I paid $5K for a 2010 Fit three years ago. Manual. Essentially the same car, with upgrades.

They killed the Civic wagon the year the Accord wagon came out.  I was sad.

I’m 5'11" and I don’t like lying down when I drive.  And I like wearing hats in winter.  These had a wonderfully comfortable driving position that accomodated all of the above.

The Civic Wagons had such a low drag coefficient that they just wanted to go fast. And people knew this...I had to put an extra switch in the dash for the brake light, because between New York and DC I’d be going 80+ and other drivers would move into the draft zone, which was about 3' back from the hatch.  And stay…

I owned a ‘91 FWD version. The best things about that/this car are: 

I’m not altogether certain I would trust the HD to take me to the grocery store but hey, some people like the name.  And yep, that pretty much describes my randonneur.  Which was, come to think of it, lovingly built--or at least assembled--by hand.  Mine.

I wonder if it’s fixed-gear...freewheels had been invented before the original of this bike was produced, but...

Or a custom-fitted road or randonneuring bike frame (at least). That thing has all the look of a BSO.

I do know people who have spent upwards of $5,000 on a bicycle. It’s not at all like that bicycle.

At least we’ve heard what happened then. Let us not go gently into this evil, evil night.

I assume you reported the shop for cruelty to bicycle components and took your bikes elsewhere!

Hmmm. Ashtabula crankset? I have to confess that I’ve yet to have an unremovable pedal. A little light oil, a pedal wrench, and a mallet. So long as you remember the threading (as you point out above) that’s all I’ve ever needed, and I’ve worked on some ancient machines.

Purely out of curiousity, what pedal and what crank? Any chance that the pedal had an alloy shaft?

I have two good-quality adjustable wrenches in my toolbox, both inherited from my father—a small one, and a large one. They’re old-line Craftsman tools, and they’re very good. Not as good as a proper well-made made-to-fit wrench, particularly when things are (or need to be) very tight, but thanks to these two, I have…

Dunno. That’s just the way I’ve always done it—on a per syllable, rather than per word, basis. I really don’t know why.

ISTRC that these were sold in the US as the Mercury Capri, no?

My dad had a blue one, ‘72 iirc, and I learned to drive stick in that car in ‘77. I don’t recall it as being a car he was in love with, but it was sort of a compromise—it replaced his MGB convertible, which was, to put it mildly, not an appropriate car for Minnesota winters. Even if it did have wire wheels with…

Got scoops?

What is the fascination with exhaust pipes? They do not provide thrust and are not rockets.

We’ve been calling it the Death Star for a couple of years now, because that was precisely what the lamp brought to mind.

We’ve been calling it the Death Star for a couple of years now, because that was precisely what the lamp brought to…