Robert Hall

But you keep repeating the same rants (RWD, BOF, hardtops, blah, blah, blah) over and over and over again. How about trying to freshen up your schtick, find other subjects to discuss? Besides, you'll never buy a new car, so why bother posting in threads about subjects that aren't 30 years old?

Rust isn't a problem in Colorado or Arizona... but I still don't see very many '80s GMs FWDers like the J-cars around. They seem to have all gone to the crusher by now...

Taillights remind of recent VW designs...the rear door lower shape reminds me of the G8 and other recent GM designs...interesting. The greenhouse arc reminds me of the Ion.

Saw a new SL also the other day, dark gray...looked great. Saw a gray Maserati GranTurismo today..beautiful car. Saw a blue Smart FourTwo also.

pie

Aussie

I've never really cared for minivans, since I don't fit the demographic and don't have a need for one, but I thought the Ford Windstar Limited from around 2002 in black w/chrome wheels was a sharp looking ride... black minivans are a fairly rare sighting.

Is Invicta coming for MY 2010 or 2011? Anyone know?

True enough...I know a guy with an early '90s Prizm that has over 350k miles....still looks decent inside and out. One thing you have to give Toyota credit for, I think, is that they do know a thing or two about building durable small cars and small engines....

In 10 years in Colorado, the most common SUVs I knew my 20- and 30- something friends and peers to drive were Cherokees, Grand Cherokees (what I drive), 4Runners, Xterras, and Frontiers....the Liberty less so.. and in Colorado, a decent number go off road. Your couple car juxtaposition reminds me of my buddy Tony and his wife...when I first met them in '05, they had a late '90s Jimmy (his) and a '90s VW Golf cabrio (hers)...now, they've had their first child and he drives a Prius and she has a Highlander hybrid... For unusual car mixes, a couple whom are my closest friends in Colorado have an '02 Maxima SE (his), '91 Acura NSX (his baby), and a '99 Dodge Intrepid (hers, strangely, she's from So Cal and drives a Dodge!). She's thinking of trading it soon on something like a Murano, as they are trying to have their first child. His 40th birthday is coming next year, and the car he's looking for as a project? A '69-72 Grand Prix! (they have a 4 car garage, so that's doable).

I don't think anything's been announced since the show car, but that is the working assumption.

I never really got the market positioning of the Nova and Prizm... it seemed to overlap with the Cavalier and other GM compacts. There was also an Isuzu rebadged compact (Spectrum) that more-or-less replaced the Chevette. Another twist is that for a few years, the 2nd gen Cavalier (around 95-97) was sold in Japan as the Toyota Cavalier.

Before that, even...around 1985, they started badging a Corolla variation as the Chevy Nova... it was the first model built at NUMMI, IIRC.

CTS coupe? CTS wagon? G8 ST? I assume those 3 will be out before CY 2010...

Similar observations here from my experiences in the Denver and Scottsdale areas....I'm in my late 30s, educated (college and grad school) and in the computer industry, hang out with a lot of similarly educated tech industry people in their late 20s to early 40s, and it's pretty much the same....midsize family sedans are usually a Honda or Toyota with the occasional Passat or Altima; luxury cars--usually an Audi, BMW, Infiniti or Lexus; SUVs---Jeeps, 4Runners, and the occasional Xterra or Pathfinder (esp. in Denver, which is heavily SUV-centric). I notice very few pickup trucks or domestic cars of any sort. I'm trying to think of any modern GM owners in my circle of friends and colleagues in both metro areas--- I know one guy with a Tahoe as a family car, another with a late model Escalade, and another with a Trailblazer and a Rendezvous (wife's car). One colleague had a late '90s Cavalier coupe, but traded last year on an Infiniti G37. I've worked with a couple of guys with older Camaros and one with 6 '60s-70s GTOs, but both are north of 50.

One would think the interest in minivans would spike, since they are usually lighter and more fuel efficient (and more practical) than CUVs or SUVs.... which of course is ironic since Ford and now GM have gotten out of the market in the US...

I wonder how a turbo HF V6 would compare to the V8 in weight? (for that matter, how does a current regular HF V6 compare to a current corporate pushrod V8 in weight?)

No offense taken..I probably came off sounding like a pr!ck... I lived in the Pittsburgh area (Steubenville, Ohio) in the '70s/80s and in the Cleveland area in the late '80s-early '90s..I have seen the results of deindustrialization first hand---the decline of the steel industry, the decline of coal mining. The key thing I learned is you don't stay around expecting the jobs to come back--you have to go where they are. After grad school, I got the hell out of the Midwest and went to where the high tech jobs are(Go West, young man, as Horace Greeley said). I truly wonder if manufacturing will ever come back to the Rust Belt, even at 1/10th of what it used to be...I kind of doubt it. True enough..amongst my friends and peers, I'm the token American car fan---all my friends and peers buy Japanese or German...

Ina (Ina Garten, Food Network's 'Barefoot Contessa')

Collecting multiple of the same year or generation of a model is fun....my parents had (Mom has them now) 3 '67-68 Cougars w/ 3 different engines (289,302,390), 3 different transmissions (3spd manual, 4spd manual, 3 spd auto), different trim levels (2 base, one XR-7). My brother has 3 '79-85 Mustangs ('79 Indy Pace Car, '82 GT, '85 GT). I have my '87 Mustang GT and '69 Mustang, but I'd like to add an '86 LX 5.0 notchback and '70 Mach 1 eventually..

babies Hmmm...'Babies with Rabies' could be a good name for a punk band or something (Edit: later googled and found it actually is the name of a punk band out of D.C.!!)

Cool, if you can afford the gas... (maybe 12 mpg?)

That wouldn't be practical in the Real World <tm> (how many people would buy a new car and swap the engine out? 0.000001 percent?) . Not to mention doing so it would void the warranty and probably wouldn't pass emissions tests...

Saw a sight today that will be probably more common with the gas prices as they are--- a couple streets over someone has a late model Dodge Ram crew cab 4x4 lifted on monster tires w/ chrome wheels for sale in their driveway marked $21k. It's going to be pretty hard to sell a POS like that these days.

Yes...a total waste of money, resources, and time.