They learn fast in China. It seems like most startups in the west are primarily excercises in smoke and mirrors and accounting control fraud. The Chinese companies are gaining ground in that field and I suspect they’ll match us soon. They’ll do it at lower cost too!

I bet it’s actually the result of a screwup much higher up in the company caused by the build sheet being wrong to begin with.

I was wondering the same thing myself...

Labor charge was $0.00? That’s a deal!

The LOOOOOVE BOAT! Exciting and new....

Damn. I can’t find the Lada ad that played on Vancouver Island TV in the late 80's. It’s not on YouTube. “The Signet by Lada. Luxury doesn’t have to be expensive.” The best I can find is a Montreal ad from the same era. I was tempted but I’m really more of a Skoda kind of guy.

I imagine this as a glowing, fiery sphere hovering in the middle of the engine compartment ocaasionally shooting out minauture solar flares. As if the Toyobaru engineers consorted with the forces of evil to imprison the elemental forces of flames.

You should really try reading some of the complaints that the NHTSA gets at safercar.gov. It can be a bit like reading the forums for a car you’re interested in to see what problems it might have and it’s spiced up by the occasional bit of insanity. I found this when looking up the FR-S:

I was surprised to find out that it actually preceded Airplane! It might have been the very first disaster movie spoof that was made. God knows how NBC thought that anyone was going to take Supertrain seriously since this film came out three years earlier.

Was the Kensington police social media maven in a coma for the past decade and a half? That’s the only way I can figure that someone would think a Nickelback joke was fresh and funny. What’s next? a “Where’s the beef” joke?

I hate your kids. OK, I’m just kidding, but the idea of someone turning down the gift of a Focus ST when I had to work a dirty job to buy the piece of crap 1974 Capri 2.8 four-speed that was my first car makes me want to weep. It reminds me of the guy who came to my house to buy a guitar I had for sale. He turned up…

Q: Do you own a farm or other large rural property? If the answer is yes, then you need a parts car.

Reminds me of Steven Wright’s bit about wanting to get a tattoo over his entire body of himself, but taller. Except they got it backwards. Maybe I should put a picture of a 917 longtail on the side of my Element....

Actually, I think this video might have the answer:

I dunno... I would have politely given the wallet and phone back to the driver, said good day and ridden off. In fact I’ve done something very much like that. Being extremely nice and forgiving does a much better job of changing someone’s attitudes than aggression does. If it fails to do that it tends to infuriate…

Oh, if only that were true... if it were, I would want to say to James May “Why didn’t you finish the bastard off when you had the chance?!?!?”

“It’s art becasue I paid hard cash for it”

The whole country has been turned into one big Panopticon and there’s absolutely no privacy but a guy can ram another truck deliberately then go after the people in it with a shovel, it all gets caught on the camera and the freaking police can’t find out who the guy is without hoping someone turns him in?

So THAT’S what I’ve been doing wrong! No wonder I haven’t been able to get a business going...

That poor RSX isn’t perplexing so much as it is revolting. How could someone DO that to such a great car?