Robert Hall

About 75 and sunny here in Phoenix today..was down in the high 40s last night...used the furnace for the first time this season. This fall weather is great...if were like this May-Sept, I'd be really happy here...instead, its over 100 every day for 4+ months..

Movement in Still Life--BT

Speaking of women, and the other thread on Benzes, I just remembered a movie I really liked from a few years ago--- 'Bandits'--Cate Blanchett was seriously hot as a redhead, a bored housewife w/ an S500...later in the movie, there was a goregous maroon '70 or so 300SE convertible..

Heh-heh...being 38 myself, I tend to date women my age or a few years older..I just can't relate to a 25 year old anymore.. though the pool of professional, single women w/o kids my age is smaller than w/ the 20 somethings..

ya...she's been looking unhealthy thin lately, though...needs to eat a few cheeseburgers, IMHO.

Yeah, it's odd that they are both named the same. I think they probably really intended to launch a Genesis brand, with the luxury sedan and sports coupe as the two models of that brand, since these models have nothing really in common with the mass market FWD Hyundai brand... but that would have obviously been a much bigger investment.

Speaking of other brunettes...3 Europeans I can think of that I think are quite hot--- Monica Bellucci, Eva Green, Sophie Marceau.

I still don't see the 'social agenda' angle..that just sounds like paranoid musings.

It's a retro style shifter, styled like some of the ones in '70 vintage Mopies....and Mopies w/ the Hemis and 440s back then were usually always paired w/ automatics, more so than manuals.

The new Blazer, eh? (They still use that name in Brasil). Looks like a Traverse front w/ an Astra greenhouse.

Around 40 or so, I think... she's hot, and from Ohio... Reminds me a bit of Sofia Milos, who is Italian-Greek (occasionally in CSI: Miami)...

Yes...completely forgot about her...

poopie

Hmmm...leverage. Unrelated, but I wonder GM has approached Toyota for a loan? A few billion would be pocket change for them, and they would get good PR for helping out an American carmaker...

That silver blue 2dr concept is sweet...love the Challenger style hood scoops..

More Not Good it proves to be true... damn.

This might be my favorite of the Challenger concepts this year..it's so clean.

Ya...I've had that pic as my background on my laptop for a while now.. R

A fuel tax is a consumption tax, like sales tax. The more you use, the more you pay...that's fair--- I'd pay more than a Corolla driving a similar distance (since the Merc uses more gas). Though the Merc weighs a lot more than the Corolla, and the Pete weighs a lot more than any car, so theoretically the heavier vehicle does do more wear and tear to the roads. Perhaps a better system probably would probably be a tax on the # of miles you drive....maybe determined yearly when you register a car (i.e. the # of miles this year minus the number of miles last year * a percentage)? That would indirectly impact consumption. However it happens, this country needs to invest a lot more than they are now in infrastructure--roads, bridges, etc.

I've sat in one, unfortunately, the low side windows and roofline cuts into the side and rear visiblity, but damn, what a sexy car, inside and out..

I don't have a problem w/ a gas tax--I'm using the streets and roads, I should contribute towards their upkeep. No different than all the taxes I pay on an airline ticket.

And IIRC, Jean Reno drove a brown 6.9 in 'Ronin'... For some reason, I prefer the US-spec round headlights on that era Merc compared to the Euro lights. Another car that is very cool from a decade earlier is the 300 SEL 6.3....I've seen a couple, and they always have an interesting stance--low in the front, high in the rear...

Oh yeah... I have a friend-of-a-friend that is literally a dead ringer for Mariah... looks enough like her to be an evil twin. Still looks great even after having 6 kids by at least 4 exes.

Yeah, winter is approaching in E. Ohio also...my brother and Mom have put away their oldies for the winter, incl. my Mustangs. On the other hand, old car weather is here now in Phoenix--the next 5 1/2 months should be very nice. Then it's back to the oven.

A Benz in particular I'd love to have is a late '70s 450SEL 6.9. Those were the first Mercs I really noticed as a kid in the late '70s reading Road & Track. Something about big, fast sedans have long appealed to me. A couple others I like are some of the original AMGs--the Hammer E-class sedan in particular (not the gaudy all white AMGs of S. Florida that I remember from the '80s) and the early '90s 500E that was tweaked by Porsche.