Eleven years ago, I married a remarkably tolerant woman. She’s not particularly into cars, but she humors me when I prattle on about the merits of whatever awesome car caught my eye that day. Or when I decide I need to take an epic, one day, out-and-back trip to Maryland to buy a race car that’s never turned a wheel under it’s own power in the three years I’ve owned it. But she has her own automotive tastes, and for sake of marital harmony, I do my best to listen.

As a country girl, trucks weigh heavily in her list.

One peculiar truck that caught her eye about fifteen years ago was the Ford SVT Lightning. I think the bit-player role it took in the first “The Fast and the Furious” film (as Harry’s shop truck) may have done it for her. That, or she’s conflating her lust for Vin Diesel’s bulging biceps with the sweet melody of whistling supercharger and burbling V-8.

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I can’t think of another small car that has been so consistently good, and occasionally great, as the Honda Civic. The Corolla matches it on the good column, but there really hasn’t been a “great” Corolla for enthusiasts since the FX16 GTS. Each generation of Civic, at least since the second generation’s “S” model, has offered a higher-performance trim level that caters to gearheads.

Elsewhere on these virtual pages today, we look at the most recent iterations of the Civic, but since I’m the guy here with grease under his nails and rust in his eyes, I’m looking back a few years at an iconic Honda.

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As I continue the search for the family hauler that is less emasculating than the minivan I currently drive, my eye wanders to hot wagons. Like the Subaru I featured a few weeks ago, a quick wagon looks a bit more “menacing” on the road than a bloated van. It’s likely much more rewarding to drive to boot.

Besides a better drive, other senses can be engaged; for many enthusiasts, a great engine note can trigger primal urges. The sound of a proper #Murican V8 tops the list for many. Personally, I can’t help but turn my head anytime an uncorked HEMI, Coyote, or LS drives by.

That leads us to today’s subject: the 2006 Dodge Magnum SRT8.

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Imagine if we’d had the internet back in the ’60s. Ignoring all other differences that fast, easy communication would have had on a pivotal time in our history, I’m most fascinated by the important stuff, like how it would have affected the way we buy cars.

Back then, one could walk into the dealership and check various boxes on an order form, specifying the exact options desired. Want a manual transmission, big-block wagon with non-assisted drums all the way around? Sure. Under-dash record player? Absolutely. But that wasn’t efficient, and eventually we got a few option packages and some dealer-installed bits.

MINI (gotta make sure we capitalize that) is one of the few mainstream OEMs that lets us relive those checkbox glory days.

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Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Honda could do no wrong in enthusiasts’ eyes. Nearly everything was a hit. The CRX, Civic, Prelude, NSX and Integra all handled beautifully, taking well to both motorsport and unwise modification.

Near the turn of the century, however, some folks decreed that Honda had lost its way. The double-wishbone suspension was phased out in most cars, replaced by the space-saving, less-expensive McPherson strut. Honda enthusiasts decided that this change fundamentally altered the character of the cars.

As it turns out, Honda had one last round in the chamber.

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As I continue my occasional look at cheap, mid-engine sports cars of the Eighties, one enormously popular car is clearly missing. The Fiero was GM’s attempt at producing an efficient, yet potentially fun car on the cheap.

Unfortunately, GM mostly succeeded at producing a platform for awful Lamborghini replicas.

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I suppose that technically, the first sports car to come to the U.S. from Japan was the Toyota 2000GT, but very few of those were ever sold. The cars that fueled the performance revolution from the East were the Nissan Z-cars. The early 240Z is especially sought after by enthusiasts and collectors due to the good performance brought by light weight and minimal power-robbing emissions crap.

The later cars, like most cars (and people, really) got fat as they aged. The 280ZX gained a bunch of weight as they were geared toward a cruiser rather than a stripped-down, performance machine. In 1984, the 300ZX came along with a new engine and angular styling that was divisive among fans of the older models.

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Two out of four ain’t bad, I guess.

The perfect vehicle, as proclaimed by auto journalists and web commenters alike, is a brown diesel manual wagon. Here, however, the rally-legend Subaru turbo flat-four is a better choice for a hot daddymobile than a nasty oilburner. The low-key blue paint won’t turn heads at the PTA, but will be near invisible to over-zealous traffic enforcement.

The Subaru Legacy 2.5GT wagon, in other words, is an Impreza WRX STI for grownups.

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For our readers under the age of 25, let me tell you a bedtime story. There once was a time when Toyota sold sports cars.

Seriously. The company now best known for beige once offered a fleet of interesting, sporty, high-performance cars. The Celica, Supra, Celica Supra, rear-drive Corollas, FX16 GTS, and MR2 all came from your friendly Toyota dealer. Nowadays, if you want a little pizazz with your “Famous Toyota Reliabilty,” you must wander to the dank corner of the showroom labeled Scion.

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Salt is a killer. Any time I travel south, I’m amazed when I see pristine, 30-year-old cars being used as daily transportation. Up here in the Great White North [Don’t you live in Ohio? —Mark], most everything built prior to Y2K has been perforated horrendously.

Considering this, I laugh anytime a distant friend asks me to check out a local car. Invariably, the car in question is more air than metal, and what remains is held loosely together by the sheer adhesion of the paint, duct tape, chewing gum and dreams.

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One day, two blue Jeep Renegades. I wonder which will be worth more in ten years. To be fair, I’m trying to compare apples to refrigerators here. The modern Renegade is a commuter appliance with some off-road pretense. The vintage truck here could be used for commuting, but is at home on the trails.

I can’t claim to be a Jeep fan. I live in Midwestern suburbia, where the most difficult terrain I’ll encounter is frost-heaved interstate in April. My weekends are spent hauling kids to sporting events, or occasionally, my golf clubs to the nearest cheap course, rather than hauling a big-tired rig to the forest. I’ve driven a Jeep exactly once, for about an hour, and I came away unimpressed with the on-road manners.

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