As someone who’s driven several Pittsburgh winters in FWD cars with all-seasons ... please don’t buy studded tires. Regular winters (AWD optional) will be perfectly fine, and studded tires beat the living hell out of the road. It’s in bad enough shape already.

1.2 million is chump change in a vehicle development program. That would pay for a new passenger side floormat, but not a lot more.

Speaking from personal experience ... with an unloaded bed on wet pavement, it is comically easy to lose all rear traction in a big truck with a lot of torque, but it’s also pretty scary.

I had the same conclusion test driving - Looked at a Fiesta ST and loved it, but it’s too small in the midwest. The Focus ST is the right size, but the GTI beats the crap out of it because it’s nowhere near as good to drive as the Fiesta.

Eh ... more commonly a large part of the front suspension (including the wheel in a few larger pieces) tears away, which both removes energy and pushes the vehicle away from the impact. Look at the testing for the Malibu or the Continental. You see a very harsh “stop” in the Model S test, where the other vehicles…

I want that really, really badly, even as somebody else’s project ... but not at that price. CP at 21, NP at 5 or 10 less.

Yes and no. Tire noise (if it’s tread noise and not a vibration-y noise) can be reduced by quieter tires, or by having more sound deadening in the vehicle itself. If there’s not much of the latter, ALL tires will sound loud. If Volvo put loud tires on a semi-luxury product ... I’m disappointed.

So you’re suggesting that even knowingly selling a product that fails in a dangerous way (where competitor products DO NOT), Takata should not be responsible? Those deaths and injuries WOULD NOT have happened anyway if the affected vehicles had had better airbags.

Some people believe that towing with anything besides a diesel is a crime. I’d argue that if you’re towing enough for that to be true, this may not be the truck for you, but I have a hard time telling people to go buy a new Super Duty because holy shit those things are ridiculous.

I’m just going to let Porsche speak for me here - “The new Cayman GT4 is the long-awaited step beyond the boundary. The step over to the other side of the frontier – onto the racetrack. It’s our tribute to all the motorsport enthusiasts and performance motivators. To all those who really do mean business. To all the…

Yeah, except that the Cayman isn’t lacking on power, and even if it was, the GT4 gets some more power too. The Miata Clubsport comparison suggested above is more appropriate.

He did mean that. But my point is, the GT4 isn’t low on power, or equal on power, to any other Cayman. It’s HIGHER on power. Not a lot, because it didn’t need a lot. The BRZ doesn’t need a lot either, but it does need something.

I don’t think a Cayman GT4 is a good comparison. Sure, it has less power than a 911 GT3, but it still has plenty (nearly twice what the BRZ does), despite weighing barely more than a BRZ.

That’s part of it. The other part is collision height. If two Corollas hit each other, their bumpers colide. If a Corolla hits a Tahoe ... good chance the height difference is going to make things worse for the Corolla. A barrier simulates the former rather than the latter.

You don’t really do much on a 911 without dropping the engine. So of course once it’s out, it’s perfectly easy to access.

No, you have to announce totally unreasonable (but futuristic) goals, and then burn the first round of money. Key component.

Theoretically, closer to the former, since no one would buy a Malibu at a CTS price, and you have to charge a CTS price if you spruce up all the little bits.

You joke, but most companies do actually have a “revenue” metric that design changes are weighed against. Finance might say that your “$50" change is worth $0, because realistically, how many people will actually pay more for a vehicle because of it? Or, because of the oddities of benchmarking, they might actually say…

My hot take is this - if Fields wasn’t cutting it (and presumably this is not an instantaneous change from a few months ago), WHY DID HE GET A NEARLY 20% RAISE?

I’m honestly neither disappointed nor surprised. The GT/GT40 has always been the car Ford took racing first and drove on the street second or not at all. Ford never planned on selling this for any reason other than to make it raceable at Le Mans, and it’s engineered accordingly.