[legion]

I've always kept an informal list of what I believed to be engineer-driven automakers. What is an engineer-driven automaker? It's one where the engineers designed the best vehicle they could, then a price tag got put on it. Some had luxury as their goal, some performance, and some safety. Either way, the bean counters didn't enter in the equation. They never engineered to a price or to a volume.

In the early 90's the list looked something like this:

Porsche
BMW
Mercedes-Benz
Ferrari
Lotus
Saab
The truck divisions at the big 3 (they got ignored by the bean-counters and left to their own devices to build what they wanted)

With all of the acquisitions and such, sudden attention from parent companies, and quest for market share, I feel like the list looks like this today:

Lotus (on the endangered species list)
McLaren
Koenigsegg

I'm sure others will disagree, but it should be a good discussion.