My dad had a 1983 240ZX. It turned out to be biodegradable before that was cool. I imagine earlier Nissans were even worse. CP

Yep. As a tween in the early 1980's we were taught that we should be thankful our city was a manufacturing center for military hardware. That meant we were almost definitely targeted and would die either instantly or within the first 24 hours. Think about that: the responsible adults who developed the school…

TD;DC. Besides, you were warned so what are you whining about?

Wrong. I regularly put adults back there and four of us spent 2hrs driving it from Ottawa to Montreal for a hockey game. And back, of course. At that time my beloved Talon was starting to suffer from rust and the bracket that held the sensor that determined whether or not the driver’s door was closed was structurally…

Oh don’t even start with me. Sorry guys, this one’s going to be a bit long.

So after x years in service you know anything likely to break has broken and been fixed. You know it was flogged and abused, but it was built to literally run 24/7 for years at a time if necessary. Parts are cheap and plentiful. It will no doubt take you from point a to point b reliably and with minimum fuss for…

Not disagreeing with you, but Republican hypocrisy is so common as to be an assumed standard feature. Note they just spent 8 years fighting tooth and nail against a level-headed, relatively conservative, Harvard-educated Christian family man of humble origins with no skeletons in his closet in order to install a…

I have a 2012 VW Eos with an open airbag recall. I’ve been told that if I was leasing instead of owning then I simply wouldn’t have to worry about it: there’s no chance my dealership will see replacement parts for the next 3 years. One more reason to keep my 3-year-old daughter in the back seat...

My brother is 6'2" and he daily drove his ‘84 for about 5 years with no complaints. Well, other than that one time he tried to buy a broom...

My brother owned an ‘84 for about 5 or 6 years in Ontario. He daily drove it all year. Then he moved out to Edmonton, Alberta for 3 of those years. He drove it out there, towing the smallest U-Haul trailer available and daily drove it through three Edmonton winters. And yes, that is significant - go look at where…

Seconded. My brother had an ‘84 and I’ve always kind of wanted one of them. I can live with the slushbox, but if I could get this for $1500 and put in a stick shift for <$500 I’d be in heaven.

Meh, it’s not nearly that clear-cut. When every other whistleblower in the military has been savagely punished for reporting through the chain of command and the issues over which the whistle was blown are never resolved, then following the rules can appear to be a lose-lose situation. I’d imagine that Manning knew…

Your solution is a hardtop convertible. Well, that and a soft, long-handled carwash brush that doubles as a snow broom. I hate to think of the kinds of scratches you’re looking at if you’re regularly using a shove to get snow off the top of your car...

Which would be nice if I hadn’t sold it for a convertible Mini almost 10 years ago!

Starred for the Eclipse GS - mine was a convertible. Loved that car...

Sadly CP despite my fondness for convertibles. It looks pretty good (don’t all drop tops with the top dropped?) and even seems in decent shape despite the paint, but there just wasn’t much there to begin with. I was seriously thinking about buying a convertible in the early 90's and I looked at the Cavalier very…

To my 3-year-old daughter:

Ah, the thinking that soothed my Gen-X heart back in the 80's. Nice(?) to see it coming back in vogue...

Wuss! I learned to drive on a 1979 Grand Marquis in Canada. Horrible, horrible car in the snow, but if you can drive that gas guzzling piece of shit in a snowstorm you can drive anything!!

I’m a guy and may have some perspective here. The problem is that most adults with any disposable income already have stuff they want or have purchased stuff they need. The remaining options tend to be useless crap or really expensive items that no one would give as a gift (I want a new roof and my driveway repaved -…