A Horse With No Name

Still... a little Charger love for you!

A lot more than that....!

This is the kind of thing I am plying with VW being behind the times....Toyota is building a hybrid crossover that will undoubtedly do well with Millennials.

Again, nothing wrong with that. I have owned everything from 1950's cars to sports cars and family haulers, you only live once. It is good to experience different things as a car guy! If it did not have to be a 4 door sedan, i would option up a Mustang GT or find a gently used Shelby for the money if I wanted American V8 Muscle.

With all of the impressive quality control Fiat Chrysler is putting into Fiats, they are also returning to their heritage as Iron Oxide in the ground. (sorry, could not resist)

It would be in Americas interest to Keep Tesla going strong, they seem very innovation driven. Working for a company with the silicon valley corporate culture way of doing things would drive me nuts personally though.

Fair enough, and lust worthy car. I woudl value handling and chassis dynamics more, and make a different choice.

...and I would really, really stick by my earlier statements that I find both the Lexus and Acura SUV's somewhat dated and lacking. However, Lexus flagship LX is up 58 percent over last year and Acura is supply constrained on selling its SUV's. So actual buyers with money to spend disagree with me.

I really like the ATS but from some proportions the styling kind of rubs me the wrong way. Also, I have two adult sons over six foot tall and the ATS has a very small back seat.

Well then use it. How many Ford Raptors and other popular modern stuff do we have in the other threads? I think the real value in threads like this is in seeing what other people actually have on their minds. We both approached this one with a different philosophy. I wanted cars that I could actually drive and make me a better competition driver. Well...other than the Thomas Flyer. You wanted historically and culturally significant race cars. Both of our approaches are correct.

I work with a guy who is a published professional photographer on the side. He buys lots of lighting equipment and once told me he would rather have the best lighting equipment and use a camera phone than have the worlds best Camera and no lighting equipment. He shoots a lot of models in studio so this would make sense for him. Thankfully, Kentucky co operated with the lighting here.... Would like to see more of your work.

Thanks, I thought so. Lexus should have an easier time reprogramming the ECU and tuning the Turbo 4 than Acura will dealing with the sub optimal transmission in the V6 TLX, I think. Same transmission IIRC that gives FCA so many problems. What was I saying in the other thread about the smartest people doing the dumbest things...? Kind of a shame, as the SH-AWD (super handling-all-wheel drive) is a worthy concept and has shown some decent execution from the Honda/Acura crew.

As a lover of both maritime history and vintage automobiles I am fascinated with old car ferries that did actually sink in lake Michigan. Several of them are very deep an have surprisingly intact cars from the 20's and 30's still on board. Since these are vehicles that now survive in minuscule numbers, one might be looking at the finest Hupmobile, Moon, or Downing Detroit left in existence. There is a funny very old Woody Allen movie where he finds a VW bug and gets it re started, movie came out in the 1970's and was set way in the future.

Highly doubtful. They are one of the worlds largest and most profitable car companies and they desperately want the US market for economies of scale. Letting Toyota, GM or the like dominate the US market would mean that they would loose that advantage and thus put their prime markets such as South America, Africa, China and the like into Jeopardy. Plus they are already federalizing their drive trains and building their platforms to US safety and emissions standards for Audi, Porsche, and the like. So they have no real cost advantage for doing this. If anything, they need a small crossover. the Honda HRV actually outsold the Camry last month, and building a desirable version of something like that is very much in VW's DNA. It's actually far more plausible for VW to build and sell something like that than the Atlas concept we were shown. Given that a lot of the VW market share is urban....and young and professional.... But the smartest people do the dumbest things and people in Stuttgart and Wolfsburg will wonder with angst and hand wringing why the Golf is down when they are doing very little to promote it or build the brand. I am not sure even diesel gate was enough of an existential wake-up call for them. Sitting here in Columbus eating popcorn and watching.... I could actually see them bringing Skoda over from Europe or something to re launch themselves before I could see them abandoning the segment.

People have written off the car for decades, I think that it will stay around in that form in some way or another. When I was a teenager, my father worked for a university that still had old magazines in the actual stacks (magazines, not microfiche or the like) dating back to the teens and twenties, and earlier. I used to go in and read them just for fun when I got bored.... People were writing editorials in 1900, 1915, 1925, 1950, 1965, 1975 (with the oil crisis) and up into the present day lamenting or celebrating the end of the automobile. A lot of dead people have been proven spectacularly wrong.

I can option up an IS 350 to the price range easily, which would be my actual choice. If that were unavailable... If I option up a TLX 4 banger (2.4) with almost everything including the accessory car cover, I can get to the top of the price ranger rather easily. Would take the TLX with the 4 banger as an actual purchase as the transmission and fuel economy are much better with the 4 banger. A lot of it depends on which car in my fleet I am actually replacing. This would be assuming I am replacing my 2015 TDI jetta SE. Were I to be replacing my 2003 R53 Cooper S, optioning up a WRX STI with everything from the optional exhaust to the mud flaps and the carbon fiber trunk trim brings us quite nicely to jsut over 43K....$43,063 by the Subaru Website. Interesting that Acura gets the 4 cyl right while Lexus gets the 6 cyl right.

Indeed, Kentucky is one of the most beautiful states in the country IMHO.

Fantastic photographs!

As the country becomes more urban, smaller cars like this with personality would be a fantastic way to get young buyers in the showroom and build loyalty. Being more masculine and more current with styling trends would make it much easier than a 500 Abarth to sell to young males. A lot of Older VW buyers are people who bought MK 1 and MK 2 GTI's back in the eighties...if VW could recapture more of the spirit of the MK 1 and MK2 GTI....the sky would be the limit for them. It would also have a multiplier effect, because as the cars aged, more young men woudl want to buy them and fix them up or modify them. And that would further drive VW sales. Was big into Miatas for a long time and saw that often. Guys would buy a beater first gen Miata, and then graduate high school/college, get a real job, and and buy a Mazda 3, or a Mazda crossover when they got married. And absolutely in love with this advert...just substitute VW products and you will get exactly where I am going!

Given the competitive nature of the sedan market, yes. As a car maker, you have to come to grips with who you are. There is a reason that Mazda does not build Luxury cars, Porsche does not build economy cars, and Toyota does not build high end performance cars.

An entirely relevant list. And from a Toyota owner no less! Newer Corolla is a decent choice for people who absolutely do not care about cars. Dart had serious issues from the get go. Lancer needed to be retired a long time ago!

I would still argue getting out of the passenger car business is probably a good business model for them. They have not been passionate about mainstream cars since the 1990's IMHO. Specialty vehicles like the Charger and Challenger are another matter. The real question is what do they do when the next round of fuel economy fleet standards hit, or when gas goes back up to $4 a gallon. Do not myself see them getting back into the traditional passenger car business again soon.

Indeed. I may have to find some way to finagle a test drive of the Conti when more of them are in circulation. It is beyond my budget, but will be interesting to spend time with the car in the flesh (or steel as it were.) As more features become common on mass market cars, Luxury car makers are going to be pressed to distinguish themselves for market share. Sounds like that "Investment" that wings was talking about elsewhere on C and G might be paying off for them....

Like the Lancia Statos, but all 5 are wonderful! We think a lot alike!