Drew Dowdell

Need pics

If you're a Facebook user, you can now also "like" a thread!!

and something I forgot. We also now have automatic mobile phone skins for Android. It's not a specific app yet, but the browser skin works really well on Android phones.

Cheers and Gears has been upgraded Newest version of the Linux Kernal Multiple MySQL and PHP updates Newest version of IP Board Software iPhone App now available Chat is now fixed Status update enhancement, including the ability to reply Preview the first few lines of a topic without loading the entire topic.

There's no room for expanded freight rail service. Even if there were more intercity rail capacity to be found, the load/off load facilities were close to capacity in 2007.

What this calls for is Comic Sans

heh, you're right. I should have known better. I work with Canadians all day.

No trucks in 2013? You foresee the 3.6 going away?

fixed

BlueStar (for Europe too)

I like the idea of "star" as a suffix in the name... GM has a good rep with Northstar Ecostar RangeStar EfficiStar

Oooo! I like that one!

GM's Diesel for North America: Really needs a good name GM's 2.9 Liter V6 Clean Diesel for Europe On Monday, GM Vice Chairman Tom Stephens said at an energy efficiency conference that GM would release a diesel powered car for sale in the U.S. sometime in the future. Vague words at best, but still it managed to perk the ears of those of us who love torque. Only... how do they go about marketing such a thing? Read more after the jump: GM's Diesel for North America: It need a good name

GM's diesel for North America: It needs a good name GM's 2.9 liter V6 Clean Diesel for Europe September 29th - By Drew Dowdell On Monday, GM Vice Chairman Tom Stephens said at an energy efficiency conference that GM would release a diesel powered car for sale in the U.S. sometime in the future. Vague words at best, but still it managed to perk the ears of those of us who love torque. One of the constant problems with diesel power in the U.S. has been how to market it as something "special" compared to an every day gasoline engine. The word "diesel" pulls along as much baggage as the semi-trailers it powers. As the discussion about diesels increases over the next few years (assuming this prediction by the Vice Chairman comes to pass), you will see many references to the ill fated Oldsmobile diesels of the early 80's. However, even people too young to remember those cars, still associate "diesel" with dirty buses and trucks. The only diesel passenger vehicles for sale in the U.S. today are manufactured by the German imports. Chrysler, under the ownership of Mercedes Benz, fielded a few diesel Jeeps, and all 7 people who knew about them bought one. They were never marketed in any meaningful way. My guess is Chrysler simply didn't know how. Few can argue that Ford hasn't struck gold with their new Ecoboost engines, but the truth behind the Ecoboost engines is rather mundane. The Ecoboost engines are simply very good engines with direct injection and turbo charging. There is nothing technologically ground breaking about them. In fact General Motors even beat them to market, at least in general architecture, with their 2.0T-Direct Injected engine available in the Cobalt SS, HHR SS, Pontiac Solstice GXP, and Saturn Sky Red-Line. The difference with Ford is they've built an impressive brand cache around the term Ecoboost, so much so that even if a customer ends up buying a non-Ecoboost vehicle, it got them to look at a Ford product in the first place. Ford has taken the already good perception of the word "Turbo" and made it even more special, even more desirable, and made it only available at your Ford/Lincoln dealer. Thus, the need for a really good name. This brings us back to GM's (hopefully) coming diesel powered passenger cars. GM simply cannot slap a "Diesel" badge on the back of it's regular passenger sedans and call it a day. It needs an "Ecoboost" type marketing term to make sure people know that this is not their father's Oldsmobile Diesel. In Europe, the Opels sold with a 2.0 Turbo diesel are simply called Ecotec CDTI. Not good enough for the U.S.. The Ecotec name only has marginal name recognition and adding a bunch of meaningless letters at the end won't help build brand awareness. I'm probably a bit too old school to come up with a great marketing name for GM's diesels. Everything I think of sounds like it came from a Life Magazine advertisement from 1959, but I'll list them off for you anyway: TorqueMaster RangeMaster EcoThrust DriveMax So, I leave it to you dear commenters, help us find a good name for GM's potential diesel push.

Actually, every car lately that he's really like (and brought up again later) has been a GM. He *really* wanted a red Astra 3-door, but we couldn't do it at the time. He *really* likes the new SRX, but both of us are too cheap to spend that kind of money. And he *really* liked the Equinox we had as a GM tester. My guess is that we'll end up with an Equinox to replace the CR-V some day. I'm sure he'll like the Cruze well enough, but I don't think he'll part with having a CUV and AWD.

Here's an unexpected development. I guess we're going to go look at a Cruze at some point. Albert just saw a commercial for one and declared that he really liked it. Not my cup of tea, but he can have anything he wants as long as it's a GM or Ford.

Funny, I just booked my flight to Toronto today....

gah! too much modern bling....

We need a screenshot of that!

Does that have like 6,000 miles on it or something? That is a CLEAN engine bay for a diesel!

*clicks buy-it-now

That's only because we have no idea what's going on yet. Think the Alpha platform is going to be ATS and Camaro only? GM has given every hint they can that the next Zeta is on it's way here too.... One of the frequent complaints we have with GM is that they show their cards waaaay too early. It took the Camaro 4 years from concept to being able to buy one from the dealer. Same for the Volt. The aweful looking Honda CR-Z was introduced at the Detroit autoshow in January and is on the roads now. The Explorer was available almost as soon as it was introduced. The problem is, for GM to switch to this mode requires a bit of a quiet period.... less noise about future releases until much closer to release date.

oh dear... not another angel eyes conversion.... I wonder if I can get angel eyes for my '81 Toronado

Glad that you're ok. As I recall an old VW commercial "Life has no reset button"

Commander Chekov! Set phasers to "malaise" and fire at will! Direct hit Keptin! the things you see on the Lincoln Highway....