| Author | Message | ||
     Froggy |
Nostalgia sells, regardless of it being a car or something else. They are trying to appeal to older buyers that have disposable income, but they can only do that to a certain extent as it typically isolates most of the other demographics. The Camaro/Mustang/Challenger do appeal to the young a bit, but some other vehicles like the Thunderbird require AARP membership to be seen in.
Indeed it is!
I've read a guy who hypermiled nearly 40mpg out of a Corvette Z06. It is fun to see how much you can squeeze out of these. Oh, and the 36.4mpg I did was legit 479.1 miles highway cruising with no hypermiling, it took 13.149 gallons to fill back up.
Write to the automakers too, it is more about demand to get them into production than anything. It costs lots of money to make them street legal here, and they won't do it if they feel that nobody is going to buy it.
Yep, its just another beautiful engineering exercise, it is too far out there for production. If they uglified it a bit it might have a decent chance, but the complex powertrain will make it expensive | ||
| Boogiman1981 |
from what i've read and my knowledge of epa and safety reg's the trucks already meet or exceed the requirements here. however the epa and the ntsb won't recognize the 'different' standards they are built to even though the end result is the same or better than required here. regulations are a huge hurdle and the reason for the enormous expense related to bringing those trucks stateside. thus my comment to writing to your elected officials. :-/ | ||
| No_rice |
they should bring back saturn, and not the new stuff either... the mileage on the 2003 and newer stuff sucked compared to the older ones. 96 sc2(twin cam) 5spd. 74,000 miles. pretty consistent 34-35mpg and will spin its tires the first few gears. plus pulls my trailer with bike on it and still gets 30-31mpg runing 75mph+  we also have a 97 sl1(single cam) 95,000 miles. 5 speed. 39-40mpg and will spin the tires decently. and has decent room for the whole family.  and what i have into both of those combined wouldnt make a decent down payment on any of the new stuff that is "supposed" to get that kind of mileage. or... my old 84 vw rabbit diesel 5spd that gets 40-50 with 193,000 on it. it will not spin the tires though lol(well unless you dumped the clutch!)  | ||
| Fahren |
Jetta TDI, FTW! | ||
| Cityxslicker |
damnit, I did dig Saturn, Our SL was stupid reliable.... and I loved the Sky and Sky Redline.... so of course : Off with their head. | ||
| Cyclonedon |
I once owned a 1965 Ford Mustang, the worst car I ever owned. It had three problems, the motor, the transmission, and the rear end. I won't call the fact that it was rusting to just pieces a major problem. I couldn't ever drive it more than 15 miles from home because it would always break down so I had to drive my parents Buick when I went anyplace other than just uptown. My dad hated that car so much that he paid the difference when I went to trade it off and vowed to never own another Ford automobile ever again. I have driven GM products ever since and have had good luck with them. I may get a Smart Cars someday but the dealer was sold out last fall when I was car shopping. I test drove one and liked it. | ||
| Jb2 |
Don - We had a '65 Mustang with a 200/6cyl/3spd. Bought it with 165,000 miles on it. We were broke as a joke. I drove it two years, nearly 70 miles a day back and forth to work. Got great gas mileage. When we were more on our feet and ready to sell I tried to blow the thing up and could not. The guy we sold it to drove it for years until the rear springs finally came through the floor. He took the motor out and used it in something else he owned... Maverick or something. When the gubmint bailed out the unions in the name of saving GM I wrote off ever owning another GM or Chrysler product. Just watched an interesting video. GM now produces 70% of the vehicles they sell world-wide in other countries. As a part of their investment in the Chinese market they have moved most of their technology and R&D to China. Hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Those were the days. | ||
| Chauly |
I like ours a lot...  Even in the snow! | ||
| Fahren |
Hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. You forgot baseball. | ||
| Chauly |
Froggy, Re: Nostalgia selling When I was young in the 50's and 60's, I don't recall there being a lot of desire to go back to pre-war running boards, canvas tops, and wood frames. Every marketing ploy was futuristic, the next step, cars that looked like jet planes and rocket ships. The future looked so bright, you needed Polaroids! If Chevrolet put up a billboard that featured a 1939 Chevy, they would have been laughed off of Madison Ave... | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
baseball sucks... | ||
| Cityxslicker |
Target marketing. The baby boomers are retiring loaded and pensioned and those are the cars of their youth. Hell even the VW micro bus is making a comeback | ||
| Xl1200r |
I got a chance to sample two new small fords over the past weeks with rentals - a Fiesta and a Focus - I really liked them both - comfy, good looking, well-appointed. BUT... holy cow, WTF is Ford doing with their transmissions? At around town speeds, they both were constantly hunting for gears and just generally behaving very poorly. It was annoying enough that if I couldn't get the engine I wanted with a manual, I'd pass on the car entirely. To date, I've owned 4 GMs, 1 Ford, 1 Chrysler and 1 Mazda. The only one that ever gave me any flack was the Chrysler - the rest had been dead nuts reliable and requiring only very minor and cheap repairs in the time I've owned them. My current car is a 10-year-old Chevy that makes 345hp and get damned near 30MPG on the highway - easily the most fun car I've owned. The Mazda I had was fine - pretty fast and a nice drive, but it bored me, so I moved on after only 18 months or something. I also wouldn't rule out another Chrysler, but it'd most likely be a Jeep. Oh, and for the record, I think the new Chevy Sonic is quite a looker for the segment. | ||
| Fahren |
Baseball is awesome. | ||
| Hootowl |
Playing baseball is awesome. Watching baseball sucks. | ||
| Hootowl |
Pretty happy with my Jetta TDI, but if I go back to gas, it'll be a Ford. Rumor has it, Ford will be introducing a diesel car in 2013 or 2014. We'll see. | ||
| Fahren |
Hootowl - both are fun, with the right people and some good weather! | ||
| Court |
The Focus ST pricing and ordering info is up on the Ford website. If you want a 6 month old Titanium with every available option and 20,000 miles . . . I've got one (that I love) I'd be happy to sell. Figure $29,000 for the ST and the R runs about $98,000 if you want to race it and don't want to put it on the street. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
both are fun, with the right people and some good weather! True that, I love baseball, in fact I'm watching mlbtv at the moment, Orioles are 3-1 up top of the 4th Rangers just clawed one back. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
I love my Alfa too, got 500 miles to run in it tomorrow, unfortunately I'll be hauling a trailer, but only a small one. | ||
| 01_turbowolf |
as soon as chevy builds a 400 hp v-8 without pushrods and smaller than 6 liters ill think about it. for now my 12 gt 5.0 will do just fine, sounds amazing at 7000 rpm btw! as far as fiesta/focus trans welcome to fords first major attempt at an auto shifting standard. nowhere close to a pdk but they tried? fords moving fast and i think they made chevy cry with the 13 gt500 unveiling | ||
| Dennis_c |
Hell even the VW micro bus is making a comeback. Does this mean the hippies are making a come back to heaven help us | ||
| Hootowl |
They never left. They've been hiding in colleges and in congress. | ||
| Froggy |
You are going to love the next generation of the SBC that will debut in the next generation Corvette soon. It is great to see that the horsepower wars are on again.  | ||
| 01_turbowolf |
honestly i cant wait. any kind of war between manufacturers is good for consumers. they get better, faster, and smaller, and we see the rewards | ||
| Sifo |
The Focus ST pricing and ordering info is up on the Ford website. I saw that last week when I was poking around. Still light on a lot of details though. Couldn't find any mileage estimates. I've never been that much of a turbo fan either, but they have come a long way since I've driven a turbo in a car (think turbo Thunderbird back in the early 80's). If it kills the mileage much I'd rather just have the platinum. Court, I forget the color you have. The red or blue kind of turn my head. Honestly, when the time comes let me know. My wife has a line on a job that will be hopefully be opening up late summer. They are just trying to get the budget approval. She was working on this before the lay off, and it was specifically mentioned to her with a nudge and a wink. If it pans out it would be an ideal situation for us. That should be right around the time the ST hits dealers.  | ||
| Sifo |
WTF is Ford doing with their transmissions? At around town speeds, they both were constantly hunting for gears and just generally behaving very poorly. That wasn't the case at all with the test drive I took. The new trans was something that I was specifically paying attention to too because of some complaints. They must have some inconsistencies going on. I did hear that they go through a "learning" process to learn your driving habits. I wonder if being a rental if that gets all messed up??? | ||
| Guell |
My next project will be here tomorrow, 1972 bmw 2002tii, 35mpg, great power to weight ratio, and they handle awesome | ||
| Court |
      As fun as any car I've ever had and NO CAR has more on board technology than the Focus with MFT. | ||
| 7873jake |
Doesn't tii = early German fool (fuel)-injection? always wondered if that would be a headache. I'd be interested in tracking your progress if you wanted to share that periodically. Been a big fan of the 2002's for about 25 years. |
