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Definitely it is a better auto. pilot. than this: Chrysler Auto Pilot. Circa 1958

The AM killer is unfortunately the invasion of cheap switching power supplies and cheap digital electronics that pollutes the spectrum used for AM stations

In my city it's the overhead trolley wires that power the buses. Driving under them makes AM un-listenable in my car - And if you pull up behind an electric bus connected to the wires, well forget it - It's over to FM.

http://www.curbsideclassic.com...

If memory serves, the trolleybus wires are 600 volts DC.

For the right price, I could be persuaded to part with my red mercury.

Yay Citroen!

Well, maybe a bad dashboard doesn't mean the whole car is horrible, but it can certainly change the way you feel about a car. Even a single bad *detail* can ruin the experience for you.

I remember back around 1969, my mom bought a Buick Skylark: forest green, with a black vinyl roof. Very chic for the era. In most respects it was a pretty good car for 1969, especially with the optional 8 cylinder engine that put out 230 HP. Nobody balked at 12 MPG fuel economy back then. It was even rather good looking -- maybe not in the same league as a classic Mustang, but brawny and compact for 1969. Check out the Sports Coupe on this page. That's it, fourth from the top. Mom's car.

This car had one fatal flaw: the climate control UI. That was an impressive "space age" affair in which the settings were made on a thumb wheel and displayed on a bar graph. The graph even turned red when you went from AC to heat. Here it is on ebay. Look closely at the worm gear mechanism used to operate the bar readout. This was a fatal flaw that turned what would have been a very nice car into a lemon.

Unlike the basic lever and cable arrangement in less expensive cars, with this you have no tactile feedback. You can't feel whether you've set the control to AC or heat, much less how much heat you've called for. Check out the worm gear mechanism in the photos. That meant you had to rotate the knob maybe three times to go from max AC to max heat. Since only part of the knob protruded from the faceplate you could maybe rotate it 60 degrees with one swipe of your thumb. So when you wanted to change the temperature, you had to take your eyes off the road to see the bar graph, then often frob the control wheel with your thumb five or six times to get the setting you wanted.

I remember my Mom cursing that car every time she wanted to change the temperature. It was one small detail that ruined what would otherwise have been a terrific car. This is the first car I remember in detail, and it taught me an important lesson about user interfaces: impressive controls and displays don't necessarily make a UI convenient or pleasant to use.

"You'd lose that bet. And likely only once."

Likely not.

(1) At what speed was that crash test? My guess is (supported by my guess from the full-speed portion of the video) is that it was not a high-speed crash. Just as I was saying. I was referring to more of a high-speed crash, and the Chrysler is significantly heavier than either of those cars. (You probably can't answer this question because I looked at the site of the folks who made that video and it says it is not searchable right now.)

(2) The 2009 Malibu, while classed as "mid-size", is a bit larger than what I would call a "typical" commuter car today. The difference in weight between that and the Chevy is less than 200 pounds.

(3) The '59 Bel Air was the first car that used GM's "X Frame". The X-frame had no side members, leaving it more prone to damage from collisions that are not head-on. I suspect they staged that off-center crash precisely to take advantage of this fact.

I would also like to point out that the engine compartment does NOT make such a great "crumple zone", if it has an engine in it! (I will concede, though, that modern firewalls are typically angled to try to deflect the engine underneath in that kind of a crash.)

In answer to the other poster, I was referring to a 1968 New Yorker. It had solid square steel C-beams for a chassis.

Any votes for AMC Pacer of the computing world?

Not only was the Aztec one of the most hideous looking vehicles ever made it is considered by some to be the cause of Pontiac's downfall. (although in it's defense I've known a few Aztec owners and apparently it's actually a decent vehicle, at least by GM standards of the time.) As bad as the Pacer was it didn't single-highhandedly bring down AMC, who had several monstrosities working against it. (the Gremlin for example)

Any votes for AMC Pacer of the computing world?