I would buy my mom a 2001 Honda S2000 like the one she used to own and regrets selling. Although she likes her 2015 Prius C (I don’t know why, either), she can’t figure out even the most basic of technology, like how to connect her phone through Bluetooth. The S2000 was beautifully analog and she does miss driving a…

When I was 17 I let my 15 year old, unlicensed friend drive my brand new car because...reasons? Anyway, with me in the passenger seat, he decided to floor it and got it up to 70 MPH in a 25 MPH residential area. Because traction control was still a decade or so away, he easily lost control around a turn, knocked a…

1978 had some real winners out there, most notably the Chevy Chevette. My parents had one of these turds (in Grimace purple over tan vinyl interior, no less), and while there was never anything inherently wrong with it, we all hated that thing and unaffectionately called it “The Grape Mobile”. There was the burn-your-a…

I used to work for a rental car company, so I’ve seen it all. The worst was when I found used condoms, hypodermic needles, and heavily used and still moist lingerie...

The most egregious example of this is last year’s season’s handling of Spa...or a complete lack thereof. Never mind the whole controversy around the decision to run two laps behind the safety car and red flagging the race on lap three, making it the shortest race in F1 history. DTS didn’t have time for all that, what…

I never much cared for dogs. That is, until I inherited one through marriage. Of course, over time I grew to love that furry friend nearly more than my wife, and we became inseparable.

I read an article a while ago that Hello Games has a huge surge in sales every time they release a big content update, which also usually coincides with their 50% off sale. It’s a pretty small studio, so it must be enough for them to ‘keep the lights on’ at least.

$70-100k for Angry Birds with a Mercedes thrown in? I’m on board, put me on the waitlist.

Subscription services, FULL STOP. Just give me all of the features I paid for, dammit!

Riding in my mom’s Honda S2000 with her driving and not letting the RPM’s get above 4,000. Yes, premium fuel is expensive, and yes, she was in her 60's, but still. If you want a fuel efficient drop-top geriatric Sunday-school cruiser, buy a Sebring and give me the damn sports car!

The Toyota “Coupe High Rider” (yes, really) C-HR, or really any car that a marketing department decides from a small focus group that targets “the youths”. The design was so busy and incoherent with its weird angles and 10th Gen Civic-esque taillights it gave me a migraine just looking at it.

Gran Turismo games have always leaned more towards the clinical side of racing sims, but I thought GT3 was the only one that felt “fun”. It boasted a clean, unfussy interface that wanted to get you in a car and racing in as few steps as possible while still looking good and being a celebration of cars. Don’t get me…

Any car with a manual transmission. Show your car some love and let the shifter do some of the work for a change. 

The “sad robot” GM ad from the 2007 XLI Super Bowl. After dropping a screw on an assembly line, it gets fired by GM and forced to take on a number of demoralizing jobs until it eventually takes its own life by jumping off a bridge. Maybe not the best or funniest ad ever, but the sheer audacity of it worked, as I still…

Trying to teach my younger sister how to drive her new Civic Si, for which she had no prior experience to a) driving a manual, and b) driving a car…at all. Spoiler alert: it did not end well. There is a happy ending, in that she did eventually learn to drive it and didn’t even lay waste to the clutch.

Adam, thanks for investigating this...very illuminating! While a lot of this is, as you said, an “open secret”, it’s nice to have confirmation for someone who is actually in the thick of it.

An automatic. Kids are too soft these days. And not just any manual will do; they need something extra janky that will teach them to “git gud”. I’m thinking a mechanical clutch on some old beater U-Haul truck that won’t engage half of it’s four forward gears. Kid wants to learn how to drive, give them the crash course…

Bentley T2. James May warned us that it would not only ruin our lives, but it would make us look like a “failed porn star”. I’m very conservative with my money, but I can feel a midlife crisis coming on. Sure, I be be like the dads of my kid’s friends and buy a Jeep Wrangler, Harley, and/or Corvette. Or, I could do…

Thanks for the reply! I’d bet you’re correct on most points, and definitely looking forward to hearing what a developer has to say. It’s never been a dealbreaker for me, more just a general curiosity. I remember reading an article, maybe on this site, of a driver that took laps in a first gen NSX at Laguna Seca in…

Well, it’s an improvement. In 2008, Fox News was all up in arms about the demoralizing effect on our youths with the lesbian sex one could have in Mass Effect on their “SeXboxes”. Now their mad they can’t get to it fast enough.