This is pretty much it.

Hell, look at the Bronco situation. I can live with the four-cylinder but c’mon, taking the fuckin’ Sasquatch package off the table and paywalling the same offroad gear behind the Badlands trim if I want the manual?  Pure bullshit, and I’m glad to see hints they’re walking back from that stance.

You remember I gave this Audi an admittedly irrational nice price as the major service had been done? And that you opened the can of worms by suggesting trans-swapping, and later even engine-swapping, an E39 wagon, which to be honest is a prospect no filthy casual would even consider? Just to be clear, we’ve both been…

Well, Columbo was my boy and he’s a beloved patron saint of us exhausting cunts.
So in that spirit, just one more thing. . .

M endorsement. Riding’s always been considered a fine way to accelerate that final meeting with one’s Maker and these days, in the era of shitty, self-absorbed and distracted driving of 4000lb+…

Actually I did understand, chief, and you apparently didn’t get that my bit about the racerep was tongue-in-cheek. I mean, you’d think the next three words of my post being “In all seriousness” would’ve clued one in as my religion forbids emoticons. Or at least that you’re playing to a favorable audience when I called…

So is flexing on the concept of not burning to death but here we are.

Nah, just an acknowledgement that we’re all young and dumb once. Looks like you’re having your moment. I will say I had probably had more fun on some angry aluminum, magnesium and plastic than you’ll have on that keyboard, unless you used it to buy Tesla stock five-ten years ago.

I dunno, I’ve got an “M” endorsement and started out on a 600cc racerep.

In all seriousness, no one hits every at-bat. Tesla itself, cool. Space-X, super-cool. Solar City/PowerWall, interesting. TBC? Total. Fucking. Whiff.

Yes, but ironically, the condition of the wagon is about a billion times more important than the M5 as you’ll be living with the wagon, and only stealing the powertrain from the M5. Which means “serviceable” isn’t going to cut it, unless you want to get laughed at for dropping a ton of money in a build and then have…

That’s. . . tame.

A much better-er banned car commercial because think of the children!!! (Apparently uploaded in potato vision.)

Which is why I found a 2011 manual trans 335i xDrive.

To go with those first three, in order:
- There isn’t exactly a wealth of E39 wagons out there at the moment, and apparently today 540i wagons are functionally about as rare as the V wagon.
-Modern GM interiors, while not up to old Teutonic standards*, are certainly not the plastic fantastic interiors of yore. When TTAC…

Except at that point, you may as well go nuts and grab a CTS-V wagon, which already has a stick and a blower mounted to an engine that’ll outlast the cockroaches. Not as pretty, no, but damned if wouldn’t be every bit as fun. Probably more so, as going from my prior (Holden-built) GTO to my current E90 335i, you feel…

Because it’s the D.C. Metro, only it goes nowhere useful and you brought your own train.  Nothing involved here except for the car itself is remotely revolutionary, and I can take that out of the picture by riding through on a bicycle.

Oh, I agree. This being an engine-out service is insane and I’ve no idea why Audi engineered the car this way. I mean, I get it in mid/rear-engined supercars but I guess here it’s an artifact of Audi hanging the engine out past the front axle. (Maybe I do have a clue?) I’m curious if the new guides are actual lifetime…

It depends on what’s written on those receipts. German lux-o cars are fairly solid if you keep on top of their needy maintenance schedules. If those receipts show things being addressed at the (roughly) appropriate times, life isn’t going to be too painful.

I gave this a wholly irrational NP: I loathe VAG products but…

Situational. I don’t have “tool truck” money to support what’s realistically only a hobby that happens to save some cash once in a while. If I’ll only use the tool once a decade, I’ll ask around first to see if I know anybody that already owns/has access to. . . but failing that, go cheap. On things I’ll need…

Oh thank gods it wasn’t just me.

Meh, it’s really just a different failure of morality.

HeLa - “stolen”, or at very least openly misappropriated, cell line that has resulted in the development of billions of dollars in pharmaceuticals, without a single red cent being provided to the family of Henrietta Lacks.

or. . .

HEK 293T - cell line engineered from…

It doesn’t help that the car up for grabs is the original pre-LCI E90/1 design. In the refresh, they updated all the lighting,* the fascias at both ends and added creasing to the hood among other details. This is mine (2011 335i xDrive manual), not long after picking it up last year. It’s a little staid by today’s sta…

Yeah, let’s take a different tack. . .

If a hypothetical copy of that movie I downloaded was Nth degree removed for the original infringement, it’s magically cool and totally legal? Sweet! Or, you know, that World War II era research that came from Nazi Germany or Japan that we based a lot of shit from? Apparently…