In a Question of the Day post earlier this month, Matthew Guy inquired about the manufacturer which had the greatest number of great cars in their company’s history.

Today we’re going to flip it, and talk about all the awful things. Prepare your fingers for the incoming salt.

Advice time. My friend wants (though she might say “needs”) a truck, and the choice is narrowed down to two prospects, each competing for midsize pickup supremacy.

Can you help her make a decision?

Without getting deep into the emotional weeds of a contentious scientific debate, one which many would argue we’re not even allowed to have, let’s instead speak in broader terms. Emissions are bad. Always were. They’ll get you in trouble with the EPA and force you to promise fleets of electric cars while funding ads featuring your competitors. They blanket China in orange gloom to this day and once nearly suffocated an entire Pennsylvania town.

The true harmfulness of these emissions, of course, depends on your own personal views — even more so these days. In the past two decades, possibly because of progress on the pollution front, the climate-altering ingredients of emissions (methane, carbon dioxide) quickly superseded the direct health impacts of airborne pollutants like nitrogen oxide, hydrogen fluoride, and sulfur dioxide in the minds of many North American citizens and policymakers. Smog? You can see that. Was that tornado or flood a natural occurrence or did it have “help”? That’s less tangible, more opaque. Easy to ignore.

Still, the effect of this switch in green priorities on discourse surrounding the automobile (and ownership thereof) remains the same. We’re often asked to choose sides.

Wintery weather gripped many parts of North America over the past week, as the snowman arrived earlier than expected. Seeing all the accompanying gross photos got me thinking about driving in winter, which is of course where we all shine … and everyone else is awful.

Except for when we’re actually awful ourselves. Let’s talk about winter weather driving experiences.

Want to feel good about yourself? Scratch the surface of an outwardly successful, right-thinking person and peer inside. Needle them just a bit about a topic that should be mundane — politics, for example — and watch the quaking begin. Watch the dam crack and the deluge pour forth. The emotion, the spittle-flecked ranting, the complete irrationality. The rage. Glad you’re not like that person, aren’t you?

(Note: this will only make you feel better about yourself if you’re a relatively even-keeled individual and your sparring partner isn’t wildly affluent.)

Now, flip the equation and replace your previous role with a car. That’s the situation many of us find ourselves in at one time or another — rendered inconsolable by one too many quirks, hiccups, or full-on meltdowns of our unthinking driving partner. The vehicle we pour money into, and get depreciation and varying levels of service in return. Sometimes, it’s enough to make a peaceful man violent.

Admit it. Have you ever battered your car?

It’s a not entirely inaccurate trope that most auto journos prefer brown, manual, diesel-powered station wagons. Or at least prefer the weirdest version of a mainstream model. Witness my inexplicable preference for old S60 Cross Country. We’re an odd bunch.

Wagons have been seen as the offbeat choice for years in this country. Our question to you today is: Why?

Yesterday’s peek at the can’t-get-it-here Volkswagen Tarok got me thinking about the little trucks we’re not allowed to have anymore. You people buy too many F-150s, etc, you see, for domestic automakers to consider building wee pickups again, though we’ve been rewarded with a growing field of not-so-tiny midsizers, complete with upper midsize pricing. Pull up to a new Colorado in an old S-10 and be awed (and emasculated) by the difference in size.

Though capable and roomy enough for a young family, for some these new offerings might still represent too much truck. And, unlike in some markets, we can’t move down a rung on the ladder to find a snugger fitting pair of work boots. Nor can we bring those vehicles here. It’s entirely debatable whether American consumers — who’ve become used to having it all — would want to in this day and age, but we’re not here to talk about the average consumer. We’re talking about you, fella.

In a QOTD post last week, we opened up our memory banks and recalled the days of driver’s ed; the bumpy road we all took to become the car fans we are today. But the dangerous driving moments never end at the learner’s permit or license.

Today we want to know the closest call you’ve ever had.

There’s little question this is a pretty good time to be a gearhead. Dodge is doling out cars featuring 840 horsepower with full factory warranties. McLaren seemingly manufactures a new rocket ship every other day, with the Speedtail following the Senna following the 720S following the … well, you get the picture.

Which brings us to a very good question: Which manufacturer – past or present – is responsible for cranking out the largest number of great cars?

A change is gonna come, the song goes, and it may as well be playing for all cars popular enough to avoid an abrupt discontinuation two or three years after their launch. Those sorry rides never got a chance to spawn a second generation or undergo a styling change. For the vast majority of car models, however, a design refresh halfway through a development cycle is the norm.

Be it a barely noticeable tweak or a full-on face transplant, rare is the OEM that doesn’t toss out a few bucks to make an older car look newer (or at least different). Different, it should be noted, does not always mean better. Sometimes the operation fails. Unlike a face transplant, in this scenario it’s other people who reject the new tissue.

Each one of you here in the peanut gallery learned to drive at one point or another. And whether that was via a proper driving school, or, perhaps for the older types, at the wheel of a friend or relative’s car, the memories are there just the same. Today we talk driver’s education and the car which withstood your naive mistreatment. It’s story time.

The SEMA show kicks off today in Vegas, not that any of the general public will be allowed to wander inside the convention center halls. Bizarrely, given the amount of money spent in the aftermarket every year by real people, SEMA is a trade event and only those toiling in the automotive aftermarket industry are deemed worthy of a badge.

I digress. There’s a very good chance that most of us, especially in our younger years, spend our hard earned cash on very suspect and — in retrospect — totally embarrassing aftermarket gear for our rides.

I can’t claim to know what Millennials want — I don’t consider myself a member of that particular cohort. Depending on the source, I’m either one year into that demographic or one year removed, but given that my circle of friends starts at about five years my junior and tops out at 20 years my senior, I’ll accept one older aquaintence’s assertion that I’m “the ragged edge of Generation X.”

That said, social media makes one a sometimes unwilling observer of this curious group of people and, amid their incessant political tweeting, the Millennial’s automotive angst emerges. Basically, cars are too expensive, OEMs have abandoned them, and the Boomers stole their future. And I thought Gen-Xers were supposed to be miserable grumps.

What automotive balm would soothe these pains?

Right around this time last week, we featured a QOTD about the most boring car you’d ever driven. Searching through your memories for a boring car was apparently very easy, as nearly 200 comments quickly gathered together to cover all things boring and car.

Today, we’ll head the opposite direction and talk about driving excitement.

If you’re living at low altitudes in the Southeastern U.S. or a partial day’s drive from the Gulf Coast, this Question of the Day is not for you. Barring exceptionally wacko weather, denizens of these temperate climes needn’t worry about traction loss caused by the solidification of moisture below 32F. In other words, snow, slush, and ice of both the regular and insurance-hiking black variety.

For those of who who do live in regions where Mother Nature delivers an annual cold shoulder, we’re getting close to decision time. What’s your style: turn your beautiful, meticulously upkept vehicle into a cheap-looking rig for the duration of winter with a set of bare steelies and meaty donuts, or keep style and handling alive with a snazzy set of low-profile winter tires wrapped around sporty aluminum hoops?

We’re an odd bunch around here, as I’m sure you’ll agree. Some of the B&B are pretty far into the field as well. It what makes this place tick, as it has for years.

The tastes of your authors run the gamut, from weird old hatchbacks to strange sedans. Any mention of Oldsmobile causes heart palpitations in more than a few names listed on our masthead.

What machine causes you to, despite perplexed looks from your companions, to break out the camera on your smartphone? For me, it was a GM A-Body just two days ago.

A tweet inspired me to write this. Hey, stop running away! This has nothing to do with Elon Musk or Tesla or #mobility. Well, mobility in the nerdy, Jim-Hackett-on-a-Bird-scooter sense, anyway.

Yesterday, Corey Lewis took to social media to drip saliva all over a large, dignified, rear-drive, V8-powered sedan (or at least one that can be configured as such). This vehicle brought together enough pleasing elements, enough ingrained appeal, to cause our picky resident perfectionist to cast a sultry online gaze at this seldom-seen contemporary sedan.

No doubt about it, I shared Corey’s feelings towards this car. It looks good, it’s a comparative bargain in its class, and it will make a great used vehicle one day thanks to depreciation that’s surely greater than that of its German and Japanese competitors. And yet it’s one of those available vehicles that never turns up in real life. To me, it may as well be a ghost that exists on the internet and in the pages of magazines. It is a vehicle I only laid eyes on once, 26 months ago, at a first (and perhaps last) drive event.

Ah yes, boring cars. They’re everywhere. And really they’ve been everywhere in the past. It’s just the nature of the Internet Car Enthusiast to paint a rosier picture than that of reality. His or her tinted spectacles are very cheap, by the way. Just like they’re supposed to be.

But enough about designer frames from Walmart. Tell us about the most boring car you’ve ever encountered.

A certain Lincoln owner I know was forced back to the dealership yesterday. The problem? A worrying diagnostic message on his crossover’s gauge cluster. Don’t worry, he’s covered, and the trip offered him a chance to roll outta there with all the swagger of John Shaft — surrounded by all the opulence a Ford Fusion platform can carry.

Naturally, this man, who we’ll call Adam T. (or A. Tonge, whatever he prefers) jumped at the chance to pilot a Continental loaner for a couple of days. Who can blame him? It remains an intriguing, plush sedan that unfortunately garners fewer buyers with each passing month. As he triumphantly posted images in our Slack chatroom, a conversation sprung up around a feature common to all present-day Lincolns, something for which no one can muster much enthusiasm: the push-button shifter.

In the Continental, the placement of the buttons just to the left of the center touchscreen calls to mind a bank of radio presents and generally seems out of place. Lincoln’s not giving up on this, however. So, if buttons there must be, where and how would you like to press them?

Sure, let’s start with week with a political question. Why not? It’s not like we’ve never had an opinion or two around here (that goes for both the writers and readers).

Last week, noise was being made and digital ink was being spilled concerning the issue of ethanol. What do you want to see in your tank?

Yesterday’s story on the lopsided growth, such as it is, of the new vehicle market clearly shows that sub-$20,000 vehicles are an endangered animal. Big shocker. That space is taken up mostly with cars, and, for a number of reasons, people just aren’t buying cars like they used to. As such, many automakers are having second thoughts about building them.

You’re already well aware that red hot, high-riding alternatives are not as easy on the pocketbook.

Nevertheless, here and now, there’s a decision to be made. You’re being asked to choose a new vehicle that costs less than $20,000 without the help of incentives. Which entrée from this meager menu would you add to your plate?

This week is the third and final installment of our QOTD series about cornering the used car market and finding the most bang for the buck.

We’re going all out for this finale, and giving you plenty of money to shop.

Like faces in the community, the passing of each year bring the appearances of new car models and the disappearance of old, familiar ones. Product changeover is constant. Picking up a just-released model ensures you’ll be seen driving a “new” car until refresh time rolls around, or, if you’re something of an oddball, until the unpopular vehicle that tickled your automotive fancy gets prematurely chopped from the lineup.

It’s nice getting into a model that’s destined to look relatively fresh for three or four years, but it’s also nice getting a deal and saving yourself some coin when dealers want that old (and possibly executed) model gone. Would it bother you to find yourself in the second camp?

With average transaction prices marching steadily northwards, thanks to the outsized Monroneys of pickup trucks and large SUVs, the internet is awash with digital ink bemoaning that the “average” American can’t afford a new car anymore.

We’ll leave that particular fulmination for another day. Now, however, we’ll put a question to you: with ATPs in the mid-$30k range, let’s round it up to an even $40,000. What single car, truck, or SUV would you buy for that sum?

If you haven’t noticed, disillusionment is spreading rapidly through the population, and it’s afflicting young people the most. It’s based around a particular inequality in America that people in overseas countries can’t quite fathom. To them, it’s hard to believe Far Western governments would deny their citizens such a freedom.

We’re talking about the Suzuki Jimny, of course — a wee little Japanese body-on-frame, live-axle, two-door utility vehicle that’s just now entering its fourth generation. It debuted in 1970. A week’s perusal of social media posts tells me a subset of youngins don’t want glitzy show cars and promises of autonomous driving and touchscreens as wide as a sumo wrestler’s midriff. They want a small, basic, considerably inexpensive utility vehicle with respectable ruggedness and capability, but they can’t have it.

No. Fair.

In last week’s Part 1 of this three-part QOTD series, we asked you to scan through the old brain box and offer up good examples of used cars for the budget-minded motorist, keeping your purchase within a stringent $8,000 budget. Today you’ll get a more generous sum of money, but you’ll also find yourself subject to heightened buyer expectations.

Let’s pick out some really tremendous used cars.

“Peace is not absence of conflict,” Ronald Reagan once said, “it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”

And so it goes on the world’s roadways, highways, and, depending on your relationship with the neighbors, driveways. After the engineers are done gauging line of sight, measuring stopping distances, and calculating the necessary roadway width and angle for safe passage of a vehicle travelling the speed limit, we’re left to battle it out on the infrastructure laid out for us by city planners.

It’s a lot of responsibility. Maybe one day, perhaps sooner than we think, we’ll look back on such times and wonder how our betters at city hall or the legislature allowed us the ability to fend for ourselves on the road. Men and women, children and youth. Each depending on the closest person in their vicinity to not kill them.

Inevitably, conflict arises. And, increasingly (or so it seems) we’re facing conflict between motorists and a new breed of traveller: the disruptor.

This weekend, someone raised their bidder’s number at Barrett-Jackson in Las Vegas when the auctioneer asked for $58,000. It wasn’t on a Hemi ‘Cuda convertible. Nor was it on a tasty ’70 Chevelle SS. It was on the 1997 Acura Integra Type R you see above.

After buyer’s fees, the new owner shelled out $63,800 for what may very well be the lowest-mileage ITR in existence. Do you think collector’s tastes have shifted? Maybe permanently?

As you read yesterday, Cadillac’s had its fun in New York City and is returning home to the Detroit metro area. Warren, specifically. It probably wouldn’t be fair to say it was chewed up and spit out like a naive bumpkin who travels to the big city, only to suffer the horrifying aftermath of decadence and experimentation. This isn’t Midnight Cowboy.

Nor can we say, without access to some internal info, that is was raging success. The brand remains a work in progress. There’s vehicles on the way that likely still would have been on the way had former brand president Johan de Nysschen, et al, stayed in Detroit. Does the name “Cadillac” ring with a more appealing timbre among the tony enclaves of coastal America? Doubtful.

Let’s assume for a minute that the Greyhound bus carrying Cadillac just pulled into the station, a cold rain falling over the terminal. How does the brand let its friends know it’s back in town?

This week marks the first of a three-part QOTD series where we’ll discuss everyone’s favorite topic here at TTAC: used cars. And for this first installment, we’re on a tight budget.

There’s no debating the fact that I draw far more inspiration from older, classic designs than futuristic ones. Hardly progressive of me, I know. While some want nothing more than to gaze upon an autonomous egg and envision a life where the act of driving gives way to the act of commuting, face buried in smartphone, to me that sounds like a vision of Hell.

That’s why last week’s Peugeot e-Legend concept — an unabashed nod to an attainable French coupe of the 1970s — grabbed my attention. It absolutely looked the part, yet incorporated all of the things we’re supposed to lust after in 2018: autonomy, electric propulsion, etc. Compare the e-Legend to Mercedes-Benz’s Vision URBANETIC. Two takes on the future; one desireable, the other terrifying.

What Peugeot and its “Unboring the future” tagline attempted to do was show we needn’t abandon our emotional connection to a car just because it doesn’t burn gas. Just because it drives itself some of the time. But can anyone trust this rosy vision?

This weekend, Matt brought us news that Porsche is dumping diesel power in wake of the debacle at Volkswagen. Once widely used in Europe (and sometimes widely coveted in the States), diesel fell on hard times after the emissions fiasco.

“Porsche is not demonizing diesel. It is, and will remain, an important propulsion technology,” said Porsche Chief Executive Oliver Blume.

Think he’s accurate? Or do you think other manufacturers will ditch diesel?

You might as well call this post “QOTD: Devil’s Advocate Edition.” I was prepared to feel furious by the time Ford CEO Jim Hackett’s Thursday appearance at the Midwestern Governors Conference wrapped up, and there was good reason why. The subject of the conference involved that dreaded word: mobility.

How will automated technologies change the way we live? That’s what participants wanted to talk about, and you can bet that Hackett was front and center, gabbing about his favorite topic. How will technology alter the way we travel, the way we drive? The hashtag #MGASmartland filtered through my Twitter feed. Certainly, the talk had all the makings of something I’d find depressing. Time to find that red Barchetta and a barn to hide it in.

It didn’t help that the first Hackett quote I saw emerge from the conference was a tired trope urbanists (read: car haters) trot out on a regular basis.

In yesterday’s Buy/Drive/Burn post, we presented three coupes that are sporty, agile, and have over 500 horsepower. Yet each of them fell short of qualifying for supercar status. But why? In today’s QOTD, we’ll spend some time determining the characteristics which separate regular sports cars from supercars.

We’re playing a name game today, and as luck would have it, there’s no wrong answer to this question. As we’ve told you before, Ram has a midsize model on the way, ready to (eventually) do battle with Chevrolet’s Colorado and Toyota’s Tacoma and Ford’s long-awaited-but-not-really-new Ranger. Yes, there’s other midsizers to contend with, too.

Plenty of mystery still surrounding this vehicle, but it’ll apparently appear in roughly two years’ time, suppliers say, and it’ll sport a frame, not a platform. What it doesn’t have right now is a name, or at least one that Fiat Chrysler’s willing to reveal. That’s where you come in.

Just a word of warning about one potential name, though…

There’s not a soul in here who doesn’t, from time to time, go and make a nuisance of themselves in a dealer showroom. I’m not talking about wasting the time of the sales staff, or even helping themselves to copious amounts of free coffee during scheduled maintenance. No, I’m talking about simply wandering through the showroom, looking at all the metal merchandise.

Today, it’s easy. Drive or hoof it down to the brand of choice, examine whatever’s caught our fancy at this minute, and hightail it back out again once the Dealer Principal starts giving you the evil eye. It wasn’t that simple as a kid though, whether it was thanks to being chased out by surly managers or simply living far enough away that one depended on the parental unit to drive them there.

Which brings us to today’s question: what was the first car you remember seeing in a showroom? Given the photo above, one shouldn’t have too much trouble guessing my answer.

I blame Chris Tonn for a minor annoyance that befell me the other day. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was fate. Maybe I jinxed myself.

For reasons immediately lost to the ether, the two of us found ourselves embroiled in a discussion on spare tires. Unlucky when it comes to flats, Chris bemoaned his puncture-filled past as I gloated that, despite years of driving in remote locales, my last flat tire was probably a half-decade ago. Someone or something was listening. Sure enough, just two days later, a rusty nail sliced through my front passenger-side Continental.

He won’t pick up the tab, the jerk. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here.

We started our ranking challenge for every generation of Chevrolet Suburban in last week’s QOTD. That post covered the first through sixth generations, which range from truck with wagon body format to nearly a modern Suburban. Some struggled with the first challenge installment, citing a lack of knowledge and experience with old trucks dating back to the 1930s (you youths!).

Today we’ll rank Suburban generations seven through eleven; undoubtedly these will be much more familiar to many of you.

Comfort comes up as a topic quite often around these parts, and a recent QOTD asked which unlikely vehicle surprised you with its level of coddling and tranquility. We’re definitely not talking about that today.

No, today we’re talking about physical misery so bad, so acute, that it costs an automaker a sale. It’s amazing that, after constructing a vehicle out of thousands of components both major and minor, OEMs sometimes succeed in making a mass-market automobile that’s literally a pain in the ass.

I’ve mentioned the 11th-generation Toyota Corolla and its iM cousin before as glaring examples of “I could never daily drive this,” but in this installment, we’re singling out another very accessible automaker for crimes against vertebrae.

Guilty pleasures. Look, we’ve all got ’em. No, not those. I’m talking about cars and trucks we like … that we’re not supposed to like.

Oddballs? Weirdos? Flat-out strange? Let me give you an example.

This topic keeps worming its way into your author’s brain, and it remains a regular point of discussion in the TTAC Slack chat room. How could it not? Ford announced the demise of its non-Mustang passenger car lineup earlier this year while simultaneously declaring that no customer would be left behind.

No one’s being cut loose from the Ford family, CEO Jim Hackett remarked. Ford’s just reinventing the car. Okay…

Now that Dearborn’s plan to import the lightly crossoverized Focus Active from China has bit the dust, entry-level customers (meaning those without much dough, or those in the mood for downsizing and good fuel economy) can choose from the base, front-drive, three-cylinder EcoSport and not much else. What a choice. Maybe a low-end Escape, if those exist? We’re already well into the $20k range now, before tax, admin, and freight.

We’ve done a couple of ranking challenges before, starting first with the Accord, then the Corvette, and following up a few months later with the Mustang. Today we rank a nameplate which has been in production longer than any of those — in fact, it’s the longest-running in America.

It’s the Suburban.

We’re going to get quite selfish and authoritarian today, because we all harbor those feelings and it’s good to let them out from time to time. Safely.

You’re not a CEO in this hypothetical circumstance. You’re not an auto executive or designer or fabulously wealthy buyer with a garage capable of housing the USS Iwo Jima, either. No, you’re the same person you were when you laid your head down last night. Just more powerful. Omnipotent. You carry the world in your hands, and we all cower at your feet.

And you have a job to do.

We’ve all been there. It happens so often we don’t even realize it. Somewhere on the horizon, something appears — a vague shape, some sort of vehicle. Within seconds of said vehicle entering your field of vision, you’ve already made up your mind about its owner.

You’re so judgmental!

Yesterday’s first-drive review of the 2019 GMC Sierra Denali and its macho sibling, the AT4, sparked some debate in the comment section. Yes, it’s true that the Denali-trimmed version sports a grille capable of blinding airline pilots if the sun hits it just right. One of you even said the mass of gleaming chrome was ostentatious enough to make Liberace blush.

And yet automakers build these high-end trucks because customers can’t seem to get enough of them. After all, who’s foolish enough to turn down an opportunity to grow margins by plumbing the depths of this high-profit market? From these comments, a question materialized: If handed a stack of cash totalling $60k to $70k, what would you buy — a nice, respectable, and perhaps even sporty luxury sedan, or one of the gilded luxo-dozers offered by Ford, Ram, or GMC? And why?

We all had to start somewhere. Most of us have turned a wrench or three on a car, particularly one in which we’ve tried — with varying degrees of success — to make “better.”

I put that word in quotation marks because some of my well-intentioned wrenching sessions simply ended up making things a heckuva lot worse. Today’s question is simple: what (realistic) car would you recommend to a kid who wants to spend their time and money hopping up a vehicle?

Let’s face it — things get stale. Sliding into the same old heap every day, fiddling with the ignition, trying to get the motor running. Sometimes, just when you think you’ve got the spark… nothing happens. Then you’re left with your hood up, searching through your phone for the right contact.

Enterprise, perhaps, or maybe your local dealer.

That’s the reality for many old car owners. Sometimes, as is expected in our disposable society, a car’s time comes. We build obsolescence into our vehicles — parts dry up, metal gives way to rust, maintenance costs rise, and suddenly, keeping a classic (or “classic”) on the road just isn’t worth it anymore. But there’s always the option of bringing on a new partner to keep those combustion chamber fires burning.

With yourself as one of the points of the triangle, which automotive three-way do you have in mind?

In Newfoundland, a quick rejoinder to the comment “Can’t complain,” is “No one’s listening anyway!” followed by a couple of hearty guffaws and a nod n’ wink. Hey, give us a break; we’re all loopy from the cold.

Regardless of whether people are listening or not, people — especially opinionated gearheads — are likely to complain and provide unsolicited advice. Here is today’s question: if a major OEM were to ask for and promise to implement one of your recommendations, what would you say? And to whom?

Just rest comfortably on the couch here. That’s good. Now, what seems to be the problem?

We’re giving everyone a chance to talk it out today, as each and every one of us harbors some type of anxiety, insecurity, or deeply rooted fear. Oh, you don’t? Sounds like you’re lying to yourself.

The inspiration for this QOTD lies in a tragedy. Earlier this week, a bridge collapse in Genoa, Italy, killed 39 people, with some motorists surviving a plunge of up to 180 feet. Others braked in time to avoid tumbling off the edge of the crumbling span.

For many, perhaps even yourself, this exact scenario (or something like it) takes top billing on the “worst driving fear” list. However, other worries — both rational and irrational — cloud our time behind the wheel, watering down the pure, unadulterated joy of driving. What’s your greatest driving fear?

As I reveal daily in TTAC’s Slack channel, I’m a bit geeky in some ways. One of the ways this manifests is through a fascination with license plates (I am not alone in this — Mr. Guy shares my geekiness on this topic, perhaps going beyond my own level).

I think this comes from living most of my life in the northeast corner of Illinois. It’s a near-daily occurrence to see Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, and even Ohio plates due to simple geographic proximity. Factor in tourists and people snagging rental cars, many of which carry out-of-state plates, and if you live in or near Chicago (or any big city, really), you see a good cross-section of the nation’s plates.

In last week’s QOTD, we made a big list of cars that were considered the oddball choice among their market segment, but which you loved anyway.

This week we head in the opposite direction. We’re talking about the popular vehicles you loathe.

It’s a gearhead fantasy nearly as old as time itself. We know some vehicles offered around the world are not for sale here in this country, thanks to a myriad of safety and emission rules which are incomprehensibly different depending on where one lives. Not to mention the varying tastes and style preferences of the motoring public around the planet.

Doesn’t keep us from wanting what we can’t have, though. Is there a specific new car on sale today — but not available in this country — that gets your motor running?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that your author grew up consuming books, TV, and movies that were already pretty dated by the time the ’80s and ’90s rolled around. How else do you explain his passion for floaty land yachts, mens’ sport coats, and a fairly libertarian attitude towards personal consumption and the role of government?

Oh yeah, life was simple in those pages and on those shows. There was an order to things, clearer divisions between right and wrong, and societies that seemed to be ruled by rational adults. No one died from smoking. Naturally, social problems rarely made it to the forefront. Only greedy, opportunistic criminals threatened the idyllic lives of those living behind white picket fences, or those stoically trudging to work at the plant from their modest urban walkup.

But I digress. We’re talking cars here, and those shows and films revealed a trend among some car owners I couldn’t agree with.

Yesterday, we featured an edition of Buy/Drive/Burn pitting three excellent Japanese sports cars against one another. All three were prime time, heavy hitters in their segment, and all three are remembered fondly for various reasons by the Internet Car People.

But some people thought there was a fly in the ointment — a big one. Hence today’s question.

There are more than a few times when travelling by car is a heckuva lot more preferable than cramming cheek-to-jowl in an aluminium sky sausage. Hitting the highway, not the sometimes-friendly skies, to reach your destination is often a better option.

Everyone has their limits for long-term driving, though. What’s yours?

One of my biggest pet peeves is the very existence of stop-start systems in modern vehicles. In theory, they’re intended to improve fuel economy by shutting down the engine while the car is stationary — when you’re effectively getting zero miles per gallon. In practice, they’re more of a nuisance than anything else. Every time I’m in a car that’s unfamiliar to me and the system shuts down the engine at a stop light, there is a fraction of a second where I assume something has gone terribly wrong and my stomach drops out of my body and onto the seat. Maybe I’ve just driven too many junkers but the sensation is always unsettling to a point where I have to deactivate the system to maintain peace of mind.

I am also fairly confident that repeatedly cycling your engine in stop-and-go traffic isn’t great for the crankshaft and a host of other components, even if the manufacturer is trying its utmost to mitigate the issue. But I’m aware that some people don’t mind their vehicle becoming a jittery, broken-feeling mess in an urban environment so long as it saves them some fuel in the long run. Unfortunately, that information hasn’t made me hate it any less.

What about you? Is stop-start technology the bane of your driving existence or a necessary evil in the war on emissions?

Newsletters, podcasts, streaming music services — our quest for consumption and thirst for variety knows no bounds. But lately, automakers have taken to experimenting with the same business model. A range of cars, plus insurance coverage, for a fixed monthly price.

Sounds intriguing, if the price is right.

Cadillac’s doing it. Bimmer, too. And so is Porsche. Volvo has such a service, but it only nets you a single compact crossover. Mercedes-Benz recently made its own foray into the subscription arena, offering a bevy of German luxury vehicles for just over a grand per month.

What would it take to lure you aboard the subscription bandwagon?

Monday’s QOTD post by Matthew Guy inquiring about some of the seriously overpriced metal on today’s collector car market got me thinking. And what it got me thinking about was the present state of cars, and if there’s going to be much worthy of collecting at a later date.

We’re in some dark times, automotively speaking. Allow me to explain.

Picture it. A new world government, headquartered in Belgium, has been elected to oversee our affairs. There, our scientific betters assemble to map out a progressive yet benevolently authoritarian plan for all the planet’s people, causing H.G. Wells and other dead utopians to rise from the grave in orgasmic bliss.

In this hypothetical scenario, consumer choice is curtailed to ensure the citizenry makes the proper decisions. The planet’s air quality and climate is top of mind, as are the globe’s shrinking resources. A conservation plan is put into effect, wiping such indulgent automobiles as the Dodge Challenger R/T, 392, Hellcat, and other V8-powered machines. The GM 6.2-liter V8 is ceremoniously killed off. Schoolchildren are taught to snitch on any parent caught harboring a overly powerful motorcar, perhaps in a rural barn somewhere.

Suffice it to say, it’s heaven on earth. There’s no choice to see it any other way. But hold on — it’s new car buying time, and the state, er, the world, has mandated that as your daily driver, you must purchase a hybrid.

Today’s question is brought to you by kitchen-table musing and grumbling by two gearheads at the Guy household on Saturday. As it always does, the conversation turned to cars.

“Nothing’s affordable anymore!” ranted my friend, waving his arms while expressing a desire to own old Alfas and other machinery with the structural integrity of wet tissue paper.

The man may have a point. Do you think the values of certain desirable cars are inflated beyond reason?