Would it be more attractive if you knew you could buy a version with 550hp? In 1993?

When I used to work in the industry back in the 90s, we had a metric that a stopped production line was costing us $15000 per minute, so if it cost less than that to get up and running temporarily, it was worth it. It’s actually quite hard to spend money that fast. You’d be amazed how hard it is to convince a supplier…

Not as boss as a bus...

That image is fake news. It’s missing the turtle. And the elephants.

When I was young I used to think I was fast: I did OK in local amateur stuff. Then I worked in the auto industry for a while and got to ride with development drivers and the occasional works driver. It very quickly cured me of that illusion. The gulf between…

I didn’t interpret it as such, in either case. My response was meant to convey “thanks for providing sorely-needed context and it’s a shame it’s needed”.

Thank you. It’s a shame when authors can’t be bothered typing something into google and following the first link before writing an article about it. Superleggera is a name with quite the history behind it, and it’s all in Wikipedia. It’s not just a word Touring’s marketing team invented for the DB4 because it sounded…

Seen on Saturday:

Does anyone still make one that works the way CVTs are supposed to? i.e. Engine does whatever revs are appropriate for the power you’re asking, independent of road speed. Or are they all fake fixed gears nowadays so as not to scare the natives.

Word.

This bloke built a real working 1:1 scale one, though he’s used an existing engine. A 27 liter V12 tank engine though, so that counts for something.

Apart from NSU making 40,000 or so of them over a 10 year period. Which is admittedly a drop in the bucket compared to Mazda’s volume.

No argument about that - or various other early Japanese vehicles - being creative. But that was startup companies finding their niche in an embryonic domestic market. You can’t really compare it with playing on the global stage. On that stage, the 70s and 80s were about cheap, reliable, me-too cars. It was only…

240Z = improvement on MGBGT (or if you prefer, cheaper E Type or federalised GT6). And as for the sport compact, go talk to BMW or Triumph about that.

However you could make a pretty good argument that a 1st gen MR2 is just an X1/9 bolted together properly. IMHO, apart from maybe Mazda and Subaru, it wasn’t till the 90s that Japan really got their creative juices flowing

“...its completely ignoring the customer”.

It IS so vague as to be meaningless though. As someone on Oppo pointed out, failing to drop the V8 that God intended in the new Ford GT instead of a wimpy V6 could be construed as “not exhibiting leadership behaviors consistent with the principles that Ford (US at least) has always espoused”.

There used to be a a good number of local assembly factories back in the bad ol’ days of trade barriers when import duties were 40% - pretty much all the major brands had what they call “CKD” plants doing final assembly from mostly imported parts. My first job was at a Subaru factory. We used to manufacture a whole 7…

Meh. Old news

Well what do you expect. Even Rolls Royce’s periods exist above all others.