Also something like this is an exception.

That company does all sorts of fabrication and support for real classic Ferraris, but they also built their own replica of a series 2 250 GTO from scratch and they bring it to track days and all sorts of events and actually drive it hard on track.

That's ok, because it gives people a chance to see what that would be like without all the millions at risk.

On the other hand the owner of the real 250 SWB Breadvan does the same thing, and there's only one of those and it actually is worth somewhere over 20 million.

Also as far as production volume and years in production I doubt the total numbers of the Sagaris equal even a few months of Corvette production in any given year

The Atom can be sold here, but not imported whole, it has to be imported in parts and registered as a kit car.

That isn't a car at all.

Yeah, and the Slingshot is registered as a motorcycle, so that's about as relevant to this conversation as a scooter.

It doesn't have to meet any car related regulations.

Well in the UK the Atom isn't a kit car, you get it factory assembled.

Well the main thing with the Atom is that they can't be imported, so all of the ones on the road here are actually built in the US under license by another brand, but it is an official deal with Ariel so the end result is the same.

There might be some kind of production volume limit, but I don't know what it is offhand.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/automobiles/25REGISTER.html

Well there's some details

If they even let you read that in your country

In some cases, the extra effort becomes necessary when registering an Atom for use on public roads. In contrast to Britain, where Atoms are street-legal nationwide, requirements vary widely from state to state.

In Virginia, an Atom can be registered like a typical car, according to Mark Swain of TMI Auto Tech, the American distributor. In other states, “the difference is often in the paperwork,” Mr. Swain said. He added that other Atom owners — there are about 300 in the United States — form a network that can provide useful state-by-state information about registration.

In Florida and Texas, an Atom can be registered as a “kit car,” just like a home-built hot-rod, even if it purchased completely finished.

Continue reading the main story
But New York State has stricter rules for registering a low-volume sports car for street use, making the build-it-yourself option the only choice for anyone who intends to drive an Atom on the street.

In New York, the customer must buy the Atom as a rolling chassis and have the drivetrain installed separately. Then he or she can apply to register the car as “homemade or unique,” in the parlance of the New York Department of Motor Vehicles. If the application is approved, a safety inspection is conducted at an official vehicle inspection station.

This is from 2010, it's possible they've come up with a workaround since then.

But yeah, in some states you can buy it like any other car.

And now the company that builds them here is using the Honda engines, for a while they were using Ecotec ones.

Well the price difference alone would work in favor of it.

I'd rather have the BAC Mono than either, but that has a legitimate supercar price.

Lotus 7, 7 seater

Yeah, the Radical stuff is all awesome, and not road legal here.

Lol

At least they exist so I can drive them in video games. I also just love the idea of the small displacement high revving V8s. That kind of powerplant was common in racing in the 60s and it's great to see a modern equivalent.

There is literally nothing to the interior aside from the screen, it's a completely blank slate with no styling or thought put into it, with a fat iPad in the middle to replace everything that would have actually required real consideration.

Yeah, well with the highest of the high end Luxury vehicles, I feel like they've actually given some thought to future proofing the designs, even as far as the interiors.

The Chiron doesn't even have a separate navigation screen besides what's behind the steering wheel.

Same with the Audi R8.

And the Bentley can make it go away because they realize some day it will just be garbage anyway.

But Telsa is making intentionally disposable crap for people who want disposable crap.

The idea of a screen you have to look at with no feedback to control every operation of a car is insane to me, and also inherently unsafe.

I mean even before this became a huge thing with cars I already had this feeling as a photographer.

The higher end bodies always had the most physical buttons to handle all the functions, so you could keep the camera at your eye and change every setting without ever having to dig through menus.

And with lower end bodies there as a trend towards "minimalist" designs that get rid of as many buttons as possible and replace them with a touch screen menu which is actually way more cumbersome to use. The high end bodies might have added touch screen functionality now, but they still keep all the buttons too.

With cars it's exactly the same way, these "minimalist" interiors are actually outright less useful, buttons for different functions are a good thing, and more efficient.

Using a Model 3 style screen as no better than looking at your phone while driving.

Yeah, it's absolutely cheaper, and it's worse, and a cop out to actually try to claim it's better.

On some cameras you can also flip the touch screen around to hide it with a plain panel instead too, basically the same thing Bentley did.

Well technically it does have a couple of built in cameras.

Now the general population has been completely sold on the idea that a touch screen is the best interface for doing literally everything, pretty much just based on the success of smartphones and tablets, but outside of that it isn't very good at all. It's not even the best interface for using a desktop PC, let alone a car or a camera or countless other items that would logically have physical buttons on them.

Well I'd rather spend $35,000 on that clock than a Model 3.

At least it will be made well.

Yeah, that's just another case of making a claim before knowing if there's any way to actually make it true.

Yeah, I mean I'd rather have anything else for that money

Well they finally managed to start making more than 5k Model 3s a week, but definitely not when they said they would, and at the expense of the workers and the quality of the product, and they're definitely not actually making any profit.

The only reason the company still exists is grants and investors.

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/08/01/tesla-v9-classic-atari-games-camping-party-autopilot/

Relevant to this discussion, literally the car for someone who wants their car to be the same as their phone.

Oops, the link is already there, didn't see it go through.

Also that really doesn't help his cause for wanting more US vehicles to be sold overseas. They're gonna have to meet euro emissions standards for that anyway.

Yeah, but another big Trump sticking point lately is how many Euro cars sell in the US vs US cars selling there. That's his reasoning behind these tarrif threats. Rolling back emissions laws is totally at odds with successfully selling more American cars overseas. Which is a pipe dream anyway because the cars were never meant to appeal to that market.

Also clearly defining what a US vehicle is would be hard enough in itself and doesn't fit in with that simplistic idea. Several European brands make more cars in the US than they even sell here. Plenty of US branded cars are imported or based on global platforms.

But the kind of big displacement cars and SUVs that are the staple here aren't gonna be very appealing when you actually have to deal with taxes related to displacement.

Yeah, the state the import/export traded has ended up in naturally is based on countless factors. You can't force it to suddenly be different. Especially with an extremely basic understanding of US vs foreign cars.

The current Mustangs are the best they've been since the 60s and early 70s. Outside of the US they're definitely a novelty though

Well last time I was in the UK I saw one total over a period of 3 weeks

Yeah, not in terms of being good.

The car is good for sure, but doesn't sell in high numbers.

Compared to being here, I'll go outside and see like 5 Mustangs if I walk a couple of blocks.

Well the difference with the GT-R, and also the 370Z for that matter, is Nissan came out with these high performance cars with the idea of really revamping the brand image. Now the current GT-R platform has been on the market for 11 years with very minor updates, same with the 370Z. It's like they forgot they even still make them.

Yeah, fuel cost plus displacement tax, I guess if someone in the UK is wealthy enough to not care about either of those things they'd rather have some big displacement car that's actually not an everyday car.

Yeah, I mean this is pretty much what I was getting at, there's a whole load of factors contributing to these kinds of cars not selling well there, and a 10% import tax is a very small part of the total picture.

The current generation of Mustangs and a lot of othe comparable American cars actually have nice interiors now too, for years that was always the big slam against cars like the Mustang and Corvette vs. rivals.

But they've addressed that pretty well.

At least for the price of the cars.

I imagine that has even less chance of doing well

Even bigger heavier car with bigger displacement

Yeah, I figure at least the Ford badge is still well respected.

Haha, yeah none of those are even sold here.

Yeah, some of those were sold here, like the Aveo, but none of those names.

No they sure wouldn't, especially not if light trucks were included.

Haha

That does seem like a very poor choice of sponsorship, especially in a sport with huge Patriotism associated with it.

McLaren

Aston Martin is also independent now, I mean a lot of their money comes from investors, but they're not owned by any other automotive group.

Aston Martin is not a subsidiary of anything.

They have a partnership with AMG, they're not owned by them.

They're just using them as a supplier.

Well the V12s are made by them, the Vantage V8s are the AMG engine now.

But even when they were under Ford ownership the Ford Duratec based V12 was made in Germany.

Out of all the existing or actually successful British brands McLaren is probably the most independent.

Which is funny since they have the least history making road cars.

Ok, unrelated, you have to take a long road trip, you have to choose a car that weighs over 4500lbs. What do you pick?

Oh, that existed for a very specific reason.

Well I actually have done a long road trip in a Yukon Denali and it was pretty good.

So those are all solid choices.

The Aston Martin Cygnet is a rebadged variant of the Toyota/Scion iQ marketed by Aston Martin beginning with model year 2011—enabling Aston Martin to comply with the 2012 European Union-imposed fleet average emissions regulations.

Basically they made that thing while they were making the One-77 and other fat V12 cars in order to get their overall emissions levels down to where they needed to be.

Now they don't need it since they switched to a bunch of more modern all turbo engines and phased out the old NA ones.

It also sold terribly for obvious reasons.

I think one was included when people bought the One-77.

I believe that, the Sequoia is massive in other dimensions, I know someone who has one and it practically touches the ceiling of his garage.

If I had a daughter I would not want her driving around in a Toyota iQ in among normal sized vehicles.

Yeah pretty much the definition of a city car, on a highway that's one of the last things I'd wanna be in.

I would take that V8 Cygnet they made though, just because it's hilarious

It's not even especially light after the conversion, just physically tiny.

I forgot about the Mulsanne, I never see those.

I guess I have seen it in Manhattan Motorcars but that's about it.