Month: January 2022

Wot Abaht The Frogs?

Drive Time

…asks Reader Brad:

“You talk about VWs, Lancia, etc., all the time, but don’t seem to make much mention of what the Frogs created.”

..and then points me to this list.

Speaking frankly [sic],  the Frog cars are a classic case of where Gummint stuck its greedy fingers where they didn’t belong, i.e. by levying a tax on horsepower — the lowest tax being on engines generating (from memory) less than 15hp.  This meant that most passenger cars were perennially underpowered, despite the technological superiority that French car manufacturers had over most others in the world.  Now add the recent development of adding yet another layer to the puissance fiscale  (PF, or “power tax”) by incorporating a carbon dioxide emission multiplier:

PF = (CO₂/45) + (P/40)^1.6

where P is horsepower, and Frog cars are still underpowered except where they’re not, i.e. in rally-style cars or hot (and expensive) hatchbacks.  The giant Citroën DS’s engine, for example, never generated more than 100hp so despite the DS having the smoothest ride of any car (before and since), it was a lumbering beast whose 0-60mph time was measured by calendar rather than stopwatch.

For the most part, too, outside the luxury cars like the DS, French fit and finish have always been crappy, and the non-use of vulcanized steel meant that in a country which has wet, damp weather much of the time, you can hear the car rusting when you turn off the engine.  [some hyperbole there]

This does not mean that the French make lousy cars.  When they are allowed to, they make absolute monsters, such as the Peugot Le Mans sports cars which were Audi’s only serious competitors at that race during the mid-2000s:

…or the Matra-Simca race cars which so dominated sports car races in the early 1970s:

…or for that matter, the Renault F1 factory cars of the early 1980s:

…with their engines winning several drivers’ championshops for Williams (Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost etc.) in the early 1990s.

So what about the passenger cars?  Looking at the list above, there’s probably only one I’d take, the Venturi Atlantique 400 GT:

…because of its wonderful 1980s styling.  (Reader Brad lusts after the 1930s Delahaye 135MS, even though that long bonnet hides a 3.3-liter engine which produces only 110hp, i.e. <10 PF units):

However, my favorite French car of all time is the wonderfully old-fashioned Citroën Traction Avant:

Because if I’m going to drive around in an underpowered Frog passenger car (1900cc, 56hp, <4 CF units), I’ll take style and comfort as the benefits, thank you.  And put up with the  water leaking into the passenger compartment every time it rains — in true Gallic fashion, Citroën never fixed that problem, after making the TA for nearly a quarter of a century.

This car, by the way, is still the hands-down favorite choice in France as a bridal car.

Waiting For Special Agent Godot

Government Thugs

This post raises some interesting points:

Was the Terrorist Attack in Colleyville a Replay of the Terrorist Attack in Garland in 2015?

This would answer a WHOLE lot of questions posed by my Readers on this very website.  Something stinks about the whole Colleyville thing, and the smell emanates from the FBI, not from the Muslim asshole’s rotting corpse .

I really would love to hear the FBI’s rebuttal of the Colleyville hypothesis above, but as the title suggests, they probably won’t say diddly, because the questions Sundance raises are really pointed:

(1) how did Faisal Akram gain a visa to enter the United States?  (2) Who did he visit?  (3) Who gave him the weapon?  (4) Who facilitated his travel and targeting operations; and lastly,  (5) who financed and assisted him in his attack?

Either the FBI enabled his activities — as Sundance suggests — or they really didn’t know anything about him, which means they’re really fucking incompetent.  I’d prefer the second alternative, actually, but I think the first is more probable because the FBI has a long (and so far unpunished) track record of doing shit like this.

Taking a wider view, Sundance notes:

The FBI is not a law enforcement or investigative division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The FBI is a political weapon of a larger institution that is now focused almost entirely toward supporting a radical communist agenda to destroy civil society in the United States.

Hey, Fibbies:  feel free to supply proof that contradicts all the above.

Motherfuckers.

ZA Factoids

Africa

ZA, of course, being the international acronym for South Africa.

Cape Town is one of the world’s most beautiful cities:

The people somewhat less so, but that’s true of just about any city.

Durban looks like Miami Lite:

The Drakensberg range is quite spectacular:


They were named thus by Boer settlers who thought the mountains looked like dragons’ teeth.

The Wonderboom (Wonder Tree), a fig tree that is over a million years old:

…which is why you need to prune your fruit trees.  (It’s that thing in the center that looks like a bush.)

South Africa has its own version of the Grand Canyon, called the Blyde River Canyon:

Not as deep, but then again it’s a couple hundred million years younger.

Now for some other size comparisons:

Relative to the U.S. Lower 48:

Relative to Texas:

And here are the Big Five:

Anyway, those were some of the slides I made for New Wife’s “Where I Came From” presentation to the kids at her school.

Toy Cars

Drive Time

I was having a long email exchange with Reader Chaz from Britishland, and we were talking about Ferraris and guns and what have you, and on the subject of cars, I actually surprised myself by saying this:

For a toy car, I would certainly choose a Caterham over any Ferrari made today, and not just because of the price, either.

Here’s the subject car under discussion:

 

…and I have to confess I was very influenced by this episode of Harry’s Garage, where at about the 13-minute mark Harry Metcalfe talks about how the increasing performance and sophistication of modern cars is making them heavier and less fun to drive — “too much power” (harking back to something I’ve said often with regard to Dodge Whatevers with 500hp engines), complexity following from stupid shit like emission controls and electrification, too many driver options (such as “sport mode”, “memory seats”) and so on.

Increasingly, in my sunset years, I want simplicity in a car:  get in, turn the thing on, and drive off.  (It’s one reason why I love driving New Wife’s Fiat 500 Sputum:  stick shift, nothing to touch in the car — yes, it has a Sport mode button, but on a non-turbo 1400cc engine, it is to laugh and I’ve never used it — and driving it is an absolute pleasure.  Forty-odd miles to the gallon doesn’t hurt, either.)

If I were in the market for a truck, I’d get a base model Toyota Tacoma with a stick shift.  As I’m planning to keep the Tiguan forever, the car issue is moot — but if it was totaled or otherwise became unroadworthy, I’d probably pick a base model VW Jetta with a stick shift.

Or a Caterham with a 2-liter Ford Duratec engine, if the insurance gods were feeling really generous.