A Prius is political correctness on wheels. We’re in an age where it’s impossible to tell the difference between someone who’s genuinely offended and someone who’s sarcastically ridiculing all the uptight, pearl-clutching, butt-plugged social justice warriors. It’s all those moms who are unironically nodding in agreement when Chris Matthews goes on MSNBC and says it’s “racist” to use the word “Chicago”. It’s the same people who sign petitions to have the word “manhole” changed to “utility hole,” and use the term “metabolically challenged” to avoid offending dead people.

A Prius is a peculiar kind of vehicle. It’s for the Competitive Mom in everybody, the one who looks like she’s simultaneously smelling a hot dump and wondering if she left the stove on. The official car of taking your shopping cart all the way back inside the Redner’s instead of just using the cart station. Mom passes by the corkboard at the entrance, and wonders why the detectives haven’t solved Gary Redner’s murder yet.

The end of an era. This is the last generation for the MR2. The story of the MR2 is the story of economical fun fighting to stay aline in a world constricted tighter each year by nanny-state safety regulations.

The Mazda NA Miata MX-5 debuted at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show, but it was manufactured in Hiroshima, because they’ve made it their mission to avoid any more bombs. It was conceived as a small roadster, and the first gen featured the 1.6 L straight four with DOHC. It sold 400,000 units from 1989-1997, which is pretty impressive when you consider that small roadsters were on the way out at the end it was released. The Alfa Romeo Spider was in production, but it was the only small roadster produced at a comparable volume, so the MX-5 filled a gaping hole in the market. In the first generation, this was a car for the kind of guy who uses the term “confirmed bachelor” to avoid addressing his sexuality in mixed company. But the Miata would grew to be the pre-cum of bro culture, with later generations serving as the full load. It was derivative of other roadsters, but that was part of its charm. It had a reverence for the classics but also an inflated sense of its own importance. It’s the Kanye West of cars.

This 8th generation, B-body variant was resurrected from the dead in 1991 after being shelved in 1958. The Roadmaster of old was a classic of those gangster movies where fat guys with power ask when they can expect to be paid. But in 1991, the reintroduction got rid of the classic styling that made the Roadmaster such an icon in the first place. Hell, the 90s version introduced a fake wood grain finish, as if that lousy paneling would bring back nostalgia. It was like a faded hooker trying to recapture the glory days when she could charge $100 for a handjob and not get laughed out of the Cracker Barrel parking lot.

The LS400 wasn’t meant to turn a profit, it was meant to draw people into the brand, to help establish the Lexus name in the marketplace. And…I mean, it worked, didn’t it? Lexus quickly became the best-selling luxury nameplate in the U.S., establishing itself in the market in ways neither Mercedes nor BMW could match among your regular consumer. Even today, Lexus is a name that inspires notions of a farther-reaching legacy than it actually has. It sounds like old money when it’s really noveau riche.