Seatbacks with springs, you lucky bastard? My seatbacks are foam, maybe 4 inches thick, and fold down for trunk access. (And that was a high-dollar option in 1996, too.) Hollowed out, the 60 (of the 60/40 split) would probably hold a sixpack stacked vertically and several sandwiches likewise, but the back seat…

What's their 'bring in your own parts' policy? In my experience, the places that try to screw you over the hardest are the ones that won't accept a customer who's only going to pay labor...even if you tell them up front that you only expect their warranty on the install, not the hardware.

I would argue that the X-Wing is far too luxurious to be considered a Lotus. It had shielding! It had a hyperdrive! (Sure, there wasn't room for a navcomp so you had to rock the aftermarket astromech.) If you want to talk equivalents, how about the TIE Interceptor? Alarmingly fast, alarmingly fragile. Or if you must…

Thank you! This is exactly the kind of detail that I always appreciated the Beach Boys going into about their machines.

I'm sure this has been nerded out before, but parsecs as used in SW was explained...in the EU, if you accept it as canon...as a measure of daring. See, the Kessel Run involved a lot of space/time distorting black holes, so the safe way around is the long, slow way. Cutting it down to a minimum number of parsecs meant…

Not every squid is Ghost Rider. Not every street racer is Vin Diesel. Leave the footage to the pros, the best stories don't have anything but your memories backing them anyway.

Or there's the old shim-the-hood trick for more airflow. A few extra washers where the hood hinges attach will give you a tilted-forward hood with a gap in the back, like a redneck reversed ram-air scoop. An underbody tray...hell, fabricate it out of election yard signs...back to about the suspension crossmember will…

"maybe a new event combining all these features, motorsports, alcohol, and poison is warranted."

All he needs is a couple of phone books on the seat to get his legs more vertical, a long beard, a set of white biker armor, and churches would probably pay him to be a rolling crucified Biker Jesus.

One thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned...fast—seriously fast—feels slow. I wouldn't quite say 'languid', but perhaps more 'composed'. You think to yourself, as you fight the lateral Gs, 'what the hell am I doing wrong, this has got to be seconds off pace' only to find you've set your fastest time. Maximizing…

I kinda wanted to see this done in a much more dangerous fashion. Car does a burnout, tow truck (decorated with police insignia for bonus points) comes roaring up, promptly winches the car up onto the bed—still doing a burnout, not entirely sure how that'd work—and then the tow truck itself proceeds to do a burnout…

I'd say, from my biased viewpoint, Toyota. They, like GM before them, have become quite hip to bash for a bunch of bullshit reasons. The post-90s decontenting (no more "fat Corollas") is valid, but for those who say they don't make interesting cars and decry the Camry, have you DRIVEN a modern V6 Camry or even a 1980s…

If you're driving in circles for that many hours you either need more stimulant (see: me, any given morning) or less stimulant (see: cat plus all the catnip they can snort). There seems to be a baseline between knurd and drunk.

Disclamer: Father-in-law and a number of his neighbor buddies are long-haulers. I hear a lot of stories.

Good comments end up on the front page, yes. I refer to editorial mention of this addon (perhaps in a rants story) as hilariously improbable, although it would go far to pacify the reactionary old guard.

Matt, what is the official local editorial take on stuff like this? Does Denton's dented brain take priority and you have to condemn this, or does attempting to staunch the readership hemorrhage by restoring a useable format win out?

Fright or flight indeed. Like running from an alligator, go in the direction it ain't. 90 degrees the hell out of the tent.

And thus the answer to "What's your ship?" is always "Q".

Therefore it is only karmically proper that you use the payout to build, in a shed, an ethanol-powered M3...with interior wood veneer courtesy of the fence.

It's all fun and games until your underhood light is the Cerenkov radiation from the coolant overflow tanks.