Exactly. I haven't driven a ZF8, but I have driven a Ferrari F1 gearbox. Yes, it was fun, and I'd be thrilled to actually own one. But I'd still be more thrilled to have a manual, especially on public roads where if anything you need something to hold these modern cars back a little so there's time to enjoy them.

With how outboard the edges of that "wing" shape are I wonder it they're actually camera mounts.

Basic Bitch is bitchy newspeak for banal.

I just can't imagine actually being faced with that much pow (or whatever) and thinking "Hmm, let me take moment to faff around with this camera". No, I'll be back at the car cleaning snow off my nipples before I even remember I own one.

Until somebody assumes it's a trailer full of construction tools and tries to steal it while you're sleeping.

To top it all off, it's made by a company that didn't even exist in 1989.

He's also assuming that it's a diesel truck and automatically not fun to drive. There are a lot of manual tranny Defender TDI owners out there that would beg to differ.

Seriously. I was cringing watching a Motorweek a while back where they were helping a young family shop for a new car. They wanted lots of room for the kiddos, safe, etc. They admitted they didn't need and couldn't afford AWD. So did they buy a Sienna or an Odyssey? Of course not - they picked a 2wd SUV that had fewer…

The new S3 drives like a true all-wheel drive performance car, not one of these pretend ones that just send power to the back wheels when conditions go south. The S3's handling reminds me of the many WRX-es I've driven, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

Judging by the streets around here, they couldn't make the old A3 hatches fast enough. But Portland is a wagon town. We've been singlehandedly propping up the five door market for years, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth when Volvo stopped selling wagons could be heard for hundreds of miles.

I don't have a problem with the battery architecture, even if it is totally unproven at this scale. I have a problem with saying it "Runs Using Salt Water", or that saltwater is even remotely involved. It's not, unless when I say "I got a new saltwater aquarium!" you wonder where I got fish that tolerate uranium…

More, just like modern engines run on hydrogen of some sort. By the same logic we've had flashlights powered by "salt water" for decades.

I did, and I did. It's bullshit - it's not saltwater, it's a pair of unspecified heavy-metal salts, which could mean the thing runs on cyanide and sulfuric acid for all we know. That they don't publish the specific chemical used means it's probably something hideously toxic, hence the lengthy approval process. And…

What is it then? I still don't understand where the energy is coming from. I saw headlines about this thing a while back and my bullshit detectors immediately went off - either it's a fraud, or there are several key details not being conveyed here.

16.7:1 seems like kinda low compression for a diesel, or am I missing something?

There is something fishy about it.

Yeah, having driven a similar sized vehicle with a similar spec drivetrain, no thanks. This thing is perfect for what it was supposedly used as - winery bus, beer bus, etc. Trying to cover interstate in it (or god forbid going over a modest hill) will be a losing proposition though, and doing an RV conversion will…

They were always more expensive than Jeeps - the old Series trucks were about twice the CJ equivalent new. It would be interesting to look at inflation-adjusted prices for the Range Rover over the last 30 years or so, but I bet it's surprisingly flat (at least compared to the rest of the auto industry).

"great in traffic"

I briefly had both a 2000 LS 5spd and a 2002 c230 6spd in my driveway. I think of it as my experimental phase.