Image credit Jaguar Heritage.
Time and again, if you’re into LeMons as much as I am, you’ll be entertaining the prospect of racing road cars that can be considered un-raceable. Examples abound of such cars coming to race in LeMons, such as the Austin America, Sunbeam Imp, Simca GLS1000, and many, many more cars you never knew were sold in the United States.
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Image credit to Flickr user Kanhawk.
Last week, I saw a clip on YouTube where Russell Peters, a man who makes good money playing up every cultural stereotype ever, performed a routine about how cheap Indians can get. Things like ripping a perfectly good shirt at a store so they can ask for a discount. Things like trying to get $10 off a $35 bag. And things like being proud of themselves for not spending any money on a Louis Vuitton bag.
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Image credit Buick.
I know the category this piece falls under is “That Had a Manual?” But the Buick Verano, prized by absolutely no one, excluding rental car companies, people who run sweepstakes contests, and retirement community dwellers, can be bought brand-new with a manual. So what you should really be thinking is “That has a manual?” And believe it or not, there’s more than a few hoops to jump through to get a clutch pedal.
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Image credit BMW.
The plan with today’s piece is to stoke debate. Plenty of debate. This is because it puts something called money on the line, which makes this debate worth something, unlike all those manual vs. automatic transmission pieces I constantly come across. Honestly, having an article with a title like that is a no-brainer for that goal and having plenty of comments to respond to, which on Clunkerture, is like three on a good day.
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Image courtesy TAG Heuer.
We all buy things with functions that we intend to use but never do. For instance, numerous individuals upgraded from the iPhone 4 to the 4S purely because they wanted to talk back to something during the morning commute. BMW customers pay a hefty premium for the M Sport package on their cars for that one time they think they’ll take it to the track. Who knows how many people bought Samsung’s Smart Fridge so they could tweet about what craft beer they pulled out, only to promptly spill it on the LCD display?
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Picture credit General Motors.
Those of you reading this piece may see the car in the above picture as the Chevy Malibu, recipient of Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award back in 1997. The Malibu wasn’t a bad car according to reviews across the Internet (read: people complaining about their cars on Edmunds), but very much mediocre. It was something you’d buy new if you a) worked for GM and needed to park closer to the building or b) worked for a firm that needed to buy a fleet of cars for their business.
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Image credit Porsche.
Today’s topic is the Porsche 986 Boxster, commonly known as the Porsche with the 911 front end that you can get for four-figures, which constantly are in the “Manager’s Specials” sections in newspaper advertisements. However, this is the Porsche that is also known for something called and IMS and RMS failures, which has contributed to those four-figure prices on used 10+ year old Boxsters. So you’d think someone would have to be crazy to own one. But as this Driver Profile attests, Boxster drivers are actually fairly normal people.
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Image credit Ball Watch Company.
One afternoon, instead of writing a feature about the terribleness of the Land Rover Freelander SE3, I was surfing the web, wondering if every automaker with a six-figure vehicle in its line-up has a partnership with a watchmaker. After all, watchmakers need to sell their wares, and who better to cater to than someone who can point to a car on an auto show turnstile, says “I want that one,” and promptly be put on an 18-month waiting list?
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Photo credit Infiniti.
Every November or so, Motor Trend releases its Car of the Year press release where it announces the best new (or heavily-revised) car for the following model year. Primarily, it entails rounding up numerous press vehicles, testing them around some willing automaker’s desert proving grounds, driving them on the worst California roads imaginable, and then spending hours lamenting that the Mercury Marauder isn’t available with a manual.
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Photo credit Ford Motor Company.
As a car enthusiast, I love attending events that automakers put on to get the average consumer into their cars. That’s because there’s free food, plenty of freebies like headphones, beanies, and caps, as well as the occasional gift card. Manufacturers put on these events because a) if people are willing to sit through hours of timeshare presentations for a $20 radio, there’s people willing to spend an afternoon test driving their products and b) they understand dealerships aren’t exactly the best places for sampling numerous models of their brand’s vehicles. (“Let me get this straight. You want to test drive the A3, A4, A6, and A8?! And you don’t know if you’re buying on a Saturday!? Go bother the Infiniti dealership!”)
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