This is where the opening scene of “drive” gets it right. The driver gets a “plain, jane” Impala.

I’ve been on Jalopnik since around the same time as you (remember when you could tag people in the comments? I miss that.) I’ve been gear head since 1990. I think we’re in a great position, and the 2008 version of me would be absolutely stoked about what has happened in the last decade.

“...Teen Beat version of Johnny Depp”

Username checks out. Also, something, something, fauxpelini.

Real life isn’t one big redemptive arc.

Yep. I feel like something that was lost in the last 30 years is that Lexus launched with a re-branded 2nd Gen Camry (ES250), then the LS400, followed by the 3rd gen Soarer two years later in 1991. Yes, the LS400 went toe-to-toe with the establishment, BMW and MB. But, a lot of thought and care (and money) went into…

No, not at all. Sometimes satire only works when it’s absolutely in your face about it. Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop is an example of this. The original cut got an X rating because of the graphic violence. Verhoeven claims scaling back the violence actually made the violence *worse* because it made it more believable.…

Are you talking about Chuck Jordan’s “Zonker” Geo Metro? That was profiled in July 1990 Motor Trend. On the other hand, I remember one of the buff books in the early ‘90s doing a step-by-step walk through of speeding up a Swift to ~73mph slalom.

I can’t stop it.

But it hasn’t actually happened happened yet, actually.

...Ri Chun-Hee... 

She can pull them off and put them right back on the curtain rod in Grandma’s parlor where they came from.

That’s my takeaway as well. The current Land Cruiser/LX570 (J200) has been around for over a decade now and it’s list price is...north of $80k. That’s astonishing to me. It’s so old that Toyota’s USA website calls it “The timeless icon.” A five to seven year old one on Autotrader with less than a 100k miles is $35k to…

Yeah, VW knows how to put together a good interior. 

Yep. My guess (and it’s completely a guess) although it’d be great to get an off-lease MKZ because of depreciation, in another three years it’ll still lose significantly more, by percentage, than an off-lease ES350. I mean yes you’d lose less in absolute dollars than the off-lease ES350, but the flip side of that is…

8. Volkswagen Tiguan

Who?

and Batman & Robin. 

...it begs the question of what happened to updog.

Both V90 and V60 are special order, just no T8 and no plug-in hybrid.