OK, poor choice of words on my part - I should have said “mass market”, “non-enthusiast”, “general audience”. I am sure most WRXs, BRZs, GTIs, Miatas, etc. are daily-driven by their owners.

Mazda made the new 3 about 50% more expensive (MSRP) for the manual hatch vs the lower-end outgoing models, all in the name of making the car “premium”.   The $1500 rebate is a drop in the bucket relative to the price increase.

One word: Reliability.   On paper the GTI might be a better value, but the hassle factor of VW ownership is a significant disincentive to buy one.

This is what we’re headed towards: Manuals are only offered on lower-end sporty cars (WRX, Miata, VW GTi), they are being discontinued or greatly restricted on regular daily-driver cars.   Soon it will be a very narrow niche of the sporty cars that will offer them, if they’re available at all.

When I was a boy, McLaren knew how to qualify and WIN at Indy!

Watching Lewis Hamilton with Mercedes now is like watching Ayrton Senna with McLaren was during much of 1988-1991 - Boring, processional races, with minimal overtaking, and McLaren (then) or Mercedes (now) inevitably taking the top two steps on the podium. When Prost was his teammate in ‘88-’89, there was at least…

Only in New Orleans!

Interesting statistic about the new Corolla hatch having a 15% take-rate for manuals.  That’s a sporty old-fashioned hatch that still looks interesting.

So just to be clear, this is just the Elantra sedan, correct?

Good luck selling your TTA, I hope it brings a good price! I agree that it’s definitely generational - Men (it’s mostly men, some women) want the cars that were cool and lusted-after during the decade when they were 10-20 years old, give or take a few years.

When I see the new Mazda3 Hatch, I think of this:

Even before NASCAR put the 305 C.I. engine limit had been put on the Wing Cars, Chrysler had done wind-tunnel testing on the 3rd-Gen (1971) body styles and found out that they were not as fast and slippery as the original 1969-1970 body styles for the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird. The 1971 bodies were wider,…

Even a limp-wristed intellectual magazine like the New Yorker gave “Rush” a good review, which surprised me a little.

I was puzzled why they would publish that book under a title that would cause confusion with John Horsman’s excellent memoir. “Racing in the Rain” is a fantastic book!

The only other ingredient is soylent green, nothing to be squeamish about.

Supposedly Mitch McConnell said about Joe Manchin: ”He’s always there when you don’t need him.”

Proof of the old adage that “It’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.”

My father let me have his old 1978 Bali Green Rabbit Mk1 when I graduated from college. (The picture is NOT of the car in question, but shows the same color and body style for illustrative purposes). It was a base-model stripper (“Rabbit Standard”) that cost $4300 new in 1978.

That’s a good suggestion for a diversity hire!

I could forgive the exorbitant price and oversized C-pillar, the thing that really burns me about the 4th-gen 3 is the very limited availability of the 6MT.  If they paired the AWD with the 6MT, I’d actually buy one!