I was a Saturn master tech in the mid 90s, and it was common for any S series car to burn a quart per thousand miles, even when brand new, and they didn’t get better as they aged. The rings stuck from accumulated deposits (or cheap oil/extended drain intervals) sometimes, and we would soak the rings overnight in GM…

I’ve lived in California several times. There’s definitely some serious DMV quirks there, including the dealer ad where the plate should be, and that silly little paper square in the windshield. And one trip permits. And pickups with caps/no caps. The CHP can write some serious tickets about those things but usually…

Oklahoma. ‘Nuff said. 😂

I would guess that you’d get pulled over pretty quickly and regularly with no plates on the car, and your car impounded if you made a habit of doing that.

Don’t be silly. Do you buy a 6 pack of $2,000 watches?

Bingo. “Incremental” is not “all new”

Hey, it’s a start. Too bad the Feds didn’t discover their balls 8 years ago with the big banks, eh?

Right. Tag Heuer and Omega Seamaster watches, Fendi, Prada and Miu Miu handbags, Veuve Cliquot champagne, Guerlain cosmetics. Those aren’t premium brands at all, I guess. You should tell them that.

Now that their pricing and sizing is more in line with class standards, maybe they’ll actually do some sales volume in this segment. Finally. VW seems perennially late to the game in the US - since the 1980s! - more frequently than not with some combination of the wrong product at the wrong price at the wrong time for…

Maybe you meant Walmart? Costco carries quality products, has good service and their customer demographics are the envy of lots of other large retailers.

I was in the motorcycle business for about 7 years, and I saw few Victory bikes out there, and maybe 2 of those were being ridden by riders under 50. It makes sense for Polaris to devote their limited resources to a better known brand like Indian rather than make two lines of marginally competitive bikes. The new…

Spot on. A mediocre placeholder car gets a mediocre review.

Vega, pinto, matador, gremlin, simca - remember when Chrysler sold those? - the first PA-built Rabbit with the valve guide and electrical problems, the Volare, all the mid 70s fiats. 130 hp Corvettes. All the mid 70s British cars, in their death throes. It was the worst time to be an enthusiast or a new car buyer,…

I had an ‘81 diesel Rabbit pickup. It had around 50 horsepower new. Truly the slowest most miserable penalty box I’ve ever owned.

Neat project, but way too much money for what it is and the condition it’s in. Also, with a low revving diesel and a 3 speed I’m guessing it tops out somewhere around 60, and is loud as hell inside.

Minor detail: unless there’s an exhaust brake on that thing, diesels have no engine braking, because there’s no throttle plate in the intake to close. Diesels throttle by solely metering fuel rather than air, as in a gasoline engine.

They didn’t invent it, but they consistently did it for $13k cars as well or better than Lexus did it for $30-45k cars. That was truly revolutionary at the time, when many Toyota and Honda dealers were notorious for their terrible sales tactics and experiences.

^^^^ this. A thousand times, this. I was a dealer master tech at Saturn in the mid 90s. Our dealership was always #1 or #2 in CSI in our zone, behind or ahead of Lexus. That was unheard of back then - we sold $14,000 cars to Lexus’ $40,000 cars. We got lots of sales and customers from our local Toyota and Honda…

That thing is hideous, and the salvage title cuts the value of the car enough to make fixing the front end and interior a losing proposition - for half the asking price it would be worth it, for what he’s asking it’s CP all day long.

So this is super late to the game, but I love this article. It covers nearly everything I said while teaching automotive class, when someone mentioned the “good old days”.