100% agree. In fact, all the Z cars are fairly pure sports cars—perhaps the execution was a bit lacking in the early Z3s and current Z4, but the philosophy was definitely there and has existed within BMW most of the time.

My point exactly. 305 hp is a marketing number because the transmission takes 2 seconds to kick down from a rolling start, and the front-driven all-season tires won’t grip at a standstill. Sure, the 0-60 time is pretty quick but only if you intentionally launch the car each time.

The horsepower bar has certainly moved, but not in the same way as the market’s ability to buy the cars has evolved.

The price, in today’s dollars, is lower than the outgoing Supra Turbo’s base price in 1998 dollars.

BMW’s insistence that, despite all the M cars, the company had never made a “sports car” since the BMW M1 

I don’t see any 440is going for $40k though.

It probably cost less to just stamp the sheet metal and not have optional holes where they weren’t needed.

It’s actually gone the other way.  Screens like these began deep in the centre stack, then migrated to “float” above the stack.  It’s evolved to be closer to the driver’s line of sight so that he/she needs not look so far away from the road.

They look nothing like each other.

Why, though? This isn’t the same car.

I want a $50k Toyota more than I want a $120k Nissan (GT-R) or a $180k Honda (NSX).

Yeah, but once you’re given the hard points of BMW’s Z4 platform, you can’t really turn that into a 4-seater.  Sort of like the 86/BRZ, once you’re given the hard points of that you can’t really stuff an inline-6 into the engine bay.

The gearshift, radio buttons and climate buttons look like BMW. If you squint really hard, the centre stack even resembles a BMW.

You relinquish pieces of that “freedom” by freely choosing to live in a private community with rules curbing such freedoms.

The root of the issue is that the guy chose to live in a place with an HOA. HOAs are by nature tasked with the nearly impossible mission of keeping everybody in the community happy. Failing that, the mainstream taste applies, and a car with a visibly decayed body certainly falls foul of mainstream taste.

The measures taken in this case were extreme (foreclosure? Seriously?). But at the very bottom, I don’t think there originally was an actual issue here. The HOA’s goal is to keep the community clean and pleasing to everyone’s eyes, nose and hands (at least in the mainstream taste) by eliminating blight.

It’s not Hummer itself that needs forgiving, it’s GM who attempted to sell the brand on disguised Chevy frames which didn’t do so hot off-road.

As outdated, dirty and slow as steam locomotion is, the incredible mechanical detail and the chorus of giant moving parts will never get old.

I think there isn’t a huge advantage on either side, so most companies prefer V6 for the packaging in smaller cars.  V6s can be mounted transversely, which is great for FWD applications.

I don’t disagree, but what stood out to me in the picture was the “Denali” trim. That’s an expensive upgrade that primarily benefits the owner and not his or her passengers.