It really depends on the city I think. Makes sense that a place like Vegas would use the bought-new taxi spec vehicles. NYC does the same thing for all the yellow cabs. All the cab companies in Detroit use million mile P71s and minivans. There just isn't an economic incentive to shell out for the new ones.

This poor bloke gave one up for a simple stir-fry.

That butt looks like a last gen Passat with squared-off tail lights instead of round ones. I'm currently undecided.

Wrong decade, this puppy is a '69. You didn't need no stinking smog shit in '69. PCV is probably as far as "emissions" control goes on that 472. 2.71 gears and overdrive should help the MPGs though.

Yeah, they're the real deal. Of course, many of them are MkII Passats and Jettas, but they're still cranking them out. VW had the first foreign joint venture in China, and I learned to drive stick on a Santana (MkII Passat) when I lived there in the mid-nineties.

Wow, a Jaaaag huh? I do love me some XJ, and my wife always comments on them when we see one. But then visions of constant repairs come into my head. We just got rid of a nightmare VW, I think I'm sticking with some good old domestics for a while. Although when doing some research on the XJs, I think I found the more…

Well hot damn! What are you going to replace it with? I can see your point on the inspections. I lived in NYC for years with MI plates. At one point I was giving my old 4Runner to a friend after a rear-end totaled it, and needed to get it inspected. I hadn't actually gotten around to putting on a new bumper, but my…

I agree that the segment is getting even more competitive, but looks and handling don't seem to sell mid-size sedans in the US, perceived quality and value do. Now Europe is an entirely different story, but as none of these cars (save the Koreans) are actually out yet, we don't know how they'll stack up in the…

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In Michigan it wouldn't even need a sticker. I've never seen a car pulled over for blatant safety issues like that. Even though it would make things more annoying for me, I sometimes wish we had safety inspections. I can't tell you how many steel belts I've seen sticking out of tires around here.

Michigan too, I've seen worse cars than that on I-75.

But that's largely speculation and opinion. To me, and I don't think I'm alone here, the Sonata is just plain ugly. Some people love it, but it's definitely a polarizing design. I agree with you on the Optima. The Fusion has always been a clean, attractive design in my opinion, but we don't know what the next one will…

Four. Well, four times, one car got lucky twice. None of them were major, and two were my fault.

Yeah, mine too, but again, it didn't actually go DOWN, it just didn't go up that time. I called to replace an older car with a newer car, also changing my status to married. The married discount ate up the increase.

Don't hold your breath, my insurance changed disappointingly little when I turned 25. It still goes up because of (insert bullshit insurance speak here) every year, it just took a break when I was 25, then continued the onward march.

I've got them on my Olds Intrigue daily and I'm pretty sure it's the first car I've had with them. They're great, not sure why they aren't on more cars. It was kind of disconcerting the first time they came on (thought someone was suddenly passing me out of nowhere!) but I rely on them now.

In order from 1998:

I think you missed the point. He's saying that the police rational that an errant wheel could injure someone is ridiculous because an errant 24" wheel isn't any more dangerous than an errant 17" wheel. And the stupidity isn't unique to just one race, but that's who the police are going after. To whit, they don't seem…