And this is why I debadged my A8. Except the grill, I haven't got to that yet. Or the teeny little Audi ovals on the sides. Gonna black out the grill logo shortly. I don't want it to look like I have bags of money. I don't. I bought the car cheap and I'm restoring it, which was stupid but there you have it.

No way. The Fiero is a sports car. Sure, it was made out of a bunch of amerishit; I've never driven one but I've sat in one and the lack of build quality is typically shocking for American cars of the era.

The Viper is a muscle car. You can get muscle cars around a track, if you're good enough. You can't simultaneously use the power. They make Viper-based race cars, but they're not really Vipers any more. Or you can replace half the suspension, but then why not buy something that handles to begin with? Like, say, a modern corvette.

Yes, yes it is. It's against the law to drive in a manner which creates a hazardous situation. Also, in some states (e.g. California) it's illegal to clog the passing lane. You are correct, however, that most people don't get pulled over for it. I see cops go around people clogging the passing lane all the fucking time.

ITYM their fuel consumption. Overall fuel consumption doesn't even enter into their tiny little minds, which is why they drive like asshats.

Well, we've got them all over here too (SF N.bay and beyond) and if I notice them at all it's because they're in the left lane because they think they're fast, but they're noticeable because I'm having to pass them on the right.

And because you don't see it (possibly because the responsible users have been driven underground alike with the irresponsible ones, but the irresponsible ones are the ones who act out, and thus are seen) it doesn't exist!

And it should be drawn before alcohol, by gum! It's the devil's spirit!

I bought my Impreza GC5 LS from a little old lady. If I were looking for a WRX, I'd be looking to buy one from a middle-aged woman. If she ever used it in anger, it would likely only have been while merging; but she might be likely enough to have actually done that occasionally to have kept massive carbon deposits from building up on the exhaust valves.

The whole point of the car was to give affordable, usable power. You can drive the car at 9/10 on the street at legal speeds, on twisty roads anyway. Turbo kits are already around, couple them with a bit more damping (for anti-squat) and some more rubber and you're off! And the door is open to throw some more powerful engines in there later. Or, perhaps now. I'd very much like to see Subaru and Toyota each roll their own turbo kits, and each bring out their own hot version. They would differentiate the vehicles from one another, in addition to bringing in the people like yourself who feel the car requires more power.

Incidentally, those Subaru engines might be "lacklustre" but they have amazingly flat curves and they have a massive assload of headroom left in them. A lot of them can be wrung out another 1,000 RPM or more, so there's loads of room for tuning. But they're designed to take a lot of abuse. If you maintain a Subaru with a manual transmission well, you can expect it to really hold up. But they're not amazingly well-protected against corrosion, so part of that is underbody maintenance if you live someplace where that's a significant issue. That's fairly unfortunate for a brand known for all-terrain, all-weather performance.

On a one-hour trip, there's no point. On a four-hour trip (or a three-hour tour) you'll save enough time to actually do something with.

The more aerodynamic your car is, the less true that is. My '82 300SD gets its best mileage around 75, I think it has something to do with it being very aero (for its day, especially, but pretty good even by modern standards) and maybe something to do with the non-lockup torque converter. AFAICT those are most efficient at the highest RPMs, and that car cruises at pretty high RPM. My '89 240SX was the same, though it had a stick; it was an even more aerodynamic car. And though I don't have personal experience of getting it up over 26 mpg yet, the 1997 A8 Quattro is reputed to get better mileage at 90 than at 75. I don't personally dare go over about 80 in most scenarios, since I don't have all that fancy laser and radar bullshit. It too has a slush box, but it has a lockup TC. It is however more aero than either of the prior examples.

The safest and most efficient thing is to drive with the flow of traffic, but without being worried about maintaining your place in the race, since you're not racing. Most people are most comfortable in such a situation, which is why you typically see long lines of relatively static traffic. I find myself most comfortable when I don't have stuff coming up behind me...

Choke on me. Choke. Now. Choke on me now.

Hopfather has less IBUs than Pliny, ignoranus. You're only pretending to know anything about beer.

It's from reading the writings of the founding fathers on the subject. A quick google search will produce more material than you can possibly choke on.

Oh, you mean that uncanny complete lack of friend-or-foe instinct? Yeah, I've seen that before.

Right. These are the people who commit suicide by exhaust, or by oven, or by other slow methods. They really want to be discovered. The people who commit suicide by gun will instead use a train, or a bridge.

What precisely is it that we're still #1 in, besides arms exports?

The problem that he is trying to address, I think, is that buying it from a dealer leaves a record. First there's the NICS check - and yes, by law those are transient and remain in the system for a few days only, but I would be very surprised if NSA doesn't get to stash it somewhere in practice. Then there's the 4473 form that's filled in for that check to be performed, and that the dealer has to keep around basically forever. While the government doesn't get the form - which allows them to say that they do not maintain any kind of gun registry - in practice ATF can come to any licensed dealer and demand them to turn over all their 4473s, with no reason or explanation necessary. So in practice it's a kind of registry, just a distributed one, and it makes some libertarian-minded people uneasy.