It's okay, your tampons and caviar will continue to fit in your cute little German sedan just fine.

Quality points are fine, especially on acar that probably sees <5000 miles per year and doesn’t have high compression or high RPM. They’re cheap, easy to adjust, and will last a long time on a car like his. I’ve heard of way too many Pertronix kits crapping out at inopertune times to use them. Points rarely fail…

In general, people with bad credit have gotten to that point over the course of many poor financial decisions.

I'm sure it's been mentioned, but the GM 3100 is garbage. Underpowered, with a terrible plastic intake gasket design that is guaranteed to leak coolant directly into the cylinders before 100k. The child of the even more miserable GM 2.8 that offered the same power as the Iron Duke it often replaced. I could've gotten…

My car wouldn’t be any safer with discs than it is today. I can easily lock all 4 if I want. However they are kept in good working order and the car doesn’t see a lot of miles, and virtually no bad weather so it’s easy to do that. Were yours kept clean and properly adjusted? Were the drums round and in spec? That…

Funny, my Gremlin was just in modern traffic the other day. It's 9 inch manual drums did just fine. Drums are over-hated, if that's a thing. They do just fine on a small, light car, especially one that is driven with more care than usual.

I don’t know the advantages on a 2500 pound car that won’t ever see a race track, or the top side of 65. I converted my Javelin to discs because it’s getting a 450 horse V8 and will see track time. My 100 horse Gremlin will continue to live with manual drums as long as I own it. They are more than capable of being…

I suspect nothing. Yes, discs are less prone to fade and water logging and are easier to fix. For an old, light car there is marginal benefit beyond that. My Gremlin has small 9x2.5" front drums, with even smaller rears, and they’re unassisted. I can still put it into a 4 wheel lock if I try. It’s a 6 cylinder/auto,…

PA tried state ran emissions testing at state owned and ran facilities in the 80's. It failed miserably. Turns out people don’t like to pay taxes AND an annual fee to run the test, and corruption and incompetence were rampant. I believe NJ had similar reasons for decentralizing their state emissions testing a few…

That’s false in most of PA. Other than a few counties around Philly and Pittsburg, PA does either a visual emissions inspection, an OBD II test, or nothing. Age and county of registration determine the test. And even in the counties that do have a dyno and sniffer test, most cars 96 and up will use the OBD II test.

You don’t believe brakes could go from 2/32's (legally passing) to fins in a year? Or that tires could do the same? Or that a unibody could go from queationably passable to gone in a year when PA dumps salt and liquid deicer every time it gets cloudy in winter? You do realize the average car in the U.S. sees about 15k…

Doug, I like you. And I normally agree with you. Not this time. I was a licensed PA Inspection mechanic for years. Every state should have inspection, and it scares me that I’ve lived in states that don’t require it since I left PA. PA’s is a little strict, but the public is safer off

Can’t fix stupid, but you can alter shift strategy to make up for it I guess. The newer cars all have redesigned shifters, either knobs or shifters that maintain their position. I doubt ZF is going to foot the bill- there isn’t a defect on their part (or FCA’s), but with the current regulatory and litigious climate…

You’re right, it was Briggs.

People forget what a big deal the original Neon was. It had more style, performance and initial quality than any other compact. 128 hp when sub 100 was still standard for everyone else. And it was designed with supplier AND UAW input from Day 1 to be cheaper and easier to build, and higher quality than any other…

Lebaron (yes, that one) is what forced Packard into needing to find a quick partner. They produced body standings for Packard despite being owned by Chrysler for many years prior. Lebaron notified Packard that they were going to dedicate their capacity to supplying Chrysler plants for 1957 model year, leaving Packard…

There are some first hand accounts of the planned merger. It was initially only to be Nash-Kelvinator and Packard, and there wouldn’t have been a lot of change to product or plant. Both had acceptably modern plants, and Packard had a lot of cash at the time. Studebaker was added to the talks at the very last minute,…

I doubt it, unless Studebaker hired their models from their direct competitors. Romney started his auto career with Nash-Kelvinator and stayed on through the merger to become president of the young American Motors. He never worked at S-P.

Bingo. This isn’t 1999, when gas was last cheap and midsize sedans were good for 22 mpg and compact SUVs did 16. Virtually nothing gets less than 18 these days, and many CUVs clear 25. Why not shuffle break even sedans away given the opportunity to build profitable SUVs?

Sergio has been right about nearly everything he’s told the press since assuming the reins at Chrysler. The press and industry has doubted and mocked him the whole way. I think it’s a combination of his calm confidence presenting revolutionary ideas, fear abouthis claims, the legacy of Chrysler and Fiat in the US, and…