Lamar

An upscale vehicle with some sporting pretensions ("sport-injected") doesn't translate to "primarily a performance vehicle."

Some of you mentioned parents earlier. If I can share my wife's career experiences (she teaches 8th grade math), she often has students who slack off and do little to nothing (in some cases, literally nothing). Some of them are trying to be lazy so they can look cool like their friends who also do nothing, but their parents care and they set them straight after a phone call from teacher. The rest of the do-nothings have parents who don't seem to give a flying crap either, so nothing happens with them. Obviously she doesn't want the students to fail, but her enthusiasm and desire for the students to be successful can never override the students' lack of desire to even pick up a pencil and write one scratch in their notes. And the sad thing is that society will blame her and teachers like her instead of the parents not instilling the value of education or even the students themselves who are growing into the age of accountability.

It's weird... if you get one pre 07, you have to deal with the AT grenading itself. If you get an 07-08, you have to deal with driving a CVT. You could always search out a 6th gen Maxima with a 6MT.

It'd be only one of two compact sedans in the USA to be offered with one, and the only US-built one. Hey, why not.

If it's from before 07, he's ok.

Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Black, and ultra-clean. Would have gotten a picture, but the camera on my phone is garbage.

What year Maxima? That was the generation where they switched from the 5AT to the CVT during the MCE.

Forgot all about that. Good call. I guess I made that statement since there won't be an E63 AMG coupe (for whatever reason). My mom of all people wants an S5.

Not as sexy as the A5/S5, but still a clean design IMO. Basically a C-Class sedan minus two doors. I have no problem with this car. Also, I expect no AMG version.

Sounds like what happened to my wife's old Intrepid before we let it disappear.

Saw a CTS coupe in the wild. First one, really. Not bad looking at all. Tail end is still too high though.

Sounds good. When there was a possibility of me moving to Philly, I was (via the internet) looking at places in the Manayunk area. It's nice to know that my efforts wouldn't have been misguided.

This.

I often lament the loss of the column shifter in these vehicles. But maybe the automakers figure that people will shift their vans manumatically enough to warrant the setup they have...? Only one of these that I've sat in is the Quest. Nice interior design, but the seat fabric (I sat in the SV model, second lowest) leaves something to be desired.

A Sorento with an X5 grille insert. When I saw it, I thought it was a Chery or Brilliance. But then I remembered that this is still America.

That's right... I said VW AG won, and somehow I forgot all about the Chrysler ad. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Car-related: VW AG gets the win tonight. Non-car-related: Joan Rivers in GoDaddy.co. DO NOT WANT.

Oh yeah... and a BMW 3 Series convertible with no badges but an //M put in the wrong place. Sounded like there was some considerable supercharging going on under the hood.

I don't think you can go wrong with any of those. With the Passat W8, you'll have something relatively rare. And probably the most familiar to you. (EDIT: There is that pending investigation for engine fires, but at the moment it's just an investigation.) The 300M is the best looking sedan Chrysler has built in my lifetime. In my opinion, of course. The 3 Series and TL are cool, but are bordering on a-dime-a-dozen status. Don't know if that matters much to you or not. And, of course, I'm partial to the Bonneville. I would have bought an SSEi or GXP if I were able to find one at the time.

I keep seeing this same Lincoln Blackwood driving around town. Also, sat in a Nissan Quest yesterday.

And no such deals exist here for either car.

Except modernity. And the fact that you're not driving the same car as many cops. And a more powerful engine than anything offered in the Impala. The average customer looking at the EPA numbers of a car isn't going to think "hey, I can get more out of that than the sticker says." They're gonna see that the Impala 3.5L is much weaker than that of the 3.5L and only barely gets better EPA numbers. And, to be fair, there's nothing stopping anyone from getting into the low 30s with a Taurus either... hence the term "your mileage may vary." Considering the Impala (officially) starts at $24,395 and the Taurus starts at $25,355, that's only a $960 difference. I don't believe in comparing a sticker price to an incentive-discounted price.

A REALLY old Ford convertible, fully restored and clean as a whistle. I couldn't tell you what model it was, but it was almost certainly built in the '30s. On the modern end: Couple of new Cruzes. They were coming opposite me, so I couldn't tell which model they were. Couple of new Jettas. Couple of Fiestas, though both sedans. And a Nissan Juke that keeps on driving around campus. Happens to me too.

Tough call. Ask me again when the 8AT comes out.

Thanks for the pics, DF. Autoblog has its review up for the car as well. I actually saw their interior pics not long before you posted yours.