Mallard

As I said, you'll see a little of everything at Woodward. Classics, muscle cars, customs, some rare models, imported exotics, concept cars, rice, donk, junk, etc.

This is why Woodward is the greatest crusie in ever. You see anything and everything you could think of during the weekend. I missed it this year, but here are some of the pics/vids being posted. I encourage anyone who loves cars to make the trip up here during that week. http://www.xceedspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217218&p=4289781#post4289781 http://www.autoweek.com/article/20120824/CARNEWS01/120829908

I've been looking into opening a Biggby coffee with a coworker. I probably won't go anywhere with it, but it seems like a pretty solid franchise and the price of entry is pretty low.

They actually say in the article that Chrysler has said they are going to kill one of them, but they don't know which one will live on yet. Oh and the "Aztek from Hell" pictured above was badass. At least the front half was a tube chassis with a C5R drivetrain in it and RWD conversion. It's the way all Aztek's should have come.

But they DON'T need another bailout. The point is the guy who wrote this article is a complete idiot and the theme of his article is unfounded. In one breath he says GM failed because of the idiots steering the ship, then in the next questions the new CEO's ability because he is replacing the management team. If they were so out of touch shouldn't they be replaced? This article has no basis. For my thoughts on how the industry would handle a GM sized company going out of business just read my previous posts. There was a supplier support program in place during the Ch. 11 proceedings and the company I worked for at the time took over $25 million, which was outstanding debt owed by these companies. Do you expect them to swallow that and still continue to provide services to other OEM's uninterrupted?

Actually they do when the company is based in a foreign country. Don't get me wrong, it's great that they are doing SOME operations in the US, but the profits go overseas. People leaving Detroit has nothing to do with foreign car makers. Even the Big 3 have headquarters outside of Detroit (GM has offices in the Ren Cen, but the Tech Center is in Warren). Everything moved to the suburbs, including employers. It wasn't (and isn't) an issue of the suppliers shifting who they sell to, it's an issue of the outstanding debt that a large company like GM would leave them with. Parts are sourced YEARS ahead of time (right now we're quoting MY2016), so this shift would not be quick. Also, it's not like GM paid for the development costs, tooling, production equipment, etc. up front. This is all rolled into the piece price and divided across up to 5 years of volume. Leaving the suppliers with this type of debt would send them into bankruptcy, they would lay off massive amounts of workers, and this would cascade across the industry. Oh really? Is that why people had unemployment running out even though these companies did not go under? There aren't many jobs actually in Detroit anyway, everything is suburban. Have you ever been anywhere other then downtown Detroit? This does not happen anymore. You say above that the car makers don't care about the average person affording their car, and that new cars aren't affordable, but why do you think they have increased in price? On one hand you blast them for re-using a radio across all their models and demand a bespoke peice of hardware. Then when you get more bespoke hardware you blast them for increasing the price. Building a car is expensive and in the past years certain models have been torn apart in the press for how soft the dash feels in a $20k car, and if the buttons on the radio feel good to the touch. The Cobalt had a cheap plastic interior, but started around $13k. Now you can have the up-market materials you whined about in a $16.5k Cruze.

This article is a joke, and I don't understand why the American press loves to blast one of the largest American company's around. You want to compare market share numbers from the 1960's to today? You want to make a blanket statement saying the GM is incapable of producing competitive products, but ignore the ATS, CTS, LaCrosse, Verano, Regal, Cruze, Equinox, Camaro, and Corvette (and maybe more I'm forgetting)? You want to use the Malibu Eco model, which was rushed to market almost a full model year ahead of the rest of the Malibu line-up and the benchmark of what all the sales potential is for this model? This article is a joke. The Cruze is a success, worldwide. The ATS is critically acclaimed. China is GM's larget market, and still growing at a good rate (just not as fast as it was). GM has posted large profits in almost ever quarter since bankruptcy. The stock price is being held down by the large government holding. But according to this guy the company is on the verge of failure.

Yeah, basically with the new test none of the impact is absorbed through the engine block, but must be dissapated through the fender and shock tower area. It looks like concentrating that much force down the side of the vehicle causes the A pillar to buckle pretty easily too. You guys can claim we need better drivers all you want, but accidents like this will still happen. You can be a pretty damn good driver and still have this type of accident, and would probably be much more likely to have an accident of this nature than any of the other frontal impact tests.

I do appreciate the details, even if I'd have to look some of them up to fully understand. I took photography in HS, but that was a long time ago, and we didn't go that in-depth. Due to sticking to a budget, we got the T3i with kit lens (18-55) and the 50mm f/1.8. After days of looking she did one last search on Amazon and found the T3i for $620 (not a refurb). After we bought it the price went up to $699, so there must have only been one at that price. The 50mm was about $105.

If I heard the guy on the news correctly, 20-25% of fatal car crashes fall into the "small overlap" category. The IIHS is an independently funded organization that tests vehicles for the purpose of rating the real-world safety of the coccupents, determing the cost of repair in small fender benders, etc. which all goes into determining your premiums.

The S/C cars are 5.3L's based on the LSX block (the same block in Marc's Vette). If someone wanted to push it farther I don't think tehy'd have to start the build over.

Proof it can break the tires loose in heavy rain!

Thanks! It came with the kit lens (EF-S 18-55mm) so she was wondering about what would be a good second lens. She's mostly looking at doing portraits or action shots, not really close ups of flowers, etc. (which seems to be the reason for going with a low f-stop). I think she was leaning towards the 40mm or one of the cheaper telephoto (50-250mm), but the 50mm seems to be something that everyone recommends having. Austen's not walking yet, but he's close. He crawls as fast as I walk, he walks well if he has something to hold on to, and he's starting to stand on his own. Obviously, this camera will mostly be used on him, so it will need to keep up.

My wife just bought a Canon T3i and was wondering which lens would be the better 'starter' choice; the 50mm/f1.8 or 40mm/f2.8? I've seen a lot of people recommend to 50mm, but I also see some saying the 40mm is sharper across the image and question if the user would ever need f1.8.

If you watch the video you'll see that they lose the bead on the front tire a lot. This is something that TrailBlazer's also do almost every time they do this test.

Yeah, I've been involved in programs that had to make last minute changes like this. Chrysler used to get all kinds of crap for being slow through the Consumer Reports lane change, but sideslip angle was controlled, while the Hyundai Santa Fe would go through fast, but you would be completely sideways. So they visited CR to see how they run their test, then required all ESC tuning be done with this event in mind. The first cars tested after this also tested poorly, only to find out that afte CR showed them the test they changed it and didn't say anything. Loading a vehicle differently changes everything in this test. Putting weight up high can make some cars lift the wheels at 50 mph or less in a curve, while they wouldn't lift a wheel with 4 passangers in a double lane change. The fact that these guys do this type of test on SUV's without outriggers is pretty damn stupid too.

Consumer reports has a very similar, if not identical, test. It's also a double lane change, but I'm not sure the dimensions are the same. It also had to pass a very aggressive test from the NHTSA so they could sell it in the US. No other publication was able to reproduce these results without overloading the vehicle. Either way, I'm sure Chrysler is looking to fix this. I'm just glad I wasn't the one that worked on this program. haha.

I only have my cell phone camera and it's not fast enough when I see them passing. At the airport I found a magazine called Style Wagon Club that devoted to this.

Hopefully they don't F it up.

+1. I'm interested in the header layout as well. Are both turbo's on the passanger side because there wasn't enough space on the drivers side?

I always run into Buckeye fans. I've seen them while in an alley at a cafe in Rome, I've run into them in Finland and Sweden. Sunday I shouted O-H- across at the baggage claim in Nagoya (his wife just smiled and laughed, he couldn't hear me), and today at breakfast in Omihaciman there's another. Buckeye fans rule the world. GO BUCKS!

Pay attention to this.

Wow, there were some really top level cars there.

Honestly, D3 has had some intersting concepts but I've never been impressed with the quality of work. Everything seems so cheaply thrown together.