Robert Hall

Saw a very clean dark blue mid '60s Corvette roadster yesterday. In a Target parking lot, I saw an '70s vintage Mercedes camper van, German number plates, a young blond couple getting out of it. Shipped it to the US for a cross country holiday, maybe?

I think smoky burnouts are an element of the drag racing subculture. Probably got a tunnel ram w/ carburators or something that wouldn't fit under the stock hood. But more interesting, what is drivetrain--transmission, rear axle, etc? Wondering what dirty bits were used to cnvert a DTS to RWD..

Interesting...looks like someone did a RWD conversion...wonder what the drivetrain is under there...would have been even more of a sleeper if they could have built it without the lame 'outlaw' style hood scoop.

For an appliance/rental car, it seems adequate. The lack of a manual transmission in anything but the base model is disappointing, but given Genericans preference for automatics, not surprising.

I'm thinking now it may have been low blinker fluid. Haven't driven it all week, been driving my sister's old Merc 300CE hardtop...been cool enough in the mornings to drive w/ all the windows down and sunroof open. Fun.

I've been driving an MB hardtop all week and it's been a challenge adjusting the seat so my head clears the sunroof..and the seat feels to narrow. I'm only 6'0"/240. I parked next to a '10 E-class coupe at the bagel place this morning, and it was an interesting contrast in midsize coupe styling, 20 years apart. Mercedes has a graceful, clean coupe design without resorting to bizzaro proportions..it has an identifiable decklid that's not 4 feet tall and has plenty of glass...and I bet it's as stiff as the CTS coupe. After seeing the CTS coupe in person, I'm dissapointed with the thick, stubby body, compared to the more graceful G37, 3-series, E-class, and A5 coupes...

One of the peculiarities of The Chand where I work (Chandler, AZ) is that the street signs are all brown instead of green...and the smaller ones are ALL CAPS and the larger (overhead at major intersections) are camel case..

I would assume there would be expanded facilities built as part of all the high speed rail projects that are being talked about for the near future... High speed passenger rail is the cover story for these projects, but the real motivation is high speed freight rail, according to the various conspiracy theories out there..

I suspect he is part of the 'trains good, planes bad' cabal that want to bring down the airline industry and the trucking industry in favor of expanded freight rail service...

Typical New Yorker..sees cars only in the context of cabs.

Larger street signs would be good...make the letters at least a foot high, and lighted on major streets.

Yes..the greatest font ever. There was even a riveting documentary about it. Though I'm fond of Arial Terminal.

As I kid I remember liking the Magnum and it's predecessor from around '76-77--the Charger Daytona (was just a stripe package on the Cordoba-style Charger, but neat nonetheless). The Mirada and 2nd gen Cordoba were pretty nice...I remember going w/ my folks in '80 to test drive a Mirada..my Mom was looking to replace her '77 T-Bird, but my folks being ever the Ford loyalists bought for the blocky '80 T-Bird... That is a clean example, but it looks odd w/o the vinyl top and the blingy kiddie wheels look out of place..

I was curious...looking at the 'Build Your Own' site on the Chevy website, it looks like the LS is not available w/ cruise at all....on the LT, there is a $525 'Connectivity Plus Cruise' package that has it; cruise does not seem to be a standalone option on either the LS or LT. Also, the manual is only available in the LS trim level. BYO

Gray Cloud

So the US build NMS will probably look like a larger, decontented version of this..

Tiny windows and poor outward visibility are a problem w/ so many cars today.. it's interesting to see how much better the visibility is in a car designed in the '90s compared to a car of today. Cameras for rear visibility make sense for a Winnebago or semi truck, but with cars, the design should account for visibility..make the windows large enough to see out of and stop putting the top of the decklid 4 feet off the ground. As far as the CTS coupe, after seeing it in person, I'm dissapointed w/ the rear quarter design...way too thick in the rear quarters, and why is the tail so tall? The car would look much better if the beltline/top of the decklid were 6 inches lower...a coupe should be sleek, not a stubby hunchback w/ a giant swollen arse.. I really wanted to like this car...the C-pillar and greenhouse in isolation look great, but the lower body is so tall and stubby in the rear, that's it's really off-putting in person from certain angles..

No more Hondas for Albert?

Glad to hear you are doing well... Speaking of accidents w/ Toyotas, found out this morning that my coworker got his restomodded '55 Chevy Bel Air ht out for the first time since his heart attack a few weeks ago...was a mile from home when a neighbor's kid (on a cell phone) ran a red light in a Camry and broadsided him...no injuries, but his Bel Air is pretty banged up.

Saw a derelict 1st gen Taurus on the freeway last night...one headlight, hanging at angle...no front or rear bumpers, front fender and hood crumpled. AZ has no annual inspections, so rolling wrecks like this keep rolling along)

I like the design of the current Malibu dash w/ the two pods...if this is how the '12 is going to look, well, it's very generic...

?

circles

The top guy has to take the blame for the failures. GM went bankrupt and lost a lot of market share during his reign. Per Wikipedia--"The latter part of Wagoner's tenure as CEO of General Motors found him under heavy criticism as the market valuation of GM went down by more than 90% and the company losing more than $82 billion USD. This led to his being named one of the worst CEOs of 2008."

Drum brakes in 2011? Cheapskates...