I was 6 years old and awoke on July 31,1971 - excited to watch the weekly Saturday morning cartoons, only to discover all the TV channels were broadcasting 2 guys driving around on the moon. #WasPissedOff

5th Gear: The poor are hit hardest by *everything*. Using that as an excuse to not do something that’s a net positive is stupid.

And it has. Look at the reliability rankings. 

I think it helps that FCA’s products are well styled. Everything I can think of off the top of my head is handsome and clean, without relying on flavor of the week gimmicks, fake vents, floating roofs, weird C pillars, running lights that zig zag up to the A pillar, etc.

You would think making the same car for so long would let you work out the kinks and eventually increase the quality of the finished product.

Ah, this is a useful accounting explanation. Thank you. I didnt realize that is how its booked.

the Slant 6 may want a word with you..

Whatever happened to velour? Maybe it was hard to clean? Today we had easy-to-clean microfiber, but you can’t get it in a car interior. Your choices are cheap cloth or expensive leather that is mostly vinyl and not very comfortable.

but that engine was indestructible.  It was probably more durable than the Toyota 22R four-banger.

One theory holds that the regulatory environment is responsible for at least some of this. More money going into engineering budgets to meet increasingly stringent safety and emissions standards meant less for styling and interior design. Plus, all those different seat designs would have to be crash tested and then ret…

SO different! that was what made car buying so fun! You’d go to the showroom with your parents and sit in all of the cars and play with the dashboard controls while your parents talk to the dealer.

Lets be realistic, most had a slant six. 100 to 110 of pure horsepower.

The whole “build a bunch of inventory and then put a bunch of cash on the hood to move it“ thing didn’t really start until Chrysler did it in the 70s and it nearly sunk them (hence the government bailout). Even then, cars definitely used to be ordered more than bought off the lot. My parents always ordered their cars.…

In places where new cars are made to order (like Europe and Japan) there are a lot more interior colour/trim options on the whole, and people do choose the one they want when they order the car.

Oh, well, that makes sense. And it’s promising. The new Rogue looks like it has a lot of space, for a compact crossover.

I wish Mitsubishi brought this over.

This new Ford small truck will compete with this thing, the Fiat Toro (based on the Jeep Renegade and Compass platform, also called Ram 1000 in Mexico, Colombia and other countries). There’s also de Renault Duster Oroch, but is a bit smaller and more lowcost. So you better expect unibody construction, transverse…

Back in the 1980's our local dodge dealer sold tons of Dodge D50's (Mitsubishi clone) Best little truck I ever had and there are still several running around here in the foothills of the Sierra.

True, but wouldn’t they buy any nameplate that was a crossover/SUV, regardless of lineage? Jeep has sold 2.3 million Wranglers over the last 20 years with little to no direct competition. Basically, Ford and Chevy just shrugged like a couple of dummies. It would be like Samsung and Google ignoring the mobile phone…

GM likes bailout money, which it will surely get again.