All this reminds me why I fell in love with '80's Japanese cars when I was a teenager. They were efficient yet high quality, had cool funky designs, but in a word - they worked. They were lightweight and got great mpg's (right takza?), and are fun to drive because of it. They did what a car is supposed to do better than most, which is why they were wildly popular.
I confess that back then I never thought we would go back to the bad old days of gas guzzling tanks (though there are some cool features of new cars now). A few days ago a friend of mine who is a complete computer dork (no offense to you weirdos) asked me, "Hey car dork, why don't cars get 400 mpg? If cars had progressed as much as computers, then they would!" So of course my answer was, "They don't get 400 mpg's because we have rich programmers/dot commers who want fast, fat, phat, huge, estate-haulers." He put that in his pipe and schmoked it, even though it wasn't what he usually puts in his pipe.
If you have a chance, I highly recommend going to this show:
http://www.japaneseclassiccarshow.com/index.htm I went twice when I lived in Los Angeles, and I wish they had similar shows all over the country. My 24 year old T4wd would be eligible next year.
It's a scientific fact that in a twin engine aircraft, when one engine fails there is always enough power in the remaining engine to make it all the way to the crash site.
