oldshurst442

In other words... Lincoln has economies of scale because Lincoln shares its platforms with Ford. *SIGH* yes...Lincoln would LOVE to sell more vehicles. Especially the sedans. Shyte has happened and that boat has sailed. HOWEVER...Lincoln SUV sales are hot. Lincoln SUVs are NOT looked down upon. Lincoln sales are not too shabby. Lincoln is not Porsche. In other words, Lincoln SUVs are not performance oriented as how Porsche SUVs are. Although Id like to know how much of a performance machine the little Porsche CUV really is... Lincoln as a quiet luxury vehicle offering is actually quite a success story in Lincoln's recent history.

In other words...you are placing Porsche on too much of a high pedestal... Porsche was a faltering company going slowly down the loo. The only model that sold WAS the 911. Anything and everything else was a failure. The Boxster also nearly failed in the market place. Porsche had to re-engineer its mission for it and definitely had to re-market it as the Boxster was following in the same footsteps as other Porsche sports car offerings NOT named the 911. The 914, 924, 944, 964, 928... All failures. All these failures were slowly sinking Porsche and its brand image. Its funny to see. The SUVs are the ones keeping the lights on at Porsche even to this day. It keeps the 911 alive for the folk that are crazy for the 911. But the 911 cannot survive WITHOUT the SUVs raking in the money. But the SUVs that Porsche sells dont help with the 911 sales...

Porsche in the 1990s was in the very real danger of going bankrupt. Porsche in the 1990s 1. didnt have volume 2. didnt have the bread and butter volume products to MAKE money 3. believe it or not, Porsche didnt even have brand cache in the 1990s. Especially from going away from their air cooled engines in their 911. 4. Porsche's brand image was on a steady DECLINE since the 1980s. Actually, since the 1970s, but most will not admit to that. Two things happened in the 1990s. Mid to late 1990s. 1. Porsche re-branded itself with specializing the 911 into many models if you will. It took awhile for folks to understand what a GT2 911 was all about. Which had a different mission from the Turbo model for example. 2. Porsche started developing a model BELOW the 911 to get people in the show rooms. They tried that before in the 1970s and failed MISERABLY. They did that in the 1980s and ALSO failed miserably. The 911 was always a strong seller. But very very low numbers. The Boxster was a semi success as it was an ALL OUT PORSCHE effort rather than a VW collaboration as the previous 914 of the 1970s was. Marketing was better in that regard too. 3. Porsche started doing the SUV thing. THAT alone did not make Porsche any money. It brought volumes to Porsche. As where the 911 was expensive for folk and the 911 was sold only to a SPECIFIC set of people, the SUVs brought in NEW clientele. Clientele that were and still are NOT pure Porsche fanatics... 4. What DID bring in the money is that Porsche used Volkswagen platformed SUVs as a way to save on the economies of scale thing. And the VW sharing part was kept on the hush hush... And if it leaked out that the SUVs were VWs, Porsche marketing at that point had placed Porsche engineering on a high list of a selling point. So no... Had Porsche NOT been able to 1. sell SUVs 2. switch to a VW platform SUV 3. market THAT successfully Porsche woudnt be here today... But they did switch in making SUVs at the time when SUVs were getting to be hot. Got economies of scale with using VW SUV platforms. But now...it seems there are 2 kinds of Porsche clientele. 1. 911 clientele 2. Porsche SUV clientele that might not know what a 911 is or really care.

THAT is sooooo 4 score and 7 years ago... Clue #2

In case you were wonderin' what that pic above is for and why I posted it. Take a peek inside and see who sits in there and that would be clue #1.

I hear ya Drew. I dont necessarily need two vehicles as my wife is a stay at home wife. But having 2 cars in the family does help to make life easie. Therefore, even if I had a hot commodity truck or SUV/CUV, I wouldnt be parting ways with it. Its like the housing market right now. In the Canadian markets of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal anyway. House prices of old and new construction have soared through the roof before Covid but especially during the Covid era. But like you said, any money you make selling, you have to dish it out and more on replacing...

Almost make me wanna privately sell both of my cars... Then I realize. BOTH of my cars are just that...cars. Sedans. The diseased, stay-the-phoque-away from me zombies of the car world. Plus...Ill need to buy new vehicles to replace the ones that I just sold...if I even could sell them to begin with. And there are none to begin with. And Ill have to over pay anyway. So what is the point? I might as well keep them, pray they dont catastrophically fail me or total them and Im fine... Yeah...Im good. Nothing out there still to entice me to trade-up or down. Ill like where I am with my cars. Paid for a while back. NO monthly payments. Both cars are rock solid reliable. Both are in good condition.

This phenomenon... because of the chip shortage where there is a shortage of new vehicles to sell and long wait period for one a reason?

The new mid-engine Ferrari. I love this lineage of Ferrraris! And this one is no exception. (Minus some models in different eras here and there) V12 mid-engine and front engine Ferraris also rule!

A commentator stated that the fun starts at 14:59. True...the enthusiastic driving does start there. All for a glorious 2 minutes and a half about. Another commentator wrote: The_Larson Family 2 weeks ago I love how this shows the pure reality of driving. I'd be wanting to go faster, but we can't always go as fast as we'd like...ty for the pure, unadulterated reality of a super car. And not just trying to drive fast, but for shifting gears... Maybe where you guys live, you still have open roads where one could enjoy shifting and matching revs with the curves and the straights and the spirited driving etc... Where I come from, traffic and pot holes negate all the joys of driving. Including cruising. Not to say you shouldnt buy a manual JUST because a doofus (sorry David) on the internets said manuals are overrated. Buy a freakin' manual if that is your fancy. But on the flips side, let us not be blind to the fact that manuals ARE overrated for many many modern reasons... Traffic is one. Speed and high horsepower is another (on PUBLIC roads).

I might be just a tad too harsh on the Fusion look-alike comparison, but the little details that should have been on the Continental did cheapen the effect of it being a TRUE Continental. The one problem I do have though, and why I will not retract my statement of gussied up MKZ as I did with the Fusion statement is that I am miffed at Lincoln for giving the Continental's nose on the MKZ BEFORE the Continental even came out. That new face now is Lincoln's new corporate face, which is a pretty face. Not only is it a pretty face, but a commanding, true luxury face. But Lincoln should have left that face unique to the Continental if only for a year. Then Lincoln could have made it their corporate look and placed it on the MKZ.

The bolded parts contradict to what you are saying in this post. A true enthusiast is one who enjoys manuals. THAT is what you are saying. I do NOT enjoy manuals therefore that makes ME NOT a true enthusiast... A car enthusiast who enjoys manuals is just that...an enthusiast who enjoys manuals... And an enthusiast who hates on manuals is just that...an enthusiast who hates on manuals. You got a passion for the car crazy world, then you are an enthusiast. BUY the car of your dreams and we may have a real definition of a TRUE enthusiast And us arguing about manuals, is what you said above: Its arguing about stupid shyte! Like I said above: And there is NOTHING wrong with that... We must not get too caught up with the superlatives... We must be able to call a spade a spade though but that shoudnt take away from what we like either... PS: I dont want to call you anything other than an internet friend. I just want to discuss stupid shyte with you.

Um...yeah they are. Manuals are over rated... Facts are just that...facts. In fact...manuals became over rated as soon as Oldsmobile invented the automatic transmission waaay back in '39. One could like over rated things. I like the Star Wars franchise for instance. I LOVE the Star Wars franchise to be precise. But seeing how Episodes 7, 8 and ESPECIALLY 9 turned out...Star Wars is COMPLETELY over rated. I even LOVE the Terminator franchise. This franchise is TOTALLY over rated. I enjoy a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a Big Mac. Talk about over rated... its the CLASSIC case of something being over rated... And there is NOTHING wrong with that... We must not get too caught up with the superlatives... We must be able to call a spade a spade though but that shoudnt take away from what we like either...

Answer: All the bold parts that you made state otherwise that no one claims you cant be an enthusiast... And THAT statement would be EQUALLY as true about AUTOMATIC transmission-ed sports cars... @David made an ludicrous statement about manuals being a distraction. But his statement of him saying that manuals are overrated do ring true. Maybe a tad on the overdramatic side and its certainly a divisive statement, but if we are honest about it...manual transmission cars on crowded public streets full of traffic with gobs and gobs of horsepower that modern sports cars make upwards of 450 HP and more, where even when the streets ARE empty, no one could possibly use ALL the gears safely at a safe speed...yeah...Id have to AGREE with him, and you should too, that manual transmissions on a modern sports today IS overrated... EVEN on a Porsche 911 that you mentioned. The Turbo 911 makes 570 HP. 0-60 in like 2.5 seconds. All in the first gear. By the time you switch to second, you are blasting around at 100 MPH. Only in 2 gears... Shyte...the Viper GTS of 1997 could get you to 60 practically in first gear, you had to shift to second to actuallly attain 60 MPH all with JUST 450HP... Even in your Mustang... you hit those numbers as your Mustang has 450 HP. You have to feather the throttle in order for you to row all the gears. And where is the fun in that...feathering the throttle on a sports car just to row the gears? In order for one to TRULY enjoy manual shifting on public roads on the Pacific Coast Highway for instance, one has to buy a Subaru BRZ or Mazda Miata....anything more powerful than that...on today's crowded roads, its just OVERRATED... On a track? Sure! All that you said about manuals. On public roads...its a different matter all together. So...I wanted to make it a point that there ARE car crazy people that enjoy fast cars, sports cars but not necessarily like to shift gears. For many reasons they do not like shifting gears and yeah...sometimes, manuals ARE over rated. Not to you. You like shifting gears. But to me...as I have opined my opinion, you at least understand as to why I do prefer automatics over manuals and why I might think they are over rated... For David...ask him more directly as to why he thinks they are over rated.

There are many different types of automotive enthusiasts. BECAUSE one is not enamored with manual transmissions and one does NOT enjoying shifting gears does not lessen that person's credibility of being an automotive enthusiast. The video above...shows how awesome it is to shift one's own gears...on a wallowing muscle car. No doubt...its AWESOME!!! 1. In the context of these past posts, the conversation is leading us to believe that changing our own gears makes for faster cornering as we control the gear we want entering and exiting corners. While true... a) in the video...there are no such corners. Making me question why in the world would we want to row our own gears on relatively straight roads? On public, traffic filled roads...kinda useless shifting our own gears... b) the Trans Am in question above wallows like a bastard. Its hardly a track car... Me thinks an automatic would do wonders for it on the track as BOTH hands would be on the steering wheel possibly eliminating the possibility of wallowing off track all the while concentrating on where to actually steer the car instead of fighting the wallowing... 2. Although it is awesome that we can row our own gears in THAT Trans Am, especially with the awesome aural sounds we get as we change those gears up and down, we actually DO get the SAME awesome sounds with an automatic... 3. Is it more engaging to shift one own's gears? Quite possible. Yes...Id say even. But if a car enthusiast is more of a cruising type of guy, driving becomes of a DIFFERENT type of engagement with your surroundings... Instead of "driving" on the Pacific Coast Highway shifting gears enjoying the drive, one is DRIVING on the Pacific Coast Highway enjoying the scenery... Instead of racing the engine and hearing the revs while shifting gears on a boulevard, one could be cruising, listening to the engine sounds anyway, but CRUISING down a boulevard enjoying the drive. I would be the one to be cruising...and when I need to make a pass on some dipshyte, I just mash the peddle and my incredibly low RPMed, high torqued muscle car could do the rest...and I could STILL enjoy the sounds the engine makes... Yeah...I do not like shifting my own gears either. But THAT does NOT make me less of a car enthusiast...