SAmadei

It amazes me just how willing folks are these days to make this most dangerous bargain. Most people couldn't care less...as long as they can keep w/ the latest news on the Kardashians, play Farmville, get their fast food, they are happy... This is why people need to understand exactly how much of their income is going to feed the beast. Get them to understand that they can have 25~50% nicer stuff, more Kardashians, better Farmville, faster fast food by shrinking government... and then the resized government simply cannot afford to micromanage us anymore.

I have a feeling that eventually insurance companies will pull something like they do with home insurance... so that if you don't have updated electrical, they won't insure your house. At some point, this logic applied to "features" like ABS, TC, black boxes, etc. will make it difficult to insure a car with standard insurance... relegating older cars to limited mileage collector insurance.

Correct about Opel, but not about Holden. Holden didn't have the production capacity to build 100K/yr of GTOs or G8s... and both had to fight insane dealer markups initially. Be interesting to see what the Chevy dealers do this time around... and to see how much Holden capacity Chevy will be allowed to leverage.

Are you serious? If that is the case, why is the Nissan Leaf not exempt? Oh, BTW, those toddler toys are highly regulated nowadays.

For starters, just because the phone lines are a publicly shared utility, your phone conversations are not public. Talking on the phone has a certain expectation of privacy and that's why wiretaps required warrants FIRST. Our founding fathers would have beat you senseless with a telephone handset had they heard your reasoning. Second, the police can search your car without a warrant if its operated on public roads if they have probable cause... so perhaps they need a search warrant to download your black box if the car is on private property, but how long before the probable cause clause is used to download black box data on the spot. In any case, the police can impound your car at virtually any time and get a search warrant at their leisure. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ...Good 'old Ben Franklin put it best 235 years ago.

The faux mustache makes it kinda hipster. Love how the rear taillights are a tip of the hat to the classic Family Truxter.

TGIC (Thank God Its (a) Coupe)... Very nice and I'd say the Buy It Now is a fair price. If someone doesn't BIN before it hits the reserve, I could see it going over the BIN price, once it starts to get attention on eBay.

Some local company years ago was repaving secondary roads with recycled roofing materials. Claimed to have a way to reclaim all the roofing nails and etc. before it was put on the road. But it was a fiasco. Flat tires galore, all of which the municipality had to pay for.

First, its a '90 GP, not a '91. You know its not a trim package, its a Garrett turbo upgrade with a special tranny. $5000 option back in 1990. Only 2000 made in 1989, not sure how many for 1990. For 1991, I think it lost the McLaren name, but the turbo option was still available. Unless I'm overlooking something, this was the highest HP engine GM had in a FWD car '89-'91 and only the F-bods and 'Vette had more... only about 30 hp more.

DMV might reject it was FTW also stands for F*** The World.

The only one I ever owned isn't finicky at all. Its like 15 years old, and fires right up, regardless of what vanish it has to run on. ;-) OTOH, its never seen rain. I used to have a lot of problems with the Snapper B&S old style carbs not wanting to start... seemed like I spent half the summer taking them apart to soak and clean them out.

Simple. He left the mower out in the weather. One of my friends went through like 4 mowers in rapid succession over a couple years... each a Tecumseh with that style carb. I don't know why the water gets in it, but after I pronounced the 4th mower too far gone, they admitted they were keeping them under the deck _when_ they didn't just leave the thing where they stopped cutting grass (frigging kids). Afterwards, they emptied out the shed and put the next mower in there, and they haven't seemed to have a problem since.

Now that non-F-body GM RWD stuff is getting really hard to find, The fading last of the RWD T-birds and Cougars are getting my attention. But I doubt I can ever willfully buy a Ford.

How can this be!?! There were at least 4-5 C&G members fawning over this engine! At least two talking about how great the reliability of the engine would be. Yeah, Chrysler needs to fix this ASAP, but there are few all-new engine designs that don't have some problems, so I wouldn't hold this against them yet.

If I understand the South Jersey Gas tariff correctly, its about 64 cents a GGE right now.

126.67 cu ft... 114,000 BTU. At 3600 psi, its only 0.51 cu ft.

How are we rising up? Occupy gets laughed at by the media. And meanwhile, the only Presidential candidate who would work to change the status quo can't get past Mr. Fancy Hair.

Buick "Titanic" offerings where within 3% of Chevy's comparable offerings. There is a reason old people like big and cushy cars... they have a lifetime of common sense and are tired of the frustration of not fitting things in the car, feeling every bone jarring impact on our decidedly non-Autobahn roads and having the ability to pilot something larger, which our young drivers seemingly cannot, even with the benefit of good vision. Well built is a sign of the times. Even crap cars can make a quality-like clunk when you shut the door nowadays. We'll see how well built they are in 20 years. You cannot fit 4 suitcases (assuming four men) in the trunk of the Regal unless they are fanny packs. If its four women, you know they need 8 of the largest suitcases on the planet and 4 carry ons. You'll need a second Regal. Only when its strong. Boring styling is boring. That's 2011. We are living in 2012. Look at the month-by-month for Oct 2011 to April 2012. Down 10%-20% every month compared to the year before it. Meanwhile, other brands and companies seem to be doing better during that same period. Designed by an American in America? Where was his immediate boss and the approval committee? It seems to me that since you can make a Regal into an Insignia by swapping nameplates, badges, manuals and a grill, it was still designed to be a nondescript Opel first. And as a Saturn, it would have been fine. Saturns (exception of the Sky) have always been foreign wannabes. Lets see how American the Regal/Insignia is... Insignia won the European Car of the Year 2009, Best Executive Car in the UK and Slovenia, Best Family Car in Ireland and best fleet car (LOL!) in the UK, Austria, Denmark and Portugal. 500K Insignias have sold in Europe in three years. Regal won the... *crickets* and has sold 61K in the US in three years (12K, 2010, 40K 2011, 9K so far in 2012). Regal sold 79K in 2009 in China... seems more attuned to Asian tastes than American.

Oh really? Most of those cars sold in numbers GM couldn't imagine today. They weren't perfect, but that was the bean counters, not the designers. Interiors made of cardboard? The best musclecars had interiors made with vinyl covered cardboard, and so did the Japanese in the '80s and early '90s. It was EPA fears that made GM put underpowered engines in everything. GM could have maintained its edge by keeping their cars on a proper updating schedule, giving them better powerplants and upping the overall quality about 50%. I strongly disagree. The Century looks great compared to that Opel Mediocrity, which came out in 1988, NOT 1982. You don't expect 6 years to make something look a little outdated? Again, its GM's bean counters who like leaving products out on the vine to rot for years. At this point I would show photos of the J-body Ascona, T-body Chevette-era Kadett, or the T-body Daewoo LeMans-era Kadett or plenty of others. You know there is a reason Jezza refers to most Vauxhauls and Opels as rubbish. GMNA cars had those design "rules" as noted in Lutz's book. While they may have been ridiculous, they produced cars that were distinctly GM and hence, American... even when GM tried to "Europeanize" various cars (Olds, Eurosport, etc.), they still looked American. Next, the descent of the designer is not what determines how the overall flavor will be. Larry Shinoda is of Japanese descent, but the '70 Boss Mustang and '68 Corvette are both quintessentially American. If GM's cars 15-30 years ago didn't stand out in traffic, its because since between new sales and survival in the used market, traffic was a sea of mostly GM cars in the first place. Only recently has the number of GM cars in traffic become scarce and its cars hidden so well.

Ah, I thought it might have to do with your road tripping, but I also recall others helping you with it. I figured it is labor intensive, unless someone wrote a web scraper.

Interesting. This car is normally parked on a barrier island or driven to a second barrier island. Neither islands have too many rodents or squirrels. Either the seagulls, the foxes or falcons seem to eat all the rodents here. I suppose it could have happened during a visit to the rodent-infested mainland. Food for thought, if I decide to replace the thing. Right now, I have bigger fish to fry... this is a minor annoyance.

So, IIUC, on the last gen Grand Prix, the rubber ducky antenna at the front of the roof is the OnStar, the small truncated sharkfin at the rear roof is the XM antenna and the AM/FM antenna is in the rear window. Has anyone ever had a problem with something breaking/chewing the end of your OnStar antenna off? Today, I was inspecting the car, and it appears something has chewed the end of the antenna off... which is hollow, so water was getting in the car. I'm stumped how this has happened. I know the antenna was whole before. Keep in mind, this car spends all its time in areas with few animals, so I'm at a loss how it happened. I asked Mom if she drive the car rapidly under any REALLY low bridges, but she can't think of what happened, either. I don't think it was vandalized, as that is a stupid thing to break. I doubt the rubber rotted in the sun... as the wire inside was broken and the straw-like support was mutilated... or did it? Thoughts?

Well, I did not have a beef with Opel until they started taking over GMNA design. I like the old Opel GT, for example, even if I have no hope of fitting in one. Obviously, I do not like the costs Opel is occurring. Why spend all this money in Europe when we have perfectly fine and likely underemployed automotive designers here in North America? I have an America first thought process, and understand the need for global platforms, but its my feeling cars for the US should have their designs finished here, at a minimum once the global platform and major parts are set. And with Europe headed down the toilet, its my feeling platform work should move back here, as well. I imagine US workers are simply cheaper in total cost than the Europeans, and US workers spend their earned money here. Next, while you guys woo over the new Opel cars, I see them as externally boring and internally tiny... and not particularly American in style. Sure, they look better than the Toyotas, but barely. I'm not impressed with Nurburgring tuned suspension unless its a $50K+ supercar. Sorry, I pine for the days when GM cars stood out in traffic. The Saturn Astra was awkward in the rear roofline and the headlights with the random lighting elements getting lost in the enclosures was awful. The wagon or a real OPC would have been a nice offering, giving the dreadful Buick lineup a little spice. Unfortunately, Buick used to be arguably the most American of the American cars. It no longer is... and to me, Buicks are just trying to copy a bunch of foreign styles, slap a waterfall grill on it, portholes and a sweepspear. That said, I still like the idea of thinking of you as Charlie Sheen. JK! It doesn't break down?!? Whats the logic with that? The oldest ones are scarcely two years old. They better not be breaking down. Plenty of non-Opel GM cars have held up two years. Or did I miss something where GM said they will never break down? Sure, its probably the nicest looking Opel right now, but its too damn small... and those four fat adults better not be planning on bringing much with them. I loathe Toyota, but the new Camry is starting to look better to me. Oh yeah, shame that GM's boring generic European brand that can pretend to be almost any other GM brand (Holden, Saturn, Buick, Vauxhall, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo) might pickup a little flare after the designers are forced to study John Gunnell's Standard Catalog of Buick 1903-2004 at gunpoint. Its only taken half a century (no pun intended) for Opel to pick up some style. In the meantime, Buick sold its soul for Saturn's, and now month-by-month sales have suffered for 7 months as everyone else grows. Will there be a both a new Regal and La Crosse when they are selling at 30K/year and 81K/year levels? A new LaCrosse, yeah... if Buick don't get the ax or the starvation treatment in the meantime.

So.... has the sales ticker reporting been purposely discontinued?

Apparently inspired by the recent Lincoln 4x4, it seems someone wanted something with a bit more Mopar flavor... Sorry, only photo angle provided.