Robert Hall

With a silver one like this, I'd probably go for the chrome R/T Classic wheels w/ red R/T style side stripes and no rear wing.

Speaking of Challenger rentals, after I signed for my midsize (which turned out to be a Mazda5) at Alamo at the Long Beach airport Saturday, I discovered they had Challengers on the lot for rent, incl. a metallic black one. I should have checked more when I did my reservation..

And the mags would easily say, "The portliest one of the bunch," and not think twice Well, it is American...we are a nation of chunky people and chunky cars.. I could stand to lose 50-75 pounds myself.. So shorter wheelbase, not much shorter overall...longer overhangs it sounds like.

'huge'? It may not be as small as the Miata or the old Z3, but it's still a pretty tiny car..these are the specs of the current model, I would expect the 4cyl one to be lighter and better balanced.. Wheelbase 2,496 mm (98.3 in) Length 4,239 mm (166.9 in) Width 1,790 mm (70.5 in) Height 1,291 mm (50.8 in) Curb weight 1,470 kg (3,241 lb) (sDrive30i manual) 1,500 kg (3,307 lb) (sDrive30i auto) 1,565 kg (3,450 lb) (sDrive35i manual) 1,585 kg (3,494 lb) (sDrive35i auto

Cool...glad you could get something you liked and also new and reliable. Good luck and may you have many enjoyable, trouble free miles ahead.

Sounds pretty good for a midsize, 4cyl car that probably weighs at least 3500lbs..

Bryan Nesbitt (I think that's his name) resembles Charlie Sheen. Winning!

Seeing that other post about the 2012 Impala getting the 3.6 and a 6spd auto, I suspect the real 2014 Impala will be the same as the 2012...w/ the updated engine and transmission, the W-body could go on another 5-10 years..(j/k)

Weren't the Impala rear quarters different, esp. around the taillights? Different decklids also, looks like. And the C-pillar and roofline on 2dr hts?

Saw a lot of interesting cars in Long Beach this weekend..at the parking for the Toyota GP of Long Beach race today, I saw 3 CTS-vs parked together--gray 4dr, silver 2dr, dk gray wagon. Saw a row of 1/2 dozen red Ferraris in the lot, ranging from '90s models to a 458 Italia..saw a sharp bright red w/ white stripes '67 Camaro SS. Yesterday leaving the airport in my strange little rental car (somehow ended up w/ a Mazda5) saw a dark '11 Mustang GT playing w/ a dark gray '10/11 Camaro SS on the 405 freeway entrance ramp..the exhaust notes of both were incredible..

If a rwd zeta impala were to happen the target is obvious..charger

Well, the main competitors for these two (Lexus RX and ES), Lincoln MKX and MKS) don't have performance versions either. Since they are just FWD/AWD models, they can't compete w/ the RWD/AWD big league models.

<cynical> One thing also to keep in mind are the big oil companies...I would think they will be doing everything they can to keep down EV adoption and sabotage EV development. </cynical>

Alternatives to the lightest metal on the periodic chart? Not many of them. Synthetic Lithium... sure... we'll put the nuclear fusion reactor in your back yard. I suppose Sodium or Potassium ion batteries could be made, as all the Alkali metals have similar properties. However, these would be heavier and tend to be more reactive... and so are closer to being a munition. I don't know, I'm not a chemist...but it's time they come up with creative solutions, think outside the box if the electric car strategy is going to be viable and widespread...

Using your analog, if gasoline was like flat screens, I was paying $1.07 for regular 87 octane in 1998, so we'd be paying 10.7 cents a gallon for 140 octane gasoline today. Unfortunately, comparing flat screens to batteries is apples to oranges. Flat screens are not stuck being made from a small group of expensive metals. Batteries are. Lithium is $300/lb before you do anything to it. How much is used in the Volt? Where will this price go if large scale Lithium battery production starts and there is not enough Lithium extraction to go around? Lithium is not exactly common and always requires expensive processing to purify it. Remember, the biggest Lithium fields are in a middle eastern country currently at war with the US. I'm not saying that there aren't potential savings here... but it ain't going to follow the flat screen price free fall. Sounds like it's time for battery companies to work on synthetic lithium or other alternatives...

Saw a very clean black w/ red interior '66-67 Lincoln Continental convertible, top down, cruising along in morning traffic...

That's what my Mom says they look like...never saw the connotation..they don't look hearse-like to me, but like a sleek wagon...

While in traffic behind a burnt orange C6, saw a black '64-67 Corvette coupe go by in the opposite direction, while passing a Le Mans blue '68-69 Corvette coupe w/ luggage rack parked in a driveway. At the airport tonight I saw a very clean, all original looking silver '79 Ford Bronco.

I suppose they could really cheapen it by putting the Volt hardware in another, existing model like the Cruze or Sonic..

Realisically, if I had garage space--for the practical daily driver I'd cross-shop the new Chrysler 300C, Charger R/T, Grand Cherokee, or CTS. Realistically, for a #2 fun car if I had garage space, a new Mustang Boss 302 or GT. Or a Camaro SS. Or a Challenger R/T. I find all of them appealing. Would have to do a number of test drives before picking one. (I'd really like to go buy a new car today, but am holding off until I take care of the big issues..i.e. new house in a different state, moving, etc). For a money-no-object sell-your-soul new dream car, maybe an Aston Martin DB9, Merc SLS, Merc S65 AMG, Porsche 911GT3RS, Caddy CTS-v, or Audi R8 V10 Spyder. For a money-no-object insane-with-no-practical-use car, I really, really want an Ariel Atom.

Most of the developers on Macs (incl. myself sometimes) I know use Macs because of the pure UNIX goodness inside of OSX. They didn't pay attention to the old Macs, but embrace the newer ones as an alternative to a DIY Linux on a Windows laptop approach.. I like my Mac Book Pro and my Dell Studio XPS, but every other dev shop I've worked in over the last decade has used laptops (HP, Dell or Lenovo) running Win XP... having used Windows, various UNIX flavors (Solaris, HP-UX, Digital, several Linuxes) and Mac OSX over the years as development environments, I can see the pros and cons of each.. At that startup, the civilians (management, testers, support, etc) used Windows laptops, but the developers all used Macs..it wasn't even a web app but more of an infrastructure technology that was deployed on UNIX or Windows servers.. Sounds totally cool, the small company I am building a storage division in, my QA team uses all windows or linux multi monitor desktops, yet dev's all use mac's to work on the linux kernel of our storage appliance. So I totally understand where you come from on the Mac. Some can handle the change between setups and others cannot. What type of product what this that you worked on? Mine is a storage accelerator. you can see it at storage.dataram.com That company was building fraud detection algorithms and plugins for e-commerce, credit card processing and banking applications. I've spent the last 2 years in banking systems at a big bank, am now doing a contract at a health care services company working on software for pharmacy and drug company communication.. The storage accelerator sounds interesting..

Most of the developers on Macs (incl. myself sometimes) I know use Macs because of the pure UNIX goodness inside of OSX. They didn't pay attention to the old Macs, but embrace the newer ones as an alternative to a DIY Linux on a Windows laptop approach.. I like my Mac Book Pro and my Dell Studio XPS, but every other dev shop I've worked in over the last decade has used laptops (HP, Dell or Lenovo) running Win XP... having used Windows, various UNIX flavors (Solaris, HP-UX, Digital, several Linuxes) and Mac OSX over the years as development environments, I can see the pros and cons of each.. At that startup, the civilians (management, testers, support, etc) used Windows laptops, but the developers all used Macs..it wasn't even a web app but more of an infrastructure technology that was deployed on UNIX or Windows servers..

I'm not sure if I believe the whole 'Don't be evil' mantra of Google... agreed on Skynet, and who knows, maybe it will evolve from all the 'cloud' initiatives that are going on these days..

Not much outside of my own family...my brother gave me grief over driving a 'Kraut Rocket' or a 'Nazi car' when I had my M3, and gave me a hard time over driving a Chrysler product w/ my Jeep. But I just ignore him. My Prius-driving friends and colleagues never gave me a hard time over my Jeep, except when I briefly worked at a startup 3 years ago where almost everyone drove a Toyota product--they constantly ragged on me for driving an American car and why didn't I embrace the perfection that was Toyota (oddly, it was the same place that was a very strong Mac fanboy environment). Not a negative comment, but a confused one that made me laugh years ago...I was driving my Mom's silver blue '68 Cougar back around '92, stopped at a convenience store and as I was walking in, some teenagers came out, and one exclaimed 'wow--what a sweet Camaro!'. LoL.

Those were built by Travco starting in the early '60s. Dodge was one of the main providers of chassis and powertrains for Class A motorhomes up through the late '70s, until they dropped the 440...then GM w/ 454 chassis and powertrains became more common.... there never were too many Ford-based Class As back in the day (though Ford, Chevy and Dodge all provided cut-down van cabs for Class C motorhomes..) Today, the vast majority of Class As are rear-engined diesels, using Oskosh chassis, etc.. The GMC motorhomes were pretty cool, I remember seeing many of them on the road and in the RV parks when my folks and I were RVing from the late 70s through the late 80s..