Just get a used AWD V60 CC with a pre-VEA Modular I5. More fun would be an S60 CC, but bro doesn’t want a sedan.

Imagine being in Australia

I mean, the 2000s RWD Infiniti G-car Skylines were seriously great cars. They might have had their reputation ruined by the #stance crowd on the used market, but they drove better and were cheaper (and more reliable) than a spec-for-spec 3er when new. The 2014 Q50 was the big misstep.

I love the Aussie-built Skylines. Such an obscure part of auto history.

I love that the moment the skyline came here under a different name Nissan stuck it with some janky horrible-feeling drive-by-wire steering system and dropped the manual, literally everyone fell out of care about them.

No Volvo shooting breaks? Nowhere near pure ‘retro’, but still pretty cheeky that they managed to have three completely separate designs from completely different platforms and generations all evoking the same style:

I forget that it’s those types of drivers that love to rail against traffic calming measures like narrower lanes or greenscaped medians.

The new one is decent looking. It’s pretty clean and sleek and is way better than the Civic IMO.

Also I’m sorry to be a Debbie Downer but the 10th gen Accord, ‘beautiful’, really? I’m not begrudging anyone who likes it or saying the 11th looks better, but this busy and crinkly design won’t age anywhere near as well as the gorgeous simplicity of the ‘90s models.

Fedde Talsma’s V50 is one of the few truly gorgeous ‘normal’ cars of the 2000's. For a FWD family wagon it’s about as close to perfectly proportioned as they come, better even than Horbury’s (RIP) iconic V70 I’d argue.

uhhhh, source? I believe you, but that looks like a crappy Photoshop at best, unless Toyota’s really phoning it in this time...

It wasn’t designed to make sense. It was basically a California compliance car since Mazda is a tiny automaker that doesn’t have any hybrids to offset its fleet carbon emissions. To be fair, it was pretty antiquated to still need a compliance EV in 2020, but it did its job and is no longer necessary since they have…

Clearly it didn’t matter to them considering they actually took it to all those places anyway. Different strokes for different folks. Kinda like the guy who did 20,000 miles across the globe in his TVR.

I’d argue that was the generational change that took the Civic and nearly all its competitors from being ‘cheap crapcans’ to ‘an Accord only smaller.’ Having driven both my roommate’s ‘04 and my grandma’s 2011, I can attest that the former is boomy, skittish, and feels paper thin, great for enthusiastic driving but…

Low hanging fruit, maybe, but the gen2 XC90 coming out as the first SPA car after over a decade of Ford-conjoined good-but-sensible models was a minor revelation. The OG XC90 was great, but I’d argue the new one is why Volvo is now considered a ‘luxury’ brand by the masses rather than the mid-level position it used to…

Anything boxier, for me the loss of D-pillar visibility is the real deal-breaker.

Meh. Blown up Equinox. Looks good, but nothing new or special.

I know Lexus are good (duh, Toyota makes the best cars), but they’re boring. I’d totally own a big RWD Lexus long-term, but I want to try a Genesis specifically because they’re a bit different; dead-nuts reliability isn’t a priority for me (obviously, since I spend several grand limping along old Volvos every year)…

Curious what issues the Nissan trucks specifically have? I’ve always figured they were well-built if slightly less so than a Toyota, but some accounts seem to suggest they’re just as bad if not worse than a contemporary Ford or Chevy. A shame as a manual 2nd gen Xterra always seemed like the coolest cheap 4x4 to me.

Fair enough, I’ve always been curious to own a Genesis so I’m on the lookout for which years and engines to avoid. It seems the Tau V8 has been pretty solid so I’m inclined to go that route. It couldn’t be any more maintenance-heavy than my British-built Volvo straight-six, right?