I see plenty of idiots on the road, driving all sorts of cars, and their cars all seem to be working fine, so there’s a wide choice of suitable car models

My folks had two 127s consecutively - the 3rd and 4th cars of a straight run of 6 Fiats - 124 wagon, 128, 2x 127s, a Ritmo and a Regata. None of them ever broke down, despite my folks’ rather cavalier attitude toward preventive maintenance, and they were pretty sturdy cars. My old boss ran her Ritmo 75 into a Corolla…

I know what you said- I’m just disagreeing with you. The Golf came out in ‘74, the Ritmo in ‘78, the Starlet in ‘73, the Mazda in ‘77, the Fiesta in ‘76, the Chevette in ‘75, but all of these cars were in development for years before that (development of the Ritmo commenced in ‘72, for example). Rather than being the…

Not so - the Fiat 127, which used the same basic hatchback design, came out years before the Golf. 

It was marginally larger than the Mk I Golf/Rabbit, but there was very little in it. The interior certainly felt more spacious. 

Be still my beating heart!! My first car was a 1980 Ritmo 65 in Grigio Jet (grey to you and me). 1.3 liters of road monster 😀. I drove that little beast around France, Ireland and the UK, and while various bits failed or fell off, the motor never let me down. It dealt with the Autoroutes and Motorways, screaming…

Well, we can’t compare like with like here, as there isn’t a manual GT500, but my understanding is that, where there are direct DCT/manual equivalents (911s, certainly), the DCT tends to be marginally faster, both on the strip and on the track

that makes complete sense - I can see how removing the unpredictable “human factor” - the meat puppet deciding when to change gears, maybe not always at the most appropriate time - from the equation allows for better integration of all the car’s systems and more effective use of all that power.

What extra power? We’re talking about marginally quicker drag times as a result of faster shifts. It’s not a question of more or less power. Even if a manual 2020 GT500 existed, I contend that, while it would be marginally faster on the strip (and maybe the track), there’s nowhere else that you could legally test the…

I’d almost have the manual over the blistering zero to 60 time.

CP - looks like crap and not special enough to waste time restoring. I had a 1980 Corona 4-door back in the early 90's - paid $300 for it, then another $300 to get it past inspection ($300 was the minimum you had to spend to fix the emissions to get an emissions waiver in Maryland at the time). The 2.2 liter 4 burned…

The best mechanic I ever had I found through Click&Clacks “Find a Mechanic” - quietly competent, reasonably priced and (most important) trustworthy. Alas,  I’m in a different city now, and still looking for a decent shop

I don’t follow - what does keeping the brakes on while at idle (as in “stationary”, right?) have anything to do with application of torque to the driven wheels when you’re starting off?

Prison changes a person - Felicity and Bill have a long hard road ahead of them to find the people that they once were. I wish those poor kids all the luck in the world...

I guess the pizza maker was a Democrat?

“...your programming in multiple techniques.....”

“unwavering prioritization of that which matters most in life” = “money”

My thought exactly:

In the process of replacing the head gaskets in an EJ25. Talk about an Achilles’ heel in an otherwise splendid little motor

Not yet. You?