Blake Noble

Oh lord.

This is really an apples to oranges sort of comparison.

Autoblog actually wrote the Reader's Digest version of my article.

Go See a F'in Movie if You Want F'in Stunts Wednesday 13th October, 2010 by "black-knight" Advertising. This occupational field has gave us so many great, classic television ads, especially when it came to transportation, be it recreational or personal. Ads, for example, that made us think about . But so many great ads were left on the cutting room floor.That's what I'm sharing with you now, what has to be the best outtake from Ford's era of advertising in the early 1990s. Of all time. Ever. First you'll watch what the route Ford decided to take when they pussied out. Then you'll see the approach that would have been the clear winner. Honestly, I think Ford might have sold more cars and trucks if they took this approach. I know I wouldn't want to mess with a guy who just stubbed a cigarette out on the palm of his hand.

No objections. Go for it.

So there's an AMC revival on the horizon? Tell me more ...

The 30th Anniversary Z/28 and T/A had white leather seats and door panel inserts.

I'm surprised no one mentioned a particular SUV *cough*from Germany*cough*.

These were part of an April Fool's joke, but damn. I'd rock this over a new Camaro or Challenger:

I've never quite knew how to feel about the L-Body Charger, and as for Carter and the '78 Charger ... well, alright. Checkmate.

I thought Chrysler themselves said there was going to be 3.0, 3.3, and 3.6L Pentastar V6s when they released information in their Five-Year Plan? If so, a 3.3L V6 seems to make sense ... EDIT: Checked myself. Yep. Seems there will be a 3.3L Pentastar V6 unless I'm reading the info wrong: http://www.allpar.com/mopar/phoenix-engines.html

When I ran the search last night, we weren't showing up in the results list. EDIT: Ran the search again and there we are ... huh. Strange. I should have screen-capped what I had been seeing.

Okay, Google search "Cheers and Gears" or any variation of that and you'll see we have a curious issue ... Just a friendly reminder, we need a "view older articles/posts" link on the main page.

I meant the President of the United States, smart guy.

I had to edit the post because I had no idea that if you typed (r) into a post it would become ®.

You've been lurking Allpar too, I see.

What Car is a Definite Home(r) Run? Monday, 11th October, 2010 by "black-knight" I'm sure that if you're an average American you've probably watched Fox's long-running animated sitcom "The Simpsons" at one point in your lifetime. I'm also sure that if you're an average American who likes cars that's watched that aforementioned TV show, you know about The Homer, the car protagonist Homer Simpson designed himself for his half-brother's (Herb Powell) domestic automobile manufacturer, Powell Motors. Okay, well, if you didn't before now, now you do and you can see that hunk of fictional American metal in the header above. Now, there's an old saying that goes, "Life imitates art." As strange as it may seem, there have been real Homers produced sometime during automotive history, cars with questionable, WTF! styling, features that really make no sense whatsoever (The Homer had three horns and a metal bowler for a hood ornament), and a demographic that seems to be made up of only one person. I think my vote here has to go to the Nissan Juke. The styling is questionable, to put it politely, and it's supposed to appeal to young men with an "active" lifestyle, meaning they like to snowboard and constantly film themselves doing something stupid to feature on their YouTube channel. As we all know, in reality, guys like that typically drive 1989 Jeep Cherokees, are generally broke, have neckbeards, and only go snowboarding when they decide to load that particular disc into their game console. So what's your vote go to?

trance

More Charger Interior Details: Dodge to Offer Red Seats Sunday, 10th October, 2010 by "black-knight" So, it seems someone over at Allpar had an eye observant enough to notice that the seats shown through the rear window of the recently revealed Charger were a color other than the standard Chrysler choices of gray, black, or tan. (Hey, Dodge was bound to let one nip slip throughout all of this teasing.) When was the last time the Charger offered a red interior option? 1978?

These cars should have a revised version of the 2.4L GEMA four-banger and either a 3.3 or 3.6L Pentastar V6. Although I wouldn't be surprised to see a turbo 2.4 wind up under the hood of these cars ...

A Million Miles to Mid-Pack? Will the 200 and Avenger be Enough? 10th October, 2010 by "black-knight" Chrysler Corporation; out of our three major domestic automakers, it seems that the crew from Auburn Hills lead by a chain-smoking, beatnik Italian has the most to prove to the American consumer. Forget how people constantly deride GM with the "Government Motors" moniker for a moment, the simple fact is that ChryCo built some of the worst American cars of the last few years. Interiors were built from cheap dime-store Mega Blocks. Aside from the Hemi V8, most of the corporate engine line-up seemed to struggle to reach modern performance levels. Three quarters of the corporate line-up seemed to lack serious styling substance. Jeep introduced the Compass. The Neon was replaced with the Caliber. I know all of that wasn't Chrysler's fault, though. If you're really privy to the automotive industry, you'd know that Daimler, Chrysler's previous European partner, simply wanted to use the company as little more than a glorified milk cow, giving it just enough sustenance to keep producing milk (milk meaning money in this case of course) for the greater good of the farm. That business plan carried out by the Germans at Daimler came at a huge cost for Chrysler, though. Eventually everything Chrysler was building was outdated as soon as it went up for sale and people were avoiding the product. Instead of getting milk, Daimler was tugging only to get a burst of dust and a few cobwebs. So what happens when your prized milk cow quits giving milk? You take it to auction. When Daimler put good old Chrysler up on the block, it was bought by Cerberus who only further dragged the company to Hell. To shorten a long story, Cerberus soon came to the realization that they couldn't run a major automaker, so they wanted out. Somewhere amongst the chaos, Chrysler went bankrupt and the good assets of the company were purchased by the U.S. government, who, in turn, brought in another group of Europeans to lead the automaker. This brings us to Chrysler as we know it today. I don't know why, but I've avidly been watching Chrysler over the last few months. I suppose I'm curious if the company can really make a batch of really nice silk purses out of a box of crusty old sow's ears and so far, they have. The 2011 Charger is excellent, the 2011 Durango is excellent. The trucks are great. The Challenger is going to be a real monster for it's mid-cycle enhancement. Of course, ChryCo already had solid foundations to build on here (LX platform was great, the Ram has always been an excellent full-sized truck, and the Durango shares its basic specs with the new Jeep Grand Cherokee), so the work wasn't all that hard. The new V6 is excellent as well. But ChryCo's bread 'n butter sedans, the Sebring and Avenger, are huge jokes. The Avenger is an awkwardly shrunken previous-generation Charger. The Sebring, well ... no one quite understands what that car exactly is other than a insane caricature of a mid-sized sedan. It's these two cars out of the entire corporate line-up that could use the most help. Can Chrysler's mainstream twins be saved? That still remains to be seen. We've seen some rather cryptic teasers from ChryCo regarding the new front and rear-end fascias of the new 200, the car formerly called Sebring. The styling updates draw heavily from the praise-worthy 300-based gasoline/electric-powered concept car of the same name. The updates look great, but how well will they mesh with what has been brought over from the old car? We haven't caught a glimpse of the new interior just yet, but it's a safe bet anything will be better than the current Sebring's. Blocky, cheap, and as inviting as the inside of your grandpa's chimney, the Sebring's interior is one on a list of many turn-offs about the current car. The Avenger, though, doesn't seem like it is going to have the extensive redo that the Sebring -- err -- 200 ... whatever you call it, is going to get. Spy shots surfaced not that long ago only to show a mildly revised snout and some new butt-bling, and absolutely nothing regarding what changes have been made to the interior. Dodge's mid-sizer needs help just as much as Chrysler's and this leaves room for concern. The competition will also be fierce. The upcoming Malibu will surely build on the momentum gained by the current iteration. The Sonata has strangely won over the hearts and minds of many buyers. The new Optima takes whatever the new Sonata has going for it and makes an interesting car out of that. Let's also not forget the Japanese teams have new mainstream sedans on the way as well. I can only hope that Chrysler can turn les enfants terribles into well-mannered choir kids, but will it be enough? Related: Fresh teaser pics of the Chrysler 200

I have never, and I mean never, seen more than four people in a five-seater coupe or sedan. Having two rear bucket seats is, in my opinion, a non-issue as long as you can actually seat someone in them. The Volt's shortcomings are forgivable. If this type of car catches on, then what we're seeing is the dawning of the automobile all over again. Version 2.0 will have reduced weight and better range. A lot of the comments I'm reading are from people who seem to lack the mental capacity to try and see the bigger picture. However, I will say that a viable alternative to/replacement for gasoline will go much, much farther in the long run. Current gasoline-only cars could still be driven and future cars like the Volt will make even more sense.

I think we know what my vote will go to.

On Ninety-Eight's note, let me also drop off my list of reorganized forums from another thread here. Leave some feedback! Forum Information: New Member Check-In Site News and Updates C&G Features (and all current subsections) Top Stories [*]Forum Feedback C&G Coucil The New General Motors Corporation: GM News Chevrolet (parent forum locked to new posts, Future Models section gone) Chevy Cars Chevy Trucks Camaro Center Volt-ometer Zora's Corvette Hub [*]Buick (parent forum locked to new posts, Future Models section gone) Buick Cars Buick Crossovers [*]GMC Trucks [*]Cadillac (parent forum locked, Future Models section gone) Cadillac Cars Cadillac Crossovers & SUVs [*]GM At Large (parent forum locked) Opel/Vauxhall Holden Worldwide Partners [*]GM Historic (parent forum locked) Saturn Pontiac Oldsmobile HUMMER [*]GM Powertrain [*]GM Motorsports [*]GM Merchandise Lookout Ford Motor Corporation: Ford Cars & Trucks Ford Corporate News Ford Europe Ford of Australia Ford Global Ford Historic: Mercury [*]Lincoln Vehicles Chrysler Corporation: Dodge Vehicles Chrysler Vehicles Chrysler Corporate News FIAT-Chrysler Partnership News [*]Jeep [*]RAM Trucks Domestic Independents: Fisker Tesla News & Views: Industry News ("Economy at large" can be served by another forum it seems like; e.g. Lounge/Off-Topic News) The Other Guys European Automakers (who is going to refer to them as "marquees"?) Daimler AG BMW Group Volkswagen Group SAAB-Spyker (can be condensed with forum listed next) Volvo-Geely French Automakers Italian Automakers The British [*]Asian Automakers Toyota Motor Corporation Honda Motor Company Nissan Motor Company Other Japanese Automakers Hyundai/Kia Motor Group The Chinese Automakers [*]Auto Show Coverage (this stays the same, so I won't bother listing out any child forums) [*]Sales Figure Ticker (stays the same C&G Social Central: The Lounge Off-Topic News Politics & Social Issues Rated R Electronics & Technology [*]Member's Ride Showcase Project Car Chronicles [*]Member Marketplace Auctions and Classifieds [*]C&G Tech Section [*]Sponsor Forum C&G Design Studio: C&G Design Competitions (All other sections are inactive and should be removed and condensed down to this one section, kept around for a future use.) Member Showcase C&G Underground The last section has a lot of forums that are inactive or that could be effectively replaced by other forums. "Product Questions and Reviews" could be moved into the C&G Features section or done away with completely. But, basically, you're losing inactive and forums that are largely inactive and no longer seem to be pertinent while gaining forums to make news articles easier to find and hiding them in parent sections to better streamline the main appearance of the forums.