Similarly, I don’t like driving to work (or a client site) in a car that says “I make more money than you”. I totally prefer the reserved look.

No idea. My guess is that VAG added an extra 13 hp of tune to the S3 to further differentiate it from the R and justify the large price difference between these nearly identical cars (I believe that the base R may be better equipped than the S3). I’d also guess that the extra power was only through software changes…

The R does feel like a FWD car, because it mostly is. However, I still think that it handles better than my B6 or my B7 did. It’s significantly lighter, and on a shorter wheelbase. The Audi’s would understeer like crazy with that motor entirely ahead of the front axle. The only way my Audi would oversteer was…

It burned lots of oil. I also don’t think that it would have been something that I’d want to own past 100k miles.

Negative, Ghost Rider. The pattern is full.

Right, and the cost of VW doing this will only be rolled into the cost of future cars. It’s not really a win. I suspect that the best way is to just tax those cars based on their original certification.

I don’t understand why these cars couldn’t be grandfathered in or exempted from additional taxes in the EU to be taxed on the CO2 emissions as certified when they bought the car. These cars were all purchased by consumers on good faith knowledge that those numbers would not change.

XD

This kind of understeer is what Vic Elford called “negative safety”. Understeer that feels safe, because it is more difficult to spin, but really offers no additional safety as the driver is unable to apply any yaw control to the car. Wheels are turned, and car careens directly into a guardrail. In a more neutrally…

That would be an interesting twist, wouldn’t it?

All that is needed for police. That looks like attempted murder to me (or at least assault with a deadly weapon):

There is no such thing as “rate of speed”. It’s just high speed.

So you’ve got one of those “lifetime” hood struts, huh? ;)

Fair enough - old cars only then :)

At least he didn’t use the meaningless term “rate of speed".

(Pedantic ramble incoming)

The gifs are pretty annoying, and the loops can make reading the actual text kind of dizzying.

The RF really does look awesome. However, part of the beauty of the Miata (or MX-5...or whatever you want to call it) is it’s simplicity. Part of the awesome simplicity is inthe top operation. One-handed operation, 4 seconds to open, 4 seconds to close. The ND manual top carries over the clever NC single latch…