Oh man, I remember playing the hell out of the Factory Driver mode in Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed as a kid. I always thought it would be one of the coolest jobs to have in the world, it's awesome that the real world job measures up to my 10-year old imagination.

That's awesome. My dad had told me the story a while ago, I was surprised to find an in-depth writeup on the Jalopnik main page!

Entertaining and well-researched article, love it when my province feels semi-relevant! As a vaguely related aside, I probably drive the only Sweden-made 240 Wagon in all of Halifax (bought it from a guy in Delaware who got it from the factory with the Tourist & Diplomat sales program).

You mean like they did with Lexus?

If you were the highly-recognizable figurehead of one of the most well-known companies in tech, one with a notably fanatic component of its user base who viewed you as some sort of demigod, and you had the means to swap out your cars every 90 days in the name of a little extra anonymity and privacy, I doubt you'd…

I'm pretty sure the european GTI mk1's were offered with quad headlights from the factory, so that's not necessarily someone's frankenstein project. I actually like the round headlights a lot better than the square Rabbit bulbs we got here but that might just be me.

Somehow the Watanabes on that van work really, really well.

You'd be surprised, my '88 240 wagon gets me a lot of random compliments from people, girls included. That probably has a lot to do with living in rust country though (Atlantic Canada). There aren't many daily drivers past 15 years on the roads that are in good shape, so a well-maintained 25 year-old wagon is…

Even better, import a Stagea:

That, or they just look for different things in a car. That could be it.

...he said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest as he shifts his brown W123 wagon into 'D', his foot resting on the carpet where he knew a clutch pedal should have been.

Hey, don't underestimate the AW11. Reliable and black-top swappable supercharged 4A-GE engine in the middle, unique 80's-idea-of-the-future styling, and a legendary reputation for being incredibly fun to drive at road-legal speeds. A fox body might match the fun-to-drive with some modifications to the handling but to…