1976 Ford Pinto, didn't blow up on me, but I was never rear-ended 1976 Honda CVCC--my friends called this a beer can. Because it looked like one to them. Could reach over and roll down the window on the passenger side while driving, without leaning over. Small! 1988 Pontiac LeMans-the car they brought back from the 60s only uglier and less durable. The first car I ever ever bought. 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse-At this time, Mitsubishi, Dodge, and Eagle (remember them?!) were in collusion, I mean had agreements, in place and Eagle made the Talon. Daddy liked my Eclipse so much he bought a Talon. 1990 Mazda Miata--you know how I feel about that one!!!! 2011-1990=21 years old. Still running strong. After bankruptcy, foreclosure, and divorce... AND it got flooded, there is no A/C (I don't care), no heater (I don't care), the driver's window doesn't crank up or down, I can pull it instead, and the radio just went out. I might fix that. I did just get a brand new convertible top and it'll likely work another three or so years. My parents owned, during my lifetime, and I rode in: '67 Jaguar XKE (CHECK THIS CAR OUT!!!!) Late 70s Grand Torino Ford, Pinto (the same one) A really huge and old Oldsmobile that I learned to drive on. Ugh. Cars my boyfriends/husbands have owned, and I drove/owned: 196? VW Bug (two of them) 198? Honda CRX (two of them) 1986 1/2 yes, a half year??? Toyota Celica, Supra (two of them) Oldsmobile Cutlass Nissan pickup Mazda 626 Mazda Protege Isuzu Rodeo The weird thing is, the two bugs, two Hondas, and the two Supras are the same two guys. Both guys onwed all those cars in succession. Where they deviate? After I broke up with boyfriend of eight years, he bought a Nissan Pathfinder. The one I married and stayed married to for 11 years, owned an ordinary Nissan pickup. Weird!!!!!

Well, you are perfect Cynthia, and if TM is on your coattails, he is too!! Bobbie - red is good - lol. For Cyn and TM: For Annette and Bobbie: Thanks to all for playing; instead of a bunch of cutting and pasting I'm going to give you the link below. It's fun and has movie cars in it too. Kind of sad at the end, cause the author laments the loss of the iconic car mascots. I watch one series, Supernatural, where the car is seen as the metaphorical home for the 2 heroes - it is a 1967 black Impala that had belonged to their father. Like the brothers, it has come back from the dead a few times. They were going to use a Mustang, but the Impala is muscle car that blends, but as the writer says, if it pulled up to you at a traffic light, you'd lock your doors. And the trunk is big enough to hold a body!! See you all next week. Nancy. Here is a link that might be useful: 25 most Iconic Vehicles

I have a 1998 Dodge Stratus with the 2.4 L, 4cy, dual overhead cams. It hss been on cross-country trips, in the Smokys, Rockies, Black Hills, and some desert driving, and it has been reliable. Highway mileage is about 30 miles per gal and when conditions are optimal, it will get 32 mpg. Presently, it has 92,000 miles and sometime this summer, I plan to change the timing belt. (Scheduled maintence calls for a change by 108,000 miles.) The only other maintence it has had is regular oil and filter change, coolant and thermostat change, sparkplugs, and spsrkplugs leads, and one set of tires. Your engine is based on the same design and you may have the same. However, you could have the higher output version with a turbo-charger. The turbocharged version may have stonger crank, rods, and main bearings. Otherwise, it is essentially the same engine. You'd have to check to see what the parts difference is. The turbocharger may have a little less reliability. This engine is ok if you don't ask too much of it and drive it in a reasonable manner. Its 4 speed automatic transmissoin is the best shifting one of Chrysler's offering. They finally got one right after the disasterous 1989 model when Chrysler changed from all hydraulic controlled tranny to the electronically controlled one.

I dunno... GM's recent history with "strategic parterships" hasn't exactly been glowing - their alliances with Subaru, Isuzu, and Fiat went nowhere and cost dearly. Buying out Daewoo's automotive operations has given us the wonderful Chevrolet Aveo. Carlos Ghosn - probably the sharpest auto exec around nowadays - has been queried in the past about a GM post, and said he preferred to stay with Renault/Nissan. His Nissan turnaround plan actually turned the company around, something GM (and Ford's) frequent restructurings have failed to do. GM's problems run deep - they consistently seem to bring out the wrong car at the wrong time. Take the new Buick Lucerne, which tries to compete with the Lexus ES350 by being bigger and offering a V8 engine, just as sky-high gasoline prices are making 4-cylinder engines popular again. And Toyota's new 3.5L V6 outpowers GM's V8s, whilst offering better fuel economy. GM, meanwhile, is rolling out a revamped line of big SUVs, a market consumers are rapidly abandoning. The new roadsters from Pontiac and Saturn? Mazda got there 18 years ago and still does it better. GM also has way too many dealers for the number of vehicles they sell, too many brands (8 brands sold out of 6 dealerships, vs. 3 brands from 2 dealerships from Toyota). GM has really been thinning the Pontiac and Buick lines, with likely intent to ax one or both brands. They continuously blame their shrinking market share on everything except dull and uncompetitive cars. I wonder if they even believe their own lies anymore. Take the largely-ignored Pontiac Montana SV6 minivan for example. It's being dropped next year, allegedly because a minivan doesn't fit the sporty image Pontiac wants to project. Really? Let's have a look over at DaimlerChrysler, where their Dodge division is chasing roughly the same customers - young, masculine, rugged types, wooing these alpha males with Ram pickups, Hemi Charger muscle cars, and the Lingerie Bowl. Does a minivan fit in with that image? Evidently, yes: the Dodge Caravan is the best selling minivan in the U.S., despite having to compete with a nearly identical Town & Country van sold at Chrysler/Jeep stores. Pontiac's problem with the Montana isn't because of image or marketing; it's because the van is woefully uncompetitive. The four GM minivans put together don't sell as well as either the Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna. Personally, I think Lutz is the most overrated exec at a major car company - I'd ditch him before Wagoner, but they'll probably both need to go.