I believe most insurance companies total the vehicle when repairs for the vehicle are above something like 75% of the current value of the car. Considering hail damage to my pickup that didn’t require a repaint cost nearly $4000 a few years ago this isn’t too surprising.

I cant figure out what is worse, the intercooler mounted above the roll bar, the spoiler a mile in the air but too small to have any chance of actually doing anything, or the face that the car is much worse than the sum of its parts. How does one make a convertible Jetta worse? Everything they did to this.

I think what ruins the car for most people is its a mid engined car that looks like a sports car so people expect to get in at and feel like they are in a Ferrari or MR2 instead of something that was a cheap car meant to be fun. It made the car a lightning rod for hate, much in the way Neons and Cavaliers can be…

That did kinda turn me off on the article. A lot of very fast cars are stable and handle very well with a solid axle. It is when you have a driver who views the throttle like an on off switch that they get difficult to control.

Another thing that helps is keeping your hands fixed on the wheel at 9 and 3 o clock. Many people err in spinning the wheel hand over hand and then cant recover in time. If you are at highway speeds your hands should remain at 9 and 3 or 8 and 4 if that is more comfortable.

It should be noted that if you lift off during oversteer in a front wheel drive or many AWD cars you will be facing the opposite direction faster than you could imagine. On RWD it helps, but I used to use lift off oversteer to heard my Fiesta around tight corners in autocross. The biggest thing most should take from…

Jeep Cherokee and CJ’s have used both in the same body style, but not at the same time to my knowledge. In the case of the cherokee the 4.0 actually seemed to be easier to work on than the 2.8 as far as changing spark plugs.

The trade is my favorite part, will trade for some form of MG, pretty much the antithesis of this beast.

Altruistic implies that they do not benefit from this decision. They very much do benefit from this. What they essentially did was pay out a million dollars for countless articles and good press. Seems like pretty good value to me. It would be hard to get that kind of value and perception of social responsibility…

That’s just stunning. I cant say I have ever wanted a Miata because it is the obvious choice for a two seat british style sports car, but I could live with taking the obvious choice to get to look at that car every day.

You can address balance with suspension, although what you are really doing is decreasing grip at the rear to make it comparable with the front. I will admit that we are likely talking about less than 100 pounds, but on a race car or serious autocross car people will spend quite a bit of money or effort to move 20-30…

Honestly smoothness never really concerned me. I have a 4.3 chevy V6 solid mounted in my MGB. The only car that I felt didnt run smooth was the 360 magnum V8 in my street rod with a lot of cam and a 5 speed. Around 1800RPM cruising the thing will give you a back massage as it doesnt smooth out till about 2000 RPM. …

I wonder to what extent it is due to already having tooling and feeling that there would be a portion of BMW owners who would be upset at the idea of a V6 in their car. Or maybe its by pure stubbornness to make it work, much in the way Porsche has held onto the rear engine design.

With the same wheelbase and size of the passenger compartment an inline 6 will tend to have more weight on the front wheels due to its length. Not just that but accessories that have to be mounted on the front of the engine are also mounted further forward and necessary items such as the radiator are also further…

I believe pulling a Ferrari is throwing a tantrum and crashing into another car after the race http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/drivers-go-at-each-others-throats-after-vir-restart-end-1785871056 or get a race canceled so you dont lose a points championship to the Cobra Daytona, or to build a limited edition car an limit…

Honestly at this price point I could see getting a 200c, putting struts and springs on it and tuning the ride so that it drives like a competent sedan. The Pentastar 6 is a decent engine and they are optioned well.

I dont think I would put another Fiat in it but I agree that the shell is brilliant and with an engine swap it would be even better. From the odd shaped pop up headlamps to the two tone on a rear engined car, this thing has character. Its like a slightly less reliable Fiero, or 70s looking MR2, despite being an 80s…

They must be having some serious drifting and parked with the rear bumper toward a building to get that effect. I guess to me its bizarre someone would drive like that but even more so the kind of wind and drifting it would take to get the snow to pack like that.

On the plus side you can totally give up, buy a crossover for upright driving position, and still proclaim that you own a EVO, care about how it drives and smugly look down on other crossover drivers without paying Porsche money.

Considering they made a series of decisions that got them to the point of selling virtually no cars in the US, this doesn’t come as a surprise. Take a name the general public might know and put it in a hot segment with the hope that people buy a few.