Your wife is wrong.

Really? I kind of like how they integrated the logo into the grill. It doesn't look great on all their cars – the Berlingo comes to mind – but not all of their cars have it either. I think it looks fairly brilliant on the new Grand Picasso.

I guess the real question is whether Acura is trying to be Buick or Cadillac. The brand you're describing is a better Buick competitor by market segment (or Volvo, for that matter). Based on the NSX, Integra, etc. I don't think Acura started out aiming to be uninspired, milquetoast near-luxury. Granted, some of their…

Ford Scorpio, sold from 1994-98 in the European market. The styling of the entire car is pretty shocking. Here's the back:

While it is true that Acura isn't capturing the hearts and minds of Jalops (I mean, where are the brown diesel station wagons), but BMW and Mercedes do quite well and they produce plenty of innovative, out-of-the-box concepts, not to mention actual cars that are interesting. Luxury cars are aspirational. No one needs…

But besides the new NSX — which has a tremendous legacy to live up to, so it had better be damn near perfect — there isn't much to Acura these days. That's sad, because it's a brand built on innovation. Remember that Acura was the first Japanese luxury brand created to do battle with Mercedes and BMW; that was a…

10/10 would buy.

I mean, I think the body of the article is pretty clear in making the point shown in the figure, but the title "...F-150 is better for the environment than the Prius" is not correct.

Crucially, the takeaway here should be that a 3MPG improvement for the F-150 matters more than the same improvement for a Prius, or anything else with a higher initial MPG number, but not that a F-150 is better for the environment or that it uses less fuel (in absolute terms).

Oh no, seriously? How did so many Chrysler products win in the 90s/2o00s? I guess it must be because they still had a separate Import COTY award. The Cirrus (1995), PT Cruiser (2001), and 300M (1998) were all awful (for various reasons). There had to have been something better that came out of Detroit during each of…

This. Mercedes is simply trading on its brand and a low entry price to get people in the door and hopefully into a car that, after adding just a few obvious options, will cost as much or more than a 320i, which is a better car. The CLA is not practical, cheap, fast, particularly good-looking, or fuel efficient. Why…

Honestly, the subsidies hardly put a dent in the price of a Tesla Model S. I don't think anyone is buying them because of the (relatively) tiny tax rebate. Also the total number (and hence, total cost) of those rebates is limited per manufacturer, and since every single manufacturer isn't jumping to offer an EV, the…

Still impressive, yes, but it is a fair point that the Insight cost $20,000 and weighed 100 pounds more than a car that costs about $150,000. If Honda put another $130,000/car of engineering into the Insight, I'm sure they could have managed a higher mpg number.

As someone who lived far too briefly in Australia, I understand your pain. The Commodore and Falcon were both great cars made great by Australians. Cheers, mate.

The shifter never felt vague, and while it certainly has a somewhat mid-90s character, it gets the job done. There's also a CVT which I believe delivers better mileage, but I think this car will be far more tolerable with the old-school stick.

Hey could everyone please stop talking about the SW20 MR2? Prices for an example that has a manual and isn't already ruined with terrible mods are already pretty high. Let's just all agree to keep the SW20 on the DL, alright? Thanks.

Pontiac should appear on the list as a whole marque. First, they had the awful names in the 2000s: G3, G5, G6, and G8. These don't make any sense because the G5 (a.k.a. Cobalt coupe) really refers to an airplane:

From what I've read, GM abandoned the technology after it proved to be an unpopular (big surprise) extra cost option. I think Ford and a few OEM suppliers also developed similar airbag systems around the same time. What I find completely baffling is why, when NHTSA wanted to mandate airbags, GM fought the legislation…

Yes, they did. It was called the Air Cushion Restraint System (ACRS), and was developed as a supplement to seat belts, but with far greater coverage than today's airbags. Here are a few photos on Flickr of GM cars equipped with the system.

I need to get a job that pays me more ASAP so I can jump on one before that happens. I wish they'd sold more GXPs in the first place so that the market wouldn't be so tight now. But yeah, the prices are already ridiculous. =|