Well, I was a mechanical engineer. Spent a few years in design at Ford and GM in the early 90's. It's not as easy to design a mass-produced automotive component last a defined number of cycles as you might be implying. Any component on a given vehicle is likely subjected to a wildly different use case than the one…

GET OFF MY LAWN!

Designed to fail? I love hearing that term.

Not a gramps yet, though my formative years were the early 70's. We have always had muscle cars and 60's Corvettes in the family, so I have a pretty good reference. The good old days sucked. I can't justify spending $100k+ on a toy at the moment, but am in awe at what has happened in the last decade or so after the…

It disgusts me what has happened to the automotive industry. How I pine for the good old days. Real 4-speed transmissions with real linkage operated clutches that you had to have real muscles to operate. Radio delete option. No standard A/C or power steering to weigh my car down. Those vinyl seats without all…

If nothing else, the driver has very good clutch, throttle and brake control. It just sucks that none of them possesses enough physics intuition.

That should be an interesting insurance mess. I have no idea how insurance works in the UK, but we have plenty of underinsured folks roaming the streets here in the US. It would be no fun having to make up the difference on that one.

Candygram for Mongo.

Maybe too young, but something tells me that he will definitely be having one that involves multiple high maintenance models.

"My, what a large shift knob you have"

Ghost of #3?

Uh, did you see the trap speed at 125? Low 12's in a stone stock 2WD car on street tires is pretty freaking fast no matter how you slice it. Seriously traction limited. Bolt some racing slicks on that thing and see it crack off mid to high 10's...as it starts spitting the weakest links out.

I noticed the dark oil right off the bat as well. Chances that it's trans fluid are kinda low since it's a C6 Corvette (trans is in the rear) and on top of that, it's a Z06, which means it has a manual. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the dry sump tank got ventilated and let the overused engine oil out.

Sorry to go off on kind of a tangent, but this topic highlights my frustration with the ADD the media has inflicted on us. The headline GIF is a perfect example. I saw this years ago, possibly even on TV. It's been so long that I can't remember. The problem is all of the context gets stripped away and I am left…

If this is the one you mean, just search for F50 Crash

THIS is why you never outdrive your sight line. Good on the bike rider to be going the right speed, be in the correct part of his lane and having great situation awareness. Stupid assholes in the FJ need to realize that they just missed a gruesome and legally messy scene through sheer luck.

A story like this is much more likely now that cars typically only have a single belt and very few driven accessories exposed. In the good old days with multiple v-belts and a huge fan taking up most of the front space of the engine bay, the cat was usually washed away with a garden hose.

That sounds like an proper use of the technology for trucks, though I still have to question why the transmission controller can't be programmed well enough to handle this. I have been tweaking the transmission controllers in my auto-equipped vehicles for the last 15+ years to make them more driveable. The OE shift…

Using GPS as an input to the transmission? I am sure that will work about as well downtown as my TomTom does. Hopefully, it gets quickfix data over the integrated cellular connection.

The only thing better than RWD donuts is AWD donuts. Why does the headline say Burnouts?