SAmadei

AH! I just had a flash of what the Toyota-build C7 Corvette might be like. My eyes hurt! Better to die...

So far Fiat is the only company who is willing to give it a try.

12% English (rounded down from 12.5%) 12% French (rounded down from 12.5%) 25% German 25% Finnish 26% Italian I have the Italian last name and grew up in South Jersey, where all my neighbors last names ended in 'i' or 'o', hence the 1% add-on.

Makes me wonder what the Dutch are doing. Even all the women are 6'6" there. ;-) Roof-raising customs must be popular there. ;-)

I'm sure some legislator somewhere is rubbing his hands going, "There should be a law..." After a few crashes caused by people trying to beat their "top MPG score" by being distracted or by hypermileing 2 feet off a tractor trailer at 80 mph, I'm sure the lawyers will put an end to the "fun".

My '95 Caprice Wagon is like that. It ran sweet for exactly one year. Then all hell broke loose. I finally have resolved to put it in the cramped garage and tear it apart to fix it... but I'm going to be irked if this ends up being a death of a thousand cuts. The problem is that I could score another wagon for cheap. However, I like this one. Strong engine, SS grill, corny pinstripe with no woodgrain, and in condition that I don't mind scratching it, but doesn't look like its grossly embarrassing... yet. We'll see in the next few months if I decide to punt.

What exactly is happening to your tires? I was futzing in my backyard, where I seem to have an infinite supply of old, cheap tires... and while quite a few look like hell, they still hold are and are very usable. Some of these tires are well into their second decade of life.

I'm done with cheap tires, for the most part. So I would at least stick to the main brands... like Cooper. Perhaps, since these tires are rotting, you need to perform "cheap tire maintenance". I don't know exactly, but some kind of moisturizer or something, to keep the tires from coming apart.

Agreed. Assuming the fans work, start hunting down the relay. 90% of the time the relay dies, and it is a fast fix. As far as driving with the fans off, as long as the car is moving forward, you will be fine. Don't get stuck in traffic for more than a couple minutes, or you will definitely have trouble. Watch your temp gauge and shut it off before it overheats. Obviously actually overheating the engine will have all sorts of bad things happen. The AC not working is likely not related to the radiator cooling fans not working. It is likely a R134a leak, and you need it recharged. R134a is relatively cheap and you could try refilling it yourself... be obviously, a leak means you are going to have to top it off from time to time. Also, ensuring you have a full R134a system is the first step towards diagnosing the problem.

I suggested something like this about 8 years ago in a different forum... in order to get the GMME Caprice into this country as a "light duty truck". Of course, the problem is that the Avalanche needs to come back down to earth a bit to become a "Instant Caprice". Putting a conventional trunk on the Avalanche would mean only Yao Ming could get his groceries out of the trunk. One other thing I have to note it that in many cases, tall wagons _suck_ for packing. For many things, you can only pack so high. And a lot of these new generation wagons (such as the CTS wagon) have such a small cargo area, it begs the question... why bother? Why do the modern car manufacturers think that a car needs to be the solution to everything. The new CUV, its a truck, a minivan, a wagon, a sports sedan, a dessert topping and a floor polish! You'll love it so much you'll want to buy two! Of course, it will do everything half-ass.

I think it could be called the "Station Wagon". Are we going to predict the merging of a sedan and pickup truck, too? GM won't build either because they're wussies.

Needs the step-side bed. Does the RAM even have that?

Very true. And yet with all that height, there is still questionable headroom in many cars. The '04 Grand Prix makes my '99 Bonne look low and sleek (The Bonne is almost 2 inches shorter), yet the Grand Prix has serious headroom issues. I believe in the Harley Earl mantra of longer, wider, sleeker. If your going to build a two ton vehicle, make it take up horizontal space, not vertical. Horizontal space is more usable for storage, at least. And with the exception of a couple cities, horizontal space is not a premium in the US. I suppose the whole tall thing is a reaction to the SUVs... to enhance visibility and crash protection in cars that have to tangle with SUVs. I'll admit I get tired of looking up or around towering SUVs in my "low slung" cars (especially odd for me since I normally physically look down on 99.5% of people), but I choose cars to be car-like, not SUV-like.

No, no... I get "big". I like "big". I own 6 B-bods from the '60s, '70s and '80s. The original Challenger was big, but sleek and graceful. The new Challenger, in real life, IMHO, is too chunky, slab-sided and the rear deck is too tall. Muscle cars have an accepted size. The Challenger looks like it is based on a SUV. Don't get me wrong, its still a bad-ass beautiful car, and with the crap going on at GM, it is one of the few non-GM cars in history I would consider buying. It's just shocking to see its size in real life. I'm sure I'll get used to it, however. It makes a good argument for getting a slimming black one.

Did you ever look for a build sheet? I found a partial build sheet in my '70 Tempest under the front seat... along with a second build sheet from a second car. I've never dropped the gas tank to see if a proper build sheet was there... the partial I have is sufficient to detail my handful of options. Mine was build in Baltimore as well, and I'm annoyed I put off visiting the factory now that I learned it has been demolished. :-(

That's a shame. Frigging lawyers ruin everything. Is Lime Green going to be an offered color? I don't remember seeing that on a new Challenger. You know, I realize the Challenger is supersized... seeing it parked or at the auto show doesn't really show its size... but following one (a silver one) on the freeway, it looks like an 1/43 scale car in a sea of 1/64 scale cars. Still looks cool... and the driver cranked it up to just under 100mph after I clicked by.

Its about time. GM needs to beat others with quality AND a bargain. Sucks though that they are not telling us by how much and when. I'm still waiting for the tipping point to get a G8 GXP.

Not tabs, but full-on windows. I never power off my systems. Including my laptop. And since I end up running from one project to another, it takes me weeks to come back to needing a particular window. Sure bookmarks are more efficient, but bookmarks don't 'cache' the actual page. I just noticed FF is asking to upgrade to 3.07 this morning.

Frigging GM and renaming everything with alphanumerics! Now their going back in time and renaming classics. What's next? Renaming the Cutlass a F-85?!? ;-) While I wouldn't argue that the Custom-S was replaced by the various T-37/GT-37 models, the T-37 specifically replaced the Tempest. Most T-37s I have ever seen were _real_ strippers. Sure you could likely get one optioned up to a Custom-S level, but the GT-37 was more on par with a Custom-S.

I don't understand why everyone gets their panties in a bunch about interiors. IMHO, most interiors are just fine. For me, space is the biggest luxury in an interior. Look and basic functionality comes next. So I like all sorts of interiors the general critics hate. I like the interior on the '89 G25 Van. I really like the '69 Firebird and Camaro interiors. I even like the '80s interiors full of fuzzy cloth. This is not to say I don't like modern interiors. I like quite a few of them, but a lot of them, to me, look all the same. So much R&D money has gone into them that they are generally thought out well enough, that comparing cars in similar classes is real nit picking. Everyone talks of texture. I find most textures to me fine... metal, plastic or fuzzy fabric. My only gripe is the overuse of rubbery parts. This is one thing I don't like in the last Grand Prix... too rubbery. I like the plastic dash in the '99 Bonneville better... or even the '04 Corolla better. While I like the feel of GM interiors, Chrysler and Ford interiors are not awful. The 300M had a nice interior. So did the Grand Marquis I rented. OTOH, Chevy had the '80s "mushrooming out of the dashboard" instrument panel which I didn't care for. Worst interior... Chevette was pretty bad... but the worst was the old Renault Encore. The French can't design a interior.

FF3 has been a dog for me on three systems... since 3.03 or so. I normally have 40-60 FF windows open, but right now, I can barely push 15 without things coming to a drag. And I've got lots of memory on most of my systems, with the swap disabled. I have been using Opera more, and I'm thinking of downgrading to FF2, which was working fine.

I agreed the Cimarron is very charming looking back. In fact, if I had never seen the other J-bodies, I would even say that the Cimarron looked the part of a baby Cadillac... but Cadillac styling DNA was quite weak in the mid-80s. It would have looked even more Caddy-like with some knife-blade shaped taillights. Everything else about the Cimarron, like the drivetrain, interior and suspension are horribly uncharming.

That Toyota's marketers bend the truth into a mobius strip?

I was thinking this was more of a rare Pontiac...

Big time agree with you there, PCS. The '68-'72 A-bods are, IMHO, the greatest design ever, and the previous '64-'67 A-bods are REAL close. The '68-72 are, IMHO, right-sized, came in an endless variety of body styles, are timelessly styled, relatively lightweight, with endless performance upgrades. While I still prefer the '73-'77 A-bods over every FWD car made by GM since 1974, they are way too heavy and the styling suffered from the safety requirements. I will still likely have one someday... probably a funky El Camino. Cletus, I thought you meant the "almost new for '72" was a comment on the '72 being a near clone to the '71s. !!!TED!!!, I like the Caprices, as well, though I prefer the wagons with the faux skirt rear wheel opening. I prefer the sedans with the open wheel. As a wagon owner, have you ever TRIED to change a rear tire with those low cut wheelwells?!? It's impossible without jacking the car into the sky.