I was just on the virtual horn with Mr. Berkowitz and we were discussing that for $47,000 the 430 horsepower Corvette is a fantastic bargain. We're also both young, dumb and childless. So Farago's pronouncement of the Corvette as a "death Car" has no effect on us. But then Justin dropped this bomb, "my girlfriend's mom, who is on her third Lexus SC430, told me she thinks the Corvette is the lowest class car a person can buy." Ouch. Take that, Vetteirati. And hey, with the Camaro still not in production, the lady makes a point. But not a great point. See my friends, next to Dodger Stadium yesterday I witnessed the scuzziest car imaginable. That's right, a Fox-bodied Mustang 5.0 with Truck Nutz. Seriously, beat that.

I'm paying $4.99 a gallon for premium. I'm not looking for sympathy (though feel free). After all, we're living in a new golden age of the automobile. Chatting with an autojourno friend I found myself saying, "435 horsepower? That's it?" Which is ridiculous. But now that gas is now horridly expensive, things are apt to slow down. And by apt I mean they will. Lots. We're already starting to see the cracks. Audi's next S4 will have six cylinders instead of eight. Which means that the RS4 might (gulp) only have a V6. Some of you no doubt remember how much I enjoyed the RS4. Which got me thinking: is Audi's four-door supercar the best vehicle I've ever driven? I get to drive an awful lot of fancy metal. The RS4 is better (if not much better) than most. But the best? No. You're going to have to wait a couple of days for my actual answer (review pending). Until then, how about you?

Today is Friday so I'm keeping this one short. Reading through the Ask the B&B from earlier, I noticed that the person asking was leaning towards a Subaru Tribeca because it's safe. Yes, but it's also hideous!! For certain, one of the very ugliest cars made during an ugly time. I might opt for a lacerated spleen rather than be seen in one of those. I really might. And it's an SUV, too. As the reader was asking about a vehicle for her two kids, she's probably thinking that SUVs are safer. They aren't, as you're more likely to lose control and fall off a mountain in an SUV than a car. Sure, if you run head-on into a Brink's truck the larger bulk of the SUV will insulate you more than a car. But in a car you can proactively avoid the accident, rather than reactively absorbing the impact energy. And finally, just to kick it up a notch, have safety ratings ever influenced your purchases? Put another way, you like one car better than the other but the former gets four safety stars to the latter's five — what do you do?

Ignoring completely how they got to 2.8 children, once a family is a family of 5 (or more) third rows become almost a certainty. Look, I only have one sibling, and we would have beaten each other to death on road trips if not for the third row of my family's various full-size GM wagons. I bring this up because 1) gas is over $4.00 a gallon (just about $5 per here in LA) and is never going down and 2) the Ford Flex will be on the market real soon. Let's get the numbers straight. The FWD Flex is rated at 17/24 and the AWD version will deliver 16/22. Comparable to the competition and a words better than the essentially dead body-on-frame goliaths Americans have loved so dearly for the past decade. But, is it enough? Will large families just be cramming the brood into the back of Aveos and Yari? Or are the Flex and similar vehicles (CX9, Pilot, Acadia) still viable as family haulers?

Please read before screaming. Earlier today our man Wilkinson posed a very good question. Can our (in many cases) ailing power grid cope with EVs? Now, I'm lucky. I live in Los Angeles where DWP supplies the juice. DWP's union (wisely) refused to go private when out-on-his-ass former Governor Gray Davis was using Enron to help privatize most of California's electrical production. Long story short, LA has power to spare and was one of the only counties unaffected by the rolling blackouts a few years back. So, I'm confident us Angelenos will be able to handle plug-ins, capacity-wise. But where the hell do we plug 'em in? I live in a classic LA hill home. It's four flights of stairs up me. Meaning street parking. Short of running 200 feet of extension cord down a hill and across a street, I can't charge an EV. Hundreds of my neighbors are in the same outlet-less boat. That's just in my 'hood. In other words, if I had an EV, I wouldn't know what to do with it. Would you?

Admirably, y'all responded rationally to BMW's GINA Light Visionary Concept. Instead of just screaming "yucky!" like the rest of the car blogosphere, TTAC's B&B took a step back and said, "Hmmm…." Trust me, as someone who has to think about cars all day, it's nothing but fresh air to see readers take such a cerebral tack. And so the GINA is skinned in fabric. Hmmm… Going on nothing but my observation that in normal usage convertibles seem to have a seven-year life span, this may not be the best idea. But, Bangle's comment about "Function over dogma" got my little brain spinning. Why not fabric? Or plastic? Or anything else? Why always metal? Would you drive a non-metal car? Really?

In 1996, General Motors rolled-out the infamous EV1. The battery-powered car satisfied California zero emissions regulations (its raison d'etre), sat two, could travel 160 miles (or less) on a charge and plugged into a wall outlet. The General leased 1,117 EV1s. By all accounts, the lessees loved the car. GM killed the EV1 in 2003, claiming they couldn't make a profit on the vehicle. The automaker also maintained that they'd sunk $1b in R&D into the project. GM destroyed the vast majority of the returned EV1s and decided to sue California to recoup their development costs (even though the Clinton administration had deferred $500m in costs). Fast forward five years. Where the hell is the EV1? Forget for a minute all the drawbacks (runs off electricity derived from oil and coal, no storage space, insanely heavy) and think about $4.69 a gallon gas (what I paid this morning). Consumers are clamoring for this very car. Speaking frankly, the people least shocked by the Volt's painful birth has to be General Motors. 2010? Good luck. Why not bring back the EV1 now? Not tomorrow, but right now. Why not?

As I've documented endlessly, my attraction to moving hunks of iron, plastic and rubber goes back as far as I do. My father was a pistonhead, my grandfather was a pistonhead and my great-grandfather was a schmate dealer born in Odessa around the time of the American Civil War. I mention this because as a kid I read Lee Iaccoca's autobiography. One of the lessons I took away from it (besides how hard he and Hank Ford II lobbied Nixon against airbags) was that the government bailout of Chrysler was needed because so many American jobs were at stake. Sure, corporate mis-management got the brand in trouble. But it was Uncle Sam's responsibility to not let them fail, according to Lee. Today we learned that Rick Wagoner defended The Big 2.8's inability to foresee how surging gas prices could gut the entire US SUV car industry. Assuming for a moment there is blame to be assigned (and we think there is), who gets it? The CEOs, for their blind devotion to easy body-on-frame profits? The government, for not being proactive and passing tougher CAFE standards years ago which would have forced the industry to think small? Or consumers, for buying so many socially-irresponsible hulking tanks when they simply did not need them? We passing the buck here. Who wants it?

Looks like Farago and I inadvertently kicked open a can of worms yesterday when discussing the new/maybe one day Camaro. Robert maintained that Bob Lutz is an "Idiot" for even suggesting a 4-banger muscle car. For my part I defended Lutz (dirty, i feel so dirty), because I happen to love the engine he's talking about. See, the 2.0-liter turbocharged and intercooled EcoTec I4 puts out a robust 260 horsepower and a rotund 260 lb-ft of torque. And that's currently. Rumor has it that Chevy will be boring the EcoTec out to 2.5-liters, which could easily net the engine 50 more hp, meaning that the base Camaro would have more juice than the 4th gen V8 F-body. Of course, if you need more, get the LS3-powered range topper. Point is, does cylinder count matter? Really?

What a doozy. Our coverage of Black Tuesday– which has nothing to do with Senator Obama wrapping up the nomination– has been long, hard and bloody. Farago and I attempted to get a grip on the financial fiasco in yesterday's podcast but made little if any headway. The story, in case you missed it, is this: Detroit is fucked. The only thing more dead than Hummer is Chrysler (it just doesn't want to admit it yet). The Ford F150 got outsold by four different cars. GM's trucks and SUVs aren't doing any better. Sales are down, down, down. Except for Subaru, whose symmetrical AWD cars have seen sales increase for three straight months. Go figure. My question for you is, what happens next? Besides layoffs, buyouts and plant closures. Federal loan guarantees? And then what? What will the American automotive landscape look like in… 2010? Look deep into your crystal balls people. We want the future.

To be honest, I really feel like writing, "ARGH!!!!!!! $4.59 for premium this morning! ARGH!!!!!!!" Especially because less than two months ago I was bitching and moaning about $3.99 per gallon. Might be time to put me on suicide watch come August. Ahem. Like all of you, as I drive I am constantly scanning the road for cars. Not so much to drive better. Rather, I just love cars. In fact, one of the aspects I most enjoy about Los Angeles is the constant non-stop parade of interesting cars. A few weeks ago I saw nine Aston Martins in a day– and only one was a DB7. I also saw three Ferraris, several Bentleys, a Rolls Phantom and Maserati GranTurismo, the latter being more beautiful than you can imagine. Plus, of course, more Porsches than you can shake a pair of Pilotis at. But aside from the exotic metal, LA serves as a starting point for trends. Let me put it this way — when we reported that Toyota had sold 1 million Priora, I wasn't surprised. At all. Nor was I shocked to learn that while Toyota sales are stumbling, Yaris sales are through the bloody roof. Between yesterday and today, I've counted 17 of the beefy looking pods. What have you been seeing?

My father was something of a libertarian. We were once talking about illegal drugs and he said, "Why should we stop anyone from eating rat poison or banging their head against a wall?" Fair enough. Yesterday my gal and I were driving around Los Angeles when we passed an electronic billboard reading, "Click it or Ticket." I got to thinking. First of all, why not a message like "Have a nice day" or "LA, We Love It!" Why is the default always some sort of Big Brother warning? Then I began thinking why on earth are the police able to profit from a person's decisions? Personally, I would never drive a car without buckling up. When did that stop being my choice? There's also a certain amount of cynicism in California's mandatory seatbelt law, for if they were really concerned about safety, the State would mandate roll cages, helmets and five-point harnesses, reducing the California's annual 4000+ motoring death rate to almost zero. Or, taken a bit further, if I want to, why can't I purchase a vehicle without 20 airbags, ABS, electronic interference and (gulp) seatbelts? Free market? Or am I just nuts?

I'm not sure if former Car and Driver editor and occasional TTAC contributor Stephan Wilkinson has changed his mind about the whole QOTD deal. Originally, this site's spiritual mentor dismissed our vox populi as the worst kind of page view pandering. (The fact that our counter's broken should put paid to that idea.) I guess Stephan's ameliorated his antagonism somewhat; he recently suggested a QOTD about the Best and Brightest's passengers per vehicle. Given the gas, political and environmentally-conscious temper or our times, it's a highly relevant inquiry. Miles/CO2 per passenger must be a better measure of efficiency/environmental responsibility than what kind of car you drive. Fully loaded 'Sclade vs. one-up Prius? That ought to get you going. That said, I can't imagine a boatload of Cadillac Escalade passengers all going Dutch on a tank of fuel. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen seven people in a 'Sclade– although the TV ad makes special mention of the luxobeast's capacity for human cargo. Personally, I've started driving the Boxster to the grocery store instead of the Odyssey. I can't tell you how much better I feel about myself. So, how about you? How many people travel in your whip? Have you upped the head count since gas crested $3 a gallon? Altered the vehicle of choice? 

Looking through today's headlines, and man is there a lot of doom and gloom. Gas up. Strike here. Jobs cut there. Mexican Fords even further over there. One comment in particular stuck in my mind. Talking about the Dacia Logan review Salokj said, "Renault has done a great job at marketing this car and even some car guys I know tell me 'What's the point of buying anything more, you can't go over 130km/h anymore.'"  And 130km/h is bang on about 80 mph. Fast, but really more freeway cruising speed. Or if you live in Britain, the speed at which cops shoot. Anyhow, it all got me thinking — is driving fun anymore? Traffic, tickets, the price of gas, modern cars are too numb, too fat and much too safe. But still, and maybe I'm just wired different, but despite everything I just listed, every time I climb behind a wheel I simply love it. Doesn't matter the car, doesn't matter the location nor the weather. Strap me in and I love it — on some level at least. Even last night, stuck in traffic with a heavy clutch, was completely enjoyable. To me. What about you?

Just paid $4.37 per gallon this morning for premium. Oy. While patiently waiting for (another) $60 to leave my wallet a lady pulled up in a Smart Roadster. I haven't driven a Smart yet, but from I'm told, it blows. However, it really doesn't weigh very much. A few days ago, a dear friend called me and asked if she and her one-year-old should buy a used Audi. Let me rephrase that: she wanted to buy a used A4. I tried explaining that when new, the A4 sold for three times what a Mazda Protege went for. Today the Mazda is worth more. She wasn't hearing it. I then touched on the fact that she could well be paying $400 a month in bizzaro repair bills, like CV joints and a new electrical system. And the (relatively) poor mileage. "But Jonny, it's so cute! My friend has one– I love it" I finally talked her out of it by mentioning that the auto-dimming rearview mirror will eventually leak mercury all over her infant. That worked. Long story short, she's got about $15k to spend. I told her to get a Honda Fit. "Oh no! My friend says they're death traps." Based on what? Her friend– a TV actor– test drove one and thought it was a death trap. From the test drive. Long story short, even though she wants a clean, high mileage car, she ain't going small. Because of her baby. You?