![r/cars - Next generation Camry teased [Toyota Pressroom]](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/0qbvsiQ6dU293uoDdG4vRZCsUfrPC94bBJ46lwh10os.jpg)
Howdy duty dingbats and dung beetles, thank your lucky stars you weren’t caught in the crossfire I was dealing with a few years ago.
In the auto sales world, there’s a few major no-no’s that they teach you from day 1 so you can stay compliant with rules, regulations, situations, allegations and sexual orientations. At the top of that list (right above sell cars) is make sure the dude buying the car is actually the dude buying the car. Something about avoiding fra-ud (I hope I’m spelling that right).
Dig up your hourglasses and give em a twist back to 2018 when I was a newbie F&I manager learning how to scan papers right side up, and Audi was saying goodbye to the manual transmission and hello to the magic of automagic across the board. R/cars users everywhere were livid.
It was around the magical time of year where we did the annual clear out of the used and abused demo inventory. The detailing department was overrun with sales people desperately trying to remove weird odours and funky stains from the leather in their back seats. Detailers fiendishly scraped rust off of keys before management saw the state we kept our fleet in.
The lineup was polished to a high gloss sheen of swirls and sadness as we awaited the onslaught of clients who’d been waiting for the best deal of the year.
And they sure didn’t disappoint.
Enter Bucky.
Bucky was a corporate accountant who’d trekked in from butt fuck nowhere and he had his eye on the ugliest of the ugly matador red A4 demos. The colour was aptly named after the smears of blood left on the cobblestone streets of Pamplona during the annual running of the bulls. It was the perfect amount of flash to liven up the dreariness of staring at Fortune 500 financials full time.
He’d taken it for a great rip with our resident schizophrenic sales rep and once the voices guided them back to the dealership, he was ready to hash out a deal.
That’s when we arrived at the matter of his trade in. Bucky had brought his rickety 2011 3 series on its last legs so he could throw whatever balance of value it had at the gruesome A4. He’d done his research and knew his car was worth at least 12k schmeckles with its mileage and condition.
As it turned out, Bucky was smack dab on the money. Him and schizo slapped hands, and Bucky made his way over to see me so I could sort out financing on his new heap. Management had given him the promo rate of 0.9% for 6 years and figured the next steps were just a formality.
Boy were they in for a treat.
It turned out Bucky’s bureau had more crap jammed in it than a Mexican sewage system after cinco de mayo. He’d declared bankruptcy more often than Israel declared war on Palestine. It wasn’t looking so good for our deal.
But the show must go on, and we needed to move this demo. Bucky volunteered to give us his life savings of $600 as a down payment to try and make this happen. Fuck it dude, let’s give it a shot. I sent him on his way and it was time to get to work.
We were operating under the assumption that Bucky owned his junker free and clear. Talk about a hard fucking no.
Somehow, he still managed to owe 33k on his now 7 year old BMW with a funny ticking sound and more scratches than paint. How how how?
Looks like my captive lender was out of the picture - no promo rates for you Bucky, let’s fire this off to the banks.
Thankfully, this was around the time where anyone with a pulse and a trade in could get approved for financing, and one of our more lenient lenders came back with an approval subject to payout of his Kia.
What Kia? He has a BMW!!
Looks like our straw man Bucky was way more clever than he seemed. Since he’d been in a bankruptcy a few years prior, he’d had a close friend pull one of the nastiest of the nasties and financed the BMW on his behalf. The bank couldn’t see it because it didn’t exist, and my dumb ass didn’t put two and two together when I saw the open auto loan on his bureau for a completely different amount.
He’d been registered as the owner of the car and had been making the payments, but his friend was the one listed on the loan. Fuck me this is bad. Or is it?
By some stroke of luck, it was the same lender that he’d been using to make payments on the BMW. I think the analyst I was speaking to must have had an aneurysm since he actually wanted to play ball with this.
I pleaded Bucky’s case and they decided to play 1 blind mouse with an approval based on his BMW trade in. We’d be righting the wrong from several years prior, and the lender must have realized how badly they’d screwed up back in the day.
Bucky claimed the Kia was his wife’s car, and the bank was somehow ok with letting him keep the 55k loan open and taking on another 80k with this A4.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that part. Once we factored in the negative equity and everything else Bucky wanted to buy, our $45k loaded A4 netted out to a clean $80k. No wonder our financial system is so fucked.
Bucky had gone radio silent on us through this whole battle. He must have known something was horribly wrong. Maybe he thought he’d get arrested for being a straw man?
I’d tried reaching out to him by phone, email, carrier pigeon and turtle dove but nothing seemed to work. It looked like we’d be sitting on this matador through the dead of winter.
Then out of nowhere all we could here was tick, tick, tick! It was Bucky!
He’d gotten my message and limped his way in before his Beamer could finally let go and give itself the old yeller treatment. I’d gotten green lights from the lender for him to keep both his better half’s Kia and the new car, and he was ready to rock.
We tore through the docs at breakneck speed as if we both could be crushed at any second. He tore off into the sunset with that god awful red thing that someone must have misclicked when ordering.
Some say he’s out there still running and hoping the matador will keep him one step in front. That, or he’s been crushed by the man riding a bull and is laying in a pool of his own matador red.
TL;DR dude buys an A4 while trading in a BMW that his friend financed for him several years prior. Buries a shit load of negative equity despite his shaky credit and the fact that the loan wasn’t his. Bank laughs and says ok.
https://youtu.be/2mq7gj1bHys?si=DGRPW-a6c7RHXrUY
Finally, the duo get their hands on the Ford Mustang Dark Horse. With 500 naturally aspirated ponies, a proper 6 speed manual and oodles of performance parts to boot, James and Thomas express their first impressions and final thoughts of a track ready, non Shelby Mustang. They also pair it up against the Dodge Challenger and Chevy Camaro; two competitors that will no longer be around in the near future.
I watched the recent Throttle House review of the Mustang Dark Horse, and they still preferred the "steering and communicability" of the Camaro over the S650. I've heard a lot of praise for the Alpha chassis over the last few years of owning my own 2019 Camaro. I've heard that some BMW drivers were impressed enough with the 6th gen Camaro to abandon their German allegiance. Not sure if it's true, but if so I'm assuming that makes it a pretty good platform, so I was wondering how it compares with others (German, Japanese, Korean, etc). Personally, I can only compare my Camaro to my former 2005 S197 Mustang, and unsurprisingly the former is a superior platform. Any experiences and comparisons?
Guide price of 50 to 60k. Surely it's gotta go for more than that? 109k miles though.
They rebuild engine #6 so it runs. Never meant to be installed into a car though, so it remains a bit of history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIehBDLJseI
Jethro Bovingdon reviewing the R32 GT-R... on Hemmings? I hope enough people can find this on Youtube, they have a measly 21.4k subscribers.
The car reviewed here is modified, Jethro goes through a good discussion as to why that makes sense, and also reviews the history of the R32.
The Fit uses a MacPherson strut front suspension and a torsion beam rear suspension that provides excellent handling characteristics and ride quality. In theory.
I adore my Honda Fit, it's a lovely little package. However, the rear suspension leaves a bit to be desired when the vehicle is loaded full of people or stuff. I was thinking how this could have been improved and i started to wonder what the car would drive like provided the Fit were fitted with MacPherson strut suspension on all four corners, such as the Porsche Cayman has previously done.
Thought it was a fun idea. Perhaps food for a pet project someday.
This is a video from Donut about the Aptera. I think the concept and design is quite interesting, and I like the philosophy of an electric vehicle that is primarily focused on efficiency through aerodynamics, rolling resistance, and reducing weight.
There does seem to be a cult-like following for the company, and I can see them carving out a small niche, if and when they get to market. Sort of like, hypermiling enthusiasts and the first generation Honda Insight.