If you’ve not already discovered him, Dan Neil of the LA Times is a Pultizer-winning columnist who writes, unexpectedly, auto reviews. Really, really good ones. Check out these tidbits from his latest column:

You have to understand, after four decades in the market, the Camaro nameplate stands for something: 40-ounce beers, mullet hairdos, barbed-wire tattoos, that trick where you put cigarettes out on your tongue. If you ever stole cable TV from your neighbor, own more than two stuffed deer heads or have ever confused your girlfriend’s birth-control pills for Skittles, you might be a Camaro prospect.

Oh, please, don’t even start with accusations of cultural stereotyping. I’m from North Carolina. A telephone pole with a Camaro wrapped around it might as well be the state tree.

and

Despite some published reports, the 2010 Camaro SS is not really what you’d call a sports car, unless you tend to shave with a chain saw or sign your name with a piece of burning timber or make scrambled eggs by dropping a piano on a chicken. The consonant quality of this car, from the moment you turn the key to the moment you gratefully leave it in the chiropractor’s parking lot, is a wanton and cheerful disregard for finesse and delicacy.

This is exactly right.

Or, from an R8 review:

Antaeus doesn’t hug the Earth like this.

Literate reference, that.