Looks like a serious missed opportunity. I know a number of people who've passed on the new Mazda 3 because of the unfortunate new grille/bumper/disaster. Why did Ford have to follow suit? They're getting such good press and recognition for their quality efforts, and then they go and step on the same banana peal Mazda…

@dal20402: Gotcha. He advocates violence by telling people to admire non-violence and denigrating the violent. Sorry, I'm not wired with the bizarro prism. ACORN's thugs were mostly observed by Hillary Clinton supporters during the Democratic primaries. Keeping landlords honest seems like a noble cause. Registering…

@iliketoeat: You shouldn't take money from people without knowing their agenda.

@TrampaOnline: "I don't know, Chavez doesn't seem any crazier than Bush or Cheney to me." Does that ring any bells? If you stand by it, your judgement is worthless or you're a liar. 8 years of Bush jokes to brainwash the electorate into a suicide pact in 2008, and Bush didn't detain a single person for expressing…

@wkiernan: Not only are Toyotas good, I really don't buy that the newest ones are inferior to the older ones. I test drove an '87 Corolla 5-speed 4 door, one that was fairly stripped. At the time, there was a huge gap in how hospitable the intior seemed, the choice of hard plastics for controls, the conscious choice…

@Admiral_Awesome: You are awsome! It is vile that there are people so warped that they defend a regime that detained an air crew that made a joke.

I think there was a mixup in determining the dimensions and weight of the 1980 Corolla. US cars had 5 mph bumpers and door beams that other markets did not. Seeing as even small bumper Corollas were a couple inches longer than the number shown here, I believe the US car would have been in the mid 160s in lenght and…

She's a dirty girl.

@iliketoeat: How is broken and enslaved better?

@Se7en_speed: Cash for Clunkers is about politics. Electric cars are about politics. Protestors burning cars are political. The GM and Chrysler Bailouts, the GM IPO, the NHTSA campaign against Toyota, redlight cameras, mass tranist, TSA, etc.... Politics and cars won't be easily separated in our lifetimes. Why did you…

@dal20402: I probably see Beck's show an average of once every 3 weeks, but I have only seen him advocate non-violent responses to the progressives. If you've seen anything, anything at all, that he has done to advocate violence, please provide a link. In my opinion, he has about 30 million new reasons every year to…

@Se7en_speed: The truth hurts so much that you want me banned. You are pathetic. Your denial efforts will ultimately fail you though, ostrich boy. How do you think jetsetting anarchists pay their AmEx bills? Nevermind. Thinking obviously isn't your thing.

@Se7en_speed: Are you saying that you don't know Soros controls MoveOn.org, the Tides Foundation, Democracy Alliance, Media Matters of America, the John Adams Project, the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, ACORN, and numerous others? It isn't a theory. I've seen and heard Hillary Clinton praise George Soros…

@pmalik: The violent ones are professional protesters sent around the world on George Soros' nickel. Interestingly enough, he also has the ear of the current regime in the United States.

@Type R: Exactly. The Forte is a clone. Even Toyota held off on replacing the Corolla for a year to try to make their new one more competitive with the current Civic, such was its radical nature when introduced. Now there are a million of the current Civics on US streets, so people don't notice that it was pretty…

@snapoversteer never picked his feet in poughkeepsie: P. J. O'Rourke could write about any subject and make it interesting. Dan Neil writes about one of my favorite subjects and makes me embarrassed to care about it.

WTF? He performed a service by removing an obstacle with his bus. Why was there any question about his actions?

Dan Neil? If it succeeds, nobody will care about cars anymore.

@TrampaOnline: The make I learned to hate as a service writer was Nissan. Undocumented running changes and NLA parts are Nissan's defining characteristics.

I actually cared when Oldsmobile was killed, even though their worthwhile products were few and far between during my lifetime. Now, I just wish the rest of GM would go away.