trinacriabob

Probably not a good time to be telling "Olga from the Volga" jokes and puns.

Looks like a place Bonnie and Clyde could have been set up to seal their fate, especially with that car beyond, to the left. Now that I look at this, these were the best looking of the mid-size GM quadruplets while that body style was in effect. My dad's Bimini Blue coupe was in clean shape compared to this one! Probably the most reliable car my family owned. Nothing ever went wrong with it. My only complaint with it was the drum front brakes, when every other car in the household had front disc brakes.

I've always found this funny ... haven't seen it in a while.

Can anyone chime in on what's going with selling prices versus MSRP on (ordinary) new cars? That would mean Kia Forte, Chevy Malibu, and cars like that. Are they discounting, fetching full MSRP price, or commanding premiums?

Very cool. The engine appearance is true to form Olds (a big plus) and remained consistent over the years (distributor, plug/manifold placement) up through the 350 and 260, among other Rocket V8 engines. Olds made my favorite GM V8s, by far. The engines in the FWDs sat up higher. Interesting how they have that big case for the chain in the back to transfer power back down. I remember that it was the same way in '79 to '84 Toros and Rivs. With their absurdly long hoods, there should have been room in the back and below to open up the transmission as needed for servicing and service work.

Now we're talking. The whitewalls don't look too, too bad. I'm guessing this is not a factory color. I could be wrong. Would be curious to know how many c.i. in its V8 and the year of this model. It was interesting how they did FWD with a "conventionally" placed engine in the engine bay, as if it were RWD. It would be cool to see a photo of that set up.

I think I've seen this before. Beautiful, if restored. Where is it (if you know)?

Random (and pissed off) thought: Say you want to go away in May ... maybe PHX, maybe South Florida. It should NOT cost "half a grand" to rent a basic Toyota Corolla for a week. Let's do the math: say they get that rate/fee for 40 rentals, making for $ 20,000. Even if people put 1,000 miles on it at each rental, that's 40,000 miles. They'll still be able to sell that car for $ 18,000 ... easy. I know this is simplified. And doesn't include the franchise fees they pay, office space, etc., but it's ridiculous and might be keeping people from vacay-ing. I wonder when some "normalcy" will return on this front.

The "motherland," meaning WESTERN Europe. (I will have numerous February spotting photos ... once I get my head organized).

I've been away for a while ... far away. Lately, it seems like we've been living in a James Bond movie. But maybe that's always been the case.

This day in history ... things I don't easily forget First, the bad: The 1971 Los Angeles - Sylmar earthquake with its epicenter in the San Fernando Valley section of the city Next, the good: In 1969, the first flight of the Boeing 747 from Paine Field in Everett, Washington. Boeing essentially "bet" the company on this endeavor and was successful. Pan Am was the launch customer for the jumbo jet. Gotta say I love my trivia.

I have to laugh at your opening line: "I don't think size is an issue." Societies have seemingly debated this for thousands of years. Just kidding. I never took the first Camaro that came back to us as a retro rehash. It has a scrunched up look I didn't like from the very beginning. Maybe it was a good thing that no one tried to release a Trans Am equivalent with another division. They tested the market for GM as a whole with just the Camaro. I like this last Mustang you've put up. They look different enough and there's more going on in the grille, the side sculpting, and all that. I'm not so sure I like the Mustang's dashboard, from what I've seen on line and at the auto shows. It's got a spartan and squarish austerity I don't like. Again, the Challenger decided to sculpt its dashboard in an interesting way and in a way that shows it's related to the Charger. Thumbs up to that.

If the V6 is the Pentastar that goes into the Charger, I could live with that. I need to test sit this car, at the very least. How's the visibility, especially to the rear? I wonder how much longer this model with be available - with an ICE - since it looks like the curtain may fall on Charger.

If the three of them were sitting there without badging, and I had no handle on the Big 3's styling vocabulary and what their predecessors looked like, I would pick 1) Challenger, 2) Mustang, and 3) Camaro. I've had to work hard at warming up to Chrysler products. There's no denying that the Challenger is an attractive sports coupe from most vantage points. It seems that most people can't specifically identify or verbalize what it is they like about a specific design, but they still know how to, and ultimately do, zero in on good design.

Attractive enough looking vehicle. - - - - - Random thought: While my blood pressure is thankfully close to normal, I seem to get all these animal videos when I open my browser ... I'm guessing that watching dogs, cats, deer, and other critters being goofy sure seems to lower blood pressure.

It is. And some stupid people are insufferable. The "don't know how much they don't know" crowd can be more hostile and more argumentative because they don't have facts. They don't want dialogue that involves exchanging information. We have an example of similar idiocy in my very family. One uncle came over from Europe to visit us on the West Coast. He is/was the biggest douche bag of the many siblings on one parental side. When he got to California, he stated what he wanted to see and said that he wanted to see Niagara Falls. That meant he had no concept of scale. I told him that that was like going from Lisbon to Eastern Europe. My parents also picked up the tab for him, and his wife, to fly to the Pacific Northwest and to San Francisco during this trip. He was a pill on both trips. He wanted to see one of the bridges, so I took the rental car with all of us onto the Bay Bridge because it was cheaper. He went ballistic. First, you don't just "ascend" onto the bridge deck. You have to find the on-ramps in S.F. Then, when you get to the other side, you're in Oakland. I didn't get off the freeway because I didn't know and didn't want to experiment with Oakland. So I went further out to a nicer suburb with a full interchange to drive us back to the city. During this prolongation, he kept yelling. Of the countries in Europe I keep up with, I knew Portugal leads in vaccination efforts. That's impressive for a smaller and not particularly rich European country. Spain (which I don't see on this graphic) would be behind them, and ahead of Italy and France. France has seen their own "don't tread on me" demonstrations in their streets. It's not. But some people make us shake our heads. On my homepage were some links about some guy named Doug Kuzma. It turns out he has/had a podcast where he touted the typical packaging of the anti-vax crowd. His platform was called FROG network. I thought that maybe he liked amphibians ... or was poking fun at the French. FROG means "Fully Rely On God." A person from this group posted that Doug needed "heavy, heavy" prayers. He was only 61 and now on a ventilator, unconscious. The first thing that came to mind was the adage that "God helps those who helps themselves." He was pushing those drugs we've heard about that start with "i" and "hydro" as an alternative to the vaccine. If you heard this guy, I doubt his critical thinking skills in the realms of science and practical topics were that developed. A few days later, I found out he didn't make it. You just shrug.

Did so a few days after Christmas. I've have the Pfizer (2) + Moderna (1) combination. I feel fine.

I think people need to take some responsibility so they don't end in the hospital and burden the system. Obviously, more elderly people are ending up in the hospital. That will be Medicare and Medicaid dollars paying for those stays for the most part. It's an outright waste. My friend's mom was in the hospital for 5 to 6 days with covid. I wonder what that tab looks like. My friend, and her mom and nearby relatives, all have the packaged demographics that go with the "statement" they need to make. And this lady made the same statement others who have gotten sick and landed in the hospital have made: 'I'm glad I didn't get vaccinated.' Just where are the brownie points, the pats on the back, or cutting in line at the Pearly Gates (if that's what you believe) going to come from? I haven't said anything like 'this could have been avoidable' to my friend, but I'm also getting radio silence from the other end. It's sad that this is dividing people. I didn't think it would. I go with what I remember from basic statistics - bell shaped curves, probability, etc. and, if I am doing just fine almost a year after receiving my first 2 injections, I will probably continue to do just fine. Maybe some side effects may show up later. Hopefully and probably not. I'd rather not be fighting long-term covid.

Good afternoon ...

@oldshurst442 Check the label on the photos. Dannon makes these yogurt cups, so you may very well have them in Canada. Not all American grocery stores carry all these flavors. Once certain ones do, and I do know the rhyme and reason as to how they choose to carry, and not carry, certain flavors of yogurt. It's the same situation with salad dressing flavors.

I also saw an '80s Monte Carlo coupe that was being worked on. It's hard to tell which specific year it was. It was pretty torn up inside. This model definitely leapfrogged the first downsized MC of '78, and they had to do very little to it to make that happen.

In retro mode - a month late - I gotta post in my own thread. It was pouring Pontiacs! It's always when you're driving along and, down some road or in some parking lot, you see something and come around to take a look. Spotted in mid-December Pontiac Parisienne - 1985 or 1986 This roofline worked and this was the nicest of the B-O-P+C in this category. Even the skirts in the rear wheel well work with this car. Hard pass on those skinny tires and wheels. Nice rear fascia and simple, clean taillamps Slightly busy front end and too similar to its Caprice first cousin The fuel injection badge indicates this has a Chevy designed (but corporate GM) 4.3 TBI V6 unless the engine was swapped out. The exhaust being unchanged tells me it could still be this durable V6 residing under the hood. Pontiac Grand Prix - 1973 While this is not my favorite GP of the '73-'77 body style, this may have been the best tail lamp treatment. No 350 V8 of any kind under the hood ... yet. Spotted the day before Christmas Pontiac Grand Prix - 1976 What a foreboding car! That has seen better days. You can see my car behind it, with the door open. I jumped out and took some photos. Overall, this was probably my favorite Grand Prix of the '73-'77 body style. This probably had the Pontiac 350 V8 under the hood and this was the first year for the small block 350 in this car. Things on Pontiacs need to remain horizontal, so this tail treatment was better than in '77, which had the worst ... and the worst front fascia, too. This was probably a silver/burgundy body-landau top combination, something you wouldn't see much past the '80s. The interior is in way better shape. Crank windows! It was air conditioned. What a dashboard! This was obviously the base model. LJ was the way to go. - - - - - If this thing had been kept up, this would have been quite the car show showpiece. And had it been an LJ, preferably with buckets and a console, with Pontiac rally wheels ,it would have been even better.

I think it was a teenage bear. It looks like it might have just recently parted ways with its mother and any siblings. Lucky for the Amazon delivery guy. He was so damn relaxed about the whole thing. - - - - - I had mentioned Greek yogurt before and how much I liked the flavor Toasted Marshmallow. I then tried one called Creme Brulee because I couldn't find Toasted Marshmallow. I didn't like it. (Their basic Strawberry and Strawberry Cheesecake are good.) With basic Greek yogurt being blander in taste, it's great to have the addition of some flavor so I'll eat it more readily. I like that it's good for the gut. So, I again found and stocked up on this Toasted Marshmallow flavor. So damn good.

Good morning ...

Work out a little extra. And, damn, why did you have to put up this photo?!? With a good night's sleep, I had forgotten all about French onion dip.