balthazar

I like a lot of what Brookville seems to be- small, sleepy & 'old skool'. I can smell the mellowing vintage sheetmetal in people's backyards & garages from these pictures alone. Hunt me down a rust-free '59 Buick, willya? Town nearest to me when growing up had about 2400 people and didn't look nearly as 'built-up' as Brookville does. Gotta say tho- those house values are a fraction of NJ real estate... tho of course the flip side is your folks aren't getting their skulls caved in quarterly with a 2x6 come tax time.

That'll be great: we can meet at the halfway point: Kansas.

You are standing in a lamborghini dealership... and you have a fat wallet. In front of you sits the above 2010 Lambo blahblahblah, resplendant in Nuclear Yellow and a snorting mid-placed V-12. You absolutely love the design, because it looks great and rubs you vigorously in all the right private places. BUT WAIT!! A 9-year old neighborhood kid wanders into the showroom and tugs at your sleeve. He says 'Lookie, mister, that one looks like my car!' and he holds up a yellow '69 Muira Hot Wheels. You staggger! You are AGHAST! This car is not "original"! Somewhere way back in time, possibly before you were born, another version, built by the same company was sold! You dream is crushed, your crush is crushed. How could you possibly drive something -no matter it be a towering Monument To Beauty and Art- WHEN OTHERS DROVE SOMETHING VAGUELY FAMILIAR 40 YEARS AGO?!?!?! NO!: it does not matter that you'll NEVER see this older version on the roads unless you are at a Lambo meet!! It's not "ORIGINAL"! OH, THE HUMANITY!!!! -- -- -- -- -- -- One wonders if this ever occured to the buyers of a Countach in 1990 as they signed to buy what debuted in 1970... Why, when Paying Enough Money To Appear Special And Unique, would a person so hung on having something "original" just go & have something custom-built for them instead of a mass-produced cookie-cut design that's in all the ads & magazines? Or did they think lambo was only building one just for them?

Mm-mmmmm... Daisy Duke.... :P

I am into driving, but I need the utility of a truck on at least a weekly basis. My truck works above & beyond the call of duty. I never thought I would own a truck but once I got a house, I had to get one. I wasn't neccesarily enthused about it, but function had to prevail over style. I am not fussy & particular, either (not saying you are, Nick, but you are moreso than I, I am sure), so an F-150 does fine by me: tough, good looking & functional. I am building my Buick to get back to a driver's vehicle. And before you snicker, you should see the engineering gone into the handling department, not to mention the power & quickness that will far exceed a factory BMW. There will be no active suspension or traction control or ESP or anti-lock brakes or engine electronic controls, or any of the dozen ubitquitous 'driver-assists', just double the size (but not double the weight!) & power .... now let's talk about a "driver's car".... ;)

Of course there are examples to the contrary for ANY engine out there, but the 300 has an excellent reputation for longevity. I am going to take a long hard look at the Silverado when it comes time to buy.

Gawd- those bimmers sure sound like bummers. -- -- -- -- My '94 F-150 has been very reliable IMO. No recalls, no TSBs. 44K : replace leaking steering box. 102K : tow car trailer at highway speeds for 2.5 hours w/o trans cooler; overheat trans to point of immobility. Cool down, load '63 Nova convertible & bedload of parts, drive back home in evening rain. 107K : replace leaking steering box again. 112K : 3 broken leafs on one rear 3/4-ton spring; replace both sides. 113K : new MC, calipers, rr wheel cylinders, some brake lines. 114K : rebuild trans. 122K : water pump, alternator & PS pressure hose. I did all of the above except the trans, plus all it's maintenance since Day 1. Truck is on it's 3rd battery and 3rd set of front rotors (duh- it's a pick-up). No rust above or below on the sheetmetal, some starting on the chassis. Currently has 138K and still driven daily. I sort of wish it would force me to step into a new truck, but unfortunately the motor just recently broke in.

A classic Cadillac with a Chevrolet motor? Not happy with that choice from GM Performance. Why not a blown 500 with the new Tiger heads?

Ahhh yes: apparently the Corvette first offered fiberoptic monitoring lights '68-71. I see no mention of them in my 1970 Cadillac full-line brochure. EDIT: I found online reference to (non-Corvette) Chevrolets having them in '69, Buicks in '72 and Cadillacs in '73, but there was nothing stated that implied this was the first years for this...

I would like to try ID-ing these blindfolded at a car show some time. Kinky, I know.

Of course, the Muira is about the best thing to ever come out of lambo (& the only one I've ever favored); seems a natural to reissue it. It's a nice, refreshingly-clean design- I do like it... however, the wheels are too clunky/big in design elements. Rest really looks great.

The sense of community is as extinct as the Brontosaurus. How can anyone see the Big Picture when the screens on their video iPods are only 2" x 2"?

People tend to compliment hyundai's quality improvements yet gloss right over the fact that their vehicles still comfortably exceed the industry average for problems. "Better junk" might be a good ad slogan... ;) Cadillac at 235K, eh? Where were mercedes, bmw & lexus?? I'm surprised GMC did not exceed 600K- they were at 578 (IIRC) last year, the tenth out of 11 years GMC posted a sales record. Chevy selling an S-load of vehicles- where was toyota?

deVilles had them earlier- '77-79 (as you know Sixty8). I am wondering how much earlier these came out tho- I think the Seville had at least tail light monitors in '76...

Velite needs refinement fore & aft to be a Riviera. Buick can (and has) done better. I'm with Razor- git carvin' again! Last gen Riv had some- the backcut catwalk treatment was awesome, tho the car overall needed stance & wheel/tire placement refinement (rode too high on too narrow tires).

Ha-ha-ha. Hardy-har-har. Snicker snort. Chortle. I was at a really small airport not far from me (can you say grass landing strip?), wandering around with a regular. There was a small plane sitting in the weeds with the engine cowling missing. Inside was an aluminum flat 6 with 'Franklin" on the covers- same basic engine the Tucker used. Should've grabbed it. I actually surfed eBay looking for an oddball engine last night: a straight 8, a V-12, flat 6... something I could take apart and cosmetically refinish and keep on a stand. Hey Sixty-8, remember that grey '51-52 Packard- that's got a mammoth I-8- I remember looking at it back in '00 and nearly getting bewitched by it. I should stop back and ask about that Model A too (tho I have a '33 Plymouth 5-window coupe on the hook at the moment). Hm-mmm.....

moltar- I conceed your point about the trunk space- you are right there (meant to go back to the other thread where we debated that briefly). I still believe the Solstice will outsell the mx-5, tho; the better manners & killer looks being the reasons. Josh- I welcome your opinions on the cargo volume in your Solstice- obviously it wasn't a deal-breaker for you, but how much of an inconvenience is it?

Cheap. I hold onto clothes & daily drivers longer than average... to the point of pointed criticism by my wife (on the clothes at least). I have been increasing my rate of spending a tiny bit more in recent years... tho you could say my 'progress' has been glacial. That said, I have a sh!tload invested in my Buick to date even tho it's still blown apart.

Is it time for a 'Dating' subforum....?

Speed of illumination difference is only supposed to be a tenth or so of a second. However, I'm not talking about how fast they seemingly light, I am talking about the X-mas light string look of them. The previous gen Deville had them masked behind a crystalline lense: you still got the snappier illumination without it looking like a hand-held electronic game. They just look very 'cut & paste' because they're so obvious and always in either a straight or circular pattern.

Where's the CTS... or was an overinflated price tag a prerequisite? Are those plastic 'block-off' inserts in place of options in the lexus (to the left of the steering wheel)? Classy.

You 'don't like the look' but the 'design statement is where Buick should be'?? This Imp, if brought to market, has the appearances of being at least in the 60K range (if it's so similar to a rolls, I guess that number could be much higher). That price level is well outside Buick's & deeply into Cadillac's (not to mention the Imp would be deeply into mercedes's range). It looks to have a nicely upscale interior, but I fail to see anything beyond that that should be applied to Buick. And Dear God but LEDs look trashy & cheap. It's apparently so easy to run a string of them that cars in general are probably going precisely in this direction; festooned with rows of tiny bare bulbs like a chintzy X-mas display. Double Blech!

They did; where we you throughout the '90s?

My brother had a mess of rats in his '36 house last summer. They were in the basement, the walls, the attic... One day we were boarding & blocking things up and I saw 3 of them. They bored a hole from the outside into the basement and were running wild. We blocked up all the holes and they're gone now. I had a few mice in the attic & garage last summer, so I blocked things up and left them some 'appetizers'- they seem to be gone. My house is a '92. I won't tolerate living with mice. I had an aunt who lived up in Vermont in a house she dated back to at least 1812 (Coolest place in the world). She would catch the mice in traps, carry them outside and set them free. Undoubtedly they would scurry right back inside before she herself got back in. That place was riddled with mice.

Thanks for posting this, HE! I had forgotten completely about the FC Jeep pickups, then I saw a pic in Old Cars Weekly a year ago. These are doornail simple but they intrique me all the same... prolly because I cannot recall the last time I've seen one (either on the road or in a junkyard)- has to be decades. I would think I'd see one here or there at a car show or something... but zilch! Got any more pics or ads?