Yeah, the contrived patina looks awful, especially with the chrome eyebrows and strange tri-color paint job. The simple bodywork would look far better without all these distracting elements. And if you’re gonna chop a Type 3, do the awkward fastback first. The notchback is a beauty as is.

There’s an even closer analogue, taken directly from Bugatti: The Type 251 GP car of the early 1950s. It was a transversely-mounted mid-engined inline-8 with center power takeoff. Bugatti was a shell of its former self by then and the money ran out.

Well played. It would be tough to find another single model with more coachwork variations, especially racing versions. Mille Miglia is a sea of these.

It’s definitely a shame that perhaps the finest design job in NSU’s history was completely jettisoned by VW along with pretty much all the engineering. Sharp lines were en vogue, though, not the flowing sculpture of the R080. VW preferred to work with Giugiaro and Bertone.

Another factor is direct injection, which limits intake port flow to 158 cfm. The stock CTR engine is good to 425hp/400 lb-ft, but after that it seems you need to convert the whole thing to port injection. The whole thing is setup for responsiveness (with emissions efficiency) not outright power.

The old Accord V6 was about 300 pounds heavier than the 4-cylinder version of the same car, so pretty heavy. The heaviest version of the latest Accord is around 3,450 lbs so it’s lighter than the last gen. But I think a turbo 4 is not usually that much lighter than an aluminum V6.

Do you mean on the fun-to-drive scale? If so, perhaps. But under $30K you’ve got GTI, Veloster N PP, Mustang/Camaro turbos, and WRX. All are 0-60 in the 5s. Best case for a Fit Si is low 6s.

It’s sad we never got a turbo Fit. Honda is a stubborn auto company.

Why Volvo is here is today is because A) Li Shufu liked Volvo prior to buying company; and B) Geely has a ton of capital to spend on Volvo.

The drivetrain packaging probably forced Mitsu to use a small gas tank, maybe 11 or 12 gallons. That’s the problem a few other PHEVs that are designed from a ICE platform. I think the Countryman PHEV is also a 300-mile range, and even some of the BMW plug-in sedans have terrible range. Surprisingly, the Clarity is…

“doesn’t sound much more than enough funds to maintain the structure and pay off the purchase price....”

As near as I can tell, the Acura MDX with FWD only is about 220 lbs lighter than the AWD version of similar spec. An Acura Sport Hybrid (which comes with all options just about) happens to be about 220 lbs heavier than a loaded AWD MDX.

True, a Mazda 6 with a higher-boost 2.5T is something I would consider to be a “high-speed cruiser”. The 3 is still economy, still compact, and still likely to be noisier than its bigger siblings. I don’t quite understand Mazda’s marketing with this one, but we’ll know more when it gets driven.

India is already selling a lot of automated manuals. ZF Sachs developed one for Tata and Magnetti Marelli supplies them to Maruti Suzuki. Hyundai is just the latest entrant, and I think Kia will use it, too. Hyundai’s system could be different, but it should be just an electrohydraulic control box (electric and…

Yep, it’s clearly the inexpensive way to go. Torque converter automatics are too expensive for the Indian market. CVTs are popular, too, but past unreliability means they are distrusted. I haven’t dissected the existing transmission design from Suzuki or Tata... I think Renault sells one in India, too. So I don’t know…

In India, the market for automatics is still small, probably 25% or less. In an extremely fuel-sensitive market full of cars that have to be very low in price and power, the manual transmission rules.

The torsion beam is inferior, for sure. The tests should show this. However, Mazda has a point. The torsion beam is quieter and more space efficient. Also, Mazda’s torsion beam is not a regular stick axle. It’s narrower in the middle and thickens toward each end, which helps mitigate the toe-in during hard cornering.

This is the meanness I was looking for.

If you were unlucky enough to have a 3-speed manual, which was common then with any of the inline-six cars, you could be uncomfortably high in the rpm range by the time you hit 70 mph.

Agreed on your TourX (it’s mostly a great car), but very much apples and oranges...