oldshurst442

My favorite is 1. Summer 2. Fall 3. Winter 4. Spring Yeah...I hate Spring. Spring here is schizophrenic. It doesnt know if it wants to leave behind winter or summer to start and just BE Sping. Sometimes Spring doesnt exist and it goes from winter to summer. March is the worst. For 2-3 days its summery feeling and the next is the worst kind of winter. It could be well BELOW freezing or it might blizzard a few feet of snow only to melt the next few days only to repeat the process. Then April comes. We might get snowfalls in April, but its the slush that rules the roads and sidewalks in April. Its ugly and disgusting. I LOVE the seasons and weather in Montreal between the the first week of May all the way to mid October. Mid October to the first week of January is my second favorite. From the first week of January to the first week of May is my anathema. I love the warm, spring is in the air almost summer aura that the month of May gives us. I love the warm to slowly cooling air and the fall colours that Autumn gifts us equally. But my happiest time is the summer. Love the sun. Love heat.

We got 10 centimeters, 4 inches, of snow last Wednesday. But it melted away on the streets as the weather has been frolicking above freezing. There are parts that are slushy, and I HATE slush. Its just so dirty.

-2 Celsius here. Google tells me -2 C is 28.4 F. Sunny. Snow in my backyard but not on the streets. Id say its a pleasant day here. I wouldnt want to be in Buffalo NY though. Perfect now that the storm is gone. The ski slopes over at Stowe Vermont are probably rockin' with all that snow. But clearing all that snow must be a bitch. With that being said, I am looking forward to Montreal's first snow storm of the season. None in sight so far though.

There was a thread about Chevrolet's new commercial featuring its EVs with Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere as a song choice. I LOVE that song. And I keep seeing the commercial. So kudos for GM and Chevrolet to actually MARKET their products... But...Imma gonna post MY Chevrolets that I associate with the time period of the song. Looks like my dad's Celebrity (Wanted to do a 1987 Eurosport, but I saw this one. 1986. Iron Duke. Yeah. This one makes the post!) And we got our first snow fall of THIS season today. A S-10 Blazer 4x4 to finish the thought.

Yes! But to be fair, Cadillac HAS been doing exactly that. The CT4 and CT5, ESPECIALLY the V versions are fantastic on ALL fronts of the standard of the world equation. Room to improve. Of course. But it doesnt seem like Cadillac is letting off the gas pedal so to speak. The Lyriq's quality fit and finish and attention to detail seems to have left off where Cadillac's current products are, and then some.

Well, not quite. Mind you, I LOVE the Crosstour. The 5 Dr hatch Fusion actually doesnt look all that different from the regular Fusion. Its actually sleeker, but the profile is the same. Not quite a hatch look to kill any success from American natives hatin' on hatchbacks. But actually very sleek to counter the SUV craze. regular Mondeo/Fusion Honda Accord Crosstour. Wierd and ugly. It is unMISTAKENLY a hatchback which is killer for an American audience UNLESS its a CUV or SUV. The Crosstour doesnt evoke ANY SUV-ness and its too proud to show itself as a hatchback. The Acura ZDX is weirder and uglier, and it actually tries to resemble a CUV. I wont post pics of it...because its too out there design wise. It wanted to be too much of a SUV coupe thing to ever succeed. At least a BMW X6 had that gangsta vibe to it. Russian mob badassery about it. The sedan Acoord is actually quite nicely styled. A bit boring, but Americans seem to like their boring Japanese family haulin' sedans. And the coupe was surprisngly a success story...when FWD coupes were an almost extinct species. So... in my opinion, I dont think a Fusion 5 Dr hatch would fair all that badly. I think it would have sold more than what Honda mustered for the Crosstour.

The 5 dr hatch is what this car needed. My wife and I would have most appreciated this. The trunk is huge on the Fusion but the roofline is too coupe-like. The opening is also huge but the problem is that roof-line cuts in too much into the top of the trunk and one cant access the back of the trunk too well. Huge trunk opening.... And huge trunk is But its a deep trunk and the back of the trunk is a bitch to get to.

Yes and no, about Cadillac doing minimal effort on the V version Escalade. While Cadillac could have put more engineering effort in the AWD system to work better with the suspension set-ups, especially when the Escalade has the magnetic shocks, to make the Escalade a faster quarter-mile warrior. The question to ask though, is: Does Cadillac really need for the Escalade V to be a faster vehicle? Its composure during the quarter mile run is not confidence inspiring, true, but at the same time, the Escalade V doesnt really need to compete head-to-head with a HELLCAT Durango. In the video, which I saw last week, Thomas says (the Briish dude, not the bearded Canadian dude) that if you never sat in the Escalade, you would never know how DOWNMARKET the Durango is. THAT is one POWERFUL statement that means only one thing, one vehicle is a Dodge, and the other is a CADILLAC. While its true that its a V Cadillac, its strength as a vehicle lies not with it being a V Cadillac, but it being a Cadillac. At the end of the day, the Durango is a Hellcat after all. Losing to a Hellcat in a drag race is not that big of a deal. The Escalade V is still the second fastest SUV in the world. Not including the EV SUVs. The Hellcat Durango gives fits to EV SUVs... Like I said, not that big of a deal if the Escalade V is not tuned to be a drag racer. What WOULD have been a problem is if Chevrolet made a Tahoe SS version and THAT SS version would have behaved in the same manner the Escalade V behaves. Then Id be inclined to agree with you. At the end of the day, the Escalade V is crafted beautifully inside and out, worthy of THE Cadillac badge. The V Escalade sounds mean. Its loud like a Hellcat engine. Its actually louder and meaner...and its hella fast. And THAT is good enough for a V designated Escalade.

As a Fusion owner, a 2013 1.6 ecoboost version, there were far too many recalls to keep count. Like at least a dozen... So I know first hand what is what and could assume safely that Ford rushed the Fusion to production and had too many nagging issues to fix after launch that cost FoMoCo several millions. EV transitions and sedan sales diminishing and one could see why FoMoCo decided to axe a 250 000 unit/year sedan. Fusion would have probably been a sales leader right now as the Fusion is a right sized sedan and good looking to boot.

And since we are in this frame of mind

I heard that Jay Leno got severe burns to his left side of his face when one of his steam powered cars hissed some gasoline on him. He is alright, but no word on how severe the burns are. If plastic surgery will be needed to repair any unrepairable skin. Im sure happy that he is alright. I like Jay. I like his comedy. I like Jay even more when it comes to his car knowledge. A song for him. The song just popped into my mind thinking about his accident. And I believe this to be his favorite (sports) car. The car and the song go together well as its from the same time frame. Abouts in the 1994ish time period.

What a difference in how an expression of love is being made by these 2 different genres of music we both posted. Both musically and lyrically. I appreciate greatly both styles. Im not into country all that much. A song or two here and there. But Shania Twain, Canadian and all, does just fine with me. Although I gather her version of country is more pop more than anything. She inspires woman power more than anything feminist today. But what do I know?

I was being facetious. But you were talking about a 1986 and 1990 Calais as uninispiring. Talk about uninispiring when looking at this new Accord though, right? But...dont be tooooo in shock if Honda actually axes the Accord. Or even the Civic. The LX trim of the Civic has been nixed for 2023 raising the entry price for a Civic SIGNIFICANTLY... The Civic sold 260 000 units for 2021. Ford CANCELED the Fusion with those sales figs... The CRX sold 100 000 units more than its equal platform mate which is the Civic. If Civic sales go down, and CRV sales go up, and the Integra doesnt budge the needle with nostalgic folk, and the TLX doesnt entice folk, which really doesnt...both Honda sedans might get nixed when their EVs are going to be hitting the streets... Hyundai/KIA is cleaning up everybodies lunches... Hyundai is doing to the Japanese and German car makers what the Japanese car makers did to the Americans and Germans in the 1980s and 1990s... The Japanese car makers are NOW producing the so called unispiring products GM, Ford and Chrysler were producing in the 1980s and its Hyundai and KIA that are capitilizing on it. Hyundai design is hip and fresh. Japanese design is old and tired.

I think we, as Americans and Canadians, are just a tad too harsh with the FWD offerings from GM during the 1980s. The N-Body during the mid-1980s, Pontiac's Grand Am and Oldsmobile's Cutlass Calais, were, in hindight, good looking cars. They were economical compact cars. FWD. But they were pleasing to the eye especially as compared to their contemporary Japanese equivalents. We should put to rest the anger we felt for GM going all FWD. We should also put to rest the anger we had for GM the crappy small cars they produced at the beginning of this time period. The small cars to come out from GM from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s were crap. But the FWD cars that GM produced from the mid 1980s onward, were pretty much good cars. The N-Body was pretty reliable. The C and K platform cars as well. The A cars from 1986 or 1987 were pretty much bullet proof. The W-Body cars, as were as well. Uninspiring? Yeah. Okay. Acura during the mid 1980s Integra Legend Toyota Cressida Pontiac Grand Am Cutlass Calais Most 1980s cars were uninispiring. The N-Platform was a product of its time. But they WERE stylish little cars as compared to what was out there in the compact econo-pseudo luxury, pseudo sporty segment in their era. Like I said, maybe its time for us to stop judging harshly the FWD cars from the mid-1980s that GM produced. They were not bad. Not bad at all. They were good, stylish every day cars. I didnt post the Calais and Alero to showcase masterpieces of art. I posted to reminisce an era in my life. Hence the songs that I also accompanied the cars with. Ive done that as well with a couple of German cars of the 1980s in the previous page of this thread. I was in a certain mood. I wanted to appreciate the time period and the memories I had during this time regarding the cars and the songs and the era.

I re-read @Robert Hall's post about the Lyriq's interior being too grey. Id agree. Id also like to add to it that its too black. Maybe interiors do NOT need to have ANY black in them? Other colour choices is good too? Maybe? The Bimmer above is more boring than the Lyrics. At least the Lyriq has curves and different lines rather than just a slab of a dashboard. BUT...there is a minimal amount of black and NO grey. (How does one spell grey? Or gray? I think its another one of those American spelling versus British spelling thing. I think Ill stick to what I was taught in school. But I struggle sometimes in becoming a turncoat and just go American all the way.)

The interior is simplistic. Could we replace the word simplistic with boring? Yeah, maybe we could. In the pictures above, the TV screeens are turned off and that makes the 'wow' factor of EV television screens nonexistent . Cadillac likes to market their curved OLED television screens and how big they are as a selling point so when that TV screen is off, our visual senses at looking at the Lyriq's interior are NOT turned on. Especially when that TV screen is practically the whole dash... The bling blingyness off that interior comes from all the colourful animations of that TV screen and the different light shows that happen when one touches a capacitive button. I think ALL EVs fall into that bullshyte trap of amusing us like we are 3 year olds. That would be the one pet peeve I have we EVs is the unnecessary video game dancing light shows EV designers inondate us with. And it seems, the higher the price tag of the EV, the more childish the designers treat us. But...in the pics above, its not clear if the Lyriq has shytty black plastic trim cheaping the interior, but in this CarandDriver pic, one could see that the Lyriq has some nice metal trims. Is that metal coloured plastidip? Or is it truly metal trim like how Cadillac once upon a time ago done their interiors? I think Cadillac done right and its real metal trim. I like the idea of the blade at the back hatch. Ive analyzed it. Its quite stylish. It is concave in nature with interesting lines in it. Something that glass might not be able to pull off easily. It also doesnt follow the hatch window porofile. The blade is slightly higher and extends further back. There is also a black plastic strip between the blade and the window. Perhaps that black strip is part of the blade? Its a styling exercise that I too, would prefer if Cadillac could have reproduced that with glass. More interior light and less of a blind spot. But why worry about those trivial things when electrons flow effortlessly? We rely on electron safety tech for everything nowadays. Why design proper sight lines when cameras can do the trick? (hint of sarcastic questioning just in case nobody caught on) The Lyriq has a smooth exterior and interior design. It looks like its worth its starting from 62 000 dollar US price tag. I know in Canada, at $67 000 starting, Id say its a bargain for us Canadians. The Lyriq in my eyes, does a fairly good job in offering a 60 000 dollar mass produced, bread and butter luxury vehicle in the foot steps of an early 1970s Cadillac Sedan DeVille or late 1980s and early 1990s Fleetwood. I dont know how far up the ladder it climbs in terms of luxury and price, but Im assuming Cadillac will have plenty of other models to offer between the Lyriq and Celestiq. Im kinda hoping that the Lyriq will be the cheapest in terms of price offered. I really really want Cadillac to go upscale. OK, Ill be OK if Cadillac offers a smaller and slightly cheaper model. Like a model that starts at 55 00o dollars. But NOT lower than that.

The new Accord has a silhouette that resembles an Opel/Buick Insignia/Regal. The front looks like a Ford product. A mashup of a 2023 Mustang and 2018 Taurus Id say Honda messed up on this one to look like old news American sedans... Looks like Honda wants to euthanize their midsizer but doesnt have the heart and therefore are going for ugliness and to ensure failure to have an excuse to kill it off. I think it would have been best if Honda just sliced the Accord from the neck wth a Katana with one quick slice and be done with it...

Riviera: "Who is going to buy a NEW sedan for the rest of this decade?" Oldshurst: Hopefully this one