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Car Blog Showdown: Mid-’80s 4×4s

| воскресенье, 2 августа 2009 г.

Here’s our latest Car Blog Showdown. This week tgriffith and jgoods were each invited to select their favorite mid-’80s 4×4. Which is your favorite?

1984 Toyota 4x4 Pickup

1984 Toyota 4x4 Pickup

tgriffith’s 5 reasons why the 1984 Toyota 4×4 Pickup is his favorite mid-’80s 4×4:

  • The famous 22R four-cylinder engine will run forever. Literally.
  • You can drop it into 4WD without getting out of the truck to lock the hubs.
  • The truck is easily customizable. Raise it to accommodate monster 36-inch tires, or add chrome accessories and window tint to create a classy truck!
  • Leave the truck stock, and you’ll get gas mileage in the low-to-mid-20s.
  • It’s a compact truck, but it has a tough-looking stance. It looks as good in a grocery store parking lot as it does tackling the off-road park.

jgoods’ 3 reasons to avoid a 1984 Toyota 4×4 Pickup:

  • It’s a mini-truck - a “cute” truck.
  • It does NOT go everywhere.
  • Ignition problems have been reported.
1985 Chevy K5 Blazer

1985 Chevy K5 Blazer

jgoods’ 5 reasons why the 1985 Chevy K5 Blazer is his favorite mid-’80s 4×4:

  • This is one tough truck, not one of them piddling little S10 babies.
  • Get the V8, not the V6, which has plenty of power and durability, despite low gas mileage.
  • The truck is a blast to drive on the dunes…and anywhere else you want to take it.
  • The K5 is versatile and will handle loads of people, bags of feed, vicious dogs, and truck parts to repair your buddy’s ’84 Toyota Pickup.
  • The styling is unmistakeable: Love it or hate it, this is the kind of vehicle GM built best.

tgriffith’s 3 reasons to avoid a 1985 Chevy K5 Blazer:

  • You’ll get something like 8 miles per gallon out of the V8.
  • If the transmission hasn’t blown up yet, expect it to soon. It’ll probably happen on the freeway at rush hour. Then you’ll be THAT guy.
  • It’s uglier and bulkier than anything else built in the 80s!

What’s your favorite mid-’80s 4×4? Why?



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When test tracks become parking lots…

| воскресенье, 19 июля 2009 г.

nissan-parkingTake a close look at this picture.

What comes to mind: Costco on a Saturday? Maybe the parking lot on Super Bowl game day?

This image is of Nissan’s test track in England. Those cars are unsold Nissans. If one image ever summed up the state of the auto industry, this is it.

You know those TV commercials where Nissans are shown racing around their test track, avoiding obstacles and going through sections of track with names like “the frame twist”? Well, Nissan’s not testing any new cars on that track now. The only obstacle encountered here would be other cars (which I suppose would make for a more real-world test)!

Seriously though, this tells me just how badly the auto industry is being hit, and it goes way beyond America’s automakers. Honda for example recently announced production cuts  and layoffs. Even Toyota, who it was just announced has unseated GM as the world’s top-selling automaker, is announcing cuts in their production.

If  the backlog of unsold cars is as bad as this picture makes it look, even production cuts seem like a futile effort to bring production back in line with demand. First they’ve got to find a way to clear out their unsold inventory.

And that’s where the good news is in all this. With so many cars waiting to be sold, there are some killer deals on new cars waiting just for you, if you know how to find them. 

Would you buy a new car right now if you found the right deal?

-tgriffith



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