Good: BMW and Chevy

I love the longevity of BMWs given proper care. I've had a couple and gave both away to charity still running fantastic at 280k and 340k miles respectively. All I had to do was adjust the valves, change the oil and replace basic stuff. Other than that? Totally trouble-free. Too bad they switched the styling to broaden their appeal.

I've always appreciated Chevys and they have great reliability. But the best part really is that they are relatively easy to work on and have a lot of interchangeable parts. I like modifying vehicles to incorporate mad scientist experiments, and Chevies are great for that.

Bad: Dodge

I'm sorry, but they suck IMHO. Dodge automatic transmissions are crap. I've dropped tons of 'em. And anything with 4WD? Forget it! Dodge 4WD is a joke. Total money pits.

Great masculine styling though! Trouble is, they are like a provider with an appearance score of 10 and "I should have stayed home" performance.

You know what I wanna do?

I want to make a car that runs on steam, kind of like the Stanley Steamer. I've built a couple of steam engines for other things, and I think they'd be great in cars.

you (or someone you know) could fix your own cars (for the most part).
Back then, GM had 3 lines of cars (Olds Cutlass', Buick Regals and Chev Montecarlo's) that had completely interchangable parts (minor differences).
Those days are so gone!!

Me, I have an '87 Buick Regal GN; dyno'd 580hp.
I can fix/repair anything on that car (other than tranny internals).
Same with my '85 Vette (currently rebuilding; will be 440 rwhp).
Think the hobby's expensive?
Try finding/paying for (well-known) performance parts on a 25+ yo vehicle.
Oh, and my 'good MPG' vehicle is an '04 Chev 3500, dually, crew-cab with Duramax/Allison.
Gets 20 MPG on the highway!

Fast cars/hot women = heaven!!

Prospective: Some of the ladies here aren't as old as my cars!!

Not in the Auto industry (does illegal street racing count?) but sometimes I think I should have been. I love cars.

I concur about Jaguar; total fucking piece of shit. Never again.

Have had a Camry forever, the perpetual winter beater back up plan car. I don't like it that much, it's a 4cyl econo box, but it takes the cake for reliability. All those cold mornings the Jaguar wouldn't start - Camry fired right up. It sits for months at a time, fires right up. 200k on the odometer - Camry fires right up.

73k - Jaguar needs a new tranny? Fuck that, SOLD. I spit on the memory of it. I want to buy it back, just so I can set it on fire, push it off a cliff, piss on it, and drop a nuke on it's charred, rusting carcass. I fucking hate that car.  

The ol' Camry looks like shit now, it was made before I even had a license. But I've never considered selling it, because whenever I have a problem with whatever other car/cars I own at the time...fires right up.

I'm more into high performance vehicles, particularly American Muscle. I have a lead foot and a love of speed. The foxbody 5.0 ragtop currently serves that need for me. Love it.  That bitch moves.

Regal limited for street racing...er...I mean...getting places quickly... 350 pulled from a Suburban, 3 speed turbo tranny, dual pozis, 750 cfi double pumper, yada yada doesn't run at the moment, I beat on it too much, but next summer, will be leaving skid marks for blocks once again.

77 T-bird all original - fuck sasquatch, this thing has the carbon foot print of Paul Bunyan. Better MPG out of a lumber truck. It's quick for it's size though, and rides like a Caddy. Looks more classy than sporty but I dig it.

G35 right now for more practical purposes. The jury is still out on that one. Had a QX4 for a while, no complaints.

Get to drive the bosses SL6 now and then. Nice ride, wouldn't want to have to fix it though. Look under the hood and it's like I'm staring at a complex algebra equation.  

but it rides and drives like brand new, and it's needed no major repairs yet (knock on wood)

They don't make the Park Ave anymore so I don't know what my next car will be.

I just hope this one rides forever.

and I've always done my homework before buying a car. Well, except for that one time with the Mazda RX3.

Outstanding rides-
1966 Volvo PV544. Man, Volvos from this era were great cars. Incredibly easy to work on and very well made.

1986 Nissan Frontier SE5 V6. Sold it with about 250000 miles on it 8 years ago and it ran great for another 5-6 years after that for the guy.

1999 Toyota Camry 4 cyl- still running great with 250,000 on it. 35 MPG on the HWY

1998 Toyota Tacoma 4 cyl- almost 300,000 on it and aside from a little roughness at idle it runs like new. It looks like shit and smells like dogs but it made a trip to Cali and back a few months ago with no trouble at all and got 28 MPG on the trip.

1992 Infiniti G20- Didn't have it long enough to tell whether it was a great car or not but my daughter was driving it when she hit the median barrier on the interstate at about 80 mph and was then rearended by a van. There was nothing left unmangled on the car except the cockpit. When I saw the car, I almost puked because it looked like no one could have come out of that alive but all she had was a few bruises. People who think older cars are safer because they are heavier and don;t crumple are woefully misinformed.

POS rides-

The aforementioned 1976 RX3. It was fun to drive and quick but those early rotaries were terrible as far as longevity. The seats sucked, too.

Every Ford product I ever had. My FIL worked for Ford so we got some sweet deals through the 80s and early 90s on real POS vehicles. Stats show they are much better now but I'll stick with Japanese for the foreseeable future.

Every MG/Austin product I ever owned- 4 total. Man, owning these things was like going to auto tech school. The positive ground added another dimension of interest if you wanted to add some cool updates like an 8 Track player.

I haven't bought a set of tires in over twenty years. I'd rather just change cars. lol

I hate to admit, I pay no attention to gas mileage either, but you can chalk that up to my profession as an oil producer. lmao

Personally I have driven Cadillacs for the last couple of decades, my toy right now is an XLRV, but with the advent of "Government Motors" I think I am due for a change. Maybe it's time for an Italian car? I am also intrigued by the Porsche "Panamera", it's a four door with great lines to it.

I bought a brand new Range Rover about 14 years ago.   It was great driving for the first 50K.  Between 50K and 100K just about everything that can go wrong with a vehicle did.  Thank God I had an extended warranty.  It was once in the shop for 2 months.  I'll never buy another one.   Rich folks buy them becuase they trade in their cars before they ever reach the 50K point, so they never have to deal with the fall out.  I, however, keep my cars as long as possible.  Hence, I experienced all that is the failure of Range Rover.   At least it did not spontaneously combust.  Some have.

got $4500 under "cash for clunkers" when the blue-book value was $1500-1800.  This SUV had over 100,000 miles and minimal maintenance in over 12 years of ownership.  Note:  I'm not an Obama fan but I benefited from the program.

My wife recently surprised me with some info on purchasing a 'Shelby'. Life is good. Bring on the police chases. LOL

Audi has got to be the worst!!!!!!

I never pass up a chance to bitch about my Audi A4 Quattro 2002.  I feel for all you VW, Audi, and Porsche people, cause they are all part of the same crappy car company somehow, kinda like Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus, Nissan/Infinity.  In any case most of my family had a Honda, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, and all were fine with them.  But my dumb ass wanted something different, so I got an Audi.  There slogan "Lead not Follow"---lead me to the poor house constantly fixing that POS, and i had to take it to the dealership 99% of the time cause I was traveling around the US and didn't know any trustworthy mechanics, or ones that even wanted to touch it.

Some of the places i worked at, people didn't even know what kind of a car it is.  Even got pulled over by a cop one time because of a bad tail light and he even was wondering what kind of a car it was.  He even asked and called it "the Olympic car" because of the overlapping four ring symbol on the grill and trunk. LMAO....

I even called the customer support and bitched at the person on the other end of the line saying "You've pissed off the wrong demographic.  I'm a thirty year old who will be buying cars for the next thirty years, and most of my friends are thirty year olds coming into some money, who will also be buying cars for the next thirty plus years, and none of them will be buying Audi's.  Not only that, but by me traveling around the country I've told people on both coasts and the 20 or so states i've been to in between the Atlantic and Pacific not to buy Audi's"  

Now I'm telling anybody that want to read this and believe my testamony "Don't buy and Audi.  I actually think it means crap in German!!!!!."  LOL

Okat I feel better now.