When that happens, auto insurance rates will be adjusted accordingly for autonomous vehicles, and soon you'll find that manual driving is not only expensive, but even illegal in many areas.

This is absurd. Do you realize how many people drive for recreation/sport? Most residential areas are not conveniently located near a closed race circuit, and where such facilities do exist, it's typically quite expensive to use them. The point of the sports car is to add enjoyment to an otherwise mundane driving experience, and to do so by using the car on public roads. This will not change. People will continue to drive human-controlled cars through 2020 and beyond.

Sure, I wouldn't do without the ABS either but if it stops working, I can still bring the car safely to a halt.

Except for the failure mode where bad data from the wheel sensors (or a software/firmware problem) causes the system to think that the wheels are locked, and thus opens a valve in the valve block, removing your braking ability. This happened to a guy I know, and he drove off an embankment because he was dumb enough to have trusted a vehicle with ABS.

ABS is a terrible, terrible idea.

Absolutely one of the finest engines ever designed. There are quite a few flat-crank V8s in racing, as the NVH issues become unimportant if you're not talking about a road car.

Whoa there. Parent post is loaded with incorrect information:

I have never heard of a 90-degree V12. Most are at 60 degrees, with the notable exception of Ferrari's V12s (which have historically been at 65, or 180 in the case of the 365/512 engine series.)

A flat-plane crank V8 is essentially two inline-four engines. A cross-plane crank V8 uses an uneven firing order and is not the same.

With their crankshaft counterweights, cross-plane V8s have better dynamic balance than flat-crank V8s. There's a very good reason why flat-crank V8s aren't commonly used in road cars: unless you're able to make the engine internals very light, the noise/vibration/harshness (NVH) will be awful, and most consumers won't be interested in buying your car. The cross-crank V8 is not a "dirty kludge", and most people prefer the exhaust burble to the sharp bark of the flat-crank design.

Almost every major V8-making manufacturer produces exclusively cross-plane crank V8s. Ferrari, Lotus, and TVR are the only major exceptions. Saying that the only "real" V8 is a flat-crank is silly.

You've never heard of the Ferrari 308? (or 328, 348, 355, 360, or 430?) Or the Lotus Esprit V8? Or the TVR Cerbera?

Ok, I wouldn't be too surprised if you'd never heard of the Cerbera, but Ferrari has been using flat-crank V8s for a long time.

I'm pretty sure there aren't any Japanese 3/4 heavy trucks.

Do you understand that the Hotchkiss rear suspension (which is what you're thinking of) involves a solid rear axle and is completely different from the transverse single composite monospring used by the Corvette (which uses IRS)? The Corvette has had fully independent suspension since 1963.

I'm a fan of Jeremy Clarkson and his wacky antics too, but when he talks about American cars he's often quite wrong.

I am confuse.

And how often do major hurricanes tear through that area?