trinacriabob

Yes, I remember USD : CDN - 1 : 1 I also remember USD : CDN - 1 : 1.52 (circa 1999 ... Prince said "let's party like it's 1999" in one of his songs )

I cannot believe the prices in Toronto. On my 2005 visit, I drove around Woodbridge to see how much newer brick townhomes with nice finishes with 2 levels stacked above the 2 car garage cost and they were about $325,000 to $375,000 (CDN). I converted that into U.S. dollars (almost always a lower $ amount) and, for some reason, I thought it was sort of high. Given what I've seen in Toronto prices based on the last R.E. magazine I checked out, I'd hate to see what those townhomes would cost now.

I looked up the Post WW2 stucco ranches in L.A. that I grew up in and their prices are scary. I'm constantly scratching my head as to who can afford them. Someone must be able to or they couldn't charge those prices. The supply and demand curves must be intersecting. My parents couldn't buy those same houses if fairly new to L.A. in this day and age. Prices are high, but assessments as a percentage in L.A. aren't as absurd as they are in other major urban areas. As for square footage, 1,200 s.f. sounds like my cup of tea. I had a Southern styled brick ranch with the open carport at one side when I lived in Atlanta that was about 1,300 s.f. I loved it. Not too big, not too small. Driving by it if and when I'm in town breaks my heart because I don't have it anymore. I sensed that it was an up and coming area, and I was correct. They put a spur of their rapid transit system going fairly close by to it because the nearby area turned into a suburban business district. Well, when living near Seattle, I had to downsize into condo/townhome type living. It, too, was o.k., but nothing like what I had in Atlanta. But, OTOH, I had no yard work. Either way, if you want to buy a detached home in L.A. with 3 bedrooms for about $350K to $450K, it will be in South Central or maybe Compton, the latter of which is not in the city of L.A. Also, I've heard that some white folks are moving back into the South Central area, fixing up the homes, and living in them. They'd be smack between downtown and the harbor suburbs, although the area looks and feels sort of banal and doesn't have a lot of trees on the lawn strips. You fly right over it on approach to LAX. In reality, South Central has converted from having an African-American majority to having a huge Hispanic population within the last 2 decades. Let's just say it's still not the optimal part of L.A. to live in for low crime and good schools. As for art deco, the design of homes/buildings and ships cross-fertilized each other in that era, I believe.

Any relatives I've had in NJ have been in northern NJ (Bergen County, right across the GW Bridge from Manhattan) and I could have sworn there is some provision for property tax relief when people get to a certain age and that my relative mentioned. He stayed in his house when he retired instead of moving to Florida! I'm not sure if they have a provision that locks the assessment, like they do in California, so that people didn't get chucked from the homes they bought at 60s and 70s prices, for example. I thought Prop 13-Jarvis was the right thing to do. When those houses in Calif. do sell (the next time), their property tax assessment will jump.

It's interesting how the window of time available to the domestics where they don't heavily discount popular new cars is a short/tight one. The new Cruze is released and you pay close to MSRP. The new Fusion is released ... ditto. The new Malibu is released ... ditto. Then, it goes away quickly, as these cars begin to dominate rental fleets. Incidentally, since I find myself behind a latest-gen Malibu on an almost daily basis, its underpinnings are interesting. If right behind one, you can see the wishbone arms of the rear suspension fairly clearly. These arms have small round perforations in them. And I'm laughing thinking "it's all about the neutral axis."

There are no Guidos in Italy. No open shirts, gold chains, and slicked back hair. Or, if you see some variant of that, it will be more stylish (almost too much so) than pimpish. Italian kids look at their Jersey Shore counterparts (age wise) with amusement and derision. What you will see over there are the wrong parts of town with people that look menacing, so you know that you'd best be moving along. Any more, a lot of the people occupying these districts might be from other parts of Europe, the Middle East/Asia, and (mostly North) Africa. The number of undocumented people in Mediterranean Europe is large and creates tension and social problems.

The dividend yield may be good but the absolute amount is small. The yield always looks better when the price drops, not that that's been the situation at Ford. Their stock just seems to hover between $10 and $12.

F.I.A.T. always meant Fix It Again, Tony while growing up. It was on a trip to Italy, and which included Turin, that I learned F.I.A.T. means Fabbrica Italiana Automobilistica Torino. Their city tram system goes right along the thoroughfare in front of their headquarters. I would have to agree that F.I.A.T. qualifies as an "idiot company" based on their products ... more misses than hits. I'm sure their management ranks must be rife with highbrow Italian pomposity, too.

I'd just like to make $500 in what is now a long-term (oh yes, long-term) capital gain on F stock and call it a day with them, as in whew. Their dividends are paltry. I'm o.k. with their cars. The gap between GM and Ford in terms of product desirability has shrunken quite a bit in my book.

Stocks can be weird. General Motors (GM) has a much higher per share valuation than does Ford (F). GM's price moves up and down, while F's doesn't do much at all. If you went to a chart, you can see that it has been very flat ... for most of its life. I've always sensed that GM experiences these peaks and valleys while Ford seems to sort of chug along. Yet Ford has never needed a bailout. Let's hope they never will.

You're right. I had forgotten all about that. So weird that the Riv and Toro were so different at that time, yet so similar in their last rendition (together). There was what I called the "oval Riv" that continued on for a while after the Toro departed.

There was a lot of dowdy stuff, relatively speaking, going on at that time. This was not dowdy in any way, either on the outside or on the inside. The interior of these was wonderful. And, those vertical headlights that opened up like cracking an egg and then hid away were unique. Looking at this photo, that could only be Florida ... meh, it could be GA or SC or ... Are these rank ordered by gender? It would be interesting to know the relative tilt of the purchases by gender. Some of these don't surprise me. Some of them do. Of all the cars on that list, the only one I like is the Chevrolet SS. And I liked that car before I even saw the list, not that that would do anything to change my mind. Chev SS

I had forgotten all about the offset license plate. I think this car has a place in the annals of auto history, be it good or bad. That of the first Riviera is undoubtedly good. I do remember the transition to the 1974, though. It was cleaner looking and had these thin twin lamps right under the more conservatively sloped rear window, as well as one of the first large opera windows (meant to be encircled by a landau top).

Ok, so for years, I see a certain type of VW go by and I assumed it was a Passat of sorts, but sleeker. Turns out it's a CC. Even thought it's got 4 doors, the acronym CC stands for Comfort Coupe.' These cost quite a bit more than the Passat. I see these more than I see Phaetons. Phaetons look enormous for being VWs. What's the general on-the-street sentiment on CCs and Phaetons as far as popularity and dependability go? I'm guessing that the CC rides on a Passat chassis and that the Phaeton rides on an elongated Passat chassis? Not sure.

I definitely remember the model, but telling which year they were was not easy. Sometimes, the color identified the year because it was specific to that year. I remember that both the Toro and Riv of this series had one helluva C pillar (no B pillar, really, because the door/rear glass was frameless). I had only ridden in a Riv (it was an '83 and had the 4.1 litre 4 bbl. V6) but once actually drove an 80-something used Toronado. I could not believe how smoothly it rode and handled. Quite a ways up from a Cutlass Supreme. I believe it had the 5.0 Olds V8. Then I had to weasel out of not wanting to buy it. All of those cars had the engine facing forward and I don't remember how and where they placed the transaxle. I believe the Eldorado came on the same chassis. And I remember that, per the badging, some of the Eldorados had the 4.1 litre V6 (as a credit option), some had the 4100 Cadillac V8, and some were unfortunate enough to have the V8-6-4, in which the technology was not worked out. Cadillac lost a lot of fans because of that engine.

If a person checks out the Wiki site for the Olds Intrigue, the head of design was Brigid O'Kane. She was with Olds for quite a while, including a stint at a design center in California. She has three degrees in design and is (currently) the interim director (if I read it correctly) of the School of Design at the University of Cincinnati. She had to move the Intrigue from the more space-like Antares concept into a final design that would work on a W-body and also sell. I once again saw that the car is not a GM of Oshawa product, but of the Fairfax plant around Kansas City, MO.

So, I lament the departure of the Buick Verano. Well, the situation is "summery" elsewhere. In Europe, it continues as the Opel Astra (not to be confused with the miserable Pontiac Astre, the Vega's counterpart). Over there, the side profile is unmistakably that of the Verano. The front end looks like that of a Hyundai Accent. Can't tell what the rear looks like. The dash is unmistakably that of the Buick, but without the faux wood. That effect seems to be waning in popularity. Since this is the Italian site, there is no icon of the Union Jack that you can hit for an English translation. As the bottom left is the icon for "configuratore," which is where you build your own. If you're like me, you click on the option that says "automatico" or "automatica." http://www.opel.it/veicoli/gamma-astra/astra-sedan/caratteristiche.html

I'm betting many more people lease in and around Seattle (less so in Tacoma!) and cars come off leases. I really think that the area is much more receptive to foreign iron than to American iron. I recall seeing most people of means on the Eastside behind the wheel of an expensive German car. I was in one of these joints and there were 2 cars hoisted up. One might have been a T-bird. The other a Monte Carlo. Not completely sure. However, sitting directly under them for prolonged periods wasn't a lot of fun because the lighting isn't as good as it is elsewhere in the restaurant.

It is very effed up to walk up to any sort of local, state, and federal building and see the flag at half mast and then ask yourself if an important person who has done something positive died (1) at a traditional/older age and/or (2) due to natural causes. Then, you scratch your head and remember that it's yet another one of those heinous events. On this side of the pond, these seem to be too common now, as are those sorts of analogous events we read about in the Middle East carried out by fanatical civilian zealots.

Before digressing to the Andrea Doria discussion, I had meant to say something about the Golden Horseshoe. When I am in places, I will always pick up the free real estate guides. The Golden Horseshoe is the area along Lake Ontario in Canada going from Niagara Falls, ON to the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). I could not believe the prices along the lake and houses all along there in general. In Niagara Falls, NY, the houses are priced akin to Big Macs when they were conceived. I believe one of the ritzy areas of Toronto is named Rosedale. There was a mansion for sale for $14 million CDN. That's $11 million in U.S. funds. It was a beautiful chateau styled mansion but you could buy that same house in Beverly Hills for that sort of money, providing it was on a standard sized lot in the flat part of B.H. Then, I found a guide for real estate in Galveston. There was a stunning new Mediterranean 3 story ... about 2,500 to 3,000 s.f., with the garages below and the house propped up ... and near the Gulf for a little over $700,000. You're in Houston in 45 minutes. I am almost sure there is a lot of upward price pressure in the GTA because it is probably the #1 destination for new grads, established career folks, immigrants, and foreign investment money in all of Canada.

I'm trying not to think of Mazda 3s. The other thing is how many cars now no longer feature an inside fuel cap release. I prefer some type of security. I recall that the current Focus is this way. Just push. I also believe the current Cruze and Malibu are this way. Give me an inside release lever. I also like the fuel filler on the driver's side of the car.

Thank you! I had been wondering when the next gen would be released and what it would look like. Pretty good. They just need to make damn sure that the ones they deliver with automatic transmissions either have their dual clutch technology worked out or that they revert to a more conventional type of transmission that won't get them the evil eye from so many consumer write-ups seen on the web. I was more open to CVT but have sort of returned to liking step geared automatic transmissions. I don't like any of the hatches, so I was checking out the sedan. It has nice lines. The front looks familiar. The rear lamps are tiny, almost too much so. As for the side profile, it resembles something GM-ish, but I can't put my finger on what. They are really zeroing in on taking on the Cruze, I'm betting. The Cruze outclassed the Focus with its last refresh. I'd sure like to know what the interior and the dash layout and features look like. Again, I think the thin rear lamps are too small for the available surface area. I'm betting it's going to make for a much better driving experience than the current one. The 2.0 L continues.

In general, I cannot believe how many Aleros I see ... and in good condition. With their ceasing production in '04, this means they are all between 14 and 18 years old and still run well. I always thought they would be a "throw away" car. Evidently, that 2.4L has been dependable. I've only driven one once. From Spokane WA to Calgary and back, passing the Continental Divide en route. I liked it but I didn't love it. I believe I had a coupe. Alero coupes were actually sort of cool and nice looking.

That console is insane ... insanely wide. I'm wondering if we're coming back to black, tan, gray, blue, and maroon interior choices. One thing that was time stamped was the offering of pale, apple green interiors, usually in cloth. I remember this with GM. If the car was a dark metallic forest green, then the pale green vinyl top and pale green interior worked. It wouldn't have been my top choice, but it wasn't bad. As for new ways to operate automatic transmissions, I'd have to say I prefer the rotating dial on the console to buttons, switches, or toggles on the actual dash. The rotating dial is super easy to use but it can be overzealous and easy to pass up your destination ... say you're aiming for R and you find yourself in N.

O.k., I'm almost certain I knew of this trans. on someone's prized '64 Plymouth Barracuda that he was very attached to. These family friends had moved to California from the tri-state area (N.Y.C.). My mind drifted over to the then new and revolutionary Buick Riviera and how nicely the dash, console, and area between the rear seats was configured. People seem to respond to good design. They may not know how to articulate the specifics of what they like, but they know when something's a good thing. There are exceptions to this now and then.