They were all just desperate (or crass) efforts to hide junk machinery. The irony is cool. Some of the styling efforts were genuinely interesting. I’m partial to the disco Pierre Carin Javelin even though I know it’s farm equipment under the skin.

I believe these editions of the MkIII were framed around the bands’ tours, so you could get decals of the city where you saw the show.

The mechanical stuff isn’t Ford, but the electronics are. The rest of it is a mish-mash of BMW, Jaguar (yes, Ford, but not Mondeo stuff... AJ V8, display units), ZF, and Range Rover’s own supplier network. You’ll even find a GM slushbox in some of these.

Keep in mind this is interior was designed in 2002... *everything* had a small nav screen back then. I think it looks great and the nav screen, while small, is not garish. You could probably easily replace it with something aftermarket and the rest of the interior looks pretty good (well-spaced physical buttons!).

I agree with you on the sports car thing but he’s clearly limiting his “true” selections to RWD, which is a limited list and should also include the recent S660. If you include FWD cars, Honda has obviously made a ton of sports cars over the years, not to mention outright racers.

I think it could have worked, but given the state of the Chrysler product line in 2013 I don’t think they would have pulled it off. Also, FCA/Chrysler/Dodge has been there, done that... the early ‘80s Challenger aka Mitsubishi Galant Lambda comes to mind.

Actually, I think it would be a great around-the-town rig, as long as you don’t live in the rust belt. Excellent visibility, practical. Just keep highway travel to a minimum.

No, it’s always been true. When the XV Crosstrek launched in the States, it basically doubled Impreza sales overnight. It just happened to be especially popular now, which is not surprising given the price of gas and new cars in general.

The Crosstrek is standard with some things you’d pay extra for on the Impreza, like roof rails. Then there’s the 3 inches added ground clearance, an upgraded rear diff, and a six-speed manual instead of a five-speed in the Impreza. And if you move up the food chain the Crosstrek gets the 2.5 as an option.

I’m not sure how this is half-assing it. The whole point of the car is to demo the F1 tech, which is an electric turbocharger (neat) and a battery that can be recharged fully on the fly using regenerative braking alone at a continuous 70kW. It’s small capacity, but it is not your run-of-the-mill EV battery. It’s…

And you’ve lost track of the point of this thing, which is to roll out some F1 tech while at the same time backing away from big displacements and cylinder counts. Also, how much lithium exactly is going to be wasted by a few thousand 6.1kwh battery packs? That’s rounding error compared to what will be going into most…

That’s an excellent point, the Asian growth markets are setting the design direction. China accounts for more than 33% of the company’s sales. BMW does care very much about the U.S. market, though. because that 15% of sales is a dependable percentage and includes a large number of high-margin vehicles. And it’s where…

I’d say it’s marginally competitive thanks to its 87kwh battery and 130kw CCS charging. Almost everything else with a battery that size or larger is way more expensive, except something like the F150 EV.

This is one of those “good luck finding another” cars. Even in 2-liter/autotragic form the 200SX hardly ever appears for sale, esp. without corrosion. It’s worth a small premium. BUT, this would have been a $2K car pre-pandemic. No more than $4k in today’s market.

Exactly, the BRZ/86 is just the sort of vehicle, particularly in MT form, that performs very poorly on the EPA’s test cycle. I appreciate it all the more because of that—most entry-level performance cars are at least partly trying to game the EPA tests.

I believe Mini did this with the Countryman as well, and that may have been the first of its kind.

Tune? No, I believe it’s mostly final drive... 3.31 for the ‘stang and 4.1 for the BRZ. That’s a big difference. For perspective MX-5 runs a 3.58 with a smaller engine and so unsurprisingly gets a good 35 mpg highway.

This is the opposite an older turbo car. Electric exhaust gas turbocharger, akin to what’s in F1. So, less lag than any twin-scroll in existence. Think supercharger without the parasitic loss.

Ask Merc PR. They specifically claim this figure more than once in the release. We can only guess as to why at this point.

That was by far the weirdest one. I had a U.S.-market Gol (aka Fox) and it definitely drove similarly to the concurrent Quantum, also Audi-adjacent.