Robert Hall

Yeah...it's the traffic that kills the fun of a stick... esp. the darn stop and go freeway congestion and stop and go city traffic..I love a manual, but am content with an automatic in my Jeep..

Yes, unfortunately. My '80s diesel experience was a good one overall, though my Escort's engine was by Mazda.

Yeah..I'm always amazed by what is available in diesels in the UK....like a BMW 3-series convertible diesel. Or a Merc CLK diesel hardtop. I'd love to see GM make some bold moves and offer a diesel Camaro or US-market diesel CTS..

Yes...leave automatics to the mainstreamers... I'd buy a diesel w/ a manual again.

It's quite good...I've been using it for a few weeks now (downloaded one of the release candidates in late May), on both Leopard and Win XP Pro...very stable, seems to be less of a resource hog that 2.x was.

I wonder if there are any clubs devoted to '80s GM X/A/J/N/L FWDers...

It's amazing how many bad drivers there are out there... I see a lot of them here. Phoenix is scary at times...my biggest irritant are all the stupid intersections of 2 four/six lane streets with left turn lanes but no left turn arrows... lots of people running the lights or turning left stupidly. Not to mention thousands of look-alike strip malls, 4 at each intersection with the entrances and exits 20 feet from the intersections...

It's too bad the Civic hatches aren't sold in NA...they look 1000% better than the dull sedan version, IMHO.

Back in the first dot.bomb era, when I was a crazy 20-something and felt invincible, I drank Shock Coffee, Jolt cola, Vodka and Scotch in the evening, all the while on Prozac (later Zoloft). Fun times. I'm old and mellow now, can't be that intense any more.

No smog checks?

I'm up by 5:30, and wouldn't make it until noon without some caffeine. I usually have a cold Starbucks doubleshot or caffinated Mocha drink, then head to the office, where I have 2-3 cups of coffee before 9:30. That keeps me going the rest of the day...sometimes I have a coke at lunch.. Over the last year at my last gig, I had a tradition of a Red Bull and a candy bar in the afternoon most days... staying conscious at that job was difficult (painfully dull, slow pace to the projects.. but I had a great bill rate so I stuck it out for 9 months). I now usually a cup of tea around 3. A couple of guys in my office drink the Monster energy drinks quite a bit, I tried one, didn't care for the taste.

There are probably people that think Europe is a country.

I'm sure we will see 10000 pointless rants from SixtyEight...ugh.

It's kind of cool..would make a nice Lexus minivan here....who knows, maybe the luxury minivan market will take off here in the post-SUV era..

They got screwed out of their jobs by the union bastards...

It's a cool looking car also, besides being very high tech. Too bad they are limiting it to the LA area for now, it would make sense to sell them in places like Silicon Valley and SF..

Interesting observation... well, it looks like the new car will have an aggro face appropriate for these mean, nasty 'f*ck you' times...

I have a number of friends that had Jettas of that generation, and overall, they liked them...though some had a few electrical gremlins to deal with the usual peeling off of the side door trim.

Saw a sharp red and cream '55 Chevy Bel Air ht this afternoon.

I wasn't saying they explicitly copied the Grand Am, it's coincidental, no doubt, because throughout the '80s BMW was making their front ends smaller, more aero and moving away from the forward leaning, tall noses that they had in the past. Quite likely...

Ford dropping the Focus wagon and hatchbacks was a mistake, IMHO. Very short-sighted of them..

Wow..that's in nice shape. I haven't seen a decent one of those in many years. In the '80s-90s in Arizona, my sister was a real Z fanatic--she had a '77 280Z, followed by an '82 280 ZX, followed by an '85 300ZX 2+2 and lastly a '90 300ZX turbo. Then she moved to Boston and bought a SAAB Turbo.

The older BMW grilles ('80s and before) were taller and narrower, kind of like kidney beans, which is probably where the nickname originated. It wasn't until the early '90s that they adopted the late '80s Grand Am style nostrils/squircles.

For a truly bizzare sighting, this morning I saw a Ford Model A Fordor. Maroon, restored in period style. Driver looked young, maybe 25. Very unusual to see something like that in traffic.

In the mainstream, I like some Ford/Lincoln/Mercury products, some Chrysler products (esp. some Jeeps) and some Hondas. In the premiums, I like esp. Audi and BMW, followed by Infiniti and Acura. And M-B a bit (though the CLS is the only semi-affordable one that I really like).