Begin forwarded message:
> From: Godfrey DiGiorgi <godd...@me.com> > Subject: Re: OT: The Leica T succeeds in pissing me off. > Date: April 27, 2014 at 1:52:14 PM PDT > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <pdml@pdml.net> > Reply-To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <pdml@pdml.net> > > Far as I'm concerned, Paul, Chrysler was always a failure. Even worse crap > than GM. I'm glad the Italians control them now. MOPAR has made some winners and some losers. At 200,000 miles, many of which spent towing, my van is starting to show it’s age, but I bet it’ll still do a better job of towing your Mercedes than your Mercedes will do towing it. As to performance, it has probably turned a faster lap time at Thunderhill than your Mercedes ever has as well. With 360 God fearing all American cubic inches the mileage isn’t the best, but if I put in all of the seats and didn’t drive with a lead foot, I could probably get upwards of 130 passenger miles per gallon. Yeah, my tongue spent a bit of time in my cheek in the above paragraph, but every car company has strengths and weaknesses. I’m glad that you like your car, that’s all that matters for you. The only car Mercedes has made in recent memory that has held any appeal to me is the Smart, but I’m not into luxobarges. On the other hand Chrysler made the Viper GTS, and until you’ve had eight liters of V10 pass you on the track at full song you simply cannot comprehend the concept of priapism in a can. Everyone in the automotive industry that I’ve heard or read has pretty much said what Paul did. Daimler came in, raped over Chrysler. When there seems to be a consensus among people who know more about the automotive industry than you do about Apple computers, I suspect that there might be something to what they say. I might not ask Paul for advice on which iPad to buy, but considering that he’s worked for both of the auto companies under discussion, I have a hunch that he’s not just blowing smoke out of his ass. > > And Audi is a brand-engineered VW. And Porsches are nothing but VWs with a hormone imbalance, or as I’ve heard them described “A really bad idea that has been meticulously perfected”. Even so, you might want to chat with John Buffum about Audis deficiencies. > > But please, let's not divert from the entertaining Leica bashing. :-) > it's somewhat closer to the supposed topic of this forum. I don’t think anyone has serious complaints with Leicas, just their prices and some of the people who own them. :-) > > Godfrey > > >> On Apr 27, 2014, at 1:40 PM, Paul Stenquist <pnstenqu...@comcast.net> wrote: >> >> Oh my! You do invent your own reality, don’t your? I was there when Daimler >> and Chrysler “merged," working on the Chrysler ad biz, so I’ll educate you. >> Chrysler never owend" Daimler. Eaton and the rest of Chrysler mangement sold >> out to Daimler for a huge amount of cash. Daimller was calling all the >> shots. Hell, they sent Dieter Zetsche, who is now Daimler CEO, here to run >> the Chrylser group. (Zetsche was a nice guy. We had a good time at Daytona >> when Dodge premiered in NASCAR, but his loyalty was definitely to the >> motherland.) At the time, Mercedes was not doing well, but Chrysler had 9 >> billion dollars in the bank. Daimler emptied Chrysler’s piggy bank in a >> matter of years, then left town, leaving a broke and decimated Chrylser >> behind. Cerebus dragged the carcass around for a few years, then Marchione >> came to town and saved Chrysler. Unlike Daimler, Marchione really means it. >> He wants Chrylser to succeed. And they are. >> >> I worked on the Mercede-Benz ad biz as well at McCaffrey & McCall in the >> 1980s. (My commercial, “Interview” iis still considered the best Mercedes >> spot of all time and it won the Gold Clio for best automotive spot of 1990.) >> Mercedes was on a roll when I wrote that commercial, but withing months >> Lexus and Infiniti came on the scene, and Daimler panicked. They told me >> they could no longer be “Emgineered Like No Other Car In the World.” It was >> too arrogant. And they took a lot of content out of the cars so they could >> match the prices of the Japanese cars. I bailed and went to Detroit, and >> Mercedes quality declined. But the Germans are smart and they have a huge >> pool of engineering talent to draw on. Mercedes has made gains in recent >> years, but they never quite recovred. In many ways, they still trail BMW and >> Audi. And of course it’s heresy in the PC world, but Cadillac is producing >> better products than Mercedes for some segments — the ATS vs. the C-Class >> and the CTS vs. the E-class. Mercedes has a future, but they’re not the >> world leader they were in the 1980s. >> >> Here’s “Interview,” if you’d like to see it: >> http://stenquist.org/Paul/MercedesEngineer.htm >>> On Apr 27, 2014, at 4:13 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi <godfreydigio...@me.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Plenty of them around here. But their quality did suffer a bit through the >>> years of Chrysler ownership. They were sensible to get rid of Chrysler, >>> even at a loss. >>> >>> G >>> >>> >>>> On Apr 26, 2014, at 2:42 PM, Paul Stenquist <pnstenqu...@comcast.net> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Not many ten year old Mercs though. Intimately familiar with that company. >>>> Unfortunately. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> PDML@pdml.net >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> PDML@pdml.net >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
