I remember my parents having an E36 loaner when their E34 touring was in for a service when I was a kid and them loving the centre mounted seatbelts, as it was much easier to buckle in kids

Neutral:

Depends where you are. Here in the UK, petrol is about £1.25/litre. Which, if my maths works out, is $5.75/US gallon. That changes the break even point a lot.

Sportback=5dr hatchback in Audi-speak. Just like Avant means wagon.

They were awesome. Thinking back I think my grandparents one was a Mk.2 (basically a slight facelift), which had a more conventional interior, but some friends had a red Mk.1 (like in the advert) with a totally space ship interior.

My grandparents had a white BX Break (estate) when I was very little. I remember it being the smoothest, most comfortable car ever, with big squishy seats. As a very small child I was fascinated by the way it would rise up after starting, as the hydraulic system pressurised itself.

It’s a lease. 3 years and gone. So 36*lease payment + downpayment. I was never going to pay the balloon payment at the end, so that’s irrelevant. There wasn’t much in it, IIRC it was about £5 cheaper for the new car per month, and factor in the 2 included services it was a fairly significant saving. 

My last car was a 2016 Skoda Fabia. With £1,000 down, the monthly lease rate for a brand new Fabia was the same as a 2 year old one, but the new car obviously was brand new but also had a slightly better spec (including Android Auto, which I now consider to be vital). It was a no brainer. I had no intention of keeping…

Or, looking at things like more recent VWs and Mercs, the badge offers a convenient thing to act as a radome, which looks pretty good.

Leather makes sense on a plane (and other forms of public transport), because it’s easy to wipe clean, and is very hard wearing. My parents always had leather seats in the car when my siblings and I were young for exactly that reason.

This seems batshit.

VW were doing this years ago in the Phaeton. I don’t think it could actually power the AC proper, but on hot days it would run the fans using power from a solar panel mounted in the sunroof to circulate air, reducing the temperature inside the car. 

I get that on their website, but if I’m looking in the window of a car on a lot then the dealer knows exactly what the taxes would be.

They’ve said they won’t do a GTI wagon. But there’s a perfectly good nameplate for it- GLI. Foolish IMO.

A Polaris Slingshot has cruise control?!

Not including taxes is bizarre.

The Ibiza is very similar. Again, pics are tricky to find!

That’s because our taxes are included in the prices quoted, unlike in North America (which is something I find utterly bizarre). 

I’m tall, drive a manual, and have never had issues with the cruise stalk. It’s a pretty small car too (Seat Ibiza). I quite like it. Beats the variation the lower spec cars without adaptive cruise have, where all the buttons are added onto the indicator stalk, or the mess of buttons the VW equivalents have on the…

As opposed to the Jetta’s legitimate Spanish lovechild, the Seat Toledo Mk.1?