If the current pattern of Ford CEOs holds, i.e. guys named Jim, I expect Jim Harbaugh to be the next CEO of Ford. Harbaugh can't do any worse than this chair salesman did. Maximizing Shareholder Value Was Job #1 for Jim Hackett, and he couldn't even do that. ... View more

BMW's singular focus on SUVs has paid off in my part of the country. The X7 has been more successful here than the 7 Series ever has been. It feels like the starters at BMW work on SUVs now, and the backups work on cars. The SUVs feel like a much more cohesive, thoughtful product than the cars. The big grill on the X7 is funny but it works in context. The big grill on the new 4 Series would work only if BMW could charge for all the hateclicks it has gotten. ... View more

Thank you for scaring me straight with the number your friend has spent on maintenance and repairs in the last 3 years. I'd rather spend time and money in Rome and Pompeii, or our National Parks, instead of the dinky waiting room of an independent Porsche mechanic.   The only requirement I have so far for my next car is that it has to be a good dance partner on track. I'd like to make the jump from being fast online to being fast in real life. An NC2 Miata will likely be a finalist, as it'll be inexpensive to purchase and run on track, and I can also get some topless action. The C5 was historic as it was the first American performance car that could compete on the world stage since Nixon left office, but C5 buyers think they're capital-H Historic, and thus have set delusional values for them. C6 and C7 sellers are more grounded than C5 sellers. Perhaps I could trade my daily in for a new sport compact, like a Civic Si or GTI, or a lightly used compact luxury car, like a Lexus IS350 F-Sport, or a Cadillac ATS. I may send in another email in a few months once I've done some driving to narrow down the list. ... View more

Europeans are being seduced by our invention too. Auto News EU reported that SUVs made up 39% of all vehicles sold in the EU last year, up from 29% marketshare in 2017. I believe that the coming push by European governments to promote EVs and ban traditional cars will only sell more SUVs, as the primary regulatory incentive that pushes people into cars over SUVs - CO2 taxes - won't exist in the Electric New World.   https://europe.autonews.com/sales-segment/suvs-crossovers-continue-grow-market-share-europe-anes-segment-segment-analysis-shows ... View more

While FCA generally gives the people what they want, it feels like the V8 Wrangler has been locked behind a pane of glass that says "In Case Of Emergency Drive Through Glass." FCA can do cheap and fast, but I would not expect a V8 Wrangler to be cheap. The Wrangler configurator today takes inspiration from the Porsche one in how easy it is to make the Net Price number go up. ... View more

I agree that the business case for the Bronco wasn't an easy one like the one for the new Chevy Blazer. But it's a bit tighter than you'd think. Ford got a taste of how good modern off-road money can be when they saw their dealers charge over MSRP for every new Raptor for the entire first generation, and the first few years of the second generation. Then they looked at the money the Wrangler prints for FCA, and then at Toyota, who has sold more 4Runners over the past few years than they did during the first SUV boom of the 1990s. The development costs can be better amortized since the Bronco is sharing a platform with the next-gen Ranger instead of having a bespoke platform like the Wrangler, or Mazda Miata does. Finally, the Bronco was a truck, not a car, so Jim Hackett didn't cancel it on sight because he needs trucks to fund a golden parachute electric mobility solutions powered by AI and blockchain. ... View more

I am very curious how the Bronco Sport will be priced in the real world. I thought Ford was coming for that Subaru Crosstrek money, but Crosstrek pricing stops where the Bronco Sport starts. Will Ford make up the gap with generous incentives after the launch rush?   Hopefully the Bronco's independent front suspension translates to on-road manners that can give the 4Runner some competition, because Toyota needs it. All of the 4Runner's natural competitors from 20 years ago have disappeared, or become soft-roaders except for the Jeep Grand Cherokee. And the GC relies on air suspension to do what comes naturally to the 4Runner. ... View more

I think Top Gear in its current form just barely works. The current showrunners have stripped Top Gear to its basic premise: three blokes with chemistry just dicking around and having a good time with cars. Indeed Clarkson, Hammond, and May openly joked that they weren't really doing a car show near the end of their Top Gear run, and now they have abandoned the studio show to just do travel specials with Amazon in their old age. The car reviews on today's Top Gear suffer for two of the lads not having had the professional background that Clarkson, Hammond, and May had, though I suspect TG makes up for this by having Chris Harris and the magazine staff write most of the review. My evidence is a segment where a TG magazine editor interviews Harris for a YouTube clip about the BMW M8, which tacks suspiciously close to Paddy's M8 review for the show. Top Gear, its spin-offs, and the legions of car TV shows inspired by Top Gear won't ditch the formula of "three dudes talking about cars" until someone else finds something that works. Humans in all fields tend to follow the leader, because that seems like the surest path to success. See all the NFL teams that have hired Bill Belichick assistants over the last two decades. The formula took Top Gear from British MotorWeek to a global BFD. Of course the formula itself wasn't the reason for success, as the BBC themselves have learned. The reason was chemistry, which is much harder to manufacture. I think a future for car TV in America will have to come from YouTube, or a streaming service not run by Motor Trend. In media, there's no scared money quite like TV money, and you aren't getting any of those scripted garbage shows about building up some muscle car that no one under 40 cares about off TV for anything. Hell, Motor Trend won't even displace those garbage shows on their TV network for RoadKill re-runs, which has been very successful by anyone's standards. NBC may have come the closest to figuring it out, but I won't think they're serious until they put their car programming on Netflix like they did with The Good Place. Seriously, it is impossible to watch old episodes of //DRIVE on NBCSN, and your show too, Sam.  ... View more

One big thing to watch out for is brake clearance. You should be able to clear the brakes on a minus-one sizing, but maybe not a minus-two sizing. For example, minus-two from the stock 18s on a 2.0T Kia Optima will not clear the stock 320mm brakes and calipers. In the U.S., Tire Rack will usually always have this info, and a suggested tire size for any wheel modifications you wanna make.   Going smaller may also limit your tire selection. My Optima comes with a 205/65R16 tire. This means that I'm locked out from many performance all-season tires, all of the high-performance all-season tires, and all summer tires. Modern performance tires do require a certain structural integrity to the sidewall. The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S, the current king of summer tires, does not come in anything thicker than a 50-series.   Finally, wheel sizes have increased proportionally as car proportions have changed in response to European and Asian pedestrian safety regulations. Today's 18-inch wheel is yesterday's 17-inch wheel. An E46 328i with the sport package from 20 years ago came wrapped in 225/45R17 rubber. The 235/45R18 rubber on a modern Camry will have a touch more sidewall than that E46 (105mm vs 101mm.)   This isn't to say that oversized factory wheels aren't the worst trend about modern cars - they are. The infrastructure in large parts of the U.S. cannot support low-profile tires, such as the 19s that leave minimal sidewall on the new Honda Accord. I could feel Albert Biermann's disdain for the 22s he was forced to work with on the new Genesis GV80. But there's more nuance to the situation than the "smaller = better" thought that's commonplace in enthusiast spaces. ... View more

I wanted to like the new Continental, but the large FWD proportions just never stuck with me. The Volvo S90 looks similarly awkward to me FWIW. And then I got into a Genesis G90, which instantly struck me as the car that should've been the new Continental.   Speaking of luxury car bargains, you can get a lightly used MKZ with the 400 HP 3.0TT V6 for under $25K now. The knock on the MKZ when new was that it was "a Fusion with leather" but to the used buyer, that's a feature, not a bug. ... View more

Was the traffic and environment then also conducive to producing driving enthusiasts? While a teenager with a car can always make their own fun, it certainly helps to live near good roads with little traffic instead of driving up and down I-95 in South Florida.   I'd argue that the current environment is perfect if you wanted to create a population that was indifferent at best to driving. As you mention, teenagers today are getting handed down Highlanders and CR-Vs, not Accords and Focuses. That is, if they get their license at all because technology has relieved teenagers of the need to get their license until they get to college, or even their first real job. Then they drive because they have to. They have to drive in commutes from hell if they want any chance to own property in the major metro area where their career is. No one loves that sort of driving. ... View more

Ford will sell you a new, regular cab F-150 because they still sell tons of them to fleets. You'll have to be fine with a long bed and spartan accomodations to buy one on a lot. I miss the classic proportions of the regular cab short bed pickup truck, but I only have two parking slots for myself. Therefore a truck in my driveway has to have 4 seats. Other people only have the money for one vehicle, and it's gotta haul the family around so that forces their hand into a crew cab.  ... View more

As I've done a lot of car camping and tailgating at Gator football games in my life, I'd go hybrid over the sound and the fury of the 5.0 for that bigger power inverter. I would also appreciate any extra bonuses to fuel economy since I'm a city slicker. I'll wait for real-world fuel economy numbers because the EPA ratings on the F-150s today are total baloney.   I appreciate the evolution, not revolution of this new F-150's interior design. I was concerned when I heard Ford felt like they had to have a 12-inch screen to match the new Ram. The monstrosity in the new Mach E only upped my concern. But Ford got to 12 inches by shrinking the bezels around the screen, and they have retained good old-fashioned knobs and buttons for media and climate controls. It also looks like Ford transferred some of the Lincoln interior designers to work on the high-trim F-150s to stop defections to Ram. Looks nice but I wonder if the materials quality holds up in person. Ram nailed the details on those high-end trucks, from the quality of the leather to the feel of the rear door cards. ... View more

The Solstice and Sky have big British Leyland energy. By this, I mean that they were cleverly engineered to pass through a sclerotic bureaucracy. Yet ultimately that clever engineering couldn't overcome the parts bin they had to work with, and the bureaucracy they had to fight to survive. For example, see Bozi's article here about how GM was too cheap to remove the shipping spacers on the performance package for these cars.   I'd go C5 Corvette or S197 Mustang for an American convertible at this price point. There is a very healthy aftermarket for those two cars. For the Solstice and Sky, you will have to have Bozi on speed dial for any mods, or even repairs.  ... View more

I was about to blame Chinese displacement taxes for the 4-cylinder truck motor at the heart of this car, but the CT4-V won't be sold in China. And that $1500 number to the consumer would be quite a bit less for GM considering that they make hundreds of thousands of 5.3L V8s per year.   I agree with you about taking this over the S3/M245i/CLA35. The CT4-V targets that niche with precision. For the same real-world price, I'd grin and bear the Hyundai dealer for a Genesis G70 with the 3.3TT V6. At least there is an app for someone to whisk away my G70 for service to make up for not getting my butt pampered at the Cadillac dealer.   A spectre is haunting this segment: the spectre of the Tesla Model 3. A young person who's had their first hit of real money and is thinking of upgrading from their 2004 Corolla because of the coronavirus - this car's target consumer - will ignore this for a Model 3. The whole point of a modern luxury car is to flex and signal. Cadillacs still have cachet in Detroit and Oklahoma City, but not Brooklyn or Seattle. A Tesla does, even if Elon is increasingly Problematic. Yes, a Model 3's build quality is disconcertingly similar to a 1995 Chevrolet Lumina, and you're screwed if you get in a wreck because Tesla refuses to hand over an inch of control to third-party repair shops and suppliers. (Not even Apple is that dictatorial.) That being said, Teslas are very well-suited to the great suck that is commuting in the 5-10 largest metro areas in this country. You get pushed back into your seat with EV torque for a moment before popping on Autopilot to sit on the 405 or I-95. That leaves your mind free to listen to This American Life, or jam out to "Hip to Be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News. Finally, Tesla has the best BEV solution in the world, with all its competitors either a generation behind or vaporware. Tesla represents excellence in American engineering in a way that this microwaved ATS doesn't. ... View more

Now if we want to walk about failures in GM marketing, the sixth-gen Camaro is a perfect example. The Camaro today is a world-class sports car, with the range of being able to beat Miatas at SCCA Nationals in 4-cylinder form, to beating McLarens and the new Ford GT in ZL1 1LE form. Chevy marketing failed to communicate this fact where even Cadillac was able to communicate that they had built a better 3-Series than BMW. The Corvette still stole the spotlight, and Chevy didn't follow Ford and Dodge by releasing special editions every year or two that referenced the car's history. Heck, Chevy marketing would've had to work twice as hard to communicate that fact because design failed the sixth-gen Camaro in so many ways. Instead they just gave up. P.S. Hagerty I need line breaks for replies so I don't have to double-post. ... View more

The lack of marketing for the Chevy SS was a feature, not a bug. Its primary purpose was to help keep the lights on at the Holden plant down under. It was never intended to sell in volume like the Pontiac G8 was. The SS was sold fully-loaded with only two options: a stick, and a sunroof. GM would have preferred that you buy a CTS V Sport if you wanted a fast, large sedan. The SS's secondary purpose was to be a special gift for the Chevy diehards who were in the know. Like the second disc of a reissue of a classic album that has all the great B-sides and unreleased demos you had only read about through magazines and forums that you were now finally allowed to experience. ... View more

The Reality Distortion Field of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk couldn't save GM in this case. GM lost the Lexus ES customer two to three decades ago with the 1-2 punch of GM's craptastic 1980s lineup followed up by the prime of Honda and Toyota, a run comparable to Stevie Wonder in the 1970s. Cars like the 3rd-gen Accord and the XV10 Camry severed the family ties to Chevy and Ford that their parents held until death. Going Japanese gave people the freedom of not having to worry about their new car not starting before work in the morning, or being shaken down by the service advisor. Indeed, one less thing to worry about is something all Americans would like to have these days.   This is why the Lexus ES replaced the Buick Century and the Mercury Grand Marquis in the last 10-15 years as the official Last Car of the well-to-do Floridian retiree. I often wonder how close Lexus is to becoming Buick for today's young people. ... View more

It is very interesting to see the results of Honda and Toyota diverging on how to comply with modern, global regulatory regimes. Honda has gone all-in on tiny, direct-injected, turbo motors paired with CVTs for everything but their large "truck" platform. Meanwhile Toyota have pushed their hybrid technology that was battle-tested on the streets of New York throughout the rest of their lineup. In markets where it doesn't make sense to only offer hybrids, Toyota has developed dual-injection systems, only put CVTs in small cars, and has stuck with naturally-aspirated engines.   So far, Toyota is winning. If you believe Consumer Reports's data, Honda doesn't make 'em like they used to. I would believe CR in this case because Toyonda have had a duopoly on the wallets of Consumer Reports readers for the last 30 years. There's the oil-fuel dilution scandal for the 1.5T which is Honda's volume engine for the whole world. It doesn't seem like a huge deal right now, but the Hyundai Theta IIs grenading themselves took 5-6 years to develop. The tenth-gen Civic's A/C compressors fail at an alarming rate. Honda went with the ZF 9-speed as a stop gap for their V6-powered vehicles until their 10-speed was ready, and the ZF 9-speed sucks out loud. Finally, the infotainment is as glitchy and terrible as an Android tablet from 2012, because the Honda infotainment is a 2012 Android tablet. ... View more

Since we're doing music analogies, General Motors is like a talented, but mercurial musician. When they put it all together, they can produce something enchanting. But for whatever reason, they can't consistently put it all together, hindering the rest of their life and work. Perhaps General Motors is the Lauryn Hill of car companies. Then the Corvette is their Miseducation, and the rest of GM's output is comparable to the rest of Lauryn Hill's life and work after Miseducation (learning about this will be an exercise left to the reader.)   The C8 is exerting downward pressure on the rest of the Corvette market if you would like to wait for the bugs to be worked out. The C7 was the product of a quarter-century's worth of refinement whereas the C8 is GM's first mid-engined car since the Fiero. Yes, Corvette engineers made very sure to point out their track-day validation was done down South as a way to say that they learned the lessons of the C7 Z06. But not even Toyota can test for all cases until the cars get out into the real world. ... View more

The Veloster N has succeeded the Fiesta ST, Cobalt SS Turbo, and SRT-4 as the king of the American sport compacts. No, the Veloster N is not made by a company with headquarters in Detroit, nor is it made in America like a Sonata is. What the Veloster N is is a car that's built not as nicely as the Honda or VW equivalents, but makes up for that by costing less, and delivering more fun like those aforementioned cars did. I might say that the Veloster N is William of Orange to Jim Hackett's James II. ... View more

I have noticed that Facebook defaults to automatics even for cars that had manuals as an option. You have to go out of your way to note that your listing has a manual transmission.   Also Facebook is worse for searches for entertainment, like "invested." I'm here to try to find owners whose decision to sell their project car is the only thing keeping them from being the subject of a Werner Herzog documentary. I'm not here for real estate. Facebook ruins everything. ... View more

"Invested" also delivers entertaining results.  ... View more

Thanks for the reply Jack; I knew you'd have fun with that one. You are correct that I was thinking of the British view of Alfa rather than an American one. IMO there are two types of American Alfa Romeo owners. The first was the Graduate superfan as you mentioned. The second is a fellow who grew to love Italy through their boarding school education in Latin, and summer trips to Italy, but read enough Gramsci in college to performatively self-flagellate themselves for their wealth. Ergo they now drive a Giulia Quadrifoglio.   Unfortunately a first-gen Neon, or even an NA Miata, is out of the question for me as my father recently passed away, and I am my mother's only child. My mother might accept me dying for my country, but not death by F-250 King Ranch. ... View more

I understand where you're coming from there. Video requires a lot of investment, both in resources and knowledge, even if Hagerty has people you can lean on to make that happen. While I get the sense that Hagerty is very willing to support its sparkling new Media arm through their primary business - much like how AWS pays the bills for Amazon's e-commerce strategy - I would like to help make life a little easier for y'all with the money people. The world is a different place today than it was during the heyday of a certain truth-telling car site. One last suggestion for the Vellum Venom series: the Lexus LC500. I still turn my head every time I see an LC500, even after having seen a few around in Florida because it's a Corvette alternative for the older gentleman who thinks a Corvette is a little too "bad cologne and Golden Corral" for him. What a gorgeous car. ... View more

Thank you Sajeev for providing your expertise to help me understand why the C8's styling is such a mess. I had felt that the C8's design was fine, if fussy, until the B-pillar where things fell apart. Yet I couldn't quite put my finger on why it provoked that reaction from me. Then I read your article, saw the biggest DLO FAIL of all time, and it all clicked.   Another big problem in my eyes is that design couldn't rise to the challenge of integrating the C8's cooling. The C8 doesn't wear its ducts proudly like a 911 GT3 RS does, nor is it gracefully integrated like it is on a McLaren 720S.   I wish that the Corvette team had looked to the C3, or the widebody C6 for inspiration here. The design of those cars projected grace and power whereas the C8 recalls the phrase "design by committee."   Have you and Hagerty considered making Vellum Venom a video series? I feel like this content would translate well to video, and it would get your great perspective to a wider audience. And the economics make sense too. All the people that would've been bloggers 10-20 years ago are now on YouTube because ad revenue for the written word is in the gutter. For example, Gamers Nexus, a PC hardware site I support, has said that they are a YouTube-first outlet because of the money whereas their predecessor for the best in the business, AnandTech, was a text-only outlet. If Hagerty can get Jay Leno and Chip Foose, surely they can pay for a video producer to work with you. ... View more

A recurring segment on classic Top Gear was the small-volume-production supercar, by manufacturers such as Gumpert, Wiesmann, Noble, and Spyker. The review would always talk about how beautiful the car was, and how special it felt to drive, but ultimately you should just buy a Lamborghini because the microbrew supercar was built by a bunch of blokes in a shed. Now, we're gonna lose a lot to the EV revolution. But the promise of being able to buy cool cars without their survival being beholden to the Jim Hacketts of the world is exciting.   An aside: the restomod, pioneered by builders like Singer and ICON, has succeeded where the microbrew supercar didn't because they are building on already-existing symbols. Restomodders can wholly reinvent the car to where the only thing the restomod shares with the original is the body, much like a touring car. But to our eyes, it's still a 911, or a Land Cruiser, and thus recalls all the emotions of those cars. ... View more

Looks like someone here read my comment about the 350Z on last week's post about cars of the 2000s. 😉 The 350Z was at least a full generation ahead of the Camaro and Mustang when it came out, but Carlos Ghosn pulling all the money out of premium platforms at Nissan meant the Z has languished on the market. Yes, I see the contrarians who delight in the Z being a throwback that you can buy new, but to me, it's today's late C3 Corvette. Go buy a V6 Camaro 1LE instead.   If you're interested in a 350Z, or its sister, the Infiniti G, you should buy one now before they all get ruined like the S13s and EK Civics. The most reckless and tasteless drivers on the road have also discovered the virtues of the heavily-depreciated 350Z. 350Zs, not subprime silver Rogues, are the worst-driven cars on the road in my area today. These are the sort of drivers that shoot for the tiniest gap in traffic like they're Ayrton Senna, think that constantly changing lanes will get you to your destination faster, and seriously speed on roads that see lots of pedestrians.   And the modifications make these cars rolling pimples. Every time I hear a straight-piped VQ, I yearn for the Folgers can muffler sound of a modded Civic. They're on big rims from the local wheel shop that accepts weekly payments, and because of that, the tires are so bad that even Senna himself would struggle to drive these Zs fast in the wet. Finally, there's the cheap LED headlights, which blind everyone else on the road because these cheap LEDs are not designed to be put into reflector housings.   For what it's worth, the 4-door Infiniti Gs have mostly escaped the gaze of the yobbos if you want a car on this platform, but don't want to be associated with the Z's image. ... View more

While I don't care for Porsche and the madness around Porsches today, I applaud Porsche for continuing to make cars for enthusiasts instead of wholly being under the influence of the people who buy their cars as Veblen goods. This is also why enthusiasts should put their skin in the game and buy new cars that represent their values. We should do this as a duty to future enthusiasts, and to use today's parlance, it would also make automakers "see and hear" us. I am so sick of the Internet Car Guy on Reddit and Jalopnik who post about how much they want manual transmission diesel brown unicorn wagons, but only depreciated. Hint: there won't be any used ones on the market if no one buys them new. ... View more

The C6Z is a wonderful car with a unique engine that makes me think twice about going straight to a C7. And putting a widebody C6 next to a C8 makes you wonder if all the styling talent left the RenCen.   I'm surprised to see the Nissan 350Z omitted from this list. 350Zs are affordable, fun, and reliable cars today with a healthy aftermarket to support them. Beyond that, there is also an angle for collectors. The most reckless and tasteless drivers on the road have also discovered these facts about the 350Z, and they will ruin the 350Z like they ruined the 240SX. If you can keep yours fairly clean, you might not lose that much money over a long-term ownership period.   And I'd prefer an E60 M5 over an E55 AMG. The E60 M5 had to follow up the E39 M5, a perfect car, and you never want to be the guy that follows the guy. It was not liked at release for its radical styling changes, and the E60 was a far more digital car than the E39. But the E60's styling has held up over the past decade-and-a-half, and the almighty V10 still rings out today. Yes, E60 M5 will be less reliable than an E55 AMG but either way, you're buying a nearly 2-decade old German super-sedan. Reliability shouldn't be expected. ... View more