Minus all the show car bits, it definitely seems appealing. Truly, I’d love a cheap, reliable, electric grocery getter. Something that does the job of picking up and dropping off my son at daycare, and then grabbing a new basketball net at Dick’s sporting good. You know... the mundane stuff.

The Ford still seems like the value play here, and I trust the institutional knowledge of Ford building trucks. It’s hard for me to want to be the first to purchase a new manufacturer, because I’d be worried about them folding.

The Holy Grail of Humdrum.
The Goliath of Gray.
The Superhero of Stale.

The Volvo 240.

Perhaps it’s cultural, but I don’t see a swoopy saccharine subcompact appealing to the American automotive market. Americans prefer tumescent trucks, replete with rippling vasculature. Calling your car a “Good Cat” might as well invite along a different denomiation for cat, from whence life itself emerges.

4th Gear:

Call me crazy, but I love the wheel design. The closely grouped lines feel “Alpina-ish” in style, with four quadrants. It’s almost art deco, if you look at them long enough.

If you hit a deer wearing glasses, perhaps you’ve had too many drinks.

I know this isn’t the point, but I’d be absolutely terrified of traveling with that amount of money. An untimely car theft, fire, or other... well, anything... could put everything you worked for in jeopardy.

Seems like a warranty issue to me. I will say this: My G80 (with the 5.0 Tau V8) ran like a top. It never gave me a single issue. Also, the powerband of the V8 really suited the car. The second generation Tau 5.0 is a highly underrated engine.

In a weird way, Genesis is actually perfectly positioned to become a full-EV company, because so few people who know the brand. I remember my entire Genesis ownership experience was, “It’s a what?”

This is a car for a first time driver. If you have a teen who is closing in on 16, this is the right rig for the money. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s also not such a turd that they’ll hate you for it.

Well that’s good news. With only 600 lb ft, I have found sometimes it’s hard to get up hills. That extra 400 lb ft should really help.

I won’t try to cite it here, because Kinja hates all my links, but there is some interesting reading on the history of wildfires available from folks in academia, and most of it is... oddly accessible.

Neutral: Minor league baseball is a great first-date night. If any of you are still single, it’s fun, cheap, the food is... not going to be a topic of discussion.

How many of you have left a convertible top open on a nice day, and then had a micro-thunderstorm arrive while you’re a 10 minute walk away, eating dinner at a nice little Thai place?

... and was about to turn under manual control of the operator, who was using the vehicle’s joystick control...

Morris Car Company has also sold 0 cars, and I’m valuing my company at... I’m going to say $100B. I feel like I know a lot about cars, and I’d like you all to buy a piece of my company.

What the hell is a Dacia Sandero? That sounds like a made up name from Grand Theft Auto. I refuse to believe this is a real car.

This almost exactly describes the situation with my wife’s Lexus RX350. We got an offer from Carmax that leaves us $4,500 in the black versus the buyout. (Now we just need to decide what she wants next.) It’s basically a down payment.

Technically, Aggie Docs prefer the term “butchers.”