenia or Bulgaria that they went to...the Yugo was a substitute for a Bentley, IIRC.

I think it's only been out a short time..the ones yesterday were the first I'd seen.

I've probably seen a dozen or so around the Phoenix metro area..saw 2 Scion iQs yesterday, will be interesting to see how it's sales compare to the Fiat in a year...

Looks clean and the price is reasonable. Beside donkers, the other thing that unfortunately happens to cars like this is that demo derby rednecks get them...

Enclave is 4780-4985lbs, Escalade, 5545-5723lbs..get a lot more bloat in a similar size w/ the Escalade...

Yeah, who knows how it would have turned out....that generation of Seville is a great looking car IMO, can only imagine how a coupe would have looked...with a side window treatment like the '79-85 Eldo and styling cues like the peaked fenders and narrow vertical tailights, could have been interesting...

Well, if the mileage is right and it sat for decades the hoses, seals, gaskets, etc were probably all rotted so it probably needed a rebuild...

Citroen certainly has a flair for design...as far hardware, will be interesting to see what transpires...

Makes sense..I figured w/ Boeing in Wa there would be considerable materials engineering and mftg talent available. Sounds like BMW is working on mainstreaming CF in a big way..

I've rented TCs from Hertz at Pittsburgh, Columbus, San Diego and LAX...TCs and Grand Marquis' have been my favorite rentals over the last 10 years or so..

Wow..except for the interior color, that's identical to my first rental car in 1995..the description is hiliarously overhyped, though.

Forget it...I shouldn't even have mentioned my idea. I know there was the existing Eldo....what I mentioned was a 'what if' scenario.

The key to CF in the future is to cut the production time and labor. Who ever does this opens the door to the future. Teijin GM's new partner has a way of making CF Thermo plastics and they can do cycle times in under one minute. Conventional CF Thermosetting composites take much longer and in this deal time is money and the ability to do great volumes are limited. I expect even more things will come into play. Even with the cost savings I expect the price of these new cars to climb with the need for these more expensive materials to cut weight. At this point they have no choice. Here is what GM put out to the media on their new partnership. http://media.gm.com/...Dec/1208_teijin In the short term, yes prices will rise, but long term they will drop as the technology that is going into the total CF plan DreamLiner is being used to scale down costs and speed up creation of CF parts. I think with a solid work force, we will see this happen sooner rather than later. Check out the opening of the Moses Lake BMW CF plant. http://www.bizjourna...rbon-fiber.html Check out the pictures, the best are the one of the new BMW M6 bumper and the I3 Body made of CF. Really cool stuff. http://www.torquenew...t-moses-lake-wa That's pretty cool...interesting that BMW would open a plant in Washington..seems like an off-the-radar location for an auto-related plant...does carbon naturally occur there or something?

That's just one detail...the glass door inserts have been around at least since the Lamborghini Marzal concept of around 1970. The BMW concept is as futuristic and strange relative to today's production cars as the finned fantasies of your decade were to the production cars then... It would reduce the center of gravity, probably have better handling...lots of concepts and mfgrs have been looking at motors in the wheels...it wouldn't surprise me to see a production car in the next decade w/ electric motors in the wheels...

I wouldn;t be surprised if it was aftermarket. car mascots, much like flags, are always supposed to be charging. Most likely...pretty sure the Vanden Plas and 'VDP' badging usage are bogus also, IIRC Jag had a Vanden Plas version of the XJ but not the X-type....and Vanden Plas was a coachbuilder and a car brand long ago..

And saw a white iQ this afternoon, along w/ a bright green Spark...

Yes, same with accessory companies, parts suppliers, etc...there are many companies that get early access to new cars...I would think there would be NDAs involved, but there will always be leaks..

'Eldorado 2-dr Seville' ??? Unless you're talking about '56-60 (and I know that you are not), that's rather mixed-up. A 2-dr Seville would be as much an 'Eldorado' as it would a Camaro. You are being too literal...not badged as a Seville, but a 2dr coupe variation badged as an Eldorado. After all, the Seville and Eldorado were essentially 4dr and 2dr versions of the same car (with styling variations, but the same dirty bits, common dashboards,etc) for 3 generations...('79/80-85, 86-91,'92-98/02). What if Cadillac had downsized the Eldo in '75-76 to use the Seville platform? Picture a 2dr coupe version w/ a crisp roofline w/ Eldo cues like the quarter window shape, narrow vertical taillights, etc... I've seen some custom built 2dr coupe and convertible 1st gen Sevilles but they were all amateur hour with short 4dr doors...the nicest conversion was the San Remo convertible, I remember one a magazine years ago.. http://autocollections.com/index.cfm?id=3229&action=details&tab=sold

Lots of visually interesting concept cars in recent years, one that really stands out I can think of is the BMW i8...very futuristic and strange... or the red Ford something concept last year...

Are there really many dealers left? I don't see any positive value in the brand name. Probably most of the dealers closed by now, but they could be reopened. The brand had it's fans....better than creating a new brand from scratch...