I’d argue Lexus is just fine. Most cats I know who went that route are in the “I coulda bought German, but my time’s too valuable for anything but Toyota reliability” camp. The rest bought Teslas.

The new 2 sedan, the CLA, etc. are for “the poors.” Acura’s for people who don’t like Honda’s angry robot face and Infinity…

I know I’m in the minority (of paying customers) but the whole “no manual” thing really soured me. . . and the new M’s got absolutely beaten raw with an ugly stick. I love my E90 (2011: N55-powered manual xDrive) but BMW (or anyone, really) hasn’t anything to replace it with. Outside of a blown charge pipe and some…

Good luck!

One bit of advice: fuel injection. Makes the hobby so much easier when your bike just starts. Every carbed bike I’ve dealt with required a full ritual to the machine god at least once a month.

Tough to tell on the internet but I’m going to presume the first paragraph is played straight. I agree: look at this thing. It’d kill in the small-displacement market as a ‘Murrican answer to the ‘Pilen 401.  It’d probably do way better, on sheer account of having a large dealer network.

Seriously. Wade into the “entry level market” with a 400-ish CC V-twin* sportbike/naked pair that look stylish and handle (even) competently and the press’d lose their goddamn minds. The average age in the showroom would halve overnight.

*This is the one segment where sticking with the tradition H-D V-twin arrangement…

They tried to play the premium market and sold a ton of Streets. However, they had no volume unit to anchor themselves to.

The small-to-middle displacement, volume motorcycle market is exploding. They pull out of the heart of it rather than get over themselves and figure out what they need to do to succeed?

They’ve got 500cc and 750cc V-twin engines, and were(?) partnered with a Chinese company for a 350-ish CC P-twin. Put those in…

1st Gear.

This is so astoundingly stupid that it boggles the mind, which pretty much means it’s business as usual at Harley-Davidson.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, Leonard French’s Lawful Masses went through the similar Dark House/Joyful Noise lawsuit. For added laughs, Katy Perry’s representation tried to claim his video analyzing the case, and he’s got a video about that.

Maybe if it was perfect and you wanted something a little outside the box for Radwood.  This?  Hard pass.

Starkist, obviously, because they’re not overly fond of dirty commie beatniks, either.

Ship hasn’t totally sailed. Clean ones with reasonable mileage are in the 20-30K range, and you’re all but guaranteed appreciation in value. Nuggets are cheaper but at least you can still source repair/replacement parts as long as the body’s clean. Your ROI may be a lot less, but there’s far less entertaining…

This is true and probably an oversight on my part. All later cars do require adding a fancier widget to the ol’ toolkit.

That said, I consider some form of “professional” scan tool/diagnostic solution part and parcel of your toolkit for anything built in the past three decades. With the GTO, the best I could do with a…

We’re in a similar situation. It could be done but realistically, we’d stay two cars. Figure if someone’s back in the office after this mess, the person working from home is land-locked until the other gets back. The best part about not going in the office is, to be blunt, the ability to run errands on your time, e.g.…

On one hand, it appears to be in great shape. On the other hand, there’s no detail on the how and why of that new engine. Also, as yesterday’s comment section bore out: you can get better German steel with more hersp’ers and spin all four wheels for the same price, if not cheaper. Nope, nope, nope-itty, nope.

Yeah, I had the same basic reaction. I’m sorely tempted to pick up an E92 M3 before the prices start going way up but I’ve got Bronco ambitions in a couple years.

Define “normal tools.” I’ve an E90 335i xDrive and, outside of having to buy a full set of internal and external Torx sockets, it’s been no harder to work on than any GM product. Easier, is some ways. It’s certainly claimed less blood than my GTO did.

I’d suspect customs is on to that game. A pile of drive-train parts labelled “tractor parts” would probably probably catch less attention, pass most casual review, and I’m not paying for a bunch of dead weight. Ship the other stuff in a different crate; interior/exterior trim, seats, A/V, lighting, wiring and modules…

Easier, true, yet more felonious.

Another person and I were talking about what to do in these situations in another thread. Requires a bit of fuck-it-money but buy one of those German market Touregs, strip it to the screws and send all the good bits home in a crate. Scrap the chassis. Buy the first cheapest non-runner clean US-titled Toureg with a…