My first job out of college was with an avionics company. Most of the processors they used were state of the art in the early-to-mid 90's for this very reason. Those processors were proven reliable over tens of thousands of hours and widely varying temperature conditions, which was way more important than processing…

They’ve been around long enough that VW has worked the major bugs out of them. Just be sure to change the transmission fluid (I think that’s what it’s referred to as - they have liquid cooled clutches) when required. That’s an expensive service, but it’s really expensive if you don’t and the trans fails.

On the early ones, closing the trunk hard left a mark on the bumper cover. Mopar quality!

Well, that sucks badly for them. I still think they should have restricted the MultiAir to a special fuel economy edition, like Ford’s 1.0L I-3 Ecoboost is, and pushed ahead the 2.4L, but I understand the logic a bit better now.

Ford’s double clutch was a mess for several reasons:

That’s a great design concept, but I question it’s long term durability. At last years NY International Auto Show, the Mopars were the only cars that had seriously scratched and scuffed plastic by the end of the week*, but all of the 200s they had on display had broken center consoles. While the average user won’t…

Everything about including the 1.4 MultiAir in the initial launch was dumb. It was marketed as the high power and high efficiency option, but it’s a peaky, laggy little engine even with the stick, and placed in a heavy car. The dual clutch automatic wasn’t great when it finally arrived, either. People who wanted ‘the…

This is the best idea of the 2016. Yes, we’ve barely finished with January, but we’re done here.

Mediocre. The steeply raked rear glass limits how large an item you could put back there without putting the seats down.

This will get dirty in about 5 minutes AND it looks silly with the black airbag cover. Give me all black so it wears well or all beige so it blends.

I’m 26 and I want that hat.

Jet powered snow blowers are common in the US, they’re usually a bit less...improvised though:

I know I’m going to piss off the Jezebel crowd on this, but the idea that one of the most powerful Imperial officers left after Endor is a non-white woman is kind of silly. The Empire was a narrow minded, xenophobic, sexist, organization whose arrogance was their undoing. The Empire in the original trilogy was run by…

I’m pretty sure MkIII Ross’ couldn’t be reassembled wrong. Ian at Forgotten Weapons has a video detailing the issue, and he does a demo of what happens when you do disassemble the bolt wrong on an earlier Mark. C&R Arsenal also has a great video that goes into further depth on the development of the Ross if you have…

The rarity of new production 8x56R - and the kick, oof! - scared me off of buying a M95. They were so cheap for a while there, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy one. I had two K31s and a K11 and they spoiled me for straight pulls. You’re right that GP11 is nearly gone, and the Prvi isn’t any cheaper than .303, so…

Don’t these use the same B-series engine as the Miata? NP because it’s rare, unusual, and because they’re surprisingly decent cars to drive in base model form so a hot-rod version would probably be fun.

Prvi Partizan was $0.70/round last time I bought it, so you’re talking $35 for 5 magazines, plus shipping. That’s about what other new production, full size military cartridges ( 7.92x57 Mauser, 6.5x55 Swedish, 7.5x55 Swiss, 7.5 French, 8mm Lebel, etc) cost. The real issue is finding FMJs in stock. Most shops only…

I’ve seen a few LGT wagons, but only one stick. I wish Subaru still made cars that cool, but we’re going to have to wait for trends to reverse for anything remotely like them to come back to market. I hope there a few wagons out there when I have the time and space to buy one, but I’m not optimistic.

Did the Syrians actually fight? I was under the impression they were assigned to guard the border because they weren’t the most enthusiastic supporters of the campaign.

TIL CH-46s were painted in camoflage. I’ve only ever seen them in gray and Vietnam-era green.