Now that they’ve all got lock-up torque converters and parity or better in the number of gears, it’s highly unlikely any driver will get better economy from a manual than an automatic being driven similarly. Even short-shifting and driving like a grandma, you’re guessing about where the engine is most efficient. The…

Are those numbers in Dollarydoos or Canadabucks? In Freedom Dollars, the Ecoboost Mustang is less than $30k WITH the Performance Pack, and you can get a GT for well under $40. You can push either model up by $10k if you get the Premium and start stacking on the options, but that’s not sensible when you’re looking for…

How many vehicles have you personally purchased new from the dealer with a manual transmission? If the answer is “none” or any variation on “depreciation” then you’re a bigger part of the problem than any manufacturer or clueless non-enthusiast driver.

Cue a bunch of whining on forums about this, largely by people who weren’t going to buy one new anyway.

I’ve never felt the allure of Ebay parts, but I hate shopping for car parts in general for this reason. There’s no information available, at ALL.

I’m pretty sure the defaults are set this way because government testing for emissions, fuel economy, and noise generally uses whatever configuration the car defaults to when starting from parked. They don’t care what the fuel economy is in a hybrid with a super-secret “ultra-eco” mode, because they rightly assume…

But, if being a decent person and as long as you don’t think they intentionally played a shell game to get you to sign what sounded like a great deal at the time, you’ll probably feel guilty. . .

How fortunate for the rest of us, then, that the BBC doesn’t consult you for long-term planning. You’re too focused on the numbers themselves, without considering what they actually show.

While the article mentions a horsepower limit, that’s mostly because it’s coming from a marketing guy. For the most part, transmissions don’t care about horsepower; their limitation is with torque. With new turbocharged everything, torque is climbing even faster than horsepower.

My Protege pulled that stunt, but I have high hopes for my 2014 3. I got a door ding all the way down to metal, and left it for the better part of a year before I bought some touch-up paint. It didn’t show the slightest sign of rust.

The Nurburgring is far rougher and bumpier than your average track. If James May thinks Ring-tested cars are too hardcore, that’s nothing on what they’d be if they were set up for normal tracks.

I wish unleaded aviation was making more progress, both for environmental reasons and political ones.

The 100LL merely has low lead compared to old-school formulations.

The STI has the added bonus of its inexplicable voodoo resale value. I swear, it’s got to be the cheapest performance car on the US market if you account for resale value.

You’re right, in the sense that people should be more concerned with horsepower below 4,000 RPM than above. That’s why the Focus ST is considered fast, while the BRZ with the same power-to-weight ratio is considered slow. Without a doubt, the new turbo Si will walk all over the old one in the real world.

If I narrow my search to a reasonable driving distance, those prices jump back up to nearly MSRP. I’m familiar with the idea of buying a rare, desirable used car from halfway across the country. With a new car, it just seems weird. So, what’s the best way to handle that situation? Do you make the deal over the phone…

And then gives the data to the coffee intern, presumably. I love my Mazda for many reasons, but the road noise is on the threshold of being unforgivable. Even after switching to some nice Pirellis.

This is totally a thing, although not in quite the same manner you’re describing.

I think this applies to every car ever equipped with the 3800, apart from a couple of Holdens with rear wheel drive. Almost every car ever to house a 3800 has been a let-down that didn’t deserve such a good engine.

Though, in fairness, Mr. Clarkson has demonstrated that he also doesn’t have a strong grasp of the inner workings of internal combustion. I seem to recall a particular Koenigsegg was equipped with a “supercharger whacking the fuel into the cylinders.”