And according to a new survey, the Big 2.5 are still not that great at it, with Nissan jump Ford in terms of overall relationship.

I don't know much about the journalism scene, auto pubs or otherwise. Are the pay and benefits for the job itself sufficient that people are generally making ends meet, or is everyone trying to get a roommate for their cardboard box and working in the industry just because they love cars and being in a community of…

Biggest tragedy: no Mk2 RS. Pour out a little liquor. (Also pour out a little liquor for this post getting Kinja'd.)

I'd never really given this TG segment much thought, but in retrospect, it does seem a bit incredible that the car would have no reverse gear. On Wikipedia, it appears that the BMW variant of the Isetta was equipped with a reverse gear for the main production run (1956-61). Looking at some other internet sources, it…

This kind of sentencing totally defeats the purpose of prison. Unless this guy already has a long criminal record, this is completely unnecessary. Did the prosecutor go after this guy just because he is legally enabled to do it?

Do you think the Toyota Camry* offers "proper street performance"? It's certainly not high-riding like CUVs (which are just wagons on stilts with body cladding), but it doesn't offer much beyond surrender-monkey understeer. I agree with your premise, that CUVs can never offer the same ride and handling as a car with a…

Maybe this question will expose my ignorance, but presumably the managers track sales by model/configuration (trim, color, etc.) in a database or at least an Excel spreadsheet. Even if they don't, it certainly wouldn't be that hard to look at the previous month's sales numbers and use that to figure out what to order,…

A "tall wagon" might have a higher curb weight. Also larger frontal area leads to greater aerodynamic drag, and thus lower fuel economy (for equivalent interior volume). Also a higher CG can contribute to untoward handling characteristics, though that's clearly not a criteria for American consumers (see e.g. Camry…

Fair enough, though looking at the data, it feels like the strongest growth is, as you said, in the crossover CUV/SUV category, not as much among hatches or wagons. I wish the data on various models was broken out by body style – is the Focus hatch outselling the sedan? What about the Mazda3? I think those data would…

If you make non-luxury cars, you're probably suffering or not growing very quickly. Chrysler, which has no SUV/Crossover/Hatch-y thing is down 21% on the year, Jaguar is down 9%, Scion is down 6%, Volkswagen is down too. Honda is barely scraping by.

Mostly off topic question since you brought up Renault. Are French cars really as poorly made as the presenters of TG suggest?

Delta calls their more legroom product "Economy Comfort," which I find hilarious, since it obviously implies that their ordinary economy product is uncomfortable.

Domestics and imports at that time seemed to be pretty out of step with each other size-wise. The Escort-Contour-Taurus, Cavalier-Corsica-Lumina, Neon-Stratus-Intrepid were all sort of small-still pretty small-big. Nothing was quite aligned with the Camry/Legacy size cars that were a bit smaller than the…

You tell me.

Dunno why, but I think that Grace Jones advert is great.

The first-gen Fit was definitely the best looking, inside and out. The design was clean, elegant, and purposeful. 100% on board with you about a) the disaster that is the current (and forthcoming) design and b) the gearing of the MT completely ruining the long distance driving experience.

These wheels are brilliant. If nothing else, I hope VW offers these as an option on the GTI.

The Honda Civic Si EP3 also had a dash-mounted stick.

The Sepulveda In-N-Out is a great spot. Pretty much the perfect place to sit and watch since it has food and bathrooms.

Wait seriously? For some reason I assumed you were one of these avgeek FTers whose work travel means they're GS on UA and thus they get invited to all these super-swanky launch events. Is the working in the cold as bad as it looks during the winter months?