Have you learned any new fun facts about cars recently?
Of course!!!
Just today:
I learned that the Golf Country (wicked factory off road version of the Mk2 Golf) was lifted over 4 inches for a total of around 7 inches of ground clearance!
I learned the absolutely mental Cobalt SS was essentially a parts bin special -they had a powerful 4 cylinder from the Saturn Ion Red Line and figured they'd put it in the less weird Cobalt and people would care, which they did- and that its epoch-making 260hp powertrain was only a later upgrade -again, borrowed from another car, the Pontiac Solstice GXP- once the original engine no longer met emission requirements. And that it had a sedan version!!!
And, while writing this post, I looked for details on how this lapped the King-Daddy, longest and most gruelling monster of all circuits that is the Nu虉rburgring faster than the all-wheel-drive six-figure Japanese demigod that is the Skyline GT-R, and found out about the popular misconception that this refers to the R34 Nissan Skyline (right), to date the most coveted and sought after, whereas it actually refers to the R32 (left), a prior version -though not much less groundbreaking in its own time- and that the nonetheless staggering feat may largely be attributable to tire formulations having vastly improved between 1990 and 2008.
I learned of the Ford Transit Sportvan, a confusingly diesel sporty? version of the Ford Transit!
Hell, I learned about a small 20s brand I didn't even know existed!
I find out new things about cars every week, and that's not every day just because most days I run out of time to read and listen and browse all the car-related content I would want to (hence me writing this at 2:30AM, cough cough). Every model has an intricate story usually originating years before its birth, thousands of parts, usually dozens of variations year over year, mountains of media created around it and thousands of examples that have gone around to be featured in movies, owned by celebrities, and participate in history in other thousands of minuscule little ways. Multiply this for thousands of models worldwide and then multiply that for a century and a half. However narrow your area of interest, if you think you know as much as most of the car trivia within it you are absolutely a fool.
Oh wait you were probably asking for an actually fun fact.
Oops.
Well, still today, I learned that our dear Saturn Vue, remember our dear Saturn Vue? Well, not @makenoplans's, the second generation, it turns out that 1. at fucking least it drove well and 2. it died along with Saturn itself when GM went bankrupt and a clause stipulated for the government bailout was to kill three of its brands - Saturn being one of their least successful at the time I WONDER FUCKING WHY I WONDER IF THERE WAS ANYTHING ONE COULD HAVE DONE TO SAVE IT LIKE NOT EVISCERATING ALL LIFE OUT OF IT AND TURN ITS CORPSE INTO AN AMERICAN DISTRIBUTOR FOR A MEDIOCRE GERMAN CAR BRAND i am calm i am calm i am digressing. Well they'd relatively speaking just started making the second gen Vue in Mexico and they were like aw cmon do we really have to stop selling it so soon? And so they just fucking. Used the "Chevrolet Captiva Sport" branding it was sold with in South America to sell it to rental companies. It's basically like a fake ID but it's no faker than the one you started off with.
Oh! And a bit less recently I found out that bafflingly you could get the first generation Honda Civic with three different trunk doors - seen here in increasing order of price and sense.
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