Quote from: Morris Minor on April 15, 2024, 03:01:05 PMThe the same-day-announced senior level departures signal something uncomfortable is going on. The periodic decimation of worker bees is more normal - I've been through a few of those.

Drew Baglino is a big loss IMO.

In the least Tesla is getting out in front of the EV sales slowdown and may well be expecting a sales crash.

Seems like the options have whittled their way down

1) keep the Miata and sell the Subaru for a Prius AWD

2) keep the Miata and sell the Subaru for a Prius Prime

3)keep the Subaru and sell the Miata for an 86 (though I haven't test driven one, they are vaporware at the moment)

Part 26: Chevrolet Monza


The Monza name first appeared on a Chevy during the 1960s as a sporty trim package on the Chevrolet Corvair.  However, the car you see above is the Malaise-Era compact almost everyone today associates with the Monza badge.

Introduced in 1975, the new Chevrolet Monza was an evolution of the fabulously unreliable and rust-prone Vega.  In an effort to make the new car even more unreliable, General Motors had agreed to licence the rights to build a Wankel rotary engine from German car manufacturer NSU.  Fortunately, in a rare moment of clarity for the General, they came to their senses and gave up on this idea before any Wankel powered Monzas were inflicted upon an unsuspecting public.  This was the same engine American Motors had planned to buy from GM to use in the Pacer.  When GM suddenly left AMC high and dry, without any of the engines they had designed their unconventional new car around, AMC's engineers had no other choice but to shoehorn their stalwart inline six into an engine bay for which it had never been designed.  In retrospect, I'd argue both GM and AMC got off lucky.  Let's not forget it was the catastrophic warranty repair costs and reputational damage resulting from this engine that forced NSU into bankruptcy.

The H-Body Monza shared it's rear-drive platform with the Pontiac Sunbird, Oldsmobile Starfire, and Buick Skyhawk and all four cars only survived into 1980.  After which, it was replaced by the front-drive J-Body. Although the Monza never got the Wankel rotary engine that had been originally planned for it, the car did come with a staggering variety of powerplants.  Four, six, and eight cylinder engines were all on offer.  You could pick either the Vega's 2.3 litre or the 2.5 litre Pontiac Iron Duke four bangers.  If you prefer, you could also chose between either the 3.2 litre or 3.8 litre Buick V6 mills.  Weirdly, for such a small car, Chevy would even let you turn your Monza into a miniature Camaro by letting you choose either a 5.0 litre or 5.7 litre small-block V8!  Crazy!

The Monza name lived on overseas after the General retired it from its American catalogue.  From 1982 until 1996 a locally built version of the Opel Ascona C was sold as a Chevrolet Monza in Brazil.  Down in Mexico, you could buy a rebadged Opel Corsa B sedan called a Chevrolet Chevy Monza (Yes, it was really called that!) from 1994 through 2004.  And since 2019, a badge engineered version of the Chinese built Buick Excelle GT has been assembled in Wuhan by a GM-SAIC joint venture and sold in China as a Chevrolet Monza.

But none of these Monzas ever found their way to Italy, at least not when new.  I'd also be more than a little surprised to see a Chevrolet Monza on the famous Autodromo Nazionale di Monza,  the legendary racing circuit that is the home of the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix.

I'm sorry if you somehow had the wrong impression but this car is no more Italian than the rubbery pasta served at The Olive Garden! 

Doubling down on self driving is stupid. Robotaxi is just another sham

The the same-day-announced senior level departures signal something uncomfortable is going on. The periodic decimation of worker bees is more normal - I've been through a few of those.

Drew Baglino is a big loss IMO.

BIG layoff coming at Tesla - 10+% of total workforce: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lay-off-more-than-10-its-staff-electrek-reports-2024-04-15/.

EV market getting rekt. Too many players too quickly.

Attempting paywall bypass here. But this is a WSJ journalist trying out the CCS-NACS adapter.
https://12ft.io/https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/tesla-superchargers-arent-just-for-teslas-anymore-we-tested-10-of-them/F248B963-4C04-43A3-8AEE-526DB90D16D5?mod=lifestyle_videos_pos2

Cool car interiors...


When cars were distinctive.

Part 25: Buick Riviera


Riviera.  A name that evokes images of white-sand beaches, Mediterranean breezes, opulent resorts, and members of the rich and famous jet-set.  The name is usually associated with the southeastern coast of France and the Northwestern coast of Italy.  Other regions around the world have tried to lay claim the Riviera name.  The coasts of Spain, Portugal, and even Lake Geneva in Switzerland have all tired to co-opt the Riviera name to boost the allure of their own beaches.  Some pretty unlikely locales have even tried to bask in the glow of the Riviera mystique by borrowing the name for their own stretch of coastal real estate.  The Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, the South coast of England, and the Baltic Sea shoreline of Latvia have all at one time or another rebranded their respective stretches of seaside tourist traps as a "Riviera."  Let's not forget America's very own "Redneck Riviera" on the Gulf of Mexico.

For the purposes of this thread, however, I'm going to stick to the "original" Rivieras of France and Italy.

Buick certainly found the name Riviera quite appealing, too.  Before it became a model in its own right, Buick applied the Riviera moniker to luxury-edition, pillarless hardtop versions of various Buick models from 1949 through 1962.  The Riviera finally came into its own in 1963 as a large two-door "Personal Luxury" car.  This theme continued throughout eight generations of car models through 1999, with the exception of a one-year gap in 1994, between the seventh and final eighth generation model.

I won't go through all the changes and redesigns of the Riviera over the course of its production.  Suffice to say that any iteration of the Buick Riviera would look ridiculously out of place on the French or Italian coasts.  Almost as ridiculous as a morbidly obese European man wearing a Speedo would look on any American beach!  Proof that not everything that looks appropriate on one side of the Atlantic can blend-in on the other side.