How does the phrase go? “If you can’t think of something nice to say......claim the car has ‘character’.”

Sorry about that, this page has all the links I was posting individually: http://www.stealth316.com/2-mt5-99.htm Hopefully that should work.

When stock, it was competitive with sports cars of its day, but saying it ‘trounced’ other cars when it was new is an exaggeration.

If you’re running a small business, and you have one person who screws up a big order, I threaten to leave you if you don’t fire that person, because I have little confidence that they won’t screw up again.

I test drove a XC60, but couldn’t get over how little leg room there was for the rear passengers.

How different do they need to be? The V90 XC, S90, and XC90 are all based on the same scalable platform architechture (SPA), and yet are reasonably unique. I don’t see any reason they couldn’t pull the same trick with the XC60.

Call if false bravado if you will, but were I in that fathers position and the kid survived, he would not live long enough to enjoy his freedom. Wife and child taken from me? Fuck it, I no longer have anything to live for, your ass is going to burn.

I’m going to have to disagree with #1. I think this is way worse:

They squeezed 325hp/350lb-ft out of the just recently discontinued 3.0T 6-cyl without too much trouble. I can’t imagine that 400 would be out of reach with the right motivation.

You make a good point, but I would make the argument that it’s a different market. In the US, my impression is that increased emphasis is given to 0-60 and 1/4 mile times, where the non-AWD Golf falls behind.

Fair enough, I didn’t take a hard look at the pictures.

Hondas have torque?

I don’t think it’s the bodystyle so much as the ride height and command seating position (or lack thereof). A CUV is just a lifted wagon with slightly different proportions (sometimes). Lifted wagons that have a command seating position seem to do well.

Ok, I will say it: I, nor any other American, want a wagon. They are not sexy/ cool/ desirable in any trim level.

If you throw CUV’s into the ‘wagon’ category (because IMO that’s realistically what they are), then it’s the second best selling segment in the US at the moment.

Because it is no longer offered as a 5-door/wagon, so therefore cannot be considered a ‘hot-hatch’.

Neither of which are available state-side. I maintain my original statement with that additional caveat.

GTI, FoST, FiST all have 250hp or less. This is over 300hp.

Wasn’t it a 370Z Nismo that got put into the wall by C&D because its stock brakes were so terrible that they failed abruptly?

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but what constitutes ‘enough’? How about the 200hp that the BRZ/86 have? You could make the same argument.