Oracle of Delphi

Just a few of the Opel girls and me. The next time I'm at my condo on Lake Conroe, in Conroe, Texas, I'll invite y'all up, we can discuss it.

Oh I think it's quite clear, TICK-TOCK!

Wagons? Saab and Cadillac only in North America. Just the way it is, sorry.

CPF said you and any of your family members have been banned from buying any GME products, time to schlep off to Pontiac.

TMI

Like I have been saying for months, when all is said and done, in North America it will be Chevrolet, Saturn, Buick and Cadillac. Niche cars and brands are done in North America.

Regret? What's that?

By Warren Brown Sunday, July 20, 2008 WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. -- Getting here on "the 405," that north-south stretch of interstate running through the greater Los Angeles area, is hell. But it's also instructive agony for anyone trying to understand the problems of General Motors in North America. My assessment is based on empirical observations made on a drive from the Los Angeles International Airport to this resort/bedroom community straddling the Ventura and Los Angeles County line. Did I say "drive"? Allow me to correct that. No one drives on the 405. They sit. They park. They creep. They attempt to make forward progress, only to be blocked by one obstruction or another, which requires them to sit some more, engines thrumming, exhaust gases pouring from hundreds of cars and trucks going nowhere. In that stagnant motorized mélange lies the current agony of GM North America. In one lane, for example, is GM's Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicle. In another is a giant GM Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. It's a "dualie," or a "DRW," meaning that it has dual rear wheels. It's a work truck. But whoever owns it apparently doesn't work much. The thing is free of dust, dirt, dents and scratches. Creep down the road a little farther. Aha! There's another GM truck -- this one a GMC pickup. Look around. How is it possible? How can it be true? I see only two GM cars. Two! They are a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and a Saturn Aura. I'm on a road in the United States of America, albeit in the grand Republic of California. There are foreign cars all around me . . . but only two cars from GM, the biggest car company in the country. California is still America, isn't it? An estimated 11 percent of all new vehicles sold in the United States are sold in California. GM obviously sells trucks here. But does it sell cars in California? The sad answer for GM is "not many." The same goes for Ford and Chrysler. When it comes to cars in this land of automobiles, apparently most of them parked on the 405, the domestics get kicked to the curb. Statistics vary by source. But empirical observation says it's safe to assume that automotive dealer groups here are correct when they say that domestic cars account for about 30 percent of new-car sales -- that's "cars" as in sedans, coupes and wagons -- in California. On the truck side, domestic manufacturers do better -- still holding the lion's share of trucks sold in California and elsewhere on the West Coast. But therein is a problem in a place where traffic does not move and where the price of regular unleaded gasoline is approaching $5 a gallon. Big trucks suck fuel. That is not a good thing for commuters who burn as much gasoline idling as they do actually moving from one place to the next. Those people are abandoning trucks and the companies that make them. Those still in the truck market are asking for more fuel-efficient models, including gas-electric hybrids and trucks with four-cylinder engines. GM, Ford and Chrysler, all of which have concentrated on big trucks with big engines -- the kinds of trucks American consumers wanted when gasoline was cheap -- have been caught in the lurch. That is why GM, as it announced last week, is cutting truck production (again), white-collar jobs (again), suspending its dividend and borrowing $2 billion in an effort to help save $15 billion through the end of 2009. GM needs the money to dig itself out of the hole it dug with trucks. If the company uses the money as wisely as it did in remodeling the estimable Chevrolet Malibu LTZ, reviewed in this Sunday's On Wheels column, it has more than a fighting chance of success. But GM is going to need something else -- a better sense of balance. When the truck market returns, as it will, GM is going to have to avoid going truck crazy, shoving trucks into every available and conceivable truck niche at the expense of developing worthy cars. I mean, it's just odd sitting there on the 405, surrounded by a sea of cars from Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi and -- can it be? -- an old Fiat, with a relatively few big GM trucks floating in the distance. Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...8071701959.html

Jeez, just when I decide to come, everyone decides to leave.

Kind of anti-climatic if you ask me, it's not like you didn't know what it was going to look like. Whats with that ribbing right behind the door anyway? That's a 1st gen Firebird trait.

It grabs the key when I take it out of Drive and put it into Park and turn off the engine. It will not let me switch it from Park into Neutral or Drive and it will not let me turn the car back on. It hasn't done it since my parents house, but I plan to do a lot of stopping and site seeing, so in and out of the car a lot the next few days, let's see what it does. Thanks to all who answered this.

WASHINGTON - The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere. Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded — with a prod from the construction industry — that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs. Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel. With gas prices setting records daily, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and former Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a 90-day suspension of the federal fuel tax to give drivers a little relief at the pump. The fuel taxes go into the Highway Trust Fund, which is used for road construction and repair and mass transit. Clinton suggested making up for the loss by imposing a windfall profit tax on oil companies, an idea that Republicans rejected. McCain said the money could come out of the general Treasury fund, in effect adding to the federal deficit, and is still getting mileage from the idea. "Some economists don't think much of my gas tax holiday," he said in a speech this month. "But the American people like it, and so do small business owners." Barack Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, opposed the idea from the beginning and the White House gave it a cold shoulder. Depriving the 52-year-old Highway Trust Fund of $9 billion at a time when it is heading into the red doomed the notion of a gas tax holiday in Congress. The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. James Oberstar, and the chairman of the highway subcommittee, Rep. Peter DeFazio, presented fellow lawmakers with a list of how many jobs and how much money each state would lose. It ranged from $30 million and 1,000 jobs in Vermont to $664 million and 23,000 jobs in California. "Because the trust fund is already looking at a looming shortfall, it would have moved project cancellations into the construction season," DeFazio, D-Ore., said in an interview. He said it was "highly unlikely" that oil companies would have passed savings along to consumers. Trust fund deficit expected Just three years ago, that trust fund enjoyed a surplus of $10 billion. Even without a tax freeze, the fund is projected to finish 2009 with a deficit of $3 billion. That that could grow as Americans drive less and buy less gas because of higher pump prices. The consequence is that only about $27 billion in federal money will be available next year to states and local governments for new infrastructure investment even though the current highway act calls for spending $41 billion a year. For many, the solution is to raise rather than suspend or cut federal fuel taxes, which haven't changed since 1993. The Transportation Construction Coalition, a group of industry companies and unions, said that if Congress does not do something about the shortfall, states will lose about one-third of their road and bridge money in the budget year starting Oct. 1. That would put 485,000 more jobs at risk. That message carried the day this summer. But now Congress has the bigger task of dealing with the short-term deficit crisis in the fund and coming up with a new spending plan, including revisiting the gas tax issue, when the current six-year, $286 billion highway-transit act expires in September 2009. Senate Democrats in May tried to add $5 billion to an aviation overhaul bill to replenish the highway trust fund next year; Republicans objected. Democrats tried again in June, but this time for $8 billion; Republicans objected to that, too. Article continues: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25751775/

Can't beat a Buck a piece for these. I'm going to frame them and put them in my office or in my den. They give all kinds of facts and figures too. 1968 GTO 1969 GTO Judge 1998 Grand Prix GTP

Yep, here is an example of what is there. http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/previews/26750/A...ate_Worlds.html

Just passing through IL, on our way to Michigan where we will be staying with friends.

Showing you the production version perhaps somewhat early?

I wouldn't look for the purple GXP, but keep your eyes peeled <-------- always thought that was an odd expression, you should be looking for a 1969 Midnight Green Pontiac Custom-S, 350 V8 RWD! We are coming home via the Northern states, when we leave San Diego. So a complete circle of the country when we are done.

How do you know he doesn't post here? :AH-HA_wink:

Some of you know, I'm on vacation and I am taking the Pontiac Custom-S across country on a road trip to California and back. However a problem has crept in. Pulled up in front of my sister-in-laws in Knoxville,TN the other day and turned off the car and the key locked tight in the ignition cylinder, for love or money I could not get that key out, I tried moving the steering wheel left or right, tried to start it back up, key would not budge. Called AAA, they sent a locksmith and he came about an hour later, and viola key was free. Tonight it does it again after coming back from the local supermarket, in my parents driveway, but as luck would have it, I bought a can of WD-40 just in case the car did this again, which it did. I sprayed the ignition cylinder waited 15 minutes pulled on the key and it came out. My question is, is the problem caused by, old ignition cylinder, worn keys ( one key is 39 years old, the other about 5 years old), dirty ignition cylinder, or something else I haven't thought of? Any thoughts? I don't want to get caught in Death Valley, or some other God forsaken place and not have the WD-40 trick not work anymore. Should I take it to get looked at or do you think I am good to go? My mechanic looked her over before we left and found nothing wrong with the PCS, but did give her a full tune up before we left, and pronounced her Road Trip Worthy. Other than that car runs fine and so does the Air Conditioner. :AH-HA_wink: I have been getting a lot of positive comments on my old girl, and I don't mean my wife either! Any suggestions on the key/ignition problem would be appreciated!

I kind of like that actually.

Oh and we are going to see the production Camaro on Monday at 4 PM, but some of us already have. :AH-HA_wink:

Not like that they don't, where the customer already knows the product, just ask Saturn dealers, oops I mean retailers.

Link: http://www.apple.com/business/profiles/trek/

What, you don't back up the database on a second by second interval. Being a forum Admin is a bitch, I know since I run a gaming forum.

Hmmm, I have a great reply, but I will be nice today! :rotflmao: