Robert Hall

Not really a vacation, but I did a nice little Northern Colorado loop (about 200 miles round trip) on Saturday...drove up to Ft Collins to visit a friend for breakfast, then over to Estes Park and down to Boulder for lunch then on home...some great twisty road driving in the M3 on US 34 and 36. I counted 25 Priuses (very popular in Boulder)... saw 2 Insights (don't see those often)... a number of bar-coded rental Auras and a couple G6 convertibles. Lots of rental cars in the Estes Park / Rocky Mtn National Park area.. I saw a couple M5s (an E39 and a newer one)..... As far as oldies, I saw a sharp silver blue '64 Caddy 4dr ht, a goregous dark green '71 Buick Centurion convertible, a clean white '68 Mustang coupe, a clean white '68 Cougar, and a very clean red '69-70 Suburban. That sounds like a fun trip... I've been to Oregon just on short trips, mostly in Portland. I want to take a couple of weeks some summer and drive out from Denver through Idaho to Oregon and Washington, sight see and visit friends there, then drive down the coast to see friends in the SF area then either back across the 80 or on down the coast to LA then back to Denver via Vegas....but I'll need a convertible for that trip, I think.

I've been to two funerals in the last two years..both were for coworkers that were my own age...which is a bit disturbing to see 35 yr olds dying. One died from a car crash and the other died last year of a heart attack. One odd thing about the second one was the # of people that I later also saw at my best friend's wedding earlier this year (my coworker that died last year had been my best friend's roommate in college). A Jewish funeral and a Jewish wedding within 6 months of each other...both were very interesting and memorable experiences for me. When my father died at home of cancer in '99, it was both sad and a relief (he had been fighting cancer for 2 1/2 years)..

IIRC, Chevy briefly offered a diesel Caprice at one time also. Speaking of the Olds diesel, my buddy in high school that had the '81 Delta 88 diesel replaced the engine in '87..he and his dad put in an SBC w/ a 4bbl carby....I remember it having a tough-sounding exhaust note.

And people who have to deal with heavy traffic every day... I could definitely see a paddle-shift or full automatic version of the CTS-v being viable... I love manual transmissions, but can certainly understand the preference for an automatic when sitting in traffic in the daily grind. Sticks are great for the weekend fun drive in the mountains, but in the daily grind..ugh.

Same here.. I've never been drawn to buy a product because a celeb is in an ad for it. I've never done the named shoe thing either..I can't even think of who I've ever seen in ads for my favorite brand of shoes (Ecco).

Nah..it's an Italian restaurant in Greenwood Village (Denver suburb).

Speaking of texting, for some reason a couple of weeks ago I got a series of messages like 'Ill pick up the dry cleaning' 'see you at 6', 'dinner @ Venice?'... I looked closely at them and realized they were from my former manager...he was texting his wife and sent them to me instead. Maybe her phone # is similar to mine (I know they use Verizon also).

I don't recall getting pure spam, but I do get messages from Verizon occasionally trying to get me to upgrade my plan...

I think mine (US model) had a 2.0L and was rated at 52hp. It got a steady 55MPG at 55MPH. I remember I really liked the steering and handling, compared favorably to a friend's VW GTI (of course, I was a teenager then, before I had discovered the joy of old-school RWD V8 cars...(I got my first 5.0 Mustang when I was 17).

Interesting..I'm not sure if I can recall ever seeing one of those.. I know they did a diesel Ciera, but how about the other A-bodies? Were there diesel Celebs and Centuries? I had a couple friends in high school that had full-size GM diesels..one an '81 Delta 88, the other an '80 Fleetwood Brougham. I had a Ford Escort diesel (Ford supposedly used the Mazda diesel in the Lynx, Tempo, Topaz and Ranger also, never seen any, though).

I would assume the next generation of Cobalt and G5? (Delta II or whatever?).

I miss the guy in Mass. that was into Saabs (was that Budman?), chromium steel was interesting... remember the crazy guy from the UK that wanted 4cyl Corvettes? I don't recall his name. I remember Razorsedge, don't really miss him, though--he was so negative and whiny about everything... I definitely miss the GM insiders that had secret inside rumours and stuff..

I'll probably wait until Netflix has it.. I usually like Adam Sandler movies. The two I'm looking forward to seeing on the big screen in the next couple of weeks are the Simpsons movie and the 3rd Bourne movie.

Yes...I'm amazed GM got away with selling such carbage...

Yeah...I wonder if that was due more to driver demographics (younger, more reckless drivers than the 4drs) than structural inadequacies..though based on what I've seen of crash test videos, the S-10 Blazers were as crummy as the Astro or Chinese cars..

It's the pic..it's listed on the packaging as an '84. I remember those cars from back in the day, but don't remember exactly the year-to-year grille changes, so '84 sounds ok. I think it's from the same tooling as the '83/84 Hurst Olds JL did a while back.

Yeah, the market for 2dr SUVs has pretty much died out. I used to have a Bronco II and my mom had an Explorer Sport..they were ok, but I much prefer the 4drs of my Grand Cherokee... 4drs are just more practical for loading and unloading passengers and stuff from the back seat. I'm liking the new Wrangler alot.. it's amazing how different the base model looks from the Rubicon, primarily due to difference in tire size.

The worthless f*ck should be suspended now, IMHO. If he's found guilty, he should get the chair (or worse).

Too bad GM doesn't have something this stylish and cool in the subcompact market..the generic, styleless Aveo doesn't compare favorably..

Yes...what amazes me is that it took decades to build it.

Obese...we are the fattest nation on earth....

True, but considering they are American--the land of obese people--that the cars and SUVs are heavy and getting heavier is a given..

Agreed..plenty of choice is a good thing. But I do wonder how brands like Isuzu or Suzuki can stay afloat in the US market... (i.e. do they turn a profit?). I love seeing the high dollar, low volume models here...the world would be a lesser place without rolling art like Maseratis, Aston Martins, etc...

Acura has it's own niche, I don't think it will have the volume of Lexus or Infiniti, but in it's on way it fits nicely along with other FWD/AWD near-lux brands like Saab and Volvo. Acuras are a nice step up from regular Hondas.

Mitsubishi seems barely there... not sure what value Kia adds (seems largely redundant w/ Hyundai). And what about Suzuki and Isuzu? Invisible.. I don't see any of the European brands leaving, though Saab seems to be barely a blip on the radar these days..