Gathered here are the Oppositelock posts that people put a good deal of effort into writing on Thursday and Friday. It includes 'how Japanese luxury took the world by storm', donk subculture, unusual aircraft and more.
Here's the thing about first impressions, you only get one shot at it. For Toyota, it was all they needed for this high stakes game of Poker known as the luxury car segment. They were all in. Forget the Poker face, Toyota said, "go ahead, call my bluff and see what happens..."
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With the latest news of upcoming Porsche models in the past 24 hours, I started to think about that $120k Porsche Boxster that someone optioned and has subsequently became infamous. For the record, to pay 120k$ for a Porsche Boxster is another level of crazy. The least Porsche could do for you at that point is buy you a table dance or hell, an old Panzer or something. Now that that's cleared up, I want to officially say "Thank You" to Porsche for at least giving us the option to let our imaginations run wild and configure such monstrosities.
When I was a kid, I remember driving through Atlanta with my family on our way to Florida. It was dark and the lights on the side of the highway illuminated a car pulling up on our left. The lights played over the bright green paint and I lifted my head from the window sill to look up at a Chevy Caprice. It wasn't too long before we saw another one and another one and another one. All brightly-colored and riding on impossibly big rims. It's hard to forget the first time you see a donk.
I am dreading Monday. My Speed3 goes into the body shop to finally get the hail damage fixed. While it's getting the auto equivalent of the mumps worked out of most of it's sheet metal, my insurance company tells me I'm entitled to a rental car. Sweet! This could be good. I'll try something fun, maybe a V6 mustang, possibly a FR-S. Something similar to my Speed3 from a performance stand point, but rear wheel drive. I was getting excited by the prospects… Nope
The Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster. Yes, that's its real name. In 1943 Douglas engineers had an idea: What if instead of making a large, expensive bomber, we made a small but very fast bomber? The goal was to match the range of a B-29 without the massive size and cost of one, to be able to carry 2000 pounds of bombs 2000 miles at a high rate of speed.
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Last weekend I attended the Berkshire Show (a rural county show in southern England). At the show several local dealers brought along a selection of new models for the public to sit in, look at, poke about in and leave chewing gum under the seats… It was interesting hopping from car to car from a group of manufacturers who compete in similar sectors. The exteriors are obviously all slightly different… but, step inside the various cars and we enter a strange world where, aside from the steering wheel, it's hard to tell one from the other.
...Until Tesla rolled in. According to wikipedia "The CitiCar and variants were the most produced American electric car until surpassed by the Tesla Roadster in 2011". To be honest I hadn't heard of this car maker (if you can call it a car) until today when I came across this for sale posting on kijiji (essentially a Canadian craigslist) so I had to look them up.
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Remember that kid in school that knew every answer, was first to finish a test and did their best to impress the teacher? Well that kid, while likely to do well in the future, was hated by most of their peers. Honda is being that kid.
Does anyone remember when Toyota, High on late 90's success, decided to get into the tow sports arena? They made several models...well not really, they made 2 lengths, 21 and 22 feet and several trims. The X22 was the wakeboard pro model. The hulls were designed and manufactured by a third party, but the engine was pure Toyota...and it was a good one.
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The Best of the Rest
Found some neat classic car ads in a closet at school. Pianomanzero found some pictures of his old cars (Alfa Romeo, Firebird and Harley Davidson). Gr1vleT ran his Cobalt in an autocross. Magman007 shared pictures of his old e36 m3 (LTW?). ///M3 Track Car got on track with a GT3 RS and posted some onboard video.
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As always, If I've missed something and you would like me to include it, let me know.
Fun Discussions
There were several posts that asked questions and sparked some good discussion over the last 2 days. Take a peek and chime in on some of them listed below:
Just the #tips
Honourable Mentions
These posts have already been shared with Jalopnik directly but deserve to be mentioned again because they were first posted in Oppositelock:
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Best of Oppositelock: September 26, 27, 2013