Drew Dowdell

On 10/13/2025 at 3:54 PM, G. David Felt said:

That reminds me of the 80's and 90's GM V8 motors, sucky for HP but Low end torque to move the autos along smoothly.

And by '94 they had the LT-1 which made the 4,500 lb Fleetwood an 8.5 second car, and the Roadmaster 4,250 lb sedan an 8 second car.

That sounds pokey by today's standards, but this was 30+ years ago and an 8.5 second Fleetwood is still way faster than most people need to be driving.

6 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

Had a manager back then w/ a '98 or '99 Passat wagon w/ AWD and V6...was a nice car. 

The 2.8 liter V6. Very complex 30 valve engines. Not the most powerful at a modest 190 hp, but buuuutter smooth and surprising low end torque.

5 minutes ago, G. David Felt said:

When were these produced? Till now I was not aware that they had an 8 cylinder station wagon.

2001 - 2004

11 hours ago, ccap41 said:

I saw this the other night and I never knew it was a thing until then. I even had to google it to make sure it wasn’t some kid throwing a W8 badge on it. Well, they’re real and they can even be had with a 6spd manual transmission. 

Extreeeeeemly rare. There was a guy near me that had one in black.  Wild machines.

8 hours ago, smk4565 said:

The problem with the Bolt's look is it a 2027 model that looks like a 2020 model.  I know they didn't want to spend a lot of money on it to keep cost down but I feel like they could have tweaked the styling a little more to make it look new.

I think its an appropriate update to keep with the times. I don't think they'll keep it in production long. Maybe 3 years and then a new platform. Being the cheapest non-Nissan EV, having pretty fast charging, and available super cruise makes it a compelling entry. 

Before anyone complains that there isn't an increase in range, they switched to LFP batteries that have a lower energy density but a much better fast charge resilience profile.  LFPs last a lot longer without degradation, they are cheaper and more environmentally friendly, and can fast charge better and without long term damage.

On 10/8/2025 at 7:31 PM, smk4565 said:

I do not, but labor is about 7% of the cost of a car.  You could say 25% tax on Chinese built cars like you have with the Chicken tax and that has seemed to work stopping Euro truck imports.  But the Chinese car companies can also build cars in Mexico, or Brazil or Indonesia or wherever else with lower labor cost than the USA too.

The idea of tariffs are needed to boost jobs and manufacturing in the USA is a flawed theory though, because ever since April when the tariffs hit, unemployment as gone up and number of manufacturing jobs in the USA has gone down.  It is bad economics.

 

That's because the blundering idiot did tariffs wrong.  Tariffs should only be used to protect existing or newly emerging industries, or in cases where a country is dumping products (like China did with solar panels and wind turbine equipment, and will do with batteries). Biden got the tariffs on Chinese EVs right because it paired that with domestic incentives to build those battery factories here. Obama reacted to the Chinese economic threat too late on solar panels and the entire domestic solar panel manufacturing industry got wiped out.  Tariffs can be a useful tool when used with some precision. This is just a big senile orange elephant swinging a wrecking ball. 

On 10/8/2025 at 7:31 PM, smk4565 said:

some people buy clothes at Walmart and some buy at Nordstrom.

The catch there is that they're both made in china.   Those on the lower end of the economic ladder who are on the right do have a valid grievance with the way the economy is set up. While they are wrong about its cause, ignoring their needs has clearly resulted in suffering for the rest of us. 

15 hours ago, smk4565 said:

domestics can't beat them with a 20% advantage they should be out of business

You wanna have Chinese wages in the US too?  One of my clients outsources their helpdesk to the Philippines. I've been involved in the hiring process and what they're paying the outsourcing company (who takes a cut) for a month salary is half what someone would make working in the US at federal minimum wage. I'm sure China is similar.

7 minutes ago, G. David Felt said:

If I was going with German Auto's these two are the ones that always struck my Fancy!!!

 

I always liked that face too.

My post earlier today has me looking at W210 diesels as my business vehicle... because I'm like on day 1 of no more car payment of course. lol

4 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

Bradlees?   Never heard of them. I just googled and saw what they were.  We had Miracle Mart, Woolco and Zellers.  My mommy had bought me many Hot Wheels cars from Miracle Mart.  All our, or most, electronic purchases were made from a department store called Eatons.  I miss Eatons.  They had a wide selection of entry level electronics to the premium ones.  They had a substantial toy department too. Plastic model kits to fancy electric train sets.  Video game consoles and their games too.  Appliances and furniture. With those too, Eatons carried entry level stuff to high end stuff.  At least with the Downtown location. We lived 10 minutes away from downtown so my parents shopped at that location all the time.  It was great because as a kid, I got to see how poor we were, but also what the rich people buy as compared to what my family bought.  How poor we were...I never felt ashamed. Just made me motivated to succeed in life. And I also learned that entry level stuff (at least back then) was built to last just as much as the high end stuff. But some quality elements suffered, be it a lack of chrome on a button or maybe a speaker was a little bit weaker than the higher end stuff.  No biggie in the grand scheme of things. 

Wow...thanks Drew for making me reminisce about my childhood.  LOL.  

Yeah, my mom probably found it on sale.  My parents liked Sears, Sears Surplus, and BeST (A chain that is nearly impossible to google).  It's funny, in my family that you can tell who bought something by where it was bought.  My grandmother who just passed last year was a Bloomingdales and Strawbridge & Clothier lady.  My great grandparents on the other side were Wannamakers. Other grandmother was JC Penny and Sears.  Albert's family was all Kaufmann's and Horn's.

Stephen Miller 10/6/2025: “A district court judge has no conceivable authority whatsoever to restrict the President…”
Hitler, Reichstag speech (1933): “The German nation will no longer tolerate that its will be nullified by judges of a corrupt system.”

Miller: “The President has undisputed authority under both statute and the Constitution to deploy troops… to defend a federal facility.”
Hitler Speech, Berlin 1934: “The Führer alone is the bearer of the will of the nation; his authority is the highest law.”

Miller: “This large-scale political violence is domestic terrorism.”
Hitler, Munich 1923: “Whoever resists us is not a political opponent but an enemy of the nation, deserving no mercy.”

Miller: “The Portland Police have refused to render aid and assistance to ICE officers… The attacks on ICE are violent armed resistance designed to incapacitate the federal government.”
Goebbels, 1934: “Whoever obstructs the work of the state, whoever aids its enemies, commits treason against the nation.”

Back when I was first driving, I was firmly in the GM and Lincoln camp. Import cars did not really attract me, but there was one.

I much prefer the split headlight versions, but the peanut headlight CLK Cabrio is not something I'd say no to.  I do still keep an eye out for a late-run W210 sedan with a diesel. 

8 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

 

 

 

 

I had one of those Nissan Zs as a really large plastic car as a kid, it was a favorite.

I think I'm going to treat myself to a nice vintage turntable this Christmas.  My old El'Cheapo turntable from when I was 16 bit the dust a few years ago and I just dropped it off for recycling last week.  I bought it new at Bradlees circa 1994 if anyone remembers that place. 

Just now, A Horse With No Name said:

Fantastic. 

 

Not so fantastic, GM plant shuts down, 900 unemployed. 

I think one of my cars was built in this plant. 

Anyone working a Fairfax who is surprised by this hasn't been paying attention. The plant keeps losing product, first the Malibu and then the XT4. The next gen Bolt isn't ready yet.  It really doesn't have anything to do with tariffs though, it should be getting more product due to tariffs, not less.  They should move Envision production there because it is mechanically similar to the XT4, and then make some Buick EVs off of Bolt. 

7 minutes ago, A Horse With No Name said:

Auto Loan delinquencies, this Cruze will wind up in the crusher. 

We had debates about the Cruze here when it came out. I expect most of the domestic auto industry to be gone in ten years or so. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-4rmS5XwTVM

eh, I'm mean yeah there's gonna be some issues in automotive finance, but I'm not sure that a 10 year old Cruze with bad transmission and the owner still owes $1900 is really evidence of that.

I took over the loan on my father-in-law's Cruze after he couldn't drive anymore, and aside from it not having cruise-control, it was a perfectly fine little car. It ran nicely, rode nicely, and could tickle 40mpg on highway trips. Every once in a while I see an LTZ in that dark green and they were handsome in that setup. 

Submitted the final payment this morning.  No car payments for at least a couple years now until we need to replace the Chrysler. Pulling back my spending wherever I can even though I'm doing better than ever financially. 

At no point in history has rounding up people at gunpoint and shipping them off to camps or deportation without the benefit of charge or trial been done by “the good guys”.

Part of this was planned a few years ago. Hyundai moved production of the Ioniq 5 to the U.S. to help with pricing. before tariffs were a thing.  I think the 2026 model year is the first full year of US production.

21 hours ago, oldshurst442 said:

And you actually think this scenario will exist?

A blue wave in the House is nearly certain and will go a long way to halting the current wave of shenanigans. The midterms are 13 months away and given how many decades have passed since Jan 20, 2025, I'm not convinced we'll even make it.  A blue senate is unlikely. There aren't enough flippable red seats to take.  Maybe a longshot like Andy Bashir taking out McConnell.... but I think he's gonna run for Prez.

2 hours ago, ccap41 said:

That's what happens when you only hear a part of the quote or conversation.

43 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

No, it wasn't. It was about putting the best candidate in place rather than somebody just because of their skin color. 

i certainly don't want some white person to get a job just because they're white. The best qualified person should get the job. 

No. He had a gross misunderstanding, intentional or not, of what DEI is. The rest of that quote does not improve the context. He said he specifically questioned the pilot's competence because of skin color. Just like he questioned Justice Jackson's abilities to be a supreme court justice. 

Direct quote: 

"If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us! They're coming out and they're saying, "I'm only here because of affirmative action."

Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.

Kirk then played a clip of Jackson Lee speaking in Congress, saying she had been admitted to educational institutions on affirmative action. Kirk then went on to make his point again:

"We know. We know. It's very obvious to us you are not smart enough to be able to get it on your own. "I could not make it on my own, so I needed to take opportunities from someone more deserving."

That's not how Affirmative Action worked. It didn't take spots away from those more deserving, it took slots away from the mediocre old-white-boys club who only would have gotten in because they're a legacy. 

A black pilot is a pilot because he completed all the required training, not because of some quota. DEI DOESN'T HAVE QUOTAS. DEI is just about making sure that anyone qualified is able to apply and potentially win the position regardless of gender, sex, race, religion, sexuality, etc.  So to wonder if United/Delta/American put a black pilot in the driver seat just because he was black and they needed to meet a quota is just plain racist. There's a pilot shortage anyway, so anyone who is white and qualified is going to be able to find a job if they want one.

2 hours ago, ccap41 said:

I honestly just don't really care. I'm not about to convince you of anything nor do I feel like I should try. It's simply okay that we don't all align on everything.

No. That's a cop-out "Well I don't agree with everything Mussolini did, but at least he made the trains run on time."  Don't say you agree with some of the things a nazi says without being able to very strongly qualify it.  He was a bigot against race, sexuality, gender, women, and more.  So unless its "Well I agree with him that the sky is blue", you're probably better off just not agreeing with him on anything.

34 minutes ago, oldshurst442 said:

By this time next year, Charlie will have been forgotten just like Gingrich and Limbaugh before him... And the ignorant hatefull phoques will latch unto another blowhard far right asshat

This was the first school shooting Republicans cared about. There was another school shooting within minutes and it barely made the news .

On 9/17/2025 at 11:49 AM, trinacriabob said:

It's amazing how a leather wrapped steering wheel changes the experience at the wheel for the better (it seems to make for an almost different car from the model with a urethane steering wheel).

It really does, though some non-wrapped are better than others, and I do like wood on the wheel as well, we have that in the 300. 

Honda non-wrapped wheels tend to be good. Chrysler, GM and Ford non-wrapped wheels are awful. VW and Toyota are tolerable but nothing special. 

On 9/14/2025 at 4:39 PM, trinacriabob said:

When I saw this, I thought of you guys and how much most of you love Tesla.  This is obviously where they unload these nasty cars.

This is what I saw walking from the marine terminal in Southampton to the train station to fly out to warm weather that same afternoon.

I was following some Europeans with luggage across the street and a green turning lane was still in effect.  A local started yelling at us from his car in that working class brand of UK talk, including all "you 'effin' idiots."  At least I could understand it.  I need a translator for heavy-duty Scottish talk.

The crossing was good.  The ship stayed close to Canada all the way up to Newfoundland and then crossed.  There was only one day of light chop.  There were 2 poolside days in the beginning.  That meant indoor jacuzzis under the glass roof for the rest of the crossing.

Of four trips, the cabin was the best I've had.  The composition of the table was marginal compared to previous trips.  I won't go into it or I wouldn't be P.C.  I reverted to the open seating option on a few nights.

With all that, I didn't want to get off.  A few others said the same thing.  If the seas are good, it's incredibly relaxing.  You're just lulled into another state and it's mostly a good one.

Sooooo jealous! A crossing on the Queen Mary 2 is definitely on my bucket list. 

That reminds me that I need to start accumulating Carnival stock. If you are a shareholder with at least 100 shares, you get onboard credits up to $250 depending on the length of the cruise.  The stock is only about $30/share right now.