Everything these days is a political debate, but here is where I see it starting in regards to trucks. It primarily starts with the growth of the truck market to being beyond utilitarian vehicles in the 90s (1994 Dodge Ram is known as the primary trigger for this) followed by the release of hybrid cars in the late…

Even the chemical industry can rely on tech that is behind several years.  While they are old now, I have seen SIS systems that were installed in the late 90s run off 5 1/2" floppy disks.

It’s not a huge amount of power, but a solid axle can have slightly fewer driveline losses compared to the axles for an independent set up.

You are only comparing peak power values.  I would bet the 4.7 had better low end torque than the V6 which would at least give it more off the line grunt as well as the better sound.

The LS1s were only “tuned down” on paper. There were dyno tests back in the day that showed the Trans Am made more power to the wheels than the C5. This was mostly attributed to the solid axle in the F Body vs IRS in the Corvette.

This?

Approximately 60 million people or nearly 20% of the US population lives in what is classified as rural by the US Government. Other statistics show if you dive deeper into the population density of the remaining 80% Urban dwellers you will find that around 50% of the population lives in what is classified as densely…

My AWD Acadia with 70k miles on the factory all seasons had no problems driving up snow covered hills that other FWD cars were sliding down backwards.

While I would say you are mostly correct with the myth of “gas from brand X is better than brand Y” there is a thing called Top Tier fuel which does come recommended by several manufacturers. I rarely fill up at a station that isn’t Top Tier certified anymore, but in the past I could see as much as a 10-15% difference…

If they aren’t part of the discussion then that needs to be made clear. It’s like that contributor a few years ago that only made articles saying that cars were the greatest evil in this world and no one, regardless of where they lived, should ever drive again. Yes, that can work in the center of major cities, but a…

I am not saying it shouldn’t be done because it can’t be done everywhere. But I am tired of political pundits that have never been outside of a major metropolitan area pushing for legislation and regulations that might work well inside such major cities but be terrible for rural areas. In fact, I support a lot of…

I know guys that insist that cars from the 70s and 80s are more reliable than newer cars because of “all those electronics that will fail within a year.”

You have obviously never really been in a rural farming community.  Not everyone can live in walkable communities when the distance between houses can be measured in thousands of feet.  And this was done that way well before cars were invented.  People still traveled this distances on horse and buggies, but they also…

While I don’t know of anywhere that directly bars barefoot driving on the books I did have a coworker recently get cited for driving barefoot in addition to the ticket he received.  It wasn’t quite reckless driving but something similar.

While I have never been to Germany, I too have heard praises of its driving culture and wish some of that could come over here.  Ironically, it’s the people driving the German cars here in the US that are some of the worst offenders of tailgating, passing on the right, and failing to signal lane changes.

Agreed. When we were shopping for a 3 row vehicle 4 years ago my wife’s only rules were, not a minivan and not a Flex. I really wanted to test drive the Flex, but she wouldn’t even go. We ended up with an Acadia Limited which I still really like because the Explorer was just way too cramped for interior volume.

Cheaper cars mean cheaper production. Something’s gotta give, right? Except that these cars aren’t that cheap. When we wrote about what countries top the list for cheap cost of ownership, I was surprised to see many countries in Latin America rank among the places where the cost of car ownership is highest!

And it was the IIHS that pushed automakers into including these well before NHTSA required them. The NHTSA has followed the IIHS in nearly every regulation.

That might be true in the SUV space for Cadillac, but as for sedans the CTS, STS, and ATS were on rear wheel drive car platforms.  The only Chevrolet that shared with the Cadillac was the Camaro from 2016+, but that was more of a case of the Chevy being a downscaled Cadillac.

These cars are relatively heavy and running on street tires.  At those power levels you are much more restricted by traction then anything.  The Rimec could have possibly never even hit full power in that run just to keep traction.