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Drew Dowdell

Editor-in-Chief
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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    That's a bit disingenuous. The Eldorado was a very different car starting in '67.
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Yeah, the weight has to be coming from somewhere else.
  3. Drew Dowdell
    This will get me crucified around here, but I still think the Taco is the best truck of the bunch. The GM twins have outdated and compromised interiors, the Ranger has no V6 and an old interior. The Taco's interior is comfortable, the V6 has sufficient (if not neck snapping) punch, and it's off-road version is tried and true.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    100 lbs is certainly enough to tip the rounding up.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Sadly, the Canyon Denali is an even worse deal
  6. Drew Dowdell
    Did weight go up?
  7. Drew Dowdell
    I just can't get into the Ranger because of its interior. It's a 2012 Fusion inside. The Colorado/Canyon feel just as outdated but they have it worse with some pretty terrible seats for taller folks like me.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    Looks like the faceplate for the boiler tubes for a steam engine. But you live in Amish country... there is good homemade furniture everywhere!
  9. Drew Dowdell
    There was a lot more competition, even when GM had 50% market share. Back then, even GM divisions were competing against each other. From the 20s to the 60s, there was extreme competition just in the domestic market You had GM with 6 or more divisions depending on which year you counted. You had Chrysler with 5 divisions. Ford with 5 divisions. Packard - Studebaker Nash - Hudson - Metropolitan / AMC Kaiser Frazier - Henry J - Willys International etc etc etc.... and that's before any of the imports. Today we have a GM that is down to 4 divisions with relatively little overlap, Ford with just 2, Fiat Chrysler which is a mess except for Jeep and Ram. Today the Ford Fusions has domestic competition from the Malibu, Impala, and Charger (if we're being generous). That's before all of the import competition in that segment. I'm not sure I could count the number of competing domestic products for the Ford Fairlane range. Ford had at least 4 competing products from Mercury and Edsel, GM probably had another 6 if we count everything from Chevy to Olds. Another 6 from Chrysler. That is 16 competing nameplates from just 3 companies. But once imports started gaining a foothold here, the domestic companies could no longer fund that inefficient style of operation.... did GM really need however many different V8 designs it had in 1958? I get that some variation is warranted, but a completely different block between a Chevy, Pontiac, Olds, Buick, and Cadillac is just horribly inefficient. Cut that down to 3 blocks that all divisions can use and change the tuning or cams to allow for brand specific needs.... tada! That's where we are today (5.3 liter, 6.2 liter, 4.2 liter) In order to reach that economy of scale, the manufacturers would have to reduce their portfolios to just two or three platforms and try to cram everything on just those platforms.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    I think that would have been the old Yaris... you're not wrong about it being a POS, but it's not the better Mazda built one available today.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    Yes, Toyota is selling the Yaris sedan, built by Mazda.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    It really depends on the car for me.... I would very much enjoy both of those vehicles. However, for the cars I normally go for (CT6, XC90, S90, Jeep GC), the vroom vroom noises aren't what they are made for.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    Because 'Merica. But you have a decent point... would this change Ford's idea of building Focus in China.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    You already said you'd like an XC90. You can get that as a plug-in hybrid. I'm sure it's just a pricing thing.... same as me.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    Tariffs on Japanese imports wouldn't make sense... not that making sense is a prerequisite for the latest round of tariffs.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    This is true... Honda intentionally under-produces to avoid a situation with excess inventory. They brag about having the lowest rental fleet sales in the industry partially for that reason. I don't think they care about winning the volume war, they aim for per-unit profitability, thus aim to keep margins high, not just the lights on.
  17. Drew Dowdell
    I live in a fairly cloudy city and there are definitely days where I want the sunshade over my sunroof.
  18. Drew Dowdell
    German collusion with Americans in my driveway.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    They're an in-between. Not full luxury, but not a pedestrian brand either. That is actually their traditional spot in the market hierarchy. Buicks were the cars for bankers and doctors who wanted a fine car, but didn't want to be ostentatious by driving a Cadillac or Imperial. I'm fine with Buick maintaining that position and I think their pricing needs to be a bit less ambitious to match that.... And for Eff sake drop that horrible 2.5 liter.
  20. Drew Dowdell
    Depends. The Lacrosse and Enclave certainly are. Envision is possibly debatable... but it is certainly priced like one. Base price is only $3k away from the Lexus NX and the moment you select a real engine (2.0T), you're automagically over $42k, which is more than AWD NX, RDX and same price as a MB GLC with a similar powertrain (2.0t + AWD).
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Used luxury sedans depreciate so quickly, I regularly see nicely equipped C-Classes for around $24k. I see just a couple of Envisions for that price, most of the used ones are in the $29k and up range.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    Even if the administration gets its wish and more vehicles are built here, the cost of those vehicles is going to be higher. Not all lines can be flex lines that build any vehicle in a manufacturers portfolio. It's cheaper to have a line that is dedicated to pumping out Camries than it is to have a line that has to do Camry and Corolla and RAV4 and Prius and......
  23. Drew Dowdell
    The Forester is one of their best sellers too. This would put the nail in the coffin for the BR-Z. I'm surprised the Toyota numbers are as high as they are, but that must include Lexus as well.
  24. Drew Dowdell
    Going through my collection of old Life magazines.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Not much fault you weren't paying attention to what I said. I'm interested in a plug-in. I mentioned a number of them by name and acronym. You're the one trying to twist things.
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