Speaking of mechanical versus digital dashboards, it seems you were prescient in your prediction of Porsche moving towards ICE for high rollers and EVs for the richest proles. The internet reacted very favorably to the announcement (maybe? Rumor?) that the Boxster and Cayman will have an ICE version in the top spec GT4RS versions, while forgetting that only the richest will get to buy those after buying two Macan EVs and a bricked Taycan. Telling a $300-500k junior exec looking at a Boxster S or Cayman GTS that he could have an ICE GT4 RS is like telling him “hey good news, Sydney Sweeney broke up with her bf and is single again!”
Right now it's unclear what the ICE plan is, but at least it's an indication that they aren't abandoning the smaller sports car ICE market.
The price deltas between the regular GTS and Spyder models was small. The GTRS was another $30,000, that you could do up with the fool Weisach options.
Depends on when the orders were taken. Near the end, this year, ADMs barely existed, partially because there was about a 20% price increase between 2022 and 2025.
Pity the GTRS buyer anyways, those cars are so loud the owners wear earplugs and create forum chats about sound deadening. And 911 owners still crap on them.
Maybe not by 2050, but maybe within our lifetime, ICE ownership will start to look like horse ownership - that is, rarified at the high-end and necessary (for some) on the low-/rural-end.
I literally just got a text message from Jeep offering me “take 35% off all merch in the Jeep 4xe category at gear.Jeep.com” they can’t even sell 4xe branded sweatshirts and keychains, never mind the actual EVs. No one wants that shit unless it’s 70% off.
I don't know what the main issue is for the 4xe system, but EVERY single one in our friend group (mostly GC's) has been either lemon'd back or just short of it.
This dystopian scenario looks less and less likely. EVs are a green project that is failing spectacularly before our very eyes. Fossil resources are not running out any time soon and they can be substituted with synthetic fuel. The EV narrative is collapsing on all fronts. Having an EV in 2050 will be like horse ownership - rarified, high-end in the automotive sector - and of course there will be E-bikes and electric scooters.
Nah. I predict that EVs will never be more than 20% of the U.S. passenger car / light truck market and that my great-great grandchildren will be driving vehicles powered by gasoline.
As one of those junior execs (who is much more of the Indigo de Souza persuasion than Sydney Sweeney), fuck Porsche. I love them. Will absolutely buy a 997. Adore my 987, which, with a catback exhaust, 6-speed, and great tires is about as much fun as you can have on 4 wheels without occasioning a life insurance claim. I would not actually give Porsche, the company, a nickel. The 718 was disappointing, but at least it represented a reasonably affordable access point such that someone like myself could buy a new Porsche. Which I could’ve, if I didn’t find the 987 a more engaging car and enjoy investing a spare $40,000 more than I do a buzzy flat-4 and Apple CarPlay.
Who the hell wants an EV Boxster? And what’s the point? Straight-line speed? Nobody, anywhere, ever has purchased a Boxster for that reason. If I wanted to go fast in a straight line, I’d buy a Corvette or an M3 or a Tesla or anything else. Want to take it from Charleston, WV to Asheville to Lake Toxaway and back on an extended weekend? Take the long route, wring it out on the back roads. That’s easy in a 987. I did it this summer. Not so in an EV Boxster with no good charging infrastructure.
I was very impressed that you would drive your Boxster to central Idaho's famous backpacking lake. Talk about backroads, shewwwwie! But then DuckDuckGo corrected me that there's a private lake with the same name in southwest NC. TIL.
The 987 was peak mid engine Porsche for analog driving. Shorter wheelbase and hydraulic steering plus a decent amount of power. Plus it was the only Boxster/Cayman with its own interior. The 986 shared a lot with the 996, the 718 with the 991.
$30,000 buys you a very nice 987.1, $45,000 a very nice 987.2.
But honestly, what I'd get today if I didn't have the two I have (I'm a twat) is a 981 Cayman)Boxster S with a mechanical rear diff. $40-50,000 depending on mileage and great looks and sound plus you can track them all day long right out of the box.
Good luck with the LS Jack, IMO there's something extra charming about it's current "patina'd" state. I'd sort it out with the bare minimum of mechanical fixes (check the t belt for dry rot and likely replace, service the ATF and coolant, fix the power steering, climate control and stereo) and just enjoy the heck out of it. Trying to truly refurbish it would be a fool's errand IMO. Okay, maybe'd I'd put it on some 90s era "gold hammers" or something.
For all the faults on the LS400, it sure looks good from my house! Welcome to a sunbaked car from the Southwest - where all our dashboards are cracked and our paint is faded, but we don't have to hold our breath every time we put the impact on an old fastener crusted with iron oxide.
Just to put Tony Ugoh in perspective, I am 6 feet and 200ish lbs in street trim. Yesterday I was fitted for a suit by a beautiful Russian lady who is now gramma age and somehow still inspires a saucy bottom lip bite. She remarked "You will no need modern fit. Is for couch potato. You only athletic cut because have shoulders and chest. Maybe modern cut pants because legs and bottom are for footballs."
And my mass makes me too slow to play wsbk or supersport games unless I purge myself of my extra 20 lbs of chicken wings and pizza while losing all my skrenft to get down around 175 or so. Even then, the flyweight horse jockeys pass me on the inside with identical bikes. Good technique still gets you beclowned in the infield bends if you are not a manlet.
I like the cut of Tony's jib. Or "the balls on this guy! Oh!" *Italian hand gestures*
A remarkable number of Lexuses from this era are fully GOLD and there's a funny reason for it. Toyota wouldn't let dealers charge ADP on the LS400. The dealer agreement specifically prohibited it... which, like MANY other features of the Lexus dealer agreement, reflected panful lessons learned by Toyota over the past years.
So what the dealers did instead was gold-plate everything, which cost them $500 or so, and charge five grand for it. MANDATORY. Or you could wait a year for an LS400 without it.
The Toyota distribution and dealership system in the United States is the most completely fucked situation there is. It's bad for Toyota, it's bad for customers, it's bad for dealers.
I very seriously believe that Toyota's distribution system is keeping them from selling an additional 100k-500k cars every year in the United States.
I bet the color/trim designers were thrilled about dealers improving their incompetent product. (I just like gold ornamentation for their camp factor, not because they improve the design). Dealers love fixing things, such as global marketing messages and pricing
Back when I was self-employed as a typesetter I visited the "budget financing" lot of a well-known local car dealer. The family member in charge asked for a quote to typeset the sales contract form. For an sample to match he showed an actual printout of a customer who was buying a used Lexus LS400 that was at least 10-15 years old at a usurious interest rate of around 18-20%. At the time you could get, with good credit, car loans at about 5-7%, I think this was about 2015. I ended up not typesetting the form but the poor person who may or may not have bought this Lexus would have been horribly "upside down." Good luck with the Lexus, I'm trying to keep a 2011 Camry on the road with 145,000 miles.
Good luck with the Camry. My VW Golf Wagen diesel has only 80k miles and it's already had a bad water pump, threw the balancer in the road, had a timing belt, and various other fixes. It also eats a battery about every 15 months or so.
Previous to that we had a Bug convertible that didn't keep water out at the windshield and was begrudgingly lemoned by VW-NA after they kept it for 5 months and then gave me shit about how I was ruining their loaners. Though our 2nd bug vert' was pretty good, the buying of that on the heels of the lemon was a fiasco.
Yes, my nephew has good luck with Kias, but I will never have one or a Hyundai either. When working my other job at the print shop the forms broker came in with reprints for the local KN dealer, he joked that in copying them his dealer customer said they were even "more unreadable."
I heard Williams offered Lewis a seat...but the Sainz said, "Long-haired freaky people need not apply."
(sorry)
But seriously folks, Baku was crazy and great. Thank heavens F1 is so entertaining, now that IndyCar season is over and NASCAR's into the fake-drama "playoffs."
The Windrunner doesn't pencil out at all. Even if it ever manages to leave the digital drawing board - not a bet I'd take, FWIW - it will remain wholly impractical and nigh-impossible to enter serial production, because the design clearly relies on the fact wind turbine blades aren’t terribly heavy relative to their overall size.
Figure a single 300’ blade weighs around 30 tons; by comparison, total payload capacity for the comparably-sized An-225 Mriya was 275 tons. It's highly doubtful the Windrunner could even carry a quarter of that weight.
Windrunner is claiming 70 tons capacity. They point out that many airplanes run out of SPACE before they run out of WEIGHT, having been primarily designed to carry fat people from Spokane to St. Louis.
A paper airplane company will claim whatever it can to bring in money from aviation-ignorant VCs and attention from the groundhog media. The math still just doesn't work.
My first job in the industry had Eclipse Aviation as its largest advertiser. I learned fast (alas, not quite fast enough) about sky-high promises and middling returns. At least in Eclipse's case there are around 250 decently capable aircraft flying today, whose owners rave about them.
I firmly believe Radia is only looking to fleece the ignorant. Others, like Vern Raburn and Boom CEO Blake Scholl, genuinely believe(d) they're going to revolutionize the industry. It always sucks when reality hits.
I do think our DoD needs to follow the rule of cool more often, but I don't know if this is the right case.
I don't know what the mission would be the proposed aircraft. The Windrunner is a one trick pony for long bulky items. Any air transport of low density high value cargo, whatever that might be, would be overall better done by spending the money on having more C-17 and C-130 airframes even if that meant sometimes tasking more than one plane when the Windrunner could do it solo. I doubt the Windrunner could operate from worse runways than the C-130. In any event getting high bulk cargo the final mile is easier slung under a helicopter anyway.
Hasn't it been pretty obvious for a while that the whole green-energy-wind-turbine thing is a major boondoggle? Are governments, countries etc. still buying into this scammy activity by China to dump this crap on everyone else, preying on their addiction to 'feel good smug eco fart' vibes, while they're still buring coal like it's going out of style?
In my hunt for a new daily driver to purchase in early ‘26, I took a few test drives yesterday. The new A5, a 2024 S5, the 2025 E350 and 2025 A6. The S5–great. A6–a solid car and sure footed, if not exactly enthralling. The E350–phenomenal, worthy of the hype. Drives like an actual, cohesive unit, NVH better than any car I’ve driven barring an S580, and the Burmester 3D sound is great. Since I have a Boxster, probably will pick up a 911, and regularly meet with clients, elected officials, and donors, I think I’d rather have a big cruiser that can eat up highway miles and blast music with a good sound system than a fast daily. The E450 is quite quick, and likely what I’ll choose, as the E350 sounds a bit anemic. Will look at the ES, G80, and other stuff before I decide, but going to be hard to beat the E Class for what I need (even if what I want is very, very different).
The new A5? I looked at a prestige spec, just $4,000 less than a loaded (CPO) ‘25 E350. It was unrequited dogshit. My wonderful coworker, a brilliant former literature major who looks startlingly like a young Joni Mitchell, has a 5 year old Mazda CX-5, which I drove to lunch yesterday. In every respect, the interior materials in the Mazda are better. My A4 Prestige was $7000 cheaper new, and feels like a Flying Spur in comparison. Feather-light steering, an awful fixed glass roof, with a “gel” cover that may or may not actually work, hard plastic everywhere, a steering wheel that belongs in a base Jetta. Controls that are both finicky and ineffective, requiring five inputs for what would be the push of a button in my A4. An awkward seating position. A “self-park” feature that is hilariously awful: move forward, move back, move forward, move back, then it finally parks, only to get about 70% of the way done, leave the car sitting half-cocked, and alert you “system capacity reached: please take over.” The whole thing took a whole four minutes: to back a car into a parking spot. It was genuinely one of the worst vehicles I’ve driven.
My initial plan was to await the arrival of the new A6. Not anymore. If I get any Audi, it’ll be a ‘25 A6, which is inferior to the E Class but a better deal. But if the new A6 shares any similarities to the new A5, as the outgoing A6 did to the A4, I won’t even give it a cursory glance. Just a dreadfully bad car.
Audi is going through the sort of prolonged bed-wetting that, when engaged in by Mercedes-Benz during the awful W210/W220 era, got Audi a customer base to begin with!
The reviews were favorable, which tells you pretty much everything about the reviewers. I’m sure the accommodations for the press trip were top-notch; because the car certainly isn’t. The 17-24 model A4 is great, the best daily driver I’ve ever owned. Comfortable, perfect interior controls, quick, handles well, good seating position. Looks good and is aging gracefully. Not flashy, not as fun as a 3 Series or eye catching as a G70, but maybe the most solid car in its class. I’d buy another one. The A5 looks like an amorphous blob and drives like one, too. If this is the direction for Audi, they’re going into their W210 era to be certain. BMW, too. The new 5 Series looks like an Acura and is too lame to even bother looking at.
I would. If I hadn’t put 45,000 miles on my A4 in the past 11 months (plus 3,000 on the 987, 2,000 on the 986, 1,000 on the NB, and 500 on the Frontier) I’d keep it. But it’s getting precariously close to the 100,000 mile mark.
I bought it with around 10,000 miles. The first two years I had it, I put just over 30,000 miles on it. At an October 2024 oil change, it had 42,000 miles. It now has 86,000.
As a long time fan of Audi I'll note that they periodically shoot themselves in the foot whether it's styling or goofy engineering. Nows one of those times.
The outgoing A4 chassis is great. We got one of the last Allroads a few months ago, it's a wonderful interior and exterior plus easy driving fun. The new ones in the showroom didn't impress much.
Except the extended length A8 with like 22 inch wheels. That's a JB car all the way.
I'm in a 2018 A7 currently, last year for the C7.5 platform. It is astounding to me by how much the mark was missed with the C8. I also considered a last-year manual A4 (2017-18 I think?) as well as a end of the run 212 E 350 wagon. I never did actually locate a 350 to test drive, but the A4 seemed nice enough in a competently adequate kind of way.
I'm sad I have less than no interest in the next wave of Audi's after what I've got.
I’m at 15k miles on my 2025 E450. I still enjoy driving it daily. It is way more power than you need in a package that swallows all bumps and imperfections in roads. It’s a bit of a boat in turns.
I did not test drive the E350, but when I had one as a loaner I found it lacking. I have the Burmester and agree it is amazing.
I didn’t drive the Audi but I drove the 540 and it was an ugly and cheap in comparison. I don’t like the screens in the Benz but the Beamer screens appear to be some sort of add on. If you’re leasing, the bmw leases are unbeatable.
It’s just a sedan, but when it’s had a wash people will tell you how good looking of a car it is.
The new A5 cockpit is so great that it is used in virtually identical form in the A6, the A6 e-tron, the Q5 and the Q6 e-tron. Might have missed one. And you are failing to see the light?
I actually rather dislike the new Mercedes (2025 E350 would qualify) interior design. It’s lit up like a night club and ALSO full of cheap, shiny, hard plastics and an entirely screen centric HVAC/infotainment setup.
Surprised you enjoyed it that much more than the Audi.
Will say the seats are quite nice and I imagine it’s a brilliant highway car though.
Lastly, I’ve put nearly 20k miles on a Genesis G70 since February so I’m both impressed by the amount you drive AND very interested in your thoughts on these cars. Gonna be in a similar boat with a bit less money to spend some time next year
I actually prefer the interior of the ‘25 A6, as I’m not hugely enthralled by the wall of screens. The driving experience is just considerably better in the E Class.
The ES does indeed feel impressive... Until the modicum of padding/adhesive separating the outer door skin from the side guard beam breaks down, and the door rattles like a paint can every time you close it.
Then you start noticing all the other areas where Toyota cheaped out, especially inside.
Bubble Japan was amazing. They didn't just give us Lexus and Infiniti, they gave us the NSX, the Z32 300ZX, the FD RX-7, the Miata, the mark 4 Supra, XV10 Camry, etc, not to mention some amazing music (which includes Casiopea). It is a real shame the money ran out.
Sigh, Windrunner. So they finally realized there is absolutely no business case for a clean sheet aircraft development with a market of less than 50 planes (probably way less). So they are pivoting to the giant cash cow that is the DoD to fund their development. Sounds like JetZero also, as they have USAF funding for a demonstrator aircraft.
I still can't figure out where Boom is getting all of their $$$ from - they are developing both a new airframe AND a new engine.
The dashboard in my car is one of the reasons I chose the particular model/year I did. I have analog gauges for tach/speedometer (even though I'm sure they're just being fed a digital signal), and actual buttons and knobs for climate control and radio volume. It does have an infotainment screen, but it's not a touch screen, and I can make it disappear into the dashboard with the push of a button.
I just wish I could find a way to make it default to staying closed unless I ask for it. It pops up out of the dash every time I start the car/retracts when I open the driver door, and if I put the transmission in reverse while I have the screen stowed it pops out to show me the cameras. My car is a 2018, and in 2019 the next gen cars went all digital and I have no interest.
I suppose the 1 plus of those mega screens is how bad American eyesight is getting (old people aging and young people from screens).
I'd read somewhere that the Lincoln setup essentially has a "reading glasses" mode, the instrumentation equivalent of 48pt font on your phone (and which many mid-millennials I know already need).
Speaking of mechanical versus digital dashboards, it seems you were prescient in your prediction of Porsche moving towards ICE for high rollers and EVs for the richest proles. The internet reacted very favorably to the announcement (maybe? Rumor?) that the Boxster and Cayman will have an ICE version in the top spec GT4RS versions, while forgetting that only the richest will get to buy those after buying two Macan EVs and a bricked Taycan. Telling a $300-500k junior exec looking at a Boxster S or Cayman GTS that he could have an ICE GT4 RS is like telling him “hey good news, Sydney Sweeney broke up with her bf and is single again!”
Right now it's unclear what the ICE plan is, but at least it's an indication that they aren't abandoning the smaller sports car ICE market.
The price deltas between the regular GTS and Spyder models was small. The GTRS was another $30,000, that you could do up with the fool Weisach options.
The MSRP deltas were small. The ADM deltas were not.
Depends on when the orders were taken. Near the end, this year, ADMs barely existed, partially because there was about a 20% price increase between 2022 and 2025.
Pity the GTRS buyer anyways, those cars are so loud the owners wear earplugs and create forum chats about sound deadening. And 911 owners still crap on them.
Greater fool theory in action..
Maybe not by 2050, but maybe within our lifetime, ICE ownership will start to look like horse ownership - that is, rarified at the high-end and necessary (for some) on the low-/rural-end.
I literally just got a text message from Jeep offering me “take 35% off all merch in the Jeep 4xe category at gear.Jeep.com” they can’t even sell 4xe branded sweatshirts and keychains, never mind the actual EVs. No one wants that shit unless it’s 70% off.
I don't know what the main issue is for the 4xe system, but EVERY single one in our friend group (mostly GC's) has been either lemon'd back or just short of it.
eeeeek .... I've got over a year on my GC 4xe and so far no issues. Yes, its been off road.
They just killed the Gladiator 4XE like minutes before they were going to start production too.
Our local has EV-Chargers at near 20k discounts on the tag, not even what you can get in the F'n-eye office once you hardball them.
God, I hope not.
This dystopian scenario looks less and less likely. EVs are a green project that is failing spectacularly before our very eyes. Fossil resources are not running out any time soon and they can be substituted with synthetic fuel. The EV narrative is collapsing on all fronts. Having an EV in 2050 will be like horse ownership - rarified, high-end in the automotive sector - and of course there will be E-bikes and electric scooters.
Nah. I predict that EVs will never be more than 20% of the U.S. passenger car / light truck market and that my great-great grandchildren will be driving vehicles powered by gasoline.
As one of those junior execs (who is much more of the Indigo de Souza persuasion than Sydney Sweeney), fuck Porsche. I love them. Will absolutely buy a 997. Adore my 987, which, with a catback exhaust, 6-speed, and great tires is about as much fun as you can have on 4 wheels without occasioning a life insurance claim. I would not actually give Porsche, the company, a nickel. The 718 was disappointing, but at least it represented a reasonably affordable access point such that someone like myself could buy a new Porsche. Which I could’ve, if I didn’t find the 987 a more engaging car and enjoy investing a spare $40,000 more than I do a buzzy flat-4 and Apple CarPlay.
Who the hell wants an EV Boxster? And what’s the point? Straight-line speed? Nobody, anywhere, ever has purchased a Boxster for that reason. If I wanted to go fast in a straight line, I’d buy a Corvette or an M3 or a Tesla or anything else. Want to take it from Charleston, WV to Asheville to Lake Toxaway and back on an extended weekend? Take the long route, wring it out on the back roads. That’s easy in a 987. I did it this summer. Not so in an EV Boxster with no good charging infrastructure.
Please bring back the 1988 930 Turbo, and just sell THAT forever.
I mean, that's basically Porsche's mindset anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxaway_Lake_(Idaho)
I was very impressed that you would drive your Boxster to central Idaho's famous backpacking lake. Talk about backroads, shewwwwie! But then DuckDuckGo corrected me that there's a private lake with the same name in southwest NC. TIL.
The 987 was peak mid engine Porsche for analog driving. Shorter wheelbase and hydraulic steering plus a decent amount of power. Plus it was the only Boxster/Cayman with its own interior. The 986 shared a lot with the 996, the 718 with the 991.
$30,000 buys you a very nice 987.1, $45,000 a very nice 987.2.
But honestly, what I'd get today if I didn't have the two I have (I'm a twat) is a 981 Cayman)Boxster S with a mechanical rear diff. $40-50,000 depending on mileage and great looks and sound plus you can track them all day long right out of the box.
Good luck with the LS Jack, IMO there's something extra charming about it's current "patina'd" state. I'd sort it out with the bare minimum of mechanical fixes (check the t belt for dry rot and likely replace, service the ATF and coolant, fix the power steering, climate control and stereo) and just enjoy the heck out of it. Trying to truly refurbish it would be a fool's errand IMO. Okay, maybe'd I'd put it on some 90s era "gold hammers" or something.
The paint is unfixable without a total respray so... I'm going to take your advice!
I *will* be reupholstering the front seats.
Or just dip to the matte color of your Yakuza heart's desire!
/plastidip all the things meme
Matte pearl red or merlot would look great on this car.
Rhinoliner paint job.
Parking lot proof.
You know you want to.
Really? They don't look quite so bad in these photos. How badly pitted is the windshield?
For all the faults on the LS400, it sure looks good from my house! Welcome to a sunbaked car from the Southwest - where all our dashboards are cracked and our paint is faded, but we don't have to hold our breath every time we put the impact on an old fastener crusted with iron oxide.
Thunderbird 6.
Exciting news on the LS400! I remain pleased as punch with my '07 LS460, and I would still like to go further back in time to the LS400 and LS430.
As with motorcycles and bicycles and guitars and pinball machines, the correct number of Lexus to own is the tried and true N + 1.
Just to put Tony Ugoh in perspective, I am 6 feet and 200ish lbs in street trim. Yesterday I was fitted for a suit by a beautiful Russian lady who is now gramma age and somehow still inspires a saucy bottom lip bite. She remarked "You will no need modern fit. Is for couch potato. You only athletic cut because have shoulders and chest. Maybe modern cut pants because legs and bottom are for footballs."
And my mass makes me too slow to play wsbk or supersport games unless I purge myself of my extra 20 lbs of chicken wings and pizza while losing all my skrenft to get down around 175 or so. Even then, the flyweight horse jockeys pass me on the inside with identical bikes. Good technique still gets you beclowned in the infield bends if you are not a manlet.
I like the cut of Tony's jib. Or "the balls on this guy! Oh!" *Italian hand gestures*
Big, fat middle finger to dash board screens!!! Gimmee those gauges, now and forever.!!!
Gotta love the gold ornamentation on the LS400. Bring back yellow gold!
A remarkable number of Lexuses from this era are fully GOLD and there's a funny reason for it. Toyota wouldn't let dealers charge ADP on the LS400. The dealer agreement specifically prohibited it... which, like MANY other features of the Lexus dealer agreement, reflected panful lessons learned by Toyota over the past years.
So what the dealers did instead was gold-plate everything, which cost them $500 or so, and charge five grand for it. MANDATORY. Or you could wait a year for an LS400 without it.
Love those dealers and the entire distribution system. I have some thoughts about them.
The Toyota distribution and dealership system in the United States is the most completely fucked situation there is. It's bad for Toyota, it's bad for customers, it's bad for dealers.
I very seriously believe that Toyota's distribution system is keeping them from selling an additional 100k-500k cars every year in the United States.
That you can’t order a Toyota or Lexus to spec is frankly absurd.
I bet the color/trim designers were thrilled about dealers improving their incompetent product. (I just like gold ornamentation for their camp factor, not because they improve the design). Dealers love fixing things, such as global marketing messages and pricing
But they allow you the privilege of paying for an iPhone cable at 1,000% markup what's the big deal?
They STILL do. I window shopped new GX's over the weekend and many came "bundled" with Lexus-branded USB Cable, key sleeves, etc.
The modern Trans Am jacket...
Except those are and always have been cool
They worked on Burt Reynolds, anyway.
Back when I was self-employed as a typesetter I visited the "budget financing" lot of a well-known local car dealer. The family member in charge asked for a quote to typeset the sales contract form. For an sample to match he showed an actual printout of a customer who was buying a used Lexus LS400 that was at least 10-15 years old at a usurious interest rate of around 18-20%. At the time you could get, with good credit, car loans at about 5-7%, I think this was about 2015. I ended up not typesetting the form but the poor person who may or may not have bought this Lexus would have been horribly "upside down." Good luck with the Lexus, I'm trying to keep a 2011 Camry on the road with 145,000 miles.
Good luck with the Camry. My VW Golf Wagen diesel has only 80k miles and it's already had a bad water pump, threw the balancer in the road, had a timing belt, and various other fixes. It also eats a battery about every 15 months or so.
Previous to that we had a Bug convertible that didn't keep water out at the windshield and was begrudgingly lemoned by VW-NA after they kept it for 5 months and then gave me shit about how I was ruining their loaners. Though our 2nd bug vert' was pretty good, the buying of that on the heels of the lemon was a fiasco.
Sometimes you get a bad one.
German Engineering!
' I ended up not typesetting the form but the poor person who may or may not have bought this Lexus would have been horribly "upside down."'
For sure... but now they have a paid-off car that probably still runs.
As opposed to getting a decent credit deal on, say, a new Elantra.
Yes, my nephew has good luck with Kias, but I will never have one or a Hyundai either. When working my other job at the print shop the forms broker came in with reprints for the local KN dealer, he joked that in copying them his dealer customer said they were even "more unreadable."
I heard Williams offered Lewis a seat...but the Sainz said, "Long-haired freaky people need not apply."
(sorry)
But seriously folks, Baku was crazy and great. Thank heavens F1 is so entertaining, now that IndyCar season is over and NASCAR's into the fake-drama "playoffs."
Love that LS400, flaws and all.
The Windrunner doesn't pencil out at all. Even if it ever manages to leave the digital drawing board - not a bet I'd take, FWIW - it will remain wholly impractical and nigh-impossible to enter serial production, because the design clearly relies on the fact wind turbine blades aren’t terribly heavy relative to their overall size.
Figure a single 300’ blade weighs around 30 tons; by comparison, total payload capacity for the comparably-sized An-225 Mriya was 275 tons. It's highly doubtful the Windrunner could even carry a quarter of that weight.
Yep, you are exactly correct. Aircraft design is wickedly complicated.
Windrunner is claiming 70 tons capacity. They point out that many airplanes run out of SPACE before they run out of WEIGHT, having been primarily designed to carry fat people from Spokane to St. Louis.
A paper airplane company will claim whatever it can to bring in money from aviation-ignorant VCs and attention from the groundhog media. The math still just doesn't work.
"Our prototype can do Mach One, and we have the wind-tunnel data to prove it."
"Our prototype will do that at sea level, and we have the FAA fines to prove it."
My first job in the industry had Eclipse Aviation as its largest advertiser. I learned fast (alas, not quite fast enough) about sky-high promises and middling returns. At least in Eclipse's case there are around 250 decently capable aircraft flying today, whose owners rave about them.
I firmly believe Radia is only looking to fleece the ignorant. Others, like Vern Raburn and Boom CEO Blake Scholl, genuinely believe(d) they're going to revolutionize the industry. It always sucks when reality hits.
Yep.
And I hate vaporware promises, but nothing says "certified performance" like police lidar and dashcam records.
that large bucket of very cold reality water is a bitch!
Always is.
Fat, LOUD people.
70 tons at what airfield altitude and temperature? Probably sea level at 60F.
What is the CG limitation at that payload weight?
What is the range with that payload?
Sounds like typical desperate marketing hype.
I do think our DoD needs to follow the rule of cool more often, but I don't know if this is the right case.
I don't know what the mission would be the proposed aircraft. The Windrunner is a one trick pony for long bulky items. Any air transport of low density high value cargo, whatever that might be, would be overall better done by spending the money on having more C-17 and C-130 airframes even if that meant sometimes tasking more than one plane when the Windrunner could do it solo. I doubt the Windrunner could operate from worse runways than the C-130. In any event getting high bulk cargo the final mile is easier slung under a helicopter anyway.
The Windrunner seems like a modern Guppy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy
We don't need more single purpose anything in our DoD.
Hasn't it been pretty obvious for a while that the whole green-energy-wind-turbine thing is a major boondoggle? Are governments, countries etc. still buying into this scammy activity by China to dump this crap on everyone else, preying on their addiction to 'feel good smug eco fart' vibes, while they're still buring coal like it's going out of style?
Speaking of cargo planes, any excuse to post my favorite takeoff video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhGwR1Ub-_E
In my hunt for a new daily driver to purchase in early ‘26, I took a few test drives yesterday. The new A5, a 2024 S5, the 2025 E350 and 2025 A6. The S5–great. A6–a solid car and sure footed, if not exactly enthralling. The E350–phenomenal, worthy of the hype. Drives like an actual, cohesive unit, NVH better than any car I’ve driven barring an S580, and the Burmester 3D sound is great. Since I have a Boxster, probably will pick up a 911, and regularly meet with clients, elected officials, and donors, I think I’d rather have a big cruiser that can eat up highway miles and blast music with a good sound system than a fast daily. The E450 is quite quick, and likely what I’ll choose, as the E350 sounds a bit anemic. Will look at the ES, G80, and other stuff before I decide, but going to be hard to beat the E Class for what I need (even if what I want is very, very different).
The new A5? I looked at a prestige spec, just $4,000 less than a loaded (CPO) ‘25 E350. It was unrequited dogshit. My wonderful coworker, a brilliant former literature major who looks startlingly like a young Joni Mitchell, has a 5 year old Mazda CX-5, which I drove to lunch yesterday. In every respect, the interior materials in the Mazda are better. My A4 Prestige was $7000 cheaper new, and feels like a Flying Spur in comparison. Feather-light steering, an awful fixed glass roof, with a “gel” cover that may or may not actually work, hard plastic everywhere, a steering wheel that belongs in a base Jetta. Controls that are both finicky and ineffective, requiring five inputs for what would be the push of a button in my A4. An awkward seating position. A “self-park” feature that is hilariously awful: move forward, move back, move forward, move back, then it finally parks, only to get about 70% of the way done, leave the car sitting half-cocked, and alert you “system capacity reached: please take over.” The whole thing took a whole four minutes: to back a car into a parking spot. It was genuinely one of the worst vehicles I’ve driven.
My initial plan was to await the arrival of the new A6. Not anymore. If I get any Audi, it’ll be a ‘25 A6, which is inferior to the E Class but a better deal. But if the new A6 shares any similarities to the new A5, as the outgoing A6 did to the A4, I won’t even give it a cursory glance. Just a dreadfully bad car.
Audi is going through the sort of prolonged bed-wetting that, when engaged in by Mercedes-Benz during the awful W210/W220 era, got Audi a customer base to begin with!
The reviews were favorable, which tells you pretty much everything about the reviewers. I’m sure the accommodations for the press trip were top-notch; because the car certainly isn’t. The 17-24 model A4 is great, the best daily driver I’ve ever owned. Comfortable, perfect interior controls, quick, handles well, good seating position. Looks good and is aging gracefully. Not flashy, not as fun as a 3 Series or eye catching as a G70, but maybe the most solid car in its class. I’d buy another one. The A5 looks like an amorphous blob and drives like one, too. If this is the direction for Audi, they’re going into their W210 era to be certain. BMW, too. The new 5 Series looks like an Acura and is too lame to even bother looking at.
Looks like I might be getting that extended warranty on the S4
I would. If I hadn’t put 45,000 miles on my A4 in the past 11 months (plus 3,000 on the 987, 2,000 on the 986, 1,000 on the NB, and 500 on the Frontier) I’d keep it. But it’s getting precariously close to the 100,000 mile mark.
At this rate, it will take me 25 years to get to 100k miles in the S4
I bought it with around 10,000 miles. The first two years I had it, I put just over 30,000 miles on it. At an October 2024 oil change, it had 42,000 miles. It now has 86,000.
Why not spend $10-15k on it and drive it another 100k miles. At least you know the car history.
I think someone must have had the brilliant idea to push people towards the E Trons by making the gas A5 a penalty box.
no, the e-turds are virtually identical lol
Wait, what was wrong with the W212?
W212 is great. I'm trying to guilt trip my father into selling me his absolutely base MB-Tex E350 as we speak.
W212 E63 AMG for me!
As a long time fan of Audi I'll note that they periodically shoot themselves in the foot whether it's styling or goofy engineering. Nows one of those times.
The outgoing A4 chassis is great. We got one of the last Allroads a few months ago, it's a wonderful interior and exterior plus easy driving fun. The new ones in the showroom didn't impress much.
Except the extended length A8 with like 22 inch wheels. That's a JB car all the way.
I'm in a 2018 A7 currently, last year for the C7.5 platform. It is astounding to me by how much the mark was missed with the C8. I also considered a last-year manual A4 (2017-18 I think?) as well as a end of the run 212 E 350 wagon. I never did actually locate a 350 to test drive, but the A4 seemed nice enough in a competently adequate kind of way.
I'm sad I have less than no interest in the next wave of Audi's after what I've got.
I’m at 15k miles on my 2025 E450. I still enjoy driving it daily. It is way more power than you need in a package that swallows all bumps and imperfections in roads. It’s a bit of a boat in turns.
I did not test drive the E350, but when I had one as a loaner I found it lacking. I have the Burmester and agree it is amazing.
I didn’t drive the Audi but I drove the 540 and it was an ugly and cheap in comparison. I don’t like the screens in the Benz but the Beamer screens appear to be some sort of add on. If you’re leasing, the bmw leases are unbeatable.
It’s just a sedan, but when it’s had a wash people will tell you how good looking of a car it is.
The new A5 cockpit is so great that it is used in virtually identical form in the A6, the A6 e-tron, the Q5 and the Q6 e-tron. Might have missed one. And you are failing to see the light?
I actually rather dislike the new Mercedes (2025 E350 would qualify) interior design. It’s lit up like a night club and ALSO full of cheap, shiny, hard plastics and an entirely screen centric HVAC/infotainment setup.
Surprised you enjoyed it that much more than the Audi.
Will say the seats are quite nice and I imagine it’s a brilliant highway car though.
Lastly, I’ve put nearly 20k miles on a Genesis G70 since February so I’m both impressed by the amount you drive AND very interested in your thoughts on these cars. Gonna be in a similar boat with a bit less money to spend some time next year
I actually prefer the interior of the ‘25 A6, as I’m not hugely enthralled by the wall of screens. The driving experience is just considerably better in the E Class.
The ES does indeed feel impressive... Until the modicum of padding/adhesive separating the outer door skin from the side guard beam breaks down, and the door rattles like a paint can every time you close it.
Then you start noticing all the other areas where Toyota cheaped out, especially inside.
Bubble Japan was amazing. They didn't just give us Lexus and Infiniti, they gave us the NSX, the Z32 300ZX, the FD RX-7, the Miata, the mark 4 Supra, XV10 Camry, etc, not to mention some amazing music (which includes Casiopea). It is a real shame the money ran out.
Word up. I have a 100 series Land Cruiser from 2002 and it's the bees knees, including the 8 bit touch screen an CD-Rom nav system.
I've been looking for a convertible from that period for the wife.
That Z32 came in a droptop! So did the 944-lookalike FC RX-7. The 3000GT eventually turned up as one. And of course, there's always the Miata.
In my opinion, some of the best music ever made went into anime soundtracks from 1985-2005.
But remember, I have no taste, so sayeth the gatekeepers of our culture.
You and me, both.
"some of the best music ever made went into anime soundtracks from 1985-2005"
extremely real
Sigh, Windrunner. So they finally realized there is absolutely no business case for a clean sheet aircraft development with a market of less than 50 planes (probably way less). So they are pivoting to the giant cash cow that is the DoD to fund their development. Sounds like JetZero also, as they have USAF funding for a demonstrator aircraft.
I still can't figure out where Boom is getting all of their $$$ from - they are developing both a new airframe AND a new engine.
From Wikipedia, it appears that a Saudi investment fund is involved.
The dashboard in my car is one of the reasons I chose the particular model/year I did. I have analog gauges for tach/speedometer (even though I'm sure they're just being fed a digital signal), and actual buttons and knobs for climate control and radio volume. It does have an infotainment screen, but it's not a touch screen, and I can make it disappear into the dashboard with the push of a button.
I just wish I could find a way to make it default to staying closed unless I ask for it. It pops up out of the dash every time I start the car/retracts when I open the driver door, and if I put the transmission in reverse while I have the screen stowed it pops out to show me the cameras. My car is a 2018, and in 2019 the next gen cars went all digital and I have no interest.
BMW ?
Audi A7
I suppose the 1 plus of those mega screens is how bad American eyesight is getting (old people aging and young people from screens).
I'd read somewhere that the Lincoln setup essentially has a "reading glasses" mode, the instrumentation equivalent of 48pt font on your phone (and which many mid-millennials I know already need).