I dunno, New Accord or used Lexus GS?

I live in Cedar Rapids.

Sightings of cars in this condition in the city limits are rare, and more often than not they’ve got Benton County (or sometimes some obscure county I’ve never even heard of) plates on them. Once you get out to where my in-laws live in Boone County...well, then we’re talking more rolling wrecks…

Ain’t nobody banging in the back of this car.

My boss is an expat Brit, and yes...they can out-redneck us.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, at the same dealer...

“Sir, you’re going to want the undercoating if you don’t want your pants getting wet.”

I can pretty much guarantee it’s structural.

Also, the missing turn signal.

On the plus side, free tetanus shot with purchase, so there’s that.

They’ve got quite the inventory.

No inspections in Iowa.

You almost never see cars this bad in places like Des Moines or Cedar Rapids; but in the rural areas, this would be some farm kid’s high school driver.

I’d prefer it without the cladding, but if that’s what sells more wagons instead of SUVs...sure. Throw it on (and that’s my point with the Focus- I’d like to see a Focus wagon back in the North American market; if they have to throw that Outback/XC70 type plastic on there to sell it here, so be it.)

Here.

Lift the suspension an inch or so and throw some cladding on it. I wouldn’t care. Sell the wagon here.

Re: the tacked on screen- I think it has to do with line-of-sight requirements. Also, replacing a screen when they inevitably fail over the life of the car would probably be a bit easier than tearing out the dash.

That said- I agree that they’re ugly.

Even if they gave the Outback treatment to the Focus wagon to bring it over here, I would buy it.

Ford marketing, are you listening?

Hey, I’d live with a 9 second 0-60 if it meant fewer batteries and a lower cost of entry to get that kind of range.

Yeah, but the PNW is even better than FL or CA because there’s no sun damage to the paint, either. It’s truly remarkable.

As a New England native now living in the upper Midwest, I’m continually amazed at the near-pristine ‘80s and ‘90s Toyotas and Hondas I see when visiting the Pacific Northwest. They’ve all rusted out to nothing back home.

I dunno, I kinda dig it...that said, it suffers the same fate as most Japanese designs of late- it doesn’t photograph well and looks better in person. My main irritation is that it’s not a proper liftback (see also: Ford Fusion, Chevy Malibu.)

The 2.0T Accord Sport has pretty much everything you could want, minus leather. The 1.5T leaves a lot of stuff off (Sirius radio, moonroof, BLIS, etc) but it’s possible, with the Accord at least, to combine well equipped + manual.

I’ve been eyeing the 2018 Accord Sport as my next car and have decided on either red or blue; I can’t help but notice how fetching that body style would look in a nice deep forest green, though.