Hmm. . . If Mazda takes a page from the CR-Z and actually does the concept justice. Manual trans, small electric motor/battery pack for instant torque to flatten the curve in stoplight to stoplight traffic, or to help keep speed uphill.  That sort of thing.

Otherwise, it’s pointless beyond being a bulletpoint on a…

Yup, I got that part, just that there’s a specific and fascinating reason for it. It’s totally an acquired taste, though, and if you’re not raised on it, it’s a thing.

That weird taste has some unfortunate ramifications, though.

Ah, the ol’ Schuylkill Punch. Ironically, it’s largely a result of the treatment. What comes out of the tap is remarkably clean, from a health and safety standpoint.

Yuuup, and modern cars are packed with them. The FRM, aka “Footwell Module,” is a similar component in BMWs, and a well-known failure point with many of their cars from the aughts.

The BCM was the first thing I thought of, too. Random, seemingly unrelated failures is its calling card, and I had more than a few gremlins in the GTO because of harness* and connector damage.

*Fun “fact:” When the car was converted to LHD for America, there is a support bracket for the glovebox that’s in contact with…

‘Murrican market. We wants trukks.

Serious question, as I’m not familiar with the BTCC: how “close” was it to a production Cavalier? Are we in the one-off homologation-special range, or in the aughts-NASCAR the only conceptual part they share is the logo?

Here in southeast PA they’re absolute cockroaches. My wife and I divide them by “Antique” (1st and 2nd gen boxies), “classic” (third-gen mail-slot front fascia and split tails) and regular “Cavvy” (which she had, the third-gen refresh, with the lightbar and ducktail out back.) We joke about how the pick-and-pulls in th…

Call me a glamper, but if I can’t at least (containedly) poop in it, I’m out.

Now, yes, but back in the day, there were some rough gems, like manual Maximas, the B15 Sentra SE-R Spec V and 350Z. OG Frontier and Xterra, too.

Even then, the dealers were abysmal.

I worked at a Nissan store for a hot second, back when IT tanked after the dotcom implosion. Sad to hear they never changed. Basically a half-step removed from a “buy-here-pay-here” lot on the highway by an airport.

I am incredibly glad, and probably fortunate, that I picked up my weirdo manual E90 335i xDrive prior to this shit show. As well as our manual Rennie, and both motorcycles, because holy. fucking. boop.

I have to say, if fate smiles upon me, I wanna redo a bendy-bus as a landship.

This car actually has that up-level quality that those Regals pretended to have, and with very few notable exceptions, no one ever bought a Buick for thrust. This car and a Regal LS drop similar 0-60's and 1/4 mile times. Parts availability might be a thing if they break, but this was leftover from Mazda’s aborted…

Not even gonna front. By rotating the “wood” panels vertically, that actually looks far nicer than the stock setup.

Seriously. And we just shrug and excuse it with a resigned sigh and a “Nintendo gonna Nintendo.”

A good example of this is the Animal Crossing ‘one-Switch, one island” horse-shit. My wife and I share a Switch;  do I really want to play a game where I’m permanently locked into being a second-class citizen?

That position might’ve been understandable, and even defensible, in the mid-aughts. That said, I’ve got a bus stop on my corner and these elementary school kids all have cellphones and live on social media. (When they’re not rampaging all over my lawn and beating the street post with a bamboo shaft from the property up…

It’s fascinating that roughly a decade and a half after the 360's iteration of XBox Live kinda set the standard for how to do online, Nintendo has willingly refused to get to even that level of service.

IIRC, it’s also in the Bibble. I’d like to think the Almighty had better things to do than clarify that the sheeps ain’t for fuckin’, but here we are. Or, there we were, I guess.

This almost literally is the W-Body Buick Regal for the driver who is afraid to buy American. Nice Price.