@facw

"partnership"? I don't think so.

@pip-bip Much sporty!

@pip-bip We had one when I was in high school. If you thought of it as a really nice Chevy Cavalier and not as a bargain-basement Cadillac, it made a lot more sense. Good reliable car, actually, and withstood punishment from two teenage boys. I spun it out at 60 mph on an icy freeway, and my brother crashed it through a hedge. We both damaged the same left front fender.

@Svend This is the correct reaction. Hard to believe these weren't big sellers, right?

Finally! A car with an easily accessible heater core

@pip-bip
It looks so sleepy!!

@pip-bip
Flowery Finnish?

@pip-bip Looks like a dream I had once

@john-norris Hopefully. And the good news is that those changes can happen more gradually. But a lot of those decisions are subject to more regulation and political bickering than buying batteries.

@Cé-hé-sin yes, Pontiac eventually opted to use both, whereas Chevy and Buick opted to use not-invented-here syndrome

@pip-bip My dad just snagged up one almost identical to this: 04a0dcb5-2b74-49d7-8d5f-edae7b727c73-image.png
1988 Toronado with 102k original miles, zero rust. Snagged it for $2400 from an estate.

They are amazing cruiser cars.

@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...

@tophercrowder Good old fashioned inflammable fossil fuels...
https://opposite-lock.com/topic/44043/cng-bus-fire-in-perugia-italy

@Vondon302 said in hour rule:

@pip-bip All that and no mention of pop up headlights.

Those covers were a bitch in the winter. They'd continually freeze up with ice, and eventually pop off. I think I still have one from my first car somewhere.

@pip-bip 9ee0afba-dcb2-42b6-96bc-825203d24152-image.png
Defense comes first with oldsmobile!

@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.

@pip-bip I love how inventive GM got with the Unitized Power Package, it's like they had this cool new thing and wanted to see what other weirdo shit they could do with it. Custom coachbuilders had the same thought

@pip-bip Yep, definitely reminds me of this.
12854610-7FD3-4D17-9377-EB3215465B90.jpeg

@KITT222 said in the last Pontiac:

The only real winner from NUMMI shutting down is Tesla. I'm waiting for the chance to tell a Tesla owner that their car was made where mine was.

And Toyota took a ca 3% stake in Tesla about that time, sorta kept their foot in the door for a little while

@pip-bip I'm calling BS, for sure you're not getting that Pontiac new for $585 big ones.

@pyroholtz That is also true, or they only offer the fun colors on certain trims. like the orange on the Civic Si is exclusive for the Si. Toyota loves to do that for TRD trims.

@AlectricDreams said in OPPOAfterDark...GM will let you see your great 'babci' by appointment only:

@SantaBarbarian Wish it was still around, the mall just isn't as cool

Yeah, "the Plant" Mall is my poster child (and, regrettably I have a bunch) of how screwed up the planning is in LA. City of LA had first crack at re-developing that site, even as they were placing the new Flyaway Lot less than two miles away?!??

The old GM site was larger, sat right on Van Nuys Blvd... and directly adjacent to the AMTRAK and Metrolink line (and VNY Amtrak station).

Oh, BTW, that site will be on the (eventual) Metro West Side Line from LAX, over the pass and on up Van Nuys Blvd to Santa Clarita and HSR.

So, why the hell couldn't LA actually make some modes of transit actually "connect"... That GM plant location would have been an ideal multi-modal transit center. Fast rides downtown. Huge Parking Garage. Direct service to LAX. Direct service to multiple Metrolink lines. Plus, AMtrak service.

Instead? We get another dying mall.

@Old-Busted-Hotness this one will liven up your life,
https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/reviving-junkyard-olds-omega/

@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.

Tell Reddit about it, they'll raise any amount of money when it comes to AMC.

Stiggin' it to the Big 3!

i appreciate the targa profile, but it's cheating if there's no provision for a roof of any kind

@pip-bip

That sent me down the internet ratholes. Apparently, you can see the dress at an exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

I wonder if you get free admission if you show up in a 1957 Cadillac?

Do you prefer something more traditional?

4a1e9951-5471-4543-8cc8-92e3a265cb0a-image.png

@pip-bip

Sweet dreams!

@pip-bip yacht club

@Blondudette yup

@krustywantout main game springbank v Gordon (Chfl) I should point out I’m a life member of springbank and we have 3 teams in of the 4 footy matches tomorrow

@pip-bip

@SilentbutnotreallyDeadly I think GM had stopped using the Turret Top branding by '41

@Roadkilled The X-car Omega played a pretty big role, too. Take a brand that was known for engineering and build quality, and put their badge on the steaming turd that was the Citation.

The A-body Cutlass sedans with non-opening rear door windows and fake stitching molded into their cheap plastic trim didnt help, either

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera Party up front, business in the back?

@ash78 To be fair, that's probably a fax of a photocopy of a carbon copy.

@ranwhenparked I knew the building in that add was reminding me of something. It was either VI or NERV HQ.
alt text

@pip-bip The European dustbuster has always been interesting to me. In America, the Trans Sport looked like this, and later, this:

Pontiac Trans Sport (1).jpg IMG_20220808_115712176_HDR.jpg

The European model shared its front end with the Oldsmobile Silhouette, the luxury version of the dustbuster. It would be great if the European models got the electronic sliding door that came exclusively on the Silhouette in the states.

Oldsmobile.jpg

@pip-bip

Great find, as always.

The second generation Nova translated to a wagon much better in my opinion. The third generation looks awkward to me. I can see why they didn't follow through with it.

b883c06e-2bca-4e73-b09f-b75364ee947c-image.png

@Old-Busted-Hotness 😛

@pip-bip That car was about peak oldsmobile. I believe the Cutlass was the best selling car in America for those years.

@Future-Next-Gen-S2000-Owner optional my arse! i hope someone complains to the authorities and GM have to backpedal on it

@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

Custom Riviera at a local show,
sriviera.jpg

I'd honestly forgotten that there even was a V6 diesel Olds, and am pretty sure I've never encountered one in the wild. They seem to be fondly remembered by a few connoisseurs, but the reputation of their first generation V8 diesel was becoming so radioactive that I guess most buyers were afraid to approach any GM diesel.

@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...

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

@Esotericars cheers for that.

@pip-bip
A set of Pirelli Scorpion's instead of the Cinturato and...send it!

@pip-bip
So...it's broken down already and it's being pushed by a elephant wearing a boat.

I don't know where to start...

@pip-bip

76382d86-41c0-4196-9ba9-ee33f5fbf839-image.png

@pip-bip the mirrors

@pip-bip I finally figured out why I like it, it reminds me of this old VW body kit:

43e571f2-6ec2-4d6b-89b5-d58af3b33adb-image.png

f5801ba7-3552-4cd3-8d33-8b1d85142995-image.png

@pip-bip At the time, they were trying to brand Pontiacs in a very weird market segment - not as professional as a Buick, not as fancy as a Cadillac, not as big or fast as an Olds, not as... well, poor as a Chevy.
Mostly that was failing and they were just being bought by thrifty old people.

They tried to rebrand more aggressively for "young people too suave to buy a Chevy" at the end of the '50s, which is when they got rid of the chrome hood stripe that had been a trademark for years. The rebrand... sort of worked, but it left Pontiac as the company that built "cooler than Chevys" AND "cheaper than Caddys". Because they didn't eliminate the big boats, because they were money makers.

To this day, you see a lot of well-kept big Pontiacs of the '60s in urban areas and poorer rural areas where they stayed as a status symbol up through the 70s.