People who are into Porsches probably feel the same about the Taycan, yet it’s by far Porsche’s fastest vehicle in a straight line and faster than their best 911 GT on some tracks, and it’s a big, 4 door hatchback.
8 Likes
They’ve done the same thing with the Capri in Europe, as they didn’t want to miss out upsetting people here, too 
7 Likes
2 Likes
Can’t say I’m surprised by this development:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-us-will-not-pay-california-high-speed-rail-2025-05-06/
Trump’s bad faith lies and exaggerations aside, I really wish that this project were more defensible in its current form. I was one of the people who enthusiastically voted for the bond measure to build this in 2008, but since then the budget has exploded, the promised capabilities have been scaled way back, the schedule has slipped by decades, and it really has been on an unsustainable path for many years now. It’s biggest remaining defenders like Newsom mostly just talk about how many jobs the project is creating, but that’s true of lots of projects, good and bad.
High speed rail is a great thing but probably not quite worth $128B. For that same cost you could buy every single one of California’s 39 million residents about 30 round trip tickets on Southwest from LA to San Francisco. (Or maybe as a more environmentally friendly option build a fleet of free electric buses, improve existing Amtrak service, etc.)
Not saying we shouldn’t build a high speed train but we definitely need to figure out how to do it a lot more efficiently, and the guys running the project have failed to do that so far.
11 Likes
If I find it, and I remember, I’ll stick a torrent of it up somewhere.
5 Likes
For about 10% less, you can get a hand-built Caddy:
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a64671356/2025-cadillac-celestiq-drive/
(My son sent this to my dad & I this AM; discussion devolved into the Cimarron & '80 Seville* mentioned in the article)
*now I just remembered we had a Continental that had a similar profile
(Edit for typoe’s)
8 Likes
7 Likes
10 Likes
14 Likes
13 Likes
There are so many of those around here. If the police wanted to do a fundraiser, they could pull hundreds of these over with little effort. IIRC the ticket is $600. It might be higher now.
14 Likes
It’s always awkward to issue a ticket to a colleague.
14 Likes
10 Likes
Deletes aren’t a new thing among tuner crowds of all stripes. I’m constantly hearing about muffler deletes, cat deletes, and so on.
These days car manufacturers take great pains to tune their systems for maximum power, highest emissions compliance, and maximum quietness. Even performance oriented vehicles are often quiet enough that manufacturers feel the need to pipe real or fake engine sounds into the vehicle to make it sound sportier to the driver.
The funny thing is on modern turbocharged vehicles, when you do a cat delete, you’re usually reducing performance because some back pressure is required for the turbo to work properly. When you do a muffler or resonator delete, your car is louder for sure, but often sounds like crap too. As someone who enjoys performance vehicles, I can say that long drives with a loud and droning exhaust is really exhausting.
And anyway modern diesel trucks with all their male fragility-triggering emissions control stuff still manage to put out absolutely massive amounts of torque while also managing to be quiet and not pump out all those dangerous particulates. There’s really no reason to remove that stuff. It’s only done to be an asshole.
13 Likes
Well, mostly. There is enough variation in factory engines that they tune for all of the above for the lowest percentile engine. A proper dynomometer tune will get more power, reliably, better emissions, and definitely quieter (if you’re into that kinda thing) than stock unless your car happens to have one of those lower tier engines. If you have a higher tier engine, you can get a lot more out of it than the stock tune.
None of which has anything to do with the catalytic converter or muffler. A higher-flow cat can gain a little bit, mufflers won’t gain any performance except in the brain of the nut behind the wheel.
6 Likes
Not to mention the risk of being ticketed for Excessive Noise (which would be a bitchen name for a band).
10 Likes
Cubert: Hey, Leela, help me apply these flame decals I got in my cereal. They’ll make the ship go faster.
Leela: And what’s your scientific basis for thinking that?
Cubert: I’m 12.
8 Likes
Also for special forces use.
And for the ladies
8 Likes
The cowl/headlight looks like a hockey goalie mask. Great time to remind Russia (still angry about it) of how our US college-player team beat their top-ranked professional players in the 1980 Olympics.
8 Likes
10 Likes