Racing OT: Is anyone following the NASCAR lawsuit? It appears to be going to trial next week. Some of the information that has come to light has been interesting to say the least.
Michael Jordan’s team is effectively suing NASCAR for being anti-competitive/monopolistic. This was brought on by NASCAR strong arming teams into signing the latest charter agreement. Basically, they offered a take it or leave it deal.
The argument is that they had no choice to accept these lopsided terms because NASCAR is anti-competitive. They’ve tried like hell to stamp out any competition (ARCA, CARS tour, SRX).
NASCAR owns the series/commercial rights, the sanctioning body, a majority of the tracks, and the IP to the latest car. Basically, NASCAR is making money hand over fist and even big teams are struggling to break even because they’re being bled dry. The market for what they do is so specialized that teams can’t just up and take their infrastructure and go run another series competitively.
A lot has come out within the month, with some juicy stuff within the past week or so. Team balance sheets, charter sales figures, revenue payouts, fear over a LIV golf type situation, etc.
There were also some contingency plans that were made public in the event teams did try to start their own series. This followed basically the Feld/Monster Jam model where NASCAR owned all cars and hired a few teams to build/maintain the cars and provide crew.
The judge urged the parties to settle, but that seems to have gone out the window.
I’m not being hyperbolic here, the series as we know it is likely going to change in one way or another. I’m here for it.
Oh, greedy and comic villain levels of willingness to do whatever it takes to get what they want. And some of the wants are just capricious or vain.
A few years back Bruton Smith played chicken with Charlotte, threatening to pack up NASCAR and blow town for Cities A, B, or C, if they didn't play ball.
When he was done slapping the County and City councils around, he got a generous "package" from the city and the road to the speedway named after him.
it's hardball for big kids. I doubt they'll relax control on anything unless a judge orders it.
That’s pretty much how I feel. Current leadership feels that because their daddy and their pawpaw ran the series like a dictatorship that the team owners will continue to put up with that bs.
Unfortunately for them it’s 2025 and the team owners aren’t hillbillies working out of a pole barn. I’m no fan of the guy but MJ is both notoriously petty and has a money printer 10x the size of the France family. I hope that he breaks it off in the whole lot of them if only because they’ve manage to make NASCAR so fake and gay.
I love MJ (though, as far as I know, he employs race-grifter Bubba Wallace, so it's more of a basketball thing than anything else) and only follow NASCAR through a few friends of friends. That said, the way they tell it the series is basically the Bud Light fiasco (or GM/any number of companies) writ large. A series run by people who actively hate and are embarrassed by their clientele, even though nobody else would have them, especially the woke crowd they so desperately want to appease. So, basically your last sentence hit the nail on the head.
Yeah, I've heard several firsthand accounts about Mike being a dick, some from other famous people even. Certainly put him on my heroes not to meet list, but I also think being a bit of a psychopath is the edge that separates him from LeBron who wants to be liked.
Wait, NASCAR's being sued for being "anti-competitive?" Fucking NASCAR?
The organization whose raison d'etre almost from Day One has been to squash new technologies and "cheating" in the name of bullshit human drama and photo finishes, AKA "competitiveness?"
Different kind of competition. In the business sense. It’s claimed that NASCAR has a monopoly on premier stock car racing and uses that monopoly to enrich itself.
I was attempting to get a start in automotive journalism by covering NASCAR in the mid-late 2000's. The more I dug into the sport, the more I began to dislike what I was seeing.
I recall doing a several fairly serious pieces on a variety of topics, such as a certain now-deceased driver's seatbelts a year after his fatal crash (I couldn't find where anyone had done any sort of a deep dive on the subject at the time), an interview with Ken Schrader where he talked about going up to Dale's car and finding the seat belts already cut after they both came to a stop, and Ken looking around to see if anyone had already been there to cut the belts, in addition to telling the interviewer everything he saw in the car...the interview got memory-holed because it was long gone not too much longer after the crash.
I saw recently that it's now the story that Ken hasn't ever told anyone what happened when he came up to the car?
There were some other odd occurrences that I covered, especially with the NASCAR-subsidiary plane crash that hit a neighborhood and took out the husband of one of the France family, and how the plane had been having problems...and nobody had ever really done a deep dive on that, either at the time.
After several years of seeing janky things occurring within the sport, with nobody ever being all that interested in finding the source of the gas leak, I gave up and simply transitioned into writing NASCAR satire full-time, with that officially wrapping up after a series of my parody pieces that made fun of Dale Jr's 2012 concussion in the COT, and the recovery process afterward: The last article was "NASCAR To Allow Dale Jr. To Return To Racing But Only If His Car Is Filled With Packing Peanuts", which also brought about the first fictional use of a NASCAR periscope which he would use to be able to see out of his car.
Yes, the photoshop I did for this article was legendary.
I wasn't making fun of Dale Jr. directly, I was simply placing him in the middle of several absurd stories, caught in idiotic maelstrom after idiotic maelstrom.
In the end it was his psychotic fans that brought all of that to a halt, my editor fired me because he began receiving death threats from Dale Jr. fans, I was "makin' fun of their boy!", never mind the editor was just as puzzled as I was as to how stupid his fans were at the time, he's worth a hell of a lot of money, he didn't need the help of his fans to shield him from my writing.
This came after a fictional transition of NASCAR from stock cars to high banks superspeedway racing on overpowered racing barstools, accusing Jimmie Johnson of being a cyborg, dozens of others, and the best one of them all, "There And Back Again", which borrowed heavily and comedically from Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones, and had Brian France showing up at the end as a sort of bumbling Sauron character from Lord of the Rings, a story which I ended up making a fair bit of money from.
I'm not surprised that NASCAR is being sued, I'm just surprised that it took this freaking long for someone to do it. I'm still loudly puzzled as to why only NASCAR has allowed one mega-team (Hendrick) to win almost exactly fifty percent of all championships from 1995 to current, a feat which has almost zero equal anywhere in the world of professional sports (even stick and ball sports), anyone else I've spoken to about this off the record to folks from other racing organizations are just a bit curious as to why you'd let one mega team win so many times, as all it does anywhere else is drive away fans if their favorite, non-super-dominant driver never has a chance at winning.
Imagine if the New England Patriots won 15 super bowls in 30 years...
I've still got quite a few saved, would God/the owner of this group/Jack mind if I put one or two in here, or do I finally need to get off my rump and start my own group?
Who knows, I might even get off my "cheap" and upgrade to "paid".
The entire thing is worth it for the deposition of emails and texts alone. The owners and mgmt all absolutely hate each other. Absolutely hilarious shit talking. Michael Jordan calling Joe Gibbs a pussy. NASCAR mgmt calling Richard Childress a dumb redneck. Nascar brass telling another c suite member that he has a flashlight shaped like Marcus Smith's head. Steve Phelps saying the entire fanbase is a bunch of dumb rednecks that can't read. It just keeps going.
You know, a while back I drove a 2015 Accord with a V-6, and it felt like it was missing half of its' cylinders. INCREDIBLE disappointment. Not saying the Prelude is an upgrade in any way, though ...
Trying to resist the urge to get defensive but failing. Do you know if the car you drove was in “eco mode,” slash do you know if it was in sport (on the trans) or drive ?
Never totally got the “I sawzalled everything other than the drive unit and drivers seat off my car” YouTube videos, but apparently makes sense for … certain cases haha
If Top Gear still existed, they would run back the Avantime bit but for the Prelude lol.
I haven’t watched the videos of the Preludes “performance” but it MIGHT be a result of the simulated shifting for the CVT. Makes it seem “faster” but not letting the CVT work like it should slows it down some I’d think.
I've got a fleet of overloaded 2.0L (non-turbo) Transit Connect commercial vans with HD springs and LT tires, any one of which will give that dog a run for the money (although I did give *almost* twelve thousand United States greenback dollar bills for the last one, so it's a bit of a "sleeper").
I'm new to Honda's latest attempt to destroy a legacy trademark, but what kind of engine is Prelude supposed to have. Cursory look at their website reveals they went to great lengths to cover that up (interestingly, Toyota does the same thing on the Lexus website).
Is Honda now trying to leverage old motorcycle V-twins with couple of batteries lashed on as a new car powertrain? Oh yeah, *that* will be a success.
If I had to pick such a thing: it's a tossup between listening to John Coltrane's My Favorite Things or that RC51 geartrain drive the cams for the rest of my life
Many years ago I had a VFR750. My father, an old mechanic, used to love turning the engine over and watching the gear/cams when I checked the valve clearance.
It's only down 28 hp on the notably overpowered BRZ. You couldn't have known this in November but the Prelude posts a slower quarter mile trap speed than a Prius. And not even the plug in Prius. The base one.
As an optional powertrain for like $35k it would be a solid choice.
Honda would never be so brave, but an Si and Type-R trim level for the Prelude would be very neat. Would also probably triple sales (to all of 10k/yr…)
Sounds like they did to the Prelude what they did to the CRX. Was looking forward to the CRX replacement, until I saw the first reviews of the CRZ. Should have been called CRY.
Took a car that people fondly remembered from 30-40 years ago, tarnish it, gut it, and wear it around like a skin suit.
It's like they deliberately wanted to set fire to the brand's goodwill.
One of the things I love doing is unfairly comparing cars mentioned here to my Mazda CX-9 Signature, a 4400 lb tall wagon with an agricultural sounding 2.5T I-4... It gets to 60 a full second faster than this new 'Lude. Good grief.
It really does seem unforgivably silly after the CR-Z. I'm sure it will make a great used car for someone someday, but who is the new car buyer for a slow sports coupe? If it had a manual transmission, and a working-class price tag; then there might be some Gen-X people who remember what a Prelude used to mean, are old enough to get insured for less than $4K, and who appreciate that a car company doesn't hate them.
I know people used to say that you can sell an old man a young man's car, but you can't sell a young man an old man's car. I've seen young people. Precious few are in the market for moderately priced new cars, and many of them are willfully ugly in every way that they can express themselves. They're not going to buy graceful sports coupes no matter how many miles per gallon they achieve or how slowly they achieve them. I don't want to sound like a Disney adult who hates seeing kids at the parks, but I'm also not looking for chicks with septum piercing and dudes with no shoulders to tell me what is cool.
Those pricing shenanigans are so Honda. I was looking seriously at Ridgelines in late 2022. Every dealer had “mandatory” packages and dealer installed crap. Like every dealer. They love to control production to keep margins high.
Honda has definitely had some strange takes on coupes with the CRZ and now this new Prelude. Feels like another product that no one is asking for. I'm guessing these over-MSRP sales reports will be short lived.
Too bad they didn't just do a Civic Type R power train, tone down the racy suspension, and stick that into the new prelude...
Don't worry. The car and driver instrumented 0-60 test time is....6.5! Of course the rolling start is 7.9 s and the top speed is a (manufacturer claimed, lol) 116 mph.
whistlin dickhead deserves whatever punishment comes to him. destroying stuff without reason is peak retard behaviour and i dont care if he makes his money that way.
cleetus and co. seem like alright guys regardless of where their money really came from and i like rob dahm. jafromobile is another one of those niche automotive youtubers ive followed for a while.
In my offense, I also write my own stuff. But I publish mostly 0 or 2nd drafts here because "sell, sell, SELL" is life for final drafts. I have a nice piece on Choppers I just posted- mostly me trying to justify the 15 year run of the very magnificent Honda Fury while Yammienoob is over on youtube with his spaghetti arms and Dollar General Post Malone sidekick saying it's a dorky Dad bike. This is where I put the "here for a good time" thing.
I was wondering about that. Being the new guy, I've only read a couple of them, but they didn't seem like the kind of book I'd give my kitten-loving granddaughters as a Christmas gift.
Honest question (since I lack any tact or social graces) -- what's the target audience here?
In polar opposites news, Zach Courts had a crash in Spain and is in a neck collar, had ankle surgery, and is talking about it being a “life altering” crash. No vid on that yet, that I’ve seen, but it’s always odd how people process crashes.
Any crash you can hobble away from is a good one .
I rode my old BMW Motorbike to Sweetwater yesterday and the first thing my mate said as I laboriously got off was "wow, you're walking*much* better now " .
OT: New song, a little light on lyrics but the mood is perfectly synchronized with the current weather in most of the non-tropical Northern Hemisphere:
A piece sourced originally from kiwifarms (reposted here: https://x.com/wilderbyfar/status/1992771984040612008?s=20 ) was making the rounds on the subject of the Indian culture of 'Izzat', a type of honor system that boiled down means to never accept blame or even admit an error and that any degree of retaliation to avoid this is fair game.
Yeah: when Subcontinentals say that Westerners are "dumb," they are actually correct in that we are clueless about Izzat / Jugaad, which they consider normal.
"Now wait a minute. We Westerners practice those very things.
We call them 'office politics'."
There's office politics, and then there's what Mr. Tweedy from "Chicken Run" (In case you're not aware of that movie, it's a dramatization of a mass escape from a real-life British chicken internment camp), upon discovering that said chickens were planning an elaborate escape, says to his wife, "I told you they was organized!"
There's office politics, and then there's organized, planned, and well-executed takeover...all because of psychopath-level office politics.
One doesn't exist without the other.
The different healthcare-related business entities my wife has worked for over the last decade-plus, those businesses are being ran into the ground because incompetent, psychopathic women are simply trying to be lord over everyone else and are completely oblivious to just how illogical and stupid they almost always are (I recently asked my wife if she could remember a single female employee of hers or corporate overlord which didn't possess some kind of mental issue, I've been working with her for six years, I already knew the answer to the question), which if said behavior I had to attach something of a label to, it's almost as if for them, feminism was not some great path forward to enlighten women everywhere, it was for clueless-but-power-mad girls who are attempting to out-men the men on their way to the top, operating not on real-world evidence of the supposed malfeasance of men (men are indeed pigs, but that's another story), but their rise to the top was based entirely upon a stereotypical assumption of what they think men supposedly do while they're at work.
The good old boys club has been replaced by the good old girls mafia, and they're going to make damn sure that the pendulum never swings back the other way, because if it does, I'd be surprised that if even women's right to vote wasn't summarily tossed out the fucking window. We were sold a bill of goods which stated that men have been doing it wrong the entire time (they actually have a point), but feminism was marketed as being a new path forward that was going to fix everything, when the girls were in charge we would see glorious things happen, things would be better organized, and in the end, nothing is organized, businesses are being operated as schizophrenic organizations which can't make up its mind as to what the hell it wants to do (General Motors under Mary Barra, anyone?), just as long as they get their pound of flesh and are able to say "off with his head!" to any man...or even woman...unfortunate enough to cross their path.
The great takeover/Izzat movement, however?
That takes organization across at least three different continents, while office politics is simply unstoppable psychopathic inertia until the money runs out, and if anything, the Izzat movement is blithely operating and openly festering directly under the corporate and shareholder noses of the office gals.
The fascinating part here is how quickly one goes from feeling horror that someone would actually think that way about an entire group of people, until the horror sets in that they might actually have a point.
There are 195 countries. Population of India is almost 1.5 billion. They could send 2.0-2.5 million people to each country and still keep over a billion.
Are you trying to fuckin' tell me people from a low-trust-for-5,000-years culture with no real concept of either altrusim or cheating a stranger are ABUSING THE GENEROSITY OF THE UNITED STATES?
I don't like making generalizations, mostly because I usually don't want to be lumped in with a lot of groups that I can be easily associated with, but based on my experience at a Denver hotel this weekend, you can add the lesser crime of horrendous taste to this bunch as well.
Dots (not feathers) overran all communal spaces in the place - except the pool area - for our entire trip. Culturally clueless
behavior aside, gold watches ran and other gausche attire ran amok, and, worst of all, the parking lot was full of Model Xs, and BMW X-whatever M plug-in hybrids. It both made me sick and helped me see who Bimmer is targeting with its overwrought modern designs. Completely different customer base than that of the E39 heyday.
I wish I could get excited about utilizing their services. It's usually easier just to ignore the dents and scratches or scrap the offending vehicle versus having to worry if the repaired vehicle was simply bolted back together correctly.
Having began my somewhat-professional automotive industry career in a supposedly-prominent body shop that ended up being shut down after a series of arrests involving the guys who ran that shop and a local purveyor of the not-so-medicinal arts that was running a considerable amount of his business through that building didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence.
I was a week and one phone call away from working at “Factory Zero”.
For two years, I spoke quarterly with my uncle’s buddy at Local 22 about job openings. They started at “Fleetwood” together and eventually transferred to Poletown.
At some point, I had given up hope for a job at the plant and decided to finish school. A week after getting accepted into the grad program, that gentleman from the UAW called to offer me a job on second shift.
If there’s one thing that I’m perpetually grateful for, it’s that.
Couple of odd coincidences while im reading this column.
Im watching The Office right now.
I have a coworker in his late 50's who is on his second Altima. He easily clears over $200k a year and will be able to comfortably retire at 60. He is the opposite of a Big Altima Energy owner the internet loves to trach on.
185k trouble free miles out of Altima 1. Currently at 120k trouble free miles on Altima 2, a 2017.
Ive got 2 white trash mopars in the driveway that have also been completely trouble free.
I no longer believe 98% of the autotive bias i read on the internet.
My aunt and uncle bought a new Altima a few years back when they retired, and they were definitely the frugal type who had a good experience with previous Nissans. They had exactly the same plan for their Altima and it's been great to them. I believe it's also a 2017 (or 2018).
Now that we're down here in Nashville part of the time, my wife and I like to play a spotting game with new Altimas - guess if they're Nissan employees or if we should be moving far away from them!
The woman in a next-door unit to me is what I call a “trust-fund dilettante” who moved from the Cleveland area with her two (at the time) teenage kids, backstopped by her parents, in order to get away from a bad relationship. (The condo was in the father’s name.)
She kept sponging off her parents, becoming more weird. Her daughter lives with her while she pursues a nursing degree. Parents both died in 2023, which might explain some of her behaviors.
Point of the story: her Dad drove a first-generation Avalon that was absolutely showroom mint! And he gifted it to the daughter.
Two weeks afterward, she came home with the rear bumper dragging, and went around like that for several days! After that got fixed, the car would always show a few dents and dings. Finally, a year or so later, the car had a smashed rear, with crinkles in the rear of the C-pillars. Not the daughter’s fault—a pickup truck hit her just hard enough to total it by tweaking the crush structure.
So the replacement appeared: a 2022 (?) Altima SL. And true to form, within three weeks, the rear bumper was creased! IIRC, that was fixed, but it has since had a minor tweak which is unfixed!
In total, I probably spend a couple weeks a year in rental Renaults on work trips. I give Nissan credit for preserving the pleasant ride. Sure, the steering is totally rubbery, but the sedans are remarkably comfortable with very little sloppiness.
Nissan also has some of the best seats in the industry, something about which almost no autowriter is willing to remark because most of them are too obese to experience seats correctly.
As someone who's simply built like Shrek (I'm not grossly overweight, but I could easily stand to lose 20 pounds or whittle away a hell of a lot of muscle, my basketball-sized cranium weighs 110 pounds all by itself), I can maybe tick off a hand's span of cars that had even somewhat-bolstery seats which fit my wide ass, and they were all German.
OEM-produced reclining devices are something of an Aberfan-level disaster on ergonomics, but aftermarket seating at the basic generic level (custom-made race seats are something different entirely) is an extinction event-sized assault on the human body unless you try to get a competent upholstery shop to modify a seat for you.
My hatred goes deeper than just the seats, my left shoulder and arm are jammed against way too many door panels of possibly competent automobiles with one exception being I actually have a lot of arm clearance with several fine Porsche automobiles, but then the issue of headroom becomes a problem as my torso is too long.
If they would bother to give the new Sentra the 2.5 it would be an extremely compelling product. Looks great in and out. Evidently drives quite well too.
Jack, how can you have more pole start wins (79) than pole starts (43)?
The definitive vocal on 'Turn Out the Lights the Parties Over" forever belongs to Dandy Don Merideth who sang it on Monday Night Football when the game had been won. Oh how we miss him, Frank and even Howard.
"Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio our nation turns its lonely eyes to you woo, woo, woo"?
Love the Lexus rear drive sports sedans, the IS350 I think is a good looking sports sedan, should be near bulletproof and not as complicated as the LS sedans.
I never hated the Nissan Altima, it was decently styled, and yes, it had a reputation that was more about the people who drove them than about how the car was as a car, rather unfortunate, because it was not a Neon or a cobalt, it was nicer than those cars, though they rarely looked cared for.
Really the only demerits for the Altima are the CVT and the stereotypical owners. I had one as a rental last year, and it was solid but the CVT was a bit annoying.
Other than being female, has Mary Barra ever achieved anything, that wasn't given to her based on her sex? I'm honestly curious, because a quick look at her career seems to indicate that she hasn't.
And why wouldn't she? I doubt anybody asked why some unqualified broad got a management role or a VP slot and if he did, his ass got cashiered or reassigned to Wilkes-Barre.
"Lights out" factories were envisioned, where the only employees were those supervising the robots and computers....Over the decade of the 1980s, GM spent upwards of $90 billion attempting to remake itself...GM became the largest manufacturer of robots in the world. Unfortunately, the experience failed to meet the vision, with the new robots famously painting each other instead of the cars, or robots welding doors shut. Ultimately, some robotic systems and automation installed in several plants were removed shortly after their installation. The astonishing sums expended were widely viewed as money wasted. Responding to a 1986 report on 3-year capital expenditures projected at almost $35 billion, VP of finance F. Alan Smith (no relation) opined the sum could be better spent on purchasing both Toyota and Nissan resulting in a bump in market share overnight and openly questioned whether the proposed capital expenditures would pay the same dividends; they did not. By the time Smith retired, GM had evolved from the lowest cost producer in Detroit to its highest cost producer, due in part to the drive to acquire advanced technology that never paid dividends in efficiency.
As badly as GM has been managed, I don't think you can make a convincing argument that UAW work rules didn't put the domestic manufacturers at a disadvantage compared to foreign manufacturers.
“and you can’t argue against the Sierra and Silverado EV being great for the environment. Nobody buys them and they don’t go anywhere. Environment: saved!”
Lithium, mined.
GX460 is great. If weird looking. They can be butched up with an aftermarket off-road front bumper.
The fact that they don’t depreciate convinces you that you should shop the GX550. But then you get an engine issue. I didn’t try very hard to convince a style conscious 30 year old lady to get into an 80k mile 5+ year old Lexus, it would have been far from her first choice.
I did like B58 powered X5s with a sport package. Reliable enough but a little pricy still to get into a newish one.
Like Jobbie nooner, Lake of the ozarks party cove died with the UAW manned plants of Missouri as well. RIP.
Ford has a KC plant. I’m pretty sure the last hold out in STL, dodge, is gone.
I think Jack's comparison with a Land Rover Discovery is spot on. It's organized and upscale in the sense that it's well designed and will last. In person the materials do feel much sturdier than the Toyotas.
We've gotten too used to the opulence of the new G-Wagen in our SUVs, which makes no sense for its purpose. The GX feels right for its purpose in "town & country," and the minor update for the last 3 model years did modernize it a bit.
The overall layout and materials work better in the new LC. The top-trim LC just looks and presents both nicer-and-beefier than the GX.
And I feel petty about this, but it drives me crazy: the LC has a 1-piece seamless housing for the IP/info stack. Yes, it's hard plastic, fine. But the GX has these two seams above the IP that just feel - IDK - lazy. Maybe if that piece was stitched leather or something, I'd be okay, but come on. That's already in addition to the center stack that my wife said "looked Corolla."
I guess I'm pissy about it because I had checkbook in hand and just couldn't do it because I was so disappointed. Never meet your heroes, or something like that lol.
I meant the same 2nd gen GX Jack is talking about. For 2022 and 2023, they used a revised interior that was a nice upgrade on the 2020 MDG bought.
I agree with you on the new stuff though, I HATE the iPad stuck on dash thing on any car and the LC preserves some buttons. I feel like Volvo did such a nice job with their 2016+ cars that went big screen and integrated it into the dash, so I don't mind it on my V60 but now most of the new stuff feels like a lazy afterthought.
Relatedly, I'm pretty convinced 1/2 the reason anyone gets a Porsche SUV instead of the Audi cousin is the better integrated infotainment screen placement.
GM has Fairfax in Kansas City and Wentzville outside of St. Louis
Wentzville is the rowdy plant with the 4 cylinder truck and Savana van. Fairfax used to make cars like the Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Malibu.
Mary has got Fairfax, Spring Hill, CAMI, Detroit-Hamtramck, Lake Orion and Lansing Grand River all up a river with EV product no one is buying. Mexicans? No problem there.
"Between now and New Year’s Day, all paid subscribers can give a 90 day subscription to someone else"
been waiting for a golden ticket like this so ill choose carefully
"If Max finishes both GPs and the Sprint in first and Lando is right behind him, then Lando still wins the WDC by nine points"
but the orange cars are very slow as of the change arent they? this will be very interesting
"Lewis is basically the Yuki Tsunoda of Ferrari, minus the part where Yuki does all the in-race data collection on behalf of his world champion teammate"
lewis seems like the prime example of "guy who got lucky by signing on to a team with a stupid fast car and wouldnt have been able to win otherwise" and im wondering who else would fit that bill
"new Prelude, which is already strongly priced at nearly $44k including destination"
which is insane money for a slightly different civic
"The day will eventually come when you can get four Scat Packs for the price of one IS500"
but is there a better reliable and fun to drive 4 door sedan than the is500? that was my attraction to the older is300 anyway
"It’s a reversal of xenophobia; you have an irrational love of foreigners and the unknown"
these people deserver all the hate they get and then some
"Elon Musk is totally a Nazi who hates everyone but white people"
ah yes famous wignat and (somehow) h1b enthusiast elon musk
Lewis Hamilton was beaten in the same car by Jenson Button. He was beaten in the same car by Nico Rosberg. He was beaten in the same car by George Russell. He is being beaten in the same car by Charles Leclerc. He is the champion of keeping his job while losing to teammates. How many drivers survive being beaten by four teammates? Maybe if his Dad owns the team.
Somewhere I have a 1998 Autoweek with 13-year-old Lewis Hamilton on the cover as one of "10 Secret People who will Change the World." There's always a best 13-year-old karting driver in England. Only Lewis Hamilton received a McLaren contract for it. He's a mediocrity who was able to play his role in a narrative with the help of Nigel Stepney giving McLaren all of Ferrari's F1 intellectual property, Timo Glock hitting reverse, Massa paying the price for Flavio's cheating, and Mercedes being granted a three year headstart on the hybrid formula that was then protected by the so-called engine token system combined with grid penalties. I hope he stays in F1 long enough for people to forget when the deck was stacked in his favor.
I recently learned that Lando Norris' Dad spent $44,000,000 getting him to the point where he stopped being a pay driver at McLaren. He could well win the championship this year. Can anyone think that makes him one of the 20 best drivers in the world? Real question.
For the record, Lewis never pulled off coasting to the WDC five years in a row. Nico Rosberg beat him in 2016, breaking his "engine token" winning streak.
1) the analog cayenne love is hot and fucking HEAVY. i had eyes on a gorgeous 957 GTS with crossovers and cam bolts done which, before i could even come check it out, had a quarter million a year client call and pay for, in full, on his fucking amex. im not a poor-scha guy at all, and i never even considered one, but this particular example demanded my attention - and i was too slow by half. if you have a decent one near you, buy it now and sell it to a jerkoff with a bad colorway submariner in 6 mo.
2) GX460 has negative rizz. basically cant give em away in the face of the GX550s, which is a car that makes even honest women consider an extramarital affair. i can have my pick of the litter at 30-35k and ive forgone them in full knowledge that its a GREAT choice for my wallet. but....
3) the QX80 has negative infiniti rizz. there is positively no reason to buy any other tahoe sized SUV - its reliable, decent looking in 2018+ form, yuge inside, not horrible to insure - and yet checking out three has given my wife the ick so bad that im afraid if i push the issue any more it may infect me too.
4) range rovers inspire insanity. 60% are beat to a pulp within the lease period. 20% are in shitty colorways. 20% are nicely spec'd and are treated well and those cars start at 50k for a facelifted 2018+.
5) running cost and desire to own are inversely correlated. there is no "gotta have it" deal in mid to full size SUV land. everything reliable is not inspiring, and nothing inspiring is reliable. im currently on final model year WK2s or X166 chassis MBs. im profoundly disappointed in this development.
When people ask me what kind of bike to buy (as if I would really know, my bike is a nearly 30 year old Litespeed) I tell them to go to a bike shop and buy something that's good enough to be worth upgrading with better components.
And that bike is something that fits them well, fits their cycling goals/likes, and is at the very least the best frameset they can get, as the parts upgrades/changes can come later. Chassis is the most important part.
As someone (still) in the bicycle industry (a bike shop), this is true and continues to be. A top end bike will be even lighter, the braking and shifting even better, and the carbon frame (and top-spec wheels) will have that ethereal feeling (response, seated and standing on the pedals) that mid-level carbon won't have.
There's a lot of compression at the lower end of the used market. I love all materials, but old steel road frames I get along with really well, and it's a boat load cheaper than new, with a proportional performance (speed, really) deficit in sustained high-speed effort, largely from the aero side of things.
supposing i had the boundless cash to build a fully carbon fiber (with necessary titanium bits) ultralight road bike which parts and pieces might i want to look for?
There are many boutique and smaller custom carbon frame/bike builders in the market now, and that is its own rabbit hole, so I will stick with the large brands that have thrown incredibly amounts of R&D into their products. The top shelf carbon layups are a must if going for the best of the breed. If you don't care about paint color, the world is your oyster. If boring paint jobs are soul-sucking to you, then your options are custom paint outside of the company, or choosing a company with good stock colors or a custom program.
Lightweight uber alles is I think right now the Specialized S-Works Aethos 2 with SRAM Red AXS (stop me if the alphabet soup is too much!). Its geometry is less hyper-race-focused aka akin to Trek's former H2 geometry, which means I could ride a 61cm/XL Aethos and not need a million spacers to get the handlebars to where I need.
The Colnago V5Rs is a handsome-in-the-modern-archetype road bike from a storied brand, with a lightweight focus. Its Y1Rs aero stablemate is heavier, but looks pretty wicked. For a little more weight and a bit of nostalgia, the C68 Rim Brake with Campagnolo Super Record is a gorgeous bike.
Canyon is a solid brand, with many happy customers. Its direct-to-consumer model still has a few issues, but I think REI is starting to carry them? Anyway, their Ultimate CRF Di2 is lightweight to the core. Boring matte black colors, but many don't seem to care. For more aero, the Aeroad CFR is the ticket.
For the home team (aka the brand we primarily stock), it's the Trek Madone SLR 9 Gen 8. Very pretty spaceship bikes, IMO. Decent stock colors, but if you have all the money, go with their Project One program offered on their SLR-level bikes (road, almost exclusively), which allows you to not only customize some componentry specs (crank length, bar width, etc), but gives you access to three levels of paint customization. Signature = choose from full Trek color palette plus modify graphics etc. ICON = P1 artist/painter-designed custom colors, textures, and finishes. Ultimate = you work with the P1 people to make your own thing. IMO, ICON paint jobs are mind-blowing. It's rolling art. Very fast, fun rolling art.
Every company will offer great wheelsets with their bikes--the lightest and/or most aero they have. Top level tires, too. Component groups: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 is the gold standard for so many reasons, still. Looks fantastic, works flawlessly and fast. SRAM has continued to up their game. Their top Red group often leads for ultimate low weight and has a killer techy gloss black/machined silver look. One finger braking from the hoods feels awesome. They have some real innovative tech. Campagnolo is a mixed bag. Storied brand. Their Super Record EPS (electronic shifting) rim brake groupset on that Colnago is seductive. Super Record mechanical is less so. Super Record Wireless is hideous. Basically bread loaves stuck onto all components, and a super tall shifter body "knob".
If you're taking a custom or new-to-you frameset to the stratosphere, the aforementioned component groups work there. Chris King for hubs/wheels, headsets, bottom brackets--phenomenal product and warranty. Hunt wheels are killer for epic specs on a smaller budget (with sales especially). Onyx Vesper hubs (sprag clutch for instant drive engagement, but SILENT when coasting) laced with Berd spokes for an even lighter and even more sublime riding wheel. So many brands, but we are a dealer for these and have had a few ordered for customers. Rene Herse anything for tires, Continental GP5000 or Vittoria Corsa G2 tires.
What part of the bike market do you focus upon and how’s business going?
My first shop was at a LBS. We mainly catered to families and recreational riders. Tomorrow is their last day in business after 78 years and three generations.
We cater to everybody. Striders, kids' bikes, BMX to entry level MTBs, adult hybrids, e-bikes, with a few of the more specialty (and thus spendier) architectures: full suspension MTBs, (carbon) road bikes, and gravel bikes. Our e-bikes are proper bikes, Bosch mid-drive motors and batteries, durable, reliable, long-lasting. Not $1000 pot metal rolling death traps with garbage "geometry", no factory/warranty support, overmatched components, and a facsimile of a "bicycle drivetrain" that makes these electric motorcycles classified as "e-bikes."
Most of our inventory we target at or well below the $1000 mark, with a few quality hardtail MTBs between $1-2k. We cater to the same people as your LBS, do not bike snob people, but lay out the price, component/quality differences, and product longevity+quality of experience for folks when appropriate. There's a lot of noise out there, which makes it tough to research and decide. My sales "style" is enthusiasm and collaboration-driven. Truthful, genuine, guiding, empathetic. No tricks, not pushy, with the goal to arrive at a bike solution that fits goals, hopes, and budget.
With tariffs, the last tentacles of the Covid hangover, and the general economy slowing (but not a recession, ok? Ok.....lol whatever), we anticipated things with much more limited staff (aka me) through the summer, but now into the fall, things have woah'd up real fast. Sucks. Coming up on 80 years as a bike shop. We're hanging in there just, like a lot of other shops. Not closing thus far, but running reduced hours etc. It's not enough--hourly rate and number of hours--for me to make bills, so I've been looking elsewhere, even as I love bikes. I never worked at one before as I knew the money is not there. But when no jobs arise? Yeah, I'll take a bike shop job! I think the industry is poised to stabilize this next year, adapting as it always has and will need to. For a shop, low overhead is paramount, especially with online sales and consumers' mindset towards that.
And it’s absolutely worth doing at the right time with right card. I bought my used Giulia with a new Chase business card 2 yrs ago and that purchase alone earned enough points to fly my family in business class to Europe and then some. No-brainer ROI on the cc transaction fee.
2) it double sucks to drive if you are over 6 feet
3) im more interested in an unexplainable chlamydia infection getting passed to my wife than owning one, which puts my interest at between kill myself and change my name and moving to Argentina
I’d argue the GXs lack of rizz can be remedied with a visit to dissent off-road for some beautifully crafted and American made off-road bumpers, mild lift and at least 33 inch ATs. You’ll have all the dudes lined up!
Sadly I’ve been in Europe these last five months and Chinese EVs are EVERYWHERE. Nothing good will come of this.
I think there’s ways to put lipstick on the pig in a fashion most people would deem acceptable, but I just don’t think I could get over the feeling of compromise I’d get approaching mine every day.
We can all accept certain faults in a vehicle because none of them are perfect, but when it rises to a “feeling of compromise” you just can’t buy it. If you discover the compromise after buying it, it has to go.
100%. I’ve bought enough “perfect on paper” cars that I’ve ended up hating and selling quickly to have learned this one the hard way. It’s way more expensive and time consuming than just getting what you wanted to begin with.
I had a Honda Element for only one year. I thought it was the perfect vehicle for me but quickly learned that it wasn’t, so it was gone in a year.
I still see Elements everywhere down here in NC. Huge unforced error by Honda to not produce a much more refined 2nd gen version. It could still be in production today due to it’s uniqueness and affordability.
For me, it’s still in the running. I’m working on finding a colorway that might be more acceptable. It’s clearly the right path forward barring some regrettable blowback
Sign me up for a (second gen) QX, too. Second gen Armada as well, to a lesser extent. I mean, right after I get over my experience and infatuation with GMT800 and GMT900 (08-09 only) Denali XL's.
Agreed. You'd have to go 2500 chassis to get more grunt via 6.0L and 8.1L. GM900 Suburbans are my favorite design of the 900 trio, but they are best served with AFM delete or a 6.0L swap. Yukon Denalis and Escalades for 08-09 were "pure" 6.2L V8s before AFM riddled them with issues. GMT800s have GMT800 problems, which are myriad yet also fully known, more or less. I co-own an '03 Denali XL with over 200k. Electricals and suspension are one's biggest issues outside of any work the 4L60 needs. I love the thing, and that 6.0L sounds and feels great, even in her advanced mileage.
Some issues are indicative of what happens when these already aging platforms get even older, some are due to a general flimsiness/cheaping out of the platforms themselves, and yes, low miles on a used vehicle purchase typically forgives a lot of sins.
Oddly enough, with my experience in regards to GM products, it's like they start out making something fairly reliable, and then just cheap down from there, the 4-pinion versus 5-pinion planetary gearset of the 4L60 is one such example, the 5-gear isn't better, it's actually an engineering fix for the planetary set being made out of an even cheaper material (I spent a few years building transmissions and doing general R&R work in a Cottman transmission shop back during the early 2000's).
That being said, the 4L60 is also made of not very stern stuff, so as stated above, I'd strongly recommend at least a 2500 with a 4L80 (unless you're just using this as a schoolbus-sized commuter), and then just wait for plastic bits to break and electrical components to fail, door pins being one of many things that were substandard-engineered with GM products.
Overall, if you don't mind the odd maintenance and random repair bits (one popular failure is the blower motor resistor module, usually melts wiring along with it), not a bad ride, provided you don't venture North/forward by model year into displacement on demand/DOD territory, and then that opens up a completely different can of worms.
To try to keep up with the engineering gremlin Joneses, however, Ford countered with a left jab in the form of 5.4 3-valve VVT cam phasers, although customers I've seen who've maintained their engines religiously with 3000-mile oil changes with at least a Mobil 1 5w40 European formula or Amsoil top-level variant seem to be able to drive a hell of a long time without any phaser issues.
If Ford made a similar-year Expedition in the length of a Suburban (before the Suburban-length redesign), I'd have two or three of them in the driveway, I have a lot less problems with similar-year Ford leviathans, and that's even taking into account the plug tossing problems with the 4-thread cylinder heads.
I should also note that I have both Ford and GM products in my driveway, but the lone GM product is the Boomer-specific 2010 Camaro, while the Ford products outnumber it four to one.
The Excursion is another monster entirely, they're not bad at all (my favorite is any of the V10 versions because of sexy things you can do with the exhaust), but for me, the Excursion is just sort of an obscene, much-larger, worse-driving version of the Expedition, because, well, it's a Super Dooty underneath. Having driven a lot of them, I'm not too terribly impressed with straight-axle driving dynamics, but there are people who absolutely love using the things as obnoxious daily drivers, regardless of how many drastically-superior SUV's are out there that are nearly its equal in size here of late.
The 5.4-powered versions are okay if you live in a state with a lot of flat roads, but "underpowered" looms its head even when climbing a small grade. Not really a big fan of owning any variant of Excursion, but they were...and still are...really popular with moms that have astoundingly small families and inversely monster shopping trips at Costco.
The fun part now will be finding one that doesn't have at least a one-way trip to the Moon (if we ever actually went there, but that's for another story) on the odometer.
I've got a vague contact in the UK who actually owns one of those monsters there and still drives the thing whenever he can just to infuriate the natives.
Find a Toureg? 90% of the Cayenne with 10% of the crazy
The GL or a 6 cylinder X5 could be interesting as well, but as you've found it's a challenge to find something that's both good and interesting in that range.
A Discovery could be interesting too, as they never really caught on. Plus all the new "big" LRs are basically the same car underneath... Hunting for a well cared for single owner L322 could be interesting too, if you can find a one with the 5.0
The newest toureg is now 8+ years old. If I can find an executive or luxury ideally non TDI that looks nice I’ll be all over it.
2018-2019 GLE/GLS is on the short list. I’d love a GLS550 but nice ones disappear in two shakes of a lambs tail. A GLS450 seems more likely.
D5s are out. I know 4 personally who have leaky windshields. This is a common problem and one at which dealers just roll their eyes at this point. I’d humor a nice L494 or L322 but finding one takes dedication or dumb luck.
Time flies! I didn’t even think they were that old. Covid screwed up all sense of years for me with cars.
GLE or GLS 450 may be your sweet spot for price and value, as they’re not as “hot” as the Porsche or BMW SUVs. I didn’t realize that you were looking that new.
I didn’t know about that with the D5s. We had a leaky windshield on our D2 but that was just improper install, and the dealer fixed it fairly quickly…
I’m evaluating any and all comers under 50 grand. The cheaper the better, but I’m cognizant of “you get what you pay for” being largely true in full/mid size luxury SUV land.
X5 is a good option. It’s not for me, and I’d encourage others to consider. Just not gonna work out with my set of variables.
Post fakevid cars seem to be generally worse than pre. GM, ford, MB, Audi, at least are all afflicted by this. Those cars are getting old, though, so I want to strike now before they age out.
The D5s have been, from what I gathered, generally unsatisfactory. I’ve got a few in my gun club who won’t go back after them, and a few in my office who have suffered similar fates. No such complaints from L405 owners which is what prompted me to evaluate and nope out of that search.
SQ7s are simply too much and the rest just don’t appeal to me. LC 1958s are at 50 but if you think I’m paying 50 grand for cloth and an unproven 4cyl hybrid powertrain you’re out of your mind.
I never liked the 4.4 coming from a Discovery with a Rover 4.6. It felt too peaky, where the 5.0 I drove had a bit more low end. I figure any Rover is going to have specific (and at some point somewhat costly) maintenance to pay attention to. On the Rover V8s, it was the head gaskets around 100k
I'm really hoping to talk her into a 6 cyl X5 and that we don't go down the l405 route for her.
If I get one for myself, that's one thing, but if it's her car I'll forget to do shit like clean the sunroof drains every few months and I'll wind up with a hole rusting in the roof.
6 cyl X5 is a great choice. I got lucky and was able to talk mine into an off lease RX, last of the V6s. It’s a great change of pace for me but there’s no way I’d be happy with it every day. Dunno how often you drive your wife’s car but just a thought.
She has a GS350, which she chose over an earlier RX (waaaay too boring) back in 2019. She's spent a decent amount of time driving my jagrover products.
I'm really just hoping I can get her into a bimmer at this point. Maybe an X7 if she needs something bigger, although those do have some tcase issues.
X7 quality seems much more spotty than the X5s anecdotally and from what I’ve observed. Probably better reliability wise than the other options but the quality of life little things seems pretty so so
I saw you mentioned Mercedes X166… don’t know if something older is quite your bailiwick, but I’ve got a 2009 GL450 (X164) that I’d like to part with. 183k miles, zero rust (UT/AZ rig), new Airmatic in the past year, ice-cold air, and pewter/tan MB-Tex.
I haven't looked in a minute but any GX prior to the refresh in 2022 or 23 comes with a pretty terrible HMI that's only got shoddy aftermarket car play/AA integrations available for it. If you look for the 22 or newer ones with integrated car play/AA you'll see them demanding high retail.
It is also a vehicle for a specific buyer. Almost all aspects of them are a no flyer in and of themselves, fuel mileage, in car tech, using the damn side swing hatch, the useless 3rd row, the predator grill, etc., but the fact you can drive the balls off it anywhere and basically forever is a big trump card for the right customers.
What market are you in? I’m in western Canada and *anything* Toyota based and BoF is considered highly desirable (new or used). The GXs hold their values well. A cursory glance comparing similar vintage 4Runners and GXs seems to indicate the residuals are similar. Again - this is market specific, YMMV.
"Unlike me, MDG is not an unemployed derelict of a human being rapidly disappearing from everyone’s notice and respect like Kevin Spacey in “American Beauty”"
She, like Massie grabbed the third rail and wouldn't let go. There is a certain amount of street cred gained by sticking to one's guns and following through with 'FU I quit'. I predict a GA gov or US Senate run of questionable success given all the AIPAC money she will be swimming against. GA does not have the electorate that KY does.
I would suggest that Barra and Reuss are also Mamdani voters (or would be). The CEOs spending tens of billions of dollars on EVs, knowing they would fail without a Biden term 2 and an outlawing of ICE engines, should all be tried for fraud. Look at Ford and GMs balance sheets if they hadn’t set $5B or so per year on fire.
Ford isn’t serving the investor at all. That stock has been dead money for years. They were trying to play nice with the left and win big in the (no-longer) era of government handouts for climate compliance.
The train station was supposed to be the center of an entire campus devoted to EVs and other "mobility" projects I wonder what's going to happen to it all now that the glorious electric future may not come to pass.
Has the Ford family, independent of the company, done anything substantial to revitalize Detroit? I’ve only heard of Mike Illitch being the prime mover on revitalization, but I have admittedly not followed the story.
Racing OT: Is anyone following the NASCAR lawsuit? It appears to be going to trial next week. Some of the information that has come to light has been interesting to say the least.
whats that about?
I too would like to know.
See my reply to Speed.
Michael Jordan’s team is effectively suing NASCAR for being anti-competitive/monopolistic. This was brought on by NASCAR strong arming teams into signing the latest charter agreement. Basically, they offered a take it or leave it deal.
The argument is that they had no choice to accept these lopsided terms because NASCAR is anti-competitive. They’ve tried like hell to stamp out any competition (ARCA, CARS tour, SRX).
NASCAR owns the series/commercial rights, the sanctioning body, a majority of the tracks, and the IP to the latest car. Basically, NASCAR is making money hand over fist and even big teams are struggling to break even because they’re being bled dry. The market for what they do is so specialized that teams can’t just up and take their infrastructure and go run another series competitively.
A lot has come out within the month, with some juicy stuff within the past week or so. Team balance sheets, charter sales figures, revenue payouts, fear over a LIV golf type situation, etc.
There were also some contingency plans that were made public in the event teams did try to start their own series. This followed basically the Feld/Monster Jam model where NASCAR owned all cars and hired a few teams to build/maintain the cars and provide crew.
The judge urged the parties to settle, but that seems to have gone out the window.
I’m not being hyperbolic here, the series as we know it is likely going to change in one way or another. I’m here for it.
now that does sound interesting
the people running it come across as being unbelievably greedy though
Shareholder Value!
Maybe Sherman can broker a deal.
Sherman for NASCAR President
Olivia Nuzzi for "Head" of PR
Oh, greedy and comic villain levels of willingness to do whatever it takes to get what they want. And some of the wants are just capricious or vain.
A few years back Bruton Smith played chicken with Charlotte, threatening to pack up NASCAR and blow town for Cities A, B, or C, if they didn't play ball.
When he was done slapping the County and City councils around, he got a generous "package" from the city and the road to the speedway named after him.
it's hardball for big kids. I doubt they'll relax control on anything unless a judge orders it.
Well soon there may be an EV Cup series, LOL
I pray that it happens.
Sounds soporific to me .
-Nate
That’s pretty much how I feel. Current leadership feels that because their daddy and their pawpaw ran the series like a dictatorship that the team owners will continue to put up with that bs.
Unfortunately for them it’s 2025 and the team owners aren’t hillbillies working out of a pole barn. I’m no fan of the guy but MJ is both notoriously petty and has a money printer 10x the size of the France family. I hope that he breaks it off in the whole lot of them if only because they’ve manage to make NASCAR so fake and gay.
Remember, Jordan is a man so committed to not losing an argument that the Mafia basically had to kill his father to get him to pay up on a debt.
NASCAR can't play that hard.
I love MJ (though, as far as I know, he employs race-grifter Bubba Wallace, so it's more of a basketball thing than anything else) and only follow NASCAR through a few friends of friends. That said, the way they tell it the series is basically the Bud Light fiasco (or GM/any number of companies) writ large. A series run by people who actively hate and are embarrassed by their clientele, even though nobody else would have them, especially the woke crowd they so desperately want to appease. So, basically your last sentence hit the nail on the head.
Do they really teach in marketing school to actively piss off a major portion of one’s clientele?
Seems to be 101 these days unless your clients are the correct sort of people.
Nah. I suspect the marketing types bet on who can piss of their own clientele the most / quickest. You know, as a side act.
I took a guy who raced motorcycles for MJ for a lap in my Vette, he said MJ was an ass to his crew and a bit of a buffoon.
Agreed NASCAR needs to get back to the sport and the fans.
Yeah, I've heard several firsthand accounts about Mike being a dick, some from other famous people even. Certainly put him on my heroes not to meet list, but I also think being a bit of a psychopath is the edge that separates him from LeBron who wants to be liked.
Wait, NASCAR's being sued for being "anti-competitive?" Fucking NASCAR?
The organization whose raison d'etre almost from Day One has been to squash new technologies and "cheating" in the name of bullshit human drama and photo finishes, AKA "competitiveness?"
Different kind of competition. In the business sense. It’s claimed that NASCAR has a monopoly on premier stock car racing and uses that monopoly to enrich itself.
Oh yeah, I agree with that.
I was attempting to get a start in automotive journalism by covering NASCAR in the mid-late 2000's. The more I dug into the sport, the more I began to dislike what I was seeing.
I recall doing a several fairly serious pieces on a variety of topics, such as a certain now-deceased driver's seatbelts a year after his fatal crash (I couldn't find where anyone had done any sort of a deep dive on the subject at the time), an interview with Ken Schrader where he talked about going up to Dale's car and finding the seat belts already cut after they both came to a stop, and Ken looking around to see if anyone had already been there to cut the belts, in addition to telling the interviewer everything he saw in the car...the interview got memory-holed because it was long gone not too much longer after the crash.
I saw recently that it's now the story that Ken hasn't ever told anyone what happened when he came up to the car?
There were some other odd occurrences that I covered, especially with the NASCAR-subsidiary plane crash that hit a neighborhood and took out the husband of one of the France family, and how the plane had been having problems...and nobody had ever really done a deep dive on that, either at the time.
After several years of seeing janky things occurring within the sport, with nobody ever being all that interested in finding the source of the gas leak, I gave up and simply transitioned into writing NASCAR satire full-time, with that officially wrapping up after a series of my parody pieces that made fun of Dale Jr's 2012 concussion in the COT, and the recovery process afterward: The last article was "NASCAR To Allow Dale Jr. To Return To Racing But Only If His Car Is Filled With Packing Peanuts", which also brought about the first fictional use of a NASCAR periscope which he would use to be able to see out of his car.
Yes, the photoshop I did for this article was legendary.
I wasn't making fun of Dale Jr. directly, I was simply placing him in the middle of several absurd stories, caught in idiotic maelstrom after idiotic maelstrom.
In the end it was his psychotic fans that brought all of that to a halt, my editor fired me because he began receiving death threats from Dale Jr. fans, I was "makin' fun of their boy!", never mind the editor was just as puzzled as I was as to how stupid his fans were at the time, he's worth a hell of a lot of money, he didn't need the help of his fans to shield him from my writing.
This came after a fictional transition of NASCAR from stock cars to high banks superspeedway racing on overpowered racing barstools, accusing Jimmie Johnson of being a cyborg, dozens of others, and the best one of them all, "There And Back Again", which borrowed heavily and comedically from Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones, and had Brian France showing up at the end as a sort of bumbling Sauron character from Lord of the Rings, a story which I ended up making a fair bit of money from.
I'm not surprised that NASCAR is being sued, I'm just surprised that it took this freaking long for someone to do it. I'm still loudly puzzled as to why only NASCAR has allowed one mega-team (Hendrick) to win almost exactly fifty percent of all championships from 1995 to current, a feat which has almost zero equal anywhere in the world of professional sports (even stick and ball sports), anyone else I've spoken to about this off the record to folks from other racing organizations are just a bit curious as to why you'd let one mega team win so many times, as all it does anywhere else is drive away fans if their favorite, non-super-dominant driver never has a chance at winning.
Imagine if the New England Patriots won 15 super bowls in 30 years...
Any chance you could post links to these satirical articles?
Sounds like a barrel of monkeys.
I've still got quite a few saved, would God/the owner of this group/Jack mind if I put one or two in here, or do I finally need to get off my rump and start my own group?
Who knows, I might even get off my "cheap" and upgrade to "paid".
that does sound like a great guest post
The entire thing is worth it for the deposition of emails and texts alone. The owners and mgmt all absolutely hate each other. Absolutely hilarious shit talking. Michael Jordan calling Joe Gibbs a pussy. NASCAR mgmt calling Richard Childress a dumb redneck. Nascar brass telling another c suite member that he has a flashlight shaped like Marcus Smith's head. Steve Phelps saying the entire fanbase is a bunch of dumb rednecks that can't read. It just keeps going.
*fleshlight. God damn autocorrect killing the joke.
LATE BREAKING NEWS: Someone just published a video of their new Prelude, on which they paid $10k ADM, going 0-60 in....
8.28 seconds.
Ouch
More than two whole seconds slower than a 9G accord sedan with the V6 (and without the manual).
Crazy.
You know, a while back I drove a 2015 Accord with a V-6, and it felt like it was missing half of its' cylinders. INCREDIBLE disappointment. Not saying the Prelude is an upgrade in any way, though ...
Trying to resist the urge to get defensive but failing. Do you know if the car you drove was in “eco mode,” slash do you know if it was in sport (on the trans) or drive ?
I did take it *out* of the eco mode. Didn't realize the transmission had a separate setting. Yeah, it was worse in eco mode.
iirc, that's about 1.5 seconds slower than a 9g 2.4 manual.
It’s about two seconds slower than the Civic Hybrid upon which it’s based.
Crazy stuff!
Wild!
Never totally got the “I sawzalled everything other than the drive unit and drivers seat off my car” YouTube videos, but apparently makes sense for … certain cases haha
If Top Gear still existed, they would run back the Avantime bit but for the Prelude lol.
I haven’t watched the videos of the Preludes “performance” but it MIGHT be a result of the simulated shifting for the CVT. Makes it seem “faster” but not letting the CVT work like it should slows it down some I’d think.
enjoy getting run down by a 15 year old miata lmao
Dang. That's rough.
I've got a fleet of overloaded 2.0L (non-turbo) Transit Connect commercial vans with HD springs and LT tires, any one of which will give that dog a run for the money (although I did give *almost* twelve thousand United States greenback dollar bills for the last one, so it's a bit of a "sleeper").
Wow.
I'm new to Honda's latest attempt to destroy a legacy trademark, but what kind of engine is Prelude supposed to have. Cursory look at their website reveals they went to great lengths to cover that up (interestingly, Toyota does the same thing on the Lexus website).
Is Honda now trying to leverage old motorcycle V-twins with couple of batteries lashed on as a new car powertrain? Oh yeah, *that* will be a success.
2.0 4 cylinder hybrid thingy.
Sir, I think you've stumbled across that powertrain's actual Latin/binomial nomenclature species name.
I'd expect a phone call from the Nobel people sometime in the next few weeks.
I have a 2000 Honda RC51. That engine would be an improvement...
If I had to pick such a thing: it's a tossup between listening to John Coltrane's My Favorite Things or that RC51 geartrain drive the cams for the rest of my life
Many years ago I had a VFR750. My father, an old mechanic, used to love turning the engine over and watching the gear/cams when I checked the valve clearance.
It and the RC51 make great noises.
It has their actually very good 2.0 hybrid.
200hp, 230 lb/ft of torque.
It would be good in a dwarf car.
I see. Forgive me if I cannot imagine any hybrid being "good", never mind "very good."
It's only down 28 hp on the notably overpowered BRZ. You couldn't have known this in November but the Prelude posts a slower quarter mile trap speed than a Prius. And not even the plug in Prius. The base one.
Yeah…
As an optional powertrain for like $35k it would be a solid choice.
Honda would never be so brave, but an Si and Type-R trim level for the Prelude would be very neat. Would also probably triple sales (to all of 10k/yr…)
The gas engine is 141 hp by itself.
Sounds like they did to the Prelude what they did to the CRX. Was looking forward to the CRX replacement, until I saw the first reviews of the CRZ. Should have been called CRY.
Took a car that people fondly remembered from 30-40 years ago, tarnish it, gut it, and wear it around like a skin suit.
It's like they deliberately wanted to set fire to the brand's goodwill.
I saw a CRX on the road here this week.
So my value-spec Camry was the performance choice.
Very much so!
One of the things I love doing is unfairly comparing cars mentioned here to my Mazda CX-9 Signature, a 4400 lb tall wagon with an agricultural sounding 2.5T I-4... It gets to 60 a full second faster than this new 'Lude. Good grief.
Yeah, but on the other hand it's also styled better, so...
CR-Z part deux, and probably for the same reasons. What a wasted opportunity.
It really does seem unforgivably silly after the CR-Z. I'm sure it will make a great used car for someone someday, but who is the new car buyer for a slow sports coupe? If it had a manual transmission, and a working-class price tag; then there might be some Gen-X people who remember what a Prelude used to mean, are old enough to get insured for less than $4K, and who appreciate that a car company doesn't hate them.
I know people used to say that you can sell an old man a young man's car, but you can't sell a young man an old man's car. I've seen young people. Precious few are in the market for moderately priced new cars, and many of them are willfully ugly in every way that they can express themselves. They're not going to buy graceful sports coupes no matter how many miles per gallon they achieve or how slowly they achieve them. I don't want to sound like a Disney adult who hates seeing kids at the parks, but I'm also not looking for chicks with septum piercing and dudes with no shoulders to tell me what is cool.
If the cars come, the buyers will follow.
This business is ALWAYS product driven. ALWAYS. Lack of product creates kids who don't care.
Those pricing shenanigans are so Honda. I was looking seriously at Ridgelines in late 2022. Every dealer had “mandatory” packages and dealer installed crap. Like every dealer. They love to control production to keep margins high.
Honda has definitely had some strange takes on coupes with the CRZ and now this new Prelude. Feels like another product that no one is asking for. I'm guessing these over-MSRP sales reports will be short lived.
Too bad they didn't just do a Civic Type R power train, tone down the racy suspension, and stick that into the new prelude...
Don't worry. The car and driver instrumented 0-60 test time is....6.5! Of course the rolling start is 7.9 s and the top speed is a (manufacturer claimed, lol) 116 mph.
Oh... that's not good.
whistlin dickhead deserves whatever punishment comes to him. destroying stuff without reason is peak retard behaviour and i dont care if he makes his money that way.
cleetus and co. seem like alright guys regardless of where their money really came from and i like rob dahm. jafromobile is another one of those niche automotive youtubers ive followed for a while.
It helps to just ignore the YT influencer (what a stupid term) crowd.
In my offense, I also write my own stuff. But I publish mostly 0 or 2nd drafts here because "sell, sell, SELL" is life for final drafts. I have a nice piece on Choppers I just posted- mostly me trying to justify the 15 year run of the very magnificent Honda Fury while Yammienoob is over on youtube with his spaghetti arms and Dollar General Post Malone sidekick saying it's a dorky Dad bike. This is where I put the "here for a good time" thing.
That's true, you did. You might be the prophet of ACmF'ers.
I agree on Yam.
I would be PRIVILEGED to have you ghostwrite my book, but I'm afraid it would be TOO masculine. Arguably I'm already over the edge on my own.
I was wondering about that. Being the new guy, I've only read a couple of them, but they didn't seem like the kind of book I'd give my kitten-loving granddaughters as a Christmas gift.
Honest question (since I lack any tact or social graces) -- what's the target audience here?
Yammienoob: https://youtu.be/QIGqdF0Q_b8
In a his followup video, he said, with a "halo" screwed to his skull, "I have no concern for my personal safety" or similar.
In polar opposites news, Zach Courts had a crash in Spain and is in a neck collar, had ankle surgery, and is talking about it being a “life altering” crash. No vid on that yet, that I’ve seen, but it’s always odd how people process crashes.
Any crash you can hobble away from is a good one .
I rode my old BMW Motorbike to Sweetwater yesterday and the first thing my mate said as I laboriously got off was "wow, you're walking*much* better now " .
-Nate
OT: New song, a little light on lyrics but the mood is perfectly synchronized with the current weather in most of the non-tropical Northern Hemisphere:
♫ https://youtu.be/vydq_9pGmAQ ♫
(I'm still trying to figure out the artist, John Maus, PhD; recently interviewed https://youtu.be/EBql15yptxE)
OT: Case study on the H-1B kickback system and life as non-Indian in a colonized company like Capital One: https://thevisafiles.substack.com/p/capital-one
A piece sourced originally from kiwifarms (reposted here: https://x.com/wilderbyfar/status/1992771984040612008?s=20 ) was making the rounds on the subject of the Indian culture of 'Izzat', a type of honor system that boiled down means to never accept blame or even admit an error and that any degree of retaliation to avoid this is fair game.
Yeah: when Subcontinentals say that Westerners are "dumb," they are actually correct in that we are clueless about Izzat / Jugaad, which they consider normal.
Now wait a minute. We Westerners practice those very things.
We call them "office politics."
i dont think office politics go anywhere near that far
Oh, sure they do!
We clearly do not work for the same company.
Varies by industry. Worst in my experience is insurance.
"Now wait a minute. We Westerners practice those very things.
We call them 'office politics'."
There's office politics, and then there's what Mr. Tweedy from "Chicken Run" (In case you're not aware of that movie, it's a dramatization of a mass escape from a real-life British chicken internment camp), upon discovering that said chickens were planning an elaborate escape, says to his wife, "I told you they was organized!"
There's office politics, and then there's organized, planned, and well-executed takeover...all because of psychopath-level office politics.
One doesn't exist without the other.
The different healthcare-related business entities my wife has worked for over the last decade-plus, those businesses are being ran into the ground because incompetent, psychopathic women are simply trying to be lord over everyone else and are completely oblivious to just how illogical and stupid they almost always are (I recently asked my wife if she could remember a single female employee of hers or corporate overlord which didn't possess some kind of mental issue, I've been working with her for six years, I already knew the answer to the question), which if said behavior I had to attach something of a label to, it's almost as if for them, feminism was not some great path forward to enlighten women everywhere, it was for clueless-but-power-mad girls who are attempting to out-men the men on their way to the top, operating not on real-world evidence of the supposed malfeasance of men (men are indeed pigs, but that's another story), but their rise to the top was based entirely upon a stereotypical assumption of what they think men supposedly do while they're at work.
The good old boys club has been replaced by the good old girls mafia, and they're going to make damn sure that the pendulum never swings back the other way, because if it does, I'd be surprised that if even women's right to vote wasn't summarily tossed out the fucking window. We were sold a bill of goods which stated that men have been doing it wrong the entire time (they actually have a point), but feminism was marketed as being a new path forward that was going to fix everything, when the girls were in charge we would see glorious things happen, things would be better organized, and in the end, nothing is organized, businesses are being operated as schizophrenic organizations which can't make up its mind as to what the hell it wants to do (General Motors under Mary Barra, anyone?), just as long as they get their pound of flesh and are able to say "off with his head!" to any man...or even woman...unfortunate enough to cross their path.
The great takeover/Izzat movement, however?
That takes organization across at least three different continents, while office politics is simply unstoppable psychopathic inertia until the money runs out, and if anything, the Izzat movement is blithely operating and openly festering directly under the corporate and shareholder noses of the office gals.
http://www.no19th.com
KiwiFarms original is back up: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/the-india-menace.174997/page-1253#post-23043218
archived: https://archive.is/22eaH
The fascinating part here is how quickly one goes from feeling horror that someone would actually think that way about an entire group of people, until the horror sets in that they might actually have a point.
relevant article by { Jayant Bhandari }: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/india-its-worse-you-think
there terror sets in when you realize theres about 3 million here at least and zero signs of that number decreasing at all
I recall the number quoted was that they could send 1M people to every other single country in the world and still have 1B left.
There are 195 countries. Population of India is almost 1.5 billion. They could send 2.0-2.5 million people to each country and still keep over a billion.
Are you trying to fuckin' tell me people from a low-trust-for-5,000-years culture with no real concept of either altrusim or cheating a stranger are ABUSING THE GENEROSITY OF THE UNITED STATES?
I can't accept that...
you should see what theyre doing to canada
They're doing the needful
an australian guy got arrested for filming one of them doing the needful on some guys lawn
No concept of public decency, either. Animals all.
I don't like making generalizations, mostly because I usually don't want to be lumped in with a lot of groups that I can be easily associated with, but based on my experience at a Denver hotel this weekend, you can add the lesser crime of horrendous taste to this bunch as well.
Dots (not feathers) overran all communal spaces in the place - except the pool area - for our entire trip. Culturally clueless
behavior aside, gold watches ran and other gausche attire ran amok, and, worst of all, the parking lot was full of Model Xs, and BMW X-whatever M plug-in hybrids. It both made me sick and helped me see who Bimmer is targeting with its overwrought modern designs. Completely different customer base than that of the E39 heyday.
Should have used a shotgun rather than a camera.
As THEY see it.
We need to somehow kill off all of the Indian owned body shops.
Then there will be no more body shops
Collateral damage in service of the greater good.
Jack has written about working through American shops earlier in his career; they could certainly return.
You are referring to a completely different “body shop”.
I actually spent last week talking to an entirely American-owned-and-operated body shop.
I wish I could get excited about utilizing their services. It's usually easier just to ignore the dents and scratches or scrap the offending vehicle versus having to worry if the repaired vehicle was simply bolted back together correctly.
Having began my somewhat-professional automotive industry career in a supposedly-prominent body shop that ended up being shut down after a series of arrests involving the guys who ran that shop and a local purveyor of the not-so-medicinal arts that was running a considerable amount of his business through that building didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence.
Yet I agree with Norman Matloff: body shops are bad, but direct hires are ALSO bad: https://www.compactmag.com/article/no-there-arent-good-h-1b-visas/
Agreed.
But the body shops just facilitate the insanity. They need to go.
Yeah; I think if we cut off their feedstock, they'll go away.
I was a week and one phone call away from working at “Factory Zero”.
For two years, I spoke quarterly with my uncle’s buddy at Local 22 about job openings. They started at “Fleetwood” together and eventually transferred to Poletown.
At some point, I had given up hope for a job at the plant and decided to finish school. A week after getting accepted into the grad program, that gentleman from the UAW called to offer me a job on second shift.
If there’s one thing that I’m perpetually grateful for, it’s that.
As difficult as things have occasionally been since then, THAT was a bullet dodged.
Couple of odd coincidences while im reading this column.
Im watching The Office right now.
I have a coworker in his late 50's who is on his second Altima. He easily clears over $200k a year and will be able to comfortably retire at 60. He is the opposite of a Big Altima Energy owner the internet loves to trach on.
185k trouble free miles out of Altima 1. Currently at 120k trouble free miles on Altima 2, a 2017.
Ive got 2 white trash mopars in the driveway that have also been completely trouble free.
I no longer believe 98% of the autotive bias i read on the internet.
My aunt and uncle bought a new Altima a few years back when they retired, and they were definitely the frugal type who had a good experience with previous Nissans. They had exactly the same plan for their Altima and it's been great to them. I believe it's also a 2017 (or 2018).
Now that we're down here in Nashville part of the time, my wife and I like to play a spotting game with new Altimas - guess if they're Nissan employees or if we should be moving far away from them!
Those are the easy ones!
You'd be surprised sometimes
The woman in a next-door unit to me is what I call a “trust-fund dilettante” who moved from the Cleveland area with her two (at the time) teenage kids, backstopped by her parents, in order to get away from a bad relationship. (The condo was in the father’s name.)
She kept sponging off her parents, becoming more weird. Her daughter lives with her while she pursues a nursing degree. Parents both died in 2023, which might explain some of her behaviors.
Point of the story: her Dad drove a first-generation Avalon that was absolutely showroom mint! And he gifted it to the daughter.
Two weeks afterward, she came home with the rear bumper dragging, and went around like that for several days! After that got fixed, the car would always show a few dents and dings. Finally, a year or so later, the car had a smashed rear, with crinkles in the rear of the C-pillars. Not the daughter’s fault—a pickup truck hit her just hard enough to total it by tweaking the crush structure.
So the replacement appeared: a 2022 (?) Altima SL. And true to form, within three weeks, the rear bumper was creased! IIRC, that was fixed, but it has since had a minor tweak which is unfixed!
I spotted one in major Southern City traffic last summer that had 3 (three) donut spares on it. I finally got to say "Big Altima Energy" IRL.
That’s terrifying and tremendously humorous all at the same time.
I guess stereotypes are usually earned
Two Vogues on the left, Uniroyal on the right!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPr4UyiZGE
My hooptie!
Big Altima Energy can't hold a candle to a 69 deuce and a quarter.
Modern crap can't hold a candle to 70s-era Nimitz-class Detroit iron.
Railroad tie bumper, quarter panels rusted a foot up from the rocker panel, replacement door from an old cop car.
When was the last time you saw a U I C K?
A long-time pastor at my church had a Skyhawk sedan that was missing the “B” on the back. His (now grown) kids called it the “uick!” 😂😂
In total, I probably spend a couple weeks a year in rental Renaults on work trips. I give Nissan credit for preserving the pleasant ride. Sure, the steering is totally rubbery, but the sedans are remarkably comfortable with very little sloppiness.
Nissan also has some of the best seats in the industry, something about which almost no autowriter is willing to remark because most of them are too obese to experience seats correctly.
Zero Gravity Seats do wonders. 2nd only to Volvo.
i will never forgive the chronically obese for automakers not building seats with decent bolsters so they can fit someone who is 80lbs overweight
I am old enough to remember the outrage over how tight the recaros were on the Fiesta and Focus ST.
The FiST Recaro headrests were aggressively pitched forward, even for “performance” seats
As someone who's simply built like Shrek (I'm not grossly overweight, but I could easily stand to lose 20 pounds or whittle away a hell of a lot of muscle, my basketball-sized cranium weighs 110 pounds all by itself), I can maybe tick off a hand's span of cars that had even somewhat-bolstery seats which fit my wide ass, and they were all German.
OEM-produced reclining devices are something of an Aberfan-level disaster on ergonomics, but aftermarket seating at the basic generic level (custom-made race seats are something different entirely) is an extinction event-sized assault on the human body unless you try to get a competent upholstery shop to modify a seat for you.
My hatred goes deeper than just the seats, my left shoulder and arm are jammed against way too many door panels of possibly competent automobiles with one exception being I actually have a lot of arm clearance with several fine Porsche automobiles, but then the issue of headroom becomes a problem as my torso is too long.
Sigh.
If they would bother to give the new Sentra the 2.5 it would be an extremely compelling product. Looks great in and out. Evidently drives quite well too.
Just a little too pokey for the likes of me.
Savage Geese bring up the “zero gravity seats” decently often in commodity car reviews.
If I ever end up in Europe again, I’m never going to rent another French car. I’ll take the bus/train first.
Got a Citroen Cactus one time - a complete unintelligible, underpowered death trap, POS.
I fully agree… yet find them charming anyway lol
Jack, how can you have more pole start wins (79) than pole starts (43)?
The definitive vocal on 'Turn Out the Lights the Parties Over" forever belongs to Dandy Don Merideth who sang it on Monday Night Football when the game had been won. Oh how we miss him, Frank and even Howard.
"Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio our nation turns its lonely eyes to you woo, woo, woo"?
" Verstappen has 69 GP victories from 47 pole positions, while Norris has 11 wins from 16 pole positions."
I should remove "from" here, as it suggests something I don't mean.
Michael Schumacher had 91 GP victories against 68 pole positions. I wonder if Jos learned from Michael's emphasis on race setup.
Love the Lexus rear drive sports sedans, the IS350 I think is a good looking sports sedan, should be near bulletproof and not as complicated as the LS sedans.
I never hated the Nissan Altima, it was decently styled, and yes, it had a reputation that was more about the people who drove them than about how the car was as a car, rather unfortunate, because it was not a Neon or a cobalt, it was nicer than those cars, though they rarely looked cared for.
Really the only demerits for the Altima are the CVT and the stereotypical owners. I had one as a rental last year, and it was solid but the CVT was a bit annoying.
I’m currently renting an Elantra with a CVT and it’s surprisingly good.
Well, they're ugly in a "whoever styled them has no sense of style" way.
Other than being female, has Mary Barra ever achieved anything, that wasn't given to her based on her sex? I'm honestly curious, because a quick look at her career seems to indicate that she hasn't.
she somehow "im just a girl"ed herself into a position of extreme power
how to you remove someone who didnt get hired on merit
I'm afraid to answer that, because we all now how to do it, it's just illegal to say it (or might as well be after you get your 20 minutes of hate).
i dont know if you can ceausescu a ceo
but i imagine we may live long enough to find out
Luigi wasn't quite a firing squad, but even so.
Good reference!
Geez, not even Orwell is safe from inflation
Lol
Yeah, she got to President of GM. That's all history will say about her.
The sad part is that she truly believes that she earned it. Hence why she does all of the stupid shit she does.
And why wouldn't she? I doubt anybody asked why some unqualified broad got a management role or a VP slot and if he did, his ass got cashiered or reassigned to Wilkes-Barre.
I guess asking her to have a modicum of self awareness or humility is too much.
Such things are inimicable to Winning At Life.
I'm starting to appreciate this again.
I would disagree with that. I've won at life, and I didn't have to screw over anybody to do it.
She's doing one important thing at GM: retroactively rehabilitating the reputation of Roger Smith.
A hopeless task.
All CEOs are Roger Smith since LLMs went mainstream:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Smith_(executive)#Drive_for_modernization
"Lights out" factories were envisioned, where the only employees were those supervising the robots and computers....Over the decade of the 1980s, GM spent upwards of $90 billion attempting to remake itself...GM became the largest manufacturer of robots in the world. Unfortunately, the experience failed to meet the vision, with the new robots famously painting each other instead of the cars, or robots welding doors shut. Ultimately, some robotic systems and automation installed in several plants were removed shortly after their installation. The astonishing sums expended were widely viewed as money wasted. Responding to a 1986 report on 3-year capital expenditures projected at almost $35 billion, VP of finance F. Alan Smith (no relation) opined the sum could be better spent on purchasing both Toyota and Nissan resulting in a bump in market share overnight and openly questioned whether the proposed capital expenditures would pay the same dividends; they did not. By the time Smith retired, GM had evolved from the lowest cost producer in Detroit to its highest cost producer, due in part to the drive to acquire advanced technology that never paid dividends in efficiency.
And yet people still blame the unions for making GM’s costs too high.
Yeah; the ellipsis contained "This was obviously viewed negatively by the unions, and further strained relations."
I wish I could like this 500 times.
As badly as GM has been managed, I don't think you can make a convincing argument that UAW work rules didn't put the domestic manufacturers at a disadvantage compared to foreign manufacturers.
Amen to that. She's the worst CEO GM has ever had, and that's saying something really big.
It's like Jimmy Carter -- he's no longer the worst president in my lifetime.
I was going to say that!
Destroying anything of value in sight while adding ugly lot poison turds no one would want in a million years?
“and you can’t argue against the Sierra and Silverado EV being great for the environment. Nobody buys them and they don’t go anywhere. Environment: saved!”
Lithium, mined.
GX460 is great. If weird looking. They can be butched up with an aftermarket off-road front bumper.
The fact that they don’t depreciate convinces you that you should shop the GX550. But then you get an engine issue. I didn’t try very hard to convince a style conscious 30 year old lady to get into an 80k mile 5+ year old Lexus, it would have been far from her first choice.
I did like B58 powered X5s with a sport package. Reliable enough but a little pricy still to get into a newish one.
Like Jobbie nooner, Lake of the ozarks party cove died with the UAW manned plants of Missouri as well. RIP.
Ford has a KC plant. I’m pretty sure the last hold out in STL, dodge, is gone.
Engine issues aside, the GX interior needs to feel more special. The sensory difference between its interior and a loaded RAV4 is pretty minimal, TBH.
I think Jack's comparison with a Land Rover Discovery is spot on. It's organized and upscale in the sense that it's well designed and will last. In person the materials do feel much sturdier than the Toyotas.
We've gotten too used to the opulence of the new G-Wagen in our SUVs, which makes no sense for its purpose. The GX feels right for its purpose in "town & country," and the minor update for the last 3 model years did modernize it a bit.
You mean the new GX? M-a-y-b-e.
The overall layout and materials work better in the new LC. The top-trim LC just looks and presents both nicer-and-beefier than the GX.
And I feel petty about this, but it drives me crazy: the LC has a 1-piece seamless housing for the IP/info stack. Yes, it's hard plastic, fine. But the GX has these two seams above the IP that just feel - IDK - lazy. Maybe if that piece was stitched leather or something, I'd be okay, but come on. That's already in addition to the center stack that my wife said "looked Corolla."
I guess I'm pissy about it because I had checkbook in hand and just couldn't do it because I was so disappointed. Never meet your heroes, or something like that lol.
I meant the same 2nd gen GX Jack is talking about. For 2022 and 2023, they used a revised interior that was a nice upgrade on the 2020 MDG bought.
I agree with you on the new stuff though, I HATE the iPad stuck on dash thing on any car and the LC preserves some buttons. I feel like Volvo did such a nice job with their 2016+ cars that went big screen and integrated it into the dash, so I don't mind it on my V60 but now most of the new stuff feels like a lazy afterthought.
Agreed!
Relatedly, I'm pretty convinced 1/2 the reason anyone gets a Porsche SUV instead of the Audi cousin is the better integrated infotainment screen placement.
Agreed there too!
Although on the smaller side the Macan does have some impressive driving dynamics versus an SQ5.
Disagree RE: butchered. ARB bumpers look great on everything. GX included.
I agree, they look way better
My wife says she spent a lot of time at Party Cove in the 80s and 90s!
I’m sorry
GM has Fairfax in Kansas City and Wentzville outside of St. Louis
Wentzville is the rowdy plant with the 4 cylinder truck and Savana van. Fairfax used to make cars like the Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Malibu.
Mary has got Fairfax, Spring Hill, CAMI, Detroit-Hamtramck, Lake Orion and Lansing Grand River all up a river with EV product no one is buying. Mexicans? No problem there.
To think, minivan and pickup production once occupied four Chrysler plants!
"Between now and New Year’s Day, all paid subscribers can give a 90 day subscription to someone else"
been waiting for a golden ticket like this so ill choose carefully
"If Max finishes both GPs and the Sprint in first and Lando is right behind him, then Lando still wins the WDC by nine points"
but the orange cars are very slow as of the change arent they? this will be very interesting
"Lewis is basically the Yuki Tsunoda of Ferrari, minus the part where Yuki does all the in-race data collection on behalf of his world champion teammate"
lewis seems like the prime example of "guy who got lucky by signing on to a team with a stupid fast car and wouldnt have been able to win otherwise" and im wondering who else would fit that bill
"new Prelude, which is already strongly priced at nearly $44k including destination"
which is insane money for a slightly different civic
"The day will eventually come when you can get four Scat Packs for the price of one IS500"
but is there a better reliable and fun to drive 4 door sedan than the is500? that was my attraction to the older is300 anyway
"It’s a reversal of xenophobia; you have an irrational love of foreigners and the unknown"
these people deserver all the hate they get and then some
"Elon Musk is totally a Nazi who hates everyone but white people"
ah yes famous wignat and (somehow) h1b enthusiast elon musk
fair
but those merc were stupid quick
like winning by 30s on 3 tires fast
Lewis Hamilton was beaten in the same car by Jenson Button. He was beaten in the same car by Nico Rosberg. He was beaten in the same car by George Russell. He is being beaten in the same car by Charles Leclerc. He is the champion of keeping his job while losing to teammates. How many drivers survive being beaten by four teammates? Maybe if his Dad owns the team.
Somewhere I have a 1998 Autoweek with 13-year-old Lewis Hamilton on the cover as one of "10 Secret People who will Change the World." There's always a best 13-year-old karting driver in England. Only Lewis Hamilton received a McLaren contract for it. He's a mediocrity who was able to play his role in a narrative with the help of Nigel Stepney giving McLaren all of Ferrari's F1 intellectual property, Timo Glock hitting reverse, Massa paying the price for Flavio's cheating, and Mercedes being granted a three year headstart on the hybrid formula that was then protected by the so-called engine token system combined with grid penalties. I hope he stays in F1 long enough for people to forget when the deck was stacked in his favor.
I recently learned that Lando Norris' Dad spent $44,000,000 getting him to the point where he stopped being a pay driver at McLaren. He could well win the championship this year. Can anyone think that makes him one of the 20 best drivers in the world? Real question.
For the record, Lewis never pulled off coasting to the WDC five years in a row. Nico Rosberg beat him in 2016, breaking his "engine token" winning streak.
from a man in search of an SUV:
1) the analog cayenne love is hot and fucking HEAVY. i had eyes on a gorgeous 957 GTS with crossovers and cam bolts done which, before i could even come check it out, had a quarter million a year client call and pay for, in full, on his fucking amex. im not a poor-scha guy at all, and i never even considered one, but this particular example demanded my attention - and i was too slow by half. if you have a decent one near you, buy it now and sell it to a jerkoff with a bad colorway submariner in 6 mo.
2) GX460 has negative rizz. basically cant give em away in the face of the GX550s, which is a car that makes even honest women consider an extramarital affair. i can have my pick of the litter at 30-35k and ive forgone them in full knowledge that its a GREAT choice for my wallet. but....
3) the QX80 has negative infiniti rizz. there is positively no reason to buy any other tahoe sized SUV - its reliable, decent looking in 2018+ form, yuge inside, not horrible to insure - and yet checking out three has given my wife the ick so bad that im afraid if i push the issue any more it may infect me too.
4) range rovers inspire insanity. 60% are beat to a pulp within the lease period. 20% are in shitty colorways. 20% are nicely spec'd and are treated well and those cars start at 50k for a facelifted 2018+.
5) running cost and desire to own are inversely correlated. there is no "gotta have it" deal in mid to full size SUV land. everything reliable is not inspiring, and nothing inspiring is reliable. im currently on final model year WK2s or X166 chassis MBs. im profoundly disappointed in this development.
"you're not that guy pal"
I reiterate the above
I’ve put a bike on Amex. The pedal kind.
Bought a Gixxer 750 on a MasterCard. Paid it off with a 401K loan.
Don't tell Dave Ramsey. He's still recovering.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dave-ramsey-in-critical-condition-after-learning-of-50-year-mortgage
I put my CB1100 on my Amex. They didn't charge me any fees and I paid it off 27 days later.
Fuckin hilarious. I’ve done some dumb shit but the Mastercard to 401k loan is chefs kiss
It worked!
The way that the bicycle market is looking, it might have been cheaper to get one WITH an engine.
True.
Though the dirty secret is a mid range bike is just as good as a very top end bike, unless you are a pro tour rider.
I would have a much greater chance of killing myself on a motorbike.
When people ask me what kind of bike to buy (as if I would really know, my bike is a nearly 30 year old Litespeed) I tell them to go to a bike shop and buy something that's good enough to be worth upgrading with better components.
And that bike is something that fits them well, fits their cycling goals/likes, and is at the very least the best frameset they can get, as the parts upgrades/changes can come later. Chassis is the most important part.
As someone (still) in the bicycle industry (a bike shop), this is true and continues to be. A top end bike will be even lighter, the braking and shifting even better, and the carbon frame (and top-spec wheels) will have that ethereal feeling (response, seated and standing on the pedals) that mid-level carbon won't have.
There's a lot of compression at the lower end of the used market. I love all materials, but old steel road frames I get along with really well, and it's a boat load cheaper than new, with a proportional performance (speed, really) deficit in sustained high-speed effort, largely from the aero side of things.
supposing i had the boundless cash to build a fully carbon fiber (with necessary titanium bits) ultralight road bike which parts and pieces might i want to look for?
There are many boutique and smaller custom carbon frame/bike builders in the market now, and that is its own rabbit hole, so I will stick with the large brands that have thrown incredibly amounts of R&D into their products. The top shelf carbon layups are a must if going for the best of the breed. If you don't care about paint color, the world is your oyster. If boring paint jobs are soul-sucking to you, then your options are custom paint outside of the company, or choosing a company with good stock colors or a custom program.
Lightweight uber alles is I think right now the Specialized S-Works Aethos 2 with SRAM Red AXS (stop me if the alphabet soup is too much!). Its geometry is less hyper-race-focused aka akin to Trek's former H2 geometry, which means I could ride a 61cm/XL Aethos and not need a million spacers to get the handlebars to where I need.
The Colnago V5Rs is a handsome-in-the-modern-archetype road bike from a storied brand, with a lightweight focus. Its Y1Rs aero stablemate is heavier, but looks pretty wicked. For a little more weight and a bit of nostalgia, the C68 Rim Brake with Campagnolo Super Record is a gorgeous bike.
Canyon is a solid brand, with many happy customers. Its direct-to-consumer model still has a few issues, but I think REI is starting to carry them? Anyway, their Ultimate CRF Di2 is lightweight to the core. Boring matte black colors, but many don't seem to care. For more aero, the Aeroad CFR is the ticket.
For the home team (aka the brand we primarily stock), it's the Trek Madone SLR 9 Gen 8. Very pretty spaceship bikes, IMO. Decent stock colors, but if you have all the money, go with their Project One program offered on their SLR-level bikes (road, almost exclusively), which allows you to not only customize some componentry specs (crank length, bar width, etc), but gives you access to three levels of paint customization. Signature = choose from full Trek color palette plus modify graphics etc. ICON = P1 artist/painter-designed custom colors, textures, and finishes. Ultimate = you work with the P1 people to make your own thing. IMO, ICON paint jobs are mind-blowing. It's rolling art. Very fast, fun rolling art.
Every company will offer great wheelsets with their bikes--the lightest and/or most aero they have. Top level tires, too. Component groups: Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 is the gold standard for so many reasons, still. Looks fantastic, works flawlessly and fast. SRAM has continued to up their game. Their top Red group often leads for ultimate low weight and has a killer techy gloss black/machined silver look. One finger braking from the hoods feels awesome. They have some real innovative tech. Campagnolo is a mixed bag. Storied brand. Their Super Record EPS (electronic shifting) rim brake groupset on that Colnago is seductive. Super Record mechanical is less so. Super Record Wireless is hideous. Basically bread loaves stuck onto all components, and a super tall shifter body "knob".
If you're taking a custom or new-to-you frameset to the stratosphere, the aforementioned component groups work there. Chris King for hubs/wheels, headsets, bottom brackets--phenomenal product and warranty. Hunt wheels are killer for epic specs on a smaller budget (with sales especially). Onyx Vesper hubs (sprag clutch for instant drive engagement, but SILENT when coasting) laced with Berd spokes for an even lighter and even more sublime riding wheel. So many brands, but we are a dealer for these and have had a few ordered for customers. Rene Herse anything for tires, Continental GP5000 or Vittoria Corsa G2 tires.
What part of the bike market do you focus upon and how’s business going?
My first shop was at a LBS. We mainly catered to families and recreational riders. Tomorrow is their last day in business after 78 years and three generations.
We cater to everybody. Striders, kids' bikes, BMX to entry level MTBs, adult hybrids, e-bikes, with a few of the more specialty (and thus spendier) architectures: full suspension MTBs, (carbon) road bikes, and gravel bikes. Our e-bikes are proper bikes, Bosch mid-drive motors and batteries, durable, reliable, long-lasting. Not $1000 pot metal rolling death traps with garbage "geometry", no factory/warranty support, overmatched components, and a facsimile of a "bicycle drivetrain" that makes these electric motorcycles classified as "e-bikes."
Most of our inventory we target at or well below the $1000 mark, with a few quality hardtail MTBs between $1-2k. We cater to the same people as your LBS, do not bike snob people, but lay out the price, component/quality differences, and product longevity+quality of experience for folks when appropriate. There's a lot of noise out there, which makes it tough to research and decide. My sales "style" is enthusiasm and collaboration-driven. Truthful, genuine, guiding, empathetic. No tricks, not pushy, with the goal to arrive at a bike solution that fits goals, hopes, and budget.
With tariffs, the last tentacles of the Covid hangover, and the general economy slowing (but not a recession, ok? Ok.....lol whatever), we anticipated things with much more limited staff (aka me) through the summer, but now into the fall, things have woah'd up real fast. Sucks. Coming up on 80 years as a bike shop. We're hanging in there just, like a lot of other shops. Not closing thus far, but running reduced hours etc. It's not enough--hourly rate and number of hours--for me to make bills, so I've been looking elsewhere, even as I love bikes. I never worked at one before as I knew the money is not there. But when no jobs arise? Yeah, I'll take a bike shop job! I think the industry is poised to stabilize this next year, adapting as it always has and will need to. For a shop, low overhead is paramount, especially with online sales and consumers' mindset towards that.
(Rolls bicycle onto Amex card)
And it’s absolutely worth doing at the right time with right card. I bought my used Giulia with a new Chase business card 2 yrs ago and that purchase alone earned enough points to fly my family in business class to Europe and then some. No-brainer ROI on the cc transaction fee.
What's wrong with an SR5 4Runner?
1) it sucks to drive
2) it double sucks to drive if you are over 6 feet
3) im more interested in an unexplainable chlamydia infection getting passed to my wife than owning one, which puts my interest at between kill myself and change my name and moving to Argentina
Remember that night I said I was going to the bar with my buddies and I turned off my location? Well I didn’t come home with a Toyota now, did i.
Chlamydia? I saw her on Code Blue Cam last week. She got arrested for punching a sheriff's deputy.
I GOT SUUUUURVED!
There is nothing the fo-runnah does better than a GX460 or at least the 460 can be modified to do
Need a hanky?
I’d argue the GXs lack of rizz can be remedied with a visit to dissent off-road for some beautifully crafted and American made off-road bumpers, mild lift and at least 33 inch ATs. You’ll have all the dudes lined up!
Sadly I’ve been in Europe these last five months and Chinese EVs are EVERYWHERE. Nothing good will come of this.
I hate this continent.
I think there’s ways to put lipstick on the pig in a fashion most people would deem acceptable, but I just don’t think I could get over the feeling of compromise I’d get approaching mine every day.
Yes! That’s perfect!
We can all accept certain faults in a vehicle because none of them are perfect, but when it rises to a “feeling of compromise” you just can’t buy it. If you discover the compromise after buying it, it has to go.
100%. I’ve bought enough “perfect on paper” cars that I’ve ended up hating and selling quickly to have learned this one the hard way. It’s way more expensive and time consuming than just getting what you wanted to begin with.
I had a Honda Element for only one year. I thought it was the perfect vehicle for me but quickly learned that it wasn’t, so it was gone in a year.
I still see Elements everywhere down here in NC. Huge unforced error by Honda to not produce a much more refined 2nd gen version. It could still be in production today due to it’s uniqueness and affordability.
Charlie is truly in the perimeter
"X166 chassis MBs"
These things wear down like cheap polyester. I'm sorry re: the QX. If it fit in my garage, it'd be a finalist - if not winner - for me too.
For me, it’s still in the running. I’m working on finding a colorway that might be more acceptable. It’s clearly the right path forward barring some regrettable blowback
Step 2: straight pipes
Ofc, it'll sound great. But it REALLY sounds great.
Sign me up for a (second gen) QX, too. Second gen Armada as well, to a lesser extent. I mean, right after I get over my experience and infatuation with GMT800 and GMT900 (08-09 only) Denali XL's.
Suburban?
Hasn’t been a truly reliable one since the pre AFM days, and those are now old enough to have “old car problems”
Agreed. You'd have to go 2500 chassis to get more grunt via 6.0L and 8.1L. GM900 Suburbans are my favorite design of the 900 trio, but they are best served with AFM delete or a 6.0L swap. Yukon Denalis and Escalades for 08-09 were "pure" 6.2L V8s before AFM riddled them with issues. GMT800s have GMT800 problems, which are myriad yet also fully known, more or less. I co-own an '03 Denali XL with over 200k. Electricals and suspension are one's biggest issues outside of any work the 4L60 needs. I love the thing, and that 6.0L sounds and feels great, even in her advanced mileage.
I've worked on too many just for random issues to ever want to bring one home on purpose.
A shame, really, although I don't really have a need for one.
Do you think they are generally reliable, but the frequency with you have seen them is due to the product of high sales volumes and high mileage?
Some issues are indicative of what happens when these already aging platforms get even older, some are due to a general flimsiness/cheaping out of the platforms themselves, and yes, low miles on a used vehicle purchase typically forgives a lot of sins.
Oddly enough, with my experience in regards to GM products, it's like they start out making something fairly reliable, and then just cheap down from there, the 4-pinion versus 5-pinion planetary gearset of the 4L60 is one such example, the 5-gear isn't better, it's actually an engineering fix for the planetary set being made out of an even cheaper material (I spent a few years building transmissions and doing general R&R work in a Cottman transmission shop back during the early 2000's).
That being said, the 4L60 is also made of not very stern stuff, so as stated above, I'd strongly recommend at least a 2500 with a 4L80 (unless you're just using this as a schoolbus-sized commuter), and then just wait for plastic bits to break and electrical components to fail, door pins being one of many things that were substandard-engineered with GM products.
Overall, if you don't mind the odd maintenance and random repair bits (one popular failure is the blower motor resistor module, usually melts wiring along with it), not a bad ride, provided you don't venture North/forward by model year into displacement on demand/DOD territory, and then that opens up a completely different can of worms.
To try to keep up with the engineering gremlin Joneses, however, Ford countered with a left jab in the form of 5.4 3-valve VVT cam phasers, although customers I've seen who've maintained their engines religiously with 3000-mile oil changes with at least a Mobil 1 5w40 European formula or Amsoil top-level variant seem to be able to drive a hell of a long time without any phaser issues.
If Ford made a similar-year Expedition in the length of a Suburban (before the Suburban-length redesign), I'd have two or three of them in the driveway, I have a lot less problems with similar-year Ford leviathans, and that's even taking into account the plug tossing problems with the 4-thread cylinder heads.
I should also note that I have both Ford and GM products in my driveway, but the lone GM product is the Boomer-specific 2010 Camaro, while the Ford products outnumber it four to one.
Nice analysis of GMT-800/900 issues!
"If Ford made a similar-year Expedition in the length of a Suburban"
Isn't this called an Excursion? I know the 7.3's bring stupid money, but what about the gasser?
The Excursion is another monster entirely, they're not bad at all (my favorite is any of the V10 versions because of sexy things you can do with the exhaust), but for me, the Excursion is just sort of an obscene, much-larger, worse-driving version of the Expedition, because, well, it's a Super Dooty underneath. Having driven a lot of them, I'm not too terribly impressed with straight-axle driving dynamics, but there are people who absolutely love using the things as obnoxious daily drivers, regardless of how many drastically-superior SUV's are out there that are nearly its equal in size here of late.
The 5.4-powered versions are okay if you live in a state with a lot of flat roads, but "underpowered" looms its head even when climbing a small grade. Not really a big fan of owning any variant of Excursion, but they were...and still are...really popular with moms that have astoundingly small families and inversely monster shopping trips at Costco.
The fun part now will be finding one that doesn't have at least a one-way trip to the Moon (if we ever actually went there, but that's for another story) on the odometer.
I've got a vague contact in the UK who actually owns one of those monsters there and still drives the thing whenever he can just to infuriate the natives.
Find a Toureg? 90% of the Cayenne with 10% of the crazy
The GL or a 6 cylinder X5 could be interesting as well, but as you've found it's a challenge to find something that's both good and interesting in that range.
A Discovery could be interesting too, as they never really caught on. Plus all the new "big" LRs are basically the same car underneath... Hunting for a well cared for single owner L322 could be interesting too, if you can find a one with the 5.0
The newest toureg is now 8+ years old. If I can find an executive or luxury ideally non TDI that looks nice I’ll be all over it.
2018-2019 GLE/GLS is on the short list. I’d love a GLS550 but nice ones disappear in two shakes of a lambs tail. A GLS450 seems more likely.
D5s are out. I know 4 personally who have leaky windshields. This is a common problem and one at which dealers just roll their eyes at this point. I’d humor a nice L494 or L322 but finding one takes dedication or dumb luck.
Time flies! I didn’t even think they were that old. Covid screwed up all sense of years for me with cars.
GLE or GLS 450 may be your sweet spot for price and value, as they’re not as “hot” as the Porsche or BMW SUVs. I didn’t realize that you were looking that new.
I didn’t know about that with the D5s. We had a leaky windshield on our D2 but that was just improper install, and the dealer fixed it fairly quickly…
I’m evaluating any and all comers under 50 grand. The cheaper the better, but I’m cognizant of “you get what you pay for” being largely true in full/mid size luxury SUV land.
X5 is a good option. It’s not for me, and I’d encourage others to consider. Just not gonna work out with my set of variables.
Post fakevid cars seem to be generally worse than pre. GM, ford, MB, Audi, at least are all afflicted by this. Those cars are getting old, though, so I want to strike now before they age out.
The D5s have been, from what I gathered, generally unsatisfactory. I’ve got a few in my gun club who won’t go back after them, and a few in my office who have suffered similar fates. No such complaints from L405 owners which is what prompted me to evaluate and nope out of that search.
New Land Cruiser and be done with it? I agree with you, the pre-2021 options are generally much more appealing.
I think there’s nothing else that hasn’t been mentioned, except a Q7 or Q8 but those have the annoying double screens on newer models.
SQ7s are simply too much and the rest just don’t appeal to me. LC 1958s are at 50 but if you think I’m paying 50 grand for cloth and an unproven 4cyl hybrid powertrain you’re out of your mind.
COVID-19 messed up my sense of timing as well!
I thought yesterday was 2019!
You actually want the 4.4
If you're dealing with 5.0 timing chains anyway, an early LR4 is the right bet.
I never liked the 4.4 coming from a Discovery with a Rover 4.6. It felt too peaky, where the 5.0 I drove had a bit more low end. I figure any Rover is going to have specific (and at some point somewhat costly) maintenance to pay attention to. On the Rover V8s, it was the head gaskets around 100k
For a sec re 2) I thought you were referring to having the pick of honest women, lol.
No, I blew that when I was 16.
The gx550 isn't that cool.
Pre facelifted L405s are dropping like a fucking rock in price, and are *cough* horrible *cough*. Dont look at one until I've gotten my wife a new SUV
The L405 isn’t that bad. My chief complaint is that we’re an hour from a dealer so even an annual service ties up two afternoons.
That said, its replacement will likely be a Navigator or Aviator. There’s three years left on the extended warranty.
Any nightmares so far?
No aside from the clowns at Land Rover of Novi. That and three O2 sensors.
But also it’s a 2019 that just crossed 25k miles. She doesn’t drive it except to doctor appointments and grocery shopping.
Tell me what spec you want and I won’t bid against you.
I'm really hoping to talk her into a 6 cyl X5 and that we don't go down the l405 route for her.
If I get one for myself, that's one thing, but if it's her car I'll forget to do shit like clean the sunroof drains every few months and I'll wind up with a hole rusting in the roof.
6 cyl X5 is a great choice. I got lucky and was able to talk mine into an off lease RX, last of the V6s. It’s a great change of pace for me but there’s no way I’d be happy with it every day. Dunno how often you drive your wife’s car but just a thought.
She has a GS350, which she chose over an earlier RX (waaaay too boring) back in 2019. She's spent a decent amount of time driving my jagrover products.
I'm really just hoping I can get her into a bimmer at this point. Maybe an X7 if she needs something bigger, although those do have some tcase issues.
X7 quality seems much more spotty than the X5s anecdotally and from what I’ve observed. Probably better reliability wise than the other options but the quality of life little things seems pretty so so
If you can find a cream puff one, a first gen SRX.
Point me there, brotha
I saw you mentioned Mercedes X166… don’t know if something older is quite your bailiwick, but I’ve got a 2009 GL450 (X164) that I’d like to part with. 183k miles, zero rust (UT/AZ rig), new Airmatic in the past year, ice-cold air, and pewter/tan MB-Tex.
While this serves as a wonderful proof point, I’m focused on 18-19 cars with under 50k
Expedition?
They aren’t, like, Toyota reliable but they aren’t terrible either.
The 3.5 is not charismatic but it IS shockingly fast for a three ton truck. Extremely comfortable too. Really softly sprung. Very nice seats.
In short wheelbase form and in a nice color, they look pretty solid as well.
They also depreciate like a stone. You should be able to find a SUPER nicely specced 2023/2024 under $50k all day long.
I haven't looked in a minute but any GX prior to the refresh in 2022 or 23 comes with a pretty terrible HMI that's only got shoddy aftermarket car play/AA integrations available for it. If you look for the 22 or newer ones with integrated car play/AA you'll see them demanding high retail.
It is also a vehicle for a specific buyer. Almost all aspects of them are a no flyer in and of themselves, fuel mileage, in car tech, using the damn side swing hatch, the useless 3rd row, the predator grill, etc., but the fact you can drive the balls off it anywhere and basically forever is a big trump card for the right customers.
“ GX460 has negative rizz”
What market are you in? I’m in western Canada and *anything* Toyota based and BoF is considered highly desirable (new or used). The GXs hold their values well. A cursory glance comparing similar vintage 4Runners and GXs seems to indicate the residuals are similar. Again - this is market specific, YMMV.
"Unlike me, MDG is not an unemployed derelict of a human being rapidly disappearing from everyone’s notice and respect like Kevin Spacey in “American Beauty”"
Step on in, Jack! The water is fine!
I read “MDG” as “MTG” and was very very confused for a minute.
She *is* an unemployed derelict!
I wonder what she's going to do next. You can't say she wasn't
0. highly ethical or
1. committed to the bit
depending on your political leanings.
MTG isn’t unemployed until 1/5 or something, conveniently 1 day after her govt pension vests.
There is a huge demand from traditional media for republicans who will rip into the current republican president so she’ll be paid soon enough.
Her God King turned on her for… uhh… not wanting to strip people of healthcare and also not wanting to protect pedophiles.
Hilarious turn of events tbh.
She, like Massie grabbed the third rail and wouldn't let go. There is a certain amount of street cred gained by sticking to one's guns and following through with 'FU I quit'. I predict a GA gov or US Senate run of questionable success given all the AIPAC money she will be swimming against. GA does not have the electorate that KY does.
I would suggest that Barra and Reuss are also Mamdani voters (or would be). The CEOs spending tens of billions of dollars on EVs, knowing they would fail without a Biden term 2 and an outlawing of ICE engines, should all be tried for fraud. Look at Ford and GMs balance sheets if they hadn’t set $5B or so per year on fire.
They'd be Cuomo-sexuals all day long. No one promised to serve the Investor Class harder.
Ford isn’t serving the investor at all. That stock has been dead money for years. They were trying to play nice with the left and win big in the (no-longer) era of government handouts for climate compliance.
Well they did spend $1B to restore an old train station, so they have that going for them.
There’s likely some sort of tax write off involved.
The train station was supposed to be the center of an entire campus devoted to EVs and other "mobility" projects I wonder what's going to happen to it all now that the glorious electric future may not come to pass.
Has the Ford family, independent of the company, done anything substantial to revitalize Detroit? I’ve only heard of Mike Illitch being the prime mover on revitalization, but I have admittedly not followed the story.
Dan Gilbert has done a lot for Detroit.