Robert Hall

chon

I like the styling quite a bit of the related '69-70 Ford XL and LTDs...

mooooo

Welcome back, 68!

That seems like a bad design.

Love those Marauders, both the '69 and the '03-04.

Went to the Copperstate 1000 road rally starting event and car show this morning at Tempe Diablo Stadium. Went last year, bigger turn out this year. Some absolutely incredible cars this year-- a couple dozen vintage Ferraris (a '63 Lusso, a '56 Superamerica, a few 365 GTB and GTSes ('Daytonas'), a couple dozen Porsches (356s and 911s), a '66 Ford GT40 427, Aston Martins, a one-off Bentley fastback from the '50s, a Fiat Zagato, Jag XK-SS, several Jag XK120/140/150s, an Austin Healey 100, 2 Mercedes SL gullwings and 2 SL convertibles of the same vintage, several Cobras (289 and 427), several '65-66 Shelby Mustangs. A '38 Cord Winchester sedan, a Packard 120 Darrin convertible, another Packard 4dr convertible, a '70 Trans Am. Probably $20-30 million or more worth of rare cars out there today, actually being driven around AZ... a kid or other clueless person had dropped their ice cream cup on the hood of a silver Aston Martin DB6 convertible. In the car show in the parking lot, cars not in the rally were pretty interesting also...everything from a very clean silver blue '62 Impala, a blue '61 Catalina convertible, to a couple '80s Testarossas, duece coupe hot rods, '55-56 Nomads, a 39 Pontiac street rod, a Milner coupe replica, a 1930 Dodge roadster w/ a 30 Cadillac V16, etc. A good car geek experience.

It's the bald head.

That's one of the things I've loved about driving GN and CV rentals over the years... I really noticed it the time I drove a black CV around Chicago for a few days...in daytime, people would move over if I came up behind them on the freeway, probably thinking it was an unmarked cop car.

Friends have told me a look like a thinner Tony Soprano or a taller Vic Mackey ('The Shield' bald tough guy cop character). Though I really don't see the resemblance.

Nah, we're just joking around..and I don't see a Gaear Grimsrud resemblance.

I like the '73-78 Merc styling...huge, long, relatively clean w/o opera windows or other mid '70s cliches. That era was the lower, longer, wider approach at it's apex for Ford. I find them much more appealing than the humpy, overrated '49-51 Merc coupes (esp. the hideous chop-top customs) or the finned nightmares of the late '50s. That's just me, though..I know a lot of people are enamored of 50s cars, very little from that decade that I find appealing.

Love those big Mercs, from the oldies through the Panthers.

Do you have a wood chipper? New Jersey. Out in the woods. I bet there are bodies buried out there..

It's an interesting gadget, but I couldn't see myself getting one. I just don't see a use case that works for me. I like paper books and magazines..both work fine in bed, bathroom, sofa, chair,airplane, etc. When I'm surfing, well, I have two laptops and wireless for that. For music, I have my iPod. Without being able to arbitrarily download applications from the internet, it's too limited (you can only install apps from the Apple appstore, correct?). Now if it were running OS X, could be used w/ a mouse and keyboard (I'm not down w/ touchscreens), then it might be more compelling to me. Though several friends got their iPads last Saturday...I'll have to play around w/ one when I'm back in Denver at the end of the month.

Sorry to hear that..so many accidents happen due to dumb driver moves.. the rear end and broadside collision I had in '94 was caused by a Ford employee in an Econoline van that bent down to pick up a notebook that had fallen off the dash. Plowed into the car behind me at about 45 mph...(both were stopped in the turn lane of a busy 4 lane road)

True, but some parents could..that's how I got my 5.0 and all my friends in high school got their new cars.. True, never had an interest in working on cars, much more interested in driving them. I place a lot of importance on reliability--getting me where I need to go w/o breaking down. I couldn't imagine trying to use a computer that old. I still have my '00 vintage Dell laptop, but it's pretty much unusable, not enough disk space or RAM to run the software of today. It would be like going back to the era of dialup. I remember TVs w/ curved screens that weren't HD, but I don't have any interest in having one. Different strokes for different folks.

I was thinking more of the '87 IROC Z...a sweet car. Yes, used musclecars were cheap, at least the way I remember a lot of them in Ohio and Florida is that they were rusted out and generally beat to death. Though I'm sure there were plenty of clean ones to be found in CA and AZ.

True, not much interesting about a Celebrity. But there were plenty of contemporary cars I remember liking in the '80s from the Camaro and Firebird, to the Monte Carlo SS, Buick GN, etc to various Fords (Mustangs, Tbirds, etc). Chrysler was a wasteland of FWD junk, and GM went down that same path, at a slower pace. Problem w/ most of the vintage iron I saw growing up is that it was rusty and worn out (both in Ohio and Florida). And experiences within my own family w/ old cars--my brother was always buying and selling old rusty cars that were breaking down...I had no interest in that side of the car hobby. Though I certainly studied history (US history, world history, art history,music history, etc) in school and enjoy museums and old car magazines, from having immersed myself in technology and computers in college, grad school and my profession, I've always found it more interesting to look forward than to look back. I'm not like I'm interested in the computers, cell phones, tvs, and other gadgets etc of 10 years ago, more interested in that of now and tommorrow.

Yeah, in his avatar, he definitely looks at least 60..

Yah, given his knowledge and areas of interest I had pegged him more around 55-65.

You got the gravel/xerescaped look going on? A green yard is definitely a lot of work to keep up. I don't have a lawn mower, only a string trimmer..have a yard service to keep it mowed. I don't think I could handle the desert aesthetic....I like the greenness of my neighborhoods and those around me in Central Phoenix, but find the desert beige/tan/brown everything out in the burbs pretty unappetizing, like in the Chand where I work.

I have 2 palm trees in the front yard, 5 in the back, 2 grapefruit trees in the front yard, bouganvila along the side and back walls a row of oleanders, 3 orange trees in the back, various small bushes, nice green lawn. No cactus or deserty stuff.

Saw a dark gray one yesterday.. quite striking on the road. First one I saw on the road a couple months ago was gold, and maybe 3 silver ones so far. I like the profile and rear moreso than the front end.

Lots of great cars in my birth year....kind of the high point of the muscle car era.. too many to choose from---Buick GSX, Olds W30 442, Chevelle SS 454, Pontiac GTO Judge, Hemi Cuda, Hemi Challenger R/T, Mustang Mach 1, Boss 302, Boss 429, Cougar Eliminator, Torino GT, Torino Cobra, Mercury Cyclone, etc.....plus the 1st of the 2nd gen Camaro and Firebird. Here's one in particular I like from '70.