Robert Hall

At Target, I parked next to a red '60 Pontiac Catalina 2dr sedan. Solid shape, straight metal. Older paint, white interior. Some cracked windows. Looked like a solid, restorable car. Lifted in the back on an older set of Cragar SS wheels.

'Hornet' is better than an alphanumeric name or 'Caliber'... Anyway, no one in the target market probably remembers the '70s AMC Hornet, let alone a '50s Hudson. It's not a retro design, so it's not playing on nostalgia for models from 40 or 60 years ago..

I saw a hideous '10 Camaro last year w/ wheels that size...car was painted hot pink with bright green stripes, with bright green wheels w/ pink rims..

I remember seeing the first year ('05?) at an auto show when they first came out and thinking the interior looked cheaper and nastier than the S10 it replaced.

Saw an odd car go by when walking back to the office from lunch...a '10 Camaro, with lots of scratches and dings, dirty, with New Jersey plates. In Arizona. Also saw a white '64 Caddy Coupe de Ville w/ tinted windows and large black w/ chrome rim wheels parking in the valet area at the mall..looked huge and impressive amidst the usual appliances and modern luxury cars.

Honda has been trying to emulate Toyota too much in recent years...boring, soulless FWD appliances. They used to make sports cars and distinctive, high quality small cars.

I should have taken a pic...parked in a row front of a grocery and restaurant in a strip mall were four interesting semi-recent out-of-production models, all in black.. Lincoln Blackwood, Mercury Marauder, last generation of Ford Thunderbird, and Chevy SSR.

As is ownership of the state by industry, which is how it is in a corporatocracy.

what is democracy, but a tyranny of the majority? but we're really talking about china as a political entity instead of what this would do to GM's IP, which if china truly is communistic, IP protective law has no place in china. china's position on this should be self evident, which is just as the article says, china wants to know the volt's "secrets" before it's sold there. And of course, rememeber the US is not a pure democracy, it once was a republic or representative democracy...today, it's a corporatocracy where corrupt corporations (often multinational corporations) own the politicians.

Very unusual...too bad they didn't post a side profile photo..

The first 3 colors in the list are probably the top selling color choices in the compact FWD appliance category, so they are conforming to the market.

Interesting mix of cars..the modified '70 and '87 CUtlasses are disgusting. The Pace Car, '78 98, ambulance and Vista Cruiser 442 are pretty interesting...

$15.78/hr is only about $31k/yr w/o ot.

Maybe they can do a sporty version of the iQ.. though I wonder what is cooking with what appears to be an LS F mule on Autoblog yesterday..

gap

A similar trend--I've started noticing shuttle buses built using the Super Duty CC instead of the usual E-series CC...

Also, so many cars today have alot of the 'styling' in the light clusters... Soem trends I've noticed over the last decade is the growth in size of the brand badge, the growth of the size of the grille, and the standardization of badge placement (center of grille) and the standardization of grill shape...various trapazoids.

LOL! Great.

piston speed? Never heard of that measurement...how does it correlate to max RPM?

It is interesting how much of a customizing/modification market they have had...about the only FWD domestic I can think of that had such a following in that space...the HHR to a lesser degree has also had a following in that space, I think...

Doesn't matter. The Prius is a transportation appliance. Prius drivers don't care or have no idea what 'handling' means. It's just a point-A to point-B commuter car.

Happy Birthday!

On the first statement I would agree. It goes beyond the price to image also, a German car has the image of more sophistication (the wine, cheese, and opera crowd), a Cadillac is for old people in Florida or gangsters. Point 2 I am not sure of yet. If GM was so serious, why the front drive vehicles with Chevy underpinnings. GM said they were serious on Cadillac in 2003 when the first CTS came out, and it would be followed by a more rear drivers to fight the Germans, and 8 years later the STS, SRX (rwd) and XLR are in the graveyard. So I remain skeptical that Cadillac is for real serious this time. On the 3rd point, I hope you are correct and Cadillac gets back to the Standard of the World. But as I said, I am not convinced yet. The ATS is step one and it is going after a legend so it better be good. RWD is not the panacea it once was. Quite soon every single major luxury player will have a FWD vehicle for sale. So unless you are implying that BMW, Infiniti, and Mercedes "aren't serious" then you cannot apply that term to Cadillac. The difference is BMW and MB will be using FWD only on the cheap entry-level stuff...the good stuff remains RWD.

Saw another article that indicated Ram could get a version of the Iveco Daily (large van) also...that they may have a 3 van strategy w/ the small Doblo, midsize Ducato, large Daily...

GM has the Opel/Vauxhall Vivaro, which is a JV w/ Renault (Renault Trafic, Nissan Primestar), and the larger Opel/Vauxhall Movano, also a JV w/ Renault (Renault Master).