No, it's more than that. A Wright B Flier is about the earliest aircraft that you can fly with even a modicum of safety. And even then, as the article says, the prototype fatally crashed in 2011.

The answer is the provenance of the vehicle. Armies (especially the US Army) would love an unmanned truck/jeep type vehicle that could deliver supplies across terrain covered in IEDs and/or land mines without risking a soldier.

But they have to keep racing this to keep the money from last year's 9th place.

The Prius has its foibles, but the boat-tail shape was directly dictated by aerodynamics, not design choices. It is a maximum interior volume, minimum drag configuration that is very appealing in consumer electric car.

And mechanical devices last forever? The experience from spacecraft (under far harsher conditions than any Mercedes-Benz or Tesla will ever see) is that the mechanical devices always fail first. Always. The Kepler telescope, for example, has lost 3/4 mechanical devices (reaction wheels), but all the electronics are…

So the B-2 program cost $2.2 billion per airframe. For that amount of money, NASA launched missions to Pluto ($0.7 billion), Vesta/Ceres ($0.4 billion), and Mercury ($0.4 billion), plus two Mars rovers ($0.7 billion total). So a single B-2 costs as much as exploring the entire solar system. Which do you think was a…

FLAMES. FROM THE HOOD. AND THAT'S A GOOD THING.

You're aware the Pacifica was based on the Mercedes R-class, right?

*Should be* but weren't able to last year. The Mobil or SAP on the side pods last year didn't mean that Mobil or SAP were actually contributing title sponsor money...

If there were actually useful repair information in the manual, then maybe. But page after page of "safe driving tips" and instructions on how to use the type of radio that is not on your car is not really going to help you if your car immobilized. If my car breaks down in Nowheresville, I really don't need to know…

And how is that any different from any previous generation? Regardless of any early-onset-dementia-boomer-nostalgia, cars have been an appliance since Henry Ford built a bajillion Model Ts and sold for them for $5,000 (inflation adjusted, yes seriously).

Maybe. But if I were a crook with a time machine, I'd probably be stealing something more valuable than a bunch of '69 Chargers...

It's a subtle, LS3-equipped family sedan that (now) you can have with a manual transmission, and Magnetic Ride Control. Why can't Chevy sell any?

I'm sorry but that is such a monumentally stupid statement. The logical conclusion of your argument is that the engine is doing too much work and "real cars" are only pedal powered. It's like No True Scotsman on a bicycle.

Yeah, remember when cars could refuel? Unless refueling is allowed again (which probably won't happen on safety grounds), a screaming V10 wouldn't make it through a third of the laps...

Like a real mustang...

You were vastly overpaid to begin with and shouldn't be complaining that your boom has gone bust!

Right, and then drop the T.

The team and the car are fine, the problem is the audience. Modern sports car racing seems to mostly be followed (especially in the US) by aging boomers with rose-tinted nostalgia for some imagined period between 1960s-1980s.

Welp, Beverley Hills is out, but why not Beverley, Kansas?