I had started writing freelance automotive articles for the local newspaper and snagged press credentials for the 2009 North American International Auto Show, a.k.a. the Detroit Auto Show. We headed out in my wife’s Escape hybrid (with AWD, thankfully) from southern Wisconsin on the heels of a typical January storm.…

Closer to 60% manuals but, yeah, I get it. OTOH, a list of cars with a manual transmission take rate higher than that would be a mighty short one.

Roughly 80 per cent of them are automatics and even among the Abarths well over half are. No wonder they aren’t selling.

My brother-in-law talked my mother into buying one after my dad died and at nearly 80 years old, she was probably the ideal type of buyer for it. It was a simple, uncomplicated car for drivers who don’t drive much and have no passion for it in the first place. Kind of like people in the market for $700 used cars. This…

The Irish are a fun loving people.

Southwest Ireland. This is just a short stretch of a great twisty road.

May or may not be significant but of all new 124 Spiders listed on cars.com right now only 17% are manuals while among the new Miatas listed 61% are manuals. Also, there are way more 124s listed than Miatas.

Mazda has all the tooling. Maybe they could make you a special order Fiata. Doesn’t hurt to ask.

You still have the volume control on the steering wheel, too.

We’ve owned three cars that we took to over 100k—a 1976 Toyota Corona, a 1988 Mercury Cougar, and a 1992 Mercury Sable wagon. I don’t have the exact total mileages but all were between 110-125k. The Corona and the Cougar were bought new, the Sable wagon was a 2-year old used car when we bought it. The Toyota needed a…

My parents owned two of the Mercury versions, the Topaz—a first gen and later a second gen. In the context of the era they were pleasant enough cars and had reasonably good build quality but driving them was completely uninspiring. If you’re really nostalgic for mid-’80s Fords look for a Mustang, T-Bird or heck even…

Now those kids are grown up and are hatching plots to kidnap governors.

If this had been in a Star Trek movie it would be worth twice as much.

I waiting for the Mustang Mach-E Grandé upgrade with a padded vinyl roof. Awesome.

Folks, I think we have a winner.

“Runs and Drives Good”

The entire production run will end up in Saudi Arabia. Bet on it.

Go back and watch it again. William Shatner had the window seat and kept seeing the creature on the wing.

Creepy.

Ford for the past 20+ years. Not so much for the company, though I’ve never had any major issues with the cars, but because of the relationship with a small local dealer in a nearby small town. Great service, no BS, most of the transactions are done via email now.