Contour SE and SVT were better than any other compact mass-market sedans.

This is the right direction for “supercars” to go; the response to the 911R and GT3 Touring show that “driver involvement” is important to a small but meaningful niche, and now that electronic aids and electric propulsion are evolving to the point where adding additional performance is essentially useless, there is a…

Mmmm, all dressed potato chips 

Yeah, I did a trip with a bike rack on my Model 3 the other week and basically just got a never ending “sensors blocked” error message for the rear ultrasonic sensors. It’s an issue! Also an issue is snow and ice, which continues to confound these damn sensors.

That’s rad, but sorry, the second gen Bronco my mom drove when I was in elementary school was even radder. It was only a 4 speed, but check out those stripes (not our truck, but an identical one). And this was all stock.

But one of them has COVID.

I feel like this discussion is incomplete without a reference to the Ro80s designer, Claus Luthe, who went on to design some other German cars you might have heard of (and whose career came to a very tragic end)

Yes. 

I’ve had Teslas now for almost 7 years. I can see why they don’t do especially well in the JD Power survey, but I have to tell you, in terms of dependability—ie, how reliable are they, as opposed to “was the trim misaligned at delivery”—they are easily equal or better than the various BMWs I’ve owned.

Oh yes do that! I did it for my car and it’s made all the difference. Being able to just plug it in (and unplug it) is great. 

Well played 

That is the hottest take I’ve read to date.

It was lame when GM couldn’t figure out how to put the 5.7 in the Camaro with a stick. It’s still lame 30 years later, except now this car isn’t even particularly fast. Or interesting.

With a phalanx of Mach Es in Police Interceptor guise behind it. 

Yes! And I was googling around the other day and realized it’s actually been done.

For the price, this is the kind of car that’s lack of coolness when new is inversely proportional to how cool it is now.

Ja, naturlich.

Sure, I get that. But what kind of durability testing has gone into the LN part? How many of them are in the field? How have they tested against unexpected failures (like, for example, the kind of failure that afflicted the OEM part).

There may be answers to all of those questions, though I haven’t seen them.

I just…

So here’s the other question that gnaws at me: How do we know that the LN Engineering part is really all that? LN has done a good job of marketing their solution, and I can see the logic behind it, but how many of them are out there and how many miles have they been driven?

That’s a vodkat.