There’s so much wasted awesomeness here.

That’s very interesting! Based on a cursory read of FMVSS108 it appears that while specifics like stop lamp intensity and photometry guidelines are spelled out, as well as minimums and maximums for height and separation for stop lamps, the tailgate is a loophole.

Yes, most of the road damage is caused by these trucks, which have been tested to each cause thousands of times the damage done by an average car. Most states, including Michigan, don’t tax trucks nearly enough to cover the damage. Sure, freeze-thaw, salt, water penetration, etc. all cause damage, too. But it’s not…

The failure rate for dual-row was estimated 1% at the time of the Eisen settlement, I believe. That’s probably a few hundred cars. Not a lot, but not isolated cases.

Agreed, for the money it has a great track car potential. But the buyer shouldn’t be surprised if even the dual-row IMS goes. At the time of the Eisen settlement the predicted failure rate for the dual-row cars was 1% (versus 8% for the single-row cars). But that was many years ago. As these engines age that number…

Best production LTG: 279 hp, 295 lb-ft

Yeah, it’s a great approach, too. Having a cluster of several foglights means some of them probably still work if one or two of the LEDs gets knocked out by a rock. Traditional foglamps are way too fragile.

Hmm, not a lot of bracing in a Pacer. It’s heavy because it’s old-school body-on-frame with a tremendous amount of glass. The 232 I6 used to make 140 hp and somewhere north of 200 lb-ft of torque back in the high-compression days, but by the late ‘70s everything was smog-choked.

It’s worth being concerned about what the respray hides, but speaking from experience with old AMCs that’s incredibly minor rust.

I think it’s brake lights, too, which is why full-width tailgates present a problem for designers. Either move the brake lights to the bumper, if the vehicle is tall enough, or simply duplicate them in the bumper a la Audi. 

Yes, I feel like Peugeot is the worst offender over time with concept after concept that not only have no hope of reaching an actual showroom, they have very little in common with anything the company actually makes. I remember seeing the 907 on display at Pug’s Champs d’Elysee store and wondering why one of history’s…

Yeah, when equipped with offset wheels the 6-cylinder E-types can look arguably better and more balanced. The track should have been widened, especially with the 4.2 cars, but the Jag people wanted as high a top speed as possible.

It’s possible that Yamaha quite happy to let Toyota have the kudos, since it basically saved the project after Nissan fired both Goertz and Yamaha. The separation happened shortly after both Yamaha and Goertz finished designing the CSP311 Silvia and while design work was proceeding on the Nissan 2000GT/Yamaha A550X.…

I’d rather have a Cayman for the street, but on the track there’s a lot more separation. The Cayman of course does without dry-sump and magnetic suspension, not to mention being hamstrung by its rear suspension design. It’s still very good, and the 7:46.7 ring time is pretty incredible for turbo four-pot. But the ‘vett…

Considering the only change to the engine with the Z51 package is a performance exhaust, I think, the base model’s power deficiency is probably small. Compare it to improvements made to the LT1 and you’ve got your number.

A typical RENNtech tune adds about 100 hp. The hp is just misquoted (it’s 516), although it’s possible the seller had this dyno’d and AMG underquoted the power. These are hand-built (ish?) so they probably vary slightly engine to engine.

Yes, if I had to guess the seller just misquoted the figure. This year of the S variant was advertised by AMG to make 516 hp.

Rebuild? Sometimes the turbos do go, but most of the traditional turbo issues are ancient history. I’d be more concerned about the longevity of high-compression DI engines that are the norm now.

Yeah, the equation totally changes when you’re talking about the hybrids. Including destination charge, the starting price for the RAV4 hybrid is a still very reasonable $28,100. All of the trims get AWD, and the XLE/XSE is right around the same price as a decent 4-cyl Camry. It’s hard not to choose it.

That’s completely fair. Fortunately, there’s an alternative: a manual! But if forced to pick an automatic it would be the 10-speed/2.0T combo.