Autonet.ca

First off, let me just apologize for the statement in the Mustang story about it blowing the doors off an M3. I got caught up in the moment and broke one of my Cardinal rules, which is not to compare cars against those to which they don’t compare.

Though racers like Scotty Maxwell, who race one against the other almost every weekend, might offer a different real world opinion, on paper the new M3 offers up 100 more horses while giving up only 30 lb.-ft. of torque and 76 kg.

And honestly, I should have known better because the M3 is one of my favourite cars ever, and it gets stronger with each new generation.

Sorry; I messed up and I’ll understand completely if BMW forces me to drive the new M3 models (it comes in sedan and convertible, in addition to the traditional coupe) over and over and over again, until I get it right …


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Speaking of messing up, am I the only one who thinks GM has learned nothing over the past year with the latest announcement that it was resurrecting the Regal name on a midsized sedan?

The new car will be built in Oshawa, Ont. (yea!) and will be based on the same architecture as the new for 2010 LaCrosse (formerly Allure), but hasn’t GM been over this before? Isn’t this the kind of duplication that started the company’s fall from profitability over the past five years?

When Buick introduced Regal in 1973, it resurrected the Century name on a less luxurious version. The two were basically undistinguishable until you got up really close. Now, apparently, Regal is going to play Century to LaCrosse’s Regal in the “new” GM.

You’d think somebody would have looked at the past and said “maybe we shouldn’t do that; let’s just make a value conscious LaCrosse trim level instead”; or even if they don’t have somebody in the new company who can remember that far back, look at the recent Ford Five Hundred/Taurus or Rabbit/Golf whoop-de-whoops.

What is that saying about learning from history?

If you learn nothing else from this, learn that you don’t just give up on a nameplate because you want to try something different. It’s like the distinction between fad and fashion.