Over the last couple times the Prelude has been talked about, there are always people bringing up the fact that it won't have a transmission, but will simulate gear shifts and people think that's awesome and have seen some say its basically a manual, but then when a CVT car from Subaru, or Nissan has fake simulated shifting, people love to complain about it and talk crap about it.

Am I missing something, how are these 2 concepts in any way different?

I own a MK3 TT and hit the redline atleast every 2nd journey if not ALMOST every journey once the internals are nice and warm.

I just really enjoy the driving experience and can not help myself ...especially after a long stressful day at work.

This got me curious so how often do you guys take your cars into the red?

Like for example the people on r/porsche are probably way less likely to actually have a Porsche than the people on r/ford actually have a Ford. But what do you think are the extreme examples of this? Are niche brands more or less likely to have a higher owner rate because of the missing popularity? Or are the cheap mass produced brands less interesting to people that don’t drive those cars?

https://fordauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Top-10-Automotive-Leased-Models-and-Average-Monthly-Payments-Q3-2024.png

CRV is #1, Civic is #3, and HRV is #9 which surprised me.

I was under the impression that the typical Honda owner purchased and put a ton of miles on the vehicles due to the perceived reliability, but apparently not.

Personally I love /r/Volvo - I do love their cars, but it's so funny to me that 50% of the sub is people posting cars they absolutely WRECKED. It is really amazing how safe their cars are, but if you didn't know better you would assume it was a subreddit for people who love getting in accidents

EDIT: honorable mention is /r/carscirclejerk which might as well be the official Renault modus subreddit

Video

Love seeing the review on this old thing. I miss my C7 although not the best daily driver, at least in the PNW. Random note, but I believe this was the first Z06 to be available with a targa top. I hope to add one to the fleet one of these days.

Something I've been wondering about. I'm likely to be acquiring a car in the near future that has exhaust pops and burbles off-throttle in the most aggressive drive mode and I'm wondering if it would be wise to avoid using it.

As we all know, on an aftermarket tune the pops are achieved by dumping unburnt fuel out the engine that then detonates in the exhaust system. This can cause catalytic converter failure, which makes me wonder if stock cars that do this have any magic sauce to negate this effect? Do manufacturers not care because they think you'll be in normal mode most of the time and any cumulative damage won't be realized until after the warranty has expired?

/u/dougdemuro made a comment in a recent podcast about a guy 'buying all the broncos' and I was curious so I looked into it.

I was able to find that a single user, Halfelven (same name on both sites), has won 62 Ford auctions, 37 new Broncos, 15 F150 Lightnings and 10 other Fords.

Are they storing them in the future greatest barn find, or simply sending them overseas?

Another funny note to me is that every single one of their winning bids ends in the two digit year of the vehicle.

See for yourself -

https://carsandbids.com/user/Halfelven

https://bringatrailer.com/member/halfelven/

Overview

1 month ago I took ownership of a brand new Absolute Black Ioniq 5 N. I thought I would write up my impressions so far to give you some context on the reality of moving from an ICE to an Electric Vehicle.

History

I've always been a car guy. I've always owned some kind of sports car for the past 25 years. For context, here's the list: Toyota Celica, RX7 Twin Turbo, Toyota MR2, Mitsubishi Evo X, e90 BMW M3. I love fast cars that handle well. For years I managed to use a two door / two seater as my daily driver, even during the winter, while commuting upwards 120 miles a day. I live in Denver, Colorado, and winter was always a pain, but nothing a good set of snow tires couldn't handle.

I've gone to the track a number of times, but am not a track guy by any stretch of the imagination. However, having a car that I could take to the track occasionally was always something that I wanted. But more than anything else I want a car that's fun to drive.

The Upgrade

In 2014 I picked up my M3. It's an alpine white e90 sedan with the dual clutch transmission and an aftermarket supercharger and big brake kit. It makes 585hp (theoretically), and is an absolute joy to drive. The V8 rumbles nicely when it starts up, and absolutely screams when it approaches 8k RPM. Driving it in the Colorado mountains is a real pleasure, roll the windows down, and listen to the engine bounce of the canyon walls. I loved that car. It really is the ultimate driving machine. It's got four doors, handles great, tons of power, looks gorgeous, and sounds amazing. And while it's RWD, with snow tires it did fine in the winter. The one downside is that its not a super torqey motor, even with the supercharger you really have to rev it high.

After about ten years I decided it was time to change things up. I tried to convince my wife that a GTR was a reasonable upgrade, but lost that argument. I've had my eyes out for a while for something new, when I decided that it might make sense to get an EV.

Originally, my plan was to get a Kia EV6 and trade in our CX5. I decided I didn't really need anything too fancy, so the long range AWD EV made a ton of sense. I looked at the base Ioniq, but sort of dismissed their retro styling as ugly. I thought the EV6 was the better looking car, and mechanically they are identical.

The N

And then poking around youtube I discovered the Ioniq 5 N. At first I thought it was just a regular Ioniq with more power, but that's not even close. The man responsible for engineering my M3 (Albert Biermann) left BMW for Hyundai, and started the N division in the spirit of the BMW M. And he took his tried and true recipe and applied it to several vehicles before the Ioniq 5. With a reinforced chassis, upgraded suspension and powertrain, revamped styling and a ton of tuning.

It's hard to categorize the Ioniq 5N. It really is a jack of all trades. Is it a SUV? Yeah kind of. Is it a hot hatch? Pretty much. Is it an EV? Definitely? Is it a sports car? Absolutely. Is it a daily driver grocery getter? Of course. Is it a track car? Surprisingly. Is it a blast to drive? Hell yeah.

The Good

The interior is fairly nice. It's not as nice as my BMW, there is more hard touch plastic, and the fit and finish is noticeably lower than the M, but still very pleasant inside. The monster touchscreen is incredibly configurable (too much so for some people), and it's got creature comforts galore. Heated and cooled seats, an integrated wireless phone charger, android auto, remote start, parking and driving sensors galore.

The seats are amazing. Incredibly comfortable, great bolsters, plenty of adjustments. I'm not a fan of the Alcantara suede inserts, as I appreciate leather's ability to stay clean, but beyond that they are perfect for me. They grip nicely, which you'll definitely appreciate as soon as you drive the car.

Its absolutely cavernous inside too. I'm 5'11" and I have maybe six inches of headroom, and tons of shoulder and foot room. It has the largest back seat I've ever owned. Sitting behind my drivers seat I have maybe six inches of knee space. it's probably more spacious than most full size SUV's, with sliding and reclining rear seats, and a generous trunk. We compared and it has the same cargo space as a CX5, but it feels more usable. I think this is because of the low floor and wide wheel wells providing more usable space.

They also really improved the styling. I wasn't a fan of the base Ioniq, but the first time I saw the N in black I fell in love. It's incredibly menacing. It looks like a WRX hatchback and GTI had a baby and then fed it growth hormones. It's got mean lines, aggressive styling, and numerous functional air ducts. I found the black and red accents to be a little too "boy racer" styling in the other colors, but the solid black really tones that look down just the perfect amount.

Lastly the charging. The car charges incredibly fast. I have a DC fast charger at my local grocery store. Before my home charger was installed I could just plug it in, and it'd be back at 80% charge when I came out. Technically it can charge from 10 - 80% power in as little as 18 minutes, but it's been more like 25 for me. Now that I have my home charger installed I can charge it fully overnight for about $10. The charger came with the car, and cost about $1k to install.

The Bad

As a car guy, I love being able to customize and tweak my car. I'm a software engineer by trade. But holy crap. Even I, poking around the dash settings the first time, was overwhelmed. You can not only change what your gauges look like, but you can change them based upon the drive mode you have configured. You not only have a dozen widgets to help configure and watch your car's performance, but you can change how they are laid out. There are hidden Ui components you can only get to if you press and hold. You have to open a menu, then press another button to open up another menu before you can configure an option. You have 4 physical buttons that can be configured various different ways, and understanding all of this takes time. Hell the steering wheel alone has probably 20 buttons on it. There are so many damn lights on the dash that I still don't know what they all do. I can only imagine someone not technically minded would be offput but that pure configurability, and confused by the number of buttons and options.

It's also a large vehicle. And heavy. You don't really notice it when driving, but when parking, or maneuvering in tight spaces, you can tell how wide it is. It tends to show its weight sometimes in the corners as you can tell it has a lot of momentum to overcome. Luckily the brakes, suspension, and steering rack were tuned perfectly, and it doesn't really feel like the whale it is. It truly is a crossover. It's about 20% larger than a hatchback like a GTI, and smaller than traditional SUV's

Range Anxiety. I'll be honest, the range of this thing is bad compared to other options. On a good day you'll get 250 miles out of the full charge. But you'll almost never have a full charge. Realistically you only charge to 80% most of the time, and try not to go below 10%. So that gives you 70% of your maximum range usable for daily driving. That's 180 miles if you drive incredibly efficiently. Which, if you bought this car, you won't be doing. With spirited driving it's probably more like 100-120 miles before you need to recharge. Not a problem if you plug it in at night, or if you know you'll need to drive 60 miles to grandma's house and back. But at least once I had a friend want to hang out and I had to do some math in my head about how far their house was and whether or not I needed to charge before I left. The good news is that with 15 minutes on a fast charger you're fine. And the car comes with built in navigation options to show you where EV charging stations are, and which ones are available and at what rate. But all that takes THINKING. It takes PLANNING. And for some people that's not reasonable.

But the biggest downside to car is probably obvious. It's the cost. They start at $65k, which is pricey. Now there aren't a ton of options or upgrades, so you're pretty much guaranteed to walk out the door under 70k. But thats still a lot. For that price you could get a Model 3 performance with 10k+ left over. You could get a CTV-4 Blackwing, Supra, or a decent BMW or Audi. It wouldn't be much more to get a new RWD M3.

That being said, when you factor in the EV rebates (I got 5k from the state of Colorado, and Hyundai will knock 7500 off MSRP if you lease), you're a lot more reasonable. At ~55k it becomes an incredible value proposition, and I think justifies that price easily. You basically get the interior of a 40k car, the performance of a 90k car, and split the difference in price.

The Amazing

Up to this point, it probably seems like a questionable decision to trade one of the greatest sports cars of all time in for a EV. And I wasn't really convinced until I drove it. Because holy shit, every time I get in that car and have a chance to play around with it I have a huge grin on my face. I literally giggled on my test drive, with the salesman egging me on. It's an incredible experience.

The power. Oh my god the power. I know "technically" with it's power to weight ratio it shouldn't be any faster than my supercharged m3. But at my altitude, it's a world of a difference. With the car's timer I've clocked 0-60 in 2.9 seconds with launch control. It should do 11.1 in the 1/4 mile. Merging on the highway, you push the NGB button (unlocks the full 641 hp for ten second interval) and you're pushed back into the seat. The power of an EV is so responsive, so instantaneous that it's addictive...especially compared to a high-revving engine. There is no torque curve, there is just MAXIMUM power at any time.

The power, combined with the nimbleness of the chassis, gives you so much confidence. As you exit out of a corner you can just floor it, and even if the back end slips out it will hold the line. You always know exactly what the car is doing, and you always know exactly what the car is going to do.

The car also has been engineered to be trackable (but which I have not done yet). The battery has both a heating and cooling system to keep it at optimum temperatures. The brakes are massive (15.7" rotors) to help slow it down. All those configurable options that overwhelmed me suddenly become vitally important when driving the car hard. You can set the torque split between front and rear. You can adjust suspension, steering feel, power response, traction, and more. It's even got a "drift mode" if you like roasting tires. It has a feature called "N pedal" that uses regenerative braking to help oversteer the car around corners. It's got built in maps for a dozen US tracks. It's got a track timer. G force meter. It shows the battery and engine temps on the main display. It's been engineered to do 2 back-to-back laps of Nurbergring without needing to cool down. (which it did in 7:45, which is faster than my M3). Once tracks have integrated DC fast chargers you'll be able to race for 20 minutes, charge for 20 minutes, then go back out and race for another 20 minutes. Back and forth, all day long.

The last amazing thing I haven't really mentioned so far is the "transmission". If you don't know, it has a simulated 8 speed DCT transmission, along with customizable engine sounds that mimic an ICE vehicle. Reading about the car, or even watching a video, doesn't really do it justice. It's INCREDIBLE. It feels just like the DCT in my M3. Being able to hear the RPM's adjust as you go around corners without having to look at the speedometer is incredibly helpful. Downshifting when you exit the apex of a corner and punching the accelerator feels GOOD. Being able to downshift, and transfer weight before you get to a corner is different than just hitting the brakes. Being able to start off in a high gear when on ice helps a lot.

The Verdict:

And that about wraps things up. I have a buyer for my M3 lined up, and it will be gone next week. I drove it around a bit this week to see if I had any regrets. And honestly I have none. It's an amazing car. But the N is more fun. it's more comfortable. It's more modern. It's much more efficient. And it makes me smile.

And thats really the whole point. The Ioniq 5 N in an amazing all-in-one daily driver. It's probably not the most capable SUV. It's not the fastest sports car. It's not the best track car. It's not the most efficient EV. But it's a car that gets shockingly close to the best in EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY. And what's more, it brings a smile to my face every time I get in the car. And for me, that's what was important.