Blake Noble

I'm just going to try and veer this topic off path: someone 'Shoop a Mercury badge on the new Passat. It channels the spirit of the '86 Sable quite well and it's a little creepy. Before you get butthurt, no it doesn't look like a copy in any direct way, but there is definitely a peculiar aura about it that suggests an '86 Sable ... wonder why?

I haven't paid attention to this particular market and have not been made aware of any drastic changes, so excuse me if I have nothing more to contribute to this thread other than this one additional statement: Seriously?

I'm changing my tune a bit here: this will definitely hold the number two spot on my list of favorite new compact cars, in terms of appearance and features. First place is still held by the Focus, though. The Cruze is a nice car, don't get me wrong, but it's wholly uninteresting. The styling is anti-dynamic, the powertrain options seem silly now that they're in the Sonic, and having one choice as far as bodystyles go ... ehhhhhh, I can think of better cars to spend eighteen big 'ens on.

BE NUMBER ONE! FLEET iPADS.

My Toshiba laptop has an AMD processor ... just for the record.

Am I really that bad at being sarcastic?

I joined when I was 13 or 14, so it had to have been 2003 or 2004 when I first appeared around here. I was under some other user name then that I simply don't remember. I left for some reason, forgot my password, and rejoined on 2005 with another username. Then I remember the big crash and rejoining with yet another username, changing it to yellowjacket, having my account deleted from here, then rejoining one last time and changing my username a few more times. Wow. What a ride.

sarcasm meter error detected

Study the pic a bit closer. I think the joke might be lost on a few of ya ...

C'mon. My wave of POS daily drivers didn't make for a good enough show? S'all good. I'll take the honorable mention title.

Caught this parked out in front of work today. A pic is worth a billion words ...

I can't help to think that we should be thanking Ford for this one. After all, the front-drive Taurus will essentially be replacing the traditional Falcon in the near future. I don't think the Australian market is going to welcome a big, front-drive car so easily.

That's no flying DeLorian. The design is so cumbersome, I don't even know if it even counts. why didn't i run into this researching the article?

Empty Promises: The Top 10 Automotive Technologies We Didn't Get By black-knight (Editor/Reporter) for Cheers and Gears.com Saturday, 8th January, 2011 For over a century and a half, mankind has made amazing strides in automotive technology. The car itself has been an amazing tribute to just how far we as human beings will go to keep our spot right on top of the food chain in the grand scheme of things and to how ingenuitive we are to keep solving problems. However, we sometimes don't exactly lend well to ourselves and push the envelope as far as we have in the past in the name of invention and innovation, and with your help we have chosen a some of the high-tech wizardry we should be driving now but somehow aren't. Now, dear reader, I will say I was hoping you would have been more active in this top ten list, so perhaps I'll allow more time for the next one. Those who did drop a line left very good suggestions and I tried to make sure that none went to waste. On a curious but very understandable note, most technologies named had to do with alternative fuels and propulsion. So, without further adieu, here is what we should have optional or standard as features when we decided we should cave in and drop a fat check on a new 2015 Chevrolet Generica Brougham LS Supreme. 10. Flying cars This one didn't even remotely make the number one spot because, well, if you seriously took "The Jetsons" or "Back to the Future Part 2" (which has eerily proven to be more exact in numerous ways than the aforementioned cartoon) as any indication of what the year 2015 would hold, then you really were living in cloud coo-coo land. Perhaps some people got off on the idea of being able to drive a Jetmobile to their new space-bound apartment, but I somehow fail to care. Perhaps that's a result of being 10 years old when the year 2000 finally hit and I didn't see this stuff come out overnight. Even still, we have been promised this bit of technology for something like 50 years now. At least make it optional, I guess. 9. Side and Rear view video cameras Sure, there are a lot of vehicles that have back-up cameras built into their SAT-NAV systems to show you what's pulling up behind you, but numerous concept cars over the years have decided to answer the question: "Why can't we just do away with mirrors entirely and use nothing but cameras?" With concept cars, such as 2005's Ford Iosis, stepping up to the plate to do so you'd think we'd already have this as an option by now, especially on a few supercars (not naming names, Bugatti) where rearward visibility doesn't even come as an option. 8. 90 percent reconfigurable interiors The old Ford Visos concept had a particular simple and rather clever feature where interior comfort and lighting could be adjusted to suit the driver's mood. Feel like driving a ballpoint pen into your boss' tires? Well, hold that thought, slip behind the wheel, fiddle around with a few controls, and relax in your car and don't think too much about how he asked you to stay late when you already clocked 20 hours of overtime. It almost sounds like a safe alternative to smoking. Then there was Ford's Model U concept from 2003 (which was so clever, some of it's features have allowed it to make multiple appearances on our list) that had just about every surface of the interior covered with integrated tracks to mount a variety of different storage bins to or to simply throw the seats around should you take a huge fit to play musical chairs in your car and then proceed to live in it. 7. Better intercooling systems Forced induction systems (read: turbochargers and superchargers) are becoming a standard feature on more and more engines lately to keep small displacement powertrains from being incredibly underpowered. Air-to-air and water-to-air intercooler systems currently in use are slightly ineffective. One day, though, a Ford engineer decided to tinker in his toolshed to come up with a neat feature shown on the 2004 Ford SVT Lightning concept called "SuperCooler technology" where the air-con system cools a spare, small bottle of coolant and then proceeds to dump it all into the intercooler when you mash your foot down on the throttle. The result is a decent increase in performance figures versus current layouts. Ford, incorporate this for the next-generation EcoBoost engines, 'kay? Thanks. 6. Recyclable materials Ah, so here the Model U makes it's second appearance. The cheeky little runabout had the clever idea of using organic, recyclable materials in its construction in areas where it seems to matter. For example, the rear tailgate skin was made partially from soy beans. The foam used to cushion the driver's arse was also made from soy beans and the lubricants used to oil some of the moving parts of the car were made from sunflower seeds. Mmmm ... tasty. Well, in a different kind of way. 5. Reconfigurable platforms Don't worry. This list isn't exactly in order of importance because most everything named so far seems to be fairly important, so yes, this one can be considered to be ranked fairly high up on the list. If you will, care to think back to 2002. GM introduced a massively impressive concept car dubbed the Autonomy, which sat upon a platform that looked like a gigantic skateboard that housed all of the vital hardware for a car. So, say you wanted to convert your Caprice Family Truckster into a Silverado Custom Deluxe, all you had to do was show up at your local hometown Chevy dealer and drop a fresh body on that same platform. How's that for versatile? The later Hy-Wire concept built upon those premises with a conventional looking package (but had an eerie cavernous interior due to the lack of any physical hardware being in front of the driver). This was 2002? 4. Weight saving measures in mainstream cars Oh, boy, have cars gotten fatttttt over the years. For the record, a brand new 2010 V6 Camaro has about the same curb weight as a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu. The Camaro is a unibody pony car with a smaller engine that uses some pretty flashy technology while the Chevelle is a body-on-frame all steel car with a cast iron small block V8 that's considered to be quite the boat in size by today's standards. Yikes. Sure, that go-fast red two door thing tacked to your bedroom wall might have an extensive use of carbon fiber, aluminum, and magnesium, but so far the common man hasn't seen such exotic materials in his four-door sedan by Fridigdare since, well, ever. With CAFE regs becoming more and more strict and, as a result, increasingly idiotic, mainstream automakers have told us newer cars will be going on a crash diet ASAP and yet Buick's new Verano compact car is a hefty little boy that has a fuel economy rating of just 31 mpg highway. Childhood obesity indeed. 3. The Chrysler Turbine car (yes the entire car) This brute of a car was indeed years ahead of its time, which is what more or less what lead to its ultimate demise. It looked surprisingly normal, behaved like an actual car should, and was powered by a turbine engine that had few moving parts and could run on any combustible liquid you could pour down into it, which was proven when the Mexican president ran it on a bottle of cheap tequila. Think of it as Mr. Fusion for the 1960s and, by the way, I'd love to see what a bunch of hill folk could run it on. You could get every last bit of the 425 lb-ft of torque out of the engine at an earth shattering 0 rpms although it only produced a weak 130 brake horsepower (diesel engines, eat your heart out). Chrysler built 50 of them, couldn't figure out how to make it comply with pollution regs, then killed it. The design of the car would be reprocessed into the first Dodge Charger and Chrysler would later on develop a new turbine engine that was air-friendly and thrown under the hood of a Coronet. Chrysler kept at developing this new powertrain until it was almost production viable and would make good under the hoods of a few '79 LeBarons. Then it asked the U.S. government for its first bail-out, after which The Feds told Chrysler that a turbine car was "too risky" and to put an immediate halt to the program. Hmmmmm ... 2. ICE and Fuel-Cell Hydrogen Powerplants Like rear-view cameras for mirrors, so many concept cars had this particular feature: the ability to run on Hydrogen. The Ford Model U. The GM Hy-Wire. BMW took a 7-Series out to a Bavarian barn and made it run on it. Honda had one or two concept cars that could do it. Chevy had the Sequel. Hydrogen is combustible, renewable fuel source that doesn't have nearly as many drawbacks it used to have and produces water clean enough to drink as it's only emission. Why wait until 2018 to see an affordable production car run off of it? I think it's time we see this happen much sooner rather than later. 1. Alternative fuels Solar power has been around since, well, we had a Sun to get it from. The wind's always blowing. Someone who really liked to play "Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake" as a teenager actually made fuels from algae a reality finally. We're thinking of ways to make fuel from chocolate and, speaking of food, McDonald's is constantly throwing out free fuel if you own a diesel-engined car. Then there is Hydrogen which we just touched on earlier. We do have E85 Ethanol at filling stations ... but not all of them and, hey, shouldn't all cars have FlexFuel technology rather than some of them? I think it's safe to say we're all sick of paying $3 bucks in hard-earned change for a gallon of Dino juice, and we already have dozens of replacements lined-up, so why we can't fill our tanks with any of them?

Balthazar, Buick did what DF is describing on the Lucerne. Three per side meant you bought the creaky old 3800 and four per side meant you were doing it right and bought the Northstar V8.

Thanks to everyone who participated and sorry for overshooting my deadline (you should have taken advantage of that!). Results will follow shortly.

The Camaro's clutch had up and died and I'll be $800 poorer. Luckily, I should recover most of that money with my tax returns. The Liberty was a bit disappointing, by the way. It wasn't too uncomfortable, but the stability tends to be a touch bi-polar. Perhaps the fact the one I drove needed an alignment had a lot to do with that. I'm also going to go the extra mile to be picky and say I'd rather have the Renegade model with the upgraded front fascia should I buy one.

To warrant more responses, the thread will be closed at 5PM EST today. C'mon! Keep the posts coming.

Empty Promises: What Mind-Blowing Automotive Technologies Didn't You Get? By black-knight (Editor/Reporter) for Cheers and Gears.com 23rd December, 2010 It goes without saying that since the automobile became a way of life (in whatever degree of capacity it is depending on the person), automakers have always chosen to make the sky the limit on what technologies the car of tomorrow (read: concept car) should have and, more often than not, they also throw in a promise that those nifty futuristic features will come optional or standard on a brand new car at your local Hometown dealer within your lifetime. The hype is huge and, inevitably, you begin to look forward to the day where you can buy a new Malibu from GM with automatically tinting windows and rich Corinthian whale hide hubcaps. Sometimes, though, promises fall short and become empty. When that happens, you're left holding the bag on that shiny new Chevy pickup that can transform from a regular cab pickup to a two-door K5 Blazer and you begin to think maybe that twenty-five grand in change you were going to put down on it should just stay in the bank after all. It's utterly disappointing, almost depressing even. So, in this open discussion, let us know which bold, brash, and totally kick-ass automotive technologies that you were left out in the cold on. If you agree with a particular post, please use our post rating system to promote it. At Midnight, Friday, the 7th of January 2011, the open discussion will be closed and the posts rounded up for a tidy Top 10 List that will follow the next afternoon. Now boogie down with your bad self and hunt-and-peck your suggestions out.

It is an interesting car, Camino. I did drive it after I found it and it's a great car. No issues that I could find and I was really going over it with a fine-toothed comb. But after having so-so luck with this last F-Body car ... well, I just don't know. Love the soundtrack. Seriously. I spent five minutes figuring out the title track one night after I had first watched it.

This is a game we play a lot in the industry I'm heavily involved in right now. The rules are simple: is the first guitar fake? The bottom photo is the real deal. No cheating. The answer might surprise you. I will add that my disdain for the flooding of Chinese-made products in our market is just as massive as anybody else's here. I will also add, though, that since I've played and tried out one of these "Fibson" guitars, it's shaken me a bit. See, Gibson guitars are very hit and miss right now, in some instances even worse than when the company was owned by cement giant Norlin during the late '60s, '70s, and early '80s. Quality isn't very good, traditional and proven designs are being changed for the worse, and new designs are pointless and insulting. These fake guitars are sometimes better than the real deal, which is very disturbing, and can be had for about the price of an Epiphone guitar (which, ironically, some of the Chinese plants that are building Epiphone guitars for Gibson are also building these fakes, a horrible practice that is burning Gibson raw), sometimes even less.

2011 is getting off to a very strong start, which is good ... but I fully expect for it to crash and burn come December.

BV just blew $1200 on a new camera, I'm going to blow a total of $1700 on guitars soon ... could the economy actually be improving? Well, damn. Call the papers, someone.

My, my, how could I forget such a quality vehicle from the EXCITEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! division? This one was also built below the Peninsula, so there might be a chance I could get randomly shot at by a man with a duck's ass in platform shoes. Damn, Pontiac sure knew how to maintain it's rep because what will get the adrenaline flowing better than driving around in a state of constant paranoia? One problem: the 2012 Malibu isn't out yet. You know how Top Gear's advice works; whatever Clarkson says, you're supposed to do the opposite of. Funny you should mention that ...

I think with the first one I was going for a truck similar in concept to the '01 K5. The bottom one was more traditional and, as a result, looked far more clean I think. Combining the two and upping the quality of the sketch would make one hell of a decent looking Blazer.