I won't buy an A90 Supra without a manual

After seemingly the longest gestation period since the new Honda NSX, the return of the legendary Toyota Supra is set for early 2019. What is with Japanese manufacturers and these long teased-out development periods? Too many concept cars, not enough substance. By the time the NSX went on sale, the car enthusiast public was already bored with it. If I were Toyota I’d hide the new Supra until it’s ready for public consumption, otherwise risking it to the same fate.

Over-saturation risks didn’t stop Toyota from recently allowing motoring journalists to have a go in heavily camouflaged test mules. The early impressions are good: the chassis code A90 Supra is lithe and agile, with adequate power to give Porsche 718 owners and potential buyers a serious second thought. Co-developed in conjunction with the new BMW Z4 - because nobody makes money building sports cars these days unless you’re from Zuffenhausen, the A90 may share an inordinate amount of parts with the German car, but it reads to me the driving dynamics will be disparate and unique.

The new Supra will be pure sports car.

Except in the transmission department. Sharing the same BMW turbocharged straight-six power-plant with the Z4, the A90 Supra is expected to have horsepower figures in the upper 300s. I think that level of engine power does not warrant the necessity to pair it with an automatic transmission. A high-strung Porsche GT car absolutely demands a dual-clutch PDK gearbox for the full experience; the same can’t be said for a car with an estimated 0-60 time in the mid 4’s.

I’m far from an automatic gearbox hater - the ZF 8-speed going into the new Supra is one of the best ever made: in the appropriate setting they are superior to stick-shifts. The A90 is not one of those settings. The car really needs a manual gearbox, especially if it were to ever get my business. For all the talk of honoring tradition, how Chief Engineer Tetsuya Tada made sure the A90 would feature turbo inline-six engine and rear-wheel drive just like Supras of old, the one glaring omission in the nostalgia fest is the six-speed manual.

It’s not as if BMW haven’t got a manual gearbox from which Toyota can easily use: there’s perfectly fine units currently doing service in the M240i, M2, M3, and M4. It’d take relatively zero engineering muscle to implement any those six-speeds into the A90 Supra.

Rumors has it that Toyota will indeed produce a manual-spec Supra sometime after initial launch. I certainly hope it’s true: not only would I not buy one without a manual gearbox, the return of the legend isn’t complete without it.

Much camo, such wow.

Credit: Toyota

I now see why SUVs are so popular

Sport-utility vehicles (SUV) are popular as ever; if an automaker wishes to print money, produce an SUV. Porsche was highly prescient over a decade and a half ago introducing the Cayenne SUV; that car made the company so much money that they were then able to invest it back into sports cars. The likes of Lamborghini and Bentley have followed suit, and Ferrari will soon join the fray. These historic nameplates, far removed from the idea of an SUV, simply can’t resist the money prospective.

Full-line manufacturers have long ago latched on to the SUV money train, even if some are later to the party than others (looking at you, Volkswagen). Particularly, Subaru proved that consumers will buy anything resembling an SUV: they simply raised the Impreza hatchback on stilts, call it the ‘Crosstrek’, and the result is mega profits. The buyers are none the wiser that it’s merely a wagon sat higher from the ground.

SUV sales are doing so well and consequently traditional sedans are not (even the vaunted Honda Accord and Toyota Camry is down in sales) that Ford will be jettisoning its entirely sedan lineup in favor of SUVs. Of course, nowhere in the announcement is an admission that Ford’s current sedan portfolio is desperately outdated and behind on the competition.

As a car enthusiast I used to be utterly against SUVs. Wagons and hatchbacks offers the same utility, and if I were inclined to venture truly off-road, I’d buy a proper body-on-frame bruiser like a Toyota 4Runner or a Jeep Wrangler. The way I see it, the typical unibody SUV needlessly sacrifice fuel economy for the sake of a tall seating position and commanding view.

Keyword is I used to. My family recently bought an SUV - Hyundai Tucson, and having driven it around and on a few long trips, my mind has completely changed. There is indeed something magical, and more importantly comfortable, about the elevated seating position: ingress and egress is tremendously easy, and unlike a sedan your body is not hunkered down in a contorted position (especially if you’re on the taller side like I am). An SUV is also much easier to park, it being significantly shorter in the length than the typical four-door.

Sports cars remains the zenith in my heart, but for the regular commute and long journeys, I can understand why SUVs have become so incredibly popular.

The iPhone XS Max’s camera is a low-light monster.

Not a fan of digital dash in cars

The hot trend in new vehicles these days is the replacement of traditional gauges in the instrument binnacle with an entirely digital LCD panel. Audi was one of the first to do this with their ‘virtual cockpit’ system, and just about every other manufacturer has or is following suit. Modern Mercedes Benz cars don’t even try to hide the fact it’s digital: the dash is just one wide flatscreen panel, as if someone simply glued a tablet on.

I guess we have the smartphone to thank for this development, and tangentially, Tesla. People prefer lots information available at a glance, so if you want Google Maps navigation overlaid on the typical engine RPM and speed dials, digital is the only way to achieve this. It’s likely cheaper to manufacture, too: one giant LCD panel with software development, versus engineering analog dials gauges in fancy shapes and sizes.

When the Audi virtual cockpit first debut, I was quite impressed: to have the navigation maps directly in front of your vision is more natural and useful than having to look away towards the right (or left for my UK brethren) at the infotainment screen. It’s probably safer, too. Audi’s system also allows configuration for the tachometer be in the center, which is the proper position in my opinion, especially in a car with any modicum of sporting intentions.

As the technology have proliferated throughout automotive spectrum, I’m not so sure anymore about having a completely digital instrument panel. Partly because I love the intricacies and mechanicalness of analog dials (like a fine mechanical watch), and partly due to the concerns about repair cost. We all know how expensive to fix our broken smartphones, so it’s not a stretch to think that if and when the electronics fail on those digital instrument panels, the repair bill will be quite substantial.

But what am I saying? Our generation love leasing and buying things on payment; who’s going to keep a car long enough for the LCD dash to fail anyways.

Lots of Lobstah makes me happy.

The new Surface Studio is already behind. Again.

Yesterday Microsoft held a hardware event for their Surface line of products in New York City. Microsoft elected to not provide a livestream because the company is simply not as cool and awesome as Apple. Comparatively, Apple’s annual September iPhone keynote was streamed on Twitter.

The team from Redmond is forever chasing the taillights of Cupertino.

The only Surface product I was interested in was the top-of-the-line machine the Surface Studio. I’ve already got a Surface Pro 4 and I’m not keen to replace that anytime soon, especially since the industrial design is still the same on the new Surface Pro 6. I guess I’m not likely to buy a Surface Studio either since I’m very much using the 2017 5K iMac I just bought last year.

It’s nice to look at nice things you can absolutely afford to buy but choose not to.

The original Surface Studio debut two years ago to critical acclaim of its brilliant screen that serves as a monitor and a Wacom-style creative surface when its hinged down in its most flat position. I quite enjoy doing scribbles and jotting down notes with the Surface pen on my Surface Pro 4, and I can only imagine how incredible the experience would be on that vast 28-inch canvas.

However great the display on the Surface Studio was utterly undermined by the lackluster internals. Due to design constraints, Microsoft had to use mobile/laptop parts for better packaging and less heat. That in it of itself is not a problem because Apple have done the same in the iMac line since forever. The issue in Microsoft’s execution with the Surface Studio is that they used one-generations old CPU and GPU chips instead of the latest available; the machine was already out-of-date at launch.

Not to mention the lack of USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, and the slow hybrid SSD hard drive.

So I was eager to see how Microsoft would remedy this glaring flaw at yesterday’s event, and the answer is they absolutely did not. The new Surface Studio 2 indeed received the welcomed spec bump, but shockingly not to the current 8th generation Intel processors and Nvidia RTX20XX graphics. Instead it once again utilizes previous generation chips: 7th generation Intel and Nvidia GTX10XX. Like the original model, Surface Studio 2 is being launched with obsolete components.

There’s still no USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 in the new model, too. Overall it’s a very disappointing showing from Microsoft. After two years, this was all they could’ve come up with?

A short hike up the hill at Mori Point.

Turo turned me on to automatic gearboxes

A few weeks back I helped my younger brother move in back to UC Santa Cruz. This year he’s living off-campus so there’s plenty more to bring, mainly the stuff that belongs in the kitchen. His MK7.5 Golf GTI hatchback can fit quite a bit of stuff, but in the end we also needed a second car to haul to all.

Unfortunately, my first ever car, the family’s 2006 Toyota Corolla, gave up the ghost the same weekend. The car’s utterly weak C59 manual transmission (third gear has had a grind since I can remember) shattered a few gear internally, and it was making the most horrible noises when driving, akin to a racing car gearbox with straight-cut gears. The lever refuses to go into third or fourth gear, and we simply weren’t confident it can make the 130 miles round-trip to Santa Cruz.

We needed another car quite quickly, so to the Turo app we went the night before. 50 bucks on the credit card later the following morning, and we had ourselves a 2017 Honda Civic to use. What lovely convenience it is to be able to rent a car in that swift a timeframe; the traditional route would’ve found us at the SFO airport rental car complex because it’s be the only spot open on a Sunday. Not to mention it’d cost considerably more.

The Civic had an automatic gearbox obviously, because why would any sane person lend their manual transmission car out to a stranger. I did the driving duties, and it was the first time in the longest time I’ve driven an automatic car for an extended period. Perhaps it is because I’m getting old, but as an avid advocate of the row-it-yourself gearbox, I found driving the auto Civic to be an absolute pleasure. Automatic transmissions are actually okay!?

I get it now: in normal everyday driving, not having to do the clutch and gearstick dance at every intersection is a godsend for comfort. In a car with an auto ‘box you just push the gas and go. Manual transmission fanatics sticking to their dogma of daily-driving a stick-shift car being no more difficult than a car with an automatic gearbox are fooling themselves; I use to be that guy, but having driven to Santa Cruz and back in that Honda Civic, my position have changed completely.

Bay Area traffic isn’t going to get any better, mind.

I don’t think I’ll buy another manual gearbox car as a daily driver ever again. The bliss and ease in letting the car shift itself, particularly in traffic, is worth the “car enthusiast credibility” sacrifice. Don’t get me wrong: on an empty winding mountain road in a proper sports car, a stick with a clutch is still the choice for pure driving enjoyment.

Or you buy a 911 with PDK and get the best compromise of both worlds.

Look at the stars, look how they shine for… you.

Car dealers don't like email

It seems techniques in buying a car have changed, and and in some ways returned full-circle.

Six years ago when I bought my first car, the “hack” thing to do in order to get the best deal was to email plenty of dealerships, and then pit the respective quotes against each other. The prevailing wisdom back then was to get the numbers down concretely in email before you even step a foot inside the dealership. While I didn’t have the dealerships I contacted compete with each other because one in particular gave me the deal I had wanted immediately, the deal was indeed done completely over email. I remember spending just over an hour actually inside the dealer premise.

I really like that way of car buying.

The problem with the Internet being able to easily disseminate information to the masses is that what was once an obscure car-buying method used only by those in the know have evolved into a technique utilized by nearly everybody. The dealerships get bombarded with email inquiries, and for them it’s difficult to ascertain who’s a serious buyer and who’s simply looking for numbers to be used at a competitor. Due to this they aren’t quite as keen to do business over email as before.

I found this fact out last week when I was in the motions of buying a car for my father. I looked up the dealerships within travel distance and then sent them an email, detailing precisely the model and trim I wanted and to please provide me with a suitable quote. I wasn’t looking to shop the quotes afterwards to attain the best price: I was completely ready to pull the trigger with the first salesperson to email me an offer within the price target I had researched (TrueCar is nice).

Of the half dozen dealers I contacted, only one was willing to talk concrete numbers over email. The other salespeople replied with generic boilerplate asking when I am free to visit the dealership or to give them a call for the best price. Initially I was extremely put off by this because why can’t they respect my time and preference to communicate over email? I even wrote in the initial email that I was ready to purchase by the end of the week.

It was after mulling it over few days (and working out a deal over text-message) that I realize these days email inquiries are a dime a dozen and therefore dealers treat them as not serious. Contrast to over half decade ago when a detailed email from a customer would denote a knowledgable buyer with zero bullshit. To convey the same intentions today, one needs to do the opposite and actually call or show up: person to person communication projects a customer’s seriousness.

It’s definitely more time consuming that way, but what was once a hack is no more, and the personable “traditional” way of buying a car is now the hack. Funny how that is.

Clean Nissan S14s are difficult to find. I hope the owner of this car keeps it like this forever.

A year with Squarespace

Difficult to believe it’s already been a whole year since I’ve move to the Squarespace platform. It was also a surprise because when I went to check on my money accounts (I use Mint), a hefty charge of $215 showed up on one of the credit cards. That is indeed the yearly fee for the privilege of using this wonderful host sans any limitations.

Much like how the annual fee for Amazon Prime sneaks up on me every year, I can see why people of my generation much prefer these payments to be broken down monthly instead of annually. The emotional optics are simply easier to stomach than having to all of the sudden cough up a few hundred dollars. It’s especially jarring for people like myself who keep monthly budgets as tight as possible.

The new iPhone that costs over one thousand dollars? No it doesn’t! Split into 24 payments it’s only $56 dollars a month! An infinitely easier pill to swallow, isn’t it? That brand new BMW sedan isn’t really over $40,000 dollars; on a lease it’s only costs $300 a month!

For the less financially inclined it’s of course easy to fall into the “affordable” monthly payment trap and go way beyond proper spending limits. But for the financially savvy - which I think of myself as - sectioning a big monetary outlay into tiny bits can be an excellent strategy to maximize returns (however small they may be). I rather do a piecemeal plan and hoard as much cash as possible to at the very least earn interest in a savings account.

This is precisely why instead of the typical lump sum every 6 months, I pay my car insurance every month. I can do the bi-yearly plan no problem at all, but it’s more prudent to keep the leftover cash in an investment account to accrue some modicum of gain. Plus, it’s far easier for budgeting purposes.

Anyways, it’s been a good year, Squarespace. Please don’t raise your fees.

The charts match the chairs and floors.