TRUE FACT! I had a `74 FIAT 128. It had two pull and twist-to-lock knobs to the right of the steering wheel: choke and throttle. The throttle was kind of neat because 1) when you pulled it out you could feel the gas pedal pull away from your foot, and 2) it made 600 highway mile trips less uncomfortable (but unlike a…

H-D has been trying for almost two decades (V-Rod) to find a product to replace the myriad variations of overweight motorcycles marketed to overweight middle-aged men. They’ve tried buying other companies (MV Agusta 2008-2010). They tried bringing out lighter (albeit not “light”) 500 and 750 cc bikes to sell to the…

BK’s coffee seems like a one-note “let’s wake these fuckers up!” over-roasted charjuice. I like dark roasted coffee, but the BK coffee (don’t they call it “Joe” or something like that?) is just unpleasant.

Even in tragedy, grammar matters. 

“except in North America where it’s not available.”

Affordable cars need not be directed solely to the youngest buyers. I’m an old fart looking to replace my 13 year-old sedan. I’d be interested in a new car that was fun and in the sub-$20k range, (Maybe I’ll wind up with a recent used Fiesta or Focus ST) But as long as vehicle manufacturers want to sell vehicles,…

1st Gear: Car Companies Clueless About Car Market

Really though, wouldn’t you much rather . . .

NE Ohio.  There are a lot of them (albeit with rusted door bottoms and wheel arches)

Neutral Compact Trucks

I think they just did some too-little;too-late focus group research and discovered that people simply don’t want to wake up and quaff a hot cup of ‘poo.

There was no Anakin/Padme chemistry. You’re talking about a movie, which would have required “actors” to generate the respective characters’ “chemistry.” There was only one actor in that pair, and I didn’t see any hot self-sexytime from Natalie Portman in that film. She was acting against a CGI green screen of a…

I had one of these and loved it. My kids (who were admittedly smaller than now) loved it. It was a nice combination of engineering and packaging.

1st Gear: Going, Going, Ghosn

You noted the multiple stickers, but failed to mention the ~5 -7 bhp boost each contributes to this French’s Mustard Special Edition Focus.

Playoffs, especially for Lord Stanley’s Cup, make bad betting subjects.

I would like to own this car. My first car was a FIAT 128, and underpowered as it was, I never drove it without grinning (except on long highway drives.) If you’re sitting so low your wallet is scraping the crown of the road, the sensation of speed is satisfying. That said, it’s overpriced for what it is and for what…

Well, I try to get all my technical information from press releases.  So,   .   .   .

I thought Mazda had the “best of both worlds” semi-diesel. Partial spark, partial compression ignition. Non?

It looks nice. But it doesn’t look like ~ twice the market price.