I am, of course, urging Roman Mica of tflcar.com to take a little more time for his reviews, deploy a few metaphors and tell us how he really feels. Remember: this internet deal is a two-way thing. If you’ve got some pointers for our budding videographer/reviewer, share them here. As with written work, TTAC welcomes new video contributors without regard to their editorial slant. All I ask is that the overall production quality meets the standard set by Mr. Mica and that you do NOT sound like a fanboy or a total asshole (that’s my job). Send an embed code (from YouTube) to farago@ttac.com.

Welcome to the most recent addition to our team: Roman Mica. Mr. Mica is a veteran journalist with pistonhead proclivities. He’s fully committed to telling the truth about cars; so enjoy his contributions while he can still get press cars. I joke. A bit. Anyway, with our limited editorial budget, we’ll be linking to Mr. M’s website tflcar.com. Every damn time. Both here in the text, and in the linkage area. So get used to it, and the most excellent videography provided by Roman’s twelve-year-old son. BTW, why would the Challenger be pissed-off that it has a 425HP engine? Just sayin’ . . . Hey, how about we send Baruth over to give Roman a little driving lesson?

There ain’t nothing stock about a stock car. Nowadays, there ain’t nothing standard about a “standard” transmission. How long has it been since you’ve heard that quaint sobriquet for a clutch-and-stick setup? More than ninety percent of new cars sold in the United States are self-shifters. Our oh-so-superior friends in Europe and Japan aren’t as far behind in the trend towards PRNDL hegemony as they would have us believe. Combine the weight of marketplace preference with the increasing difficulty involved in making a stick-shift meet emissions regulations, and it becomes easy to understand why manufacturers are making automatic transmissions the only choice for everything besides specialty cars. A clutch pedal is perilously close to becoming an actual luxury item in today’s market. Does that turn this twenty-two-grand base-ish Fusion into a luxury car? Hell no.

The Mazda3’s performance has always kept it a step ahead of the other economy cars on the market. However, as Mazda’s worked to differentiate their econobox from cookie-cutter Cobalts, Corollas and Civics visually, they’ve tweaked it from “different” to “borderline bizarre.” They say, “beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bones.” Has Mazda gone too far, or is the 2010 Mazda3s Sport still good enough underneath to make you overlook its sheet metal shortcomings?

In a very short time, Hyundai has made an amazing transformation from basket case to the automotive equivalent of a “nice girl” – dependable, easy to live with, and undemanding. But can Hyundai get its nice girls to do tequila shots and dance on tables from time to time? The conventional wisdom was that the much-heralded Genesis sedan and coupe would be the Hyundais that bucked the trend, but they were variations on the same old Hyundai theme. As it turns out, the rebel Hyundai is an unlikely one – the Elantra Touring, a five door hatchback version of the Elantra sedan. Unlike the sedan, which has all the excitement of C-SPAN, the European-developed Touring has the same eager, quick-to-corner, drive-me-until-I-cry-uncle feel that you normally find in a Mazda 3, with the interior space of a midsize sedan and hatchback practicality tossed in as part of the deal.

The giant panda has been largely unchanged for millions of years. Evolution made some nips and tucks, but mostly let the species be. Perhaps because the design is right. Strong, capable, cute as . . . well . . . as a Mini Cooper, also largely unchanged since last we looked. So, is no news good news or has the Mini been left behind?

It may come off as odd to road test a French car in Sweden. Play along because as you’ll soon discover no country’s better-suited for the Renault Kangoo. During my brief sojourn in Sweden, I’ve decided Swedes are the Earth’s most utilitarian people. Nowhere else in the Western world do the women own as few shoes or the men know as few jokes. In automotive terms, the Swedish penchant for simplicity has translated into a decades-long love affair with the most utilitarian of all automotive species: the station wagon. The Kangoo is Renault’s foray into the compact hauler market. On paper, it’s a shoo-in: it’s even uglier than an estate, it’s more practical and it consumes less fuel with the optional diesel engine! In other words, what French car could possibly be more Swedish?

The last four years were rough sailing for Buick’s flagship, having traded its swank Park Avenue home for an understated Swiss bungalow. While its Enclave sibling received a halfhearted Presidential endorsement, Lucerne has been told gently that it has no place in Buick’s future. But you don’t need to be Jim Dollinger to see the silver lining in the Lucerne Super: it stands in sharp contrast to Buick’s confusing dalliances with European chassis and a variety of puny powertrains. Perhaps the Lucerne Super is more than a Buick. It’s the last stand for what was right with the brand.

When I was a small child, I would spend hours sitting in a cardboard box pretending it was a car. Now, I spend hours sitting in a car that pretends it’s a box. As a card carrying cubist, I’m always ready to jump in when a new carton appears. The last time I did that, it was about as traumatic as when my older brother tried to duct-tape me inside my favorite cardboard “ride”. I couldn’t get out of the gen2 Scion xB, and my review left no doubts about it. My progeny liked the Kia Soul, but it’s not a real genuine box. But a new package has arrived at the local Nissan dealer, named Cube, no less. So how does it square up?

There’s a big difference between myself and Lotus founder Colin Chapman. When I change a flat tire, I find that I have two lug nuts left over. Chapman could create fully functioning sports/racing cars out of the detritus found in the average kitchen junk drawer. One-handed. While sipping tea. The Lotus Seven—later Super 7—is perhaps the best-known and longest-lasting example of his Frankensteinian genius. Debuting in 1957 and running on to 1973 (when Caterham Cars grabbed the baton), the 7 has undergone decades of continuous development. Yet is essentially the same vehicle that Chapman created. And none the worse for it.

The process of writing a car review often feels like creating a “Mad Lib”. TTAC readers old enough to have taken a long road trip in the pre-GameBoy era may remember Mad Libs; they are little booklets with blanks for nouns, verbs, proper names, and so on. One person comes up with the nouns and verbs, another person writes them into the blanks, and hilarity ensues. Car and Driver appears to be almost entirely written by Mad Lib nowadays, but those oh-so-seductive English big-format car rags aren’t above doing a little fill-in-the-blank action themselves.

One of the least publicized aspects of the “New” GM is how much of the old company remains on the books. More to the point, bad ideas with new window dressings still reign (Cutlass) supreme. But not the new 2006—sorry, 2010—Chevrolet Camaro: this idea had the right stuff. On paper. In the real world?

First impressions last. Except when they don’t. A few years back, I didn’t think the new-generation Accord was all that special. The enlarged Honda mid-sizer did the monkey-making thing; ascending the sales charts to become America’s top-selling mid-size family sedan. My first impression of Kia’s all-new Forte: it’s a hit. The Kia Forte’s a cheap (as in inexpensive), safe, somewhat stylish, fuel-efficient sedan that transports up to four adults in perfect comfort, without driving like a penalty box. In fact, this car is good enough that it could be a turnaround product for Kia, which has struggled to establish its place on the American automotive scene. But will it? What am I, psychic?

Down on the showroom floor, the guys talk about the “Needs-Payoff:” trying to turn a customer’s perceived need into a coveted sale. This marketing concept finds its Ford translation in the highly anticipated solution, the Transit Connect. The Blue Oval Boyz see gold in them there panel vans—assuming gas prices go north of the three dollar mark as their number crunchers and street-walking doom preachers predict. Gas prices be damned; the Transit Connect screams success for many self-made citizens, provided they don’t carry more than 1600lbs or tow anything to bring home the bacon.