Northstar

Why did they give it the sedan's front end? I'll take the current one...

Someone posted this a while ago. Yes it's a 'chop.

Cool. On GMBuypower you used to be able to just get a list of matches of the vehicle that you were searching for, and didn't have to go dealership by dealership. Can you still do that?

Agreed, but with some people it won't matter until public perception is turned around, which could take a long time. And well, with some people they'll never come around.

Why not an Acadia or Outlook?

I highly doubt this. No way Lutz would let this happen as a Corvette.

I think Z probably knows how to do MP4s. Maybe you should just email it to him? What was this chassis stress simulator? I didn't get the whole jist of it I don't think. Does it attempt to bend/crush the chassis and the F-150 was crushed/bent and the Silverado was not?

I highly doubt we'll see the LS7 in the CTS-V, but it would be cool. First, it's very expensive, more so than a supercharged LSx, and second, it's not going to be around that much longer after the CTS-V debuts. An auto should be available this time around. I may have been able to convince my dad to buy one if I didn't have to get over the "it has a manual" problem.

I am unsure if it will be a very late '09 (like Dec. 2008) or a very early '10 (like January 2009). Either way, it should debut sometime between Dec 2008 and Feb 2009.

The RWD Northstar got 80% revised from the FWD one. How is that hardly new?

I don't think that's really the case. A 5th gear would do wonders for the GTO.

Probably LSx then the new Northstar/DOHC (whatever it is called).

Those are pretty cool. I think they'd make pretty cool paintings for walls in a house.

The Vectra is the first EPII, but the first one in the US will be the LaCrosse.

I have a Latitude D820. It's been very good and aside from a couple minor problems has been trouble free. It has 1GB of memory with the ability to upgrade to 2GB later on. My roommate on the other hand has a relatively high-end HP that he's always having trouble with.

Oh, I didn't know which car he was talking about... I suppose it's possible that it fell of the transport, but I think that would have required body work. It could just be wrong.

Maybe it was a Katrina flood car? The SRX is a great deal except it doesn't have the Ultraview.

I've sat in plenty of BMWs, and with the exception of the X3 (which I would agree is not very good) they were all very nice. They come off just as nice as Acuras, and they certainly don't feel like cheap econo car interiors. Your statement about that is as rediculous as saying the Cobalt's interior is superior to an Avalon. Not having a V8 should not hurt sales that much. First of all, the V6 is very powerful, and moves it pretty well. Lexus sells about 5 times as many GS320/350s as GS430s, so going by that, Acura would sell no more than 200 more copies per month by offering a V8 most likely. And again, I don't see why the TL should have that much of an effect. The CTS is almost as big as the STS, but both still manage to sell pretty well, although the STS doesn't sell as well as Cadillac would like.

216/245 at the wheels is a 18% drop and 12% drop respectively, I wouldn't call that overrated. Isn't it SAE certified anyways? Yes the RX-8 was overrated a ton.

What?!? My post was in response to your previous posts. Obviously they didn't provide any answers before, so how are they going to now? So basically you're saying that you can't explain your previous statement of how Acuras make BMW interiors seem like economy cars and my statement that the RL doesn't look like it's a $50k car so you tell me to go find answers in your posts when there aren't any? Oh, and I am most certainly not a reg fanclub member, I'm just saying many of your statements make no more sense than his do.

Umm, what? You are attacking reg for making baseless comments, and then you say that the RL has a better interior than Mercedes and that BMWs feel like junk economy cars compared to Acuras? Right... Acura's are nice but they aren't that nice. In the past GM may have had rebadges, but today they are well differeniated for the most part. Yes, there are still some examples, but most of them are stopgap vehicles (G5, Torrent, CSVs) and won't be rebadges in the future. How is this devoid of logic or sense? If the RL is such a great car, why doesn't it sell well? Oh, because it looks like a $30-35k sedan, and not a $50k sedan. Also, your "snob" factor comment is completely off base. When people spend $40-50k on a car, most of them want the car to look like it's worth that money. BMWs, Mercedes, Audi, etc., look like they're worth the money that's on the sticker. The RL doesn't.

My opinion on Acura as a luxury brand: I personally don't see Acura on the same level as BMW, MB, Audi, Lexus, Cadillac, and even now Infiniti. Sure, they're very nice vehicles (at least the TL and RL - the previous MDX interior was crap as was the RSX, and the TSX is just decent). I haven't sat in the new MDX or RDX, so I can't comment on the interior quality, but at least the TL and RL have interiors that are pretty good for their price. However, my beef with Acura is that they lack the visual pizzaz that the other luxury makers bring. I saw a perfectly detailed black RL today (looked like it was on the showroom floor) that was parked on the side of the road, and it looked very nice, but at the same time, nothing about it said it was a $50k car. It looked more like a $30-35k car that would compete with the Lucerne and Avalon.

How does a manual transmission gain 25HP? Automatics typically lose 15-20% vs. crank while manuals typically lose 10-15% vs. crank (usually about a 5% difference depending on the model). In regards to the test not being at WOT: Why does it matter? Doesn't the car make the same HP at 2500 RPM whether it's at WOT or whether it's just normal acceleration?

I saw a Q7 the other day.

The torque is pretty flat, but the HP is not. When you say "powerband" it sounds more like HP than torque.