Survey Says 50% Of Global Car Exhaust Produced By America
Today, when we learned Hollywood in West LA, we drove up from Pedro. In a Silverado. And no girls turned the color of the avocado as we drove down the street. But oh man, that girl with the floral tattoos at the Lemon Moon restaurant really flipped our switch. Especially when she got our A-Team joke. We wanna know her story. Mooniness aside (and more importantly), it took us an hour and a half to drive the 30 miles home. In a big, honkin' quad-cab, V8 Chevy. With no other passengers. This, friends, was not exactly the "Dodge Neon or Equivalent" we signed up for. Plus, it handled like a very large Aveo. In which case, give us the Silverado.
More than that, we saw plenty of other big, honkin' V8 vehicles sticking with us for miles in traffic. Now, nothing gets us hot like a stonking V8. We own a vehicle with a non-stonking V8, and the exhaust note reminds us of childhood, our teenage years, and our early twentysomethings. But is everyone so nostalgic? Most likely not. We justify our Durango by basically not driving it and using it to carry big things and tow heavy stuff. But if that girl from Lemon Moon wants to be our girlfriend, we hope that she owns an econo car with sporting pretensions. If she's got a '90 Civic Si and is down with Pedro, we'll drive back up there and propose tomorrow. (Although, if we're talking emissions over economy, we wouldn't be surprised if the Chev's V8 actually burned cleaner than the old Honda's I4.)
Regardless, today leaves us totally unsurprised that a European survey has decided that Americans are responsible for half of the world's auto exhaust. That said, the story strikes us as being decidedly anti-American. And while sometimes we're okay with that, it occasionally makes us grumpy. And right now, we're a bit grumpy. Commenters, start poking holes or calling us assholes. [Thanks to Pas and Daniel for the tip.]
Half of global car exhaust produced by US vehicles [Guardian, UK]
Related:
Will You Quit With the 'Dave' Crap Already, Horbury? [Internal]