Oh god, the leaks. I still remember those. I had what appeared to be an intermittent issue in which the brake fluid would become contaminated over time, and it took me the longest goddamned time to figure out why. It turned out that the source of the leak was a little tiny crack in the rear master cylinder; something…

Those little Saturns were terrible cars in many ways (I know; I owned one for eight years and did much of my own work on it), but they weren't entirely without their charms and unexpected capabilities.

I find it funny that this seems so odd or amazing - do you know how many manufacturers put out little four-cylinder econoboxes that were stripped to hell and fitted with heavy-duty suspension meant for low-level grassroots racing?

Yeah, well, freedom isn't free...

Again, the Golf and the TT had DCTs as early as 2003, prior to the release of the Veyron. The business case for the DCT had already been made, and development for the DCT in those two cars began prior to the development of the gearbox for the Veyron. If putting a DCT in something as pedestrian as a variant of the Golf…

That's a shame. I always had an inexplicable fondness for the little things; not really sure why. I just liked them.

What R&D would that be? What technologies did the Veyron pioneer that didn't already exist in other VAG products, even fairly pedestrian ones?

Given that DCT were available in Volkwagens and Audis prior to the launch of the Veyron, I'm not sure that the Veyron, in the small numbers that it has been built in, did a whole lot to mainstream that type of transmission. As for the tires, I know that the tires were developed specifically for the car, but I think…

Every other brand within VAG is capable of standing on its own. More people know of, and aspire after, high-end Audis or Porsches, and know the brand connection. Most non-car people couldn't tell you that Bugatti is owned by VAG, thus negating its effect as an image car or halo brand for VAG.

...And it will remain an irrelevant footnote in automotive history; not unlike the Veyron.

I can see why you might object to it, but look on the other side: if we adopted this philosophy as a whole, we would know virtually nothing about our own history. No one would ever have discovered Pompeii, The Valley of Kings, Troy, or any of the other countless historic remains that taught us where we came from and…

Dude, you just rattled that off so perfectly that I can't decide whether you've been rehearsing that one and saving it for years, or if you just... I have no fucking idea.

In some ways, I agree with what you are saying here, but there are a few points that I'd differ on:

On an interesting side note, you touch upon a concept that may be more relevant than you realize. With the advent of more advanced gun concepts, such as rail guns, there is some possibility of something similar in concept to the battleships of old suddenly becoming a lot more relevant, particularly in ship-to-ship…

To a certain extent, Tyler, I'd say the United States Navy (and the United States Marine Corps) came to the same conclusion in 2001 when they began development of the America-class amphibious assault ships, the first two of which will be wholly specialized in aircraft operation, even at the expense of a traditional…

Time, Patrick, time.

What is the Lexus line-up but, for the most part, gussied-up Toyotas? In fact, Lexus started out as a brand to sell the higher-end Toyotas that were sold in Japan. Eventually, after a period of many years, it was successful enough that it began to spawn a small number of its own platforms. That took a long, long time,…

Pippa is cute, but I'd take Kate Middleton all day long. I hate the concept of royalty, and I think that the remaining figurehead monarchies are somewhat sad, but if there is anyone I've ever seen that simply nails the positive image of royalty, it's Kate Middleton. She's a lovely woman.

Assuming it's the same ship as the one pictured below, she's been scrapped:

Warships absolutely are not built on a cost-no-object basis. There's a reason why the Seawolf-class submarines and the Zumwalt-class destroyers were curtailed at three ships each. There's a reason why the Ticonderoga-class cruisers were built on destroyer hulls, rather than dedicated cruiser hulls.