Category: Drive Time

Yeah, Nazzo Fast, Guido

Drive Time, Subsidies

Stephen Green takes a long-overdue look at the inevitability of electric cars and such, and comes up with this priceless observation:

We need to talk about the word “inevitability” because when it comes to electric vehicles, I do not think it means what supporters think it means.

And then the killer:

Inevitability, you see, is when government spends money we don’t have and passes laws that won’t work to bribe or force people into buying cars they don’t want.

Like Karl Marx’s sense of inevitability — the inevitable fall of capitalism and the inevitable advent of its replacement — such things which go against human nature always need assistance from the firm foot of government to be applied with a heavy hand.

If the above is slightly incomprehensible to you, you need to read Stephen’s whole piece.

Irony Defined

Drive Time, Funny Stuff

Here’s an unfortunate train of events.  When examining Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas song, scientists at the University of Sheffield in the UK found the following (links included):

Well, yes.  That “carbon footprint reduction” thing is doubleplus virtuous, of course.

However, as with all ivory-tower cogitations, Real Life™ has an unfortunate knack for making such conclusions look ridiculous:

Needless to say, the Eco-Loons don’t care, because not being able to visit your family at all on Christmas means that your carbon footprint would be lower still.

Which is why scientists should stick to things like discovering a better adhesive that sticks wood to metal, or improving the taste of Slim Jims (to give but two examples), instead of trying to add to the Smug Index of Virtuousness.

Just a thought.

Then again, we have another solution for this bunch of wokey watermelons, to make their carbon footprint go away completely:

…but no doubt someone is going to have a problem with this.

Weird But Wonderful

Drive Time

A Reader (lost yer email, sorry) sent me this little look at The Most Odd-Looking Vintage Muscle Cars Ever Made.  I have several problems with said list, mostly because more than a few of the cars cannot be termed “muscle” cars by any stretch of the imagination, e.g. the Heinkel Kabine of the late 1940s:


…which featured a 174cc engine which generated 9hp.  That’s “muscular” only if you’re a Gen Z snowflake or an eco-moron.

Of course, there are a few strange ones on the list, but I have to say that more than a few did catch my eye, and I would have no problem owning / driving one of them, even today.  Here they are:

BMW Z1 (early 1990s) Sorry, but that’s just lovely.  The retractable doors (!!!) make it strange, but I’d still take one in a heartbeat.

E-type Jaguar (1960s)
That’s not “odd”, you morons, it’s a classic.  Even back then, it wasn’t odd, just beautiful (pace Enzo Ferrari, who knew a thing or two about the topic).

Lotus Europa (1970s)

Yeah, it looks a little strange, but it handled better than any road car of the time.  You could take corners at speeds that would have killed you in any other car.

Corvette station wagon (1970s) 
Yeah, I’d have one of these.  It looks a little like the Europa, but it solves the perennial problem of “How do I fit both my girlfriend and my rifle/shotgun cases into a sports car?”

Toyota 2000 GT (1970)

Sorry, but 150hp in a car that weighed almost nothing, handled like a dream and should never have ceased production?  That’s not weird;  the decision to stop making it was weird.  Like the E-type, it was a classic.

The one that really caught my eye, however, was this one:

Buick Centurion (late 1950s)

I think it’s glorious, not weird — and I’d take one in a heartbeat.

Feel free to peruse the others, and make your own choices in Comments if you want.

There’s also a list that contains some weird motorcycles, but to me they all look the same (like people in various non-European racial groups), so I couldn’t pass judgment.

Insane Build

Drive Time

Okay, so you have an old Alfa Romeo 105 GTV rust-bucket body (is there any other kind?), and you decide to rebuild it, only instead of the original four-cylinder two-liter engine, you say, “What the hell, I’ll just drop a Ferrari 360 V8 into it and see how things shake out.”

Here’s the result.  Take the 15 minutes out of your day, and feel better about the human race, that it can still throw out men like this.

And he’s Strylian, which makes it all the more memorable.  Best quote:  “I had to make everything!”

Including handmaking the leather seats.  (!!!!)

Alfarrari?  Why not?

Not Just No

Drive Time, Gummint, Watermelons

…but “fuck off and die” no.

I refer here, of course, to this push to make us all give up our regular gasoline-powered cars and replace them with fucking Duracell* vehicles.

Here’s one tale of woe.

And here’s the problematic infrastructure.

So fuck ’em.

Come to think of it, we could always switch to horses, except that those assholes at Peta will probably throw a hissy about that too.

I think I need to go to the range (he said, apropos of nothing).  Those guns aren’t going to shoot all by themselves, you know.

*And I mean no disrespect towards Duracell, who make excellent batteries.  I’m just not going to use them to power my car.