Robert Hall

Observations from trips over the last couple of years.. Colorado is big..and empty. I've lived here (Colorado Springs, Denver) since '97 and there are still parts I haven't seen. Telluride, Silverton, Durango are beautiful..great driving roads. The road to Lake City is beautiful...lots of twisties. The Four Corners area is pretty desolate. The temp. can change very quickly at altitude. The drive to Aspen over Independence Pass is beautiful in September. The traffic along I-70 when returning to Denver from the mountains can be painfully slow on Sunday afternoons anytime of the year--a less-than 2 hr drive from Breckenridge can easilys stretch to 4-5 hrs at the wrong time. East of the Denver airport is really boring prairie. New Mexico has lousy rest area bathrooms, wide open spaces, and a lot of junk cars near the sides of the roads (I-40, Gallup area). Santa Fe is pretty cool. Shiprock is interesting. NW NM around Farmington looks very economically depressed. I love the drive up to Los Alamos. Wyoming is big and empty. The drive from the Nevada state line to Salt Lake City along I-80 over the salt flats is very unique. I-80 across Nevada (Reno, Elko) is very long and very dull. Ugly terrain. I-80 in California goes through some beautiful areas near Lake Tahoe. Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach are probably my favorite So Cal beach towns. I like Santa Monica also, but too crowded. The drive around Palos Verdes is neat..the bridges over the harbour near Long Beach are cool.. Lots of bling-bling visible when driving through Beverly Hills. The canyon roads north of there are fun (Coldwater Canyon, Laurel Canyon, Mullholland Drive). Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood to the beach is interesting...Bel Air is very green. I truly hate left turns without arrows. LA has a lot of these. Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge in a convertible is a great experience...even on a 55-degree day with the top down and heater cranked up. Parking in San Francisco can be a pain. There is some great scenery in Marin County. There are some great twisty back roads in the forests between Santa Cruz and San Jose, west of Palo Alto. Redwood City is a neat area.. It's easy to get lost trying to get out of the San Jose Airport (getting stuck in an infinite loop on the frontage road). Driving a Thunderbird convertible with the top up in traffic can be a really pain (poor visibility). Traffic in the San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara area doesn't seem to be as bad now as it was 5 years ago. Traffic on the 880 near Berkley and Oakland can be truly awful, even on a Sunday in January. The drive from Monterey to San Francisco on Hwy 1 is very memorable. December after a blizzard is not the best time to be driving in eastern Ohio... Phoenix's freeway system is much better than Denver's. I love the drive from Prescott to Sedona through Jerome (hwy 89). Phoenix has a lot of red-light runners. The roads are great and scenic around Lake Como and Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy...almost as much fun as I had driving the roads along the Amalfi coast between Naples, Sorrento and Salerno in Southern Italy..

Interesting..that Toyota Innova looks like a Highlander greenhouse stuck on a minivan body...and that Chevy Travera sure looks like it has Isuzu Rodeo headlights...

Maybe they will derive the next 9-2x from the HHR.

I wonder what they will do for the next-gen 9-2x... base it on the HHR or Suzuki's Grand Vitara? Something with Daewoo maybe?

Interesting...first I've heard of a relationship between Isuzu and FHI...I thought they were competitors. There is no mention of any such relationship on the FHI or Isuzu corporate websites that I can find..

Hmmm...aren't 1-3 Isuzu and not Fuji/Subaru JVs? Isuzu is not part of the Fuji/Subaru alliance.. Point 5 is being achieved with GM Daewoo...

Hmmm...October means start of hockey season for me.. :) Go Avs!!!

Two things I think could really improve the GP styling across the line are new headlights (the current ones look very cheap, IMHO) and new, non-bulgy tailights and rear deck & bumper shape..the back end is just lacking...

Exactly... the Nissan Armada and Dodge Durango are agressively ugly, IMHO... the GMC is clean and 'professional grade'.... I'd have to say I like the Tahoe front end better, but both look very clean and stylish for large SUVs, IMHO...

I think they will have a smaller market share, but not go away... I suspect a lot of people that really don't need the space or towing capacity will migrate to smaller, more efficient vehicles. People that have always bought 'Burbans, will continue to buy them...

I was a child of the '70s.. Lincoln Logs and Legos when I was little...from an early age (3 or so), Matchbox, Tomica, Hot Wheels, Corgi cars... (my lifelong enthusiasm for cars began early)... 'crash-up' derby cars from Kenner... Aurora Thunderjet slot cars (a hand-me-down from my older brother)... I started building Revell and Lindberg 1:32nd scale snap kits at around age 6 then AMT and MPC plastic model kits around age 8.. Also, I was into Six Million Dollar Man and Star Wars action figures.. Those girder and panel and skyscraper sets look really neat..never seen them before..

This makes me wonder if the Sierra will have a similar face..

That would look really goofy, I think...

The Malibus of that era just seemed like cheap rental cars inside...nothing special.

I like the fascia of 3 with the wheels and color of 4.

Yes...a lot of car buyers chose poorly and now are stuck with depreciating gas hogs...

Wierd... I lived in Michigan 3 years and went to grad school at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mi) and never was aware of problems like this there...and there were a lot of students driving imports... it was very common to see imports amongst the students and faculity alike... (I was there in the mid-90s). Then again, imports seemed very mainstream in Ann Arbor..

There are other places higher...I was in Aspen, Colorado recently...it was $3.58 for regular unleaded (85 octane) there. It's always high in the mountain towns, I've noticed... it's between $2.85 and 2.95 for the most part here in Denver..really hasn't changed much since Labour Day.

One CEO I know drives a 540i, another drives a 750iL, the CEO of my current company drives a Prius, and the previous CEO (before the merger) drove a Caddy Escalade. I have a few coworkers with 3-series, though..

I like it..very clean. I like how the front end is evolved from the Envoy design. I esp. like the sides--very clean and minimalist with only a rub strip and no tacky cladding or other glued-on junk.

Maybe it's bad drivers... I agree... an unusally high percentage of late model Rios, Accents, etc that I see seem to be dented, have broken lights, etc...

Yes, I know..that's why I suggested doing a 2 seat coupe similar to that with the Revell '59 Impala (it's a readily available kit). I have the original AMT '59 & '60 Buick kits..neat models.

Yeah, they were probably no worse that some of the incredibly stupid stuff Ford did like the drop-in gas tanks in '60s Mustangs and Cougars (the top of the gas tank is actually in the trunk!).

You have issues, kid...get lost.

Yep, global economy... I don't know where my iPod was made; I don't care...same for my PowerBook, my Dell desktops, my new Toshiba DLP TV, my Yamaha and Sony home theatre equipment, Weber grille, etc, etc... I know my BMW was made in Germany, my Jeep in Michigan, my Mustang in Michigan... I think my Trek bike was made in the US..don't know about the Shimano brakes, though... My clothes are from all over...shoes from Italy, Denmark, somewhere in Asia... shirts from Sri Lanka to Costa Rica... yada yada yada...a virtual UN in my closet. Manufacturing is distributed all over...companies build stuff where they can get the best quality for the best price.. The biz I work in is distributed...(software engineering)--cubicle dwellers are here, in India, Russia, Israel (my formerly Canadian-owned company is now a subsidiary of an Israeli company) etc...