The W220 and C215 were both amazing cars. They’re cheap now because - whether they have ABC or Airmatic - either suspension option will fail frequently and expensively.

For some people it’s worth the tradeoff, though. :-)

Late-model CLs (before they were rebadged as the S Coupe) are a great deal if you want luxury, refinement, and effortless power on a small budget. Oh, and terrifyingly difficult suspension repairs. They’re an important part of the ownership experience.

I miss mine. I miss it with all my heart.

You are the hero we deserve.

Volvo concept estate. Sleek, Volvoesque, low-slung shooting brake. It’s even brown. This is the most Jalop concept-car ever.

It’s “Ulyanovsk Vehicle Factory”; Ulyanovsk is a town in central Russia.

“Fiat Chrysler has ambitious global plans to turn Alfa Romeo into a kind of Italian BMW-fighter, a brand with a wide range of cars that sell in decent volumes.”

This is what I love about Jalopnik: The diversity. There are Belarusian tractor fans mingling with Mercedes fans. Some people love ultralight sportscars; others think a boxy Volvo estate is the ideal.

There are even some weirdos who think that a C4 corvette has good lines. What an incredible melting-pot of wacky and…

I had a Smart, and loved it. Perfect around town. Nowadays I live with a partner so a 2-car household is sensible - one large car with room for awkward luggage or multiple passengers, and one small car - a Smart is perfect for that niche.

He signed the contract; he should follow it. No big deal.

If only it had a plot!

I love this. It’s the best kind of geekery. Scott should be proud.

My body is ready.

A red Citroën BX. At the time, I didn’t understand how cool this was.

* VAG worries about internal competition because Skoda (cheap brand) is converging on VW (midrange brand)
* VAG decides to increase Skoda’s production costs and reduce production differences from VW

Have they been taking strategy lessons from retired British Leyland execs?

The current-model Jimny is already approved & sold in some EU countries (with the bare minimum of airbags), so the technical gap on safety and emissions is probably not very big if Suzuki just want it to be road-legal rather than class-leading; but closing that gap would cost a lot of money compared to likely sales in…

The Jones Act is protectionist bullshit; think of it like the Chicken Tax. It takes choices away from customers, and pushes up costs, to satisfy a special-interest group with some noisy lobbyists.

Relaxing the Jones Act temporarily is better than nothing. Removing it completely would make more sense economically.

I think that a lot of these cases show how the hierarchical model of manufacturer-dealer-customer is struggling to cope with the new world where customers can browse the manufacturer website, read third-party sources, choose a weird combination of options ... those systems come into conflict when a customer visits a…

Isn’t this part of Porsche’s brand? “Play it cool, no big deal, making the fastest cars is just our day job, no need to shout” was probably at the top of the page when somebody drafted this press release &c.

Any vendor who says “Shouldn’t take much to get it running” has probably already tried a couple of things and given up.

A V12 is ostentatious compared to a V8, but so what? Once you’re in the market for an Aston Martin (or a competitor), you’re up to your neck in different degrees of ostentation. The non-ostentatious option is to buy a ten-year-old Toyota hatchback. Practically everybody reading Jalopnik either owns - or has a poster…