If it rises to this level:

Yep, safety recalls are forever. Everything else not so much. Also not just cars, but every product imaginable. There are people who go through ebay, craigslist, garage sales and so on and buy used stuff with replacement safety recalls. They then send it in for a new replacement which I assume they then sell for much…

The olds was light for its size but I don’t remember it being absurdly so in absolute sense. That award IME goes to the dodge diplomat. The steering on that car had all the feed back of a pole position arcade game. None. It was if the steering wheel wasn’t attached to anything but a bearing.

Yes, There are many layered interferences by the government where if even one or a few of them faulter or do what they will on the downside TM is dead. That’s what I was getting at in my initial comment.

Oil is artificially made more expensive by government action. That’s how oil companies are subsidized. Wars are waged to keep oil off the market and/or in the hands of big oil. The only exception is when the free money for bankers caused people to go looking for yield and thus money found its way into shale…

Government loans of taxpayer wealth are subsidies. Loan me a half a billion dollars at very low or no interest and I’ll end up a millionaire after I pay it back*. Furthermore government loans aren’t the only subsidy in the EV game.

It’s only a ~300K deduction by donating the car back. Buying it is $300K-MSRP (A new car has no collector value only what the automaker prices it at). Donating back is at MSRP or something less.

Their “profit” is dependent on selling EV credits to other companies. A slight shift in political winds and that revenue won’t be there. Furthermore spending all revenue and then some on the cost of manufacturing and developing product means they aren’t making a profit. A profit isn’t just unit costs, it’s development…

Paypal was sold a long time ago.

Not at all TM is a financial mess dependent on government decrees, remaining subsidies, and central bank money printing. Any number of events beyond its control can destroy it. It’s in that situation because it does not produce products that can be sold profitably enough to recover what it costs to develop and…

Yep. It’s a removable hard top. I don’t remember if it was an option or standard, but there wasn’t a hard top version.

Too Costly.

There were numerous other choices even in the 1970s. These cars were the last of their kind and were built on a theory of automotive design that went back to the 19 teens.

I often rode in and once or twice drove my grandfather’s 1976 Delta 88 Royal, pillarless four door. It’s a concept of a car that just doesn’t…

Ultimately it’s selective.

Molasses is dangerous stuff. A proven killer.

Not any place I worked.

“Are they in the car building business, or the car reservation business?”

Perhaps there is a hidden battery delete option that brings the price down to $35K ? ;)

By ‘68 I believe they were required. There are a number of regulations like that were effective for the 1968 model year. These cars were also GTs so it’s likely it was part of the GT package even if not yet federally mandated. I don’t have my reference material handy but can check later if anyone cares.

It’s somewhat of a hard choice since most of that wear and tear we see today came from it’s decade or so of use as a daily driver and decades of storage, not from the film. Some of the film “patina” aka damage was obviously repaired before selling it.