Didn’t Toyota emails leak last year about their ambition to reduce wages at their US plants from average for the auto industry to average for manufacturing in the local area? Which I believe was from low 20s/hr to low teens, excluding benefits statutory and otherwise.

I remember the then-CEO of Saturn countering criticism of the styling by saying the Saturn customers didn’t care about style. My reaction at the time was that maybe it would have been smart to make the car somewhat stylish in order to attract some people who weren’t already customers. I think what she meant was that…

Chevy Cruzes built in Mexico have more US content than Subaru Imprezas built in Indiana or Hyundai Elantras built in Alabama, but you know what else? Mexicans who have decent jobs don’t cross the border to the US.

Sponges were usually small enough, but my mother who grew up poor during the 1930s did cut the 3M scrub pads in half for use. Plastic bread bags, e. g., could be hand washed and reused for storage. Aluminum foil could be reused multiple times if you washed cooking residue off after each use. About the only practice…

But what, besides badging, distinguishes this from a Grand Familia/808/818/Mizer? Like most Toyo Kogyo non-sportcar rotaries, this is a classy, stylish piston-engined car given a factory engine swap.

Statistically speaking, that appears not to be the case. In addition to much of Chevy management hating the car because it was developed elsewhere and forced on them, Chevy dealers hated it because it didn’t produce warranty service revenue, which in turn led to them putting little effort into selling it vs. the…

Unfortunately, the tea drinkers in an office will also end up tasting coffee unless a second Keurig machine is dedicated to tea only. At which point using bags and the microwave goes back to the front of the line for me.

The ultimate step-saving single-serve convenience: GSI Outdoors makes a French press that is its own travel mug, the Commuter Javapress. Available in choice of five colors of insulating sleeve. Pro tip: dump the grounds and rinse it out at your earliest convenience because it can be finicky to clean if you don’t, but…

Mazda 626 (GD) 5-door. Loved the proportions and Audi-like styling (down to using pins through the side windows running in channels underneath to achieve sliding flush glass; Ford wouldn’t let Mazda use the Taurus’ innovation that didn’t require such structure). In 1990 I wasn’t able to find a 5-door with then-rare…

I barely see silhouetted fingers on a hand, unless he’s supposed to be wearing a french tickler on his dong.

Don’t gas tanks from this era have drain plugs? I recall my ‘83 Mazda 626 maintenance schedule recommending draining the gas tank every xx000 miles so sediment didn’t accumulate. I never bothered, but I remember the plug on the bottom of the tank.

The only BMWs I ever even idly considered buying were a 525i/530i Touring or a 318i Kompact.

Autonomous cars regardless, it would be a big help for all drivers if municipalities, urban and rural, would keep up with routine painting of white lines at road edges first, with multilane markings second and yellow center dividers third. Now that it’s dark early in the evening, it’s a reminder of the difficulties of…

Long ago and far away, people lived on farms and in small towns and couldn’t buy mayonnaise in jars and didn’t care to make fancy French sauces by hand. They had plenty of fresh butter, however, to put on freshly baked bread and make sandwiches. Surprisingly, many such people, and their children and grandchildren to…

Since most of the approvals needed come from the state and local government, the President/federal government can’t guarantee how quickly those come, although in some states it would be relatively fast.

There are several Mazda dealers who sell factory accessories on eBay at substantial discounts, even factoring in shipping. Many of them require only rudimentary skills to install. For my 2014 Mazda3 5-door I eventually got the fender splash guards, winter floor mats, cargo tray, cargo shelf, door sill trim plates, and…

About the only nugget of thruthiness to be found would be that some models produced in large quantity at transplant factories don’t meet his proposed 50% US content standard, but then, some models produced by US manufacturers at US plants probably don’t either (difficult to tell precisely since US isn’t currently…

I give it points for creativity, but without more specific details it falls in the category where the parent seems more invested in the costume than the child.

Like most white male millionaires/imaginary billionaires these days, he gets pissy when the press corps does not collectively drop to their knees and take turns fellating him in appreciation of his extraordinary genius.

One thing I recall from reading history, and found interesting, was how all that nice cut marble and limestone lying unused as old public buildings became a supply of building material for far more humble structures, for more common people, during the Middle Ages. Or even burnt to turn into quicklime for cement or…