Blake Noble

From Snopes: I'm not going to post it here, but the picture in question is contained within that Snopes article. If you have a weak stomach, don't eat dinner before you view it.

It isn't my intention to be rude, although I am clearly very annoyed that this thread has somehow turned into another big, undeserved Pontiac bitchfest. I will add that I don't see how my last post was in anyway rude to you, however. I was stating simple a few simple facts and my summary of those facts. As for my previous post before my last one, only the first three statements were directed at you and the first one wasn't intended to be taken completely serious. Let's face facts for a moment. When Chrysler merged with AMC in 1987, they had a product portfolio that was mostly unchanged and quickly growing stale. Sure, the K-Car (as modest and largely mediocre as it was) may have been right for Chrysler in the 1980s, but there is absolutely no way it could've carried Chrysler completely through the 1990s. If it wasn't for AMC's engineering brilliance, preserverance, and resourcefulness -- something that Chrysler unexpectedly picked up in the '87 buyout -- Chrysler as we knew it during the 1990s certainly would not have exsisted. The list of ex-AMC employess that began to comprise Chrysler's engineering team in the months and years after the buyout and throughout the '90s was almost endless. In fact, your car owes its very exsistance to AMC. You can't forget it was also the AMC buyout that gave Chrysler the Jeep division. I shouldn't have to discuss the benefits of that. The Diamler merger/buyout was one of questionable circumstance. Many say it happened because Bob Eaton curiously wasn't confident enough in Chrysler's ability to compete on its own. In any case, it was one that had no benefit to Chrysler whatsoever and what led the company down the road to ruin. If it wasn't for Diamler greedily and desperately wanting to know more about how the economies of scale worked in automotive engineering and production, that failed merger probably wouldn't have happened to begin with. I'll also make a note here that my Challenger is largely from that era and is anything but second rate. That isn't any thanks to Daimler though, but even still. Sure, I know it isn't the fastest V6 coupe money can buy and that it's heavy and a little too big. But it's definitely one of the better looking coupes that can get your hard-earned, it handles good, it has good-enough performance, it's been good on gas for a car of its size, and it's been dead reliable. While the alignment with Fiat has helped to turn Chrysler around once again, I wouldn't necessarily say the turn around is because of Fiat and Fiat alone. The Grand Cherokee, the Durango, the 200, the Avenger refresh, the Charger, 300C ... those are all cars that were in various stages of development before Fiat came on board. When Fiat came into the picture, they halted any further production, reviewed and changed whatever details they thought needed to be changed, and enabled their introductions to be sped up if needed. Some cars were so close to being finished, such as the LX cars, they could only change small details. The turnaround was already trying to get off the ground before Fiat showed up. Fiat really just enabled it to happen much faster and much smoother. That's no small feat I know, but even still. It's hardly historic. If any of Chrysler's three mergers/buyouts/whatever were remotely historic it certainly happened the first time in 1987 and never since.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SrjMkeXGfGM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This has happened twice in Chrysler's past before Fiat stepped in back in 2009 (first with AMC in 1987, second with Daimler in 1998). Chrysler being bonded with another major automaker is hardly historic, honestly. A historic event is a once in a lifetime thing. Chrysler has merged with another automaker once every decade for the last three decades.

I'm going to put the brakes on right here because this statement makes about as much sense as me trying to milk my own nipples. Let me start off by saying that I'm a Mopar guy these days and you shouldn't doubt my support for the Dart. However, I won't hesitate to admit that I'm trouble finding the historic foundations of the new Dart that you've somehow discovered. Is it simply because it wears the name of a completely unrelated vehicle that was mothballed in the late '70s? You know, considering the general public of the United States probably doesn't even remember what it had for breakfast yesterday morning, I doubt they're going to associate the new car with the old one. (That's not a bad thing, mind you. Those last few years for the original Dart weren't exactly anything I'd shout from a mountaintop about.) There's about as much history behind the Dart as there is the Solstice. And in what way is the Solstice like the Dart in the first place? Yeah, that's what I thought. Just can it already. All of you. How in the hell did we get to the low point where we're comparing the Dart to the Solstice, anyway? This is all a total mindf@#k for me. And let the record show that I really hate that I've further indulged the generally mindless Arrowhead-induced bickering around here, but I can only stand so much of the trolling and the associated feeding going along with it. Seriously. Stop killing and polluting the site with this crap. I've had enough of it. Let's move on already. Too much effort is being put into seriously turning this place around only to have it be for naught. tldr; I'll just repost something that I removed earlier because I mistakenly thought it was too harsh. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-iDgn6EyHPo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Enjoy your tough love.

Well, if you boil it down, the vents are plundered from the second-gen Neon and first-gen Jeep Liberty. The HVAC control panel is from a Dodge Dakota. The turn signal and wiper stalks are, once again, from the Jeep Liberty. The radio was used in every early Daimler-era Chrysler ever built, same for the window switches. The power mirror controls were also -- yep! -- yanked from the Jeep Liberty. It's a parts bin interior. That's something Chrysler is going to avoid at all costs for the new Viper. It's a car costing $90k and it'll have an interior appropriate for a car of its price class.

All-wheel drive would be nice, but I'm not sure if it's really needed. The Neon SRT-4 was a strong seller and it was only front-wheel drive.

No they won't. I'll agree with SA and say that I think those four particular Pontiacs will be remembered fondly. The Firebird (including the Trans Am) was the sole model that gave the brand any shred of enthusiast credibility during many of Pontiac's dark years. The Holden-cum-GTO may not have been what buyers were expecting styling-wise, but it proved itself to be a solidly built boulevard-crusing coupe with decent performance and driving dynamics to boot. The Solstice wowed the press, especially in concept form, and arguably became one of the best looking Pontiacs to be built in decades. Yeah, yeah, I know you couldn't stuff a dead body in the trunk without first chopping it's legs and arms off, but that's not why you buy a roadster in the first place. The Solstice GXP also was something of a performance bargain. The G8 also was mostly praised by the press and the GXP version took the title of the fastest Pontiac ever produced. With depreciation included as a factor, the Firebird/Trans Am and the GTO are seen as performance bargains for what you can pick up a used example for. The same will be true of the G8 and Solstice in a few years. If there's anything seriously wrong about those four cars is that they weren't advertised properly. Those cars were at the beating heart of the Pontiac brand and GM chose to neglect them. You neglect the heart and it'll stop beating. That's exactly what happened. Stop and look at the fifth-gen Camaro as an example of what spectacular advertising can do for a car. Facing facts, the first Bay-directed Transformers film was pretty much one long advertisement for the upcoming Camaro that came out two whole years before anyone could actually buy it. Then, when people could buy one, another Transformers film came out. If the current Camaro was advertised in the same lackluster fashion that GM used for the fourth-gen model as well as Pontiac, I don't think it would be selling 60,000 units a year. Hold up and think in a broader scope for a moment. Say, for example, you have a very good friend that has passed away. When you think about that friend who used to stick by you through thick and thin when he was alive, you're going to think of all the good times you shared with him and the great things he stood for. You'll think about the postive acomplishments he made when he was still living. You'll choose to remember his best attributes fondly. You won't choose to think about his flaws. You may accept them and maybe even acknowledge them in a conversation, but you'll never focus on them. ... What I'm trying to say though my incoherant rambling is that there are people who don't focus on all of the terrible cars Pontiac has built over the years. They saw Pontiac the same way that you see that good friend. They could see the good the brand had to offer, even when the brand was circling the drain. They aren't exactly denying the bad, they're choosing not to focus on it. After all, no one said you have to let a few bad apples spoil the entire barrel. The things you've listed are also flaws that in no way spoiled those four cars although they did spoil 80 to 90 percent of the line up. Going back to styling since it essentially comprised two of your three complaints, when Pontiacs were slathered with washboard cladding, cartoonish front-ends, and random tumorous growths, the Firebird remained mostly unadorned. As I'm sure the resident ex-Opel employee that trolls these forums will explain to you, the problem with the GTO's styling wasn't that it was horribly bland or hideous, it was just growing old. The Solstice was a clean design that relied on proportions to make a bold statement. The G8 was again barnacle-free and rather handsome. I think it's too early to make this call honestly. The Dart is a great car so far and probably one of the best American compact cars ever built, but it's also a car that we've yet to experience in person. In any case, this is a thread about a new Dodge and here we are talking about Pontiac. We've been down this road far too many times. Let's live and let die and stop picking scabs only to rub salt in the open wounds. What's the fun in that? (I'm not just directing that at you, but everyone else.)

CSUW (as well as the related C-Evo, D-Evo, C-Wide, and CUSW Plus platforms) can fit an all-wheel drive system. There's a chance the Dart SRT-4 can be all-wheel drive, but it's more than likely safe to assume it will be front-wheel drive, probably with a limited slip differential.

A few more I thought of ... Tacoma (Why Toyota named that truck after a town in Washington state is curious.) Olympia (More Washington state goodness from Opel. Yes, I am choosing to ignore Greece.) Monaco (Don't know if it's already been listed.)

Nixon was the first name that came to mind, although the decision he made that would haunt him didn't involve allowing some sort of mandate to pass. Give me a bit and I can think of more.

How about the Buick Somerset? Because when I think of cars, I know the first thing I think of is a large lake community in southern Kentucky.* *although, to be fair, they are the car cruise capitol of KY

If you're a fan of big Mopar muscle, then the recent talk of the return of the Viper has probably given you a big reason to be excited. If so, then this teaser shot just released moments ago over on Chrysler's SRT brand's Facebook page will probably make you estastic. This is probably about as revealing as it's going to be until the veil is drawn back on Chrysler's V-10 powered supercar this April at the New York Auto Show. What we can tell for sure from this image is that the new Viper will probably have much of the same intimidating persona as the previous car. The headlamps will be lined with LEDs and there's a new Viper badge to feast your eyes upon. What will help set this Viper's new skin apart from the old one, though, will be some of the bits you can't see. For example, the new Viper will be the first to feature stability control to keep the government drones at bay. Ralph Gillies, boss of the SRT division, has also said that vastly improving the interior was a key focus point of the new car. There's still two short months to wait until we can see the car in the flesh, although those two months are sure to feel like forever. View full article

How do people in California sleep at night knowing they have elected officials like Mary Nichols? Her exceptional stupidity may just come back to haunt her down the road. Anyway, just add this to the long list of reasons why I wouldn't want to visit California very for very long, let alone live there.

They should just use the "Jet" moniker they've been attaching to all of the blacked out Liberties they've been building lately. I'll also add that I don't much like it. It's rather soft.

Speaking of site issues, is it just me or are things loading a little sluggish at times? Just as an example, it can take up to a minute or two for a thread in The Lounge to load, ditto The Lounge itself when you access from any of the links that point to it.

Isn't there an S-Class somewhere you should be dry humping?

DF, if there was a prize to hand out in this thread, you would win it.

Interesting. Chrysler and Marchionne might be getting cold feet about cutting the Avenger and Caravan loose. It won't be much longer before we know what course of action they've actually decided on, though. For the time being, sadly. The Wrangler is the only true, industrial-strength Jeep left and they ain't pricing them cheap these days. The next-generation Patriot and Liberty are interesting, though. While the Liberty will grow softer, the Patriot will get a little tougher. The Patriot will keep much of the XJ-influenced styling of the current model and grow a little more capable of handling slightly difficult trails. The Liberty ... well, it'll be very different from the current model (imagine a better thought-out and bigger Compass). I think Marchionne is aiming for it to be a bargain basement Grand Cherokee. The CUSW platform (that includes CUSW Plus by extention) that's under the Dart and these upcoming cars is an interesting plaform. From what I understand, it's a fairly modular platform not terribly unlike the old LH platform. I do wonder what that could mean for the Patriot and Liberty. Hmmmmm ...

That's probably HAARP. Maybe. Although I personally don't buy into 95 percent of the conspiracy theories about HAARP, anything is possible.

Actually, if you wanted a Chevrolet version of the Clio V6 RS (hat tip, TJ) here's the recipie you'd use. The normal Clio was/is about the size of a Sonic (subcompact/supermini class), so of course the Sonic would be your base. To make it absolutely livid, you'd throw a turbo 3.6L V6 behind the front seats and convert it over to rear or all-wheel drive. After that, you JB Weld the rear doors shut and throw on some huge vents and meaty tires. Presto! There's your 2014 Chevrolet Super Sonic Boom V6 Sport Edition ZL-RS (or Chevy SSB V6 SE ZL-RS for short).

<iframe width="420" height="315" src=" http://www.youtube.com/embed/xrJuigh2aCc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> It's time to pop a bag of popcorn and sit back and watch countless citizens of the state of Utah conquer a few inches of snow. I also reccommend muting the audio in the video above, bringing up YouTube again in a new window or tab, and playing Benny Hill's theme song just for a little added effect. Notable highlights from the video include a mid-90s Chevrolet Cavalier that does a three-sixty degree spin without hitting anything, a dude stupidly trying to haul ass in his Dodge Dakota, and how both a Trailblazer SS and a Crown Victoria were seriously wounded. ... Okay, okay. I know car accidents aren't any laughing matter. But even still, you have to admit that a lot of the accidents in the video above could have been avoided if the drivers only used a little common sense or just stayed stationary until the roads were cleaned off.

Very interesting. I hate to bring it up, but I do wonder if this has anything to do with the strange noises people have been hearing in the sky recently.

overlook any spelling or grammer mistakes I might make, the Benadryl is making me drowzy The prices used cars are bringing right now are absolutely asinine. Just click on the links below for all of the evidence. Oh, and that $7,000 Cherokee I mentioned earlier doesn't have 110,000 miles. It actually has 125,000. It's also a 2001 model instead of a '99, but even still. 2001 Cherokee Sport with 125k, $6,990 1999 Cherokee Limited with 161k, $4,950 (I checked this one out in person before I got sick. This one is ragged out to the max with a sagging headliner, bad paint, and torn seats, and it wouldn't even start. There's a reason why they haven't uploaded any pictures. This same dealership also had a '03 Liberty with 20,000 less miles for $200 bucks less. Go figure.) '99 Cherokee with unknown mileage and transmission sensor issue, $5,300 (Good old Craigslist dumbassery at work. Sure, this Jeep may have a bunch of mods, but nothing that says it's worth $3,000 more than what it should be.) '00 Cherokee Limited with 179k miles, $7150 (Same story as above, only this guy makes the other dude seem reasonable. It's a good looking Cherokee, but it doesn't look like it's worth $4k, let alone the asking price.) The prices of used, high-mileage Wrangers are even worse than the prices of those Cherokees. You know, I think we're looking at the next (small) bubble to burst: used car prices. There's no way this kind of $h! can be sustained in the current economic conditions we're having to face. That's what I'm starting to realize. Selling that Jeep I had was a mistake and would've definitely been worth repairing completely. You live and learn I guess.

Yeah, from what I'm seeing, it probably won't be worth my time, either. Sadly, Craigslist and Auto Trader aren't producing any results. Who on earth would pay $4,000 for a '97 Cherokee with 170,000 miles? Or $7,000 for a '99 with 110,000? The price on these Jeeps are flat out 'effin stupid. The '07 Patriot that I was close to trading the Challenger down to wasn't that much more expensive. It never ends ...