GM vs. Ford vs. Chrysler vs. Imports

Really?

It's a back up for the paper thin bumper.

Whoknows why a GT40 is called a

40

?

The original was 40 inches high.

Mary,

I love the old

T

series MG's as well. Great cars as long as you don't want to stop quick.
An OLD British sports car joke.... Why don't the Brits make computers?...because they couldn't figure out a way to make them leak oil! At least that was true for my Dad's '53 MG TD.

I will give Ford and maybe the other american manufacturers some credit for closing the quality gap, but the designs are still outdated and inefficient.

I will have to agree and disagree. Take a Zo6 vette and a shelby gt500. Both motors have 500+ HP and seemed to have been touched by the hand of god. These motors can handle huge amounts of power and still get very good gas mileage. Did u know if u port the blower on one of the new gt500's you can gain over 100rwhp. I recently saw a bone stock vette motor that had two large frame turbos strapped on it and made 690rwhp and has lasted for 20K miles and still running strong.

The american performance cars have come a long way in a short time and are making great power while maintaining decent MPG when cruising around. I recently drove a Z06 that had 500+ hp and still got 26-28mpg on the highway. That is the best of both worlds.

The interiors on the other hand.....still plain and somewhat boring....But when your smashing on the

Loud pedal

who is thinking about the interior?

SWEET Z32 MikeKrantz!!! Thats a really clean Z. I will have another Z32 one day.

Yup.

Anyone notice the concept Corvette in the new Transformers movie? SLICK

I agree!!! Hope this will save GM.

Doug

I'll be buying import until Ford decides to bring the Mondeo over. If Ford had the diesel Mondeo Wagon TDCi here in the US I'd be an owner.

The Mondeo 4-door Sedan and 5-door Coupe are good lookers too, but I'd like the wagon.

Pete, is that the Ford GT 40 in the photo? Isn't that like $120,000?

The lotus elise is $40,000 base (used SC for $35,000). That's downright reasonable for what equates to a street legal racing car (no frills adding weight, very stiff ride, hard to get in/out - same as GT 40 at 1/3 the price)

It's the Fort GT. They had to drop the 40 because someone owned it.

Try north of $150,000. http://motors.shop.ebay.com/items/C... +GT&_sacat=6001&_sop=&_rdc=1

The Elise was on Supercars up and down Mulholland Drive against a Ferrari 430 and a Porsche Turbo. It beats both of them. Good bang for the buck, if you can go spartan interior and rough ride.

Doug

Mondeo? Is that the car the Bond was driving in the Bahama's in Casino Royal? Very nice looking sedan.

I'm not a brand loyal type. I've owned a couple of Fords, a few Mopars, a Renault, a Datsun, and a couple of Chev's. Being that only GM, Chrysler, and Ford are the only auto makers to offer a 3/4 or 1 ton pickup, (or van for that matter), imports aren't an option. I can't afford a Freightliner pickup either. Being that GM & Chrysler have been nationalized I will not be knowingly spending my money to support anything of that nature. I am somewhat surprised at the results of the poll so far.

Is that the car the Bond was driving in the Bahama's in Casino Royal? Very nice looking sedan.

Karl:

Bond car was an Aston Martin. About $175,000 or so. Nice but out of my price range!!

Doug

No, not either of the Aston Martins. When he first gets to the Bahamas he's driving a black Ford Sedan that I didn't recognize.

Will be intersting to see if Toyota makes good on the 3/4 and 1-ton TD trucks they've been talking about.

I think the TD F150 is an idea that is WAY over due.

All of the diesel 1/2 tons have been canned again. Don't know why. With Ford it could be the falling out with Navistar.

Japan couldn't import 1/2 tons until I think 94' or 95', they were regulated on what they could import, and those regulations were loosened up. That's why they also don't import any larger SUV type vehicles.

I won't buy another gas pickup, and it'll be a few years before they can get diesels figured out again. With all of the pollution systems the mileage sucks, and the reliability isn't any good either. If you're ok with potentially paying a $10,000 fine if you get caught for removing it all there's always that option. If the price of diesel goes back up to $5/gal then it'd pay out pretty easily. Being most of the new diesel pickups are getting almost 25% less mileage than the models they were selling in 2006.

Yes it was, good memory <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />

That's actually why I bought an older truck than I wanted ('01 7.3 PSD). 600+ ft-lbs of torque and ~20 mpg unloaded at 65mph.

I don't understand why Ford don't bring the Euro cars over here.... I mean even the Focus looks cool over there (see bellow). And what's up with not bringing the Turbo Diesel engines over... The Mondeo often goes up against the BMW 5 series and Audi A6, often as the slightly cheaper alternative but commonly considered

almost as good

The Diesel Mondeo is a big car and gets about 50 MPG. Even with higher diesel cost it still makes up for it, and you'd get some tax credits as well.

In Minnesota you pay twice as much tax on diesel as gasoline, so I'm not sure what kind of tax credit makes up for that. Also most of the Euro diesels can't meet our emissions laws. That's why the VW TDI's weren't available for a year or two. VW needed to get their stuff together. Catapillar got out or will be getting out of the semi engine business all together. Not worth the hassle of trying to meet emission laws.

For a long time one major difference was the Diesel it self available over in Europe, now with the low sulfur diesel available here as well, the VW TDI is back and the market is opening back up.

TAX Credits for Diesels

There must be some emission and/or safety regulations in USA that make domestic cars look so bad,..... right?

We're bad drivers here. we need survivability in our vehicles. A Smartcar vs. a Ford Excursion or Suburban isn't a pretty thought.

So you have to make the smartcar invincible somehow, which adds about 2 tons of weight.

Now you've got to beef up the engine which kills the mpg.

And you need more cupholders & dvd players so we can focus less on the drive and more on our personal lives.

And get in more wrecks, so we need more safety devices to make up for our poor driving skills.

So we need MORE invincibility which adds more weight

I see a viscious cycle here.

Quote from above

And you need more cupholders & dvd players so we can focus less on the drive and more on our personal lives.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

I was driving, reading my email, texting, and watching x-men. I'd ask Wendy what you said but she is chaning the baby and putting on makeup in the visor mirror. HA!

How about. . . oh I don't know. . . <img src="<>/confused.gif" alt="confused" title="confused" height="15" width="15" /> TAKE THE EXCURSION AND OTHER ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIERS OFF THE ROAD! Public highways are for transportation not intimidation and mayhem.

You'll have to pry my SUV's out of my cold, dead hands you ****ing communist.

That can be arranged. You ****ing elitest pig.

Wow... it's getting kinda rough in hear... i am glad i am commie or elitist and just narcissistic!