My dad had one when I was but a child. Silver 1.6 Carbed, many kilometers, eventually gifted it to my canadian uncle while he was staying in germany. Got crushed afterwards. Replaced it with a lemon of a Volkswagen Multivan.

One of the very first cars I’ve ridden in as a yung lad was a silver BX, 1.6 carb engine. At the time my dad owned both it and its successor, a 1997 pre-facelift Xantia Diesel Wagon which he is adamant about being the best car he’s ever owned. Probably influenced me to look beyond common opinion when it comes to cars.

Fancier interior materials are not necessarily more durable than simpler plastics. If anything the LX has more luxury gadgets to potentially break than the LC.

Aerodynamics work in mysterious ways. Alfa was using a wind tunnel as early as the late 1950s, believe it or not, the original Giulia Berlina is quoted to have a cd of .34

I’ve read somewhere that the drag coefficient of the Hardtop is actually worse than that of the softtop.

Toyota did sell them with the 20 valve 4A-GE though

505s are all but extinct by now. The 406 on the other hand is still readily seen though, it is just as simple and robust mechanically, but because it is FWD there is a lot more parts commonality with the smaller Hatchbacks which means sourcing replacement parts to keep them going is much easier and cheaper, plus they…

I don’t know anyone outside of america who thinks that either of these are actually good cars.

Sometimes I wonder if the reputation of french cars is solely based on the fact that nobody can pronounce the brand names.

I own a 406, only I have legal right to comment. Get a Park Ave. Gets about half the mileage, but then again fuel is half the price in America. Likely to be reliable and unlikely to be expensive.

Neither of them were built in the 1920 but ok

In later seasons they switched to a 4.5L V8, too.

The sheer number of abandoned Beetle replacements is quite astonishing. I guess VWs financial troubles were caused more by their willingness to spend billions of Deutschmarks on getting a ridiculous mid-engined hatchback (ahem EA266) nearly production ready only to stop the program at the 11th hour rather than the…

Nevertheless demand for the Beetle was in sharp decline by the 1970s. If you look at Sales numbers, total Beetle production hit 15 million units in 1972, in the following 31 years they built a further 6 million units (way less than what the Golf achieved in the same timeframe). And those later Beetles were nowhere…

And if you look at how it panned out for VW, you know that VW eventually had to do a radical modernization of their entire product line (Passat, Golf) to stay relevant. 

For decades, european countries have imposed a lower tax on Diesel fuel compared to Gasoline. Does it make sense now?

That’s literally what I did

I used to own a manual, diesel Minivan. It may sound cliche but the manual does improve the driving experience if you’re actually into driving.

Europe in general is a treasure box for equally terrible yet awesome minivans. How about a VR6, manual, all wheel drive Seat Alhambra?

This gen of Polo shares tons of mechanical parts with the Golf, finding parts for them is exceedingly easy.