SAmadei

Even better are those little rubber door chocks. I used a couple of those on one car for nearly a year before I got the correct part to fix the window.

This is what happened in the Mianus River Bridge disaster in CT... the entire deck was supported by a pin and hanger... and when two corroded and broke, bye-bye bridge... whats scary is that there were only three of these types of bridge in the country... and one of them is in my backyard... the Garden State Parkway bridge over the Great Egg Harbor River... well in the mid-ninties during an inspection it was discovered that some of the hangers had broken, and luckily no two were on the same deck-load... but it still closed that thing for a while. Scary how many times I drove over that.

The front clips are the same on the GP and the other fullsizers, so I think just a grill and headlight hardware swap would be needed. Most of the body is the same but the rear sheetmetal looks like an oversized '68-'72 A-body... lending a compact, squat look to it. Plus they all had that bizarre toupee style vinyl roof. Over the years, I've seen every commonly producted GM car somewhere... I didn't know these existed until I saw it in a book! And yet, GM built 31,711 of them! Since, I've only seen one in person. GM only made 20,000 '74 Rivieras and I've seen them all over. Ah, heres one...

Considering the cost, the TripleTreds last a LONG time... 80K warranteed (and one of mine hit 110K), and while the old AquaTreds degraded quickly with wear, the TripleTreds performed well to the very end for me. This needs to be factored in if you are planning on keeping the car/tire combo for a while.

I think someone just grabbed a '68 Grand Prix grill and installed it on a '68 Catalina... I considered doing it to my '68 Cat convertible to get a sort-of phantom '68 Grand Prix convertible.

The US keeps out RHD cars by having then fail federalization based on non-existent crash tests or emission tests. As I understand it, RHD vehicles aren't outlawed simply because they are RHD. There are newer RHD gray-market cars in the US, they just are not real practical.

I'm surprised those axles didn't break off while filming, as much fatiguing they are being exposed too... Lots of stress on the C-clips and bearings as well... someone will be loosing a tire very soon. Of course, I question... Why are we selling all the cool cars to the Middle F-ing East?!? Seems to me that they have the "freedom" to buy cool GM cars and we don't, so the terrorists have won!

I knew it was rained out, and I wanted to introduce the hobby to my GF. You going to the Atco Pontiac show on Halloween? I used to hit that one, but it was usually scheduled so late in the season, it is hard to sit on metal bleachers at 40 degrees!

Funny, as I see most people using their Volt like a Prius for a long time... as rural or long distance drivers are going to have to gas up and most urban drivers, except those with a dedicated parking spot, are going to have to wait until the big cities put in some sort of charging infrastructure... which I think will be a long wait. My GF has a situation that works for the Volt... owns a condo with a garage in Brooklyn, and rarely ventures outside Brooklyn and Staten Island... so a Volt would work for her without nary a drop of gas for months. She can afford it, as well. But I think she is in the vast minority.

ARRRGGGHHHH! I knew there was something I forgot about this weekend!

My order is similar... Pontiac clear #1, followed by Olds at 2. Chevy and Buick tie for a distant 3rd. Chevy ends up here due to sheer popularity and models never really exploited by other brands... like the Corvair and ElCamino (yeah, I know about the GMC Sprint)... generally a Buick of the same platform will trump a Chevy for me. Cadillacs are last.

See, I disagree... I've felt white hides a car's good lines... which is why so many classics were made in darker colors... blacks, navy blues, Verdoro green. I feel that some cars... G8, Camaro, classic MC's look good in ALL colors. How else could a old Monte or the "Crank" boattail Riviera wear a diarrhea brown color and still look great? My problem with colors is that most are like belly buttons... everyone has them. The only popular colors I like are Black and Red, but Red is too much of a cop magnet. I abhor white, silver and greys... again, way too popular... but boring. Sure, black is popular, too... but at least it is sinister and badass. The colors I REALLY like are the unusual ones... Purple, Yellow and Midnight Blue as on the new GTO. The Stealth Blue on the '08 G8. Even the fairly common medium blue on the GF's Corolla.

Well, I wouldn't read too much into that... I'd really rather tinker with the '95 Caprice or a new G8... The Bonne was undergoing a rather intense overhaul, and so got some upgrades. IMHO, the 3.8 is the only tinkerable FWD engine, due to the hordes of Grand Prix hot rodders, which the Bonne shares alot of DNA. In fact, I recently found a way online to upgrade the H-bods to F-body brakes and W-body strut upgrades... but I'm not sure I want to go that crazy. Of course, the '04 GP GXP is due to get a supercharger pulley upgrade, but I'm still on the fence how much... my mother drives that, and so any upgrades need to be easy to live with. But make no mistake... mom wants to go fast. ;-)

I like the last gen Bonne, but it feels more cramped than the '99. I think I'm going back to RWD cars, however. I don't consider the Series II intake to be that bad of a problem. Its a reflashed ECM. The HV3 intake insert and larger throttle body run better than stock, and the computer can't extract the full power with the stock ECM programming. I also considered upgrading the rocker arms and/or the rear exhaust manifold, but that would also really require a ECM tune... which can get pricy. Tranny is original, but is giving me some CEL codes from time to time and going into 'safe mode'. I suspect it has begun the long, slow death watch... supposedly flushing the tranny fluid will only accelerate the problem. At that point, the car will likely be parked until I can give it a real drivetrain. Or I'll get a 4T65E-HD with a Limited Slip Diff... I get tired of spinning the passenger front wheel.

Liking Fisker more and more... with the split grill, it might be my next "Pontiac".

Its black, actually... it was staying pretty sharp. However, those wheels are a bear to keep clean... and on top of that last winter it grew a bunch of scratches from the neighborhood's kids and the paint on the grill started falling off that was the tipping point. SLE... all the appearance of the SSEi, but without the engine and some of the highest options. Of course, with the HV3 intake insert and hogged out throttle body, it is getting close to the supercharged powered. It really needs a ECM tune and a less worn transmission. The '04 GP GXP is still faster, but not much.

The Bonne is still catching up... 206900 as of yesterday. Actually, I think I got the attachment system figured out now. I missed a step last time... The before and after... someone needs gas and a dashboard dusting... The poor car normally is filthy and doesn't get a opportunity of much of a photoshoot... but I had this rear shot on the camera and it looked pretty good.

Was this on one of the Gran Turismo games?... that looks real familiar, but I'm not sure.

Oh, well, a microwave is slowly becoming, IMHO, the worst appliance even invented. Its for people who like their food incinerated in spots and frozen solid in spots, with no taste left whatsoever. Beyond the basics... reheating soup... a microwave is useless. Yet I still use the thing. Damn you microwave for your convenience!!!!

Its a shame, as I like the DLP systems, but they just haven't fixed the bulb problems. Was yours at least quiet? I've heard many DLPs have noisy fans or color wheels. Are you sure that the keeping the brightness low helps bulb longevity? It might decrease it, just as brown outs hurt computers. I would also check to see it the fan is running properly... cooling the bulb definitely extends the life... on the DLP projectors we had idiots blocking the fan vents and it resulted in burnt bulbs, overheated components and melted plastic... we are lucky a fire didn't break out... those bulbs are HOT. Unfortunately, you are not going to get a 52" LCD for $250... so I'd spring for another bulb, and try to keep fingerprints to a minimum (they create hot spots on the glass)... perhaps in a year and a half your situation will be better and LCD/LEDs will have become even cheaper. Unlike CRTs, which always had a price floor due to the high price of building a Cathode Ray Tube itself, I've felt that LCD/LEDs will eventually get obscenely cheap.

Move close to a Quiznos. Mm mm mm mm mm... toasty! ;-) My GF just got a kick-ass convection toaster oven, but I haven't used it. I've heard that once you go convection, you never go back. I usually just use my oven or the slot toaster... my kitchen is too small to keep a toaster oven set up and ready to use. Funny how an appliance you never needed suddenly becomes a necessary part of the collection. Makes you wonder what you are missing without a juicer, bread maker and a George Foreman grill, huh? ;-)

Hey! Hey! Hey! That is MY rant! I can't count how many Sunday afternoons I have crested the GSP interchange to see a massive traffic jam at the big 3->2 squeeze and had to dive across 5 lanes (two ACE and 2 merging from the GSP) to get onto the southbound GSP to exit 37 and had to take 322/40 westbound to the other house. I'm SO glad the season is over. The 2 lanes are being expanded (at last!), started in September, but not much construction is visible yet. It will be in four stages, starting at the GSP (exit 7) and eventually going to Route 73 (exit 31), where a lot of traffic exits. They promised us this expansion at least 5 years ago. The sjta.com website has details. For trivia sake, the GSP south of Toms River to Somers Point is also undergoing a lane expansion... FINALLY! Its the Atlantic City Expressway (on the police car, its the little icon of a red flag inside of a life preserver... its kinda hard to make out. A better picture is here.) The ACE is the lifeblood of Atlantic City from the Philadelphia area, as the other two major routes are seriously clogged with local traffic (RT322/40 and RT30). We also tend to abbreviate the Garden State Parkway (GSP) and the New Jersey Turnpike (NJT or NJTP), as all three freeways have no public numerical designation which would be shorter to type. These three freeways DO have numbers... but using them (NJT - route 700, GSP - route 444, ACE - route 446), but nobody knows them, and would have NO idea what you were talking about. ;-) We now return you to your regularly scheduled Camaro cop car goodness...

This is great news for the Alge->Gasoline faithful.

Goodyear has had some tire sales, which help the TripleTred price. I actually happen to have my receipt sitting on my desk from my last set... $128 each. Of course, these are 225/60-R16 97H, not sure your size. Hmm, almost 40K on them already. Edit: Wow, that 17 tire is expensive... my size is $118 now on Tirerack...

The Atlantic City Expressway sticker (like the one on my refrigerator) tells me I'm going to see these EVERY GODDAMN DAY. Enforcement on the ACE has been WAY up in the last couple months... there was a nasty accident in which it appeared a brand new fullsize Mercedes rolled several times at very high speed, hitting several other cars, and I think that has triggered more speed enforcement, which had been nearly nil before on the east end of the ACE.