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Stuff that into a 3600lb sedan or 2800lb coupe and I'd gives the manufacturer a thumbs up. Stuff it into a 4500lb Smart Activity Life Intelligence Sport Crossover with 9 speed automatic + 256 nanny features and it'll be purchased by idiots who will hold up traffic, block your view and cause insurance premiums to go up because when they crash, 4500lbs x 400hp = lots of momentum.

Agreed, but a good motor is a good motor, and if it finds its way into sport crossover bull crap cars it'll just as likely find its way into a sports sedan or coupe simply to justify production.

I see your Buick Sport Wagon and raise you an Audi RS2.

And on the subject of X6s and Co. I FR3$G1N6 HATE EM ALL!!! Takes up so much space on the dang road, normally driven by slow-pokes! @#$#@%!!!

Roadster, Hatch, Sedan, Estate (ok Shooting Brake for you landed gentries going for your fox hunt) and 4x4s like the Cherokee/Landcruiser/Discovery.

Thats it, we don't need crossovers, sport activity vehicles, metroactive lifestyle wagon, fusion sport intelligent active (you wait, the Japanese will come up with something like this sooner or later).

And lastly, 4000lb+++ hybrids mated to v8 turbos or whatnot trying to 'promote' ecogreeness. WTF?!? Its like I made a nuclear weapon with 15% less radiation fallout and suddenly I am GREEN and ECO Friendly.

I hear you on that, as I recall only up until recently have Audi RS' series cars come in sedan form, they were always released as Avants first and Sedans later (if at all). Of course we only got the RS4 recently only to have it discontinued, same with the RS6 which saw a one year run in 2003.

The whole "Eco" thing is just marketing, they'll slap Green on anything as long as the dollar projections are high. The sad thing is people will buy that crap up because they'll "feel" like they're doing their part, there's a lot of money to be made to help people feel self-righteous. I could care less about saving the environment to be completely honest, but i do like the idea of buying a motor that is turbocharged, direct injected, and puts out around 400hp with gobs of torque, even if it is being pushed as a "green" solution.

So I'm guessing you don't like the BMW X5M and X6M?

The X5 is a full size SUV, while the X6 is more like a sports SUV (due to its size) as opposed to a sports wagon, the genre of car that they fit into has been established for awhile. The genre i was referring to belongs to the Acura ZDX, for some reason they thought a car that's not as practical as a station wagon and not as performance oriented as a sports car would work well together. The traditional sports wagon addresses both issues and does it without looking genre confused (am I an SUV? am I a Hatchback? Sports car??? how about none of the above).

Manufacturer's are already trying the sport wagon thing, personally, i don't care for it. The only real sports wagons on the market today are the wrx wagon and the Audi Avant models, there are a few other euro models, but those two are easily the most popular and deserving of the "sport" nomenclature (they really give you that great balance between performance/practicality). I hate the idea that these new "sport" wagons need to look like some step child of an suv and a car, just follow the original wagon formula and give me a bad ass motor.

I could really care less about how well it performs or how economical/practicle/whatever it is, the thing looks like it just got kicked in the face.

To each their own, i think it looks better than most of its current competition: Civic, Focus, & Corolla. Most of the competition at that price point is blander than cardboard, while i don't think it's some kind of game changer, at least it's not boring.

I'm unsure how ergonomic the car really is until i test drive one, but at face value, i'm going to have to disagree with anime52 and say that the car looks pretty sweet. It's not as a good as the Sonata (especially now that the Sonata has a 276hp turbo motor), but for its marketed price range and competition, for the first time it's actually looking like a competitor.

They never showed Cobra Commander feeding a employee to a Giant Cobra in the original.

it's definitely catering more to adults as the series progresses, the things that i find cheesy my 5 year old son thinks are "cool" so it's doing a clever job of keeping both audiences occupied.

i didn't buy too many of the clone troopers the first time around because i've been waiting for them to release them with the ball jointed hips. Now that they're doing that, i've been buying a good number of the releases up (like the new Commander Cody). Picked up ROTJ Luke recently, very impressed with him so far, i was also really impressed with their ESB Luke with the ball jointed hips as well. The ROTJ Luke is pretty accurate, but I think overall the ESB Luke gives you a little more substance, removable gun, lightsaber, great head sculpt, a bit more iconic (for me at least).

I didn't mean to say it's a bad deal, really.

I don't think it's going to be discontinued. It's most likely they weren't selling as much before the sale or there's a newer batch incoming.

admit it, you're a slickdealer, i'm the exact same way, it's like a disease.

i caught this on DVD last week, I enjoyed it overall, i might have had a different opinion if i spent $12 to see it, but for a $1 rental, it was a good watch of mindless entertainment. When the Pred teamed up with the Humans it brought me back to the old AVP arcade game days, when the predator was the "good" guy and in a way they showed that presented with the right situation even a predator could ally with a human. If the AVP movies never happened i wouldn't hate the concept of that alliance happening, unfortunately AVP movies did happen and now i never want to see any future for that franchise.

having your local shop do the oil on a car that uses conventional oil is usually cost effective, but cars that use synthetic is usually really expensive. Where 5 quarts of synthetic with a filter is around $30, the local shop typically charges $50. Plus i'm a bit picky, in the winter i switch to 0w40 oil and I've talked to the oil monkey's at my friends shop and they just throw in whatever the computer says (and i've seen the computer be wrong first hand). There's still something to be said about doing oil changes yourself, especially with cars purposely becoming more complex to keep you away from working on it, it's one of the few things you can do that helps you feel like you contribute to your car still being on the road.

I know for the fuel cleaning they just throw a can of bg44k and let it run its course, though i'll admit i'm a big fan of bg 44k. One of my best friends get it for me for free (he's a mechanic) and i swear by it, every 5 or so oil changes i'll throw a can of bg quick clean in my oil too to help pull the crap deposits that are starting to gum up the cam's. I don't know the real science to whether it truly increases the life of the motor or does anything to longevity but i can tell you that the motor usually sounds a lot smoother afterwards, especially with motors that have some age on them.

just yesterday amazon was selling the bumblebee/sam pack for 14.99 w/FSS, i think it's back up to 40 some dollars now.

Watched both episodes, it was good, the animation is a bit distracting at times so that'll take some getting used to. Surprisingly, the story and themes (big business, military, politics, etc.) feel aimed towards adults while the weapons, character designs, and action sequences keep the kids in play (energy weapons instead of bullets). There are some cheesy dialogue parts, but GI Joe is cheesy so it felt right. I guess it's because i work on a military base, but i can't help but feel they should pay more attention to the disciplines that the military is known for (saluting, cover, appropriate naming conventions), but i know that's asking too much of a kids a cartoon.

any good black friday deals coming out? places are gonna have the at-at for 79.99

I went to my local Costco yesterday and they had the ATAT for $75

For a brief moment I convinced myself my next car would be American. Recently, with the dollar tanking in value, it seems like American cars ought to become a lot more competitive. Unfortunately, I just can't find an American car I really want. MOPAR is dead to me... every time I've been in one recently its felt like a cheap and bloated automobile. If I wanted a cheap commuter I'd look long and hard at Fords offerings. The only Chevy I'd want to test drive is the Volt and that's out of curiosity more than anything else. I think the only American car I'd really consider is a Cadillac CTS and I'm kinda "meh" on it. The CTS-V sounds nice though but I'm trying to keep myself away from gratuitous power. It's been a while since I looked at a Lincoln but I hear they're being revamped and have a ton of nice features but still dressed down in ultra conservative garb. Really though, I think a lot of manufacturers are heading in the right direction and I hope my current car lasts another three years as I suspect my choices are going to get better.

Definitely following you on that, Dodge/Chrysler is dead, GM only makes a good car if it has an LS motor in it and Ford is the only true American car company showing any promise. On that note, the new F-150 finally retired the Triton V8 and moved onto all modern motors, one "ecoboost" direct injected turbo motor, the new 5.0L V8, and a more traditional 6.2L V8. Ford is also bringing the Euro style focus stateside (not sure if we'll get an RS model with the turbo motor yet), and is really strengthening their core lineup. As far as their work on Lincoln, I would give them another 5 years to get that brand together, hot off of the heels of axing Mercury, they can now really buckle down and focus on making real luxury cars with that brand. I always tell anyone interested in buying American, go buy a Ford, I've always tried to be as unbiased as i can when possible, but Ford has really stepped their game up in the past decade.

Any Jeep Wrangler owners out there?

I don't own one but my friend and i work on his YJ a lot, it's such a piece of crap but we love it, it has some strange charming quality to it. Plus you get the bonus of being a part of a community with the Wrangler.

Meh, still looks like a fuggin' dung beetle....

Ah, for the good ol' days--when supercars were sleek and sexy, and really looked the business...

Not really a fan of the upcoming Mclaren supercar though--the name escapes me at the moment. Seriously, they should expect a lawsuit from Ascari or something...

I agree with you on the first point, loved the McLaren F1, and also loved the Ferrari F40, supercars really hit a good age there in the late 80's through the late 90's.

you're also looking at two completely different technologies between this concept and a bugatti, the bugatti is using technology that's been tested and perfected over several decades at this scale, turbines are typically only used in larger or more specific applications and in this case has been scaled way down. the Jaguar is using turbine engines in conjunction with electric motors, electric motors are known well for having fantastic torque but they're not really HP crunchers and while turbine motors sounds cutting edge, in this application its probably not as performance minded as it sounds, mostly due to the nature of a turbine motor. Turbine motors are typically meant to run at a constant speed, they don't wind up and wind down very well like a typical otto cycle motor, which is why you see them on jet liners and generators, things that will have the motor running at a constant rpm for long periods of time. I'm not sure how they've balanced the efficiency of the electric motor with the turbines, but i'm sure it's far from perfect at a conceptual stage, so there's a lot of room for improvement in this type of design. In regards to weight, i'd be surprised if they kept it below 4000lbs, you have to consider the fact that there are six motors in this car not counting the batteries to power four of them, this thing has to weigh a lot regardless of space age materials.

Sad? How so?

1180 ft-lbs of torque. Lord, what fun that must be, to stomp on the accelerator and feel all that thrust kicking in! Remember, HP is a function of Torque--it's that 1180 ft-lbs that'll yank you back in the seat and probably make your face feel like it's peeling backwards...

agreed, and since it's electric the torque curve should remain almost linear until a certain RPM (where it will drop off considerably), i'd like to see it in action, i imagine weight is what keeps its 0-60 time higher than it should be.

that is perhaps the dumbest idea I've ever heard, ever.

Back when i had nothing better to do than go to track events i've seen a few monster miata's in person, and they're fast, very fast, and not just on the straights in the corners too. If i hadn't turbocharged mine, i probably would've gone the V8 route when i owned a Miata.

I'm not a fan of the tail of the newest Mustang. The rounded edges are a wee bit feminine on an otherwise masculine vehicle... it just doesn't really fit. I'm even less a fan of tailights that blink sequentially. The new Camaro is a big step up from the ones I remember from the 90s but they start to look bloated toward the rear. It's a car I like only from certain angles. I haven't seen a Challenger in person enough to judge. Sadly, I'm at that age in life where every time I see a two door coupe (other than two-seaters) I think "That is so inconvenient... they should just make this a 4 door." Sad... I know.

You're not alone, i'm not that old (i am a family man), but with modern global platforms the two door coupe has become impractical since the weight savings and performance advantage just aren't there anymore. The number of coupes actually built on a coupe chassis has narrowed considerably so they might as well dump the super long two doors for more compact and practical four doors and throw some real back seats in because performance won't be effected adversely in the least (in some cases the weight distribution is beneficial). I'll still own a two door coupe if it's built that way from the chassis up (Elise, Miata, TT, GT-R, Corvette, etc.) but those are also cars that either can't accommodate four doors or truly benefit from only having two.

pretty cool boba fett. will see when mine arrives.

anyone think some of the star wars vehicles are a little overpriced? saw the y-wing and it was $70 without a pilot. the tie interceptor was like $50 but come they should be cheaper.

can't wait for the rotj luke jedi to come out but i doubt its gonna be just there on the shelves. maybe at tru when it comes out but they charge a little more than target.

i know what you mean, in my area TRU charges $10 a fig while target and Wal-Mart are $6-7, the only saving grace for me is my friend works at TRU so he gets me the figures on the cheap after he applies a novels worth of coupons and his associate discount. I should really post the receipts for some of my TRU purchases, it's hilarious to see the numbers game done on them.

A thread like this makes me miss my 2003 Mustang Cobra more. I only lightly modified her but it was good for over 450 rwhp and 473 ft-lbs of torgue and 11 second timeslip. Maybe a 2014 Mustang will help fill that void.

The "Terminator" was definitely the best Production Mustang of that body style, a friend of mine got one as a graduation gift from HS, needless to say the tires didn't make it to graduation. If I ever come across one at the right price i would buy it, i hate the exterior/interior styling but that motor was something to behold.

I definitely agree, i met him a few times at different comic conventions back in the 90's he's a very down to earth guy, IIRC he postponed med school to do comics and never looked back. I loved his lead on X-Men but didn't care for his creations with Image Comics like WildCATS; GEN13 was alright though.