Sixty8panther

LoL @ the CK-toyopet.

WTH is THAT?

_WANT

DF: You have heard of sarcasm, right? Granted I'm being semi-serious, but when I did show-boat in the hardtop Benz w/you did I do so through a school zone or a residential area? No, I got on Rt.3, picked an empty lane and I brought it up to 100+ to show you how solid the car was. And just when you asked how good the brakes were I demonstrated that if I hit them hard enough it would probably pop the damn windshield out & maybe even give us both a nasty case of seat belt bruise. Yeah... I do, for the most part, which is why I got a ticket for doing 91mph on Rt.495 the other day. At least it was in a 65mph zone, I was only about three miles away from the stupid 55mph zone. $260, but I'm fighting it. After all I was def. doing at least 93mph when I saw him, so his radar gun was highly inaccurate. Uhhh... when exactly is the last time you drove down Gorham St. from the Car Wash into Billerica at 3:00am? The only thing in the damn way is a few closed Liquor Stores and a 1/4 mile long Cemetery o the right. Time & Place. :AH-HA_wink: And yes, I'm familiar with N.E. Dragway, my '68 Camaro visited there quite often. Esp. the Right lane. Anyway the point is if you want to have some fun & feel like you're ALIVE, driving like you're on the set of "Dukes of Hazard", 3:00am on an empty WIDE straightaway is about as good as it gets. You live in a neighborhood that's packed with houses as tight as a can full of Sardines. If you have some fu$ktards in Ricer-Rockets driving like that through your THICKLY SETTLED residential neighborhood don't take it out on me, get some plate numbers and call the cops.

Well let's see.... at my day job a few old timers call me "Charlie Brown" Why...? I don;t know, cause they're old enough to have been drinking when my 1959 LeSabre was in a Buick showroom.... At UPS I have several nicknames.... "Speedy Gonzales" for my 17mph brisk pace walk. "Bread-Man" because I'm always eating hearty bread. You know the European style baguettes or French Rolls, when you're loading brown boxes like they're bombs going into the belly of a B-24 you work up an appetite, and so I eat carbs. like crazy. My buddy at UPS has a long-standing nick-name that he got from a really weird co-worker years ago: "Hobby-Knobby" it's a playpff his last name... "Hoppler" Then there's the Irish kid I used to work with who's got a curly white-fro: he's "Fozzy-Bear" it work on SO many levels.

So long as we're on the same page. Now as far as your dad's two 'Cudas, the '67 has the dreaded vent-window so I'll be happy to, err ... dropp it off ....at the nearest junkyard for you, if you would be so kind as to sign it over to me & umm.... well yeah I'll take care of it, don't worry. Seriously I'd much rather have a '67 than a '70, it's way more original looking & a kind of cool "quirky" like most mid-1960s Mopars. Now if you wanna see what IS _epic fail as far as ALMOST-hardtops go, look no further than late 1970s Japanese coupes: Here's a Mitsubiushi you might have seen on here since I've posted these things a time or two: This IS a true hardtop, and it's a Datsun I'd buy just to be able to tell people I own a "clown car", look at it, it's as goofy as hell. Here's what replaced it... the freekin thing has a D-pillar for krisssake and it's supposed to be a hatchback! For the record, prior to those hose-beasts the Japanese had a couple really stylish little "min-musclecar" looking hardtops, here's one of my favorites: RX-4. Yes it had a wenkel. I have a rusty rotor out of one of these in my "random car junk" collection, it was hanging up in the old barn, you prob. saw it a few times.

We've talked about this before, but it was off the forum so let me jump in for a min. First off, in the 1950s and 1960s almost EVERYONE smoked. Your mom, dad, grandma... there was probanbly a cigarette in your doctor's mouth while he checked your pulse... So the vent windows that you complain about are NOT there because someone was lazy and glued them in. Actually, quite the opposite, they were designed in so they could be tilted open during severely cold weatehr, or a massive blizzard, rainshower etc. so as to provide slight ventilation for the driver/smoker. Would it be cool if you could get a vent-window-delete '59 Eldorado? SURE, does the vent window ruin the fact that from the A-pillar/vent window all the way back to the base of the sweeping C-pillar there are ZERO interuptions in what is essentially a panoramic window, an open expanse of frech air, visibility & style...? NO. The Vent window is an intergrated part of the A-pillar itself, it's FUNCTIONAL. What the F&$# is functional about glued in glass... weather it be the mini-triangle in a Yaris, the rear side window in the CTS-Coupe or 5-th gen. Camaro OR this Mercedes' goofy little folded-business-card sized slice that was glued in? ----- Now let's take a look at a great example: The 1967 Camaro had vent-windows. The 1968 Camaro did away with them, it was just one example of GM trying to differentiate the Camaro from the cheaper, less unique & less progressive Mustang & Cougar. Now while I enjoy the 1968's (& 1969s) greenhouse more due to the lack of ANY interuption from the A-pillar all the way right up to the C-pillar, the 1967's vent window does not ruin it so much that I'd throw a hissy fit and say "f&*k it all, why even bother...?!" It IS still a hardtop, there's NO frames on the door-glass & the rear window, every last transpoarent inch of it, rolls down and hides just ahead of the rear wheels. Judge for yourself. 1967 1968

P.S. Why the flippin' hell do you NEED stitching on your dash??? I think all you interior obsessed are $#%!&^ crazy. (I know it's a 2 way street)

Maybe, time will tell. It's too bad though. Used to be, well before I was born, that the people in charge of these things; car design for one, were passionate, creative & they would fight to inject art, beauty, style & creativity into products. Bill Mitchell with his split window Corvette is a great example of this. Many on this forum would have gotten their "Manginas" all in a knot over the issue. All the while discussing the quality of rubber used on the brake-pedal pad in a 23 page thread. At this rate of Apathetic consumerism & blatant suffocation of anything 'daring' by the safety nazis & communists, we REALLY will be issued an approved, regulated & Orwellian car by the governemnt in a couple decades. It disgusts me. The world has gone braindead.

94% of the Mercedes' side window area drops down out of sight with ZERO B-pillarige in the way... NO obstruction of visibility or ugly black-pillar trim causing wind-noise. can you honestly tell me that Cadillac tried as hard with the CTS-coupe??? They phuccin' glued in the rear side window like it was a flippin' Honda Civic Ex coupe and took a lunch break. GM boils my blood. No #$%*& wonder they;re loosing their customer base when they abandon the very ideals & breakthrough features that THEY spearheaded and invented 60 years ago when Mercedes could not hold a candle to Cadillac. Look at a 1950s Mercedes and tell me it's better looking than a Caddy of the same year....? Mercedes is not given enough credit, esp. in the recent years of safety-humpers & massive over-regulation. Are they perfect? NO, but they're mopping the floors with Lexus & Acura as far as giving the customer a great variety of cars & trucks that epitomize luxury & exclusivity while constantly being one step ahed in the styling department, though still one step behind Cadillac & Infiniti.

Wow... this is NEWS to me. =-= While there's a dozen different ways they could have eliminated the rear mini-window thing... my personal idea would be to move the C-pillar forward just a few inches and wrap the rear glass around a bit, a subtle nod to the 1950s. ANd let's not forget, this is NO MORE "epic fail" than a Cadillac that competes wiht it with a FIXED rear 1/4 window. At least Mercedes tried, though it came off a bit awkward it's not that far off this: (since Balthazar & I are always referencing 1959 GMs) The 1959 Buick Electra 225 Riviera (Bubbletop-sedan hardtop) Same idea, though better executed: small FIXED window taht does not retract fixed to the C-pillar. In both cases there is still NO B-post and the hardtop fun prevails. (all GM 4-door bubbletop hardtops had this in 59 & 60)

I love this car, I REALLY do. IF only GM had really gotten serious about combating the MB CLK350/CLK/500 and made it a hardtop. I'll end it there, but then I could always have a conversion done.... there is AMPLE room for the rear side window to drop into the rear 1/4 panel. At any rate while the 1990s ETC is a nice car, even w/ its FWD & sideways motor DOUBLE ---> this is WORLDS more original and exciting. Please GM, give us at least ONE hardtop, this car's mid-cycle update would be a great opportunity. ---- DF: What "E-class coupe" are you talking about? The CLK is a mix of E-class & C-class mechanicals, and it ABSOLUTELY is a hardtop.

There's another very unappealing car. Very poor continuity. It's like a Kit Car made in China based on a genric design that is trying to emulate a 1980s Morgan, 1970s Triumph & modern Aston Martin all at once. That thing makes a Solstice Targa look like a Cobra Daytona by comparison.

Wow, that sux. Hope you make the guilty party PAY. I'm pretty sure I see a NIKE logo...?

Wow... I know what I'll do witha any and all '41 Packard parts that I might acquire in the future. Awesome post.

I take a few on-ramps/off-ramps. :wink: Plus when I'm driving to UPS at 2:00, 3:00 or 4:00am the roads are empty enough to do J-turns & steer around most any corner with the throttle. The other morning I was going about 75 down a wide, open & empty back road where it alternates between 35 & 45.... a cop waiting in an empty parking lot saw me fly by in the Suburban and did not eve bother to pull me over, guess he had bigger phish to phry. It was Lowell, so he was prob. a Narc, or he might have been waiting for a drag-race at 100+ between a couple of Faster-Furious-er Hon-DUHs.

True, I just felt like stating my opinion. Max Balchowsky's cars used to kick a$$ & take names, yet they were very rudimentary, ultra-spartan & hand built using junkyard parts. That's cool, I know Buick provided him with motors but he still was a one-man operation, well, one man & one dog primarily. But this is BUGATTI we're talking about. You'd think they had a better budget after building all those over the top exotic cars. Although I guess producing six Royalles but only selling two for almost-profit might have hurt them bad enough financially to have laid-off their entire design staff for a few years. Har-har.

Great policy. Can't win an argument...? There's always censorship. Maybe you should look into a government job.

Okay. A+ for the wonderful comparison. I hear some guy in Florida has a 23 foot sailboat that can out-maneuver the Titanic & it has a tighter turning radius to boot. I hope you were being equally serious. cause otherwise we can compare performance numbers for the 2001 C5 Z06 as compared to any FWD car made in 1980, including a 1980 VolksWagen Rabbit with a GE jet engine from a 747 strapped to roof. Yeah, I'll mostly agree with that. The thing is, Nowhere in my commute do I drive through a skid-pad or a slalom... EVER.

Been to LA, could never live there. Been to Phoenix, I could live there... esp. in the suburbs. I love Boston & I love N.Y.C., I could prob. live in Boston, but I doubt I could live in N.Y., but don;t ask me which city I like better, they're both amazing & crappy in their own ways, but I have a place in my heart for both.

Gotta love the Submarine shaped Alfa. As far as the 57G.... uh, where do I start, it's the ANTITHESIS of the Atlantic. For one thing the stone guards on the headlights look like a redneck with two weeks in high school shop class experience made them with a rusty sawzall & a $250 welder from wal*mart. the body is a blob, the mini-windshield is useless and while it would correct on a teen's or twenty's spartan race car it looks dumb on this. And an exotic car/race car should NOT have chicken wire for a grille. (just MHO)

So you think I'm splicing atoms & being unreasonable because I think a 4-dr (5-dr ) BMW crossover SUV-tall-wagon-hatcback sedan that's no more sporty than an X5 with a cut down rear roof section. They could call it the X5-FK for Faux-Kamback.

So if I drop in an LS6 inot my Suburban and give it a 1960s Trans Am Race Car style coilover suspension and a set of Z-rated tires is THAT a Gran Turismo????? Where does this insanity stop?!?! How about a GMC Typhoon, that's WAY more "performance" oriented than this and it has good interior room, sois THAT a GT? No. I can keep listing examples too, ...like the GMC Yukon Denali, or perhaps the Dodge Ram SRT-10? The whole damn world's gone mad.... VW Phaeton: not a Phaeton at all, but a FIXED ROOF 4-DOOR SEDAN Mercedes CLS: NOT a coupe, a four door coupe is impossible (unless it's a clown car of some sort with painted on rear door seams or a flower car)

It's not offensive to me, doesn't mean much.... I don't HATE the Lexus GS430 either, I still will prob. NEVER own one, unless it's dirt cheap and the wife loves it. On the other hand, a Dodge Magnum I would rock all day long, or a LS7 powered '69 Olds Vista Cruiser if I really had some $pending money on the ultimate Sports-kombi.

Hahahaha-ha! I know exactly where THIS thread is going now, & after much arguing some smarta$$, (trying to help?) will inevitably post: "Twin-Propeller drive > front or rear propeller drive." (Is the Cessna SkyMaster the equivalent of Areal AWD?) ------ . . . . l Since you mentioned it, here's a REAR-propeller drive car, although it's only "pre-war" if you're talking Desert Storm or the Falkland Islands War.