I think the resale market speaks on rare machines like these. Racing history (and the marque) counts for a lot, and the values of both the track and road versions are still very high. You could definitely call it a flop of a race car because it missed the target on being useful for most series.

Hahaha, too true. I don’t like to think of the Gumpert as a flop; the cars were clearly competent. Like Ascari, it was unfortunate to have been so small at the time of the global recession. There are many other boutique manufacturers that flopped more dramatically.

That’s interesting; I wonder if the same thing will be happening on the Porsche side with prices on the 718s and the base models of the 991.2.

The XJR-15 wasn’t a homologation car. It was based on the XJR-9, which did win Le Mans.

It was successful, I think. It was developed by Jaguar’s racing arm, and as such lived up to its billing as a race car you could drive on the street (in the UK, at least) if you wanted. It complied with Group C regs, in general, so it satisfied a niche market of buyers who wanted a Le Mans-style Jaguar for the road…

The car did well. The lease program was the flop.

That’s by far the worst part of it. Also, it seems I am always behind an SUV or truck so it’s impossible to see oncoming traffic. Everything else about RHD is a minor annoyance in comparison.

Eh. You could say the same of the Audi allroad. The V60 and Audi are basically the same size, and close in price. The V60's cargo space is not a great shape for boxy stuff, though, and the slope of the glass will also limit options for hauling.

I agree that it’s a great take, because first impressions are important and this article gets inside the head of the average car buyers. That’s useful! But a caveat would also be useful—I had to go elsewhere to learn that you can shut these aids off fairly easily with a few swipes of the Sensus screen. This article…

None of this stuff is fringe, though. Most of what Volvo is doing has been done by the luxury makes for years as options. Toyota has added some of it as standard to pretty much every car. It’s going to get harder and harder to get a nice car without this stuff; Volvo’s ahead of the curve on this.

Your Audi dealer “misspoke”, probably. An oil leak has nothing to do with engine management—it’s probably faulty piston rings in the early TFSI engines. It’s a known issue. And it’s hardly Audi’s problem alone.... Mini had awful oil consumption issues with its R56.

Only a little, probably, compared with the chaos created by no-fault insurance. Half the drivers in Detroit are uninsured.

And Buick seems to be the only one. VW used to do this a lot, but the Eos is gone and Beetle will soon be, too.

That middle shot of the Maxima “QX” is definitely not a U.S.-spec car. I always thought that generation was pretty tacky and boring, especially the Infiniti version.

The Altima’s wheelbase jumped past 110 inches for that generation. I remember being amazed at the rear legroom. The Maxima had the same platform as the Altima, but the styling was specific to the U.S. I think.

Lotus has traded more on handling prowess than it has low weight. Lightness is obviously good for handling, but it’s not required. The Evija will have to be somewhat competent in that department to handle a targeted ring time. And Lotus is known for doing some wacky skunkworks-type stuff.

It might be more accurate to say hundreds instead of thousands. Jeep sold a record 240,000 Wranglers last year, but I don’t know how many were Rubicons. As for Jeep models, the worst performer is clearly the Renegade in capability, sales, and probably profit. But you could also claim the Compass is a pretender and…

That’s a good comparison. Ferrari was motivated to return its big GT cars to front engine to improve its “GT” chops. The 365GT/Testarossa/512/512TR had some issues that kept them from being race cars for the road—it wasn’t too hard for Ferrari to match with the 550. It also made sense to revert seeing as how Ferrari…

The simple fact that Subaru has gotten someone to take their time to come in for a test drive is not a waste of time, even if the tester has no intention to buy. That driver now has first-hand knowledge of the car and may consider it in the future, even if it’s only because they once drove it. It’s an opportunity for…

The IC probably shouldn’t be considered an invention of the Apollo Program. The earliest ICs were developed independently of government contracts and preceded Apollo; the very first customer, I believe, was the Air Force. It’s very true, though, that development of the Apollo Guidance Computer was a strong driver for…