Christmas Wish List: A New Car

Every day in December I plan on posting one thing from my official DevilDinosaur Christmas Wish List (patent pending). Why? Because I can.

I really want a new car. My 2003 Nissan Sentra has been a great car for me but it's starting to lose it's number one feature, it's reliability. It's been to the shop a bunch this year and against better judgement I've sort of made a monetary commitment that I'm going to try and keep it a bit longer. Right now it's got a starting issue that no shop has been able to fix. It's a minor flooding problem, that's probably just sensor related but the hassle is trying to find out which sensor since it's not blowing any codes.

Anyway it could be worse, I could be driving a Reliant Robin.

It comes in Sounders Rave Green?

305 HP Ford Focus RS Coming To America? (jalopnik)

Jalopnik reported this morning that Ford is contemplating bringing the Euro-only Ford Focus RS (along with the torque-steer-gasmic 305 HP turbocharged 2.5-liter five-banger Volvo powerplant) stateside. If you can fit a car seat in the back, this is going to be my next car.

I couldn't find a good video review for the RS, but Top Gear did take a look at the ST.

Way better than Obama's first press conference

thanks to jalopnik.com

When the weather outside is frightful

The first car I ever drove in the snow was an '84 Ford Thunderbird, pretty much just like the one above. It was rear wheel drive, was heavy as all get out and had a very torquey 5.0L v-8. On a good day I got about 13 miles to a gallon. What it lacked in MPG it easily made up for in both super awesome burnouts and power slides. Driving it in the snow was kind of like the first time I rode a roller coaster. I was swearing the whole time, trying not to crap my pants but the second I was out of the car I wanted to go again. Unfortunately the t-bird died one to many times and when I was 19 it got traded in for the reliable German engineering of a BMW '82 320i. So the next few winters were spent in a pretty reliable, gutless, little car that handled great in the snow and ice. But then came the...

Ford Probe! Ahhh now that was more like it, 2.5L V6 with 164hp and 156lbs of torque. Believe it or not this thing made Car and Driver's top 10 list in 1993 and 1994 and was Motor Trend's Car of the year in 1993. It went from 0-60 in a respectable 7 seconds and only ended up costing me about 4 and a half thousand dollars worth of repairs in a 3 year period. Ford Probe.. how I both hate and love you. This thing was awesome fun in the snow. No rear wheel fueled power slides, but big wide low profile tires and a healthy amount of power resulted in some fun trips to work when the snow came around. This car had the added bonus of when you climbed in it you felt like you were sitting about 2 inches off the ground.

Of course these days I'm rolling sensible in my '03 nissan sentra. It handles pretty good in the snow, and hasn't stranded me on the side of the road yet. I was surprised at some of the cars I passed stranded on the highway a couple weeks ago when it really dumped on seattle. I was even more surprised when I saw I was one of a small handful of people to actually make it to work that day. Still, there's not that much fun to be had with only 120 horses under the hood.

Still here's to dreaming about future fun in the snow, maybe someday I'll be able to afford that Corvette ZR1 that Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson called the car of the year...

"You don't want anymore than that on marble"

Most Ford Fiesta reviews won't let you know how well it performs when being chased by a corvette inside a shopping mall. Luckily the guys at top gear took care of that for us.