Name your car.
 

2.

I find NFH's g35 interior criticisms puzzling, esp since she is used to porsches. It's just a great car to drive.....sedan is okay, but needs to be a manual with a bolt on turbo to match the fun factor.

It's also (or was) cheap as hell.

Name your car.
 

You act like you've never seen the inside of a Porsche. It's mostly leather and very tasteful. Leather dash and door panels, console. The inside of a G has cheap cheap plastic painted silver. Everywhere.

Name your car.
 

NFH, I know you feel like car talk is "your turf" and perhaps the only thing you might speak somewhat officiously and get away with it, but I simply disagree with your opinion. Porsche interiors are generally nothing fancy, and anyway, it's not why you buy a goddamn porsche to begin with. Same with the g35 coupe, on a much lower price point. You buy it because it's fun, not because of the interior. It's a $32k car, what the hell do you expect?

interior of a 997
http://www.carsontime.co.uk/997%20po...20interior.jpg

interior of a 911 turbo
http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/1...bo.int.500.jpg

interior of a g35 coupe, albeit an automatic:

http://www.infiniti.com/m/cma/i/cat/...or_0_large.jpg

Whoop-de-doo.

Name your car.
 

It was about $34k, and you got a lot of stuff standard. We got the 6 speed and a sunroof, and that was about it, as options. It came with power heated seats, 6 cd changer, all the goodies. Didn't come with even better stereo, nav system, or body kit. I didn't miss those things.

Name your car.
 

So I'm a little late on this, but screw that. It's my first post in like six months.

I am going to "fight the hypo" though to throw out one car that meets all but one of your criteria: the Volvo S60, especially the S60R.

Reasonably trimmed, the basic S60 comes in at $35k, and is available with a manual. The S60R is about $40k, optioned out to about $43k, comes with a manual, 300 hp and AWD. Whatever car magazine I picked up in the airport last week (Car & Driver?) called the R something like "Completely stealth and the best car Volvo has ever made." (More or less).

The S80 may be a more apropriate car for an old guy, but doesn't come with a manual.

Also no manual, but I recently rode around in a new Toyota Avalon. It was very comfortable and my friend (male, 55, drives a lot on business, buys a new highway cruiser about once a year - whenever they get 50k miles or so) likes it a lot.

Back to the ether.

Name your car.
 

... and the Avalon's trunk holds ten packages of Depends.

"Avalon, because Oldsmobile is gone."

Name your car.
 

Thank you.

Name your car.
 

Dude, a Honda Accord is a $24k car and it had a nicer interior. And you're wrong - the interior crappy plastic shit is precisely why we didn't buy a Boxster S in 2001. They are much better now.

You have to look at it every day. The G just didn't fit the rest of the car. The wheels were awesome. The paint was great considering the price. The interior was just meh. It felt all cheap inside. Just didn't match. That said, I'll repeat myself, it's much better now.

Name your car.
 

I'm supposed to drive the V70R this week as part of mandatory self-imposed cross-shopping against the S4 Avant (also to be driven: Dodge Magnum, BMW 530xi and probably some of the Saabs/Subarus/Saabarus), so I'll let you know what I think of the engine.

I'm concerned it might be a bit much to handle when the turbo really hits and a bit laggy off of it, but we'll see. You might think that about the STi, but it's mostly just really powerful and smooth off the turbo and absurdly powerful and smooth on it... Too bad those fuckers aren't building the USDM STi in the wagon...

Name your car.
 

You likely won't have much torque steer, at the R's are awd. Be sure and post your impressions...

Name your car.
 

Oh, I know it's AWD; that's the reason it's being seriously considered. I want a powerful luxury awd wagon, and there aren't too many of those. I'm only looking at the BMW, Saabs, Subarus and Dodge to make sure that luxury and AWD are really that important to me; after driving the Audi (and being blown away by the interior), I think that they are.

I've spent some time (including some track time) in heavily modified AWD turbos (DSMs, WRXs, 3000GTs, etc), and torque steet is still very possible with enough power, even when it's going through four wheels. And especially when you're getting the on/off nature of a turbocharged car, even if it's well-tuned. You can snap-spin the 3000GT (stock!) and most heavily modified WRXs and DSMs even easier than an old 911: lose traction with all four wheels in a turn on power, correct by lifting instead of powering through it,[1] and you get an instant spin. That's the nature of turbocharged awd cars with computers protecting a poor driver.

That said, I'm not concerned too much about controllability in the V70R; it's a Volvo, after all. I'm almost worried it will feel TOO mundane and controllable, maybe because of whatever traction control and ACS systems will be in use. Mostly, I want to see how the tuning feels. You can take a small displacement motor (in this case, 5 cylinders times half a liter each), put a turbo on there, and make it feel like a screamer that begs to be rev'd and driven like a bat out of hell (e.g. WRX) or tune it nicely and make it seem like a reasonably well behaved and torquey larger engine (e.g. Most turbocharged VWs and Audis). The problem is, usually the former are much faster, and there is nothing like the way one of those cars throws you back against your seat.

[1] It does feel crazy to start to spin and have to fight the natural urge to lift, brake or steer the opposite direction, but it's even crazier the first time that it actually works.

Name your car.
 

If you're worrying about snap spinning an AWD volvo wagon in every day driving, you and I drive very differently.

The new Passat Wagon
 

Mmmmm, wagon. Oh, and the interior is fucking gorgeous.

http://www.weblogsinc.com/common/ima...4809932977.JPG

http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/uploa...ed_600_063.jpg

Name your car.
 

I share this desire (to my distress), although I doubt I could ever drive as vigourously as you. I am currently engaged in a somewhat heated SUV v. wagon debate with my SO (the issue is really how much cargo space is necessary). I haven't even driven the Audi because I don't want my heart broken. I drove the Saab 9-5 Arc this weekend and was not as in love with it as I was 3 years ago, even though reliability has apparently iimproved significantly. Powerful enough for my needs (220hp), but the interior just didn't do it for me like I expected. Plus, the depreciation is so bad for Saabs that if in three years I really did need more cargo space, I'd get hosed on the trade.

Honda Pilot, meh meh meh.

Name your car.
 

What's wrong with the Passat?