I don't think anyone ever bought an rx7 for its reliability :) They optimized for smiles-per-kilometer.

Highly optimized ;)

FD's are, not so sure about their older counterparts the FB and FC. I had an FC. ;)

10AE FC driver here. I think you're way off.

I caught the power bug.

FC > e30 BMW > AP1 S2000 > W204 C63 P31

You can get quite a bit of power out of an FC for its weight :)

You can get above 500 horsepower on that light little car easier and cheaper than any other platform I can think of. Considering you're starting around 186 (Turbo S4?) that's pretty great...and the car will be ~2500 lbs with you in it?

You have to put a big turbo, 3mm seals, and suffer turbo lag, etc. almost any car can get a lot of power with a turbo but N/A power is the place for me.

I'm rebuilding my S2000 right now turning it into a 2.4L stroker for 300+ hp. :D

Yes I did look for Alfa in the list, I wasn't surprised it wasn't there, as in my experience it'd be so far off the top of the chart, the others would look tiny in comparison.

I loved our Alfa, but my word was it expensive to maintain (and broke a LOT).

Loved mine as well ('86 Quad Spider) but mine was very easy on maintenance. Owned it about 20 years, daily drove it (year-round in Boston area) for about 10 of those, and in 135K miles, it left me stranded once when a Bosch distributor broke internally. Brakes and maintenance parts were very reasonably priced, readily available, and the car was easy to maintain except for some engine bay clearance issues [when changing motor mounts and the like] due to the bodywork shape.

Imagine where Jaguar would have shown up in the list in the pre-Tata Motors era.

Even though Ford made improvements, it wasn't until like '96 that Lucas went out of business and was out of the mix...

Jaguar owners don't care about maintenance costs, anecdotally speaking, of course. Executive VP at an old job had a Jaguar (XJ-12 I think) that would occasionally catch fire and 'need some work'. I swear it spent more time in the shop than on the road, but he loved Jags.

Sorry for being (slightly?) off topic but you've prompted my curiosity now;

Owner of a mazda 6 (almost 2 years), no repairs needed thus far, when I got it it had been top rated in consumer reports; is there something I should be looking out for? (brief googling didn't turn up anything; to the child and others since I'm limited by response rate, my curiosity was peaked by the high cost I saw in the article, but I haven't heard what might cause that high cost)

I had a horrifying experience with mine, a 2002 model. There were issues ever so often, but what took the cake was that, 6 years in, it started to burn oil, as, from full to low on oil in 100 miles. The car's diagnostics saw nothing wrong, so even knowing what to fix would have involved opening the engine up, and that's a lot of labor. Then you might end up with a costly part replacement on top. The actual recommendation from the mechanic, given that the car was still relatively new, was to fill the oil up and trading it in to a dealer without disclosing the problem, that there's no way they'd find anything wrong with it in any pre-purchase inspection!

So... yeah, Mazda6, not so much.

The Mazda 6 is 9th on the list in that article of the top most expensive cars to maintain.

Mostly I've seen that they're fine though, there must be something that I'm not familiar with that's reflected in the data.

I really wanted to buy a Mazda, they're cheap, reliable, safe, and have nice features. But they literally don't sell one which has enough driver's legroom and headroom for tall people...

For example the Mazda6 has great legroom but bad headroom. The CX-5 has great headroom but bad legroom. The CX-3 has bad both.

If you need a vehicle with good headroom AND legroom you're almost required to buy a Subaru (Forester, Legacy, or Outback), Prius V, Toyota RAV4, or Nissan Rogue. It is pathetic how limited the choice is.

PS - You can see roominess metrics on Edmunds[0], just scroll down to interior measurements.

[0] http://www.edmunds.com/toyota/prius-v/2016/wagon/features-sp...

Ford Flex should be in that list. Or the Transit (Connect), even if it's an oddball choice.

I agree though. Luckily Toyotas and Subarus are a solid buy...well, with the subbies as long as you have no intention of modifying anything underhood (I swear that brand is the king of engine rebuilds).

The Ford Flex isn't available. They ran out of 2015 models and haven't got 2016s off of the production line yet. Great vehicle, but only when it exists. Not kidding, go the Ford Flex page and hit "search dealer inventory," put in your zip, and hit search. 0 results.

The Transit Connect isn't appropriate for consumers, it hasn't passed any of IIHS's tests, has no safety ratings at all, and is considered a commercial vehicle. I'm not putting my kids into something with no safety data on it.

But, yes, the list isn't exhaustive. I just wanted to make the point that Mazda in particular has slim pickings for tall drivers with long legs.

I have one. its about $1 mile in maintenance!