Well, umm, see, some people still do. I turned 50 2 weeks ago, can’t be that bad, can it?
Just last night my wife and I were watching TV (that GMC ad) and I said to her “What the hell is happening to pickup trucks when they now have automatic step-down tailgates?” How lazy have we become?
It really is laughable @asemaster. There is apparently a powered closing mechanism available on GM pickups that is operated by the remote lock switch. Nothing seems too luxurious or convenient or opulent when financed for 72 months with ZERO down and ZERO interest and the option to skip December payments. No one seems to care that they are upside down on their GREAT DEAL until the last 12 months of the contract which usually sucks up most discretionary cash until that last payment is made.
And about those cigarettes, when I was 50 I began a day by day struggle to stop smoking after 35 years as a heavy smoker and now, after 18 years I can flaunt my success. Luckily no one can see how tempting it is when someone smoking a Marlboro walks by.
Back to Cadillac - does anyone think their current lineup is a market leader in any of these areas? I don’t.
Luxury
Quality
Performance
Reliability
Cost
Keep up the good fight. Nicotine addiction is one of the most difficult to kick. I have lost too many members of my family to smoking related illnesses and I expect a couple more.
BBC is probably one of the least biased news orgs.
PBS is a close second. Their in-dept reporting (Front-Line) is EXCELLENT. Very well researched and vetted stories. They don’t give their opinion…they have a lot of evidence to back up their stories.
CNN - has had some problems, but in general they are very good. Some of their commentators are very one sided, but at least for the most part their news is accurate.
ABC, NBC, CBS and MSNBC for the most part are factual, bit their bias does show and they’ve had to retract a few of their stories.
Fox - is a complete joke. It’s geared toward the lower income, High-school educated or GED. Very little in-depth reporting. Extremely biased in much of their reporting. And then there’s the blatant lies. They’ve been caught many many times just making things up. It never happened. And there’s the’s racism. They give White Supremacists a voice on some of their shows.
If anyone things Fox is actually a news organization…then they have blinders on.
Well… they might be a bit more reliable than Mercedes vehicles, and they are undoubtedly cheaper to repair than MB vehicles. However, I am definitely not tempted to buy one.
You might not be aware, there is a full scale tailgate war going on-
And everyone is entitled to a grand tailgate like one of those. $1,000 spread out over 72 months is less than 2 cups of Mocha-Java-Latte each month so it’s a cinch to pay for it.
Mike, I like you but I respectfully disagree with your analysis. In Europe, not speaking French, Italian, etc., it was pretty frustrating relying on CNN international and BBC. Might be time to re-read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals to see how much we are being played. Particularly rule 13 to relentlessly stigmatize your adversaries.
It’s not necessarily what is reported, but what is never reported. Picking and choosing what to emphasize. A local example this year. We had the annual Back to the 50’s car show with over 10,000 cars 1964 and older. In the past there has been wide media coverage with on the scene reports etc. This year hardly a mention in the local media. Instead there was film coverage of the multi-colored parade taking place on the same weekend. The war on cars continues to change the culture. No need to report on those smelly old cars with IC engines polluting the air even though thousands paid their $12 to take it in. Just an observation not to mention the fact that 90% of the news organizations are owned by a small number of corporations. It’s just hard to rely on any of them. I won’t even get into the revolving door. Eyes wide open.
But the round the clock media offers only 2 choices @bing. We can chase our tails running in circles to the left or to the right. Those steadily trudging on looking for solutions just get run over trying to pass between the circling lemmings on either side.
Entitled? Not sure how that has anything to do with it. It’s an option. You choose it or not. Whether or not the cost, spread out over 72 months, is affordable will depend on your particular circumstances. If someone is too ignorant to understand if they can afford it, that’s a different issue. Personally, I think some of these innovative ideas are worth considering. I can’t believe it took this long to for someone to re-invent the tail gate…
You think it’s a $1000 option? Read the fine print in that ad. If you don’t select that tailgate option, you can get 20% off MSRP. On a $50,000 truck, that adds another $10,000 for that tailgate. That’s a lota Mocha-Java-Latte’s, even in the Venti size.
Holy Smokes! Well if “full size” trucks had not gotten so blinking BIG, maybe we’d be able to close the tailgates ourselves! 
Side story: I was the product engineer for a short time for a power trunk (edit) pull-down motor installed on some Cadillacs, a few Lincolns and then the Camaro/Firebird with the huge rear hatch. My thoughts at the time were that this was a dumb option.
Never though it would go mainstream for power doors, tailgates and now lift-gates.
power trunk, I bet!
Luckily I’m only entitled to what I can afford to write a check for @keith and for now I will continue to enjoy my old school rides and slip a few bills into my bucket list fund each month. But after so many years busting my knuckles on vehicles the only things about them that I value are safety, reliability and economy so if I had money to burn I can’t imagine having any great desire for any particular car or truck.
As a girl, when my height was 4’11" I could reasonably see and reach over the side of the bed of a late 50s era pickup and could scramble in and out across the tailgate. Of course I was far younger and nimble then.
Now, at 5’4" height the front end of pickups are within inches of my height and I cannot begin to reach over the side of a truck bed. A friend of mine, a contractor by trade, who is several inches shorter than average for most men has to use the rear bumber step on his recent model truck to get ladders on or off the ladder rack, a problem he didn’t have on his previous truck from fifteen or so years ago. And he has less bed room for hauling supplies.
If the front end on those Sierra’s and Silverado’s get any taller, they are going to have to mount forward looking cameras so the driver can see where they are going.
That’s so true. And Fox is a MASTER at it.
.
I wondered about power sliding doors when we bought our Olds Silhouette in 2003. Over time, we found that they were much easier to use on hills, and the wife’s elderly father could close the door by himself. The MIL could have too, if she could just figure out how to push a button, but that’s another story. The kids could close the side power doors themselves, too. My wife didn’t want the power rear hatch on the Odyssey we just bought, but I said we don’t need it now, but as we age into our 70s, we might need it.
I’m 5’4" height and have found that a friend with current model Chevy Silverado and another friend with a Ram 1500 have trouble seeing me if I stand in front of their trucks due to the height of the front end of those trucks. I couldn’t get in the quad cabs until siderails were added. They have massive front ends but less cargo bed space than my dad’s fifties era truck, although I grant the single cab was almighty cramped.