Trump 'very disappointed' with General Motors after plant closures

[Chomsky]

Seeing as how I don't know the level of familiarity everyone else has with the lingo, I chose to use neutral terminology.
As a kid, my first car accident was self-inflicted.
I refused to SIT DOWN in the back of our 1957 Olds Dynamic 88. I was six years old. I had to kneel on the back seat and peer over it to see what was going on.

My uncle picked it out special for my mom, it was a dealer ordered option package with some stuff that would make you drool:

I believe that the correct lingo back then was "three deuces", which later on in the MoPar 1960's became the "Six-Pak".

Of course, despite the torquey (315 hp at 4,600 RPM, and 415-lbs.ft. at 3,000 RPM) engine and the very hefty Hydra-Matic slushbox, safety wasn't a big concern. The seat backs did not lock, there were no seat belts and the dash was a vast expanse of pure metal, and when Dad suddenly had to jack the brakes due to a kid who ducked in front of him and slammed HIS brakes, yours truly went up and over the seat back and nose first into the dashboard.
Dislocated upper jaw, nose fracture and hairline cheekbone fractures which have affected me for the rest of my life ever since.

But as the blood poured from my face, with my head cradled in Dad's lap as he took off for Long Island Jewish Hospital five miles away, I will never forget watching the speedo go instantly from zero to 90 as he left a long trail of rubber in his wake, and the dramatic G-forces of all that acceleration.
Because for sure, once those old bias ply's finally hooked up, it was still climbing back up to 45, 50, 60, 70 as he laid on the horn and dashed in and out of traffic. And the sound, my God, the sound was a wail of solid lifters, massive air intake and Hell fire out the back as every single cubic inch of displacement got filled with the Sunoco 240 gasoline in the tank.

Despite my pain and the terror of realizing I'd just smashed face first into a metal object, I was experiencing a ride that was better than anything on Coney Island where we'd been just a week before.
Dad was unleashing his inner Andy Granatelli, a real marvel considering his German-Jewish heritage, and we got to the hospital in the twinkling of an eye.

I'll spare you the rest but let's just say that it was the first time I ever realized what that old white car with the funny looking tail lights could do. I was hooked on fast cars from that moment on.

I also stayed seated from that point on, too!

You tell a great story! :thumbs:

 

[Rexedgar]

My friends could never figure out how I could break the wheels lose in a Dodge van with an automatic at 45 mph going into second gear. Simple, I'd wind it out in "Low" (1st gear) and then, just AS it was getting ready to bang itself into Second, I'd blip the throttle, which of course multiplied the torque just as it was hitting Second.
It wouldn't just "chirp", it would leave a distinct "signature" on the asphalt, and not maybe a second and a half later, that behemoth would be at 60 mph.
Man oh man, that W-2 360 was a wonderful engine, but that 727 TorqueFlite slushbox was bulletproof.
I can't say that the van was "FAST" because it really WAS a big old heavy work van and it was weighed down with a lot of
built-in audio-video crap, plus I always had lights, extra batteries etc in the rear.

But it definitely could "get the groceries". I'll just say that it was "surprisingly spirited".

We had a classmate @ Villanova who had a 1970-1971 Roadrunner; meep-meep horn, pistol grip four-speed, reverse lamp on the dash and a 383 ci engine under the hood. One Friday evening we decided to drive down to DC. I was from there and had friends in the area. There was a dorm keg party in progress, so we filled a few pitchers and piled in the car. I’m remembering four total occupants. Somewhere on I-95 S, we came across a Mustang, maybe a 1966. The Ford blew past us and after a few seconds, the driver of the RR said “**** did he just pass us?” We were in fourth gear, at the time. Kenny downshifted and I swear the RR stood still for just a moment when he let the couch out. Beer sloshed out of the pitchers and we pulled abreast of the Mustang and left them in the rear view mirror........meep, meep!

Happened late 1971.

 

[Fledermaus]

When is the last time you drove a Chevy Malibu, or a Cruze, or a Cobalt, or a Buick or anything relatively recent from GM?
Lemme guess:

This last year... Nearly everything offered had automatic transmission and less than stellar handling... Except some Cameros.

I opted for a manual transmission Mazda 3....

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

We had a classmate @ Villanova who had a 1970-1971 Roadrunner; meep-meep horn, pistol grip four-speed, reverse lamp on the dash and a 383 ci engine under the hood. One Friday evening we decided to drive down to DC. I was from there and had friends in the area. There was a dorm keg party in progress, so we filled a few pitchers and piled in the car. I’m remembering four total occupants. Somewhere on I-95 S, we came across a Mustang, maybe a 1966. The Ford blew past us and after a few seconds, the driver of the RR said “**** did he just pass us?” We were in fourth gear, at the time. Kenny downshifted and I swear the RR stood still for just a moment when he let the couch out. Beer sloshed out of the pitchers and we pulled abreast of the Mustang and left them in the rear view mirror........meep, meep!

Happened late 1971.

MoPar, racers swear by it, the competiton swears at it.
Meep meep!!

Loved the old Roach Runners.

 

[JMR]

I see no reason to try to convert you either, but you have relatively little or no experience with American cars in the last 35 years, sorry but that's just a fact.

By the way, maybe I forgot to mention that I am a MoPar guy (Chrysler) ...did I forget to mention that earlier?
So if I WAS going to try to impress you with an American car, it would most likely be a Chrysler product.
At age seventeen or so, I owned a 1972 Chevy Nova, and in my twenties I had a 1967 Chevy pickup.
I beat the Nova mercilessly and sold it still running with 125 thousand miles on it.
I beat the crap out of the pickup by subjecting it to Minnesota winters, but having originally been a New Hampshire truck it wasn't that much of a shock, but it held up. That is the extent of my GM ownership however I drove GM Astro vans and various Chevy company cars for many years when I worked in IT installation jobs. No worries.

My only point was that GM has been making some pretty good sedans in the last decade or so.
The only problem is, when they destroyed their own captive market in the 1980's (your Firebird era?) they never got it back sufficiently to hit #1 status again, and with their overhead that was the only way that it was going to remain sustainable in the long term. (see earlier post)

Last but not least, reading magazines doesn't equal driving experience with a car, no matter how many you read or how avidly you read them. Sorry, that's just a fact.

It all boils down to you believing that owning one Firebird 35 years ago and having a family member who reads magazines equals a wealth of experience with American cars, and me disagreeing with that assessment, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

I'm okay with that if you are.

I'm not really Okay with you trivializing my experience, but I'm Okay with dropping the subject.

 

[calamity]

My 1972 Nova had a tired 2 barrel 307 with a floor mounted three speed in it and I immediately dropped in a 396 four barrel big block and a Muncie M-22 four speed.
It was a beautiful car but it was a lot more beautiful with the extra hundred and twenty five horsepower and the extra gear.
Of course, the gas bill wasn't so beautiful but at my age, I didn't care, because it was almost all disposable income in my pocket.
I quickly learned what "wheel hop" was though...another 75 bucks for some ladder bars in the rear!

I also modified that 1967 Chevy pickup, too, got rid of the column mounted three speed in favor of a floor mounted four speed, but I left the 235 cubic inch straight six engine alone. That "three on the tree" was always getting hung up in first because of the worn out linkage, so it needed to go away no matter what.
The access hole for the floor mounted shifter was already there under the carpet, it just needed to be knocked out.
Replacing that transmission was ridiculously easy. And finding a driveshaft was a matter of ten bucks at the same junkyard I got the four speed from.

I came of age in Detroit. The 1972 Nova was my car from 1979-1982; 307 with a three on the tree. I loved it due to the bench seats. My gf and I basically lived in that car.

Many of friends all had Mopars: Cudas, Chargers and Dusters, model years 68 through 74 or so. No one drove a Ford. Between the Pinto and the crap Cobras of the late 70's, no one considered those cars worth a damn.

A really good friend had a Lemans. The guy who drove us to Jethro Tull had a Chevelle. Both cars were 1972. One of my friend's brothers drove a 1971 GTO. By far the baddest looking car.