We all watched in… well, it wasn't exactly awe, as the city of Tulsa unearthed a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that their ancestors had stuck in the ground 50 years earlier. While it was a neat — but doomed — exercise in civics, a mint '57 Belvedere ain't all that, monetarily speaking. However, had a perfectly preserved 1957 Chevy popped out of the ground, we'd be talking real money. And had the city waited a decade and (properly) mummified Carroll Shelby's 427 Cobra Super Snake, Dwight Foster and Robert Carney (the men who "won" the water-logged Belvedere) could move into a suite on top of the Bellagio and bet tens of thousands on black. Every night. For years. That's because that Shelby fetched $5,000,000 at Barrett-Jackson last January. My question to you is, which 2008 American car do you bury for 50 years so that your grandchildren might one day be ne'er-do-wells? We'll get to other countries tomorrow.

Not to steal Sajeev's thunder, but there's already a TTAC team member competing in The 24 Hours of LeMons. Me! Come May in Altamont, California (pleased to meet you…) myself, Jalopniker Murilee Martin, Dubspeed Driven's Jack Baruth and a bunch of hot rod builders will be trying to go the distance in a V8olvo. That's a Volvo DL with a Ford 302 HO shoved into it. Murilee and I spend countless hours (and I'm not kidding — countless) arguing over which car to get. He was gung-ho over Datsun Zs while I wanted the torquey V8 goodness from a first generation Q45. Then a $100 Volvo materialized and the rest will one day be history. Assuming I can find a pair of fire retardant underwear. One last thing, our car will be rattle-canned black and feature the ability to blast death metal down the main straight. Sponsorship opportunities abound…

My father was always shocked that cars still ran on internal combustion engines. First patented in 1886 by Karl Benz, the automobile really hadn't changed that much in 100 years. Just like Benz's Fahrzeug mit Gasmotorenbetrieb, the coolest car in 1985 burned gas to move, rode on rubber and required that the driver exert force to stop. My dad would quickly contrast the history of the car with that of the airplane. Orville and Wilbur Wright made history on December 17, 1903 by flying a box covered in canvas three feet off the ground at 6.8 mph for 12 seconds. Compare that to December 22, 1964 when the SR-71 Blackbird debuted with a novel defensive maneuver; if the enemy fired a missile at you, speed up. My dad felt that cars should be rocket propelled, rocket braked and computer controlled so as to prevent accidents. Yet companies like Continental can't release new-tech brake-by-wire systems (which offer 15% shorter stopping distances) because consumers are afraid. And we're still sucking oil out of the ground and burning it. And riding on air-filled rubber tubes. My question to you is, where should we be?

A friend of mine wants to buy an Alfa Romeo Spider. "Do you know a good mechanic?" I asked her. Because I explained, if she didn't the car wouldn't move. And even if she found a talented wrench, the car would only run from her apartment to the shop. I told her to get a Miata instead. Bullet proof, plus the Mazda drives seven times better than the solid-axled Italian. Nope. Not interested. She wants the Alfa. Because it looks better. I ran into another friend last night, who against all my best advising swapped her ("ugly") Scion for a ("cute") Volvo 240 Wagon. "What are you doing for Valentine's Day?" I asked her and her boyfriend. "Picking up the Volvo from the shop." Today saw my take on the new Subaru STI. I'll let reader cretinx summarize what most of y'all have been saying, "Its just . . . . so . . . ugly . . . ." Big time. That said, that pig is most likely my next car. Apologies to Sheryll Alexander, but when it comes to driving, I really don't care about looks. You?

There's an old Jackie Mason joke, "I love Puerto Rico. I go there every year– just to visit my hubcaps." I mention this funny/racist joke because gasoline prices have more than doubled in the last four years and the money's going… where exactly? Sure, Exxon Mobil and their oil baron friends are posting quarter after quarter of historic record profits. But how many cigars can you light with a $100 bill? Someone else must be getting fat and happy too, right? Right. Investment adviser, Ron Paul fan and economic blogger Michael "Mish" Shedlock posits that a lot of the oil revenue is headed towards the UAE's capital city. How much oil revenue? Only about six percent of the UAE's take home comes from actual oil. However, the JAFZA free trade zone offers many perks for those with huge surpluses of cash to, uh, invest. Check it: come 2009 Dubai will feature the world's tallest building (The Burj Dubai — 2,684 ft), the world's tallest structure (The Al Burj — 3,937 ft), the world's tallest hotel (The Burj al Alam — 1,644 ft), the world's first underwater hotel (Hydropolis), the world's biggest amusement park (the Disney World trumping Dubailand) and even more indoor skiing. Not to mention the world's largest waterfront and hundreds of luxury man-made islands. Let's put it this way: Dubai is home to about 20 percent of the world's [mechanical] cranes. Have a look.

When I bought my second Rex, I nearly bit the bullet and went STI. But I like to haul more than ass. So I sacrificed balls-out speed for cargo capacity and bought the five-door WRX (again). The good news: starting now, Subaru's hottest rally-bred machine is available only as a hatch. The bad news: the new STI costs $14k more than the WRX. Is it worth it?

There's a great Simpsons episode where Homer learns that as a child he got a crayon shoved so far up his noise that it went into his brain and made him stupid. The crayon is removed and voila — he's a genius. Only that's not working out, so he decides to get the crayon pounded back into his noggin. Only how deep? Moe the bartender uses a mallet to pound the crayon in a little bit and then talk to Homer to gauge how dumb he's getting. Long story short, Homer is back to being a moron when he exclaims, "Extended warranty? I'll take it!" MSNBC.com is reporting that a pack of scam artists (e.g. Vehicle Services in St. Peters, Mo.) are mining the country for folks with Homerian IQs. Auto warranty firms are scamming ignorant consumers with high pressure warnings that their warranty is about to run out. Final notice. This is your last chance. They're also calling people on cell phones and at 4:00 am. Those feeble-minded enough to purchase $3,110 extended warranties find that they cannot cancel them or get a refund (we're shocked). What if your car should actually break? These extended warranties don't do much in that situation, either. D'oh!

Yesterday, we pondered which brand has most recently lost the plot. Today's plan was to have you ponder which brand is the most damaged. But why bother? We all know the answer. Hell, dogs know the answer. Mercury was created out of whole cloth to be Ford's entry-level-luxury division. Trouble is that seventy years down the line, Lincoln is FoMoCo's entry-level-luxury (and just barely). Leaving Mercury as… what? I have no clue. No one does. Seriously, what possible purpose does Mercury serve (for us, not Lincoln dealers)? Besides being an over-chromed Ford, does Mercury stand for anything? Put it this way, if Mercury fell in a forest, who'd give a shit? I don't know a single human being who owns a Mercury. Oh wait; I do. A dear friend of mine is a big noise in the Department of Water and Power's Union. When his Oldsmobile 98 finally (and literally) fell apart, he needed a replacement big American barge ("It wouldn't look good come election time if I showed up in a Japanese car"). A Grand Marquis with $9k on the hood was his for the taking. If he could've found a Crown Vic that cheap, he would've bought it. In summary, why hasn't Mullally dragged Mercury out behind the woodshed and put the division out of its misery? I mean, you heard anyone crying over Plymouth lately? 

Recently. We're not talking Mercury, the automaker that's being driving around sans map for (four) decades. No, we want to know who you think most recently has put match to script. Great candidates abound. Could it be Jeep and the brand-slaughtering Compass softroader? Toyota and their new found love of recalls and unreliability? Maybe Porsche, with its embrace of water cooled SUVs and an upcoming four-door sedan. I'm arguing for Subaru. Subaru? Yeah, Subaru. Rewind your mind to 2002. The WRX had just landed on our shores, completely redefining egalitarian performance. Outbacks were everywhere. Forresters will always be the official car of lesbians, but back then they were the smart alternative to the SUV. The 'Camino'd Baja is a bullet they'd like back. But hey, at least they were trying. In fact, the all-AWD brand was the positioned to become the thinking/poor man's Audi. And pistonheads everywhere knew the STi was on its way. Today? The WRX is not only uglier, but softer. The most expensive model in the lineup isn't the sharp dressed Outback, but the formerly pussy-faced Tribeca. A turd of an CUV that few want and no one aspires to. The new STI is indeed meshugga, but sadly, like the whole of Subaru, not meshugga enough. OK, your go.

Horsepower fetishists will recall that up until not that long ago, we weren't sure if the next Skyline (a.k.a. GT-R) would be sold in the US at Nissan or Infiniti dealers. Turns out it's Nissan. For now. "An Infiniti version is a future possibility. I have not done a study yet, but we are thinking about it." That's Nissan's global design chief Shiro Nakamura talking to Old Blighty's Car magazine. Nakamura adds that the Infiniti version could be a coupe or convertible. We sorta hope it's a convertible, but mostly hope it's neither. Recently, Nissan has done an admirable job of NOT badge engineering it's luxury brand to death. The RWD G35 is NOT a leathered up Altima. The V8 powered M45 is NOT a Maxima on steroids (No, it's a 350Z on HGH). A Murano is NOT an EX35. Etc. (You could argue that the G37 Coupe is nothing but a 2+2 350Z, but nobody would listen.) Why, then, would Nissan start badge engineering now? What pimply-faced, thumb-calloused Gran Turismo addict sits around Mom's basement thinking, "Man, I'd totally buy a GT-R if only it were MORE expensive?" Short answer, none. A counter-proposal. I like fast, smart handling four-doors, be it RS4, M5/M3, C63 or IS-F. The ability to outrun Corvettes on the bad roads fills my heart with glee. Recently, I spent some seat time in an Infiniti G35xS. That's the AWD version. When my handler asked me what I thought of the car, the first words out of my mouth were, "My mom would love it." So yes, I'm proposing a four-door Skyline. To hunt down the uber-Audis of the world. And kill 'em all.

I once drove off the road, screaming, at 80mph. Why? I was in love. When love turns blind, men do irrational things. As far as healthy, loving relationships go, the one presaging my off-highway excursion was a malignant tumor wrapped in an iron lung. I imagine that owning a Pontiac Solstice GXP is a similar affair. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury; the prosecution calls her a “femme fatale on wheels.” I ask you: how could something this beautiful be so damn dangerous?

Ford seems determined to make sure each member of the Village People has a personalized ride. And why not? The cowboy and the leather-daddy already have their own trucks (the King Ranch and the Harley Davidson, respectively). I'm just having trouble deciding if the F250 Outlaw is aimed at the construction worker or the cop. No matter really, as there is plenty of room inside for both of those fabulous men and all their haute couture.

I’m 31, single and happy. So obviously my mother is constantly nagging me to get hitched and give her grandchildren. Even my sister’s impending marriage has failed to distract her; she’ll never be content until, presumably, I am not. Perhaps she’s right. I’m the only unmarried man at my weekly poker game. My best friend is expecting his first child this summer. If I were honest, I might admit I’m at the age when oat-sowing men settle down, produce offspring and molt. I can, however, offer at least one compelling reason for not introducing my spawn upon the world’s stage: I'd fit the Suzuki XL7's psychographic profile.

What the Hell’s a Suzuki’s SX4? I know it’s my job to know about these things, but I swear the test car greeting me upon my return from Old Blighty was the first one I’ve ever seen. If first impressions last, this tall, decidedly Japanese runabout says Subaru Forrester meets Scion xA on the suburban side of town. (In keeping with the parlance of our times, Suzuki shuns the “w” word and calls the SX4 a crossover.) A quick walk around revealed four big wheels, four big disc brakes, a Prius style double A-pillar and an AWD badge. Hmmm…? Could this sub-radar Suzuki be a sleeper?

We’re sitting in Jeep’s newest Wrangler pointed up a steep hill. Freak December rain has turned the ground into goopy glop. The transmission is in 4-Low, both axles are locked and the front sway-bar has been disconnected. A light tap of the gas slowly but oh-so-steadily begins to motivate our Trail Rated off-roader up the treacherous path. And then… we’re at the top. Huh? Too easy. We circle back down, turn off the lockers, reattach the sway-bar and put the Jeep into two-wheel drive. A moment later we are once again atop the hill. I’m saying it right here: the Wrangler Rubicon is the most capable vehicle ever badged a Jeep.