Here’s the story of the Lancia company — and the title says it best: The Power Of Fun.
My favorite Lancia models (in order):
Fulvia HF
D50 F1 (as driven by Fangio)
Stratos
Aurelia B24
Stradale
Every time Lancia decided to enter some form of racing, they’d win, win big and win with some groundbreaking new technology. Very few (if any) auto companies can make the same claim.
I just wish they hadn’t been so horribly shafted by parent company Fiat… but that’s the corporate world for you.
You have a chance to get three (and only three) cars from this collection as tax-paid gifts from the dead guy’s estate:
Read the descriptions and so on at the linked article, then make your choice and post in Comments.
Assume that you won’t immediately sell them and pocket the money. Play the game.
My three choices (in order):
I’ve ranted on and on about how I hate the intrusion of technology into the simple act of driving, but my ire is approaching volcanic levels. Try this little snippet (via Insty, thankee, Squire):
While it’s often easier to sync your phone to a vehicle, it doesn’t allow the company you purchased the vehicle from to maximize its data harvesting capabilities. It also lets you circumvent their operating system to a large degree and any apps that might be tied to commerce, which is why automakers are now trying to sweeten the pot. The ultimate goal is to basically convert your vehicle into something that can sweep up just as much information about you as your smartphone — if not more.
“If you’re using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, then you’re kind of limited [for use of applications]”, Alexander Schoenhals, a Mercedes-Benz engineer working on third-party apps, explained.
Do they even realize how sinister this all sounds? Every time I read shit like this from MB, BMW or VW, I want the 8th Army Air Force group to be re-constituted just to fly over and bomb their fucking factories into rubble (and repeat with Detroit on the return leg), simply to weed this bullshit out and force the aforementioned data harvesters to start from scratch all over again.
I’m unlikely to buy a new car anytime soon, if at all — more likely, I’ll be driving New Wife’s Fiat 500 forever, once my non-technological Tiguan has breathed its last drop of 89 octane unleaded.
But mark my words; I will never drive some information vampire like the modern breed.
I’d rather find a way to get my hands on something from the pre-technology era (1970s) like a VW Thing, a Jeep CJ5 or others of that ilk (other suggestions in Comments), and deal with their discomfort and unreliability.
As for modern car manufacturers: fuck ’em, and the motherboard they’re surfing in on. I want no part of their shit.
Here’s an interesting question. How many of you, O My Readers, would be up for this little piece of German engineering (assuming funds etc. and all the stuff that goes along with my hypotheticals):
I, for one, find it quite charming. And if like me you’re sick of driving all the wind-tunnel identicars of today, this would certainly make a personal statement.
Remember, it would be a toy, not an everyday drive — but it would certainly put a smile on my face every time I stepped into the garage.
The Greatest Living Englishman sounds off about bicyclists, and one has to sympathize with his take. However, it should be said that the reason that there’s so much friction twixt the two-wheeled and four-wheeled sets is simply that Britishland roads, whether in- or out of town are just too damn small and narrow to accommodate both.
Over Here, we don’t have much of a problem with cyclists, largely because our roads are much wider (certainly here in north Texas, anyway), and even if one encounters a group (gaggle? mob? idiocy?) of cyclists taking up a full lane, there’s lots of room to go round them, all while shaking one’s head at the lunacy of riding a bike in the searing midsummer Texas heat. Also, we have large pickup trucks and people with guns in them, hence the relative politeness of American cyclists compared to their Brit counterparts.
By the way, if you scroll further down the linked article, you’ll see that Clarkson’s take on the proposed Ford Capri redux is exactly the same as mine.
GMTA, and all that.
Loyal Readers will remember that I love the 1970s Ford Capri:
…so one would think that the news of Ford reissuing the lovely thing would have me panting.
Alas, no.
Rather than a petrol-guzzling coupe, it will be re-marketed as an electric sports crossover capable of reaching 0-to-62mph in around 6.4 seconds with zero emissions, a Ford staff member has revealed.
And I bet that the “new” Capri won’t look anything like its predecessor. Instead, it will look like all the other modern wind-tunnel-shaped anonymities, so in fact the only thing common to the two models will be the name.
Pass, with prejudice. Fucking morons.