Given Genesis as a brand isn’t even 3 years old yet, I think your pronouncement is a little premature.

BMW already has a decent (admittedly not great) 6-speed manual from the current M3 and F10 M5, plenty strong for the power output from any variant of the B58. I figure the real reason is they don’t want to go through the certification of a manual variant in each market when the dealership network, at least here in the…

The B48 and 58 are new enough that I doubt there will be any other major engine code for the production span of the G20

With the manual out of the picture, the MB C43 starts looking pretty darn good.

MB hasn’t had a naturally aspirated straight six since 1997, bud, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for another one anytime soon

While I think they could have done a little better, with the current trend of all the luxury marques towards novelty LCD screens for all instrumentation, it can’t be a huge surprise that this happened.

That’s a very unique take

Looks like I’m going to have the dissenting opinion on here and say I kinda like it. Exterior is definitely busier than the outgoing F30, but I think that’s not a bad thing. While I think a lot will look at the increased ‘swoopiness’ as copying the current MB C-Class, I think it brings back a little of the roundedness…

I think it’s a safe bet it will not have a manual transmission. Even with the more-enthusiast-oriented-but-not-quite-M cars like the 228i and 235i, manual sales were rare and almost always required a custom order.

That poor Seamaster being forced to share wrist space

The manual transmission is dead in the G20 3 series and the 4 that will follow.  Jury is still out on the next 2er, but even it has had a marginal take rate for the stick shift (I had to order mine to get a manual).  People just don’t buy them anymore.

You had me going until the “$40k or less” bit, that’s cute. You’re talking a mid-range performance, niche model from a luxury carmaker that will have a microscopic sales rate thanks to having two doors and a manual transmission. You’ve basically created a F-Type S competitor on paper, which is an $80k car.

Neither is in any danger of being universally proclaimed a good looking car, but I think the Lexus will age a lot more gracefully

I had a similar experience with Sixt, fully believing I’d get a manual 2-series. This was shortly before I ordered my M235i, so the idea of getting an extended ‘test drive’ in one was the perfect way of knowing for sure it was the car I wanted. Showed up, nope, automatic Audi A5 cabriolet. As far as rental consolation…

My honeymoon saw the rentals of a Fiat 500, a Peugeot 208 (that I absolutely adored and had way too much fun tossing around the amazing mountain roads in Corsica), and a Citroën C4 Cactus. I know the Cactus is adored by the Jalopnik staff, but I hated the thing. While I’m sure some of its performance defect was due to…

At one point I lived in Katy and commuted to a new job near IAH.  The drive there in the morning wasn’t bad, but the drive home made me consider setting up a cot in the corner of the office.

Generally speaking, high load/low rpm situations are not great for combustion engines.

BMW has been doing this an annoying amount lately on anything with M-sport brakes to lessen how readily apparent the horrendous amount of brake dust they put out is

This is what terrifies me about an engine-out scenario and trying to put it down on a major road, seeing powerlines without enough time/power to do anything about it.

As a resident of Hurst for 18 years, I think “some” is a strong word. Parts of October and November weren’t bad, maybe April on less-rainy years. That said, I still miss the summers, the 100+ degree days were at least dry-ish, and way more pleasant to be out in than the 95 degree humid Houston days I have now.