What? I mean, legitimately, what? The *hybrid* Maverick is quicker than an S-10, the Ecoboost Maverick looks to be a touch quicker than a Focus ST.

I have connected services in my car, and mostly all it does it remind me we’ve left the car unlocked at times we fully intended to left the car unlocked. I figure the GPS tracking bit is a nice bonus security feature for the two years it’s free, while there’s a car theft bump, but I just don’t like dealing with yet…

An overweight gullwing’d sports car with a family sedan engine and middling performance, built in an economically depressed area so the creator who slapped his name on the thing could extort government money? No, no, the other, uglier one.

The ‘84 had the 4+3 transmission, which had overdrive on the top three gears, but I believe effectively worked as a normal 4-speed (you could turn the overdrive off, and when it was on it worked based on throttle load). They skipped over the 5-speed straight to a 6-speed in ‘89, which was the one with the skip-shift,…

Ehh, BTTF is a big part of the appeal, but so is the Giugaro styling. But yes, fantastic icon of a decade, terrible sports car.

Even in the more walkable/transit friendly neighbourhoods, the incumbents (re. older) are incredibly territorial, and prefer to block new housing, or really anything that’d benefit anybody else.

Well, yeah, that’s what the Mazda5 picture was to imply, just with the slightly more power, extra gear, and other minor updates that a third generation would’ve hopefully brought.

My CX-5 is okay, but sliding doors would be nice.

That's probably a good a guess as any - there was a horizontal line on the front corner that threw me off, but might be that light cluster, and the rear is a little more rounded than I remembered. And, like you say, quite prominent in their history.

It’s certainly less common for franchise dealers, but I used to do the pictures for used cars, and there were plenty of dealers who’d throw their trade-ins online to see if there’s any demand. Absolute sketchiest was a 3rd gen Integra sedan that looked half-decent from the driver’s side, but had clearly been gently…

Worst used car you’ve ever seen? I mean, I guess taking the $6k asking into account, but cars like this are the lifeblood of every single small or impoverished town north of the Mason-Dixon line. It might be ugly, it might be unsafe, but it runs, and the roof’s still there.

The dickheads are already acting like dickheads regardless of legality, changing laws would just encourage the ones who’d be far more likely to be courteous to start lane splitting.

For the cupholder easter eggs, the middle is clearly a ‘59, I’m assuming the one on the left is some form of V16 like this ‘37. Is the right not just the Sollei?

I would love to see far more stringent regulations on light truck/SUV, combined with marginally more permissive requirements on passenger cars. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I’m a bit longer of torso (not tall, just all my height is above the waist), and I find newer cars are starting to feel more cramped, presumably…

I get that, it was more just interesting because of its impact in a very specific niche where the rest have all started to blend into each other.

There’s way more from the original Fast and the Furious that’s lived on in the car community, certainly far more than any of the rest of the series (except maybe the nebulous concept of FAMBLY, which has grown throughout the series). 10 second car? Overnighted parts from Japan? Two bottles of NOS, big ones? Danger to…

The Impala thing was a cost savings, basically that they bought in high enough volume that GM was willing to do it, and high enough volume that it represented a savings that initially justified it (although the fallout and residual hit after it became public might’ve wiped out that benefit).

The one semi-infamous example was Enterprise ordering a batch of Impalas with the side curtain airbags deleted about 15 years back, but otherwise yes, they’re all just consumer-grade models.

I’d wager quite a few M5 buyers work in downtown offices where low/no emissions zones are a looming threat.

I was certain I remembered more North American Nissan ads with Paul Newman, as he was racing them pretty heavily, but all I can find is a seatbelt PSA and probably some print ads (and might also be thinking of Mazda’s ads with James Garner, which are also great), but I’ll take Japanese-market Skyline ads.