@rev_junkie: Those same farm plots could be used to grow food edible to humans, though. Let's not forget those huge government subsidies for ethanol, something that could be better spent stimulating other sectors.
Suspension isn't stock. The original front springs, front and rear shocks, and rear leafs (leaves?) were replaced with super heavy duty truck ones, and a front sway bar was installed. Geometry and all those bits that hold the suspension in place remains stock, however.
Depends on the definition of fast. Raw fast? Too fast for its own good? Fast+fun?
For pure fast, gotta be my either my brother's friend's father's Lamborghini Murc. or Ferrari 458. Both are fucking freakishly fast, but left me unimpressed. They were immaculately maintained, but the autoboxes were, well, uninspiring. Even if the owner wasn't sitting in the passenger seat, I wouldn't call it a car for having fun. Track day superstar, I'm sure, but objectively speaking, a '92 Civic with a B16A and some coilovers would be about as entertaining and infinitely cheaper. Also, I hated those digital readouts on the 458. So colorful, so irritating. They're just this absurdly huge distraction when driving.
My favorite fast car I've ever driven is my friend's father's C5. That thing is oodles of personality and charm, something that neither the Ferrari nor the Lamborghini had. The interior was so cozy and plasticy, the seats so comforting, the little heads up display so hilariously old-school yet so amazingly useful. I drove right after it rained, so the tail just slid right out, and when I opened up the trunk, the water just fell right into it because of the design of the trunk sill. It's got all of these amazing, endearing flaws.
The fastest too-fast-for-its-own good is my deathtrap of a 55 Chevy. It's way too fast for its own good. Just dropped a worked over 350 in it, pumping out 400 horsepower out of the 55 year old, unmodified, un-maintained rear end and raced it. Front disk brakes, but the proportioning valves are set up for 4 wheel drums so the front locks up way too quickly. Stopping distances of a mile, at least. No seat belts, no rear or side view mirrors, no hood, unsecured battery. No speedometer. No tachometer. 4 speed manual. No gas pedal. There is literally no way to know what's going on with the car other than by listening or sniffing for smoke. When it turns, the car creaks and growls a dissatisfied, disgruntled growl. This is the car that's definitely left me with the greatest sensation of speed, even if it was only ~45mph on an autocross course or ~60mph on the garden state parkway.
I'd just like to say, I love you for mentioning Dwarf Fortress.
I also disagree it's a Toyota Corolla. Corollas are simple things: simple and reliable. I can't honestly say that anything that happens in DF happens reliably. If it did, the game wouldn't be as Fun as it actually is. No, DF is maybe a Transformer. It seems simplistic, but underneath is the most complicated game known to mankind.
This thing is so much better than the first Forzalopnik pack, it's beyond words. Some amazing cars were lost, but some amazing cars were gained. I might buy Forza for this.
@ZB209: The engine is also a pushrod engine, like an LS V8. That means it's easy to squeeze a crap ton of displacement in a very small space compared to the size of OHC systems. That also means the cylinder heads flow worse because there are only 2 valves per cylinder as opposed to 4-5 in most DOHC systems, so it makes less horsepower per liter but in terms of horsepower per weight of the engine, it's generally pretty much on par with regular engines.
So, who here remembers the PS3 launch? 7 USB ports, 2 1080p TV screens, Linux (that was removed), the list of things that didn't make it, or in one case, made it and got removed, goes on and on.
So I'm going to call bull on having more power than the 360. They have to balance battery life and battery technology hasn't exactly been moving forwards by leaps and bounds. Even on a majestic 28nm fabrication plant, the power envelope would be too large. A gig of ram? Fine. A 3 core, 3.2ghz with an additional 3 logical cores, integrated memory controller, and a seperate video card? Don't think so. A wii-like or i3-esque approach of a CPU/Videocard in one with an integrated memory controller on a chip is far more likely. The number of cores will likely top out at 2 to keep the silicon from being too large, and thusly keeping failure rates down, as well.