If Toyota paired their 6MT with the 2-door cab, A LOT more people would very much care about it. I’d even take one for a test-drive. Although I drove a new TRD crew-cab with an automatic last November and did not like the truck at all. Plus it only got about 16 mpg.

Well you have to start somewhere and none of them started out making better products, they all started making cheaper products that got better and then innovated.

Believe me, if I had $80k to burn it would be a 6 speed CT4V blackwing sitting in my driveway. As it stands, I’m thus far happy with the VW.

Nissan making a car with a 5 speed manual in 2025 is objectively hilarious. 

easy to say, you are not sitting in a mile of unmoving traffic with cars already on the shoulder with a fire getting closer in your rearview mirror every minute.

I just bought a 2024 Jetta GLI with manual. This is a fabulous car that you don’t have to sell a kidney to buy. The 2025 is identical, except for some revised bodywork, haptic climate controls and a navigation screen that looks like an iPad resting on your dash. The latter two items are a significant part of why I…

If the Mazda3 paired the turbo with a stick I would very much care. It would most likely be my next car.

GTI sales will drop so much without the manual it will give them an excuse to kill it and make yet another SUV.

One of those rare Jalopnik listicals with at least a few vehicles I would actually buy.

As of the 2025 model year, it won’t be available with one.

You’re mostly right with your examples.
Difference being, those brands made BETTER versions of existing products, then setup sustainable production & parts supply and head-offices to service the new markets they are selling into. Then they innovate and compete on quality and performance.

The Goldwing’s big party trick is that they ride like a bike that weighs 200 pounds less. Even at parking lot speeds they are absolutely benign. And they eat miles like nothing else.

I think the automotive industry really needs to stop calling these “Hybrids”. Hybrids were predominantly ICE vehicles with electric assistance. Hence still directly connected to the motor.

EREVs (Extended Range EVs) are exactly that. EV’s that have a generator on board to power the battery. This made sense as you…

Yeah yeah yeah, the exact same thing was said about the Japanese in the 60s and only ever seems to apply to asia.

Eh. Minnesota here, but I’ve lived all over. We get to 100+. Not nearly as often as you guys do, but we do get there. What sucks is that we also get to -30, real temp, and sometimes lower. I remember when I moved here the first time decades ago, waiting for the school bus with a windchill of -50.

EVs will be niche vehicles until charging infrastructure offers the same convenience as the existing fossil fuel infrastructure. Case closed. Plug in hybrids are a necessary transition to an all electric future. Case closed.

Jerky Boys Also back in 1994...

OK Bimmer

Who in the hell puts a fur coat on a turd?

The brashness of the Chinese copycats is amazing.