I don't mean to be negative. From what I gather, that's a fairly accurate description of Prius driving.

Not sure about the Prius. At least it does something different to your usual box on wheels commuter car.

Sweet sexism there brah ;)

How long can nostalgia maintain a brand?

They've managed to make a CVT that can take the torque, but have they made one that's not significantly more lossy than an already lossy torque-converter automatic?

Came here to post just that, especially the classic ones. Its turn-in is understeery if you're still on the throttle, and if you back out of a corner half-way through the STA rear suspension will de-camber and the rearward weight distribution will hurl you off the road.

Expensive, but what a machine.

He says that the MPG numbers are as close to real-world averages as he could find. The official numbers will likely be a lot more optimistic.

It's less in the States but over here in the UK. Even Joe Public tends to have a lingering association with Alfas and unreliability.

That Alfas are rusty and unreliable.

I wonder how difficult it would be to make one of these (but with the 3.0l 24v V6 from a '00s GTV).

Sweet. 120-150hp would be perfect. Considering they only weigh 890kg you could get it to be a pretty quick little thing. Not lighting quick, but fast enough for its perfect retro looks.

I've always loved how these look. There must be some go-fast Beetle bits that can pep up the performance somewhat. It doesn't need to be stellar. Anything hovering around 8 seconds 0-60 would be enough.

Another option, especially popular here in the UK, are LR Defenders. In both 90 and 110 guise they have tremendous pulling capacity, as well as genuine offroad ability and general usability. They won't be fast, but they'll pull pretty much anything.

Another good thing to know if you're doing the repairs yourself is if there are any other cars that share the same parts as yours.

I must admit, small diesels tend to be suited to absolute misers driving along at a snail's pace to get every ounce of economy from their cars.

I nominate the Jaguar V12 MGB GT.

I was going to go with a Deusenberg, but I think I might have been trumped by the Morgan.

I was actually really excited about the whole new Lotus lineup. It would have been nice if they were closer to Lotus' philosophy, but it was great to see them doing something, anything truly new.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the Alfasud would also disagree.