Tag: Cars

It Ain’t That

Drive Time

The Car God opines:

Jeremy Clarkson blames “idiot” climate change activist Greta Thunberg for killing the car show.
The former Top Gear presenter, who is returning with another series of Amazon Prime motor series The Grand Tour, claimed young people have been turned against cars by the 16-year-old environmental campaigner.
Clarkson, 59, told The Sun: “Everyone I know under 25 isn’t the slightest bit interested in cars – Greta Thunberg has killed the car show.”

Most of the time, I agree with Clarkson, but I’m not so sure about this one.

My opinion is that young people aren’t interested in cars for two reasons:

  • They all look the same.  (I’ve ranted and raved about this situation so many times, I’m starting to bore myself.)
  • New cars cost too much, and youngins don’t have the cash to buy them — hence the popularity of the “no-car” ownership and Uber.

Much as I detest her and her ilk, neither of the above is the fault of that little bint Thunberg.  The real fault lies with government — our government, European governments, all governments — who have mandated expensive changes to cars in the name of SAFETY and CLIMATE.  The first is arguably a good thing, but the second a lot more questionable.

But when an “entry-level” (i.e. modest) secondhand car like this one costs nearly 20 grand…

I’m not sure that many under-25s are going to want to spend this much even if they have it.  College loan repayments, ObamaCare medical insurance, under-25 auto insurance rates… even if they’re filling the stereotype and living with Mom and Dad, money is going to be tight, assuming they’re pulling in the typical youngin annual salary of $24k – $36k.

(Yeah, I know  you can get cheaper cars — the Son&Heir scrimped and saved out of his paltry waiter’s income until he could afford to buy a twelve-year-old Oldsmobile Beater from a friend for $1,500, but his maintenance costs almost killed him.  If he’d had more money, it would have saved him money to buy a Honda like the above;  but he didn’t have the money.  I don’t think today’s kids are any better off — they may even be worse  off, come to think of it.)

Of course, adding the Blame Game onto all that via Thunberg and the other EarthFirsters doesn’t help — nor does it help that the under-25 group are malleable and vulnerable thanks to their crap secondary education and foul neo-socialist tertiary education, so they’ll believe anything and hope that Mommy and Daddy (or Big Brother Gummint) will bail them out.  But that’s not the primary reason for their lassitude in matters automotive.

In my day, boys had wall posters on their bedroom walls which featured supercars (and supermodels).  Nowadays?  They can’t afford the fucking posters.  They can’t even afford the ticket price for the car show.

And that’s because their priorities have changed.  Why spend money on a four-wheeled money pit when they can spend as much or more each month on a money pit which can fit in the hand?

And why drag-race your buddy down Main Street (à la American Graffiti ) when you can play Grand Theft Auto?  Or pick up your girlfriend and take her to the movies, when she can catch a Lyft over to your place and the two of you can “Netflix and chill”?

It’s not just the money.  Times and priorities have changed.  And as with all this stuff, it’s not just one thing (like Greta Thunberg) that has caused the change;  it’s everything.  Our kids live in a different world;  and in that world, the car isn’t important anymore.  Too bad.  Here’s a pic of my teenage dream car:

In today’s dollars, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT  would have cost about $14,000 — brand new.

Here’s #2 Son’s dream car:

Brand new, the Honda Fit costs about $17,000.  He has less chance of getting this econobox than I did the Alfa Romeo.

Not-So-Vintage Beauty

Drive Time

While wandering along the various highways and byways of Ye Olde Internette (i.e. looking at stuff that wasn’t written yesterday by some illiterate / ignorant Millennial), I stumbled upon something that I hold near and dear to my heart:  a Maserati 4200 GT from the early 2000s.  Here’s what it looks like, in both Coupé and Spyder configurations:

 

Now here’s why I love this creature [2,000 lines of drooling foolishness redacted]:

  • 4.2-liter V8 Ferrari engine giving
  • 385 horsepower (395 in the later GranSport)
  • Skyhook suspension system
  • manual transmission
  • proper 4-seater (not 2 adults + 2 amputees, like most of the ilk)

But those are just the technical specs, and impressive though they are, a whole bunch of cars today can produce the same or better.

However, what gets my various body parts tingling, moving and enlarging is the sheer beauty of this car.  This guy (who uses his twelve-year-old Mazza 4200 as a daily driver!!) puts it perfectly:

I’m a huge fan of the beautiful styling. I believe it’s a timeless design. When the 3200/4200 was initially released it may have seemed a bit bland for the time. But today with every new car resembling a transformer mated with largemouth bass fish front end, it really makes me appreciate the elegant smooth aerodynamic curves of 90’s vehicles.

I just hope he doesn’t mind if I steal “a transformer mated with largemouth bass fish front end”, because I’m gonna.  And a reminder of the topic under discussion:

I absolutely love the smooth, elegant lines that flow gracefully, compared to the angular offerings of most of today’s sports cars.  And I actually prefer the “standard” styling above over the later GranSport’s, which while also lovely, is starting to look dangerously fish-mouthed:

I am also completely cognizant of the fact that “older Maserati”  and “daily driver”  are not terms that should be combined in a single sentence.

But you could do worse.  A whole  lot worse.

Want.

Damn

Drive Time

So here was the news:

Volkswagen announced in January 2019 that it planned to invest $800 million in its Chattanooga plant and bring 1,000 jobs with the expansion.

 

But:

Chattanooga will be the first manufacturing facility in North America that will produce vehicles using VW’s modular electric toolkit chassis, or MEB.  The first Volkswagen electric vehicle will roll out in 2022.

Oh, that’s just great.

That’s all we need…

Next thing, VW will announce that they’re replacing the Tiguan with Electro-Bugs, whereupon:

Just sayin’…

And Speaking Of Commies…

Business, Marxists

I see that the strike at GM has ended:

Negotiations between General Motors and the United Auto Workers reached a tentative contract deal on Wednesday that could end a month-long strike that brought the company’s US factories to a standstill.

Good.  Now they can go back to making mostly crappy cars* that few people want to buy.

Driven up by the longest economic expansion in American history, auto sales appear to have peaked and are now heading in the other direction.

I would be curious to see how the auto sales numbers break down between new and used cars.  Also, between cars and trucks/SUVs.  Anyone have any ideas or info on this?

But here’s an interesting statement as to perhaps a good reason why GM is tanking:

GM and other car makers are also struggling to make the transition to electric and autonomous vehicles.

…which very few people want to buy.  Nothing like a sinking company investing in products that people either don’t want, don’t need or hate the thought of.

Maybe they should trash all their current car designs and go into the retro/mod business:

Hell, they probably would;  except that, knowing GM, they’d make them electric-only and ergo  doomed.

*  Except for maybe some Cadillac models and the Corvette.  Note that I’m specifically excluding GM trucks, which are generally quite good, from the above comments.

Safe Queens

Beauty, Drive Time, The Gun Thing

I’ve talked about this topic before, but I’m not sure I’ve ever told this story here.

Many years ago, a guy heard from a Reader of this website what a sucker I was for WWI- and WWII-era guns, and offered to sell me a brand-new, still-in-the-box, never-been-fired Colt Government 1911 from that time (with Colt certification).  As it happened, I was a little flush with cash right then, and after a little pondering (and deciding not to pay down the car debt), agreed to his price.  I went over to his house to complete the transaction, and checked it out.

(Not a pic of the actual gun.)

It was a beauty.  Needless to say, I was nuzzling it and whispering terms of endearment to it (as one would a new puppy), but I did let it slip that I couldn’t wait to take this beauteous thing from my grandfather’s era out to the range and see how it could shoot.

The seller looked aghast.  “You’re going to shoot  it?” he asked.
“Hell yes,” was my response.

Whereupon the guy immediately canceled the sale, clearly traumatized that someone was going to take his baby’s virginity.

I told you that tale as an intro to this foolishness:

If you had a supercar, you’d probably drive it, right? Not the three owners of this Ferrari 328 GTS over the last 30 years.
They’ve clocked up a combined- and frankly meagre – 283 miles in total, making this one of the best time-warp examples of an iconic ’80s supercar we’ve seen for some time.
And it could soon be yours, if you have pockets deep enough. That’s because it’s being sold at auction in the UK next month, and the expected purchase fee is set to hit £150,000.

And the accompanying pics (out of several):

Now I have to say that I’m casting lustful eyes upon this beauty, and if those bastards at PowerBall had fulfilled their side of the bargain over the weekend, I’d be winging my way over to Britishland as you read this, letter of credit from Gringotts Bank clutched in my sweaty little hand.

And let me tell you that once I’d got it back Over Here, and after having had it checked and serviced by Giovanni at Boardwalk Ferrari of Plano (yes of course  we have a Ferrari/Maserati dealership in Plano — do you even have to ask?), I would turn that 283 miles/30 years into 12,830 miles/30 years+1 month faster than you can say “Scuderia Maranello“.  I’m thinking of an epic road trip around the southern states, going from one Ferrari dealership to another (because Ferrari) before the weather turns chilly.

I’ve never understood the concept of “safe queens”, whose possession is so precious that usage is forbidden.  As Longtime Friend and Ex-Drummer Knob puts it so elegantly:

“Owning a beautiful car and never driving it in case you lower its value is like having a supermodel girlfriend and never fucking her, just to make her more attractive to her next boyfriend.”

In fact, now that I think of it, I’d not only drive this 328 GTS, I’d invite Knob over to drive it as well.  (What the hell, as bandmates, we once shared two girls — not simultaneously — because in those days we both liked the same kind of woman:  low moral standards, voluptuous figure and huge breasteses.)  I figure we’d each get as much fun out of the 328, so to speak, as we did from Penny and Big Jenny.

Anyway, to wrench this train of thought back from the branch line:  I have no time for people who treat machines and tools like investments, even though they can be regarded as such.  And as for the Ferrari’s owner/idiot:  if he’d plonked the original purchase price of the 328 into a stock index fund (to name but one  investment vehicle) thirty years ago, he’d have made far more money than he’s currently going to realize from its sale.  Some investment, smart guy.

And in the meantime, that gorgeous car has been wasting away like Rapunzel in the tower.

Fach.