Which One Of Our Automotive Enemies Should Be Vanquished Next?

Car enthusiast in the U.S. have taken a lot of losses in recent years. There's no new STI to buy, the GT-R is dead, manual transmissions are disappearing, convertibles barely exist, and NA Miatas are no longer $2,000 bargains. We even did our part and bought so many manual GTIs, Volkswagen couldn't argue there wasn't plenty of demand here. But alas, we lost the manual GTI anyway. It's tough out there, but it's not all bad news. Yesterday we thought our longtime enemy the Nissan Altima had finally been vanquished, but it turns out the Altima will stick around at least for a 2027 model year. Still, we doubt it'll stay on sale for much longer, and at the rate those drivers crash, the roads should be Altima-free in no time. 

If you're young enough to still climb out of an NA Miata with any grace, you should know it wasn't always this way. Back in the late 1900s, Nissan sold some pretty fun-to-drive sedans in addition to its sports cars, and the 2002 Nissan Altima was great. It was still a front-whee-drive family sedan, but it was pretty darn fun to drive, and Nissan let you pair a manual transmission with the V6. A V6 that made 240 horsepower at a time when the Ford Mustang GT's V8 only cranked out 260 hp. It was only when the 2007 Altima showed up that the relationship started to fracture. 

We might not be swimming in affordable new sedan options at the moment, and there may be a few other wins we'd prefer to rack up instead, but I'm not overthinking it, and you shouldn't either. Something about the 2007 Altima started turning everyone who bought it into the worst drivers, and no matter how much we like sedans more than crossovers, that curse has needed to be broken. 

Where do we direct our energy next, though? With one longtime enemy finally (nearly) dead, we need somewhere else to direct our energy. We have momentum, and we need to take advantage of it. So which automotive enemy should we go after next? A lot of people are going to expect me to say Tesla, but I think we can dream bigger. I say we kill the V6. Inline-sixes are better anyway, and if you have so-called "packaging concerns" because I6s are "too tall," the flat-six is right there. Maybe if we stick 95% of the population in the 50-mpg four-cylinder hybrids they really need, enthusiasts could even have a few more V8s.

I highly doubt it will happen, but if you'd asked me five or 10 years ago, I never would have thought I'd outlive the Altima. Maybe we'll have a better chance uniting everyone around slaying a different dragon. Perhaps one you suggest. You know, down in the comments.