First car: hand-me-down ‘84 in all it’s 92hp Iron Duke glory. I actually remember it fondly. I put 50k+ miles on it in less than 2 years w/o a hiccup. Towed my race bike with it. Slept in it on the road. It made it past 200k on the original motor/trans and was wrecked by a later owner before it actually died.

Every shop I deal with has torque sticks they use between the gun and the socket. They are not perfect but at least they prevent the 200 lb-ft horror shows.

Lowest priced 2010 458s with high miles, maybe. Asking prices for ‘13 458s are a $70-80k over ‘13 MP4-12Cs. I know someone who bought a ‘13 MP4-12C with 3000 miles for nearly $100k off original MSRP in January (arriving home just in time for it to sit snowbound for 2 months!).

In the Volt, the design mantra was a consistent performance experience in either EV mode OR ICE mode. They never combine the outputs of the ICE and electric motors in a way that changes the behavior of the car dramatically (a Volt is slightly faster at higher speeds in ICE mode). Anyway, point being that it was a…

I dunno. The first time I saw an F80 328 interior I thought "hmmm...unusual to see a showroom car with the vinyl interior". It was leather.

Extended range was claimed but AFAIK it has not been demonstrated by owners. The early P85Ds had demonstrably worse range than the P85. I gather that a software update for something Tesla calls “torque sleep” improved the range to something close to a RWD P85.

About 1.5 years ago, an exotic service shop in Newark, NJ shut down w/o warning. There was a Diablo Roadster in there COMPLETELY apart. Basically a shell on a frame dolly. The drivetrain was sitting up on top of the office and the rest of the car was scattered all over the damn shop. It wasn't crashed but was…

He should write an article about that!

I agree with all the points above but, realistically, you have to expect that your car is worth less if you did extensive work on an expensive car. I’ve done a bunch of timing belt changes but I paid pros for both my old Lotus Esprit S4s and my 360. Receipts from THE East coast Lotus Esprit guy made selling my…

I've told this one before but when I was obsessing over buy/not buy a Ferrari 360 after selling my GT3, it was my wife who pushed me over the edge. "One of the things I love about you is that you're so decisive. Why are you over thinking this car? What's the worst that can happen?" I know when to keep my mouth shut!

Well played.

Nice job, especially over a weekend.

Curious: how much work are those repairs if you're handy? I get that you're paying for convenience too but that's the math I always do with extended warranties. The blower motor appears to be $110 and the gasket $20-30. By my Cheapskate Math, I'd still be $3k ahead, though possibly many hours behind.

Nice. My first car project ever was to replace a rod-knocking Iron Duke 2.5L in a '75 (?) Chevy Monza with a 305 out of a Firebird using parts from a crashed manual trans V8 Monza. To 17yo me, it seemed easier to me than properly fixing the 2.5.

Hah. I got STI-bro-douched the other morning for having the courtesy to let a pickup merge in rather than boxing him out. Fart can BRAAAAAAAAP past me to stand on brakes one car ahead, tailgate that car, BRAAAAAAAP sketchy no-signal lane change BRRRRAAAAP. Thanks to one lucky light, he arrived wherever the hell he…

I don't know that I consider it a "supercar" but we appear to be applying the term liberally today. :)

I seem to recall those cars actually had itty bitty air filters that got clogged in no time. At the quicky-lube place I worked for in high school, we stopped suggesting people replace them until they were well and truly packed because they would get pissed at us. "I replaced that LAST time!"

I worked at a jiffy-lube-ish place in high school and someone put a mark on his filter, checked it in the parking lot, and came storming back into the shop "you assholes didn't change my filter ...blah, blah, blah...mark on it". Pit guy casually reached over and picked the guys filter out of the bin. "THIS mark?"

He was outside the car.

I came very close to doing something similar in my old Lotus Esprit S4s. A 1/2 gallon jug of milk somehow got under the passenger seat and I had assumed I left it at the store.