@pip-bip Yeesh... open till midnight on weekdays... that's an awful long time, but maybe the norm in the 60s.

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera the guy would vacuum his yard and driveway almost daily, and he kept a pair of loafers in the front seat - everyday after work, he'd pull in the driveway, get a vacuum out of thr garage, vacuum out the interior, change shoes in the driver seat, then pull in. Today we'd call it OCD, back then it was anal retentive. Also pulled a gun on the neighbor's Golden Retriever a couple times, told them it was dead if it ever set foot on his property

@pip-bip
Having been in the rear of one of these when I was 6 years old, I'm calling this ad bullshit.

@pip-bip

Nader hater.

@pip-bip nite, pip!

@Urambo-Tauro

Corvette, remember when I said I would drive you last?

I lied.

@pip-bip
"Whatever price you wish to pay"...General Motors leads the way.

I'm seeing a flaw in that strategy.

@ash78 said in Corvair wagon DOTS:

This should be Chevy's next name resurrection in the EV world.

Of course, it would be a three-row SUV based on the Blazer EV.

GM should keep bringing back dead brands as models. GMC Hummer. Chevrolet Holden. Buick Pontiac. Cadillac Oakland. Etc.

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera The way it's parked by the curb makes me wonder if this is supposed to be a RHD model... It's hard to see a steering wheel, but I think I see a dashboard bulge on the curb side. If this is indeed a LHD, then this is a one-way street, or she parked wrong. Maybe someone forgot to include the "closed course, do not attempt" disclaimer.

@Suzuka-Blue-2000 I remember the build quality of those cars. It probably fell into its component pieces immediately after they turned off the cameras.

@amoore100 The Equinox is going to be much less expensive than the Ioniq or Ariya. For a $30-40k car I think it’s appropriate. Plus it actually has a decent number of physical controls.

@pip-bip

That is awesome. I don't think the special interior ever made it to production. If it did I am unaware and I look forward to being corrected.

The Mopar mod tops and matching flowery interiors did make it to market. I expect this is Buick's reaction.

@facw for its time, the Monza was an OK car, not as good as an AMC Spirit at $4,320 (which came with standard air conditioning and fully galvanized body panels) or a Corolla (which you might buy if your last name was Helmsley, Kerkorian, or Trump, but what about the average Joe 24-Pack?)

@pip-bip Chevy Blazer. I always liked the 2 door versions.

@Highlander — Well, sure! Simple to work on, timeless good looks, great parts availability, and like many classics-to-be, they were going through their years in the wilderness when they were just a cheap used car.

@pip-bip Night

@RamblinRover and GM was the one who invented vent windows in the '30s, they were powerful enough to create industry-wide trends at the snap of a finger, then immediately end them the same way.

@pip-bip I wondered if they sold '57 Chevys in oz... apparently "yes":
ae2c3d7d-f29f-4344-893b-20c4b98ab5cf-image.png
Most RHD '57s appear to be 210s and not higher trim, but it counts.

In the 90s when we all had little 4-bangers with 100-130hp, a kid in my neighborhood drove a '77 (I think) Camaro with a newer Chevy 350 swapped in.

None of us had any experience with muscle cars in our lifetimes, and it was an experience. For once, we walked into class smelling like exhaust fumes instead of Marlboro Lights.

Great car, just don't try to make a turn.

A driving experience that should get you comp time in purgatory for some sins big enough to be really fun. In its defense, though, when this car came out, a lot of companies were betting on diesels for the US market (even BMW got in on the act, albeit with a turbo that spiced things up a bit) as people looked apprehensively to a future of expensive and at times hard-to-get fuel.

Then OPEC decided to bicker among themselves in various ways (most notably, Iraq decided to conquer Iran and neither side achieved much except a lengthy blood-soaked stalemate) rather than continue hoovering our wallets, so in the mid-80s, oil prices descended to a long low plateau. Car makers then mostly hung up this particular hairshirt.

Here's a modern story on driving a Chevette diesel (tl;dr: like driving a regular Chevette, only with more time to savor the experience). The upside of anhedonia: even with automatic transmission, they saw high-thirties MPG in thick city traffic, and an easy 40+ with some hope of hypermiling well into the 50s at illegal-when-new modern freeway speeds (which, yes, it will eventually reach and sustain).

@pip-bip
So it only went backwards?

@KAC They're actually Indestructable, (redline 5200, dumop clutch at 7200, repeat) and they handle with just some decent rubber but are the most uncool car ever to exist that's the primary thing wrong with them, and being brutally underpowered.

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera
That's fine for 1990...but it's 2023 and GM still only give you three years.

@RacinBob One last note. Do not confuse the early '06 uplander with the "07 and '08. The '06 had the crappy underpowered and unreliable 3.4 V6 and the 5 bolt hubs with what were described as potato chip thin front disks.

GM in its grand tradition finally got everything right with the '07 uplander just in time to close the plant down in '08!

@pip-bip SQUAREBODY!

@pip-bip 16d84438d73e30da54044254e364f3d4.jpg

That hatchback Corsica is cool. Too bad more midsize sedans aren't hatchbacks 🤐

@Roadkilled probably pissed off some of their dealers in Alabama

@FourMalibus said in Migrating Chevy badges:

Same with the 2014 Silverado 1500 - way too Transformers looking, and then they fixed it with the 16 refresh.

that's funny because I'm of the opposite opinion; the original 2014 was a bit 'cartoony', sure, but I liked that it was squared off and butch.

alt text

The refresh added weird swoopy 'eyeliner' DRLs and those tear-shaped lights in the bumper that made it look to me like the truck is crying 😭

alt text

@Highlander These cars were utter crap when new. No intensity of GM apologist can claim they stack up favorably against a contemporary Explorer except for perhaps very niche use cases involving towing.

@pip-bip 56mpg highway as I recall, the most fuel efficient car on the market at the time, and one of the cheapest (like $800 more than a Yugo, but even closer than that, since no dealers actually stocked base Yugos)

@MrSnrub Flowtie or NOtie 😎

@EssExTee don’t know yet

@glemon If you listen to Corvette owners every single one is a special 1 of 16 or whatever, made.

@pip-bip Looks like a dream I had once

The vehicle I want to do work with is the Fiat, but I'm a sucker for VWs!

@ranwhenparked I feel like especially with the widespread acceptance of crossovers and SUVs, the bare gray plastic bumpers of the '90s should make a comeback. Not quite 5mph bumpers, but able to gracefully take scratches and resist dings.

In related news, I've finally scheduled my car to go to a body shop. I'm expecting it to need a new bumper and new headlight lens at least. We'll see how it goes...

@Roadkilled said in late night oppo:

The car-like vehicles don't have the profit margin that the bigger trucks have.

There are also very few passenger car platforms anymore that lend themselves to this kind of thing. It's been some years since GM made a body-on-frame passenger car, as opposed to pickups. (The SSR was based on a pickup, so there was no need to keep a car platform on artificial life support just to build it, and it was both expensive and kind of a sales disappointment.) And even if they were still offering, say, a body-on-frame Caprice, today's need to re-do safety approval if you change much more than the paint scheme would be another obstacle.

Circling back to @SilentbutnotreallyDeadly's proposition that people don't want this: The other awkward fact about the El Camino is that it never did sell all that well in the US market. Only in the 1970s did they consistently move 50,000 a year, and by the mid-late 80s it was deep into "lions don't hunt mice" territory for a company as big as GM.

@pip-bip

0690ac7b-db8f-4dec-8ba5-2c8d28d790db-image.png

Translation: X-11 leaves oils streaks across the overpass. It's high-smog output V6 grinding its innards to the max. Readily polluting this piece of pavement.

@awesomeaustinv
Step 1:
https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1989/chevrolet/silverado_1500/101794312
Step 2:
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/nal-s2022-60

@pip-bip To put that into perspective, my car did 4.43 sec 0-60mph on the street with a decent launch and TC at 1-2 shift...
Friends C6Z06 did 4.14
All this is as per VBox (10hz GPS)

@pip-bip -- Wow, I've never seen one of those, only the Checker equivalent, the Aerobus. Turns out, though, that there's a long tradition of making things like this out of both Chevy cars and (somewhat more sensibly) Suburbans.

I gather that a company called Armbruster-Stageway (whose origins date back to when they made actual stagecoaches) usually did the deed. They're still around, but more focused these days on your last ride.

@Blondudette yup

@WhoIsTheLeader said in Classic Malibu Classic Down on the Street:

@dogisbadob said in Classic Malibu Classic Down on the Street:

Ecotec

1.8 Ecotec? That engine has been dead reliable in my Cruze but it doesn't exactly set the world on fire. Adequate torque and no top end power at all but 6 gears makes the most of it.

GM sure did like the name 'classic.' so many uses across nameplates and brands.

2.2L Ecotec for the Malibu Classic ☺

Jeep all day

@pip-bip These were all pretty trim by modern standards

'64 Impala: 209.9 inches long, vs '22 Suburban at 225.7
'64 Chevelle: 197 inches vs '22 Malibu at 193.8 (only one downsized)
'64 Nova: 182.9 inches vs '22 Blazer at 191.4
'64 Corvair: 180 inches vs '22 Equinox at 187.8
'64 Corvette: 175.2 inches vs '22 Corvette at 182.3

@WBizarre the NSU TT was also visually similar to the Corvair:
4EDB3876-D4BC-4AF1-9C30-027EC9A835AA.jpeg 5FDA25AE-C488-4768-82FB-63CE08564DBE.jpeg

@pip-bip
Built and tested to survive the 12 month warranty period then cheap enough to get another instead of taking the out of warranty risk? Those GM folk were clever...

@Nick-Hynds 1970 A bodies. Chevelle, Cutlass (442), LeMans (GTO)
Oh, also
alt text

@pip-bip
I'd still pick the dunny door.

@Highlander aka Daewoo Kalos/Holden Barina

@Vondon302 or elk or moose.

🎶Bye bye miss Anhui pie, drove my Chery to the lery...🎶

@ForSweden Needs more blashpemy

craiyon_2022-6-29_18-45-41.png

Okay, torn between the americans.

The Aerostar had a better Cd than a fox Mustang and some (rare!) came with a 2.3, so an SVO Aerostar is possible. Drop it using minitruck parts to lower the frontal area, and the later AWD ones had an aluminum driveshaft that was effectively the SVO part for a Fox. Plus I just like that era Ford even if the V6s sucked ass. Super clean box Ranger in brown near me. Same house has an SSR and a Vehicross.

The Astro is an S10 which means V8 swaps are EZPZ, if you're lame. If you're cool, you know the AWD versions used a Syclone/Typhoon transfer case (slightly different and I can't remember which specific one is shared with the Astro). So slam a turbo on the thing and you have a Monsoon. Even better, swap all that into an early cargo variant, which weighs like 2800lbs or something.

@іди-на-хуй-Влад-formerly-known-as-Distraxi
You have a fair point.
My threshold for stupid or idiotic people or behaviour has worn thinner.
The other day I saw a runner, run into traffic, as in head on, to run around a fence (red arrow),
Castle Way 1 - Copy (2).JPG
which was put there so people don't cross there. He'd ran past a subway underpass, a pedestrian crossing and a bridge, not only that but the direction he was running, there was another crossing a 100 metres down the road.

@Just-Jeepin wouldn;t that technically be a shooting brake?

I feel like out of rarity these should go for more. I remember when someone showed to to CnC with pacer and the crowd was huge as few under 30 had ever seen one except in waynes world.