The driver's name wasn't Oliver St. John-Mollusc, was it?

Damn you, Nibbles!

The right answer, of course, is just about any late '60s/early '70s Mopar in Panther Pink. But that's already been covered. So I'll go in the completely opposite direction here.

I'm not trying to be a downer—it's just that the arrival of this car is being hyped like it's the Second Coming, and a lot of people are buying the hype. Everybody wants it to be a car that is:

You guys do realize this thing is going to be a letdown when it finally arrives, right? So much ink has been spent building anticipation that the real thing will never live up to expectations.

No disagreement from me on the strange cutline of the vinyl roof. But the steel-roofed Matadors don't suffer from that problem. Unfortunately, 5-mph bumpers were a blight on many a design in the '70s and '80s, as manufacturers just hung parking-curb-sized slabs of steel on both ends of the car, cantilevered away…

I've never considered the Matador coupe awkward looking until today, when looking at the side-profile pic. But even now, I think that's the only bad angle—otherwise it is one of the cleanest designs to come from an American car company in the '70s (although with that kind of qualification, I know it could be…

As a kid, I had a 1/24 scale model of this exact car, except for the wheels, which were a variation on the ubiquitous 5-slot mag. I always thought the Matador coupe was a pretty nice looking car, especially for the time period, but even at the peak of a Testors-model-glue-sniffing delirium, I don't think I could part…

Kubica is a fierce competitor, no doubt. This particular battle, on the final lap of the 2007 Japanese GP, had me on the edge of my seat and shouting at the TV.

Yes, I have nominated the Lotus Carlton/Omega as the answer to several QOTDs. It is one of my most favorite sleeper cars.

At least in theory, the Catera had the potential to be perceived as a "real" Cadillac. It was much larger than a Cimarron, rear-wheel-drive, V6, and a decent platform. The Cimarron had none of those things.

Agreed. Alonso was held up at the apex and had a poor exit off the corner. It appears he has to lift/brake at the apex and jink to the left to avoid the Lotus. At that point, his track position is compromised and he is going to track out too quickly unless he pinches his line coming out of the corner, which he…

Cimarron. That is all.

Left to their own devices, some of them would certainly have failed in the face of far superior products then available from foreign competitors. I agree that the Japanese makes weren't really world-class until they were competing globally. But at the same time, their domestic market remained protected even when…

You mean all that black smoke and raw gas coming out the tailpipe isn't POWER?

"Disappearing cities? Locusts? I was there when the whole fucking world iced right over."

Decades of protectionist trade policies protected Japan's manufacturers from failure when they were at their most vulnerable, and then allowed them to become established and to learn engineering and manufacturing methods from foreign manufacturers who could not threaten their domestic market share.

I love me some wankels, and the roll-down rear windows almost make this car worth it. But the J.C.-Whitney-grade add-ons kind of ruin it for me. CP.

It wouldn't happen with just a carb change, but it would be entirely possible with some aggressive porting, a header, and a properly sized exhaust. Given the "quality" of the add-ons on this Cosmo, however, I doubt that any of those things have been done.

Yeah, but building the engine with a set of carbon or ceramic apex seals means you wouldn't have to change them so often.