I’d also be surprised at the side glass if it wasn’t for a recent experience with a Pyrex casserole dish that absolutely shattered when a small 1/4 cup glass spice jar fell about 18" onto it. Sometimes it’s just takes hitting something in the right spot for it all to go wrong. (My wife and I are currently packing to…

I’ve driven through plenty of neighborhoods in Del Rio that look like this. All of West Texas doesn’t look like a set from a Sergio Leone film. This person was likely an Air Force member that had an assignment in Germany and is now stationed (or retired to) Laughlin AFB.

Bingo. I’m reminded of the RegularCarReviews bit where 3 different autozone employees stand around the computer trying to make sense of the part# (which goes for the rest of the car too).

Import costs alone from Europe will run north of $5K (I’ve been looking into it, using a friend in Germany). Add $1-2K for the car and no matter how you slice it, this is a pretty good deal.

Driving one of these little guys in Texas is a statement in masculinity. It’s so subtle you may not realize it’s even a statement, a simple fact of life like gravity and sunrise. Nothing to prove here.

I’ve got a manual 2018 Forester last year they made them.  There was only 1 in our whole state.

Dammit, beat me to the MT-5 wagon. There can’t be more than one or two produced, ever.

Manual Fusions are very popular in Europe, sold here as Mondeos

If we’re talking manual versions of common Fords, the Taurus MT-5 wagon has to be the Holiest of Holy Grails.

So what does that make a very rare (in the US) manual version of a not at all mundane car, like an early Land Rover Disco?

David, I think you’re great.

Someone near me has imported a Ford F250 and it sticks out alright. It’s too big for our parking spaces so it just plain sticks right out into the road.

Also consider the lifecycle of a small Euro-box. The second and third owners of these are young drivers who will neglect/abuse them and they end up really tatty. We also generally don’t have a culture of repairing minor dings and dents in cars. Unless it will cause an inspection fail. And we drive smaller engines at…

Japan, and some (not all) of the EU countries have this in parallel. High standards of maintenance (ie lots of parts checked annually), plus high repair costs, and high taxes (usually emissions-based), means that the cutoff point for a car becoming uneconomical can happen much sooner.

Could this be because there is more of an impetus for the Japanese to divest themselves of older cars? I know the government over there enforces strict requirements on older cars, in addition to harsher and harsher financial obligations (or rather, penalties) on the owner, the older the car gets?

As a pure BEV I agree...I had a Spark EV with ~75 miles range and while that was fine for commuting duty very hard to sell that as a sole vehicle for anyone without access to an ICE vehicle as well. With my current Bolt I have 260 miles range with same (well less, thanks COVID) commute and feel like I am not using…

iirc rotary works best with constant rpm as opposed to variable rpm, so it’ll be great as a generator.

• Require less power - Power consumption varies greatly with different technologies. CRT displays are somewhat power-hungry, at about 100 watts for a typical 19-inch display. The average is about 45 watts for a 19-inch LCD display. LCDs also produce less heat.

The cat can’t sleep on top of a flatscreen?

This calls for a gif