I suppose I could be predictable and say “and suddenly I have a rally car”, or maybe somewhere to park a million kei cars, or whatever, but as much as that would be awesome...

The X6 and it’s ilk are a delayed response to the Personal Luxury Vehicles of the time before time. Compared to, say, a Toronado, an X6 is a Swiss army knife.

So, my purchase of a twelve year old XC70 with a service history that needs it’s own filing cabinet, the previous owner obviously took it to main dealer if ANYTHING even mildly irritated him, is a demonstration of what character trait? Oh, extreme poverty and luck. ( I paid 750 UK pounds for it) .

Add a Turbo to the end of the model, and then you get the answer to going fast ;)

Airline pilot here. While it would be unusual to lose all communications, it is possible. Although a more likely scenario would be that they either tuned in the frequency incorrectly or because of some other distraction were not hearing the radio calls. Heck, sometimes I’ll have a call sign that just doesn’t resonate…

Yeah they definitely improved after GM purchased them, but the real turning point in Lotus reliability was in the mid-00s when they stopped using the Rover engine in the Elise and started using a Toyota engine and transmission. Ever since then they’ve been pretty good especially for a low volume sports car.

Proton is in process of selling more then 51% of the company to a foreign automaker. It’s believed to be China’s Geely. Assuming it is Geely, they will want to keep Lotus, since China could easily be the biggest market for Lotus cars.

i’d be a little wary about what you wished for. Lotus has made and enhanced beautiful cars regardless of platform branding. It would be a shame to see that automotive critique tailored toward a miata competitor.

Yeah, ideally it’d be like Geely’s arrangement with Volvo, that it now owns. Toyota could buy and underwrite Lotus, while leaving the engineers alone to do their own magic. In fact, much like Geely-Volvo, Toyota could even borrow tuning or engineering efforts from Lotus for its own cars.

Can we just acknowledge the little Easter Egg of the number plate which is the same as the Esprit in The Spy Who Loved Me?

I’ve been saying this for years: Toyota should buy Lotus. They already use Toyota engines. Plus if Toyota wants to get back into the sports car game (Which they seem like they want to), imagine a sports car with Toyota reliability and Lotus handling!

I very much doubt it would be cheaper to do that. Even if the ships themselves would come out to a reasonably similar price the ongoing costs (staffing, maintenance etc.) would likely soak up any savings in not too long.

I like it! Freddy did a good job with this and I expect others could do the same. His pictures are of high quality albeit “themed” and give you a great look at an aging supercar.

Nice try Terrel, but this is clearly Roger clinton.

Putin is a symbol, not the root cause. I guarantee you that the next chief will have strong KGB ties. They were briefly out of power in the early ‘90s and did *not* like that. But they learned from the mafia and from American spin doctors...

Isn’t the military known for being gleefully profane? Or is that the joke? Never can tell on the internet.

Not Trump. Anyone. Tyler Rogoway never, to my knowledge, used disrespectful language when writing about global issues here at FA.

...few available for sale are always nowhere near me.

The Panda reference is to rap song by Desiigner. His X6 has black rims (and maybe a black roof), and therefore resembles a Panda. He repeats the word a billion times in the song. It is about the only word you can actually understand, too. To be honest, I think the song started getting radio play because it was just…

I know these are terrible but for some reason I really want one....