Coupes should be firm flagships and style vanguards: the best of a brand. Where does that leave Lexus, a marque best known for… reliability? With the Lexus SC430. The folding-roofed Lexus coupe is the second oldest model in Lexus' portfolio of pomp. For a company [relentlessly] pursuing perfection, that would make the SC430 the most imperfect car Lexus sells.

Our first car was a navy blue Opel Kadett. My father was off to sea; my mother took us on an inaugural daytrip. When my father returned to the Norwegian mainland, he dismissed the car as too small and upgraded to an Opel Kapitän. This was followed at short intervals by an Opel Rekord and an Opel Admiral. (The hierarchical naming scheme of Opel marketing in the 60s-70s was pretty obvious.) I’m sure my father would have moved to a Senator with time– but he was ready for a Mercedes. Once he’d switched allegiances, he never looked back.

As a boy in the pre-internet early sixties, I became obsessed with unveiling the secrets of that inexplicably alluring object of male interest. I had a general notion of what transpired within: the rhythmic in and out motions, the frenzy of moving members, the rapid inhalations, the (hopefully) synchronized explosions, and in their wake, the murmur of exhalations. Yes, the inner mysteries of the internal-combustion engine sang their siren song, and I was powerless to resist.

According to the Consumer Federation of America, most large insurance companies rely on computer programs like "Colossus" and "Claims Outcome Advisor." These spreadsheets calculate how much money an insurer can save if they deny ALL their customers’ claims. The companies then set an acceptable claim approval rate and instruct their adjustors to “delay, deny and defend.” Readers with children will recognize Mr. Incredible’s fictional employer Insuricare. Readers without sprogs should recognize DCX.

Almost without exception, our current carmakers were founded by engineers. The men behind Buick, BMW, Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford, Jeep, Dodge, Mercedes, Porsche and Saab (to name but a few) all possessed tremendous engineering abilities. Long before the styling gurus like Harley Earl and Virgil Exner rose to preeminence, long before Harvard MBA’s assumed corporate control, car companies rose or fell depending on the quality of their engineering talent.

Since its introduction in 2004, the fifth gen Maserati Quattroporte has been a sedan poised on the brink of greatness. Its fatal flaw: a clunky automated manual transmission ill-suited to the model’s luxury mission. Unlike some propeller-badged Germans we could name, Maserati’s Italian parent heeded the catcalls directed at its high tech gearbox. FIAT sourced a ZF six speed fully automatic transmission to cure the problem, subito. So, are we there yet?

Californians designed it. Italy’s glass blowing artisans lent it their name. A Franco-Japanese alliance headed by a Brazilian CEO builds it in a Japanese factory. The Murano is a twenty-first century multinational mutt. Introduced in 2002, this strange beast has faithfully served owners in the great melting pot of America’s sprawling suburbs. In dog years, the model’s now 67 years old. And the CUV market has suddenly become more crowded than a backwoods puppy mill. So has Nissan’s crossbreed aged well, or is this old dog ready for the vet’s needle?

Our man Mehta recently ran into a GM PR flack at an industry event. When Sajeev revealed TTAC as his spiritual home, the GM underling shook with rage. Still, it being the South and all, pleasantries were exchanged. After sweet talking the spinmeister, Sajeev promised I’d call and oil the troubled waters. During the ensuing conversation, I [once again] offered GM the right to reply– unedited– and promised to correct any factual errors. And then, quite out of the blue, she lost it. “Why do you hate domestic cars so much?” she demanded.

Back before gas prices scared SUV owners sensible, most CUV’s were “cute utes.” As the SUV exodus gathered pace, several abandoned truck makers figured SUV refugees were a bit half-assed not fully committed to downsizing. They built CUV’s that are only slightly smaller than their SUV’s, only without the towing capacity, off-road ability and, most importantly, extreme thirst. Never one to miss a trick, the transplants have been growing their CUV’s to nibble away at the same market. Case in point: the Hyundai Santa Fe.

“You’re not like other adults. You’re like a big kid.” My nephew made this observation after I’d guided my Porsche C4 through an impossibly tight corner, accompanied by a rebel yell. Max’s assessment of my temperament was not entirely correct. In my forty-seven years, I’ve met a few souls who also experience frequent bursts of child-like enthusiasm. In fact, one of the main reasons I love cars is that I love people whose love of cars keeps them young. Of course, the flipside of that ‘tude is that it can kill you dead.

Three days after our psychedelic nocturnal journey to America, my family arrived at our final destination: Iowa. The transition was a rude awakening, from a fantastic dream straight into a bad nightmare. We’d traded Austria’s alpine vistas for New York’s towering skyscrapers and wide freeways, and then watched the modern world evaporate in the blazing sun, replaced by endless corn fields and arrow-straight gravel roads.

For decades, Toyota has balanced superb management, impeccable quality, exemplary financial discipline and flawless product planning. As other manufacturers chased market trends and neglected core models, Toyota made incremental improvements to existing models and introduced new models slowly and carefully. Their perseverance has paid off; they’ve elbowed Ford aside and are nipping at GM’s heels. But as Toyota prepares to replace The General as the world’s largest automaker, they’re finding out that getting to the top is one thing; staying there is something else altogether. 

In the Brave New World of electronic automotive journalism, The Truth About Cars (TTAC) squares up against some heavy hitters: KBB, Edmunds, MSN Autos and more. Separately and together, the industry leaders generate more page views than Senator Mark Foley– and us. In truth, there’s an exponential gap between their site traffic and ours. To take on these giants, to pay our writers real money, TTAC must change. Yes, we’ve broken our advertising cherry. But we need to break out of our e-ghetto. So here’s the plan.

To capture maximum market share, does a car company have to forget how to have fun? Toyota seems to think so. The Japanese manufacturer has spent the last ten years purging its product line of irrational exuberance. It scrubbed the Supra in 1998, canned the V6-and-a-stick Camry CE in 2002, and wasted the Celica and MR2 in 2005. In that same year, another anomaly slipped through the cracks, a car that’s still with us today (at least for a while): the Toyota Corolla XRS. 

Sin City’s casinos are designed to create the illusion of chance. Vegas’ neon lights, chiming bells and piped-in oxygen keep hopefuls dazed, confused and distracted while their dollars are vacuumed from their wallets. And yet all the neon in Nevada couldn’t distract the Ford floggers at the recent National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) convention. The Blue Oval’s metal movers and shakers hit town looking for one thing: assurances that FoMoCo’s new, new turnaround will work. They got nada.