@Jim-Bob wants a Yaris: It seems like the history of automotive styling is as much about the followers as the leaders. It doesn't seem like going off in a new and hideous direction takes as much courage as not copying the latest horrible gimmick would.

@Jim-Bob wants a Yaris: Is it just me, or do the base model Marinas look too much like the Vauxhall Vivas of the day? They could have shared tooling and just put round headlights on the BL cars and square on the GM ones.

People pan these cars for their styling and for the fact that it took a few years to follow the coupe with a convertible, but people bought them like mad whenever the union scum showed up to make them. Sadly, they were so badly built that they went from ubiquitous in 1980 to extinct in 1987. These two probably spent…

@narf: I remember. The car was organizer provided. The team was exempt from budgetary constraints, so it wound up being a silhouette racer with modern mechanicals. They were awarded the biggest cash prize just for 'competing' in the form of the IOE. You couldn't make this stuff up. LeMons has no compass.

@tiddo: I don't think the $500 limit is even a factor anymore. The organizers just want interesting cars. The winner of the IOE is entered in a $2010 GRM challenge too. It still took an ORGANIZER donated car and some creative accounting to get under that figure, considering that it is really a fabricated racing car…

@MushyHeirloom: It was also one of the first 2nd generation Mini Coopers that I saw. I lived in Chelsea for 3 years, the Manhattan neighborhood where rich married guys who live on the upper east side or commute into the city keep their secret boyfriends. One time I locked myself out of my apartment and knocked on a…

@MushyHeirloom: Thanks for not correcting me for misspelling toe. He was actually with a woman, perhaps his mother, similarly attired. I know just where it happened and just what I was doing. It was about 2 years ago, but it still haunts me. Incidentally, when BMW Mini Coopers first went onto the US market, I drove a…

@top-dead-center: Today we call the enemies amoung us Democrats.

One of their most iconic models? Do you mean like the Muira SV, the Countach LP5000, or the LM002? I'd say that this particular Diablo falls into the 'somewhat iconic Lamborghini with men who were 16 year old boys when it was intoduced" category. I'm not even sure the Diablo model line as a whole makes the cut into…

@Turbineguy - now with reheat!!: It is a less characterful Rabbit that blocks my view, so not much.

@zachary6: @Jackie: +1

@GreenN_Gold: No thanks. It was made with cues from when BMW was still a serious engineering company instead being bent on providing the ultimate cruising experience.

I have no idea what people are complaining about. That is so much better looking than anything BMW actually released in the last decade that it makes me relive my disillusionment with BMW all over again. All those lovely 1988 E30 325is styling cues. It just makes me sad.

@owen-magnetic: They stopped selling MGs, Triumphs, Austins-Healeys, Sunbeams, Rovers, and Morrises here. That was thanks enough.

@zeeboid: Hey! Why does everyone keep giving me the finger?

@stoke™: The Bowler page says that the Nemesis uses a 4.4 liter engine developing 252 hp, so almost certainly a derivative of the old pushrod TVR/Rover V8 that was purchased from GM of the US when they were done with it in the early '60s. So fully half of the cars that made the list were worth mentioning in no small…

@owen-magnetic: The Jensen had a Chrysler powerplant. The Bristol has a Chrysler powerplant. The MG has a Ford US powerplant. The McLaren has a German powerplant. The Bowler might well have a US or German designed engine too.

A few years ago there was a beater Lamborghini Silhouette being daily driven in Pacific Beach by a young woman. I wouldn't count on this thing getting you laid. Her targa Lamborghini was red, and I was the only one who noticed it. I pointed it out to a few people, but nobody cared. There are only a few of these…

@MushyHeirloom: Although I saw a male person driving a pink Mini Cooper S while dressed in pink from head to tow and carrying a dyed pink dog in a pink handbag, it has been brought to my attention that small SUVs are the gay vehicles of choice by recent conversations with gays.

That thing makes the Jeep Compass look butch. Hopefully it will split the gay market causing the VW Tiguan to fail and both models will be killed.