Is that common? You’d probably need either loose snow/gravel and/or a turbo model to get the tail out even with a welded diff.

Yeah, if any American full-size sedan would benefit from the addition of a manual transmission, it would definitely be the Charger. I’m sure they’d sell a reasonable amount, so why they don’t offer one is beyond me.

Eh, it’s really not as bad as people would have you believe (at least not the 2nd gen). Thanks to the CVT and electric motor you’ve got a solid feeling of torque from 0 to 120km/h, and with VVTI it can be all kinds of weird fun at full throttle. The handling has reasonably good feel for what it is, too. Definitely a…

That may have something to do with there only being one major non-luxury car manufacturer still still selling a traditional wagon, which in turn may have something to do with the way the American CAFE regulations give much greater lenience in terms of required average fuel economy to “light trucks” (e.g crossovers,…

The new focus wagon is gorgeous. Can’t decide if I’m more jealous of it or the Mazda 6 wagon Europe gets too:

Huh? Things must be very different up here in Canada, because I see so many Golf/Jetta wagons around here it isn’t funny, a fair number of them being in manual guise. There are plenty of old Focus/Volvo/Kia wagons around as well, suggesting heavily to me that there’d be a lot more wagons sold here were it not for the…

Both have their charms. The Defender/Series are a lot more barebones and utility focused, forgoing many creature comforts in return for fantastic off-road ability and pure utility. The Range Rover is a much more comfortable vehicle, retaining an impressive amount of off-road capability while losing a lot of the…

They’re actually pretty solid performers handling-wise with reinforced sway bars and Bilstein HD shocks/struts. Mine still has a bit of body roll left in it, but not much, and feels a lot better in terms of steering and cornering feel than the 2015 Golf 1.8T I had a chance to drive a couple days ago. The 5-speed also…

As the owner of one (w/ 5 speed!), the enthusiasm and excitement people have for a 27 year old station wagon never ceases to surprise me. I get all giddy inside whenever I pass another 2/7/940 wagon on the road.

Heh. Much like a DSG, I’ve never used one, so make of the analogy what you will. It just popped into my head one day that paddle-shifters and sex toys have a lot in common in an abstract sense, trying to solve the same kinds of convenience/enjoyment problems and ending up with the same shortfalls when compared to the…

Maybe not the worst proportions, but they still throw me off every time I see one:

You know the old analogy that driving an automatic is like watching great porn while driving a manual is like having good sex? I sometimes think of DSGs as watching great porn w/ a fleshlight. What you see is better executed than you could ever hope to achieve in real life but still gives you a sense of participation,…

I always kind of liked the look of the pre-facelift 206s. What made them so bad in comparison?

Since everyone seems to have covered my favourite 70’s/80’s designs of his, how about the Alfa Romeo Brera? This is a car I have lusted over very much since I first saw it in NFS Carbon. I mean, it’s back end looks better than most cars’ front ends:

Why not teach your other half to drive a manual instead? I’m in the process of teaching mine right now, it only took probably a combined hour across 3 days to get her from being barely able to get around an empty parking lot to being able to drive and shift pretty smoothly around some empty backroads. It’s well worth…

The story behind that car is pretty awesome, actually. The reason they rebadged a 750i instead of just having a 735i in the first place was that they needed the torque of the 750i’s V12 for the stunt scenes, but the 735i was the highest trim available with a stick shift. Instead of just using a 750i for the stunt…

Fully agreed. One of my favourite things about the Skyline’s design language is that it doesn’t make a point of broadcasting to the world how well-off and/or manly its owner is. It’s no bark, all bite.

Oof, sorry to hear that. My daily driver is an ‘88 240 Wagon and I love it dearly, I would be gutted if anything like that ever happened to it.

Came here to post this one as well (someone also already got the AW11)! What made you give up yours?

Was just thinking of the AW11 when I scrolled down and saw this. One of my personal dream cars (dream and not reality because I’m a Canadian college student with no way of protecting it from the salted winter roads).