balthazar

You donate to the Save The Buick Fund, and I’ll donate to your cause.

I worship the Twin Gods of Chrome & Horsepower.

Replacing vehicles that are 4-8 years old by spending $36,000,000 is what makes no sense. Sorry; I don't accept the Gov't line that the current 'purpose-built' vehicles are too decrepit to perform OR be rebuilt as needed (which has to be a fraction of the fleet at that young age).

"Tiny chunk" is a red herring. A Locust (or Spotted Lantern Fly) by itself is a tiny insect, but there's 100s of millions of them (not unlike Gov't programs). Every time a person looks at one and says 'Oh, that's insignificant/ can't be all bad; I won't bother killing it', the herd grows exponentially.

Bog Gov’t doesn’t decide if things are needed or not, they just spend whenever they can. There’s been a real inversion over the last 50 years in the approach to fiscal responsibility in Gov’t.

It always strikes me that OEMs / the EPA ignore thick center consoles when measuring "front hip room". Optional Toro wheel above, or from another model?

1941 GMC ~

Uh-huh. 0.20 .cd; same at the pregnant whale EQS.

^ I agree that the exterior isn't a game changer, but disagree; the interior fits the 'luxury' bill fine. What needs to be "coming" is an emergency redesign of the entire exterior.

She had one years back, then 5 sedans since. She says she doesn't care for SUV / CUVs. That certainly could change if she test drove a bunch (sorry, online sales outlets!). She's wistfully mentioned the Mustang coupe over the years. We test-sat in one around 10 years ago & she really liked that (a number of generations since hers). Our practicality reasons have narrowed to just her mother upon occasion, so we don't need more than a coupe for her. Her commute is about 45-50 miles/day, tho she just restarted 3 days in / 2 days home this week (which was discontinued in March 2020).

There's the guy who drove his Volvo P1800 3.2 million miles, but I've yet to see how many engines / transmissions / rears it went thru (other than 'there were rebuilds but it has the original engine block & trans case'). Ford used to run ads for trucks having over a half million miles in the 1940s; a block can handle countless rebuilds, and they even can spray-weld cracked/broken blocks back together.

There's one that has done at least 750K miles, but that was on 3 motors and 4 battery backs by the 500K mile range. That might be $100K in repair costs.

She says the front (Mach-E) ‘looks generic’ but she likes the rear. Told it’s $43K to start, no real reaction. Wasn’t aware it was electric (upon seeing the pic). When asked if she’d consider one, she said yeah; she’d look at it. When asked if she’d rather this or a Mustang coupe, she said ‘Oh yeah; the coupe’. I told her she’d have to plug it in every other night and she said ‘Oh God, I’d never get anywhere!’ [note; she’s been home from work for about 2.5 hrs, and I just reminded her for the 2nd time her cell is still locked in her car.]

Oh yeah; the Mach-E. Me; I think it looks pretty good- for a sports-inspired SUV I’d put it in Tier 1. Not sure what the missus thinks of it- I pointed it out to her but she didn’t have more than a ‘it’s cute’ response. She really doesn’t seem interested in a BE vehicle. Asking…

Pretty sure that would be outside her comfort zone, size-wise. And although that clock is ticking, she still has to take her mother to appointments, a person who would never be able to climb up into an SUV. I think once said clock stops, she may seriously consider getting back into a Mustang.

Tier 1 : Taycan is very slick- Balthy like. Model S hasn't a thing wrong with it exterior-wise, it's just old. Tier 2 : I like the proportions of the Lyriq, but some of the details I do not. Have to see better/more pics, but it's a 'meh' so far. I think the Hummer is a very well-done heritage design, but it's so far outside my realm I have to jack it down. Lucid can go in here; it's not bad, but like I said above... I like the Rivian's exterior other than the front- that's a no-go for me, but I wouldn't call it 'bad'. Not much else worth commenting on. F-150 Lightning is just an altered F-150, it doesn't really 'qualify' as a 'BE design'. - - - - - Oh; no foreign vehicles allowed (to live) in my driveway. So tho from the design perspective I'd rate the Taycan #1, (even disregarding the price), I wouldn't own one. I could live with a Rivian as far as looks go, but the current body configuration is of no use to me.

Something about it (nose & tail) is coming off as very early '00s to me.

Range is great. Design is meh. Pricing is insanely high.

Of course, that goes 2 ways.

Even after generations of chasing Cadillac, mercedes was still struggling to offer a luxury interior... by 1991. half-baked at best!

^ They're a minimum of 4 years old, it's ridiculous that they'd be "worn out". It's the same-old, typical, Big Gov't, blow-thru-money SOP.

SO much for 'converting the entire federal vehicle fleet to BE'... guess it made for a good sound bite.

Maybe a tiny fraction of the money-is-no-object tri-5 builders might consider an electric build. If you have a huge budget, all sorts of possibilities are out there ? :

Another example of the best & most valuable form of 'old car recycling' :