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Detroit, 2:07 AM
Sat Nov 21
31 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/21/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
Can it go...Mach 5?
Seriously, turn off Cartoon Network before designing cars.
Wait a sec: rear LED fog lights? Just how the hell fast do you expect to be going, backwards?
09/03/09
/rant.
09/03/09
Well, that's kind of a stupid question, isn't it? Of course you need more power!
09/03/09
EDIT: I was going to include a "Resistance is futile" but was afraid of out-nerd myself. But who cares, resistance IS futile.
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
09/03/09
I would also add that in addition to cost reduction, some areas of performance are compromised for safety, drivability, NVH, and reliability (if you could call a Ferrari reliable). That's why some of the more hardcore stuff is left to limited production runs, or left to tuners.
07/06/09
but what of four cylinder engines that produce over 200 HP?
whatever, i want a ferrari too.
07/06/09
07/06/09
E30M3 = godly
07/06/09
But I agree, they're awesome.
They're one of a few cars I've watched go from "Oh yeah, I remember those" ~10-15 year old cars to 20+ year old classics. Kinda makes me feel old.
07/06/09
07/06/09
On a more realistic scale a Camaro is always seen as a "settle for" car for a man that really wants a Corvette. When I graduated college in 97 I was going to live at home with the parents for a while and put my income towards a NICE car for myself. My choices came down to a new Z-28 or a used C4 LT-1 Corvette. I choose the Corvette, a 94 with 9,500 miles. I put almost 150k miles on that car and loved every minute. Shortly after marriage, the Vette went away to be replaced by a 9 year old 1996 Z-28 convertible. There was NO comparison between the two.
There really is something to the "mystique" of performance cars, whither it is Ferrari, Lambo, or Corvette. Heck, I never got the whole BMW thing until I finally drove and owned one of them.
07/06/09
07/06/09
It's true that cars are, in the strictest sense, mere objects. They are inanimate unless coaxed into motion by a human. They are transportation appliances unless their bodies are sculpted and engines cast to not be merely a device to get you from point A to point B.
They are a waste of money since they rarely gain in value and those that do cost their owners more in maintenance than they can generally make back during a sale. But we still lust for them.
Against all logic. Against everything you learn in even the most basic of economics classes. Against any semblance of sanity. We lust for them.
We want to be the one that turns the key and presses the accelerator to make the inanimate animate. We want to be the one that sees the form over the function and to feel the energy from a perfectly tuned, raucous engine unfit for "daily driver" duty. We want to be the one who goes poor so that he (or she) can own that perfect specimen of an automobile.
That perfect specimen is different for each of us. But, when someone tells you he (or she) bought their dream car -- no matter what it is -- we can understand. And we are jealous of them, even if we disagree with their choice of dreams.
07/06/09
07/06/09
07/06/09
When your car breaks you feel bad for it and want to get it fixed and likewise when you're driving it how ever hard you wish, when doing that it brings you joy.
We give names and personalitys to our cars and in doing so give them life, with out ever turning a key or pressing a throttle.
07/06/09
Every different car is so complex, has so many different aspects from the way it looks, to what it can do, to the way it drives, to the way it feels to be in, to the way it's built, to the way it fails, to the way the previous owner treated it that they can offer as much joy or pain (or both) in a relationship as almost any female.
They can be the one who took advantage of you, the one that got away, or the one that was tragically taken from you. They can leave you and come back, but they're never the same the second time.
Anyway, you still get COTD.
07/06/09
The bad part about COTD is you're essentially ineligible before 10am (Matt sleeping?) and after 3pm central (Matt writing COTD?). So in reality, there's a narrow range.
I wish I had FULL "box score" stats on every COTD, because I'd wager that timeframe is pretty accurate.
07/06/09
07/06/09
I've noticed the same pattern. Although I always figured the cutoff at 4pm. Either way, the window does seem to be narrow.
07/06/09
...which is to say that for me, the line between very complicated machines and animals and humans is not as huge.
The meaning that a thing or person has comes not from its function, but from everything else: malfunction, what/who produced it, how it's treated, how it's used, what it leaves behind. Without these, there's nothing but a pile of metal or an oily, salty bag of tubes.
07/07/09
Hopefully, one day, when the car has been replaced as transport just as the horse was replaced by the horse, we will all learn to appreciate cars like the way we appreciate horses now.
Amen.
10/21/09
07/06/09
06/19/09
06/19/09
06/16/09
06/16/09
06/16/09
I liked Don Panoz's take of front vs. mid/rear engined cars, "I've never seen a horse push a cart before. Why would I put by engine back there?" So ridiculous and American I love it.