Congratulations Murilee!
Automatic Gearboxes with manual gear selection. It's like diet soda: you should either get a real manual/real soda or you should not.
CVT gearboxes with manual "gear" selection are the Coke Zeros and Pepsi ones of the world.
CVT gearboxes with manual "gear" selection are the Coke Zeros and Pepsi ones of the world.
@mytdawg: I would like this quote meme-ified for future generations. I'm sure there are any number of cute animal pictures that will do the trick.
@Novaload: The jury is still out on whether investor's spirits will be dampened by the sustained slow sinking of the market.
The first car I ever drove was a Sable of this generation. While it was an automatic, was plagued with a host of electrical problems thanks to a poorly installed aftermarket alarm, and suffered mightily in the hands of me and my siblings as we learned to drive, I still loved it and was sad after it was totaled in the hands of one of my younger siblings.
The AIV above is the exact color of the one I had. It is possibly the ONLY vehicle with an automatic transmission that I would take it in a heartbeat were that possible.
I'd love to see the tolerance parameters on this thing. Does it read the average speed +-5 mph? 10mph? 20 mph?
How does it distinguish between those hooning their vehicles on private property and those on public roads?
How does it track vehicles that do not have GPS transponders? Does it track them with equal accuracy as other vehicles to ensure fairness?
How clear is signage of speed limits going to now be on these backroads? How much tolerance in the average speed is there going to be for periods of time that the driver can be on the road and not see a sign indicating what the speed limit is?
For the expense this is probably going to cost, and for what the purported goals of this system are, Britain may as well implement a public transportation system that goes everywhere quickly and orderly outside of the dangers of school zones and crowded city centers. Then leave roads out in the country for those that want to enjoy the freedom of driving. But that would mean not raking in revenue on systems like this. Hmmm...
Personally, I'd go for a Millennium Falcon Ute. That vehicle was really groomed to be a legitimate Tie Fighter in that market segment.
@skitter: That applause-like sound you hear is me heart-clicking you over and over.
@RepoManChitown: "I suggest we still have manual spark advance and manual chokes. Only a true auto enthusiast would forbid an evil automaton to properly lean their fuel/air mixture. After all they still manually lube their suspension don't they?"
Those are two variables that must be constantly tuned over a continuous interval and produce a result that is not directly intuitive to the operator (if you take into account emissions and efficiency as well as throttle). A manual transmission has (nowadays) five or more discrete gears that you process through sequentially. Bigger number = go faster, and it's rare you make more than 5/6 shifts in more than one minute. So allow me to suggest that there's a leetle difference, although I concede that the view we jalops take wanes Cambrian
(nay, Pre-Cambrian) from your plateau in the Cretaceous period.
I would lube my suspension myself if I had the time. As it is, I request that the technicians servicing my car lube the chassis if they don't do that as part of an oil change.
"Get over it. If peeps BOUGHT stick shifts the manufacturers would be all over themselves to build them. In Europe they like them. In the USA they don't. Just STFU and move if it matters that much."
You know, along those same lines, you don't HAVE to listen to us pitching a fit in this corner of the internet...
@shaneschofield: "I find it weird that people associate better or more skillful driving with a manual transmission."
You shouldn't, for the following reasons.
a.) A manual transmission driver has one more variable to control to keep going, requiring that she be that much more attentive to what is going on around her. She also has a better idea of what speed she is going because each gear will only keep the engine happy for a small band of speeds, as opposed to the driver of an automatic who can just press the gas pedal from a dead stop and without any further interaction with the car suddenly realize they're doing ninety. In some cases it's only a small increase in awareness, but nevertheless it is still an increase.
b.) When someone is driving a manual car, he must learn an entire skill set that is null and void to the rest of us. Someone who knows how to drive an automatic can't drive a manual, but those who know how to drive a manual can (begrudgingly) drive an automatic. Thus by technical definition manual transmission driving is more skillful.
@drew00629: The Honda CR-Z will be. The rest are pretty neck and neck in this day and age.
@AlexG55: Exactly. The KISS principle is a wonderful thing. Pity most designers forget that.
Every day I read a story like this I realize that when my current car dies I'm either restoring an even older one or building some sort of kit car as my next daily driver.
Until new cars are fully electric with no need for overcomplicated, marginally effective hybrid systems or thrill-numbing automatic transmissions, I am not interested. Greenwashing =/= Green.
There are days, just like this, when people tell you that you can't have it all. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't always get what you want.
They were all completely and totally wrong.
You mosey on down to a quiet Arizona yard where these are kept, with trailer in tow and your sum total inheritance from Uncle Carl's estate in hand. For he not only shared your love of cars, but also your astute business sense and your eccentricities, and after accumulating a vast amount of wealth over the course of his off the wall hoon-bonkers life left a good portion of his estate to you, firmly believing that you will know what to do.
So, after that long relaxing drive home, listening to the likes of Tom Petty and Bob Seger all the way, you unload your beauties and start to work.
Most people would shy away from such vehicles because it's impossible to get parts for them, that they are hopeless, orphaned basket cases that would be best reborn as monstrous little Peroduas and Protons and Cherys, but you know better. With will, money, determination, and a warehouse full of shiny new shop tools that you don't quite know how to use but bought with just this kind of project in mind, you know that anything is possible.
Days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years as you toil away at your muses, like a modern day mechanical Noah, spurned by friends, family and gossiped about even by strangers, Your exterior begins to show a "patina" of sweat, unshaven hair, and fluids that are not your own. In the meantime, the cars gradually improve. Hours of careful tuning, sanding, re-engineering, and fabricating bring these little glories back from the brink of death.
The White Glas GT, in spite of the head start of its brethren, is the first to get back on the road. But then one day it disappears. The next day tales of corporate takeovers like Kia acquiring BMW, Spyker and Saab imploding upon themselves, and Chery snapping up spare supercar companies left and right are all over the new. It seems that Beige as a car culture is on a conquest to destroy all that is good, and there's nothing to do to stop it.
Strangely, a similar thing happens with the other three.
As soon as the Reddish Mercedes is completed, it absconds into the night. The next day the world over tells stories of Ford vs. GM, Japan vs. America, Camaro vs. Mustang, and Prius vs. Insight reaching bloody heights, as if the fans have gone to war.
Next to go is the dark NSU Ro80, which vanishes after a Black paint job, amongst reports of millions of cars suddenly dying of oil starvation and drivers running out of gas.
You think to yourself "surely this won't also happen with the Triumph", which in spite of your best efforts has a sick, ghastly sort of sound to it as if the car is just a Pale shadow of itself. But then, sure enough, you one day come outside to find the Triumph crumbling into iron oxide before your very eyes, driven by some unnatural power that, apparently, also takes away on that very day the dearest, most well cared for, and most rust-proofed classics left in the world as the sky becomes littered with the reddish metal dust.
You were no Noah; you were an innocent little lamb who, one by one, opened the seals of the four Autos of the Carpocalypse. And not only is it true that you cannot have it all, but now no one will be left with any.
This is the realization that you come to as you sit, broken down by the side of the road, coated by a thin layer of rust from the air clinging to your oily, sweaty, emaciated body, abandoned by the very vehicles that owe you their livelihood like you were some disposable means of getting where they wanted to be.
This, my friends, is Project Car Hell.
I thought that Volvo's new owners followed the Chinese calendar, not the Mayan one.
Given the temporary nature of these cars, they should just pull a page from the geniuses Smart and Tigger and rename it the Tata ForNow.
Easy: Massive Jet Turbine generator powering massive electric wheel motors.
What?
@pauljones: I will miss your daily dose of reason here as I skim though the comments before getting back to work. Hopefully we'll cross paths on the weekends since I'm more of a Murilopnik-warrior anyways.
Best of luck with the job and all else.
@doug-g: Ding ding ding ding ding! Tell him what he's won Larry!
@Ben: That is actually better than a COTD. I am honored.
@au6553: "...hopelessly damaged brands..."
Imports had a terrible brand image back in the day. The only one to change their name was Nissan.
Things change. There is enough name-change madness as it is without losing the legacy of Cadillac and Buick.
I would also like to note that it was hard enough for me to see the "hopelessly damaged" Pontiac disappear, even as a young person myself. You're misunderestimating the value of these brands.
