NewMexiKen just loves the style of Los Angeles Times auto critic (and Pulitzer winner) Dan Neil: An example from today’s column about the Honda Civic Si:
Tina is my wife and — setting aside her taste in husbands — she has very good judgment. While I ponder the Confucian mysteries of things like caster angle and shift throws, for the Tina-meter it’s all about comfort, security and serenity in the passenger seat. Yes, yes, your electroluminescent gauges and dials are all very pretty, but for me the Tina-meter is the most important readout in a car. If Tina arrives in a bad mood, well, my day isn’t going to get any better, is it?
Or:
From the driver’s chair, the Si is an endless source of infantile thrills, a high-fructose sports compact with all the yank and snatch of a tuned autocross racer. Think psychotic hamster. From the passenger seat, however, the car is kind of awful — loud and ungenerous and frantic, endlessly seesawing over 1-2 and 2-3 gearshifts. The sport-tuned suspension is leathery and the “tuned” intake system, routed through the fender well for more wailing resonance, performs exploratory surgery until it finds your last nerve, and then gets on it.