How is the gearbox culture in Japan overall? More like the US, where it's common to not know how to drive a stick, or like in Europe where manual is pretty much the default choice? I live in Sweden, and I don't think I've ever seen an automatic Miata here, neither irl or for sale.

The US market has also made it pretty clear that they want leaf springs, sealed beam headlights and a cow’s scull bolted onto the front bumper.

‘Mid-engine luxury sports car' not just 'a car with 400 hp'.

You say that you only care about US sales, yet you seem to try to motivate increased power with the fact that it would be ‘good for sales’. The only number that matters is the global one, if a car is sold then Porsche couldn't care less about in which country it is. Do you realize the flaw in your logic when you try…

Yeah, that's something I'll never be able to understand. Virtually every single person outside the violent biker gangs world looks down upon these people. What kind of regular law-abiding person would want to emulate their style or look like he's one of them? Violent/criminal biker gangs have been around for half a…

Yup. Having fitted regular road tires to their test vehicles seems like a pretty valid reason to cancel due to rain, any car will get stuck in the wrong conditions on the wrong tires. But the representative calling them 'tire immune' is just moronic.

Seconded. Doing these things while ignoring safety measures isn’t entirely unlike suicide. Just like one might blame someone committing suicide for being selfish, one might blame this guy for the same thing.

Someone (can’t remember who) once said that ‘Patriotism is the misdirected belief that a particular country is the greatest simply because it’s the one I happened to be born in’.

Yes, THIS. Red leather can be fantastic when it's properly done (see certain Alfa Romeos for example), and ok when it's not properly done (see certain Porsches). But when combined with burly woodgrain? No. Nonononono. Would rather just spraypaint it all black.

I'm neither from Italy nor the US, but the last time I was driving through Italy I was actually driving with an open mouth for extended amounts of time. There is no possible way to describe in words just how beautiful that country is. Add some twisty mountain roads, brilliant food and a relaxed attitude to speeding…

I disagree. When I was reading the statement about how cloning splits a soul in two, etc., my first thought was Hey, at least it’s not as insane as scientology.

Very good looking, but it's a holder for three iPhones (who uses three iPhones?), taking up much more space than said phones together, and one that only work conceptually if all three phones are docked, and the phones have their screens permanently on?

I kind of agree, intuitively it should follow the same procedure as cheating in a traditional sport. If a Formula 1 driver is cheating during the next Japanese grand prix, can he be tried in a court according to the 'unfair competition prevention law' then?

See, this is why Rockstar's almost paranoid approach to modding is absurd. Quality mods generate both publicity and real, actual sales.

Normally, people tend to underestimate the amount of work that goes into any software development, but yeah, I'm inclined to agree.

I can imagine worse fates than being stuck in the Dolomites forever.

See what I replied to another commenter. The things that I disliked with the later seasons of TG are things that are small enough that they should be out of reach for high-level BBC execs.

Hmm, possibly. But it seems that these four were exactly the ones who had the power to stop the obvious scripting, the predictable jokes, the lack of proper road testing and the general trashiness that the show dived into in the later years. If we're really lucky something good can come out of this, but I would be…

Truth be told, I was really hoping that they would take this opportunity to do something different rather than just keep going in the same tracks. Comparing the early seasons to the recent, TG had grown so incredibly stale or artificial. Either one of them needed to be replaced to shake up the dynamics and bring back…

You didn’t specify which country...