Import age rules for private citizens are dumb. Let people bring in whatever deathtrap they want so long it won’t kill anyone else and doesn’t roll coal. An S4 wagon isn’t going to hurt anyone.

We should have pretty strict size restrictions on how big civilian vehicles can be. Trucks these days can’t even fit to established parking spaces. They block other vehicles’ sight lines on the road, they are unable to see pedestrians or other obstacles and hazards over their massive hoods, and their overcompensating…

the shitbox delivers

I love how 10-15 years ago all the naysayers were insufferable with their “Having both gas and electric motor is going to mean twice the trouble — I’ll never buy a hybrid” and “the batteries are going to cost $15,ooo to replace and you’ll be doing that after 5 or 6 years... you’ll have to be a moron to buy a hybrid.”

The Miata I had was an absolute BEAST in snow with winter tires.  Being able to stop and corner when everything with 4WD/AWD was sliding sideways was a riot.

My buddies 1987 2500 Suburban with a 454 and 4.11 gears.

My HS somehow got their hands on an all aluminum one for the auto shop kids to use for a gas mileage challenge. It’s been 25 years, and I wasn’t in on it, but I remember my Advanced Materials and Design teacher getting really excited about it.

I drove an ‘03 Elantra 5-speed for years living in Denver. I slapped snow tires on it in the winter, and had no problems moving around in the mountains or in some of the big storms we occasionally get on the front range. I can probably count on one hand the number of times in about 7-8 years that I had problems going…

I pulled a Silverado out of a snowbank with my 99 CrV AWD once but that’s one of the less than 5 times I can recall it being of any use. You never really know if the AWD is working or not, so it may not have kicked in even then. My next car will be 2WD, probably a Prius if I can find one. Everybody wants AWD in N CA.

And everyone who drives a Subaru has someone reason they’ve convinced themselves they absolutely NEED AWD and they share the reason emphatically with everyone who will listen.

Subaru’s brilliant marketing convince normal people they need AWD just to drive when it rains.

The gap between people who actually need AWD and the people who think they need AWD is far larger than it should be.

Indeed. I’ve only had two four wheel drive vehicles: an Isuzu Rodeo (4WD manual) and my Subaru (AWD).

“Priuses suck.”

Worked in a quicklube/tire place during college, so probably a lot of dumb stuff I’ve forgotten, but there was the “The oil isn’t full because it’s not up to the cap”, or the customer who thought a tire warranty should be valid for a car so out of alignment the outer tread was nearly new while the inner tread had…

“I need a 4WD vehicle EVERY DAY.” No sweetie, you live on Long Island, NY. Its completely flat and it snows once every 3 years. And her SUV was AWD, not 4WD. Don’t even get me started on that.

I’m sure we’ve all heard boomer randos insisting that their 1965-1972 commonplace muscle car was faster than any car available today with the possible exception of a hellcat when it likely would get beat in a drag race by an Accord Sport with a 2 liter engine.

I still hear people complain about how cars used to be safer because they used more steel. A lot less often than I heard that in 90s, but it still leaves me dumbfounded every so often. They’re not even all boomers, either. 

I had a coworker tell me that he owned the fastest truck in the world years back, I asked which one and he said the GMC Syclone (which is certainly true).  However he followed that up by telling me he got the highest speeding ticket in county history at over 200 mph.  Even if it was very highly tuned (being very…

The Ferrari 365 GT4, 400i and 412 are exceptional to look at. How more coupes don’t mimic that refined simplicity, is baffling. And, if ever there were a Ferrari to appeal to the less gauche, older money crowd, this is it. Minus the abundance of automatics, to me, they are flawless.