You forget that American products are not about excellence, but about good enough, mediocre. So, yes, the CV was a benchmark of the mediocre American car.

Because some maladies must be annihilated with fire.

My homage to the Crown Vic's demise was to refuse to drive one at a rental car lot. Why put up with so much disgust per mile? Even a Sebring provides less disgust per mile when driven.

Am I the only one who sees a middle-finger salute in the taillight?

Of course the fronted and rear "haunch" are nice, they've been done before.

As Pink Floyd predicted, pigs will fly.

At least when they worked...

Grab it by the horns!

I like what Rolls Royce has been doing.

Of course, the Ferrari does it without killing all around with carcinogen soot.

Pigs are alike the world over. It's in their genes.

Correct, except that the picture is not of Sao Paulo.

This is wrong. Where are Rio and Sao Paulo?

Because Rowan Williams.

Having been in Detroit for the last week, I now understand why the domestic cars bear mediocre engineering and poor assembly quality: they are made by people who hate to drive.

My thoughts exactly. The coming of DCT to the mainstream was about providing more gears needed to meet emissions and mileage requirements while providing the efficiency of a manual transmission without overwhelming the average driver with a complicated shift pattern.

Though you can marvel at a rig going through the gears off a stop light, the worst problem is that many truck transmissions are not slick ones that shift like on butter with precise gates. The transmission is often several feet away and all the levers between it and the shifter subtract any precision. Moreover,…