Um... Maybe sorta... It didn’t have sliding rear doors, which is a staple for minivans in my mind. Otherwise, the R-class fits most every other definition of minivan. Just like all CUVs with three rows and available captain chairs in the second row.

Yes! Bring it over to compete with Lexus and hopefully push a Mercedes response, which then triggers BMW, and...ta-da...a sports luxury minivan market replaces CUVs.

I'd happily trade the inconvenient 4-seat configuration if Toyota would instead add "now available with tasteful exterior". 

Sounds like another desirable feature that people appreciate, but dealers wouldn’t order, so “low demand” is slowly eliminating it.

Dammit. Selfish of me. I apologize. I can’t edit it anymore, or I’d take that out.

Iron Man dies, and it's in all these forums and people are murmuring about it at the water cooler. Austin Powers - an international man of mystery - dies, and it's not even noticed. So sad. 

Austin Powers is dead?!!

Loosely related... Do people still like to use bed caps like Leer or SnugTop? Seems like I rarely see that anymore.

I’m driving a rental Sentra, and I loathe it. It’s not just the A-W-F-U-L CVT. There are parts of the armrest and center console lid that have insufficient padding, the steering wheel feels like it was designed to meet 1987 quality benchmarks, the radio has to be turned way up to drown the droning engine... It’s gotta…

Ugly. It’s classified as ugly. I think its scientific name is something like Crosstrekius Uglium. I’m not sure about that, though, as I don’t know Latin.

Honest question about the switch to composite lamps... How much of that headlight design was driven by NHTSA standards? Were manufacturers required to meet a particular standard that the old sealed-beam lights mostly couldn’t meet? I assume aerodynamics played a role, too.

Wheely tired.

I had a brand new 1999 (technically 1999.5) Jetta GLS 2.0 5MT, a new 2004 (technically 2004.5) Passat GLS 1.8T 5MT, a used 2008 Jetta SE 2.5 5AT, and a used 2010 VW Touareg V6. I loved VWs and escaped without the well-documented reliability issues.

I liked the niche that VW Passats had back then and through the mid- to late-2000s. They nestled between the Camry/Accord and the ES300/TL. Same for the Jetta of that era - above the Corolla/Civic, but not BMW 3-series or Mercedes C-class. Volkswagen had premium features that you couldn’t find in mainstream brands at…

1994 doesn't seem like a quarter-century ago. Damn! I'm old!

I can’t wait for electric Harley-Davidsons and electric bro trucks. I’m so sick of hearing that crescendo of macho noise as they pull away from stops.

Someone’s dead at the end. And...time travel.

Looks like Nissan build quality. Is that a Versa?

Yeah, Toyota seemed determined to destroy the Celica with the 1994 and 1999 redesigns (not to mention their decision to limit power in the ‘94-’98 Celica.) Acura did a similar design with the Integra, too. What’s bad about the Tiburon, though, is the tacked-on look of the mid-cycle facelift. Toyota and Acura had the…

Hyundai went through a terrible design spell in the 1990s. They started off strong.