So my question is: hardest track, or hardest race? I understand corner one takes big, brass balls, but does it take more skill to take those four corners than to drive a rally course in the rain, or take an off camber curve on the Nurburgring? I realise with all the cars on the track and everything else the drivers…

That's awesome. Yes the engine might behave like a princess, but it can't be less reliable than the car I have now. In a couple years the teething problems of the new engine, peoples fear of rotarys, and the must-have-a-new-car syndrome will drive down prices until I can afford a 2009, or at least get a 2004 and put a…

I hate to bitch about the scoring system like so many others, but a 7 for looks? Really. There is one view of this that looks good and that's its ass. Otherwise it looks like an overweight whale. The Mazda6, for reference got seven and it's widely considered a handsome mobile. I know this is based at five being…

Das racist.

But Jamaican is not a race. Most are of a single race, i.e. of African descent. It's something of a cultural parody, the same as portraying all Canadians as super nice people. The part where it get's mixed up is when you confuse Jamaican with 'of African descent'. Also, racism, by definition, isn't tied to majority,…

I'd argue there's a foreseen crisis looming, a couple even. Global Warming, increasingly horrible air quality, oil reserves dropping with much of what is left being harder to extract. Efficiency makes so much more sense to strive after than horsepower, especially when most people on the roads do not appreciate the…

The only problem is when you turn that wheel it's as precise as a the steering wheel on a GT SnoRacer, thanks to the cost cutting use of the recirculating ball steering.

'Mon ami' is of course French.

I'm with you, but you kind of split off into a wankel myth i.e. that the wankel in particular was banned because it was just too good. I'm pretty sure they were going to be banned after 1991 anyways so Mazda went big. Also, on the whole rotary mis-information note, I get annoyed when people say the rotary is simply a…

Because it was designed to burn oil (like a diesel) and two-stroke burns better than four-stroke oil that you put in the oil pan. There, I fixed it for you.

Wasn't it one of the few cars in it's price range to have double-wishbone suspension, making it fun to drive?

If you want to try some really crazy shit get a new Summit (or equivalent) and hit the mountains. People are crazy up there and with the machines they have today they go up some ridiculous slopes and into some crazy bowls all in the name of going higher and faster than the next guy. And the tech on those sleds are…

Try hitting a mountain with a '70s or '80s sled. You won't be able to get to where the guys with new sleds want to play. And if you do get there, you'll spend most of your day digging yourself out, but won't be putting yourself in mortal danger trying to highmark everyone else on 85 degree slopes, so I guess there's a…

I grew up on an elan, though it was older than an '81. The thing could go anywhere and had little enough power that it was impossible to get into trouble with it. I learned a bunch about engines trying (and as often as not failing) to get the thing running. Starting that thing, with the panel in front of the riders…

Look at the prices people pay for a '57 Chevy Bel Air, which was just a sedan, or really almost any classic car. We like to think that we buy our cars for pragmatic reasons, but it's as much what we grew up idolising as anything else that informs a car enthusiasts purchase. Does the price make sense? No, but neither…

No, because when decelerating you're a shifting into a lower gear. This means that at any set speed your RPM's should be higher i.e at 3k rpm in fourth I'm probably doing 60kph, now if I drop it into third there's roughly a 1k rpm difference, that is my engine needs to be doing 4k rpm to do 60kph. If you shift without…

Thank you. I thought this would be somewhere up near the top, crazy as it is. This car has the styling of a spaceship and a ride apparently a ride that would corroborate. And if the goddess is good enough for Jane Birkin it's good enough for me.

At full throttle the rotaries are supposed to be pretty much equal to a piston engine. From what I've read the bad fuel economy is as much to do with the fuel air mixture being polluted with exhaust gas at low revs, much like a two-stroke engine, because the rotaries always run a hell of a lot of overlap with…

"Rotaries suck dick... I love rotaries." Paint me confused. But here I guess is the thing: there are a lot of cars with really good chassis and a lot of really pretty cars out there and 99 per cent of those pretty cars with good chassis have piston engines (and about 50 per cent in America have had an LSx engine stuck…

But then you must ask the question what was the X6M built to do? Be a fat ugly car for people who like blue and white roundels? Perhaps BMW hasn't lost it's way as far as engineering, but it's chosen a far different way than it took for most of its history. Is the new way bad? Not if you like fat blobs that will fly…