This is really what we needed - another 100k SUV. Is there any doubt as to who is doing well in this country?

They did a LOT to the rear also, honestly that was always the most problematic part of the 1800, the rear proportions always felt off, they totally slimmed down the fins and made it more proportional, the lines are very different.

Not only are the wheel arches bigger, but they raised them a lot higher, you can see they…

Yep. That’s the elephant in the room for me when any of these coaches talk. Or any other front office whatever. Kaepernick still doesn’t have a job, while a number of really poor QBs do.

You could just as easily say that they’ve had a ton of time to sit on their laurels and avoid real advancement. It took them two decades to finally make an interior worth their nearly 40k price tag. 

It’s not about the infotainment, it’s about the data. That said, I’ll give it a read. What I’m saying though is a car manufacturer is going to be less good at everything related to that than a tech company. Data collection, user experience, in and out of car, and they’re going to have a much more complete dataset.…

McKinsey is going to take into account iOS and Android data into that analysis. Seriously. It’s never going to happen. The phone developers are with consumers 100% of the time. Have better market penetration. And apple car play and android auto make the most sense as far as usability goes and future proofing in a car.…

Spot on, I think the problem is that most CEOs live in an echo-chamber of “yes” people. They sit in front of a mirror and say words, and when they find something they like, they try to speak it into existence.

Hahah, this is what happens when people look at metrics in isolation.

I heard this guy give an interview a few years ago about how Ford was going to start monetizing its data because people did stuff in cars. I pretty much wrote him off as nonsense right then. If he thinks Ford is going to save itself by selling data when people carry phones literally all the time then he’s off his head.

Fair enough. Nevertheless. I think BAT itself is creating its own market. People want to be the guy on BAT buying that car.

BREAKING: E30 M3 isn’t the best in the world

Yeah, agreed, 3500 is really at the bottom end of acceptable. 5000 gives you enough space to tow a reasonable boat, or a camper that’s big enough for a family without feeling like you’re killing the engine.

Yeah but in comparison that 2005 design looks like a fat pig compared to the original. This one manages to keep a clean and lean look. I really think they knocked it out of the park. I’d totally have one if it weren’t for that abysmal tow rating.

Normally I’d agree, but I’m curious to see if like the Jeep, there are things that really make that sort of thing less feasible. For the Jeeps, the Rubicon actually I believe has a heavier axle setup, and that’s not as easy to just “get” in the aftermarket, and even if you’re a very capable DIYer, doing something like…

As I said below. We run the gamut of those risks daily. I think the incrementality of it does matter. You’ll be faced with decisions like that every day. That same incrementality comes into play with modern cars. If the VERY best safety is your concern, everyone should buy lightly used Volvos. A Kia Soul may have…

That’s fair enough. And I get it. Kids take a lot out of you. There are better cars and worse cars. Toyotas are something else - I wouldn’t hesitate to drive my LC across the continent tomorrow with my kid and family and feel perfectly safe and know it was nuts reliable. Mainly because every scrap of maintenance was…

I can’t tell if you’re trying to make an innocent point or being patronizing, but it’s coming off as patronizing.

I mean is there some kind of metric that lays out the incremental safety from a w123 and a modern econobox? We aren’t talking about a 70s beetle here.

Lol. You call yourselves Jalops? I find the safety argument sort of marginal. We aren’t talking a corvette here. He wants one of the most solidly built sedans ever and they’re slow as all get-out. I’d probably get a w126 instead of the 123 but still. It’s fine. If you have some minor wrenching ability you can…

I use the hell out of the Icon ratcheting stubby wrench set I got from them. Leagues above a similar gear wrench set that cost just as much, and as far as I can tell - pretty close to as good as the complete Snap-On ratchet set I have.