Shut Up Iris

Now, I know that in the past I've been down on Ford, for not giving America their best products, GM for selling far too many pointless products and from all of that you may think that I don't buy American when comes to cars. You'd be wrong, asshole.

I love cars, and I've had tons of them. Here is a list of my cars, in order, that I can remember: Buick Somerset, Nissan Sentra GXE, Jaguar XJ6, Mazda 626, Porsche 944, Porsche 928, BMW 523i, BMW 635 CSI, BMW 735i,Jaguar XJS Classic Collection and Mercury Grand Marquis. The cars I had right now are the Jaguar XJS (v12 Coupe, for summer fun) and the Mercury Grand Marquis (work car/comfortable battering ram) I say had because I bought a new car, A 2008 Dodge Charger.

You can see that on my list are three American cars (the Nissan was built in Kentucky, and it sucked balls.) or four if you count that Mazda is owned by Ford. I've never shied away from American cars, I love them, when they make a good one which hardly ever happens. The Buick Somerset ran for 245,000 miles, the Nissan (as all Nissans do) sucked royally and the Mercury Grand Marquis was a giant living room on a soft, over comfortable suspension that rocked you gently to sleep as you plowed through an elementary school.

The Mercury Grand Marquis was starting to show it's fourteen years and as more and more parts fell off of it, I decided to buy a new car. That was six months ago, and that is when I began test driving new cars. I'll list the cars I test drove, that I can remember : Ford Taurus SHO, Ford Fusion, Buick Lucerne, BMW 325, BMW 535, Jaguar XF, Mazda 6i, Mazda 3, Chevrolet Impala and Dodge Charger. Mostly American Cars and here is what I learned:

The Ford Taurus SHO was far and away the best on that list, shocking. Of course is has a terrific new engine and the Ford Mondeo (see my earlier Ford post) AWD suspension. It also has everything. It is also HUGELY over priced for a four door sedan, as were the BMW's. The BMW's, sadly, were the same as every 80's and 90's BMW I have owned previously. They were superb handling with a quality interior but with regrettable styling, a huge price tag for no options and absolutely boring to drive. The Ford Fusion is garbage, my 94 Mercury Grand Marquis handled and accelerated better.

The Jaguar XF was beautiful, luxurious and balls to the wall fast, but started at $88,000.00. The Chevrolet Impala was bland and uninspired and my list quickly whittled to the Mazda 6 and 3 and the Dodge Charger.



The Mazda 3 was a laugh riot, it handled like an old Mini Cooper and was easy to grab by the scruff and throw around corners with wild abandon. Sadly it lacked room and comfort, which the Mazda 6i gladly stepped in to supply. Then something funny happened. I test drove my Dodge Charger, and fuck me, but Dodge has finally gotten back to making cars, apparently it only took bankruptcy and a collapsed auto market to convince them that it was time to build something that people could drive.



It was amazing to get into a car, made by a bankrupt company and all of the sudden discover they had made a gem. Honestly. First the Charger's styling is bold, but at the same time hearkens back to the old Chargers. No, not THAT one, good looking ones.



The new Charger is also rear wheel drive, you can get AWD, but rear wheel drive is what cars are mean to be. The Charger by far and away blew the Mazda 6i out of the water for handling, it also gives the Ford Taurus SHO and the BMW's a serious run for the money when it comes to performance and handling. The Charger also has all of the things you want in it, CD, ipod plug, power seats, some thing for bluetooth phones, uh, radio. It's comfortable with a capacious boot. It looks good drives good and is a bargain, I got mine for $10,000.00, that is like $28,000.00 less than the Taurus.



So there you have it, I come here not to bury Dodge, but to praise them, and to hope that their recent brush with bankruptcy and their bail out from FIAT will inspire a continued trend of frankly unexpected brilliance. The best thing is that the Chrysler 300 is practically the same car, so there TWO cars that Dodge/Chrysler did right.

Good job.