Well that fucking sucks, as they've just now finally figured out how to get that car to perform.

Studied the Falklands war in high school *shrugs*

VW Group impresario Ferdinand Piëch had been talking about swapping out the 800cc diesel hybrid engine in their carbon fiber-laden, 1,700-pound XL1, and today at the Paris Motor Show, they revealed that it's more than just a crazy fevered Piëch-dream.

Likely the same way that receivership works here in the States. Motion is filed with the court in the morning, accountants show up in the afternoon to start collecting documentation and assessing the situation, cops are there to enforce the motion and protect whomever is coming in to seize documents/assets.

Help me out, sweetheart.

It's definitely a "shots fired" type comment, but I've reached the point with their collective attitude towards non-European vehicles that I feel comfortable making it without it sounding hyperbolic to my own ears.

(As the Detroit News pointed out today, none of these expansion plans apparently include Europe, a market that continues to elude Cadillac as well.)

We're a proud peoples, damnit!

This appears to have been shot in Taiwan. Part of me almost admires the smaller car's determination not to give up, but, really, let's think about what's at stake here. One car length. Twelve feet. That's it. Were this interaction have been conducted by a pair of driving humans instead of rage-addled howler monkeys…

One of the great album covers in recent times, for the sake of posterity:

Wow. That is a beautiful aircraft.

The better number to use is ~6.5%, which is about the approximate return of a market index fund over the entirety of the life of the US stock market as we know it. If interest rates are below that, finance, finance, finance, and shove the cash into an S&P index fund and call it a day.

That's absolutely coming down the line, although it will likely come from a US/Canada/EU consortium as opposed to a UN directive. There's not much to be done about it, and as we've already seen with pedestrian safety standards in Europe, it's just as pervasive there, it's just different.

Toyota stopped making the 2ZZ-GE, which was the only Elise/Exige engine certified for use in the US. Cost of getting another motor with acceptable output, along with continually needing airbag/stability control exemptions did it in. It sold reasonably well.

They were up through the 2011 models, but when Toyota stopped producing the 2ZZ-GE, they were pretty much dead in the water here in the US as that was the only engine in the lineup certified for sale in the US and the cost to certify another engine was deemed too great. They had already gotten the exemption for smart…

Coach, and make a good career of it. He's essentially been a player-coach for the last few years anyhow, apparently he's very good with the young guys just arriving in the minors.

3300 lbs. vs. 3500 lbs

This indeed. It's a massively fun car for the price, and might be one of the best BMWs built in the last decade. Simple, powerful cars with a simple, comfortable interior and more utility than you'd expect.