SAmadei

With the dollar in something of a freefall, building cars ANYWHERE and importing them to the US is going to be something of a problem. I agree with what Camino mentioned elsewhere, it was an excuse. Now we are waiting for the vaporous Omega platform? Again, how long are you going to make people wait? Yes, yes, big ol' bankruptcy has stopped GM from making proper RWD large cars from 1996 to 2016? 2021? 2026? Sometimes I think we'll have (mass produced) flying cars first. GM's refusal to even market the Caprice PPV to the general public tells me GM really has no plans to do what they say. Good to hear.

Just because your house is halfway engulfed in fire, and your stupid neighbor with a nicer McMansion sets his house on fire to match, you don't want to douse your house with gasoline when you should be dousing it with water.

Considering the size of the wind turbines just outside Atlantic City, I'd say these wind lenses would need to be insanely huge and would limit the turbines ability to rotate to face the wind.

I agree. I only saw two and both were in juxapostion to a Chrysler dealership that is apparently selling FIATs,,,

I wouldn't doubt if it is idling better with a hotter spark.

I have a genset. Two actually. A gasoline WW2 era one with a flat four and a propane Onan 12K with a cherry low hour Mopar slant 6. Problem is either is overkill and both need work. In time, I need a portable, little generator... but I hate the idea of buying a crappy gen secondhand for 80% of the price of a new one. I just have not been able to find a good deal. Besides, while not working, if I'm unwilling to buy a battery powered hammer drill, I'm probably not in the market for a generator. ;-)

Sorry, Camino, I'm having a good laugh at your expense on this logic, as well. ;-) Good to hear that you're pretty much all fixed up again and the Taho is running great.

I have to pretty much drive a 10+ year old car. Not much else is comfortable/functional for me.

Only French car I ever drove was a friend's Renault Encore... the best lightweight car I ever drove... darn thing could be overloaded to seemingly double its weight and was so simple that I actually replaced the radio head unit WHILE DRIVING THE CAR. Poor thing got routinely parked at McDonalds and somehow hydrolocked out of the blue.

Well, that was a hundred years ago...technology has evolved since then. It doesn't stay stuck at a particular point in time... Uh, no the technology has NOT evolved to the point to replace fossil fuels yet. Fossil fuels still have the most convenence and BTUs per dollar. Technology has caught up, but as I posted in a previous post, your technology still has not bypassed using wood yet. Give it another 25 years or wait until we get closer to the edge and fossil fuels become more expensive. True, it don't stay stuck at a particular point in time for eternity, but it can be slow at times. We used wood for what, 100,000 years? Gasoline is a flash in the pan compared to that.

It would be ideal, but hydrogen is not a good fit for the usual internal combustion engine. From my reading, hydrogen engines produce a lot of heat, and burning it in a Wankel, which has more surface area for the heat to soak into, makes more sense. Apparently, one of the problems with Wankels over the years has been that they are hard to keep warm enough to properly burn gasoline. It seems like most hydrogen powered concepts I've seen lately are all fuel cells... which is a technology I am not sold on. Its a technology a relative of mine worked alot on while getting his doctorate.

Oh, you mean the chrome bumper part... sharp eye.

Not really... as I like the Buick styling less and less and it all looks like a Opel. And being a Riv/Buick would seem to imply it would be FWD. A large coupe would be nice, but how about a sedan that didn't require me to sit 6 inches behind the B-pillar. Or a large wagon. Something like the Challenger with a trunk or a Magnum/Flex that looks better. Wait, wait, wait. BTW, I couldn't care less about the new RWD platforms. Zeta was fine, Sigma was fine... B-bods were fine. I'm not buying a car based on what the dirty parts look like... I am buying based on the driveline configuration and the functionality of the body on top. Looking bad-ass would be a plus. I very seriously doubt anything of Opel origin will ever grace my driveway on a regular basis.

Apple was selling in niche quantities and was virtually given up for dead by the IT industry... but they made the perceptions of the product change and made it cool. Now Apple is massive in 3-4 different markets. I didn't realise GTO, Kappas, G8, Monte Carlo only sold to 6 people in the last decade. Those people must have HUGE garages. The SUV faithful need to come back to roost in a car someday, and GM has nothing roomy for them.

This is the kind of stuff I like... don't see many Omegas, especially SXs. When these first came out ('75-'79 X-bods), I used to think they were such Grandma cars. Now compared to nearly everything made today, they are beautiful and bad ass. X-body sag? I've never seen an X-body actually sag... only super worn (and unfortunately welded in) hinges making the doors sag.

I'm reading that using some masonary nails and a BFH should get me further. Luckily, its only two small holes. Its a shame, I was cutting through the concrete nicely until I hit something... I was hoping there was no aggregate in this part. Keep in mind, I have patience and no power, so everything has to be hand worked or battery powered. My hammer drill is neither. :-(

GM does not make a large coupe... or really, a large car at all. In the CAR range, GM makes a wide range of the same sedans with short trunks and short but tall wagons, called CUVs... plus two sports coupes that aren't really all that useful for much more than transporting two people and a bag of clubs. Drink all the Flavor Aid all you want, GM has thrown out the baby with the bathwater and has become the new Toyota. Beige and boring. Cutting Holden is the next logical step in this progression. Don't get me wrong, Ford is just as bad.

LOL, so drilling some holes on this project, I found I'm drilling into 3/8ths steel and an inch of concrete. Unfortunately, I don't have a hammer-drill. I think I hit some of the aggregate in the concrete and it stopped me dead. :-( Either that, or I have another layer of titanium/kryptonite in there... Any ideas drilling a circular hole into the unknown? Unfortunately, it was getting dark, so I couldn't get a visual. I think I'm going to use some chisels on it to see it it'll break up a little. I can't believe I have another 3 inches of concrete and steel to go.

You know, the more and more I see suicide doors, the more I think they would make it MUCH easier for big guys like me to get into the little tiny sedans GM makes today... like the Impala. ;-)

Even with a good alternator, the drop is there, and costing you brightness... the question is, is it worth doing the work to squeeze more lighting out of one's headlights.

Everything based off that list sucks.

Actually, the Sonic might be quieter, safer and faster than the Chevette... but I cannot physically fit in a Sonic, so its useless to me. I've driven Chevettes... but they were coupes. I also put a giant 25" console TV in the back of a Chevette. I believe in Darwinism. Fewer stupid people helps the species. When does the safety stop... do you wish to be bubblewrapped before you exit the house? The question of automotive safety comes down this... don't allow anybody to move faster than a walking pace. That will be the safety that our public NEEDS if the driving skills continue to plummet. Of course it was caused by CAFE. The rule of unintentional consequences rendered large cars functionally obsolete, but it didn't need to be that way. With the new CAFE rules, I'm waiting to see semi-based SUVs with 25,999 GVWRs and more... I have driven fullsize cars that are lighter than the current Malibu, and nearly as economical. You wouldn't know it the way people drive. I see garbage trucks out accelerate some of the clueless out there. Of course, in our household, our cars all seemed to have balls... and could get from 0-60 as fast at the '04 GP GTP does... but you didn't have to fight the TC on the RWD cars we had. Sure, the GTP will outrun most of our past cars... but I'm not interesting in going fast from 60-100. What good does getting people to buy more reasonable vehicles if the roads are so bad you have to replace it every few years? Studies have shown that our roads are costing us a fortune in wear and tear on our cars. Everyone thinks they are so green to drive a Prius, but the energy used and pollution created in making one car is VAST. One study I remember from a decade ago found that replacing the worst gas guzzling, polluting mess of a car off the road with one new economy car created MORE pollution and used more energy than just keeping the old guzzer running nonstop for 50 years. Some people seem to have this idea of a utopian paradise were everyone is riding around in little Smart cars... its just not going to happen. Some of us need a larger (or largest) car. But nobody makes large cars anymore... so I guess my next purchase will have to be a huge, top heavy truck. Blah. Make the gas tax too high (or use the proceeds for unrelated BS), and people who need big vehicles will start using woodgas again. That ain't going to help the forests one bit.

Lincoln Capri? ;-)

"The member balthazar cannot receive any new messages". Old wood clad in lots of steel. Yeah, even using a jig, it always seems things end up a tiny bit off. I remember a few years ago, I had a situation where I needed to put a series of equal distance holes in a pipe... all parallel. I made a jig, but even though I triple checked it, it was off by maybe a degree... and the drill deflection cost me a degree or so on each hole... by the time I got to the other end of the pipe, I was off by 15 degrees! What a PITA that was. Finally got some acceptable pipes from a second jig and decided to attack the project a different way. Thinking about studs, besides getting them straight, I question the strength of the welds... though I've had pretty good success filling holes, I always worry about penetration. (As I write that sentence, I already can imagine the funny comments, so get your minds out of the gutter already. ;-) ). I fear my welder just doesn't have the power. It would be cool to have a finished project that didn't have any obvious attachments, though. I imagine I'd have to cut the heads off of some bolts to get studs that fit the snuggest.

I was wondering the same thing... but I figured unless the plastic fantastic becomes only skin deep (fiberglass-wise), the Alpha with its unibody design wouldn't provide the strength the Y platform provides... where the frame itself provides most of the strength, moreso than a typical BOF car. Does the current Y-platform really still have a lot in common with the 1984?