Robert Hall

As far as interior and exterior styling, I find the G8 much better looking than the Charger..I don't care for the Charger's slab sides and tiny windows..

Hard to tell much from that pic...looks like just another generic FWD sedan..yawn. The roofline looks Sebring-esque...

IIRC, about the only haters on here were the delusional W-body GP fans (diehardGrandPrixFan and the evil PCS).

How about hemp for ethanol? Hempcar.org

I wonder if they will offer this engine in larger cars.. a diesel Passat or A4 for the US would be nice. (it would be very cool to see the A5 3.0TDI in the US).

If they made this the next ES, then Lexus would have an all RWD car lineup..that would increase their luxury credibility.

In the mid '90s, before I moved to Colorado, I looked at moving to the RTP (Research Triangle Park--Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill) area in NC...it's a very cool area, lots of interesting technology companies and the mountains and beaches are within a reasonable drive. I have friends in Charlotte, lots of banking jobs there... As far as VA, I'm familiar with Charlottesville (a friend of mine is a prof at U of Va)---neat college town, and Tyson's Corner/McLean (used to go there for company meetings for a previous employer).

Neal Stephenson

bison

True...most anywhere south of Michigan is good compared to Michigan...though having lived in NE Illinois, SE Michigan and NE Ohio, I found Ohio to have the worst winters of the three... VA and Carolinas would be pretty mild by comparison, I would think...

Well, with the XF (and I presume the next XJ) Jaguar is trying to break with the past...no more retro cues. Whether or not the new design language will be successful or not remains to be seen...

GM has proven to be very, very good at making stupid decisions...nothing they do now can surprise me.

That's a tastefully (IMHO) modified Z...not the usual JCWhitney/Pep Boys junk..

That blue car is just a generic FWD sedan based on a Daewoo platform...nothing significant. Looks like a Lacetti with different front and rear..

Great article...

True enough...I've observed that amongst my friends and peers (most are late 20s to early 40s), they have only known imports, whether it is Hondas and Toyotas, or Audis and BMWs.. as far as 'GMs past', if they think of anything, it's the crappy '80s-90s products (Cavalier, Citations, etc) that they have any awareness of...

I drove my folks' '84 Escort diesel in high school and college..never had any problems... my mom kept it until a few years ago when it had 140k miles, no major problems..

Mine wasn't..between 50k and 60k miles, I had to replace the water pump, radiator, heater core, clutch, and fuel pump on my '87 GT...it stranded me on 3 occasions.. but other than those problems, it has been quite reliable (I've had it since new and drive it maybe 200 miles a year now).

Cool....so Buicks can drift... what was up with the exhaust, though, sounds like a lawnmower.

Speaking of the boxy '80s Japanese vans, I seem to remember Nissan and Mitsubishi sold some in the US also, but I haven't seen one in many years... I actually saw several of the Toyota vans in California and Hawaii last year, in various states of wear..

Wot's a 'Toyota Wunderwagen'? Or a 'Renault Reliant'? (The Reliant was a Plymouth..)

I had sushi for lunch Friday..had some eel.

Yeah, it's hard to think of anything that was worse in the US market... the Renault Alliance and Encore were pretty naff also..

True, the Celebrity was dull...the Ciera and Century were just as dull if not worse (at least some years the Buicks tried to look semi-interesting with the forward leaning front end). Most of GM's FWD generics from the early '80s well into the '90s were forgettably bland. A friend once described them as cars you could misplace in an empty parking lot.

But this is 2008.... comparing 20 year old cars is irrelevant now..