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Comments
My 70 Challenger convertible had the 318 engine. That car was actually given to me. Someone I knew at work paid for an engine rebuild, and the mechanic blew town leaving him with a basket case. I "re-did" the engine rebuild, had the car running really nice. I used a lot of 340 parts (heads, intake, carb) and put small tube headers on it (really nice sound). I didn't have it back on the road for more than 4 or 5 months when some idiot ran a stop sign and totaled the car. Possibly the most fun car I ever owned.
My first foray into old cars was a 1969 Dart GT hardtop that I found in 1989 at, of all places, a Nissan/Saab/Oldsmobile dealer! Nice car, but it only had a 225 slant six.
This is why allowing some natural selection is important. I want to see the U.S. produce the best products. Allowing failures to become successful weakens our ability to be the best, in the long run. Does anybody doubt that Ford and GM vehicles are better than they would have otherwise been if not for the "Japanese invasion" in the 70's and 80's?
I couldn't agree more. The problem comes when the "natural path" has been artificially modified, which generally requires an equally "non-natural" solution to problems that eventually surface.
I'll concede that reliability is up--although it's possible to spend way more on big repairs than when cars were simpler--but I can also blame the 'car as appliance' syndrome on the Japanese invasion in the '70's and '80's--far less choices in models, bodystyles, colors, interiors, and options. In many ways I was far more interested in automobiles up to about the mid-eighties than ever since then.
AFAIC, GM was the Gorilla of "Problem Children" for USA manufacturing.
The 2014 Impala blows it away! 'Bout time!
Probably decades (even longer if the "3" fail again). :sick:
I agree the Challenger wins the 'Retro look at the moment.
I get that...and I attribute a large part to the increased need to apply aerodynamics to car bodies to increase mileage. Those laws apply to every manufacturer, and its difficult to have a diverse looking grouping of fleets because of it.
What I do miss, though, is the way a car could be customized and ordered to be virtually a one-of-a-kind model, as the early Mustangs could be ordered. You could supply the color chip, and get it in that exact color. A guy that lived close to me special ordered a medium metallic blue with an off-white wrinkle-paint top, and white racing stripes on the hood and deck lid. Even today, I have never seen another one like it.
Unfortunately, sometimes (often) that "natural path" is corporate strong-arm.
One cannot trundle off to Costco and then lament the loss of your local hardware store.
My point is that sometimes the weak need to be saved because there is nothing to replace them.
Social Darwinism, taken to an extreme, is an ugly thing. (not implying that this is what you meant!)
I think they're starting to get better with regards to aerodynamics, styling some cars that have some individuality to them. Just look at cars like the new Mustang, Charger, and Challenger...all cars that have a strong retro heritage to their style, yet are still aerodynamic enough for modern times.
Oftentimes, it's the little details, moreso than the overall shape, that makes a car aerodynamic. Stuff like flush-mounted windows, how the wheel wells are shaped, how badly things protrude underneath...even little details like the side mirrors and the trim around the windshield can make a difference.
Also, I'd imagine that at some point, you get a diminishing return with lower drag coefficients. I vaguely remember reading that a 1977 Mercury Cougar coupe had a cd of something like 0.57, and at that point they were actually doing wind tunnel tests on cars and paying attention to those things. So, I wonder how bad cars were before that? IIRC, when GM re-skinned their personal luxury coupes for 1981, some of them were in the low 0.4X range, and I think the 1982 Firebird was the first domestic car since the old Superbird to break the 0.4 barrier.
I'd imagine that most of the improvement in fuel economy has been thanks to fuel injection, computers, more efficient engines, transmissions, and so on, and while aerodynamics have helped, I don't think it's helped as much as we think.
I wonder, if you could take the V-6/8-speed drivetrain out of a 2013 Charger, and put it in a 1969 Coronet, what kind of fuel economy it would get? It's rated 19/31 in the Charger. I think the only way a 1969 Coronet would have broken 20 mpg on the highway would have either been with a slant six, or a 318 that was driven like an old lady (I had a '68 Dart with a V-8, and it struggled to break 17). But, I'd imagine that if you threw that modern drivetrain in the '69 Coronet, it would still score something close to the modern car's ratings.
Agreed; our system is certainly not perfect. But for GM and C, nobody did that to them but themselves.
I also have no problem in measured retaliation/distortion of the market, as long as it's quite clear what is going on. For example, if the government said to a trading partner "We're going to put a 25% environmental tariff on your goods until you have environmental standards essentially as good as what US companies must follow" or something like that, then I'd probably be ok with it. We would need to be ready for significant repercussions, however. But somehow the government never does things that clearly or sensibly.
Totally off topic - haven't seen gagrice post here in quite some time.
the percentage of successful bankruptcy reorganizations is pretty low, per the IRS. Most (70% ?) do wind up liquidating.
That would be for all bankruptcies, I wonder if that number changes with publicly traded and/or large companies and by the age of the corporation?
My guess would be that the number would drop as larger companies have more leverage over the lenders/bond holders, plus they likely have more valuable assets which private equity or another company would value. Plus it's well known most business rarely make it past 5 years or so, take them out of the equation and that number likely changes.
Valuing "going concern" assets is a lot different proposition than buying stuff at fire-sale prices.
And think about how fast Hostess Cupcakes disappeared from the market. :-)
Twinkies will be back in a month or so (I don't know about the rest of the Hostess brands). Hostess had been through a reorganization or two in the past. Several Hostess brands have value, the bakers union is a big reason it has taken so long for some of those brands to be back in production and part of the reason they liquidated in the first place.
I think the "leverage" for a broke company is slight - it's the lenders who will call the shots,
For sure. Ford is a prime example, they put their credit lines in place prior to the crap hitting the fan. If they would have waited another year or two, game over.
I think I'd go with the Challenger though, because it's bigger than the Mustang or Camaro. At least, it feels it to me. Essentially, it's a Charger/300 with four inches chopped out of the wheelbase. Which puts it at 116"...the same as a 1977-96 Caprice!
The size, or my perception of it at least, was one thing I liked about the original '70-74 Challenger (and Barracuda) compared to the Camaro and Mustang. I've heard that the '70-74 was actually based off the midsized cars rather than the compacts, as the Camaro/Mustang were. They were still horribly cramped in the back seat, and still had tiny trunks, but felt roomier up front, at least, where it counts.
Just saying I don't buy a real BK for GM or a restructured GM would have been the end of the world and I gave a real example that life does go on. A few hiccups along the way, but in the end it would mean better cars/car companies for everyone.
But our pres thought they were to big to fail........even though they DID fail.
And , IIRC, more than one pres felt GM was too big to fail. The bailout procedure began under the last guy's administration. Seems it was one item that garnered bi-partisan support...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20auto.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Someone's grandparents must have passed that car on the road.
I rather like '61 Cadillacs; seems like I just don't see them even at shows.
And indeed, it wasn't a presidential edict. If anything, it shows both of them were answering to the same demands.
Also one has to introduce Machiavelli into the room here...politicians don't necessarily have to believe in everything they do...they just have to do it sometimes because it is the wisest course for maintaining power (and might even be the right thing to do anyway). Many a leader has botched things up by doing what he believed in.
I'm sure that Bush didn't want a GM failure just days before the end of his presidency. He (wisely IMHO) provided enough "bridge capital" to carry them over to the next administration which could then handle the situation as they saw fit.
Although in principle I'm against the bailout, in this case I agree it may have been the best thing. But I don't agree how it was handled - specifically they didn't shed enough obligations, models, brands, and union contracts. That may very well haunt them in the next recession, or even during the next boom if the union gets uppity again.
But 2008 was a very scary time, and everyone thought that action was primary---in other words, doing SOMETHING as soon as possible was better than doing nothing.
On that point I agree.
In hindsight, the government should have increased the stimulus all around, and spent more money faster.
I do worry about GM - they are listening to focus groups again. Where's Bob Lutz when you need him? :P
I agree with that.
>That may very well haunt them in the next recession, or even during the next boom if the union gets uppity again.
The union problem shouldn't still be around; they should have been renegotiating with the new GM after reorganization. But that's what they got for support during the election with money and with time and feet on the ground doing door-to-door. Payoff. And we supply the dough for the payoff. The same union has just organized the casino workers in Toledo.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
> a taller instrument panel makes a (pickup) truck customer feel safer and more secure," and the vehicle feel more trucklike, Chris Hilts, a GM designer, told Edmunds. Hilts is manager of creative design for full-size pickup truck interiors.
>By contrast, SUV owners prefer the feeling of spaciousness that is created when the instrument panel is lower and the instrumentation is farther away from the driver.
I suspect most of us here could have told them there needed to be a difference. I can't believe they didn't know that from having driven the vehicles themselves in everyday use.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
One thing's for sure - he didn't listen to focus groups.
Well IMHO Bob Lutz was way overrated. He's the one who thought hybrids were a joke, AFAIR, as an example.
I see where the Chevy Spark has won the Wooden Spoon Award for coming in dead last in a European survey of quality.
#1 - Camry
#2 - Accord
#3 - Altima
#4 - Fusion - Go Further
#5 - Civic
#6 - Corolla
#7 - Focus - Bold Move
#8 - Elantra
#9 - Cruze - Chevy Runs Deep
#10 - Malibu - Find New Roads
#11 - Sonata
#12 - Impala - Heartbeat?
#13 - Optima
#14 - Jetta
#15 - Prius
#16 - 200
#17 - Chy. Versa
#18 - Sentra
#19 - Avenger
#20 - Maz. 3
Yeah, I know. Comes with the territory and some of these suits may not have merit. Still, it's not like GM and Chrysler smell bad and Ford is smelling like a rose here. :shades:
I think it is. Temp here on LI was 40 degrees this morning, and it may snow in upstate NY today. I remember Memorial Day weekends with temps near 100 here 15-20 years ago. This was the coolest spring I can remember, and Europe has had cold harsh winters 4 or 5 years in a row. Great Britain almost ran out of natural gas this year due to record demand.
I must not be as smart as these here scientists because I would figure that temperatures would increase because of "Global Warming", not decrease.
Yeah, I know...it's anecdotal. But I don't believe a word of it, and I won't until it is proven to me....and even if it is true there isn't anything... no tax, regulation or law that could stop it.
It's sort of like GM and Chrysler are roses that are looking a lot better, but when you smell them they still have a stink to them. :shades:
Wow. Global warming is a fraud. Look at Al Gore's wealth as a result. And when a scientific concept requires interpreting only part of the data and mistinterpreting other data and then requires renaming from global warming to "climate change," there's a problem with it. It certainly doesn't fulfill the Law of Parsimony.
Or maybe it's that I recall the global cooling threat of the earlier period--was that Carter's presidency or so, where we were going to be overrun again by glaciers... Hmmmm. Guess there was no money to be made on that theory? :lemon:
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I've sat in a few, and they're not all that bad, in my opinion. And when you factor the price into the equation, they can be downright tempting!
That top twenty list shows just how critical the midsized segment is, as well. While they're marketed as compacts, cars like the Elantra, Cruze, and Sentra are nominally midsized these days. The Prius is midsized, according to the EPA. Heck, the Jetta might be, as well.
So that would leave just the Civic, Corolla, Focus, Versa, and Mazda 3 as the only non-midsized cars. Well, there's the Impala, which is nominally a full-sized car. But that's the outgoing Impala, which is so space-inefficient I have trouble labeling it "full-sized".
Lemko, I think the Taurus only sells about 50-60,000 units per year these days, so it would be nowhere near the top twenty.
He made an interesting comment that certainly related to the automobile industry:
""All climate scientists should announce they're going to take their entire life savings and invest in industries that will thrive under the conditions of global warming. All those in denial of global warming -- which tends to be some of the wealthier people of the nation -- won't do that. As global warming unfolds, that will be the greatest inversion of wealth the world has ever seen. That's all it takes," said Tyson, adding with a smile and a shrug, "I could get rich off this."
Freudian slip, but I know you mean the '200' instead of 'Sebring'.
That is pretty impressive. Maybe three years ago I looked at an Avenger at the Columbus, OH auto show with a friend, and it seemed like a good buy and also had a high N.A.-parts content and was assembled in the 'States, with engine and trans assembled in the 'States as well. I just can't get past the cut of that rear door, like the Charger of several years back though, but price will make one overlook some things!
I rode in my wife's friend's '11 200 the other night. Not bad at all...it's a pretty deluxe one she has. She said there's only a couple things she hasn't liked about it--has a noise in the RF, not real real loud, and she says at certain directions she's blinded by sun reflecting off of a chrome piece around her clock in the center of the dash!
The front-end noise wouldn't surprise me...we have the crappiest roads anywhere around here. Here in suburbia, I can tell that most of the major streets/roads were once two-lane and turned into four-lane, as it is impossible to dodge the many, many manhole covers that result in your car going "BOOM! BOOM!". I can't stand that!
Oops, yeah, I can't believe I just typed that!
IMO, the Dart sort of suffers the same problem. Looks good up front, and going back to the B-pillar. But, from there backwards, it just seems too stubby, and sort of egg-shaped. I think it was tjc78 that said it first, that the roofline looks an awful lot like an old Hyundai Elantra. And, damn if it doesn't!
Seems hard to believe that the Avenger is outselling the Dart!
I've seen some Darts in some vivid colors that catch my attention lately. They've all been on dealer lots, though.