Chrysler had too many great products. In no particular order, the first Power Wagon, the Chrysler 75, 77 and CD-8s that scared the Europeans at Le Mans from 1928 to 1931, the first Hemi, the 1956 300B, the 1960 300F, the 1966 Dodge Coronet 440 2-door hardtop, the Hemi Dart, the AAR Cuda, and the Viper are all…

@dal20402: The Aspen/Volare were terrible cars, but Chrysler didn't never made the worst cars in the world. Even the Mitsubishi based, Mercedes undermined junk they sell now is better than many a product of any country that has ever had communist rule. 30 years ago, the Omni was pure win compared to the Chevette,…

@Muscles Marinara: And it is probably more practical as a road car than the Bugatti Moron.

@Nurburgring: I'm not sure if I know anyone who drives an American car here in California, but I can't see how they can break down more often than recent BMWs. My parking lot always has a couple 'Courtesy Car of BMW of Escondido' window stickers present. There is no way these things need that much maintenance with…

@Nurburgring: It is impressive for the driver. How fast would he have been in the CTS-V? Without that information, he could have been considerably faster than the pros. There are some special talents out there.

@Rupunzell: Sure car choice is only one factor in success at LeMons, but the E30 is the only cheap car that I'd particularly enjoy driving on a racing track. I don't anticipate coming in and accomplishing more than completing a few laps, hopefully enough to make for relatively economical track time compared to doing…

@Rupunzell: A number of them worked for Chrysler. They left when all the other engineers were let go. Others came from GM or Ford where they learned that enthusiasm for automotive engineering was dismantled through years assigned to such tasks as 'mid sized taillight design,' or 'chrome accent, front fenders.' Read…

@Nurburgring: By actually winning, GM avoided any awkward headlines. Nobody cares what BMW fanboys think, not even BMW. They've been trying to shake their enthusiast customers and appeal to fashionistas who change cars every year for more than a decade. For the CTS to beat the similarly priced M3 and more expensive M5…

It doesn't look any worse than the stock E-class, but that is saying nothing.

@gearhead_318: Was that the driveshaft or the exhaust system? It makes more sense for the driveshaft to snap, but the noise it makes as it fall to the ground is more like a pipe. Odd. Does GM use hollow driveshafts with 20-guage wall thickness?

@Nurburgring: ??? The only one humiliated at the CTS-V Challenge was Wes.

@diskreet: Mind you pickup drivers don't have to pay for sex.

@verdegrrl: I don't love Toyotas. I've never driven one that was any fun, and that includes an SC400 I had as a company car in the mid 90s. Most of them are tough little cockroaches though. Your experience with most makes has little in common with mine. I once made the mistake of praising someone's 405, just thinking…

@verdegrrl: The scary thing about E30 strut assemblies is that they're still essentially in use by BMW. The difference is that while lower control arm ball joints held up under an E30 for 90 to 150K miles and held up under an E36 almost as long, they became a 55K mile maintenance part under the heavier E46s and…

@Rupunzell: Were I to race a '$500' car, it would be an E30. They're by far the best driving of the sort of cars you can actually get for that kind of money. It seems the organizers resent them for that, and I'm not really interested in $500 Hondas. Any intact Honda is some member of the working poor's dream commuter.…

@Rupunzell: I was thinking of Renault and Peugeot. Citroen was gone before I became involved. Citroen didn't exactly survive to when I spent my time in Europe though. They were rebadged Peugeots by the mid '80s. There were a couple odd ball Citroens still in production, but the volume one were all cut-price disposable…

@Rupunzell: In the '80s and '90s, Car and Driver was staffed almost exclusively by people with engineering degrees from Lehigh and M.I.T., most with big-3 automotive experience. I know because I wanted to work there. I've taken apart Alfas, FIATs, BMWs, Plymouths, Triumphs, Audis, VWs, Mercedes, Porsches, a Peugeot,…

I don't think it looks any worse than a Panamera or a GT-R. At least there is only one of these.

@verdegrrl: My archives are 2,800 miles away, but I clearly remember the sidebar detailing what went wroong with Car and Driver's 164. Things like black tape having been used to fasten turn signal housings into holes that didn't have mounting brackets and consoles coming apart in cars that supposedly had their own…

@verdegrrl: To some of us abuse friendly and trouble free means not requiring helicopter levels of expert maintenance. When Milanos and 164s were new they couldn't make it through a magazine road test without multiple failures, and the last US market Alfas received a level of post assembly inspection and feddling that…