aaaantoine

The #1:

I now visit the Island only about once a month. This is up by Lake Ontario. We recently had some intense Lake Effect Snow. It's now considered a disaster area.

Just to give you guys an indication of what might even remotely resemble 85" of snow, here's some pics. There's a porch buried under there somewhere. The bottom portion of the swingset is about the same height as the middle portion. If you squint really hard, you can possibly see a Chevy Venture in that mess. And no, it does NOT have a high-top roof. I was tempted to let the beagle out without a leash, once I had dug out a place for her to go to the bathroom. It's not like she could go anywhere...

Argh! That's horrible! Somebody out there is out to get your Saturns. I think my mother-in-law's van has become a snow plow magnet this month. At the onset of the massive blizzard we're having up here, she found the rear quarter window on her Venture busted. We think a plow might have kicked something up and broke the window, but there's no way we could prove it. So now she needs to replace the window. And yesterday, she was forced to park on the street to visit a patient due to lack of available parking spaces. A plow sideswiped her van and took out the mirror in the process. She can't get a settlement because street parking is illegal during snow storms like this.

"Rouge" I see this word misspelt often. The Nissan model is called the Rogue. That's the one that's pronounced "rohg", and the meaning that Nissan probably had in mind was "no longer obedient, belonging, or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade" (The other definitions aren't so flattering). Rouge, pronounced "roozh", is "any of various red cosmetics for coloring the cheeks or lips". It's funny that a Motor Trend writer would misspell the name in this manner. As for the Bevel... Well, if they produced it, it'd make a great billboard car (see also: Scion xB, Mini Cooper, HHR, and New Beetle). And the wheels are cool. I bet that giant back window has the potential to add another digit to a rear-end collision repair bill.

How hard would it really be to put a diesel engine into the HHR? I mean, really.

Local reports say around 85". What? Why's everyone looking at me like that?

GM would get nothing but headaches from buying the Chrysler group. - GM is barely profitable at this point. - Chrysler is losing money pretty fast. - Chrysler and Dodge cars compete almost directly with Chevy, Pontiac, Saturn and Buick. - Buying Chrysler group means getting a bigger chunk of the UAW... Which means more pensions, job banks, and union wages.

Prius 3.0. Those curves... Are they bringing back the Gremlin?

No. Please, just no.

*Looks at Toyota ads* Wow, Toyota's Australian models are just as ugly as the American ones. Anyway... I like the Holden Torana concept, even its bold choice of color. It's a very sleek -- and even somewhat edgy -- design, particularly for the Holden design team. Would this translate to an attractive G6? Well, if the G8 is any indication, heck yeah.

Bah, they stopped short of giving it a real pickup bed. Intstead it's more like a really deep trunk...

I just refreshed the View New Posts screen and saw that the other thread had taken this thread's place. Then I read that thread. Then I refreshsed again and this thread was back on the list, and part one disappeared.Actually, I could also be hallucinating. Part One's on the 2nd page of the View New Posts list for me...

I was going to vote "none of the above" because in my opinion, the greatest hurdle that the manufacturers are going to have to overcome is public perception. However, you can't deny that Health care costs and union wages are a problem for the Detroit automakers. As for the others... "Too many employees" We are talking about huge companies that need to cover a lot of ground in a short time span. They need engineers, designers, manufacturers, marketers, web developers, accountants, lawyers, and I've barely scratched the surface. "They don't know what consumers want" Consumers don't want pick-up trucks, the Solstice, the Corvette, the Escalade, the Chrysler 300, the Ford Fusion, the Mustang, the Charger, and the HHR? Customers won't want the Lambdas, the G8, and the 2008 CTS? Bull. The Big 3 know exactly what consumers want: a prominently displayed H or T badge. "They make lousy cars" Quality and performance numbers put the Big Three at least on par with other major manufacturers. I can go ahead and name some "lousy" Detroit cars (the Five Hunde-- Taurus, the G6, the STS), but then I can continue and name several imports that are just as lousy (the Avalon, the Sonata, the E-Class).

GM's gonna have to issue a recall for this.

I like the article title. It'd make an interesting name for the car itself, too...

*Sees Dubai license plate* Eh, he's probably got enough money to buy a dozen more. Probably more, but after 12 he'd get bored.

Women who love Clay Aiken = Bigass Fans?

How about that, Mercedes? A TWO-door coupe... Not a fan of the vertical doorline, but great otherwise.

Again I'm out of the loop. This happens every time someone dies. ..Oh wait. Happy Birthday, Mjdecker!

Those numbers are written in the Wiki article without citation.

Their largest fan is 24 feet in diameter. You could tie four people longways from end to end onto that thing. They couldn't have come up with a more appropriate name.

Perhaps the curtain air bags produce the opposite result from what was intended? New faux wood on the door? What makes it worse than the previous stuff?

That's apparently the "Look, it's a hybrid!" trim for this particular GM hybrid.

I can think of one good reason for this.In light of recently introduced side impact testing, the engineers are going to thicken the doors and pillars for the sake of better side-impact crash ratings. The consequence? Either the car is going to be wider or the cabin is going to be smaller. Possibly both. But then again, there are a lot more things that are involved in engineering a roomy passenger compartment than just the door thickness.