balthazar

Post a pic and you can know the year/model for sure.

1. T 2. T 3. T 4. F 5. T/A 6. F 7. T

The only functional difference between the '54 Landau and a production Buick is that the rearmost section of the roof is a hydraulically-operated convertible. There's no pass-thru to the trunk or anything of a utility nature to it. It's moreso a take-off of '30s Landau bodystyles. Sorry- I just don't see any truck-ish-ness about it. Interesting car all the same. Hey Harley- didja catch the '53/59 Cadillac LeMans in the background?

One hopes it would not.

Avanti has been in pretty much continuous production after Studebaker closed down in '66. Some dealers bought the rights & tooling and brought out the unchanged Avanti II with Chevy power. Since then the company has changed hands numerous times. Circa '84 is the first any notable visual changes occured, with the move to body-colored bumpers. I hope & pray Avanti Motors continues & expands. We need more domestic nameplates in the endless flood of foreign makes. XUV needs some work, tho. Anyone know if the XUV features a certain 'S'-in-a-circle emblem recently appropriated by toyota?

I worked on a friend's house about a year & a half ago; a Sears kit house from the '20s. Not bad structurally, and underneath the ratty vinyl siding was one of my favorite house treatments: InsulBrick!

That Mustang-based Avanti looks terrible. Proportions aren't sexy at all: too slab-sided & upright. The Firebird-based Avanti was much nicer proportionally. I wonder of the GTO chassis is a future possibility?

N......n......9 liter motor??????

And some may be trying not to be harder than others. ;)

I can't say for sure on the above car, but Sears did market a brass era car for a few years circa '09, and again did the very same thing with the Henry J/ Sears Allstate in the early '50s for a few years- another obvious textbook 'rebadge'.

Father of the Geodesic Dome... Love the Dymaxion. Only 1 is known to exist today, IIRC. Absolutely fascinating car.

'nuther Buick owner checking in!

So they can engineer a modern automobile but not do a simple conversion formula?? I don't buy that one for a split second.

'48 Davis: pretty interesting: there is a nicely done devoted site: www.suarezweb.com/davis/ 15 built (11 known to exist) plus 2 'jeeps'. '34 McQuay-Norris: 6 built by the company of the same name to test piston rings and other internal engine components they manufactured. Engineering students were paid to drive these across North America to meet dealers & mechanics. They were built on completely stock '34 Ford Model A chassis'- thus the way-back driver's position. As of today, only 1 is known to exist, which I find hard to believe; they are so completely unique. http://www.lanemotormuseum.org/restoration.htm '48 Beech: 2 were supposedly built, tho I have not heard that either have survived. The Avanti was indeed based on the last generation Firebird. I haven't looked into it far enough to learn if they are still in production using 'used' chassis' or what's going on there.

No; for many posters here that is NOT the discussion. For them (and I) the issue is that the new certified test revealed a number of very notable decreases for the exact same engines for some manufacturers. The fact that most were right on or nearly so, but some were notably overrated bears discussion in itself: why and was it intentionally misleading for marketing purposes. Perhaps the truth will never come out.

Looking forward to insightful posts from "GMTruckGuy05". That's a swell-lookin' tyke.

It was supposed to be has "last", tho I have not heard whether or not that's true to date.

You really seem to groove on this Clarkson guy, empowah. I finally caught one of his shows on satelite (3 nimrods buy 3 busted up porsches and break down repeatedly) and my opinion from his written ramblings stands: a fat waste of time.

I read it when it came out & I liked it alot, tho I agree with staceface- the opening scene with the car touches on mastery; would've loved that expanded (tho it would've changed the book). Can't tell you how many times I've read Christine...

Interior room is a whole 'nuther issue, and I agree: more is better. But the exterior issue I just don't see.

tannersoc- you titled the thread 'fit & finish' but never addressed that. Plastic is plastic; judging quality is getting pretty nitpicky, but wood is wood and shouldn't look & feel like plastic! 'Wood' in today's cars is pathetic and far more worthy of criticism that subjective grades of plastic. It all sucks.

I certainly see nothing ground breaking here. The civic lost quite a bit of it's enthusiast rep in recent years and sales have been on the decline overall IIRC. The koreans are eating heavily into this segment and the civic needs to be top-shelf & get back to it's roots to try and rebuild that; I don't see the funky bloated details on this one getting the job done.

The front is a little better but every wrx always screams 'tacky' to my eye: gold wheels, ridiculous wing, oversized scoop... too overwraught. Or maybe it's that I'm no longer 15...

So no cars over 186" are sold & parked in these countries? Nothing over entry level from mercedes, bmw, audi, etc, etc? (BTW: I have never seen 'parkability' claims in any advertising/marketing/ journalism; you'd think if it was so incredibly important, we might.) Were we only talking about parking issues abroad; what's the deal in the U.S.? I am not attacking you, LA; a number of people have expressed this (doesn't prove its valid), but not a one has been able to concretely explain why only the CTS in this segment is out of step & uncompetitive, yet those much smaller than the mid 180"ers aren't too small, nor if the mid 170"ers have some sort of competitive advantage. I mean we're not talking 18" of difference, only 5. No one can look at a half-dozen cars individually and tell you exactly how long each is. In other words, how can this matter if it's indiscernable?

It's not about 'figuring it out', it's a preference. Believe it or not, there are consumers who prefer fabric... even the above fabric... to leather.