trinacriabob

Saw this on Christmas Day. Where else but in a church parking lot, given how damn near perfect it is for its age. Early '90s? Beautiful full-size Olds Custom Cruiser wagon (with possible "Vista" roof). Those were the days.

I haven't had the chance to rent/drive a CVT equipped one but, after two rentals on high mileage units with a probable rear hub bearing going bad (on both of them), I got a quiet one. The car was used to go to see fall colors last year in a slightly mountainous zone with a lot of 2 lane roads. That's where the car is at its best. It's not on the highway and it's not in stop and go driving. It's about 35 to 45 mph on these rural and curving 2 lane roads where the steering is nimble and nicely weighted. I was sort of impressed, even though I cringe whenever I see the "mistake" in the kink in the rear quarter panel window.

Thanks. Got it! The rear quarter window doesn't carry across at the base. I can use this info. So, this could have been a 5.7 or a 4.3 (if the latter cleared CA emissions) V8. I could have asked the owner, if around, but then, maybe not such a great idea. Sure would like a really clean, low mileage one as a second car. Right. Rear lamps on later full size Chevys were squarer and flatter, so that makes sense. The bad paint job makes it look older. That AMC sounds about right. Slightly earlier Ramblers of the non-classic variety were sort of scary, perhaps the down market Ford Mavericks of their decade. - - - - - I also have photos of an old classic spotted while in Arizona up at the viewpoint on the mountain at the south end of Phoenix. I would have these posted earlier but came back with rhinitis that wiped me out. Too dry compared to what I'm used to. .

Retro posting - California desert Cars spotted in the high desert small towns of California near Joshua Tree National Park - they seem to survive with the dryness but their paint is often in poor shape Hippo on its toes Caprice sedan (year unknown) in a funky part of town A mid '60s Chevrolet full size wagon - which year? which model? I don't know. Check out the desert scenery in winter. Look at how old it is. Obviously repainted ... a while back. It has the 6 character plates and they're not even blue and gold, but black and gold! An '90s Lumina base turning - without the 3.1 badging, this could have even been a 4 banger. I think this is an American Motors car. Don't know the model name and the year. Again, the archaic black and gold license plates with 6 characters.

Merry Christmas OR Happy Holidays ... and a Happy New Year ... to all of C&G. May Santa have succeeded in getting down your chimney and being able to fit the car of your dreams into your gift stocking.

Yes, lots of crying over spilled milk with all that looking in hindsight. I can name 5 Seattle area based companies whose stock would have lined someone's pockets in a big way if they rode the wave upward - Boeing - Costco - Starbucks - Microsoft - Amazon

I just went to the pharmacy. And, as usual, I am pissed off. When you have lived in tree hugger land and you ask the pharmacy to recycle the lengthy instructions, with all your personal info, because you've taken these meds before, they just do it. This pharmacy looks at me with the deer in the headlights look when I ask them to recycle this paperwork. And it's every cashier. And it's every time. End of rant.

I see your point and I know they've penciled all this out. If people want a sedan, they now need to look to the Japanese, Koreans, and Europeans. It won't be within 18 months, but, for my next purchase, I intend to again get a sedan. I like the way passenger cars look. I've sat in Acadias in showrooms every now and then and think, "Hmm ... nice," but not to buy. Also, with SUVs and CUVs, the price goes way, way up if you want a quality one, and so does the price of repairs and maintenance for tires, AWD, electronics, etc. This whole shift is sort of strange when single occupant households in America are increasing. Also, people are living longer, and there is expected to be an upward swell in senior Americans. Those two things would point to at least keeping the demand for conventional passenger cars going. - - - - - At any rate, I'm posting because I was going through photos and found a "Sicilian" Regal in wagon form. Obviously, it's an Opel Insignia wagon. I had an econobox during this trip but had one of these Opels before (as a result of an upgrade because there were no automatic econoboxes) and it drove damn near flawlessly.

One of the most "demented" but also entertaining and irritating songs in existence:

Interesting analogy ... sort of. Oldsmobile offers up the Intrigue, an instantly popular sedan that the public embraced, and GM drops the division a few years later. Buick offers up a sports sedan that's made in GERMANY, and, one by one, they drop their car lines, with this foreign Regal being the last passenger car they have on the market. SMH.

Right, some just had plastic panels over them. In the Cutlass, and some of the quadruplets, there were 4 vents. They had these round tabs you pulled from under the dash to open and close ventilation. Must have worked wonders in Phoenix! On the Cutlass, the ones on the driver's side were just like the ones if the car had A/C. The spheres on the passenger side were vaned, similar to the ones by the driver, if you didn't have A/C. However, if you had A/C, they had the adjusting knob in the center to open and close the spheres. I recall the loss leaders. It was a hoot to raise the hood on a mid-70s Cutlass Supreme to see a 250 c.i. L6 ... and NO air. That car could probably run forever.

Dave, you have always struck me as a person who does not create and does not enjoy drama. Believe me. I get it. Anyway, I was surfing for a specific photo I once saw and came across this. This is what the climate control panel looks like on a mid-70s Olds Cutlass if you DON'T have A/C. And, if that's the situation, under the hood, it becomes a Saturday mechanic's dream.

Well, the check engine light that came on sporadically during cold weather and yet did not affect drivability is GONE. I was getting that code that the thermostat and the ECT (engine coolant temperature) sensor were talking smack to each other. The thermostat was replaced, as was the upper radiator hose, for a fair price and my dash is free of warning lights (once driving).

What is the colloquial term given to those finned backlites specific to GM mid-size cars in the mid- to late-60s? Saw this on the road when stopped in traffic a few days ago. In perfect condition, with a nice exhaust grumble, and its driver waived. I

Love to be driving down the freeway and seeing clean and perfectly balanced alloy wheels on an adjacent car either - appear to be spinning forward in slow motion, or - appear to be spinning backward in slow motion Don't remember much about physics and science, and therefore can't explain why it happens or appears that way, but I like seeing it when I do.

It went down that low?! The company's value is diluted over such a broad base of shareholders. Still, being under $10 per share when the Dow is at 28,000 is weird. I remember when I was a young, there was a recession (oil crisis), the catalytic converter had just come out, and GM was offering substantial rebates. It was a great time to buy a GM car. Their stock was trading at about $ 34 per share. Then, within 1.5 years, when the bicentennial came around and they sold over 500,000 Oldsmobile Cutlasses (over 1,000,000 Oldsmobiles across all lines), and not even counting their successes withing other GM brands, GM stock was trading at about $ 65 per share. The problem is that the most affluent are the ones to more readily have the loose cash and the wiggle room to take more routine chances on the upside when the light at the end of the tunnel looks very dim or is nowhere in sight, like it was in the somewhat recent Great Recession. Dang, that was ugly.

Ford stock (F) ... get the F up there ... sheez ...

For a split second, I was thinking East St. Louis. Then I saw the rowhouses on each side. You wouldn't want to go in there and look around "out of curiosity." Heck, there is some "funky" scenery to be seen on the SEPTA train from Philly airport into Center City, and this was within the last year.

Saying I heard: "A poor Republican is like a cow that is pro-leather."

The preeminent musical artist of the genre, and that decade, and "MacArthur Park," probably her best song. She eclipsed Richard Harris's original rendition in a big way. Criticize disco/dance music all you want but it had it all - vocals, big band, complex instrumentals, and "driveability." Today's pop music is mostly crap. She belts out the lyrics and holds the notes effortlessly, the band is going strong, and the audience is pumped. African-American artists and groups seemed to dominate this genre in the '70s but the baton got passed in the '80s to a modified kind of pop/dance, the likes of the "4 Bs": Blondie, Branigan, Benatar, and the Bengals, among others. MacArthur Park is a real place and is in what was probably a decent neighborhood in L.A. some decades back. Not so now. Wilshire Blvd. cuts through it as it runs from DTLA to the ocean in Santa Monica. My parents would take us there when we were little to see the ducks, pedal boats, and all that. And it was safe to do that. For a city of 4 million people, the downtown skyline isn't as impressive as you'd expect. Cylindrical 73 story US Bank tower is the tallest in the photo. Wilshire is seen to the left, complete with parking meters once you're a ways west of downtown. RIP, Donna Summer. You left us too soon.

@dfelt Wow, that SS of yours looks like it just came off the showroom floor. Burgundy is a yes / no depending on the vehicle. On yours, it works. I've liked it for vehicle interiors since I was a teen and it sold well.

Before the weekend, I put in a bottle of Techron fuel system cleaner with a fill-up. Got 30 + mpg on a 120 mile stretch of highway on Saturday. Tonight, I had the tires rotated and balanced at Costco. They're 90,000 mile Michelins. I'm 48,000 miles into them, and still have almost half of the remaining usable tread life.

I am rarely looking at a new car as in terms of "right now." But I am always looking at new cars in terms of "near to medium term" future. I, too, hate car payments. (I'd rather go to Europe more often.) My current sled turns 12 fairly soon. And, from when I came onto C&G when the redesign of my current car was a hot off the press topic, it took another 3 years for me to actually buy it. What's on the market that I like right now? NOTHING. I also want a sedan. I am waiting to see what the new Charger looks like. It's currently the only vehicle I like ... and in purist form, as opposed to pimped out form. Chrysler dealerships either know nothing or are hushed on any info on the next version, which they'll start producing in about a year at the Brampton, ON, Canada plant. And, if and when the Charger hits the ground, I will have my fingers crossed that it won't be yet another vehicle with the "laptop left open" info/audio center on its dashboard and I will probably wait 3 years to see that the powertrain, if new or just revised, is debugged. So, as the saying goes, "just because I'm on a diet doesn't mean I can't read the menu."

Got a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas CD in a white elephant gift exchange. I remember the name of 1 or 2 name hit songs they recorded and made it onto American Top 40 lists. In listening to this CD, there are some good cuts and this is one of them. It has some remote vestiges of Christmas but new age and action movie soundtrack typologies also shine through.

Bingo. (Probably a little bit more art and architecture than music.)