My drink of choice is Booker's. Like Knob Creek, but more sublime in a hard-drinking kind of way. I do so dearly heart the barkeeps in this town for getting together and all deciding to keep stock of this hillbilly ambrosia.

A local sheriff's car came around a long bend at a closing speed of at least 180mph. I blinked. He passed. In my rearview mirror I saw him hit his blues, but then they switched off and he kept on going.

Fearful of rural law enforcement, we hid the car off a farm road for about an hour while I went through a very panicky pack of cigarettes and waited for it to get dark.

I'll be 25 years old in November. I live in the strange situation of being exposed to a reasonably high mortal risk, regardless of how I choose to comport myself.

So yes, I drive my Jeep at high speeds down fire roads. I also take corners fast, and pull a big stupid grin whenever I throw the tail out in a bend. I've also got my eye on a Ducati S2R 1000.

I'm engaged to be married to a beautiful, loving woman who wants to start a family with me. She's terrified that I'll injure myself or worse. I've told her that I need these things in order to be alive, I think she understands.

At a certain point one needs a measure of risk to be free from worry. Quoth Goethe, "Live dangerously and you live right."

However, as mentioned by Preferredcustomer, I just couldn't live with that kind of gas mileage. To paraphrase a RX-8 review I read years back, I simply can't see having the fuel economy of a 8 cylinder, the horsepower of a 6 cylinder, and the torque of a 4 cylinder.

Particularly when owners are reporting upwards of 24mpg highway from factory reflashed Evo X's.

Sigh. I'm buying a motorcycle.

Seeing the commentariat come out in such fine colors makes me proud to be proven wrong.

I mean, did anyone really remember the Levi's Gremlin? or that weird Gucci whatever it was?

Awesome.

After that people pretty much stopped doing 50 down that particular 35mph road.

Overnight our flight to LA out of Boston was cancelled, so we got it redirected to Providence, extended the rental car, slept for three hours and woke up before dawn to hit the roads again. At one point while on a big cloverleaf interchange I got hammered by what must have been 100lbs of snow shot down by a snowplow from the overpass above. It scared the goddamn piss out of me. I nearly broke the wipers trying to get it all off the windshield while driving down the highway.

Of course, by the time we made it there, our flight was woefully oversold. We ended up returning the rental car and sleeping on the bus back to Boston. It took us 4 days to get to LA.

2- Driving outside Cairo, IL in my mother's 1992 LS400 with three friends. It was an excellent drive, two lanes, long sweeping curves cutting through wooded country along the Mississippi River. My northbound lane was empty, so I ran the car up to 130mph (not bad for (what was at the time) a 12 year old car)... just as a county sheriff came around the next bend.

Given that we were closing at something like 180mph, there wasn't much time to react, so I just looked heartbroken in the rearview mirror as brakelights and blues shot on in the distance. I kept going for a few more miles, then pulled into a country road which lead us off into some soy bean fields, where my friends and I spent the next 20 minutes furiously smoking cigarettes.

Afraid to return to our planned route home, we had to track through unknown country roads before rejoining another highway, eventually making it home several hours later than planned.

I had never felt so relieved to cross the border into Missouri. Although I felt a little bad for my mother, who unknowingly entered Illinois in a car matching the description of a wanted reckless speeder. Oops.

(I did later tell her about the exploit - while on a road trip together, she asked me "What is the fastest you've ever driven in a car?" It turns out that she was actually proud - that her car could hit 130mph.)

I have this same problem with my Cherokee every spring. Mostly because I burn up the handbrake in the winter months snow drifting around at night, and it always needs a little TLC by the time things start to thaw. This driving method, mad thought it is, answers the Cherokee's tendency to understeer dangerously in ice and snow. I just choose to answer with dangerous oversteer. Whatever.

As for the engine... V6 or otherwise, it was woefully underpowered, loses-speed-on-a-highway-upgrade kind of bad. Although I will admit that the rest of the car, aside from the engine and being FWD, was 4/5ths of the way to being a decent car. Good brakes, too.

This weekend I rented a Mercury Sable from Budget to drive from Buffalo airport to St. Catharines, Ontario for my grandmother's funeral. The car blew its driver's side front tire - *while I was car #3 in the funeral procession*.

I replaced the tire, which turned out to be a 18" Pirelli P6 (on a friggin four-banger rental!!), with the half-size spare and raced to the church in time for the funeral to begin.

Of course, I have comprehensive auto insurance, so I didn't buy the $9/day loss/damage waiver from Budget when I rented. Since I had swapped for a smaller tire, the steering wheel was out of line, and I had ~60 miles to drive over the border the next day. I tried calling in to Budget, who gave me the number for "Canadian Roadside Assistance" - which was actually just the voicemail for a Budget flunky working out of Toronto.

A score of frustrated phone calls later I found out that, had I purchased the loss/damage waiver they would have been able to replace my damaged vehicle with a fresh, safe one. However, even if I been psychic and made the purchase, post 9/11 law forbids car renters from returning cars rented in Canada to American car depots, thus rendering the value moot.

So, confident that I would have been fucked either way, I cautiously crawled across the border in light snow in a FWD car with a replacement tire with dodgey alignment.

Thanks Budget. I can't wait for the repair bill.

aside from the obvious suggestions such as "sex sells", and "buying X product will attract women such as Z, demonstrated in our product display booth", I think booth babes serve to keep these kinds of events from being huge sausage parties, at least on a very superficial level.

Aside from a scattering of women in the industry, I would imagine auto trade shows to be as much of a Y-chromosomal affair as, say, computer electronics or gaming shows. Throwing in Booth Babes just lightens the mood by adjusting the proverbial cock-to-smock ratio.

Although it is interesting that certain gaming/computer conventions, such as E3, have stopped using Booth Babes. But that's partly because the Booth Babe phenomenon at those shows was getting a bit out of hand.

And my daughter? Nope.

Like I said, this is cool, but it still doesn't make up for Tiff.

Well... non-fiction, anyhow.

My first ever sports car experience was in a Jag E-Type. I was about 10 years old, and visiting my uncle in Canada. We went into his garage, and I asked him what kind of car he had covered up. Saying nothing, he pulled the cover aside, and there it was - a silver Mk.I XKE Convertible. It was his first car, which he bought new for something like $6,000 (which was every penny to his name, including some borrowed from his father).

He took me out for a drive, and the whole experience just blew my mind. I still remember the gleaming dashboard with patches of toggle switches, and the utter lack of seat belts, and the roar it made as he bombed down the back roads outside St. Catharine's. For a young car nut it was every bit as exciting as going on a roller coaster for the first time. God what a brilliant car.

I've got to remember to stay on his good side. Maybe he'll leave it to me in his will... ok, a bit morbid, but it's also a cherry E-Type.

But yeah... why not get a Range Rover Sport? or an Infiniti FX/EX? Better still, get one of those two years old at auction and save yourself some serious cash.

Of course, all of this aside, this will be a collossal hit. For the same reason I saw Infiniti FXs crawling all over Boston after they came out. Cool looking, smallish, sporty, prestige.

I recall them selling pre-orders to the GS hybrid several years back, as well as some kind of 'special edition' BMW 6 series/M6. Both were limited to a series of 50 or so cars, but I remember the BMW making headlines, because it sold out in something like 60 seconds once the order line went live.

1) I can't fit properly into a 5 series.
2) You *can* spec an Evo with a proper manual.
3) I really don't like the idea of buying a used hoonmobile. Particularly one with astronomical parts and labor costs, while a new Evo would carry a warranty.
4) I live in the midwest, and I like my hoonage in all four seasons.
5) I've already got a sizeable four-seater.
6) Figuring that gas mileage and insurance rates would probably be about the same for the E39 M5 and the Evo X, the above reasons prevail. Despite the lure of the E39's overwhelming Bruceness.

Of course, I'd really rather have the forthcoming GT-R, but that's an entirely different price bracket. And my desire for that car is conditional on the official word from Nissan re: transmissions, since terrifying rumors about as to just what might be found swapping cogs between the wheels.

Uggh.

1) satellite radio (had it in the jeep, sorely miss it)

2) 2 inches of legroom

3) a turbocharger. no, wait. two turbochargers.

I can say a turbo, right?

After all, they're building a road-going rocketship for plutocrats and hedge fund managers, I don't think they care one whit for being in Guiness' Book. It would be a few steps away from 'pur sang', wouldn't it?

Anyhow, I hope this new sheetmetal fixes the ugly problems the Speed6 had, because that was a pretty promising car.

I'm also with loverman on the wrangler unlimited. actually, my own mother has caught notice of them and is thinking hard about buying one (in white, 6 speed).

of course, she's also looking at the 2008 WRX wagons, which i think is hillarious.

Jonny, stay the hell away from my mother.

That said, I think with the exception of a few truly primeval cars, by which I mean the Viper and Z06 (at its limit), most hyper-hp cars are being made at least somewhat tame by technology.

I guess we'll also be seeing more DSG-style paddle boxes on these hyper-hp cars, as well, since a computer controlled clutch interface will eliminate the need for (any) driver skill in handling a high-strength composite/ceramic or other spec clutch.

Personally, I'd rather have a rear-bias AWD system than RWD and a bunch of electronannies a-la Merc (since there is an increasing tendency for such systems to remain lurking in the 'on' position at all times).

And although I never really believed that the new GT-R, whatever its performance figures, would steal many potential 977tt buyers, now that I've seen those Panamerica shots... I really hope the GT-R eats Porsche's lunch, although I doubt it will. Just because you can't stretch a 911, call it a car, and be off to the pub.

For example, I'm 6'9" tall, but I still remember the time I drove my friend's Boxster S down some proper Missouri B roads. Sure, my knees were pinned into my neck, making it nearly impossibly to use the clutch, much less turn left... But my god, I spent the next month thinking about that drive as I fell asleep.

I also have to admit to having moved up to a G35x, and therefore no longer doing slow-car-fast on a daily basis. But even with that upgrade, I still miss hooning my beater Cherokee - which is why it's being brought back to life with a new rear axle next week.