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.....crickets.....
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Fuck Generic Motors. They should have gone out of business.
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Kristy (04-14-2014),Nitro Express (04-14-2014)
People should know how to handle a car if the engine cuts out. You lose power assist but you still can control the car. The problem is the watered down drivers training we have. People aren't trained how to deal with it and they don't know what to do. We had a neighbor who's accelerator stuck. It was a Ford Explorer and it was an electrical defect. Instead of just turning off the ignition switch and maybe using the emergency brake to stop. She paniced and dodged cars and the only thing she could think of to stop was to drive into a fence.
Parts go defective. Sure GM should have sent out notices but you still can brake a car and steer a car with the engine off. It just takes some extra effort. You have a secondary braking manual braking system. It's called an emergency brake for a reason.
Shit Happens. People need to be better trained to deal with if it does. People are dying because they simply don't know what to do and panic.
Last edited by Nitro Express; 04-14-2014 at 01:22 PM.
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Agreed. The banks should have not been bailed out either. Iceland refused to bail their banks out, threw some of the bankers in jail and they are doing great right now. Yup. Let losers fail. It clears out the dead wood. If someone wants to build Cadillacs, Pontiacs, Chevrolet, Buick, or whatever. They can buy the name and go to it.
Nickdfresh (04-20-2014),PETE'S BROTHER (04-14-2014)
Ford took zero bailout money. They sold off Land Rover and Jaguar to Tata to raise some extra cash. Did some reorganizing and pulled through.
Is that a Cobra Jet, or a Super Cobra Jet?
Let's see, big block vs. puny 4 cylinder...
The '69 and '70 Mach 1's are some of the greatest muscle cars ever. Shaker hood. Wing. Window Louvers.
I'm getting a boner, and not just because of you Kristy.
Kristy (04-14-2014)
Who the fuck cares? The muscle era was when Detroit could build a fucking car. Now look at all these pussy Prius and Ford Focus clown cars driven by yuppies and hipsters. Fuck the auto industry.
Okay, so the 1969 Camaro R/S was somewhat sexy.
There's a big difference between the auto industry and Wall Street Criminal Banks.
The auto industry actually produces something. One of the few industries left that actually does so in the US, and pays a lot of people a liveable wage in the process. And this industry impacts many others both on the supply side, from those who make the parts and materials that go into cars, and on the demand side, from local businesses that depend on auto worker cash in the communities where those factories are located.
If Gold Mansacks or Bank of UnAmerica went out of business tomorrow, nobody would give a fuck, outside of a handful of rich criminal bastards. They produce nothing.
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The Mach 1 brings back memories. My parents were gone a lot and they would hire a local girl to house sit. She had a silver Mach 1 with black stripes. I can remember riding all over in that car.
Actually the workmanship on the old muscle cars was pretty lousy. The fit and finish on the Dodge muscle cars was particularly bad. The trim was so cheap it was laughable. What the Mopars had were great engines. They were basically cheap cars with big engines. They could only go fast in a straight line. The brakes and suspension were horrible. They looked and sounded great and that's all that mattered when you went on the cruise.
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kwame k (04-14-2014)
Banking is a service based business. Yeah what the bankers figured out is they could make more money with less hassle just gaming the markets. Easy to do in the age of computers. They buy up companies and outsource them. China becomes the new work force and as long as you have the biggest military in the world financed with the petro-dollar you in theory can keep China in check.
They got too greedy though. They war mongered too much and now Russia, China, and other countries are going to ruin the petro-dollar so the US can't finance it's military operations. The only fix I see is issuing a US greenback through the US Treasury Department. That gets rid of the Federal Reserve (something Kennedy did years ago). It probably will make imports from China 20% more expensive but that gives us an opportunity to build things again and export them.
You finance the recovery with US Treasury notes. We would have to build new factories, new equipment to go in them. We have lots of infrastructure to fix and upgrade. Lot's of job potential. Everything is financial policy. Banking is so powerful you can decide what the future is going to be short of natural disasters. Anything man made banking controls. That's what people need to understand.
You need finance before you can have a factory. People want to get paid with something.
Last edited by Nitro Express; 04-14-2014 at 02:17 PM.
The market for those cars were teenagers and college kids. GM, Ford, and Chrysler built stripped down cars with cheap trim and put a big engine in them. Gas was cheap and you smoked the tires when you peeled off after school.
I was in high school at the end of the muscle car era. You bought a used late 60's muscle car and fixed it up. That's why you had the after school and summer job. Little by little. You got it running good. Then you popped for some nice tires and wheels. Then you worked on the body. The day you got the new paint job was a big day. You no longer were driving a car with primer all over it. Then you worked on the interior if you cared. Usually a loud stereo was needed too.
You could buy Chargers, Mustangs, Cameros, Challengers, GTO's relatively cheap. Sometimes there was the old widow who finally decided to sell her husbands GTO with 30,000 original miles. People loved them but they weren't collectors items yet. They were cheap fun cars made cheap so kids with a job could afford one.
Oh well then. I'll just sit here and wait for Nick to give me the Wiki definition of a shaker hood.
I would say most of us grew up in great times. We missed the Vietnam draft. Were too young to suffer through the 70's soft rock and disco shit. Came into the party years in the 80's. Oh yeah baby! You still could have a late 60's muscle car and still be in high school. You could blast Unchained through the big stereo. Go 110 down the highway on cheap gas. We were lucky.
I was raised in the muscle car era, and I disagree with your assessment. Most of these cars were family cars, and priced appropriately for the times. You could buy a Roadrunner with a 318 in it, or for a mere few hundred bucks, you could upgrade it to a 440 or even a 426 Hemi.
The only teenagers getting these cars brand new, are still the same teenagers that are getting brand new cars today. The spoiled rich kids.
Tying the cars to stock car racing was marketing. It was all about horsepower, torque, acceleration, ect... The thing is you couldn't keep a muscle car on a windy road to save your life. You couldn't stop them either. They were basically made to stomp on the gas and go fast in a straight line. It was about power and noise. It wasn't about sophistication. LOL!
PETE'S BROTHER (04-14-2014)
Usually the deal was the kid would pay for part of the car and dad would pay the rest. You also have to remember we had a real middle class then. Healthcare was cheaper. School was way less. A manager of a freight depot could own their own small airplane or cabin cruiser boat. People had a lot of toys then that had middle class jobs. The standard of living was actually pretty good.
The kids that did buy their muscle car new sacrificed dearly for it. They worked construction all summer. They had jobs after school. It was school, work, and show off the car. The car was the idol they worshiped. All they talked about was cars.
PETE'S BROTHER (04-14-2014)
This was the last muscle car I built. When my Wife's health started failing, I had to sell it. This was an original 383 (not an original R/T) car. I changed it to a 440. I had $10k in just the engine.
That Pontiac in my neighbor's garage is still in that same position. He just turned 60, and claims he is going to restore it "someday". He won't. I have offered to help him, and he always has an excuse. Money is not an issue with him.
Kristy (04-14-2014),Nickdfresh (04-20-2014),Nitro Express (04-14-2014),PETE'S BROTHER (04-14-2014)
Man. I remember those Pontiac front ends. I was a passenger in a VW Rabbit that happened to get rear ended by a drunk indian driving a Pontiac beast of a station wagon with that very front end on it. Ah, the Rabbit did fair too well. LOL! Holy shit. I'm glad I had my seat belt on because I probably would have gone through the windshield.
In my opinion the greatest eras of car design were the 30's and the 60's. They really designed some beautiful american cars in the 60's. When the government safety standards started to go in effect in the 70's car designers couldn't be so creative. Big bumpers started to appear and then higher gas mileage standards had to be met. The arab oil embargo killed the classic muscle car.
In the 60's car designers didn't have to design to meet regulations, they designed for the art of it. That's why those cars look great.
In the 60's Chrysler was the premier engineering company. I always thought their cars lacked in asthetics but man did they have great engines and transmissions. Far superior to the others. The old Chrysler Imperials were superior cars to anything Rolls-Royce put out. They just never sold well. There seems to be collectors interest in them now.
I think they have done a good job of remaking the muscle car vibe. The new cars have lots of power, get better mileage, and look pretty decent. They handle better than the old originals do. But you aren't going to shade tree mechanic one. I doubt they will last as long. Plastic and computers seem to have a limited life. Metal as long as it doesn't rust away lasts longer and can be reshaped and repaired. We make disposable cars now. They are like disposable shavers. When they no longer do the job you toss it and get an new one.
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