It's kinda hard for me to get my head 'round the fact that anybody reads TTAC. I know that sounds strange. But you've got to remember I started this website with exactly no readers. And for the first couple of years, there wasn't a comments section. These days, I still read every comment. Yup, all of them. So I kinda sorta know TTAC's Best and Brightest are out there, somewhere. But it still freaks me out when the people we write about, like Business Week's David Kiley, comment on our coverage on the site. Our server stats tell me automakers and their camp (and not in the original Batman TV series sense of the word) followers are reading us. But it's different to get actual online under-the-post feedback from the horse's… mouth (sorry David; I couldn't resist). Which reminds me. Will someone, anyone from GM please respond to our [collective] work? The Truth really does set you free. Ask someone who owns one.
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Hey Boss!
Highest points for the John Prine graphic!
Great performer and wry observer of many conditions.
Does GM have any plants in Muhlenburg County?
I’m with you, I don’t find the GT-R that appealing for some reason. I think it’s the styling inside and out. It reminds me of what a Mitsu Evo would look like if there was a slightly higher budget.
Yep, gotta love John Prine. I work at a coal company and still love the song “Paradise.” We do things different these days, thankfully.
I don’t know RF, I think I’ve got to call you out, these podcasts are up to 12 minutes now, and instead of “We’re out of time” its “just one more story…”.
This is mostly a joke, but if you can call out autoblog and jalopnik, I can call you out for petty things like 12 minutes, even though I do enjoy the podcasts!
ZCline:
This is mostly a joke, but if you can call out autoblog and jalopnik, I can call you out for petty things like 12 minutes, even though I do enjoy the podcasts!
I understand and acknowledge that my recent, intermittent inability to keep the podcasts to exactly ten minutes represents an abject failure to uphold the high journalistic standards that I’ve set for myself and my writers and the rest of the automotive media.
I deeply regret the obvious moral, ethical and professional hypocrisy that this 12:33 podcast represents and promise to keep future podcasts to the ten minute mark.
Speaking of journalistic standards, JB is right:
Ultimate is last (Friday)
Penultimate is before last (Thursday)
Antepenultimate is the one before the one before (Wednesday)
The Truth About Grammar.
Carry on with the content.
RF:
I deeply regret the obvious moral, ethical and professional hypocrisy that this 12:33 podcast represents and promise to keep future podcasts to the ten minute mark.
Thank you. Who watches the watchmen? Apparently I do.
Will someone, anyone from GM please respond to our [collective] work? The Truth really does set you free. Ask someone who owns one.
During a dealer inspection yesterday, my mother learned that two of her Aurora’s engine mounts have gone bad (the car was bought six years ago last month and has 46,5xx miles on it), replaceable at a cost of $350/each including labor, and that GM has discontinued the well-known G-Body steering shaft lubricant (!) necessitation yet another $1100 full replacement of the intermediate steering shaft – a replacement that was done around 20,000 miles ago and did not fix the problem as it was advertised to do.
Of course, there’s no warranty at this point (not even the weak rust-through warranty’s still good, being a 5-year/unlimited mileage limit – talk about faith on your product). And despite the steering shaft problem affecting more than a million GM cars made since 2000 and there having been recalls on a select few (Cadillacs, mainly), it has never been and probably will never be recalled on the dead Aurora.
Sorry for the rant.
Hmmm…. my podcasts always get cut off…
I think I may have figured out the appeal/unappeal of the GT-R (I love it, BTW).
If you’ve never played Gran Turismo, you’re probably not going to like it.
If you weren’t born after 1977 and never spent your formative years watching any sort of Japanese media or never in some way have been influenced by Japanese culture…you’re probably not going to like it.
If you’re not a big on Japanese motor history, you’re probably not going to like it.
Bottom line, I think you may have to be keen on Japan in some sort of way to like the GT-R otherwise it’s a bigger leap to make to find it appealing.
JL,
I don’t even get a podcast… stop griping…
Summary of the California fuel economy rule situation:
Decades ago, before the federal government attempted to regulate any tailpipe emissions, California was working to curb pollution because of their smog problems. Once the Clean Air Act was passed, it gave the federal government primary responsibility for regulating smog-forming emissions. Had the law said nothing further, this would have “pre-empted” the California rules (thus cancelling them), and taken away from all states the power to set automobile emissions standards. But for various practical and political reasons, the statute granted California the specific right to continue to formulate their own emissions standards and impose them on new cars being sold there, and gave other states the right, under certain circumstances, to subscribe to the California standards. Thus, there are two sets of rules: The baseline federal rules, and the stricter California rules, which in all respects are as strict if not stricter than the federal rules (i.e. complying with the California rules guarantees that you’ll be okay from a federal perspective).
The thing is, when this California carve-out was created, the things that were regarded as pollutants were things like oxides of nitrogen, sulfur, carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter, etc. Basically, things that ruin your local air quality and contribute to smog, but carbon dioxide or other “greenhouse” gases (whose effects are not restricted to the locale of emission) were not included.
California now wants to use their Clean Air Act authority to restrict the CO2 emissions rate of new cars sold there, but the federal government claims that California’s carve-out authority to regulate pollution, while allowing them to regulate things like NOx emissions, does not extend to CO2 emissions. The federal government can point to the fact that CO2 was not on the agenda when California was granted its anti-smog authority, and the fact that controlling CO2 emissions is directly related to fuel economy, which happens to be regulated by a completely separate federal law which does not have a California carve out in the same way the Clean Air Act does in respect of smog-forming emissions. This other law, which basically mandates the CAFE system of fuel economy regulation, vests regulatory authority in the Department of Transportation (as I recall) and probably pre-empts any attempt by California to regulate the same field.
John R:
If you’ve never played Gran Turismo, you’re probably not going to like it.
If you weren’t born after 1977 and never spent your formative years watching any sort of Japanese media or never in some way have been influenced by Japanese culture…you’re probably not going to like it.
You know what’s funny though? I love the Skyline R34. I just find the new one a little overkill.
As far as I’ve heard to achive the best possible times on the “Ring” you don’t go for the hardest possible settings. Instead a “firm” setting matches that track the best, because of all the ups and downs etc..
I think the CTS wagon might do ok here in Europe. Wagons actually have a higher desirability and status than sedans in that segment (more accurate, in every segment except the corporate executive 7 series/ S-class sedans segment).
Now I’m not saying they’ll sell an awful lot of them, but quite likely they’re at least going to sell more or as much wagons as they will sedans, and I think the wagon is more likely to attract buyers who would normally never even consider a Cadillac. Assuming it doesn’t look weird of course…
@ Justin Berkowitz
Overkill? Interesting. To me, overkill what the GT-R has always been about. How many R32, R33, and R34 GT-Rs are modded to all hell with all sorts of things. Not just power adders and suspension bits but with electronic improvements also. And the subject GT-R doesn’t seem to mind when the augmentations are done correctly.
It’s almost as if Nissan made the car to be heavily tuned. The Supra on the other hand…