Classic Cars/Fuel Economy

What is your favorite car of all time? http://classyauto.com/v/Chevrolet+Impala/28108 If the sky was the limit, this would be me. Except it would have to be a 4-speed. It should be illegal to put an automatic on a muscle car. I am writing to my senator.

It is amazing how efficient engines have come in the last 40 years. My dad had a '62 409 and I think he said it got, on a good day, about 8 mpg. Well, that is running her pretty hard. My uncle in VA had a '64 Continental with a 460, and I can attest to 7 mpg. You could watch the gas gage move in that baby. It was slow as hell off the line, but from 60-90 you could burn a gallon of gas pretty quick.

I had a recall on my current car and borrowed one of those new Cadillac SRX's for a couple of days. It kind of looks like a station wagon, but under the hood was 320 ponies. The moon roof was as wide as the roof and went all the way back past the rear passenger seats. If you drove very calmly it would get 24 mpg on the highway. Then again the urge to hear her sing put me back to 18 mpg.

I wonder if that '62 Impala would really keep up with the new Corvette?

Job Perks

One of the cool things about my job is that I get to see and drive stuff long before the public. ie...A couple of months ago I drove the 2005 Corvette. It was your basic plain jane model. Six speed stick, no glass roof, but it did have the heads up display. I put her to the test and she did not disappoint me, not at all. 400 ponies and six forward gears! Really, you only need the first three, unless you have a death wish. I turned the traction control off and yes, it will throw smoke for as long as your heart desires... I am humbled by GM's engineering. To take so much power and make a sports car that almost rides like Cadillac. Looking over the hood and seeing the two front fenders jetting up into the air was great. To think that you can keep up or even spank some of the big dollar imports for 40K really makes this what America is all about...

Advertising

Watching the Lions go 2-0, yes, that is the Lions 2-0! I was assaulted with unending advertising for the big 3. Mostly Ford, because the game was held at Ford field and Coach Mariucci was seen driving just about everything Ford produces.

Believe it or not, the big 3 spends 3 billion a year in advertising. Yes, that is 3 with a B billion. That's about a billion a piece in advertising. Sounds pretty lucrative doesn't it. What suprises me is that they don't actually produce their commercial themselves', it is outsourced. I guess it kind of makes sense, since their business is making cars/trucks. But, with such a large spend, I think they could get more bang for the buck if they managed it a little better.

Detroit is such a different market for sales than the rest of the country. Most people walk into the dealership and have a discount already because they work for the maufacturer or have a supplier discount. At the end of the model year things get crazy. Right now you can get a F150 4x4 for $3,500. That right, $3,500 cash gets you a 2004 F150 for 24 months, 24,000 miles and 0 monthly payment. That works out to $145/month. Of course this is the employee price.

Buy anything you want, just buy American.

The cost of transportation

CNN-Money is all over cars today. I was wondering why my wallet felt so lite. My Uncle in Virginia has four cars and pays less than I do for two. Oh, and his cars cost twice what my do too. I wish we had a subway system or light rail like they have out east... The other bad part is all the snow we get in Detroit. One of our vechicles is four wheel drive and gets, oh, 14 mpg. When your handing over Mr. Grant to fill the tank, it sucks.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/16/pf/autos/newcarcosts/index.htm?cnn=yes

How to name your car?

Do you have a name for your car? My current car I don't but I did have a van we called "The Brown Bomber" I let my buddy borrow it for a month in a time of need and got it back minus a transmission and rear quarter window.

Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN/Money staff writer has a great atricle on how the OEM's really name their vehicles.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/07/pf/autos/car_name_decoder/index.htm

WOW, two posts in the same week. I might be getting better at this...

NFL

Ah, the best time of the year. Are you ready for some football? I don't follow any other sport. No college football, no basketball, just the NFL!!! I might watch the playoffs like I did for our champs the Pistons, but that's about it.

Write this down. The Detroit Lions are 1-0 with a win on the road. Detroit has had a few good drafts the past two years and our potential is good. The only problem is, we have had to suffer 3 years for a total of 10 wins to get it. I am still faithful. I went online to find a new Lions hat yesterday. We have the ugliest hats of all the NFL. The pain never ends.

Ug, the auto industry.... The big three collectively cut production in the 4th quarter to the tune of a whole assembly plant of capacity. GM and Ford taking big cuts. Incentives keep going up and up. If there was ever a time to buy a new car on the cheap, it is now. Competition is tough.

Speaking of competition. I don't understand how an airline can file for chapter 11 twice within in two years. I didn't really didn't like ECON 101 and all that supply and demand crap. But common sense tells me that if you don't have any money in the check book, you can't keep writing checks. I think the sheriff's department makes sure of it. Either a whole lot of people are stupid and keep losing money or Corporate America is corrupt. I am banking on the latter.

Good old Detroit based K-Mart is another great example. Did all of those people that held K-mart stock really lose all of their money? Some rich guys come in and throw up a couple of dollars, sell off some of the assets, give themselfs a shit load of "new" stock and run it's price up to $100. Then, sell of all the stock they gave themselfs' and run the price back down to $50. I think the real crooks are white collar people.

It takes money to make money!