Porsche front engine cars have a lever under the hood. So do most VAG products. And Mercedes is historically known for having the grille mounted hood safety release.

Actually, there are two latches in your BMW. The first pull releases the driver’s side latch and the second pull releases the second latch.

First, that little bit of space makes a pretty big difference in that open feel. Second, dealing with a targa top is a pain and a half. For shorter people, it must be damn near impossible no matter how strong you are unless you have a helper. 

Also, the leaf springs are a composite material. Probably much lighter than a conventional steel coil.

Not necessarily. As long as the leaf spring is bolted in the center, what happens on one side should not affect the other side at all. 

I don’t know why everybody is so surprised by the price. There’s nothing inherently more expensive about a mid-engined car than a front-engined car. We had the MR2 for the longest time and that was cheap. The 718 lives on with a Porsche premium for just barely more than the base C7.

I think it’s a good take. This looks like a mish-mash of mid-engine supercars with a little bit of GM flavor. To its credit, I do see flashes of old Corvette in certain angles of this car.

My previous point stands, I never said you literally have to pay off your car. I just said you should be in a position where you can comfortably pay it off. Which you are. 

Ah OK got it. 

We’re in a thread about Alfa and you pick on BMW? BMW is actually fairly high on reliability rankings for luxury cars.

All cars have parking brakes. 

And, you realize if you have $20k in equity and $5k left in payments, then you CAN comfortably pay off your loan, right? My comment implied a negative equity situation. Whether the new car dealership pays it off or you pay it off at the bank, it’s still being paid off without you paying more into the new loan. It’s…

That’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t a manual also take advantage of natural air cooling from the transmission pan? Modern cars obviously don’t do this as much, but they still do. My car has a little inlet in the belly pan that routes air directly to the metal pan of my manual transmission.

Transmissions and differentials are often cooled by underbody airflow. Though, most transmissions are largely cooled by the radiator, some still have aluminum pans with fins to provide auxiliary cooling to. Some rear diffs have aluminum fins to aid in cooling.

In my quest for brevity, I think I offended a lot of people. Negative equity is what I was talking about 90% of the cases. I still finance my new cars and I’ve even been known to lease if I can get a good deal (works out well in CA where you only pay sales tax on the lease payments and you can’t get a sales tax…

I’m not saying you HAVE to pay it off. I’m just saying you should be able to comfortably pay it off. Anyway, it’s usually much easier just to pay it off anyway.

I never said financing is a bad idea. I even think leasing can be fine in many cases. I only spoke about people who are underwater on a car loan financing another new car.

lol, totally different things dude. A house is not a depreciating asset. In business, it’s totally fine to take out a new loan to pay for something if you already have an asset that made money or at least broke even for you. Cars constantly lose value so to trade in a car you still owe money on to get another car…

I was just speaking in general terms. I’m not one of those people that say financing/leasing are bad. As long as you know what you’re doing, it’s fine. My rule of thumb is that if you can’t at least comfortably pay off the balance of your loan, you shouldn’t be buying a new car.

Did I hit a nerve?