Whoa. Seems like a lot of pressure rolled off your shoulders not being EIC?

Honda CR-X

This is NP, no question - even if I wouldn’t because of the missing ingredient that is RWD.

In other words, you want them to die.

Interestingly, this is a much less Alfa-like interior, than the one the 159 had.

A nice, late-model 504 Coupé, in an otherwise non-car-related FP article. Our work bore fruit.

It does, but Volkswagen stopped feeling human at around 1995.

That’s actually the biggest problem with all Volkswagens, at least in Europe. They are perfect. But I wouldn’t want to be seen dead in one.

Imagine how much fun the lesser European diesel manuals are, if one of the best is this much fun!

This strategy has been around in Europe for quite a while. Heck, even GM does it with Opel - at any give time, there are usually two Astras on the price list, the current model, and the old one, with only one or two engine choices but at a huge discount. Skoda did it. Audi “sold” the tooling of the one before last A4…

Thing is though, the Defender is good off-road because of aluminium. It enables a much lower center of gravity, and lower weight overall, which makes it better off-road. Of course, when you design an Aluminium body for the 21st century, you cannot cut corners (and legs) like the Defender does, so it’s not as…

That’s a Puli, a Hungarian breed. And that’s a rally fighter (found mostly the US) in the background.

The miata is a very good answer to this question too. But wait, there’s another sports car, that has a manual gearbox, is low on driver assist technology (can be switched off at least), and a peppy, but a NA and just-powerful-enough engine.

Eating water pumps??? Exactly proving my point. Can you call an engine, that is in need of parts replacements this often an “economy” engine?

Yeah but you know the reason why Mazda figured Na engines? They spent the same amount of development on those as the others did on turbos. No one had the Chevy board at gunpoint, and told them to keep producing the same shit NA engine, so that their newfangled turbo unit would sell.......

Oh yeah, i should have added “European” to the post. I meant 1.0 to 1.6 liter turbos as small displacement, by European standards your 2.5 is at least mid size, over and beyond what anyone would consider an economy engine around here, especially with a turbo.

Fuel consumption isn’t the be all - end all of economy motoring. I’m not your garden-variety scarecrow, but that 3cyl ecoboost will need a lot more massaging and money to keep going at mileages the NA motor will, or at least should be able to handle without much hassle. That, and as i mentioned in my original post,…

I’m not saying they are bad to drive, no, they are nice to drive, in most cases at least. But the cars that get these are no longer economy vehicles, relatively speaking, and that’s a problem, because they are advertised as such.

I have to say i hate the trend of small displacement turbocharged petrol engines in economy cars. Don’t get me wrong, modern turbo tech is a marvel in engine management, and has every right to be in a hot hatch or other performance applications, but because of all the complexity, their presence defeats the concept of…

that’s a CJ-7 though? That said, I like the wheels much better.