Robert Hall

The Escalade is an obese pig, it belongs on there...the Veyron is an obese novelty..so few of them, it barely matters. Odd to see the M3 on that list.

That's how my mom and dad have described it over the years... it's a great place for a vacation, but I don't see how I could ever live there full time.. it's far too isolated...no high speed internet, no local culture to speak of, no decent cuisine within an hour, not even the basic amenities of suburbia I'm used to--the nearest Starbucks, Best Buy, Target etc are 50 miles away. It's in Tuscarawas County, in the foothills of Appalachia... Only farmers, Amish, rednecks, gun kooks, etc around...no high tech companies or computer industry people like myself..

This reminds me of my family's place in Ohio...rural eastern Ohio, about a 2 hrs south of Cleveland, 1 1/2 hours west of Pittsburgh...nearest town is 250 people, 5 miles away. 150 heavily wooded acres, a 4500 sq ft house, 1500 sq ft guest house, 4 outbuildings (incl 2 2 car garages). Two ponds, one 6 acres, one 10 acres. My folks have owned it almost 40 years.I spent a fair portion of my childhood there. Today, I can't really stay there more than a few days.. it's so deadly dull around there. Nothing to do. No place decent to go out to eat.

One place in Europe I fell in love with is Stresa, a small town on Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy, close to the Swiss border. Beautiful alpine scenery, the lake, islands..very relaxing. I'd love to spend 6 months there every year, and maybe the other 6 months in the heart of London, my favorite big city.

The grille brings it in line with the Malibu front end..

That steering wheel in that GP looks like the one from the FWD cars.. I like the wheel from the early 80s GP...a 3-spoke with big round center pad, aluminumish trim on the spokes..

Nice..I forgot the SHO came out as an '89...

Ah, yeah..I forgot about the Celica XX/aka Supra. I haven't seen one of those in probably 15 years or more.. I liked the second gen Supra also quite a bit (still a long-nosed Celica). My sister had an '86 300ZX..they were okay, but I much prefer the '90s version (she had a '91 Turbo for a couple of years). I saw a goregous dark blue 560SEC the other day...love those cars.

I vaguely remember watching it as a kid in the mid '70s...a white bread San Fernando Valley family...seemed like of a '60s style show that carried over into the '70s. It had the unusual twist in that the kids were step siblings--the wife was a widow w/ 3 girls and the hubby was a widower w/ 3 boys or something like that. I remember the hilarious Brady Bunch movies from the '90s with Gary Cole.

GM RWD B-bodies GM RWD C-bodies GM RWD A/G-body coupes '85-89 Camaro IROC Z '85-89 Firebird Trans Am/GTA '82-89 Mustang GT '85-89 Mustang LX 5.0 '84-85 Mustang SVO '83-86, '87-88 Thunderbirds (esp. Turbo Coupes) '89 Thunderbird SC '83-86 Cougar LTD Crown Victoria Grand Marquis Town Car FWD Buick Electra T-Type '80-85 Caddy Seville '80-85 Caddy Eldorado '80-85 Buick Riviera '80-85 Olds Toronado '80s BMW 6 series, 7 series '80s Mercedes S-Class (SEL,SEC), SL '80s Porsche 911 SC, 944 Turbo, 928 Ferrari Testarossa I can't think of any '80s Japanese cars that I really strongly liked.

Lots of California transplants here... lots of transplanted Midwesterners like myself. Lots of immigrants--Hispanics, Asians. My county (Denver county) recently became more than 50% minority..

Selling a car can be difficult.. Best car I've ever owned...probably the '96 M3. Compact, light, fast, great handling. I'm debating selling it in the next year or so, though...I've had it since '98, it's probably the most all-around enjoyable car I've owned...but I'm toying with an upgrade...trading it on a used E46 M3, an E39 M5, Boxster S, or '90s NSX.. My '87 Mustang GT has been a lot of fun also over the last 20 years, but it's had many things go wrong over the years...will never sell it because of it's history. For a daily driver, I'm thinking of keeping the '00 Grand Cherokee for winter and the mountains, and getting some sort of sedan..either a luxury sedan, sports sedan, or (the most far out idea) an ex-cop car.... I want to check out the G8 and '08 CTS closely. But there are several other cars I like that would make a good daily driver...a late model Panther---Lincoln Town Car, '03-04 Mercury Marauder, or Crown Vic LX Sport or P71 Police Interceptor all are appealing to me (radically different cars from the CTS or G8, though).

Good to see Buick do so well.

Speaking of offbeat names, friends of mine named their daughters Pearl and Ruby...like the programming languages...they wanted 'Perl' but went with the more conventional speeling. Another friend decided to name all their kids with 'Z' names, so their 3 kids are Zoe, Zak, and Zoltar. Another named his sons Tristian and Tristian 2.0. We computer geeks have a strange sense of humour...

Hey, I'm a Prince fan..thought of changing my name to 'Dilbert' or 'Cubical'

I saw them last night at Red Rocks (great concert venue). I've been a fan since high school, but had never seen them..great show.

$16k seems pretty cheap for the Astra, esp. if it's well equipped.

Ah, yes. I guess I would weigh whether or not it the $800 fix would keep the car going long enough to be worthwhile... my experience w/ cheap beaters is that they are money pits (everyone I know that's had one seem to be dropping $250-500 a month in them in repairs).

Well, it's about 2 car payments.. $800 is about what I paid when I had a brake job all the way around on my Jeep a few years ago.

I think Saturn is actually on a good path currently... I don't think ressurecting a dead brand name would help. I would keep the Buick brand, but get it some new, modern cars ASAP..not sure what to do about Saab.

Speaking of the brands, does anyone have a quick rundown of CY 2006 GM US sales numbers, broken down by brand? I'm curious where Buick, Pontiac, Saab fall relative to Saturn, etc...

Saab is an interesting brand..one thing missing from their current line are the hatchbacks, which were one of their strongest points in the pre-GM era, IMHO. Saab could be potentially be marketed to the entry-premium market, against Acura, Volvo and the lower end Audis, i.e. brands where FWD and AWD are widely accepted.

I thought the Aurora (both generations) was quite competent and a very modern (and nicely styled) car for it's time... and the Intrigue was the nicest of the '90s W-bodies, IMHO..

It's funny..my parents' first new car was a '49 Ford... and my mom used to have an '89 T-Bird SC. She's 75 now, and has an '05 Lincoln Navigator, '96 Lincoln Town Car, and a '90 Mustang LX 5.0 convertible. I wonder what she would think of that T-Bird w/ the 49 Ford front/rear...

Nothing wrong with that...seems like a faithful reproduction of a 356....unlike the mutant T-Bird/49 Ford.