Oh man, I forgot about those. I had a friend who had one of them about 15 years ago. That thing was badass and also so generic looking. Nobody had any idea what it was packing under the hood.

The Subaru RX. Not WRX, but the WRX’s grandfather.

This is pushing the limits of the phrase “made it to production” but... the GM EV1.

I had a Jeep Patriot a while back with the 2.4l “World” engine and a manual transmission. The engine made 172hp and 165lb-ft and was inexplicably slow. I mean the Patriot wasn’t exactly a lightweight but wasn’t a very heavy car either.

The words “last time” imply that it’s happened more than once. I fortunately have never had my car catch on fire.

Mitsubishi makes everything from bicycles to jets.

Technically not Craigslist but word-of-mouth, which is one of the ways us old-timers bought cars before Craigslist existed. Since all the weird stuff happened after I was there in person it could totally be a Craigslist story though.

Replacing their wiper blades. I see so many cars around here with the wiper blades peeling apart, barely able to remove water from the window.

For a daily driver, absolutely I care about fuel economy. It was one of the things I considered when shopping for a new (to me) daily. For something I’m just going to slowly wear out while sitting in traffic every day I want to do it while spending the least amount of money possible.

Some time ago I had a 1994 Subaru Legacy that had a bad starter. I grabbed a replacement from the junkyard and installed it and everything was fine.

1987 Subaru XT turbo. It was THE coolest car, funky futuristic wedge shape (well, what people of the 80s thought future cars would look like), popup headlights, height adjustable air suspension, digital dash, removable roof panel nearly the size of a targa top, etc.

I had a 1987 Subaru GL wagon for a while in college. It made 84hp.

Smartphone connectivity. With the ubiquity of smartphones there is no reason any car sold in 2021 should not have hands-free calling and audio streaming at the very least, if not Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

Headlights on = taillights on has been required on all new vehicles for many decades. What you’re seeing are people driving with their running lights on (NOT headlights) or cars with burned out taillights.

Drivers who interfere with the flow of traffic under the guise of being “polite.”

I worked in the car business from 2007-2019 (6 years in online sales, 6 years in an upper management operations position) and I can tell you while online sales are going to increase, brick-and-morter car stores aren’t ever going away.

Yes, there are much fewer cars available with prices at the bottom end of the market thanks to America’s obsession with crossovers and SUVs and trucks. But they really haven’t gotten more expensive. It’s just inflation.

It works the other way too. Check out KBB for something like a late model Chevy Malibu, or anything else you’d expect to find in a rental car fleet, and then check your local market. Anyone paying KBB for one of those things would be paying thousands too much.

Neutral:

Of course, since the greenhouse gases are still building up it takes more and more ice each time, thus solving the problem once and for all.