Am I the only person who finds this new grill WORSE than the beak? It’s so obnoxiously huge, it borders on parody.

Yeah I went and looked after comenting. You are totally right and it is sad.

The thing I’ve always heard anecdotally with VWs is that some people either get one that runs and drives perfectly for 200,000 miles and some get one where electronics are all shit and it falls apart within 3 years. VW is strange like that and that’s why I don’t think I’d ever buy one, despite liking their feel.

My CVT equipped 2009 Patriot is coming up on 180,000 miles. Yes, the worst FCA vehicle built during the bankruptcy years.

I’m a bit of a VW fanboy, (see the avatar), I admit. (I’m on my 3rd VW, with a ‘12 Passat as my DD, but I’m not a rabid fan...)

Back in the 70s and 80s Ford and Chevy liked to do the F & F (Ford Futura) and C&C (Chevy Celebrity) naming convention. I once read somewhere in the 70s there was a bad meeting at Ford where a project was going completely wrong and one exec recommended in the meeting that they name the car the Ford Phuck. It may…

Chevy Celebrity Eurosport VR or GTFO!

It’s a missile-shaped HVP wrapped in a sabot to keep it in a stable path within the barrel of the weapon. The HVP can be modded to a variety of sabots depending on the weapon it is fired from, and provides a common ammunition, saving manufacture expenses. The HVP looks like this:

I also like how it appears to fire old jeep driveshafts...does David know?

Look, this car has four pop-up headlights, so... argument over, I think.

As someone who owns a 70's Mercedes that is FAR from being in the top 1% of individual specimens, I can confidently say you’re wrong. The cars are simply over-built. Sure, some of the stuff was awful (I’m looking at you, borrowed-from-Chrysler automatic AC), but the cars themselves? Rock solid. There’s still a good…

Generally speaking, 70s Mercedes were better back then, because they cost more than two times as much as their “direct” competitors, and people still paid for them. Now, Mercedes-Benz competes directly on price with other luxury brands, so something had to give in between then and now, and that something was…

I’m old enough to remember those ‘70s German cars when they were relatively new. But I should have been more specific: It was really ‘70s Mercedes products that were better back in the old days. Porsche, to a lesser extent. Even back in the ‘80s, Bimmers, Audis and VWs did not have stellar reputations for being…

FCA doesn’t sell anything sub-compact in North America aside from the 500, and while it’s not exactly a darling of reliability and utility it’s at least not as actively soul-crushing as the Mirage is.

Funny how we may all argue and differ on the idea of the “Best” car, but we all tend to agree on the “Worst.”

The Australians love the old GL Subies, because they are actually 4 wheel drive (some part time with hi/lo transfer cases), with full independent suspension, low center of gravity, good ground clearance stock, and decent on gas. There used to be a HUGE after market for them over there with larger wheels, lift kits,…

Oh, no. Not even close. The Qvale Mangusta was built on a purpose-built “laser-cut” steel chassis with-if you read my post above-double wishbone independent suspension at each corner. It in no way uses anything Fox-based. In fact, the dash is SN-95 but was sourced directly from Visteon not from Ford stock. The engine…

the engine will only last 31,000 miles.

Vibration. Inline 4s are already inherently unbalanced. V4s are even worse. Couple that with the extra cost and associated packaging complications (they work well longitudinally mounted, but not so well in a transverse package like you’d see on a FWD car), and there just isn’t a lot of incentive to do a V4. Now…

It is worth noting that the Lancia V4s aren’t true V4s, they’re VR4s. One cylinder head.