The final quarter of 2025 was a tumultuous time in my laboratory. A business group based in another building south of mine had 4 brand new test benches sitting in storage. Each of them takes up about 150-200sqft before allowances for walking around them. The management of this group decided the best course of action was to clear out floor space in MY lab, and activate those benches here ASAP because they had super important testing to run. Before you ask dear reader; no, I won’t be running these new machines, and as of today (March 30, 2026) they still aren’t fully commissioned and operating.

Anyhow, the first action items were to move out and scrap some old equipment we truthfully weren’t using anymore. Then we moved some other test stands that I was still running over to an area once occupied by a scrapped machine. After moving some cabinets around, the four fancy new machines had their floorspace. (It’s true this story has nothing to do with the smallest Cadillac available right now, but if none of it happened I wouldn’t be able to bring you a review on this 4 year old company pool car so please bear with me.) It was at that point we started to hear rumblings of moving those still operational and fairly popular machines out of our lab and into the assembly plant where most of the parts I tested in them were made. After the electricians finished connecting them to 220v in their new area, we were told a semi truck will be arriving the next morning to take them away.

Where was away, you ask? The small agri-industrial town of Greensburg, Indiana. My Lab Management suggested having their lab techs come up to Michigan so together we could run a super-hot test that Product Management was huffing about. That way, once the benches got moved down to Indiana, they’d know how to use them and could continue running tests as needed. “We don’t have enough time for that,” was the response from Product Management. The next morning, a semi truck backed up to the loading dock, my bosses and I wheeled the machines into the trailer and strapped them in, I emptied my spare parts cabinets into a giant plastic tote, and we waved them goodbye. I asked my boss, “I’m gonna have to go down there, aren’t I?”

More than an entire week later, on a Friday morning around 10am, the benches were finally set up and powered on in Greensburg. That’s when they realized what these Product Managers, who can’t even use a screwdriver, had stuck them with, and begged for assistance. HR booked me a hotel. I was to keep my food receipts so my manager could pay me back and then fill out an expense report as his own, and I would get a credit card for gas. Plus… the keys to a pool car. Monday morning, after HR finally found the correct gas card and matching PIN, I walked outside and brushed the snow off a black 2022 (I think, could be a 21) Cadillac XT4.

Driving through Ohio for the first time in over two years, I had the cruise control set to 70-something mph. The steering wheel had buttons on it for adaptive cruise control, and the dash showed me graphical indications of the selected following distance as I pressed the buttons, but it didn’t actually seem to do any adapting on any setting. With the distance set to the longest setting, speed set to higher than the car ahead, this particular Caddy simply kept creeping closer and closer without adapting. To confirm this issue, I once let it get very close to the car ahead of me before canceling cruise and moving over to pass; the adaptive cruise simply didn’t work, but I saw nothing more than a washer fluid level warning in all the 4 days I drove the car. No matter, I prefer standard cruise control anyway. By accident, I figured out that the little rocker knob on the right wheel spoke has 2 positions at each end. Tapping shortly changed my speed by 1mph as standard, but pressing the rocker fully and holding for a fraction of a second jumped the cruise setting by 5mph for passing, and the same settings applied in the other direction slowed the car down the same respective amounts. At first it was a nuisance because it surprised me at an inopportune moment, but once I figured out the function I really enjoyed and used it constantly.

The powertrain had no issue bumping me up that 5 or even 10mph on short notice, either. During my drive I honestly thought it had the 2.7L truck engine. However, Wikipedia says the XT4 has a 2.0L LSY turbo I-4 *with* AFM coupled to a 9T50 transmission. Stated power output is only 237hp and 258lbft, but it makes that torque from 1500 all the way to 4000 rpm. That little 2.0 and 9 speed combo really works well together, pulling the 3900lb unit around with authority you’d not expect from the numbers alone. It really is surprisingly quick. Interstate passing is trivial up to… uh… speeds, and woe to any teenager in a pickup truck who tries to beat an attentively driven AWD XT4 across an intersection.

On the other hand, It doesn’t sound amazing and fuel economy was not great. I think I only averaged 23 or 24mpg on my way south. I do tend to drive 3-7mph faster than average traffic around me, but since I’m an hourly employee I wasn’t really trying to make time either. All that awaited me was a lonely hotel room away from my wife in a town with nothing happening the first week of December.

One saving grace of this otherwise mind numbing drive was the XT4’s solidly nice stereo and pretty reliable Android Auto. An electro-magnetic charging pad in the center console kept my S25 topped up, but it’s out of sight so I left my phone in the car at least 6 times in 4 days, including every stop for gas. One other saving grace was the very comfortable heated seat. My lower back did start to get sore as I approached Cincinnati, but I can’t name a vehicle off the top of my head where that doesn’t happen after 4.5hrs.

My Spotify playlist continued shuffling from everything between Wu Tang and Three 6 Mafia, to Metallica and Alice in Chains, to D-Train, to Anri, and even some Eddie Rabbitt. All the songs came through loud and clear, with strong but clean bass, clean mids, and clear vocals, but like many other stereos cymbal crashes would often be too sharp at higher volumes. Despite the comfy seat and good hi-fi, though, the overall interior vibe wasn’t very inspiring. It feels very much like you’re sunken inside of a tank as opposed to piloting a small premium crossover (more on this later). The full black leather and plastics only add to that feeling, and almost spill into claustrophobic despite actually being quite roomy. This car would feel much more pleasant with some tan/brown tones to counter the void inside.

The IN3 bypass around Greensburg on the west side is a huge road obviously less than 5 years old, and the road out to the industrial area where I found my assembly plant was freshly repaved as well. Of course not every road has seen investment recently, but that was no problem for the Cadillac. This car does indeed ride as the badge suggests (or once suggested depending on whom you ask). Interior noise is well managed, too. Handsfree phone calls were the best they’ve ever been at highway speeds, and although the stereo can get loud it doesn’t need to be. When spiritedly taking entry/exit ramps or gunning to make a yellow-arrow left before being stuck at another 4 minute light, though… I think an Escalade would feel more corner-confident.

The XT4 doesn’t lack grip, but the spring softness that makes it ride so well isn’t very well controlled when you add lateral loading. It heaves over around turns and dives under braking, which only enforces the notion this is a car for comfort and not speed despite its peppy motor. And that’s fine, but why does it feel like a ‘75 Eldo if small crossover shaped? I wonder if the Eldorado would actually turn better… My wife’s 2018 Compass is a Miata compared to this thing; slower but has a way more spirited chassis and 900lbs less weight. I didn’t think twice before hustling the Compass around Waterford Hills when I got a lucky spot for parade laps (seriously, Jack has a video1). The XT4? It would just stay parked in the grass paddock.

Greensburg got snow that week. More snow earlier in the winter than anyone could remember since forever ago. Schools closed but we still went to work, and my Cadillac didn’t seem to mind. It’s only equipped with all season tires, so lateral grip and stopping was done with caution but it wasn’t an issue to accelerate thanks to the AWD system. Eventually my modus operandi was to turn off traction control and lock in the AWD which allowed maximum safe fun but also the easiest driveability due to the computers chilling out a bit. I even had snow covered and hard-packed roads for my way home on a sunny Thursday morning.

Google Maps decided the best way home was via I74 toward Indy, but then getting off and noodling along various county and state routes to the north until I returned to a highway somewhere east of Indy. The route zig-zagged through the bucolic scenes of snow covered fields, old barns, old tractors and old trucks. Driving down them in a small black Cadillac made me feel slightly conspicuous, like I would easily be mistaken for some conglomerate head’s wife or some pansy2 corporate drone interfering with the rural way of life. In a way, the latter was half true. My 2-tone blue/grey ‘00 Chevy 2500 would’ve blended in much better, but I was thankful to have the stability of the Cad’s AWD on miles long stretches of unplowed and untreated roads at 45-50mph. I only saw 3 or 4 other vehicles along that leg, anyway.

Storage space is on par for the class, I think. I came back with more stuff than I left with but the only thing that was slightly awkward was a set of Nissan S13 side skirts I picked up for a friend, but with the rear seats folded they did indeed fit diagonally.

Other than its formfactor, drivetrain layout, and cylinder count, the XT4 does feel like a junior Cadillac, and a huge leap over its Cheby badged progenitor. It absolutely devours long highway miles, has the power, comfortable seats, smooth ride, quiet cabin, and good stereo you expect from the shield and crest (just shield now I guess?), but it does lack the sense of occasion, or swagger if you will, the marque once held. Nor does it inspire any thrill around corners. This pool car hasn’t had any issues but it’s still relatively new so I can’t truly speak to long term reliability.

A quick AutoTempest search says examples with similar miles (I think the car I drove is over 50k now) are between $15-25k. For me, that’s a ton of money I would rather spend on 25 year old pickups and sedans. When compared to what these things cost new, though? If one is shopping for a small but nice crossover, I’d say it’s worth a test drive and inspection. It’s a nice car.

Good: acceleration, seat, stereo, cabin noise, ride, poor weather confidence

Meh: steering and handling, mpg, styling inside and out, generally boring

Welcome our own Peter Collins, who thinks I made the wrong choice in my used-Lexus forays…

Is that even a question?

In which, oh best beloved, we learn to do “Lexus on a budget” the right way.

It is cruel to mock the afflicted, is it not? Christianity hints that this a road we shouldn’t take, but sometimes, just sometimes we must don the boots and be ready…

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Call it the Season of Affordable Whites. Last week, the Commander and I drove a 2025 Toyota Corolla around West Texas and New Mexico — but in the five days before heading to El Paso, we put some serious mileage on a 2025 Audi Q3 45 S-Line Premium. How serious? 1,959 miles in 120-ish hours, going from Mid-Ohio down to Hilton Head and back with plenty of …

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Did you know that you can buy an American-made sedan that offers 169 horsepower, more than 40mpg in normal driving, plenty of room for a quartet of adults, an acceptable suite of electronic intrusions, a decent stereo, plus generally admirable fit and finish for… $23,460 including delivery? There are a few drawbacks, w…

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When is a Volkswagen not a Volkswagen? When it’s a Skoda, obviously. The all-new “B9” Passat is essentially identical to the Skoda Superb wagon, sharing all the body panels and being manufactured next to the Superb in Bratislava. (Yes, that Bratislava.) This is the only available body style; the liftback that defined the Passat on its 1973 debut is gone…

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“I kept thinking what the theme of this GT40 experience was. Mostly it came back as don’t marry or have carnal relations …

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In England, one of the rudest things one can say about someone’s choice of motor is that it is “a bit of a hairdresser’s car.” I arrived for a lunch in my 986 to a driveway containing nothing…

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Call this one The Art Of Reviewing In The Rain. I was the second person to drive Ginetta’s new GTP8 on track in the United States. (The first was Ginetta boss Mike Simpson.) Our venue: the lovely but anodyne Club Motorsports course in New Hampshire.

At a dealer retail of $220,000, the 6.2-liter, 400-horse, 2500-pound GTP8 represents a substantial purchase for most of us. It’s also a serious vehicle in a way that a street-oriented kinda-super-ish-car like a Porsche GT3RS or Ferrari 296 is most assuredly not. Nor is it likely to have the gold-plated resale value of the above Cars-N’-Coffee trolleys. So you shouldn’t buy one, or even place a deposit, before experiencing one firsthand. Ginetta USA is happy to make that happen for qualified buyers, and in this case “qualified” means “fiscally qualified” and “not a liability on track”.

Should you even bother checking one out? It depends on who you are. So I’ve written a few different two-paragraph reviews aimed at different kinds of buyers. Figure out which one you are, and proceed accordingly.

Who am I, you might ask? For those of you who aren’t frequent ACF readers: I’m a Scorpio. I enjoy long walks on the beach, holding hands, and making enemies between the green and checkered flag. I’m currently racing a very logical trifecta of Radical SR8, Radical PR6, and Plymouth Neon in SCCA, where I am a four-time divisional champion. In the past, I’ve tested a diverse variety of semi-pro race hardware like the GT3 and GT4 McLaren customer cars, GT4 BMW customer car, Sebeco SPX, Radical SR3 RX, Lola SP/300.R, and a few other things that I’ll remember immediately after I publish this article. I drove Hondas and Mazda in Grand-Am, CTCC, and World Challenge, too.

So, without further ado:

If you’ve never driven a real race car, or have never driven a real race car above a Spec Miata…

Broadly speaking, the GTP8 is a tuned-down version of the $260,000 GT4 EVO. It’s become common lately for baby-blanket racing novices to jump out of a Spec Miata and right into the GT4-class cars. In fact, there’s a whole race league for people who have no business in a GT4 car, and they call it the “World” Racing League.

Ginetta knows these people exist, and they’d like to do some business with them, both in WRL and in a special GTP8 spec racing series to debut in 2026. So the GTP8, like the GT4 Evo, has plenty of features to calm and protect the inexperienced racer. To begin with, the fundamental balance and engineering of the Ginetta race cars is excellent. Unlike McLaren’s GT4, this isn’t a converted supercar with the turbo wick turned down to “sleepytime”; unlike the Mustang GT4, this isn’t a schoolbus with every upgrade IMSA will permit. It’s a proper GT racer with the engine in the safest place, meaning “between the front axle and you.” It is stable and predictable by default. I was hitting about 150mph on the front straight at Club Motorsports, in heavy rain, within my first twelve minutes on track. That is the kind of confidence the GTP8 inspires.

The cockpit easily accommodates up to about a 6’4”, 300-pound driver. All controls are labeled in easy-to-understand fashion. Most of the stuff you’d need to do during the race is right there on the steering wheel. Of particular interest to vaguely trained monkeys driving the car for the first time in the rain, such as your humble author: The traction control is adjustable on the fly, but the throttle response is also adjustable on the fly. Put these two together, and it’s possible to handle a broad variety of weather and driver skill. Oh, and you get air conditioning, because WRL typa drivers are fragile people and why not be comfortable?

The GM-sourced 6.2-liter V-8 is charming in a Corvette sort of way. It doesn’t really want to rev, but it makes a lovely noise and in this lightweight coupe the forward push is somewhere between a Ferrari 458 and a Ferrari 488. Closer to the former. You’ll use a clutch pedal to get started, but once you’re above 35mph or so the shift paddles are all you need to get through the Xtrac 6-speed sequential box.

(Note, please: this is not a supercar DCT. It’s a dog-box with a manual clutch. You can stall it, you can ask for and receive shifts that will jolt your spine. The GTP8 is meant to be driver-friendly, but it’s not a Vegas rental Huracan.)

The rubber is generously sized — current spec is a 305-width Pirelli front and rear — so cornering limits will be well above what you’d expect from a street car. I don’t have published figures on downforce, but in normal use I wouldn’t expect much in the way of aero behavior from the GTP8. Which is how Ginetta, and the customers, want it. If you think you can drive a wing, put your big boy pants on and buy a Formula Atlantic.

It’s a lovely vehicle, filled to the brim with details that feel special, plenty of exposed carbon fiber, some beautiful welds, and a really quite lovely shape that manages to feel modern and vintage at the same time. That being said, if you don’t yet have any big-bore racing experience, this would be best enjoyed as a trackday car. The firm would be delighted to sell you a GTP8 and get you coached up to competitive pace over the course of a year or two; I spoke to owners who are doing just that. But it’s not the ideal choice for a Miata loyalist.

If you’ve been driving Radicals, Stohrs, Formula Continentals, or Formula Enterprise…

…this is a step backwards. The aero is mostly cosmetic, the straight-line pace isn’t much better than an FE2, and you won’t like the amount of braking it needs before every turn.

That being said, it’s pretty damned hard to find a big open-wheel field and the Platinum Radicals like the SR8 and SR10 can be expensive to run. So if being in the thick of competition is more important to you than pulling 2.5g in a long corner, talk to Ginetta.

This is a trivially easy car for an experienced wheel to operate. It has literally zero bad habits, even in the rain. You can hold slip angles if you like, or you can turn the TC down to the point where such a thing is unlikely to happen. Default behavior is nose-grind, adjustable pretty easily on the throttle. I wasn’t thrilled with how the ABS operates in heavy rain, but compared to the ABS on my Radicals, which is provided entirely by the toes of my left foot, it’s pretty decent.

Visibility is really good, too. It’s just a nice car to drive, and I imagine you can place it in traffic within an inch or so, even at max speed.

Drivers who are aging out of being competitive in an SCCA P1 or P2 car might find this to be a really nice place of refuge. The seat is hilariously comfortable. You could have two knee replacements and still be able to enter and exit without much trouble.

On the front straight at Club Motorsports, it sounds like an LMP3 car. Or maybe a C6.R. I like it.

If you’re a NASA GTS4/5, SCCA American Sedanner, Spec Corvette racer, or similar…

…then step right up, my friend, because this is the racer you’ve always really wanted. It’s not some finicky street car that tears its subframes out while you tear your hair out. It’s not a hasty conversion of something that lived ten years in a parking lot before being drafted into a nightmare second life of being repaired on the weekends with whatever Chinesium the AutoZone down the street from Summit Point or Willow Springs has to offer. It’s not an adventure in setup — the thing comes with a book, just like a Radical. Everything you’ll touch or adjust has been specified with competition use, and competition maintenance, in mind.

Yeah, it costs four times as much as a Spec Iron Mustang. Which makes it a bargain.

Putting just 400hp into a GT4 car with 305 tires makes everything nice and predictable, even in bad weather. Compared to a Mustang or even a C5 spec car, the visibility and sense of corners is delightful. The ergonomics are correct — I say this as a tall-torso person who has had to remove his helmet just to get into a McLaren GT3 car and even some American Iron SN95 entrants. Operation couldn’t be simpler. It’s all right there on the panel, which has lights to let you know what you’ve selected!

I should note that I briefly drove the G56 GTA, which is a $135,000 version of the Ginetta powered by a 305hp Duratec 3.7, and I didn’t like it at all. 310 horsepower, mostly delivered at the top of the rev range and with some reluctance, doesn’t charm at all. The 6.2 V8 kinda makes the Ginetta work the way it’s supposed to. It also sounds the way it’s supposed to. If you’ve ever run a Camaro in AI or AS, you’ll recognize the sound right away. It’s the sound of freedom, and also the sound of an engine that should have its maintenance and condition kept up to absolute spec. Not to say that the LS engines aren’t reliable in competition use, and Ginetta expects a long life from the variant they provide, but still… This is not an MZR 2.0 and you can’t treat it like one.

If you can afford the price hike over a street-based racing ponycar, I strongly recommend you consider the GTP8. If you’re thinking of moving from NASA or SCCA to SRO/IMSA/whatever, this is also a fine platform with which to do it. I would recommend it without hesitation over a Mustang GT4 or — God help you — a Mustang Challenge car. Ginetta will be supporting these vehicles with love and care long after “Ford Racing” has paid Verizon to block every phone number in your extended family. It’s worth your attention.

If you literally don’t have $500 in your bank account and you will never have the chance to own a GTP8…

Hey, good news! You can race Ginettas in a dedicated E-Series. Is it better than the Radical SR8 iRacing series? I have no idea. I race a real car, on a real track, with a real credit card that is real overdrawn.

This concludes today’s Ginetta GTP8 test. It’s a great car, and I really liked it. While I would personally much rather stay in open-cockpit prototypes and formula cars, I also recognize that there are significant safety and competitive advantages to driving something like the GTP8, which has a robust safety cage and a nice windshield between you and flying tires. Is it worth $220,000? Well, for about the same money you could get a Richard Mille “Felipe Massa” watch in rose gold. That would make you look like a world-class racer, for sure.

The GTP8 will make you feel like a world-class racer. And if you stick with it long enough, you might even become a world-class racer. Isn’t that better?

Originally published at TTAC — January 29, 2011.

In my Nissan Frontier Capsule Review, I briefly mentioned the fact that I’d had a Saab 9-3 prior to said Frontier. Well, as it turned out, I ended up having the Saab after the Frontier, as well. Before I could take possession of said little turbocharged hatchback for the second time and send it back to the lease company where it belonged, however, I had to beg, threaten, and — depending on your definition of the word — perhaps steal.

Prince’s suggestions aside, I didn’t party much in 1999. Instead, I formed two businesses: a nonprofit web-hosting cooperative designed to provide affordable space to individuals and small businesses who were interested in using the Debian operating system, and a tech consulting firm. One of my partners in the latter was a fifty-something veteran of the food-brokerage industry who could sell the proverbial ice to the proverbial Eskimos. Before we knew it, we had some pretty decent clients and a little bit of income coming in.

My partner was a big believer in not showing a lot of profit on the books, so we went looking for some company cars to burn up the money. His credit was dismal, a casualty of starting a dozen businesses and declaring bankruptcy at least twice, so he wound up paying $800 a month for a used Cadillac STS. I had done a better job of adhering to the American secular religion of debt and repayment so I found myself at the local Saab dealer signing up for a 2000 Saab 9-3 “S” five-speed for the bargain rate of $339 a month over thirty-six months.

Some of you will have forgotten the original Saab 9-3, so let’s review. GM bought Saab in the early nineties and promptly replaced the company’s long-serving “900”, a long-nose variant of the positively ancient Saab “99”, with the “900 NG”. The brand’s loyalists were horrified; the “new” 900 was basically an old Opel with a transverse engine, generic styling, depressing interior materials, and a suspension that produced torque steer at almost any power level.

In 1999 Saab performed a modest revision of the 900NG to create the 9-3. In most ways, the 9-3 was better than its predecessor, but it was still pretty far from good enough. However, it had a few things that very few other cars in its price segment could offer: the availability of a hatchback in both three-and-five-door body styles, the combination of a turbo engine and a manual transmission, and some absolutely monstrous incentives courtesy of GMAC.

Those incentives put me behind the wheel of a black base-model five-door with leather interior, 185 horsepower from a light-pressure turbo, and dowdy-looking fifteen-inch alloys. At the time, I was still spending most of my nights at a skatepark or BMX track and the Saab’s ability to swallow a few bikes was quite convenient. The seats were better than good and the heater loops embedded into those seats could boil water if required.

The GM people wanted Saab to be a luxury car, perhaps not understanding that Saab had never really sold luxury cars. They’d sold expensive cars, but those cars were only expensive because they’d been dragged across an ocean and priced in a different currency. There was nothing luxury-car about the 9-3. The driveline, in particular, sounded cheap and the shift lever felt like its operating cables were long enough to hang the Golden Gate Bridge.

This was also the era of the ridiculous “Born From Jets” advertising. To provide that advertising with the barest connection to reality, Saab equipped the 9-3 with the “Black Panel”. The Black Panel was an enormous button that, when pressed at night, cut the illumination to every gauge except the speedometer. The idea was that only critical information would be communicated to the pilot, I mean, driver. If one of the gauges reached a “critical area”, it would light up. Supposedly this was the way LearJets worked. The way it worked in practice:

• Explain “Black Panel” to passenger;

• Press Black Panel button;

• Observe the non-impressed countenance of passenger;

• Drive for a while in Black Panel;

• Shriek like little girl when the fuel gauge falls below a quarter-tank and lights up out of nowhere in CRITICAL MODE;

• Never press Black Panel button again.

The money it took to develop the Black Panel would have been better-spent on brakes. The 9-3 was not a great stopper and the ABS cycle rate seemed very slow. Or it could have been used to address the torque steer, which was miserable despite the engine’s modest power level. At least it was possible to make relatively rapid progress if one could hold the steering wheel straight, since there was plenty of area under the curve on the power chart.

About a year into my lease, my partner came to me with some surprising information. We were broke. Although we were making decent money, his purchase and complete renovation of a massive home had eaten up our profits. He’d decided to revamp the business into a cell-phone distributorship, and he had new partners. I agreed to walk away from the business for a modest consideration, leaving the Saab behind as a condition of said agreement.

Come the year 2002, I’d all but forgotten the little hatchback when the calls from GMAC started. My lease payment was ninety days past due. Would I mind addressing it? Not at all. I called my partner, who told me the Saab had been stolen and that therefore he’d stopped making payments. Upon further questioning, he revealed that “stolen” meant “taken by the new partner in the business in lieu of repayment on a major loan.” I went to see the cops anyway. They explained to me that, although I had not handed the keys to the new partner, I had handed the keys to the dude who had handed the keys to him, and that therefore there was no theft involved.

I called the new partner and got his secretary. His secretary referred me to his attorney. I called the attorney, who informed me that his partner had a perfect right to hold the car as long as he wanted to. I explained to the attorney that the two parties holding title to the car were GMAC and Jack Baruth, and that my old partner wasn’t really suffering. He explained to me that he didn’t care. I asked him to please reconsider. He declined. At that point I threw caution to the winds and explained that

a) I was being placed in a desperate situation;

b) people in desperate situations did desperate things;

c) his client worked late at night in a bad part of town and I couldn’t necessarily prevent his client from being shot in the face by vagrants, even though I drove by there all the time.

Two weeks later, I met the new partner behind the automatic gate of a Public Storage facility, along with his attorney, and watched as my Saab was backed out of a rental garage. It looked terrible. Every panel was scratched and dented. The rim of one wheel was so badly bent I was surprised it was holding air. The new partner had been smoking in the car for almost a year. It stank. It was filthy. The seats were torn. I felt sick to my stomach, but in moments I was gone, accompanied by an odd noise from the transmission.

I don’t remember what I had planned for that weekend, but I remember what I ended up doing: cleaning that car from bumper to bumper with Q-tips, alcohol, thick brushes, peroxide, and (I kid you not) sandpaper. Near the end of the ordeal, I opened the glovebox… and found a Rolex Air-King. I knew it belonged to the new partner because it had suffered the same kind of abuse to which my Saab had been subjected. The mineral crystal was scratched and the leather was worn. I figured it for a fake and tossed it on the kitchen island.

Two weeks later, the GMAC inspector stopped by for the end-of-lease paperwork. She looked at the car for a long time, took a lot of notes, and, to my amazement, announced that there would be no damage penalty. It turns out that GMAC used the same criteria for Saabs as they did for Silverados and Suburbans. I couldn’t believe my luck. Some stories have a happy ending…

…and the story got a bit happier. My wife saw the fake Rolex sitting on the island and ran it to the local jeweler. It wasn’t fake, and they wrote her a check on the spot. Eight hundred bucks. I figured it as a hundred-dollar-an-hour detail job. A week later, the phone rang.

“Uh, hey, that car I gave back to you?”

“What about it?”

“You, uh, find a watch in there?” I told him where he could look for the watch, but unless he owned some very specialized medical equipment, I doubt that he ever managed to follow that advice.

(Postscript: It was an Air-King 5500, so would be worth at least three grand now, maybe five.)

It was a decision that would eventually make a half-trillion-dollar impact on the market, but America’s autowriters didn’t really understand any of it at the time. The year was 1989 and everyone knew that upscale Japanese cars were about to do to the Germans what the comet had done to the dinosaurs. Honda had shown the way with the Acura Legend, which p…

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Sui generis. Latin, for “In a class of its own”. As opposed to generic, meaning “indistinguishable from others of its class”. The majority of new vehicles on the road now are, sadly, generic — and purposely so. A two-row crossover powered by a small-displacement, long-stroke turbo four. A three-row crossover with multiple screens on the dash and a two-liter turbo four. You get the idea. The automakers have adopted the Hertz philosophy to their lineups; what is a Chevrolet Equinox if it is not a “Honda CR-V… or similar”?

The Mazda Cosmo Type E, sold through the brand’s upscale Eunos channel in Japan, is similar to… nothing. Nominally, it’s a two-liter turbo, same as most of the lot-filler Bimmers, Benzes, and Audis out there. Except instead of four cylinders in a paint-shaker line you get… three rotors in a Wankel engine. This is sui generis. The Cosmo is the only three-rotor production car in human history.

After an hour behind the wheel, however, the completely unique engine is probably the last thing you’ll remember about it.

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A reader sent me a listing for a ‘Bird this morning, which reminded me of this June 6, 2010 piece from TTAC. I’ve revised a few parts that were unclear in the original, because I was almost certainly drunk when I wrote and published it — jb

So where were we? Oh yes. After wandering the earth (and working in a call center) for the first few months of 1995, I ended up at a very small Ford dealership located in the heart of Columbus, Ohio. (Bob Keim Ford — jb) On my first day, I was paired with another fellow who was also starting out at the dealership. I’ll call him… Rodney. He was an outgoing, cheerful thirty-one-year-old man who looked remarkably like the Colt 45-commercial-era Billy Dee Williams. Rodney was very interested in the dealership’s demo program, because he’d lost the use of his girlfriend’s car when said girlfriend moved out on him. Every day he walked from his apartment a mile or so away, and every night he walked back home. The general manager took pity on him and broke the thirty-days-of-service-before-a-demo rule to put him in a Ranger Club Cab.

I started slowly at the dealership but by the time the 1996 model year rolled around I was regularly one of the top two or three guys on the board every month. More importantly, I was the most effective advocate in the shop for the Red Carpet Lease 24-month program. One month I moved 16 units and leased 14 of ’em. At least three of those were people I’d had to dissuade from writing me a check for the whole car on the spot. That’s right, I converted cash buyers to lessors. Why? There was a fifty-dollar spiff.

(It was more than fifty bucks for successive leases after the first. I made six grand and bought two HK pistols with the money.)

I was eventually rewarded for my performance by being permitted to order my own demo, just like the 55-year-old Brylcreemers who had been serving at the store since before ‘Nam. I knew exactly what I wanted. Start with a 1996 Thunderbird LX, black with beige interior. Add just three options: Compact disc player. Power Moonroof. And, most importantly, a 4.6 “mod motor”. The order was accepted at the factory. I was four weeks away from my ‘Bird. But Rodney had some other plans involving Ford’s aging coupe…

I tried to find a decent photo of the ’94-97 T-Bird cockpit, without success. Take my word for it: it was pretty good when it was new. Ford kind of lost interest in the “American Six Series” after 1994. The supercharged, manual-transmission Super Coupe was taken out of the lineup, while both interior and exterior were modified to share more parts with the Mercury Cougar. The 4.6 V8 didn’t really impress in the Mustang, but in the ‘Bird Ford had found a happier marriage of motor and mission. Big, sleek, reasonably fast, and very comfy, the 1996 Thunderbird was a good car at a very fair price. My demo priced out at $21,750 or so, actually slightly cheaper than a Taurus LX with the same equipment would have cost.

Unfortunately, nobody wanted ’em. Young people wouldn’t be caught dead in an automatic-transmission American coupe, while older people hated the massive doors and the contortions required to lower one’s self into the seats. It was a shame, really, because dynamically this was a decent car. The transmission usually found the right gear and the steering was honest. You could drive these Birds really quickly on the right road. Of the cars available to our little dealership, only the Contour SE was usefully faster when the road turned twisty. Remember, the MN12 platform had a very sophisticated rear suspension to hold up all that weight.

Of course, the T-Bird name still meant something to some people. And so it was that the phone rang late one Friday evening at Rodney’s desk. A recently-widowed woman in her early sixties was looking for a car, but she wasn’t comfortable driving at night. Could someone bring her a Thunderbird to examine?

The correct answer would be “No.” Every salesman worth his salt knows to never take a car to a “customer”. Real customers can take a moment out of their lives to make a $20,000 purchase. It’s true for Ferraris and it’s true for Fiestas. But Rodney was bored and he wanted to take the only Bird on our lot home for the night anyway. Why not? On the way out, the general manager said, “Don’t bring that car back unsold. If you do, you’ll pay the price for wasting miles and time.”

He drove twenty miles to the big house set a quarter-mile off the rural road and met the widow at her front door. She was lonely, and if Rodney was half her age and, ahem, somewhat different from her, perhaps the bottle of Chardonnay she’d already half-finished helped her to overcome those minor quibbles. Since TTAC is a family-oriented website, I won’t relate the details of how Rodney attempted to persuade her to buy the Thunderbird without having to look her in the face at the time.

(ACF is family-oriented too, but surely even the kids know he made her face away from him the whole time. “Looking at her face,” Rodney said, “turned off the machine, if you know what I mean.”)

After an hour or so of these negotiations, the widow pronounced herself completely satisfied and asked Rodney to stay until the morning so she could evaluate the car in the daylight.

More negotiations followed in said morning, but alas, the ‘Bird didn’t catch her fancy quite like Rodney did. Unlike our rather pliant young sales-hero, the Ford provided some arthritis-related complications to entry and exit. She sent Rodney back to the dealership to fetch her a Taurus. Naturally, the boss wasn’t having it and Rodney was grounded from those sorts of missions from then on.

One fine Monday, my ‘Bird arrived on the transporter, just the way I ordered it. The not-so-fine Tuesday that followed, there was an all-hands meeting. The dealership principal’s son, known to all and sundry as “Droopy” for his remarkable resemblance to the cartoon canine of that name, was buying the dealership from his father. Ford Credit was floorplanning the transaction, and they didn’t much care for salespeople driving new-car demonstrators. The used-car manager went to the auction and bought six ex-rental ’94 Tauri to be used as “demos”. Mine was green, with a green interior, and it smelled like the bottom of an ashtray.

Every day the black Bird sat there in the showroom and taunted me. I roped in a fellow who wanted a Crown Vic. I offered him the Bird at invoice, but even that wasn’t cheap enough to convince him. So I met him at dinner afterwards and handed him the $150 I’d earned as commission on the sale. Got into my crappy ex-rental car and drove home. My wife met me at the door and said the boss had called. Had I seen Rodney? He’d left on a demo drive with a middle-aged woman. Mustang convertible. They were waiting to lock the doors, but Rodney hadn’t returned. Did I have any ideas?

“Nice to see,” I said, “that I’m not the only person around here getting fucked.”

(Epilogue: Rodney continued to see Carol, the older lady in question, every weekend night. It was almost Christmas time, so he asked her for a rather ambitious Christmas present: the new 1996 GPz1100.

For more than a month, Rodney made fun of my cheap and old 1986 Ninja 600R, talking about how his GPz would slaughter it. “I might let you sit on the bike, but not actually ride it,” he graciously allowed. On Christmas, he dashed over to Carol’s and found she’d bought him… a $300 cashmere sweater. “I thought you loved me!” he screamed at her. The end.)

Welcome our pal Jake Irvine, who just had a GREAT piece above van trackdays published in the incomparable Rolling Heavy Magazine! — jb

I have been a traveling salesman off and on for the better part of the past decade, save a 3-year hiatus when I was playing with private jets, other stories for other times. My current line of work is in the hospitality i…

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Yesterday I shared the good news: my 2001 Lexus ES300 is back on the ground and ready to roll, minus a couple small adjustments and fixes to take place in the upcoming weeks.

Today I’ll share the bad news: what it’s cost.

Of course, Substack doesn’t offer anything as advanced as spreadsheet formatting for your money (or the fees they charge me), so I’ll give it to you as a long, awful list. Couple of lists, actually.

Most of the parts

Original purchase$4,500.00
Engine absorber$121.65
Intake hoses$17.63
Water pump$56.89
Timing Belt$168.79
Belt$13.42
Belt$15.57
Motor mount$37.79
cabin air$14.73
idler bolt$3.83
shocks$105.42
shocks x2$215.00
timing cover$4.47
valve gasket$19.24
shock bellow$18.40
shock mount$59.58
spark plugs$38.82
Front Brake kit$92.79
Tires$506.56
Taillight$104.99
Cup holder$48.26
Floormats$170.75
Lug bolts$27.23
Tie Rods$50.17
Axles$177.07
ATF$55.46
Evap canister$43.00
Rear pads and rotors$152.72
License plate frame$24.66
Rear brake kit$109.99
Motor mount$83.99
Fluid Pan Gasket$6.55
Gasket Set$37.79
Front shocks$249.58
Intake gasket$60.79
Cam Seals$11.94
Swaybar links$49.58
Hood shocks$17.28
Crankshaft seal$22.01
Trans filter$13.61
Ship&Tax$102.74
Dogbone $51.70
Hydraulic table$423.92
Radiator$164.34
Swaybar bushing$9.09
Trans mount$57.99
Water hose$23.51
O2 Sensor$125.79
Steering Rack$347.79
Exhaust Gasket$47.16
PCV4.69
Timing Cover$26.79
Exhaust Gasket$22.06
Windshield repair kit$13.27
Left rear brake caliper $103.30

The alert reader will see six shocks on that list, because two of them didn’t quite fit for reasons we still can’t figure out. My general philosophy when selecting parts was:

• Get the OEM if it’s in any way affordable, which it basically never was

• Get the best RockAuto had to offer unless it was 2x the price of the next best option

• Buy from local parts stores when absolutely necessary

I don’t list any extra supplies like towels, Brakleen, grease, Loctite, and so on. I did add the Harbor Freight hydraulic table, because the Lexus specifically required it. We’ve always used an engine hoist in every other car I have serviced here at my shop, but because the axles were frozen into the engine mounts, we had to unbolt and drop everything together through the bottom of the car.

The total parts cost was

$4,552.14

with probably another $200 of random items left to go.

I paid Firestone $423.36 to mount four tires and perform a “lifetime” alignment which in this case means at least two alignments, one before all the new suspension and one after. We did toe in the shop but I’d rather have the rest done out of house. Which brings the parts and service total to

$4,975.50.

The car cost me $4,500 to begin with. Adding tax and title to the above, we have a subtotal of

$9,886.25.

This is a 2001 ES300 with 169,300 miles. What could we get for my subtotal?

That’s a 2010 ES350 with 78,178 miles, and I’m not cherrypicking here. Plenty of nice cars like this in the $9k-10k range. But wait, there’s more, because the phrase “parts and labor” exists for a reason, and I’ve forgotten to include most of the labor!

Here’s where the discussion of privilege comes in. Ten years ago, when discussing the “cheap” Lexus owned by my pal Matt Farah, I said that “you gotta be rich to own a cheap car.” That was an LS400 with nearly a million miles, but much of the same caution and skepticism should be applied to my ownership of this ES300. To begin with, once we realized the whole mechanical underside of the car was a mess I was able to leave it on jackstands for nearly a hundred days and drive my other cars. Even though I sold my Milan and gave my Accord to my son during that time, I still had a half-dozen other options in the garage, at a minimum.

That’s privilege, of course.

Next up in the “lucky me” category: I estimate that we have close to 100 man-hours in the refresh of this car, from the obvious (remove engine and transmission, install new seals, timing belt service, full suspension replacement) to the less obvious (polish headlights, wire-brush and paint corrosion in the engine bay). Most independent shops charge $90 an hour now, so that’s nine grand worth of labor.

The way we did the Lexus was a little different. I have a rotating crew of mechanics who work on the six race cars belonging to me, my wife, and my daughter. Most of them are trade-school students or journeymen who take the experience and recommendations they get here and go into IMSA, Radical Cup, and elsewhere. I don’t pay them $90 an hour, because they’re learning on the job and because crewing a Radical SR8 to multiple championships looks better on the resume than being a Jiffy Lube top-filler.

Most weekends I compelled a couple of hours’ Lexus labor on top of the race car stuff, and compensated them via methods ranging from “steak dinner” to “free 1984 Gold Wing”. I didn’t count any of that in my spreadsheet. There were three instances where I directly paid a former crew member to come in and work on the car during the weekends. My total labor charge for that was

$1,075

which brings the total cost for the ES300 up to…

$10,961.25

The car still has a few issues. We need to install a new brake reservoir and bleed the brakes yet again. The left rear needs to come back apart to investigate a knocking noise that is likely the top shock perch. The door speakers of the stereo are either blown or mismounted. The right rear wheel arch is pretty close to needing rust repair. Based on how it sounds, I’m going to count every additional day that the driver’s door window regulator operates as an unearned blessing.

On top of that, there are some “nice-to-haves”. The shift lever and steering wheel could both benefit from a re-cover and the wooden parts of the wheel have a few palpable cracks in the epoxy. The front seats would benefit from new foam and a re-upholster. The headlights are astoundingly bad, at least in comparison with a modern car. The door seals aren’t bad but they aren’t good either. The rest of the car is so quiet the wind noise becomes obvious by contrast.

Fourteen grand total should do it, really.

Which would also get me this:

That’s a no-drama, clean-records 2014 ES350 with 88,106 miles. Any sane person would rather have that car. If any of my readers wants to offer me $10,500 for this Lexus, I will immediately sell it and go buy that Lexus.

Or maybe not. We’ve had a lot of fun with this car since April. Seven different people have wrenched on it — which has caused some predictable problems along the lines of “Did anybody actually install that seal before putting the transmission back on?” — and it’s taught more than a couple lessons to the younger mechanics. You could argue that it’s the most valuable experience I’ve had to offer these kids. There aren’t very many Radical SR8s in the world, but there’s no end of V-6 Toyotas that need service out there and now they’ve “seen the elephant”, as Jeff Cooper would say.

Perhaps the most interesting consequence of buying and fixing this ES300 has been the note I received from one of my readers during the process. He has a nice post-facelift LS430 sitting in his Kansas garage. Younger than this car, fewer miles, better condition. He’d like to sell it… Why do I have eleven cats living in my house right now? Because I firmly believe that animals shouldn’t be separated from their families unless it’s absolutely necessary. By that logic, shouldn’t my long-suffering Lexus have a sibling in the driveway? I mean, how expensive and difficult could it be to operate and repair a nineteen-year-old LS430?

Reader, you already know the answer to that.

It’s been a long time since I’ve responded at length to a single comment or criticism, but in this case I think there’s some useful information to be shared with the readership at large. In last Sunday’s Open Thread, we had this from Boom:

From Mclaren’s (yes that watered d…

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(This comes to us from ‘gt’, one of our favorite commenters and motorcycle-sufferer — jb)

My first taste of “The Motor Company” was in the form of short-lived ownership of a 1980 Shovelhead Low Rider FXS back in 2023. I’d only owned cheap Japanese bikes until that point but had always wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And a real-deal shovelhead with a kick starter was what I decided was needed to really experience a Harley. As a total vintage Harley novice I was quite frankly spooked to ride it any further than short trips near my house for fear of some expensive thing blowing up. I sold it (broke even) before the thing had a chance to burn me, but the “potato-potato” sound and feel of those fork-and-blade 45 degree v-twins etched itself in my brain and I knew I would own another HD.

Two years later, I’m back in the Harley fold. Bought off-season, I scored a clean, stock 11k mile 1995 Sportster 1200 (XLH1200) for $2000. With it came a receipt from the local HD dealer for $1500 worth of recent tune up, fresh made-in-USA Dunlop Harley spec tires (relabeled and massively upcharged D404s), and a set of TC Bros forward controls that I promptly swapped for OE “mid” foot controls.

It's been a perfect replacement for the departed Shovelhead. The proper laid back “potato-potato” soundtrack and heartbeat of the air cooled 45 degree OHV V-twin, fueled through a split manifold by a single carburetor, bolted solidly to the frame. Without the hassle and expense of owning an AMF-era Harley.

I just got back from a weekend getaway in the Hocking Hills in Ohio where I had trailered the Sportster down with my trusty minivan to do some local riding, and it was nothing short of magical. The twisty roads through misty Appalachian hollers are a sport-bike rider's dream. But these days, as a guy with a young family, I find that I have a different tolerance for riding beyond the limits of my visibility and prefer a mellower (but still "sporting" pace). The aptly named "Sportster" delivered in spades. It's such a satisfying bike to hustle through some corners on a back road: tons of usable torque down low, you’ve got all that character from the engine, enough ground clearance, and it's nice and light and easy to throw around without much conscious cornering technique.

The engine is tractable but not in the way a big bore inline 4 is: you have to be careful not to lug the motor below 2000rpm, so some downshifting is required. But that’s just part of the fun: manipulating the very deliberate, mechanical shifter and operating the manly clutch lever. 2400rpm on up though you’ve got this smooth strong pull, up to however high your threshold for vibration is. Practically speaking, I almost always short shift and don’t take it much if any over 3500-4000rpm to maintain my back road pace. The spec sheet says 71ft lbs at 3000 rpm, for reference, that’s stronger than my Bandit 1200 (67ft lbs @6000rpm) that weighs about the same.

.The Harley feels very narrow between the legs with a low center of gravity — thanks to that small 3 gallon gas tank. As mentioned, I don’t really have to think about counter steering or anything else that normally enters my mind when riding sportier bikes, it’s completely easy and unintimidating. Speaking of that small tank, I’ve not really found the short range to be an impediment. The bike returns around 45ish mpg (mine is jetted fatter with a factory performance jet kit), practically speaking you start looking for a gas station at 100 mile intervals. For a laid back day-riding bike like this, this isn’t a problem, out in the Eastern US anyways.

Shortcomings? At one point that weekend, my route took me out onto a 70mph highway for one exit. It was a windy day, and here is where the Sportster felt out of sorts: sitting bolt upright hanging onto the buckhorn bars, blasted by wind, the vibing engine’s previously seemingly endless well of torque feeling merely adequate. It was a relief to get back to the 55mph back roads. Highway cruising ability aside, the biggest demerit of the bike is the stock suspension. It just doesn't handle bumps very well, doubly so when said bump is mid-corner. I suspect it comes down to a lack of suspension travel. But there is some aftermarket support there in the form of cartridge emulators and taller rear shocks. It’s a physically compact bike, and with a 32” inseam I've "solved" the notoriously tight seating position with a combination of an air cushion pad and then a fake sheepskin layered on top of that to gain a few inches in height and to sit a bit farther back from the foot controls. I simply can’t tolerate the lack of control of forward foot control setups. My opinion on the buckhorn bars went from “I can’t wait to replace these” to "what exactly did I think was the problem with these?"

Overall, the Sportster is motorcycling fun distilled. Big bore roll on torque from a soulful engine in a 500lb bike that’s fairly low to the ground and totally unintimidating. Unlike my sportier machines, I don’t feel compelled to ride fast just because the higher performance envelope almost demands it. There’s none of the “gravity” of “serious riding.” The Sportster’s performance envelope feels perfectly tailored to “sane” riding on the street. The Harley is not a first choice for serious highway mile burning or a bike to try to keep up with your fast buddies on modern bikes. Another Sportster owner over on a motorcycle forum I frequent put it perfectly: “It couldn’t be an only bike, but it’s my favorite bike.”

For some reason, EVs and Chinese cars are becoming synonymous, the Chinese EVs symbolizing the (alleged) impending end of the European automotive industry. I don’t believe in that and have strong faith in the future of the European automobile, no matter what it’s powered by. So I drove a German EV over to see and drive the latest French one.

I was invite…

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If you’ve been reading ACF for a while, you’ve already heard the oft-told tale of how onetime Road&Track writer and current Hagerty mouthpiece Jason Cammisa ruthlessly edited the phrase “IMS failure”, or any reference whatsoever to the known and extensive litany of water-cooled Porsche problems, from the Boxster section of my late-2013 “Accelerated Depr…

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(Please offer a warm welcome to our own SajivW, making the long-awaited transition to contributor, straight outta Sri Lanka! — jb)

This is not the car I was hoping to make it onto the pages of ACF with, that’s for sure. I really wanted it to be a piece on my Alfa 166, but that is now entering the 7^th month it has spent in the shop due to a combination of…

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Toyota is about my least favorite car company in the world, and I’ve seen a lot of subpar product wear the badge in previous years, but this car is worth buying. At $23,600, it has clear and admirable virtues. I’d spend my own money on it.

That’s what I told TTAC readers almost exactly twelve years ago, talking about the 2013 Camry SE 4-cylinder. I shoul…

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