Why are people so hellbent on presuming that a) I’m incapable of assessing risk for myself and b) feeling that they should use the power of government to compel me to live how they feel I should? I mean, my parents’ car effectively had an interlock, as they wouldn’t start it until I had my seatbelt buckled. That…

Agreed. It’s the province of snobbish “enthusiasts” that want to one-up people on the internet but are the same people that won’t buy even a car with a manual because their “wife won’t let them” (spoiler-it’s ‘cause they actually can’t drive one and they’re actually much more boring people than they pretend to be) and…

Important question:  Who cares?  If you want something safe, why are you buying a sports car?  

So, um, what’s wrong with the platform that it needs to be scrapped and designed new from scratch?

I got it (hilariously enough, my job title literally has “risk analyst” in it). I think you and I just have very different stomachs for personal risk. If I get schmucked by a semi or something in my old pickup or one of my old ‘70s land yachts, then there we are, it’s been a good run. I’d rather get on with living…

I honestly cannot imagine living in that sort of fear. My ‘95 F-150 has 216,000 miles on it, and I’d not hesitate to drive it anywhere right now. A few years ago we used it to clean out my mother-in-law’s house after she passed, loaded with as much as the cap would allow and towing a huge trailer loaded to the rafters…

Eh, whatever works for you. I’ve driven the Continental in downtown Chicago, downtown Toronto (if you want some disapproving super judgmental stares, ride a giant Lincoln up Yonge Street!), and all over the Midwest, day, night, rain, shine, and never have had any trouble reading the gauges. I had a LeSabre of the same…

The comments to this post are a fine example of “Tell me you’re upper-middle class from the coasts without saying it” versus “tell me you’re from middle America without saying it.” If you grew up in middle America, these were ubiquitous, unassuming, respectable, and reliable like the sun. If you grew up on the coasts,…

Total POS? Hardly. These A-Bodies, especially the later ones, required little more than gasoline and an occasional oil change to run countless miles. Of the ones that have already departed this earth, rust or crashes are what got ‘em. The guts just kept working and working.  

How so? I mean, when I pull my ‘78 Continental out of storage, I have no trouble reading this gauge. It tells me how fast I’m going and how much gas I have. If something catastrophic is happening, a light will come on to tell me.  Honestly, that’s about the only info I need.  

Right?  I mean, if I have to have an automatic, it should be shifted at the column!  

Ok, great.  Now do the price difference between the two when they were new!  

Might just have a Jaguar being traded in next spring.  I watched the reveal live and was excited to see pretty much all the leaks had been true.  Looks so good, interior looks good.  Keen to see one in person! 

I’ve finally reached the point where I understand why there’s a generation of people that just dismiss Ford products out of hand, and this after being a strong defender of Ford for years after working there on contract. Time after time, Ford screws the pooch, but they’re always just around the corner and wait until…

Eh, I’ll take both, thanks. They knew the importance of this product to their fortunes and future. They teased this product for years before finally getting it to market. Yet somehow they STILL couldn’t work out how to make it correctly?

Exactly right! If the oval’s on the front, they’re responsible.

I’d also vouch for the 3800. I’ve had several of them over the years, in a Bonneville, then a LeSabre, then a Riviera. The cars were 3/4 returned to the earth by way of rust, but a flick of the key and they’d fire up every time, return good power, and 28 mpg on the highway. Hard to argue with that.

Agreed. About 5 years ago I saw a 1989 Bonneville, and that was the first time I’d seen one in a decade. It was enough of a surprise that I literally walked up to it to look at it in the parking lot (I had an ‘89 Bonneville through college and was feeling the nostalgia) like it was something exotic.

The ‘87-’91 Bonnies…

Growing up in the rural Midwest in the 1980s, I never saw Hondas. Even today, if you go to my hometown the odds of seeing a “foreign” car are slim-I’d guess less than 5%. Accordingly, I have no thoughts on the Prelude at all. I’d guess time, rust, and the big Honda-modding craze of the ‘90s and 2000s took ‘em all out.

The world may never know.  Or maybe the world already does and you’re just not as well attuned to it as you believe yourself to be.  Who knows...?