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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

GM To Offer Car That Will Almost Drive Itself

Cars that can talk to each other and almost drive themselves at freeway speeds are just two years away from the showroom, according to General Motors executives. The company announced Sunday that the semi-autonomous system for freeways will be an option on an unidentified new 2017 Cadillac that goes on sale in the summer of 2016. In addition, another 2017 Cadillac, the CTS, will be equipped with radio transmitters and receivers that will let it communicate with other cars, sharing data such as location, speed and whether the driver is applying the brakes. The announcements were made Sunday at the opening of the Intelligent Transportation Society World Congress being held in Detroit this week. They are part of a barrage of similar declarations that are expected from other companies throughout the week as the industry shows off progress toward self-driving and safer cars. The freeway system, dubbed "Super Cruise," uses cameras and radar to keep the car in the center of a lane and also stay a safe distance behind cars in front of it. The system will bring the car to a complete stop if traffic halts without driver action, and it can keep the car going in stop-and-go traffic. Other automakers, such as Mercedes-Benz, now offer similar systems that work at low speeds, but GM says it's the first to announce a system that operates at highway speeds. Others could have freeway systems in two years, though. "If the mood strikes you on the high-speed road from Barstow, California, to Las Vegas, you can take a break from the wheel and pedals and let the car do the work," CEO Mary Barra said in remarks prepared for the conference's keynote address on Sunday. But GM said the car still won't drive itself, and the company is working on a system to monitor drivers to make sure they're still paying attention. Details of that system weren't released. "Sensing technology is not yet to the point where the driver can check out," said John Capp, GM's director of global safety strategy. "This is a level of automation that can be done, that is feasible." The new Cadillac that will get Super Cruise hasn't been officially announced yet. But executives have hinted that GM will build a big rear-drive Caddy to lead its lineup in the coming years. Also Sunday, the Michigan Department of Transportation announced that it will partner with GM, Ford Motor Co.

The future's electric — but the present is peak gasoline. Burn some rubber! Do donuts!

I vividly remember the year 1993 as a teenager looking forward to getting my driver’s license, longingly staring into Pontiac dealerships at every opportunity for a chance to see the brand-new fourth-generation Firebird and Trans Am. Back then, 275 horsepower, courtesy of GMÂ’s LT1 5.7-liter V8 engine, was breathtaking. A few years later, when Ram Air induction systems freed up enough fresh air to boost power over 300 ponies, I figured we were right back where my fatherÂ’s generation left off when the seminal muscle car era ended around the year 1974. It couldn't get any better than that. I was wrong. Horsepower continued climbing, prices remained within reach of the average new-car buyer looking for cheap performance, and a whole new level of muscular magnitude continued widening eyes of automotive enthusiasts all across the United States. It was all ushered in by cheap gasoline prices. And as much as petrolheads bemoan the coming wave of electric vehicles, perhaps instead now would be a good time for critics to sit back and enjoy the current and likely final wave of internal combustion. Today, itÂ’s easier than ever to park an overpowered rear-wheel-drive super coupe or sedan in your driveway. Your nearest Chevy dealership will happily sell you a Camaro with as much as 650 horsepower. Not enough? Take a gander at the Ford showroom and youÂ’ll find a herd of Mustangs up to 760 ponies. Or if nothing but the most powerful will do, waltz on over to the truly combustion-obsessed sales team of a Dodge dealer and relish in the glory of a 797-hp Charger or 807-hp Challenger. Want some more luxury to go with your overgrown stable of horses? Try Cadillac, where you'll find a 668-horsepower CT5-V Blackwing. You could instead choose to wrap that huffin' and chuggin' V8 in an SUV. Or go really off the rails and buy a Ram TRX or Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392 and hit the dunes after a quick stop at the drag strip. Go pump some gas. Burn a little rubber. Do donuts! There is nothing but your pocketbook keeping you from buying the V8-powered car of your dreams. Yes, just about every major automaker in the world has halted development of future internal combustion engines in favor of gaining expertise in batteries and electric motors. No, that doesnÂ’t mean that gasoline is going extinct. There are going to be gas stations dotting American cities and highways for the rest of our lifetimes.