mustang84

Alone, both the '49 Ford and MN-12 Thunderbirds are great cars. Together, however....ugh. Why are some so cruel? Who EVER thought this would look cool? Mutilated Mercury The perpetrators http://www.halerconcepts.com/49%20ford.htm

Alice in Chains - Dam that River

Oh geez, the old grease trap in the pool prank! Ha ha...ha? Definitely lame.

Strange Knightfan, I wonder if you guys got hit by the same storm that hit us a day earlier. I was awoken abruptly at about 5 AM. I heard a loud "BOOOOOM" and felt the apartment rattle, and since I live about a mile away from huge industrial chemical tanks I thought there had been an explosion. I sat up and kinda peeked out my window and noticed it was a hazy brown outside with low visibility (no rain either). I laid back in bed expecting to hear police sirens but then fell back asleep. Later I woke up and checked the news, but found out that some big storms had passed through so it was probably just lightning striking the apartment. It was pretty unsettling at the time however...living near a heavy industrial area isn't exactly comforting. My other rude awakening was about 12 years ago in the middle of the night. My mom burst into my room and then to my sister's room to get us out of bed. The tornado sirens had been going off and the radio said there were funnel clouds headed our way. We scrambled to get flashlights and blankets and had to sit down in the basement for an hour. You could hear the wind and hail tearing up the trees outside. Luckily the funnel never touched down but the winds reached 80 mph gusts at times and toppled a lot of 100+ year old trees around town.

Holy hell, that is the exact same car my dad used to drive...even down to the color.

'63 Falcon rat rod '57 Chevy in aquamarine blue

It's kinda sad too, because China used to have some great culture and civilization before they fell to the Commies. When the Red Army took over, they destroyed a lot of ancient Chinese history...and the stuff that survives today have become tacky theme-park like attractions. And this is what my Chinese architecture history professor who was born in China and escaped to the US said.

Another one of those articles that seems like its straight out of The Onion. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22183967-2,00.html Of course it did, that route sees more traffic than the Lincoln Tunnel.

Yeah, same here....in a museum.Good for GM, I hope they beat Toyota to the punch.

Yeah, probably. We're sandwiched between the Missouri and Mississippi, then you've got other major ones like the Des Moines, Raccoon, Boyer, Iowa, Cedar, etc. But since Iowa's roads follow a pretty strict mile grid pattern, they built bridges over every single river crossing....even on roads today that are nothing but dirt farm lanes. If you figure that an average county is about 30 miles tall, that would mean that river would be crossed approx. 30 times just in that one county. Add in all the tributaries and creeks and it increases very quickly.Check out this image from the Flood of '93 to see how many bridges a chunk of downtown Des Moines has alone. There's 12 shown in this image...today it's 14.

Man, Iowa has more bridges than California, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, and nearly as many as Illinois even though we have a fraction of the population (3.6 million). No wonder they close them down...we don't have enough taxpayers to keep them all in operation. Most of them that you find closed are the rural ones on gravel and dirt roads that were built during the family farming era. Now that many farms are corporate and people are moving into the cities, some of these roads and bridges don't see action anymore.

From the comments section

Why do they single out the Big Three? This would harm any other manufacturer that builds a full-size truck, SUV, or luxury / sports car. It sounds like it will be revisited in September, so they're not out of the woods yet.

The snowball is getting larger.

Iowa has many of the same problems, especially with the rural bridges that were built between the turn of the century and the 1940s. Whenever a bridge is deemed unsafe, they close it down and let it rot because there is no funding available to repair them. Luckily they rebuilt two of the longest and most heavily traveled bridges in my county a few years ago, but many of the others are 50 or 60 years old and just look like hell. More than 70,000 US bridges rated structurally deficient: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_...g8HmdtnmptH2ocA

I wonder what this will do for rush hour traffic with this bridge out of commission...reg, was this route pretty busy?

Winger - Spell I'm Under

This is getting ridiculous. What the hell is wrong with Chinese manufacturers? I passed this info on to some of my family members with small kids...disgusting.

In June, the Tundra had $5089 average in incentives on the hood.What's up with the Corolla? Did Hertz not put in any orders for July?

One of my friends lives a mile from the bridge and sent me some pics taken from her apartment. Luckily she was at home at the time it collapsed, but she crossed the bridge half an hour before it collapsed!

For some reason, I've never really liked the aeroback Grand Prix and Monte Carlo, even though I love G-bodies. I think it's because they look too much like a big hatchback. Nice graphics though...sounds like they're vector graphics if they are keeping the same resolution when you enlarge it.

You know, I remember an article a while ago saying that 85% of America's roads received a D or lower letter grade. Now I can see why. Considering most of America's interstate highways were built in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, I wonder how much longer before something like this happens again.

Holy cow! I have a ton of friends that live up in the Twin Cities area...I hope none of them were on it!

Toyota Reports July Sales TORRANCE, Calif., Aug. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A., Inc., today reported July sales of 224,058 vehicles, a decrease of 3.5 percent from July 2006. "The industry stumbled this month, on continued housing weakness," said Jim Lentz, TMS executive vice president. "Though Toyota didn't match last July's record-setting sales, heightened demand for hybrids and crossovers is reassuring, particularly with the next generation Highlander just now hitting showrooms." The Toyota Division posted July sales of 196,917, down 4.5 percent from last July. The Lexus Division reported best-ever July sales of 27,141 units, an increase of 4.9 percent. Toyota Division Toyota Division passenger cars recorded July sales of 112,153, a decrease of 10.2 percent from last July. Passenger car sales were led by Camry, which posted July sales of 41,514, up 3.2 percent over the same period last year. Camry Hybrid reported sales of 4,329 units in July. The Prius hybrid gas-electric mid-size sedan posted best-ever July sales of 16,062, an increase of 50.5 percent over July 2006. Corolla reported July sales of 29,719 units. Toyota Division light truck sales were up 4.2 percent, with a best-ever July total of 84,764 units. Light truck sales were led by the all-new Tundra full-size pickup with all-time best-ever sales of 23,150, an increase of 134.5 percent over the year-ago month. The RAV4 compact sport utility vehicle (SUV) reported best-ever July sales of 14,494, up 2.3 percent over the same period last year. Highlander and Highlander Hybrid posted combined July sales of 8,858. The Highlander Hybrid gas-electric mid-size SUV reported sales of 1,205 units for the month. Scion posted July sales of 11,640 units. The tC sports coupe led the way with July sales of 6,229 units. The xB urban utility vehicle posted sales of 5,073 units for the month. Lexus Division Lexus passenger cars reported best-ever July sales of 16,755 units, an increase of 8.0 percent over July 2006. Passenger car sales were led by the ES 350 luxury sedan with July sales of 6,909 units. The all-new LS 460 and LS 460 L reported combined sales of 2,696, an increase of 189.2 percent over last July. Combined sales of the IS 250 and IS 350 posted best-ever July sales of 4,892 units, up 5.1 percent over the year-ago month. Lexus Division light trucks reported July sales totaling 10,386 units, an increase of 0.2 percent over the same period last year. The RX 350 and RX 400h enjoyed combined July sales of 8,413 units, up 3.2 percent over July 2006. The RX 400h hybrid luxury utility vehicle reported sales of 1,385 units for the month, up 18.0 percent over the year-ago month. TMS Hybrids TMS calendar-year-to-date hybrid sales totaled 169,659 units, an increase of 59.0 percent over the same period last year. In July, TMS posted sales of 23,123 hybrid vehicles, up 19.0 percent over last July. Toyota Division posted sales of 21,596 hybrids, up 19.0 percent over the same period last year. Lexus Division posted sales of 1,527 hybrids, an increase of 16.0 percent over last July. There were 24 selling days this month, as compared to 25 selling days last July. TOYOTA RETAIL SALES (INCLUDES FLEET & HAWAII) July, 2007 ---- CURRENT MONTH --- -- CALENDAR YEAR TO DATE -- DSR% DSR% 2007 2006 CHG 2007 2006 CHG YARIS 8,126 10,137 -16.5 54,648 32,822 65.6 COROLLA 29,719 41,800 -25.9 231,940 239,103 -3.5 CAMRY 41,514 41,892 3.2 282,044 260,409 7.7 AVALON 5,092 6,757 -21.5 42,614 51,793 -18.2 PRIUS 16,062 11,114 50.5 110,565 59,270 85.5 SCION xA 338 2,962 -88.1 9,204 19,794 -53.8 SCION xB 5,073 6,666 -20.7 23,661 38,041 -38.2 SCION tC 6,229 8,780 -26.1 39,779 46,313 -14.6 TOTAL TOYOTA DIV. PASS. CAR 112,153 130,109 -10.2 794,459 747,573 5.7 ES 350 6,909 7,803 -7.8 47,307 40,392 16.5 LS 460 2,696 971 189.2 20,268 7,687 162.2 SC 430 304 460 -31.2 2,400 3,547 -32.7 GS 350 1,798 1,776 5.5 11,897 13,125 -9.9 GS 430/450h 156 299 -45.7 1,225 2,443 -50.1 IS 250/350 4,892 4,848 5.1 32,568 31,794 1.9 TOTAL LEXUS PASS. CAR 16,755 16,157 8.0 115,665 98,988 16.2 TOTAL TOYOTA PASS. CAR 128,908 146,266 -8.2 910,124 846,561 6.9 SIENNA 11,599 13,834 -12.7 84,948 94,619 -10.7 RAV4 14,494 14,755 2.3 101,618 89,770 12.6 FJ CRUISER 4,128 6,309 -31.8 33,882 27,778 21.3 4RUNNER 6,676 9,346 -25.6 50,870 64,212 -21.2 HIGHLANDER 8,858 11,999 -23.1 73,607 73,356 -0.2 LAND CRUISER 163 238 -28.7 1,408 1,863 -24.8 SEQUOIA 1,733 2,653 -32.0 14,582 19,551 -25.8 TOTAL SUV 36,052 45,300 -17.1 275,967 276,530 -0.8 4X2 TACOMA 8,279 9,412 -8.4 63,059 60,826 3.1 4X4 TACOMA 5,684 5,927 -0.1 43,366 40,377 6.8 TOTAL TACOMA 13,963 15,339 -5.2 106,425 101,203 4.6 TUNDRA 23,150 10,285 134.5 105,990 67,743 55.6 TOTAL PICKUP 37,113 25,624 50.9 212,415 168,946 25.0 TOTAL TOYOTA DIV. LT TRUCK 84,764 84,758 4.2 573,330 540,095 5.6 LX 470 206 341 -37.1 1,751 3,210 -45.8 GX 470 1,767 1,969 -6.5 12,273 13,728 -11.1 RX 350/400h 8,413 8,492 3.2 57,654 61,774 -7.2 TOTAL LEXUS LIGHT TRUCK 10,386 10,802 0.2 71,678 78,712 -9.4 TOTAL TOYOTA LIGHT TRUCK 95,150 95,560 3.7 645,008 618,807 3.6 TOTAL TOYOTA DIV. 196,917 214,867 -4.5 1,367,789 1,287,668 5.6 TOTAL LEXUS 27,141 26,959 4.9 187,343 177,700 4.8 TOTAL TOYOTA 224,058 241,826 -3.5 1,555,132 1,465,368 5.5 MEMO: DOM. COROLLA 27,684 34,291 -15.9 209,346 204,648 1.7 DOM. CAMRY 36,880 30,917 24.3 235,424 218,874 7.0 DOM. PICKUP 37,113 25,624 50.9 212,415 168,946 25.0 DOM. RX 350 6,100 6,760 -6.0 41,498 41,271 0.0 SELLING DAYS 24 25 178 177 ---- CURRENT MONTH --- -- CALENDAR YEAR TO DATE -- DSR% DSR% 2007 2006 CHG 2007 2006 CHG TOYOTA DIV. IMPORT CAR 42,497 58,144 -23.9 307,075 272,258 12.2 LEXUS IMPORT CAR 16,755 16,157 8.0 115,665 98,988 16.2 TOYOTA DIV NA BUILT CARS 69,656 71,965 0.8 487,384 475,315 2.0 TOTAL TOYOTA CARS 128,908 146,266 -8.2 910,124 846,561 6.9 TOYOTA DIV. IMPORT LT TRUCK 34,319 42,647 -16.2 261,385 256,979 1.1 LEXUS IMPORT LT TRUCK 4,286 4,042 10.5 30,180 37,441 -19.8 TOYOTA DIV NA BUILT LT TRUCK 50,445 42,111 24.8 311,945 283,116 9.6 LEXUS NA BUILT LT TRUCK 6,100 6,760 -6.0 41,498 41,271 0.0 TOTAL TOYOTA LT TRUCK 95,150 95,560 3.7 645,008 618,807 3.6 SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES 42,310 49,793 -11.5 313,763 327,464 -4.7 Memo: Lexus Sport Utility 10,386 10,802 0.2 71,678 78,712 -9.4 SMALL VANS 11,599 13,834 -12.7 84,948 94,619 -10.7 PICKUPS 37,113 25,624 50.9 212,415 168,946 25.0 * NORTH AMERICAN BUILT VEHICLES COROLLA 27,684 34,291 -15.9 209,346 204,648 1.7 CAMRY 36,880 30,917 24.3 235,424 218,874 7.0 AVALON 5,092 6,757 -21.5 42,614 51,793 -18.2 SIENNA 11,599 13,834 -12.7 84,948 94,619 -10.7 PICKUP 37,113 25,624 50.9 212,415 168,946 25.0 SEQUOIA 1,733 2,653 -32.0 14,582 19,551 -25.8 RX 350 6,100 6,760 -6.0 41,498 41,271 0.0 TOTAL 126,201 120,836 8.8 840,827 799,702 4.6 N.A. VEHICLES % OF TOTAL 56.3% 50.0% 54.1% 54.6% SELLING DAYS 24 25 178 177 DSR = DAILY SELLING RATE Link to Press Release: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories....7330&EDATE=