HarleyEarl

Certain highend cars look so incredible in white. In cooler climates when it's a bright, crisp, winter evening and your white car is pristinely clean, just looks fantastic.

papa

Most popular colors for cars: North America: White Europe: Black Asia: Silver South America: Tie, Black & White http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2008/12/most-...icans-love.html

shirtless http://www.istosovideo.com/videos/1123/lit...les-devere.html

Bubbles (Little Britain) http://www.istosovideo.com/videos/1123/lit...les-devere.html

coins

coins

dolls

Honda's sales have dropped a huge 31.6% in the US. They just pulled out of F1. Ford's drop was slightly less. And for some reason Canada is bucking the trend in total sales. Here, auto sales year-to-date have been up 2%.

"While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you,"quote Almost speechless at reading that. No wonder GM is in trouble.

We really don't have a true American luxury car line anymore. When you think of it, isn't that amazing! While Cadillac is doing some interesting things, it's not really Cadillac. And when Lincoln has Mazda based cars, you know they have no luxury credibility anymore. And Imperial, what a shame, amazing history. It should still be with us.

Edsel

Very sad indeed. While the G8 is a very nice car in itself...it still looks like a European copy. If the big three or two or one survive, they need to hire head designers who get it. And then give them some freedom to do their job. And the mandate would be to study American design in the past and be inspired by that. Not retro design either. Just bold, American esthetic.

Getting back to the Saturn/Saab/Pontiac thing. With GM recently showing faith in Pontiac, I read somewhere that the new Opel Insignia could be rebadged a Pontiac over here. I wonder if Saturn will be given the axe and Pontiac willl take over with the Opel connection instead?

bvds

While the iconic Elvis is always associated with Cadillacs, he owned this car as well. A 1960 Lincoln Mark V limo. He ordered this while in the army. It's now worth over 500,000.00.

Love that Desoto Iraq story. In fact there are alot of people worldwide that are constantly importing 50s and 60s cars to their countries. It's not lost on them, what these cars represent.

Ben & Jerry

brush

Agreed. It's interesting, that Japan (and Germany) lost the war but have won the war economically. In fact, Japan actually set out to do just that, they have admitted it. If they couldn't conquer the US militarily, they would do it economically.

Makes perfect sense. It is intangible and subjective definitely, but I think there was a shift in American vs European design. And like I mentioned in the earlier post, there are fundimental differences based on culture and history. Not to put too fine a point on it, but American culture, or the American dream had an affect on design and engineering in every product you can think of. That wide-open, optimistic, the furture is bright, gung ho, cheerul, new world, anything is possible mind set that most Americans (and some Canadians too) used to have. I believe that some insecurities set in, that the Europeans were better than us now, heck, many American car magazines said so. And then the Euroshift began. And it's still with us. Beautiful, pure, simple, minimalistic, elegant design is very finite and very hard to do in a memorable way. All others are boring and forgotten, disposable.

I will only say, that the fins and detailing were the rage in those times. Clean, simple design has been so long with us, the fin era looks extreme. I still believe there is a distinct American design sensiblity that needs to proudly re-assert itself again. We've aped Euro car design too long. Their sensibilities are built on a very different culture and history. We were mistaken in following their lead. It should have been the other way around.

I think that the Imperial Southampton had the wraparound rear window and the Imperial Le Baron has the formal roofline?

I've searched the internet a few times unsuccessfully for a pic- I still recall opening the door of a '56 DeSoto in a junkyard circa '90: the stamped aluminum sill plate had an integral triangulated 'placard' -not unlike a traditional desk nameplate- that stood upright alongside the front seat, with stamped & painted 'DeSOTO' script- so anyone looking @ the car from the side would know it (if the sweep spear wasn't doing it's job). My mouth must've dropped open, and that detail has stuck with me ever since. You have such a good eye for those details. To me, it's what makes design intriguing. And American cars used to be so good at that. Back to the discussion on the '61 Lincoln. I may be wrong, but to me it was the start of the German, teutonic design, almost Bauhaus, clean and functional to the point of utter boredom that has become so pervasive in automotive design and engineering. I can enjoy a cleanly designed sofa...no emotional attachment there, but when it comes to cars, that's a different story, I WANT emotional involvement.

Ya, hehe....it should be pulling up to a ritzy resturant in Beverly Hills. My take on it is, 'honey, let's go for a Sunday drive in the new Imperial'....they head out on Route 66, when suddenly the lady of the house has to pee, husband pulls over and well, she's behind the car, squatting. Not a pretty picture on some levels.