I hope I didn't appear bitter or politically biased by mentioning political parties by name in my post. However, the overall attitude of CR about certain consumer products or brands of consumer products reminds me of a situation that existed in an earlier era that younger forum participants may not be aware of and older ones may have forgotten. In the late sixties and early seventies, the Federal Government decided to put pressure on the car companies to slow down or cease production and development of the "more interesting" of their products, like large displacement, high horsepower cars with low end nameplates. The reasons given for such pressure varied, but safety and fuel consumption were among those discussed. It is interesting that these particular vehicles appealed to a politically conservative group as well as those across the political spectrum who were of a lower income bracket. Oddly, no particular pressure was put on makers of high end nameplates like Cadillac, Lincoln, Ferrari, Porche, to limit the performance level of their products in the name of safety or fuel consumption. Just as the SUV of today is allowed to remain politically correct for liberals and conservatives alike, as long as their income level is sufficient, the performance cars (as well as gas guzzler SUVs) of the seventies were also accepted by the powers that be at CR and the Federal Government as long as they were marketed toward the upper classes.