Autocide - The end of another brand

I was reading an article on Autoblog about the last Mercury to roll off the production line, and it made me think about the car makes I have seen come and go just during my lifetime, so this blog post is dedicated to those brands that started and/or ended since 1980.  I am going to do it in the reverse of the normal "out with the old in with the new" for reasons that will become obvious.

In with the new
There are a lot of brands that have started since 1980.  Some good, some bad, some just there.  I am only going to address the mass market manufactures, so don't ping me for leaving out Tesla and Fisker.

Eagle - Badge engineering at its finest.  Not one Eagle was actually just an Eagle, they were all Mitsubishi, Plymouth or Chrysler products re-badged.  This is a big reason it is also on the "Out with the Old" list.  The Eagle Talon was a nice looking car, but that is because it was really an Eclipse.

Geo - GM's answer to cheap, small imports.  The Geo Metro, Prism and Tracker were all over the place in when I was in high school.  The joke with the Metro was, I think I sold TVs larger than that at K-Mart when I was 16 (keep in mind, flat panels didn't exist back then).  As America's obsession with SUVs exploded, the brand was canned.  GM did keep the Prism as a chevrolet though as an entry level model for a few years.

Hummer - A way for GM AM General to try and earn more money off the vehicle built for the Military, and later bought out by GM.  First exclusive to the rich (such as the Govenator) GM eventually rolled out smaller models, the H2, H3 and H3 SUT.  Eventually, it fell pray to high fuel prices.

Saturn - GM tried to re-invent the car company.  No pressure sales and a "family" atmosphere.  They were plastic cars that were really hard to dent.  The brand started to fade away until it was reinvigorated with models such as the Ion, Astra, Aura and Sky.  The Astra was a re-badged Opel that brought some Euro-style to the brand while the Sky had such good styling, it made it overseas as the Opel GT.  GM had planned to close down Saturn in a few years anyway, but shuttered it early during the financial crisis. (more commentary to come on GMs choice of brands to shut down.)

Acura - Honda decided to make an up-end model for the US market and Acura was born.  Built largely on international Honda models (a trend that continues today) it has still been a successful brand.  The current Acura TSX is the same car that Europe sees as the Accord.  Unfortunately, that Accord doesn't meat the demographic (mostly size) needed for the US Accord, so we get over-charged for it since it has an Acura badge on it instead.

Infiniti - Nissan's Luxury brand with some nice models over the years.  Similar in concept to Acura though, the models we see over here (like the G35/G37) are Nissans over in Japan (Skyline).

Lexus - High-end Toyotas with euro stylings.  the IS300 is an amazing looking sedan.  While Lexus was originally just luxury, it has become more sporting in nature now.  Out of Acura, Infiniti and and Lexus, it is a toss up to me between the latter two with Acura in a distant third, and that is only due to Infiniti having the G37.

Scion - Toyota threw another brand under their corporate umbrella when the founded Scion.  Scion is the low-end/Gen-Yish auto manufacturer.  They make low-end models with lots of customization available.  The tC is the only one I have found at all appealing, but the xA, xB and xD have all sold well also.

The "Out with the Old" section will wait for my next post.

I plan on blogging more....really....honest....oh, who am I kidding

Ok, now it's time for my regular "I really should blog more" post.  At least I have started making more of my updates through Twitter and then having them auto pulled by Facebook as opposed to only updating Facebook. That way, those 1-2 of you out there not on Facebook, but who read this, get a glimpse of what is going on.  And I am gonna blog more.....honest....ignore the fact that my fingers are crossed behind my back.

So, readers, or reader, or maybe I am just talking to myself...but you are only crazy if you answer your own questions, right? Right......CRAP!

Anyway, so this is what has been going on in the land of Crutchfield lately.  We traded in the 2006 Jetta TDI (pictured in the header above).  After the Turbo/camshaft fiasco of '09, plus the continued, worsening problems of the car, and our long ass commute, it was time to part ways for something more reliable that hadn't been driven at top speed on the autobahn, driven hard on the race tracks, and chipped for more power.  So, we purchased *drumroll* a Jetta......sorta.  It is a 2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDI.  I say it is sort of a Jetta because in the fatherland it is the Golf Variant.  It even has the new Golf front-end, but Jettas sell better in the states because "no one in America wants hatchbacks" (despite the fact I have one in the garage).  We made the purchase on 1 November with 149 miles on the odometer and have since racked up over 2,000 miles with an average fuel economy of about 43.5 mpg.  That is above the highway EPA rating which is 42!  I love diesels.

What else is going on you may ask?  I have started getting the pre-op tests done for having Gastric Bypass surgery.  My plan is to have that early next year.  They want me to lose 40-50 lbs pre-op, and between the end of August and end of October, I lost 25 of those pounds!  Last Thursday I had my Arterial Blood Gas and Exercise Saturation Tests.  Friday I had an abdominal sonogram, chest x-ray, and upper GI (which means I got to drink Elmer's Glue....I mean Barium Contrast).  I already did my stress test in preparation, and have an endoscopy and some consults left to go.  Hopefully I don't stray too far off course during this holiday season.

"SQUIRREL!" (eg - I got distracted as usual) Wil Wheaton will be on Leverage this season in an elf costume.

"Hi there"  Now that I got the Up reference out of the way too....I am also looking to change positions at work.  I just don't feel my current job is a good fit for me, and the hours don't help either.  What little extra you earn working nights isn't worth the headaches it causes.  I will also be making a trip down to the Fla to see the family in the next month...hitting the road in the new car and racking up even more miles! lol

I really should go try to sleep some more (been up since like 12:30 after sleeping for 3-ish hours) but I am somewhere between Tired enough to fall back asleep and alert enough to stay awake the whole day.  I am guessing I will just need a nap later .  Hopefully I don't miss too much of the race @ Homestead if I do take a nap.  I was considering working on the back breaks of the Rabbit today, but considering my sleep-deprived state, playing with jack stands, power tools and a car are probably not the best things to be using.  Right up there with taking NyQuil and then taking a 12 hour drive....not recommended.

That is all for now. Off I go only to reappear at some other random time rambling about how I need to blog more...yada yada yada.

Nice cabrio, except the rim color (but it is redeemed slightly by the autobot center cap)

Nice cabrio, except the rim color (but it is redeemed slightly by the autobot center cap), originally uploaded by MikeCCrutchfield.

Nice cabrio, except the rim color (but it is redeemed slightly by the autobot center cap)

A little update

So, again, it has taken me a while to update. Oh well. What do you want from me anyway? That's what I thought!

I thought I would post a little update about what has been going on. My train layout is coming along nicely. I have added some roadbed to the rails and started putting down "blacktop". I need to go clean up some stuff on the display and take some new photos. I do have some videos posted of the trains though on my YouTube account.  I still have to build another platform too, but this weekend we decided to tackle another project.

We switched the office and the guest "bedroom" downstairs (bedroom is in quotes because it had everything EXCEPT a bed in it.)  Once we got all of the furniture out of the guest bedroom, we painted it a pale blue that really keeps the room feeling light and welcoming, but covered up that awful egg-shell contractor paint.  We still have a lot of junk to clean out of the former office, and then we will need to paint that before we can move the bedroom furniture into it.  But there isn't a rush on that part.

Well, that's all for now....maybe I will work on the rest of the website a bit this extended weekend.

Long time no post

So it has been a while since I last posted, and I figured the time had come. I finally started work on the train garden, but with 3 o27 gauge trains, a lot of room is needed. So far I have only made enough room for two trains and I need some non-conductive pins to attach part of the track. Two of the trains are from when I was a kid and one is my grandfather's first train.



I will post up some pics of the layout another time, and a more lengthy post when I am not using my Droid to type.

Picture of the week / Snowmageddon

Well, here is the picture of the week, this time of "Snowmageddon 2010" This is from the Friday->Saturday storm...and guess what, we have MORE coming Tuesday Night->Wednesday (prediction is 1ft). Expect a mid-week update on this snow total.

Picture of the week - Make-up post

Since I never got around to posting my Picture of the week last Monday, I will do a make-up post. This coming Monday will probably be of the snowmageddon. Anyway, it is amazing what can be done with legos. This is a scale model of the Mainz Soccer, sorry, "Football" stadium from Lego Land Deutchland. Anyway, it is amazing how much detail there is. That is all there is to say this time.