Ironically enough, if Vinfast brought their X5-based car to the US it would probably do just fine. The car was styled well

I’ve sat in and closely examined a VF8. While it looks well screwed together and feels reasonably comfy, there are quite a few issues around material quality and design choices. Saw a VF9 in the back lot of the showroom and got the same impression. It’s just meh!

Seemed like when they were showing the Race of Champions competition over here in the US a few years ago, the drivers that seemed to win it were the WRC drivers with F1 drivers usually second.  Of course the track was well suited for them I think.  

Yeah, biggest problem for an average Joe is that you cannot just putter around in an F1 car. Even the safety car is a high performance sports car being driven close to flat-out by someone with considerable racing experience. That speed is basically the minimum speed for an F1 car (and even then drivers have problems…

I doubt they’ve sold more than a small handful of any these cars in the U.S. Just about all of them are going to be leased. I can sort of squint and see the value proposition of a $500/month lease for a 3-row crossover. Even if it’s crap, that’s about the cheapest 3-row crossover monthly you are going to get and you…

44,260 is a about 44,000 more than I would have expected given the negative press they’ve gotten. 

As long as they’re reliable that’s pretty much all people care about. It’s reliablie, colour, price for most non-car people.

A middle-class car costing $70K with 60 mo. loan at ~6% and nothing down would have monthlies north of $1300, right? Who agrees to this for an unproven, relatively unknown car company with terrible reviews?

McRae was pretty quick from the word go. So was Loeb. I don’t know why you’d be surprised how quickly they get on.

See these every once in a while and wish my current family life had coincided with he era of the Flex.

The advantage Hyundai had over VinFast is that Hyundai had actually built vehicles before. All of VinFast’s vehicles are either re-bodied BMWs or brand new platforms, so they don’t have the deep understanding of the car manufacturing world.

If only Fisker was able to hold on as well as VinFast has...

It’s not surprising to me he more or less got up to speed, I have long said IMO rally drivers are the GOAT racing drivers. Not a knock against F1 drivers, but driving the speeds that rally driver do on small loose surface roads is nothing short of astonishing.

At a car show many years ago, my daughter picked the Flex as her choice of what we should buy as a family car. At $55k, it was slightly above the cost of what we ultimately bought, a used Kia Rondo. A great car that served us well, but not a 400hp AWD wagon for sure.

In all fairness, When Hyundai came to America with its Excel sedan, not only was the car trash but Hyundai “It rhymes with Sunday” and its buyers’ misfortunes became a running joke.

I remembered that 1 episode of Top Gear where Hammond tried to drive an F1 car...He kept stalling it lol, a good episode and I guess further proof professional drivers are on a different level.

The same could be said about the Honda Element, and BONUS it wasn’t a Ford.

Friend of mine had one, and they had the second most comfortable seats up front (behind a 7 series BMW) that I’ve ever sat in.

The Flex: Or if Landrover tried making a Volvo V70. On a Friday.

Though I liked the way it looked a lot, I drove one and TBH, it wasn’t quite as nice to drive as the Ford Edge of the same time (dunno if they’re related under the skin). Also, the load floor height seemed high to me (I’m a bit shorter than average), and at the time, ease of loading/use was important to me. So, I…