Harry P.

California has even stricter guidelines than the EPA does. So if they want to sell their product in California, they have to meet California's standards.

Thanks, Christian!

A $40,000 Holden "GTO" was destined to be a flop from the get-go.

Fine. No argument. Magnum wagon/Monaco 4-door sedan. Charger 2-door coupe.

The point is, it was a Holden, and people knew it. It's not so much about the looks (the new "GTO/Holden" was actually a nice looking car, IMO)... but the fact that GM was trying to pass off a "foreign" car as a red-blooded U S of A "Pontiac GTO." People weren't buying the idea of a Holden GTO. That's where the whole idea fell flat. That and the ridiculous MSRP. We can only imagine...

You go, girl! I agree 100%. They could have come out with a 4-door sedan version of the Magnum and called it Monaco. Heck, they already had the tooling, a sedan version would have been a no-brainer. The family sedan crowd would be covered. Then they should have made the new Charger a 2-door coupe. Period and end of story. No more Mark Taylor rationalizations...

The "Pontiac" GTO wasn't even a Pontiac! And a 40 grand price tag didn't exactly appeal to Joe and Jane Six Pack. If you're going to bring back a name as iconic as "Pontiac GTO," you might want to make sure the car is actually a Pontiac, not a thinly-disguised Holden. I'm just sayin'...

All I'm saying is that the new "Charger" should have been a 2-door coupe. Not necessarily a retro design, but a coupe. Chrysler already had a 4-door sedan.

And I think that's where Chrysler made its mistake regarding the new Charger. They wanted to both resurrect the old Charger mystique yet also compete in the "family sedan" category, a sales segment the original Charger never competed in, or even pretended to. The new Charger was probably offered as a 4-door to try and siphon off a few Camry, Accord or Impala market segment buyers while at the same time trying to play off the old muscle car mystique... so instead of a new Charger that had the sleek, sexy styling of the really cool concept that Chrysler showed us, we got a bloated, boxy sedan that doesn't say "Charger"... at least not to me. By trying to be two things at once, the new Charger fails at being either one. It's neither a "heritage" muscle car or a family sedan... it's sort of a weird mishmash of both. I guess sale-wise it's doing ok (police sales help, I suppose)... but I think they missed the mark with the car.

You know what your problem is? Your long, run-on, rambling posts.

A 540K wasn't designed to be space-efficient. It was designed to make a statement... to tell the world that the owner had made it in the world. It was conspicuous consumption to the nth degree (albeit with typically excellent Mercedes engineering under the skin). A 540K was all about elegance, speed and class. Practicality was never even on the designer's radar. Likewise, today there is a market for cars that are stylish and "make a statement." Not a huge market, of course... but the market for the 540K was never huge either. Cars like that have always been "niche" cars, meant to appeal to a certain segment of the buying public. There's no reason that cars like that can't be sales successes today (of course, "success" being a far smaller number sold than say, a Camry or Accord). The Mustang and Camaro are selling fairly well, the Challenger not quite as well (not sure why... maybe the fact that Ford and GM are just so much bigger than Chrysler and more people tend to shop and/or consider a Ford or GM car than they do a Chrysler). Nobody is going to mistake a Mustang or a Camaro for a "practical" family car, and they aren't represented as such. They make no pretense of being space efficient, fuel efficient or practical. They are all about style (and to a lesser degree, performance). Sure, Camrys and Accords are the big volume sellers, but there's also a market for cars that are more about style and "making a statement" than about trunk space and how many cup holders it has.

If you look up "progress" you'll find that it means movement toward a goal or higher stage, advancement. You can see progress in a car's engineering, but there's no "progress" in a car's styling (unless you want to consider the technical aspect-coefficient of drag). But as far as pure "looks" go, styling is subjective and not measurable by "progress." Is a 1930's era Mercedes 540K a beautiful car? You bet it is. The fact that Mercedes styling has changed drastically since then doesn't mean it's shown "progress" over the years... it's just different now. Same with the Charger or any car. There can't be "progress" in something that's judged aesthetically... only "change." And the change is not always for the better. IMO the '68-'69 Charger is waaaaaaaay better looking than the current one. In fact I think it's one of the better looking cars ever.

Hey, that's a first! An "Other Models" WIP!

There are a bazillion 2-door Charger renderings floating around out there... everyone and their dog has done one by now. I did these a few years ago, based on the current, uh... "Charger" they have out now. A 2-door version using as much existing car as possible: And while we're at it, a new Cougar based on the existing Mustang platform:

How about this one? Real or model? The answer: REAL!

???? We didn't have any storm here in Illinois... it's been sunny for days!

No, here is here. This forum.

And all of my sources, including this one... http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/car_info_holden_fx_48215.htm say that the "ute" first appeared in 1951, not 1948.

Could be. But we speak English here...

But if the power goes out, no ice. Oh well... neat is is, then!

Posteriority??? So they wouldn't get behind in their work?

I know. I've been there many times...

Aren't most aftermarket tires meant for "modern" cars? They'd be too wide and too small in diameter, wouldn't they?

But them online. They're cheaper. http://www.modelroundup.com/product-p/amt-pp-001.htm

Nice! What scale are those models?