SAmadei

Thats the truth. Every GM car I have ever parked was still running. Just not running well enough to get through NJ inspection. Or my personal inspection, for that matter.

A few comments... How the heck could anybody sit in the back seat? Also, is it just me, or do those front brakes seem tiny? What's the story with the Cutlass? I see a price on the window, and it seems to be broken. I just happen to have a stout 4 barrel 403 in the backyard fitted into a trashed '81 Cutty. I loved the toitles non-sequitor.

Agreed. I've seen relatively a flimsy Sunfire literally wrapped around a tree on the Garden State Parkway, and the car stayed intact.. that could be 80 mph, tops. For a well built BMW to get ripped in two, you either where traveling 100+ mph or hit something solid going 70+ in the opposite direction.

I imagine just a little like the movie 'Gung Ho', with fake Jersey accents rather than Japanese.

THD? Top Hand Drive? ;-) In the lower right corner of the airbag is a black curved rim with a slight shine, or possibly stitching. You see maybe 20% of the circumference. Just behind that is the beige speaker in the door. Granted, it is tough to determine... but I cannot think of any other object it could be. It the dash peeled back and to the right, the wheel would stay attached to the column, and I doubt it would have stayed attached. I also don't see enough bits in the footwell to be pedals. Assuming the firewall has been pushed forward and keeping in mind that the pedals are some of the toughest, strongestly mounted bits of the car, they should be visible. I see one thing that could be a brake pedal from a manual-equipped car, but what would be the lever doesn't have the right curve. I don't see a clutch or throttle pedal, either. So, I assume its part of the HVAC or passenger side mounted electronics. I could be completely wrong... its just my take from the photo. I also don't know if Dubai is RHD or LHD. I also seriously doubt some of what these websites say, as the people submitting the data tend to get things wrong. I have seen the saw wrecks on different sites with totally different stories. I will say that its interesting that it looks like they started using the jaws of life on the left upper B pillar (to 68's delight) and A pillar... perhaps trying to remove the driver before realizing he was a goner. Seeing the additional pictures, there is definitely more blood on the right side of the car... and the red stuff on the rail is likely blood... perhaps in the course of the crash, the driver got nipped by the rail and bled out on the right side of the car? Note in photo 3, the picture has been badly touched up. Equidistant from the airbag to the right seat on the pillar. Also a much bigger area on the upper right seat and armrest. When you see the touch-up color they used, it stands out really obviously. And what is up with the blueish thing behind the seat in photo 3? Its not in photo 4. Fascinating, yet gruesome, find there, DF.

Yeah, but to keep that Chevelle in top shape requires a source of parts... those $200 Chevelle wrecks. It does little good to melt them down into Toyotas. Also, keep in mind that in 1980, those Chevelles were just another worthless old car. In order to have nice Chevelles today, a critical mass of Chevelles have to survive the deep valley of the resale price. Besides, they say that after all the boomers die, those Chevelles will be a dime a dozen. Right. In Socialist Germany, automotive restoration is not as popular as it is here. Plus Germany and the UK don't have groups like SEMA. I think in the US, we are already spending _way_ too much taxpayer money to start giving people a $5K gift to buy a new car. At some point, screw it... just have the government buy us all new cars. Americans _desire_ that, right? Hey, why is my income tax rate now 60%?!?

Its a RHD model, and the guardrail went through the passenger side... It looks like it as blood on it, but something like that hitting a person would have caused a LOT more blood in the passenger compartment. I think the stains on the guardrail might be something else... tranny fluid, rust, primer, perhaps? The driver was likely relatively OK... except for the psychological therapy. Guard rail spikes used to be a major problem... its amazing the tech that has gone into trying to prevent that from happening. Unfortunately, the measures only work once... if you are the unlikely driver to hit an already pulverized guardrail end, you are likely to get spiked. Recently, a guardrail out in the middle of nowhere got trashed on the end, and the road department immediately fixed it all up... I swear a week later, someone trashed it again. This is a guardrail _way_ off an otherwise straight stretch of roadway. You would have to TRY to hit it. They must be making these things out of magnets!

A clogged cat will cause it to seriously bog down, but his prime issue he wants to solve so he doesn't have to tow it home is that when he puts his foot into it, it kills or nearly kills the engine. Clogged cat won't cause it to sputter or die.

I would probably continue to enjoy the old GM stock. If my SO insisted on a new car in GM's absence, it would likely be a BMW 6 series coupe. Maybe a big coupe Mercedes. The Challenger would also be on the short list. To be honest, though, I'm not sure that a GM purchase is in the cards, even if GM survives... as the vehicles GM produces today are less and less desirable. It was a big shock to me to not be able to sit in the front passenger seat of the G8.

How many miles? If you floor it at a standstill, does it die? Its my experience that these 307s barely feel like they are seriously bogged down even in good tune. I fiddled with my carb on my '86 Estate wagon to no avail... it was just dog slow, and after it started burning a bit of oil, I felt the engine was just clapped out. I used to have to drive with my foot all the way down just to keep up with traffic, so having it die at full throttle would be REALLY annoying. Of course, IMHO, these engines go forever because they don't produce enough power to self destruct. I'll also admit that the Estate wagon ran about the same unloaded or overloaded. Oldsmoboi likely is on to the right track, but I wanted to add... I would check for a vacuum leak. These had so many miles of dry rotting vacuum lines, it was obscene. On the fuel side, I would try tapping on the fuel filter housing, then taking it for a spin. If it runs better for a short time, that's your culprit. Definitely check out the carb linkage... mine used to jam shut and the frigging thing wouldn't start... just made plumes of black smoke. I'd have to stick a screwdriver into the butterflies to get it to open enough to start it... then it would run fine. It was intermittent, and I never could duplicate the problem when I could actually work on it. It normally would only happen twice a year... leaving me stuck in the middle of the Atlantic City Expressway with the hood up stabbing the carb with a screwdriver...

In AC, there was really little room for a decent sized house... just a rowhouse. So to have a decent piece of land, you need at least 3 lots to bulldoze to make one house. There is little population left to move around Detroit. Given the loss of jobs, lousy neighborhoods, cold weather, Detroit has little chance of survival. High taxes like most cities have seals the doom. You see this in New Orleans... it has the benefit of nicer weather, yet the people still haven't come back. Detroit also _was_ too close to Canada for my comfort. ;-) OTOH, with the American people stepping down a notch or two in the world social order, it might someday be cheaper to build cars in Detroit again, rather than in Mexico or China... leading to a rebirth of jobs.

I use whatever I get free from trade shows. I really want to start using an encrypted one, but I will likely reformat my current 2G free one with a software encryption wedge of some sort. If I was in the market for a new thumb drive, I'd buy one from this page... http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirde...sb-drives-ever/ I really like the shrimp drive.

In general the advice you have gotten here is right on. I realize you are most likely looking for something newer, but even if you buy something as old as ten years, you can run into cars that have no title and require no title to register in their home state... I don't know PA titles, but in NJ a title is always required. Since I have bought several NY cars, and NY only requires a title going back ten years. Anything older, only a Bill of Sale is required... and while I get squeamish taking a receipt written on a napkin to the NJ DMV, I have gotten all the cars transferred. The trick is knowing EXACTLY what info your local DMV requires and having the info to fill in the blanks. In NJ, I need a VIN, a price, a seller address, etc. I always ensure I have the info before the money changes hands. The last car I got from NY had no title, but a Bill of Sale that had skipped title TWICE through some auto dealers of questionable licensing. It was a legit transaction, and it has a legal NJ title, reg and plates right now. But I had a HUGE stack of documents to detail the trail, and the NJ DMV was very helpful. Oddly, while several of my cars came from PA, I've never done a PA title transfer, so I'm not well versed in PA title info. One of the most troublesome titles I transferred was a 1972 NJ title that had skipped. Since old NJ titles have very little info, I had to pull in some favors to get supplemental info about the original seller. What a PITA. One of the bigger tricks is getting the car titled in your home state without having to pay multiple times for doc or taxes.

Unfortunately, I can look out at a smaller scale version of this across the inlet from my kitchen window... the northern parts of Atlantic City are blocks and blocks of vacant property that are mostly owned by people who want to develop it (or at least before the economy crapped). Unfortunately, for every block there are two speculators who refuse to sell for less than 50x the value of the property, making the rest of the block undevelopable. Of course this all battles out in court with buzz words like ""emminent domain", and it takes decades to move any project along. Now, I'm all for property rights and generally against emminent domain, but when your talking about a little tiny, useless piece of vacant land you are squatting on, you are just a nuisance. Dfelt: In AC, they have a VERY aggressive demolition process... those pictures DF posted would never had gone so far. In fact, a large crack or a unsecured window or door can be cause to start the demo process. The city just bills the property owner... the exception to this is property owned by the city... that stuff rots, undemolished. FOG: Charlotte is probably very lucky to have had such success... likely a combination of not being too far gone and not giving scumbag speculators a chance to get a foothold. Being in the northeast, roaming from Washington DC to Boston, I see a lot nasty neighborhoods... but nothing compares to the wholesale implosion in Detroit. I think the cities near Chernobyl have a brighter future.

Interesting the the Nav system is such a complaint. I guess the Australians actually know where they're going. Just buy a TomTom... Pontiac very considerately put a little shelf there for you to put it in. I personally would rather put some aftermarket gauges there... to monitor the MP1900 underhood upgrade. ;-)

This is the true story... of seven C&G personalities... picked to live in a run down house in Detroit... debate together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting stabbed and shot by the local gangs... The Real World Detroit! As FOG has mentioned, Detroit does have some beautiful architecture, and seeing it in such a poor condition makes me want to cry. A few of those houses DF posted would have had great potential... 20 years ago... in a much nicer town... like the Bronx... or Newark.

Granted, but its the only way to get the various knowledge of the public together in one place. Hence, the citation. Would you prefer an encyclopedia to be an expensive 70 lb, dead tree version edited by a stuffy Brit that only covers a couple thousand topics and it is 4 years out of date by the time you finally buy your yearly edition? I could say the same about a website forum that tracks a certain psychotically managed American automotive company. ;-)

Keep a set in your garage. I've considered stocking at least a set of snow tires for extreme global warming. Unfortunately, I would not want to buy a set for every car. Since most of my cars have 5x4.5 bolt patterns, I considered getting a set of cheap 17 inch rims with fairly low profile used snow tires, so that they would fit on the majority of my cars. I haven't used snow tires since 1992, when I was buying _anything_ used and cheap to keep trend on the car year round. I used to get super cheap studded tires, which can't be used much around here, and I'd pull the studs out. ;-) You don't appreciate a good set of tires until you had the mutt collection of tire types and sizes on your car... yikes!

Yeah... Nissan owned Toyotas. Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction.

Oh, come on. Poor Buffy doesn't have a interior light for the glove box? ;-) (The $9995 Versa does have an interior light, it just doesn't have a interior lights in every cubby.) While I would never buy a decontented new car, since I would buy a third hand Pontiac or Cadillac first, some people put the NEW option above all others. Recessions hurt the poor for longer than the rich... and many people who have gotten accustomed to having a new car will want a decontented Versa. I give Nissan credit for offering it... even if its hard to find on dealer lots. Years from now when we have third world status, we'll look back at the $9995 Versa as the last of the Luxurious People's Cars.

I'm probably at least as well versed in Holden cars as the average Australian is. Anyway, that is for Holden cars that are sold, not produced. You know this list better than I... Barina, Viva, Epica, Captiva. Made in South Korea. Cruze. Australia, but currently not available in US Astra. Built in Poland? Colorado. South America, Thailand. Commodore, Berlina, Calais, Statesman, Caprice, Ute. Actually built in Australia. Combo. Spain. Since I would think that the heads at Holden would want to maximize their Australian assets and not try to compete with otherwise identical cars (Barina/Aveo, Astra) in NA or export cars likely to not be desirable in the US (Combo), they would export the Zeta models, and _maybe_ the Cruze... at least until NA GM starts making Cruzes and Cruze-rebadges in 2011... or 2012... or maybe 2014, because we still have Cobalt parts we need to use up. According to Wikipedia, Holden is already doing pretty good in the export business... The Middle East is now Holden's largest export market, with the Commodore sold as the Chevrolet Lumina since 1998, and the Statesman since 1999 as the Chevrolet Caprice.[92] Commodores are also sold as the Chevrolet Lumina in Brunei, Fiji and South Africa, to Brazil as the Chevrolet Omega and to North America as the Pontiac G8.[110][117] The long-wheelbase Statesman model was sold previously in China as the Buick Royaum, before being replaced by the Statesman-based Buick Park Avenue.[118] Beginning in 2005, Statesman exports began in South Korea, sold as the Daewoo Statesman, and later as the Daewoo Veritas.[119] Sales of the Monaro began in 2003 to the Middle East as the Chevrolet Lumina Coupe. Later on in the year, a modified version of the Monaro began selling in North America as the Pontiac GTO, and under the Monaro name through Vauxhall dealerships in the United Kingdom. This arrangement continued through to 2005 when the car was discontinued.[120] Holden's move into international markets has been profitable; export revenue increased from AU$973 million in 1999 to just under $1.3 billion in 2006. They wouldn't be the first company to enter the US market first as a rebadge, then later under their name. Of course, in the post-global-GM world, Holden may not have access to all those crappy Opels and Daewoos, anyway. They might have to, *gasp!*, design their own small car... which could be exported here, as well. As far as how long they will have zeta... well, as soon as the GM brain trust implodes and lets Holden control their destiny, they can have zeta as long as they want. After all, it was the best selling car in Australia. GMCBOB mentions that Buick should sell a zeta here, which I have advocated for a while. The Chinese-sold Park Avenue is perfect, as it is based on the Statesman, not the Commodore... so it is a larger car than the G8 is here... differentiating it as a Buick, and it would be perfect for a modern Buick flagship, which could be offered with several great powertrains.

Doubling the budget to do what? A complete redesign and more advertising of wannabe Camcord clones on TV? Great. The UAW will still be taking its pound of flesh and few Americans will be buying without available credit. Oh, and meanwhile a couple hundred thousand sales will evaporate, just like the Olds fans did. And as others have noted, fleet sales still make profit. Probably more so than a mountain of incentives and the dealer's cut.

Agreed. Any modern platform can be made to handle like a dream. If aftermarket companies can make '60s iron handle better than new Mustangs, then GM can use Zeta as a premium platform. Its this bean counter ignorance and blindness that is killing the company. If you need SNOW TIRES on a RWD car to make it through the snow, you DEFINITELY don't know how to drive RWD in the snow. As I type, Jersey is getting 6-8 inches of snow and my mother has stranded the FWD Grand Prix in the yard at the other house. The rescue will likely be done with a RWD vehicle with standard tires.

He mentioned it is a tan and black interior, actually it think GM called it parchment and dark pewter. As a 2004 GP Comp-G with this interior recently joined the my fleet, and me tell you, its NOT like being in a dark hole. In fact, its the cheeriest interior I've seen in a while.

Maybe once Holden is on it's own, they can start importing Holdens to America. If Pontiac is going away, I would certainly support a independent Holden import in America, since GM will only be selling neutered shrunken appliances.