There was probably some element of private discussion along the lines of “hey, if you quietly give up this particular collection of cars you will probably be in much less trouble with those other assets that you have, and we can report you for a lower value of assets seized.”

Depends on what the actual problem is, but the running joke (truth?) is that you don’t get out of the exotic car repair shop for under $1000.

“too far removed from our core mission: defending the Second Amendment,”

The nicer the car, the more inclined I am to keep it looking nice.

My weekend car doesn’t really get dirty except the dust that seems to accumulate on the rear end, so a quick rinse (barely even need to wipe) on the rear end gets rid of 90-95% of the dust.

I don’t view headlight performance ratings as a low-hanging fruit in automotive safety. The government mandates minimum safety standards for lighting. All the base model headlights meet those, at least theoretically. “Poor headlight performance” is almost never identified as a primary cause of an accident. Culturally,…

Username checks out.

I dunno, my laziness cutoff is once every 2 weeks maximum.

Your lawn would love the soap suds and brake dust.

The weather is probably less reliable there than where you live.  Less incentive to keep cars clean.

To some extent, an extremely dirty and/or unkempt car hints at the other aspects of its owner’s home and life. That said...

1st Gear: This is my take. Taller people will tend to be more comfortable in SUVs due to the taller bodies (let’s be real, CUVs have basically overtaken the SUV name so they are now equivalent). Nobody in metro areas really gives a crap about ground clearance.

That sounds like a terrible dealership on top of your problematic car.

These days even Italian cars can make it to 20k miles without a CEL.

What the actual F?  Did you talk to any lawyers or lawyer friends??

TIL: You can design an aircraft to be inherently unstable, compensate for it with active software controls, and still get certified by the FAA to carry over 100 passengers per flight.

Engine-out has not been required (or even possible without huge labour cost) since the 360 Modena.

Any exotic car is generally crack pipe territory. There are plenty of more common offerings that will provide similar performance with lower entry and upkeep costs.

The price is OK, but agreed with your assessment.

The California/Portofino is basically the gateway car with no waitlist.