Hell Week for Car Haters

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supercar owners don't take their babys out...because they're babied!...they for sitting there an looking pretty, as much as those SUV's with bling rims are. not only that, they're guarenteed cop attractants, too expensive to THINK about insuring for anyone not worth zillions, and will get stolen on general purpose. most blinged out SUV's are so loaded down with mr T. jewlrey raido bits, etc that they'd be too noticible to try and steal half the time...mainly cause the owner owns as many guns as there are speakers in the damn thing after they're through modding it...and they're all large caliber.

whomever posted the things on bikes has got a point. i had to bike to college classes and work when i was broke down...and every time i dug er out I'd hear "get the F off the road, a------!"...my bike now sits rotting because you can't get parts for a street bike anymore. i need friggin 27 inch rims for a 1.25 inch tire.
 
I got it from browneye.com. I made it up. But given my own and many others' observations, high-performance cars spend most of their time not being driven. The times that they are driven, much of that time is local or stuck in traffic. Then there is the fact that so few would risk such expensive cars on the racetrack or with their license. On top of that, there's the fact that those who actually can afford these cars, few know how to drive them like they were designed to be driven.

You are not allowed doing that. Just becuase you only see these cars stuck in traffic does not mean that is the only thing they do. Please list me the trackdays you have attended in the last year, who organized them and what cars were present.

But then again, you could be making all of that up as well.
 
You see, the argument of supercars versus SUVs is pretty thin. While many supercars do get taken out on the track, what about the ones you don't see in photo ops and magazines? What about the other half-dozen McLarens, CLK-GTRs, F40s and whatnot sitting in the guy's garage?

Those owners who don't use their supercars for anything but driving fast and on track usually have an SUV to do their daily driving in, don't they? And which is more proper? Trailering your baby to the track with a Chevy Trailblazer, getting mpg in the low teens', or driving it on track and getting similar mileage?

While I've seen EVOs and 911s at the track, what's interesting is those that I don't see at the track. I've seen 911s being used for poseur duty, in-town cruising. I've seen Vettes and Vipers being driven to work. I've seen EVOs being taken on grocery runs. Is that how you're supposed to use a sports car? None of these things get very good mileage in traffic.

I used to be of the mind that these cars were somehow more proper than SUVs, but any car will have its share of poseurs. It's just easier to see with SUVs because more poseurs can afford them.

If we truly are going back to the age of "cheap" muscle and speed, I'm betting those same poseurs or wasters are going to go buy the cars. They're still going to suffer from poor gas mileage, but what the hey, they'll be in sexier cars.

I do dislike SUVs, mind you, but only because they're under-utilized on the road, too big and too heavy, with poor handling and braking. I don't feel safe in one or around one. But then, that's my personal viewpoint as a driver. An SUV driver will hate my car because he can't see over the next car, it can't ford three foot streams, climb parking lot curbs or survive a flash-flood. It's also too fast and too easy to get into trouble with. He won't feel safe driving one.

A biker will hate both of them because they're both too big, use too much gas, are too hard to park, and are difficult to thread through traffic. He won't feel safe near either of them.

Personally, whatever you've got, use it the way The God of Motors intended to:

Yay to the Porsche driver with scrapes on his bumper from the last tirewall he hit, and numerous rock chips from doing 150 mph runs on the highway.

Yay to the Land Rover driver with mud up to his windowsills and scratches all over his aluminum hide. Yay for that bent rim on the rear right corner where he smashed it against a rock.

and... if you've got a bent rim, rock chips and bug splatters all over the front of your car, and at least one "memento" of an off-track excursion from the local trackday or autocross... good for you. If your SUV has a scratched cargo bay, stains from wet cargo all over the place, has permanent indentations in all of the seats, and is dirty as hell... good for you, too. You're using your car as God intended.

If it's in pristine shape, no matter what it is... meh, go get a bike... :lol:
 
Well, the Evo is a bad example to use. The beauty of the Evo, and its STi rival, is that they're just as comfortable doing grocery duty as they are running the local mountain pass or lapping Willow Springs. That's why they're so wildly popular... it lets you have 911-killing performance, without needing to have a second "daily driver" for making grocery runs and carting the kids around.

On the SUV subject... My stance is that I have no problem whatsoever with people who use SUVs for their intended purpose. If you're off-roading it regularly, if you've got a ranch or work in logging, or even live out in the sticks, or if you're regularly towing stuff or carting large items... there's nothing wrong with an SUV. I don't have a problem with car-like or "crossover" vehicles, either. Take the Nissan Murano / Infiniti FX35/45. Both vehicles have similar road performance to the sedans based on the same platform and drivetrain, but do it while allowing the driver to carry more stuff, and more people.

It's the people who buy large, off-road intended, low economy, vehicles, and then use them for nothing but taking the kids to school, or driving around town, that I have an issue with. There's no need for an Excursion or a Suburban, or, even an H2, if you're a suburban mother with two kids, who will never go farther off-road than an unpaved parking lot, and who will never carry anything larger than the week's groceries, that's what pisses me off.

By the way... I despise Priuses. My mother owns one, it's the most poorly designed car I've ever driven.
 
me thinks i'm gonna take photos of my badly battered Blazer. the only problem, niky, with using a vehicle as god intended, is that in five years, you have a pile of jusk sitting in the yard that no-one wants even for scrap, and junkyards refuse the damn things. i swear i'm hailing around 20-30 KILOS of dirt on htat poor blazer (about 50% of it ON my engine block cause of that lake I had to drive through all winter:p)

here's an ouch statistic for you: my blazer has a gross listed weight of 5100 LBS!...on a truck that everyone outside of the states seem to consider full size, and nearly too big. and i wondered why i wasn't getting more than 14 per? thing needs a 6 liter, and it's a compact pickup base!
 
H2's off-road?:lol: Those things will blow a tie rod on even slightly rough off-roading. There's plenty of videos on Google Video of them popping tie rods.
 
me thinks i'm gonna take photos of my badly battered Blazer. the only problem, niky, with using a vehicle as god intended, is that in five years, you have a pile of jusk sitting in the yard that no-one wants even for scrap, and junkyards refuse the damn things. i swear i'm hailing around 20-30 KILOS of dirt on htat poor blazer (about 50% of it ON my engine block cause of that lake I had to drive through all winter:p)

here's an ouch statistic for you: my blazer has a gross listed weight of 5100 LBS!...on a truck that everyone outside of the states seem to consider full size, and nearly too big. and i wondered why i wasn't getting more than 14 per? thing needs a 6 liter, and it's a compact pickup base!

^^^How do you know what my old cars look like? :lol:

RE: Compact.... the US conception of compact is mind-bogglingly large... but then again, with all new cars gaining an average of 200 pounds per model change, I wouldn't be surprised if your Blazer became internationally recognized as compact in a decade or so.

For me, it's live and let live. We all waste gas. I just do my part in saving it by telling new buyers to go for the least amount of vehicle they'll need... or at least, the smallest thing they can live with. If they think they can live with an SUV, that's their problem. If they need it, fine. :)
 
americans go by interior volume size and length of wheelbase (Yss, correct me, please). the only size examples I can think of are for ford, so bear with me

a Ka is a micro...the kind that 50% of americans won't fit into and could pick up one handed
the Escort and Focus are Sub-Compact scale
the Contour (Mondeo) is compact
a taurus is only midsize
anything over that is fullsize.

a compact pickup has room for two across..so you center passenger doesn't get their huevos slammed by the gearshift :p and is intended for tiny people
the american Dakota is a Midsize, as far as I'm concerned.

everything else is a full size, except the utility trucks, which are real yaghts. anything bigger than that is considered a Lorry in the British sense
 
To be completely honest, I have no idea how the size classes are determined these days. Given that most "economy cars" today are about the size of the "midsize" sedans of 20 years ago, there has been a bit of a shift not only in America, but worldwide.

...I mean think about it. Park a 2006 Honda Civic next to a 1986 Honda Accord, and I'd be damned if they aren't the same size...

If I were to lay it out (GM, Honda, VAG):

- Sub-Compact: Aveo, Fit, Polo
- Compact: Cobalt, Civic, Rabbit/Golf
- Mid-Size: Malibu, Accord/TSX, Jetta
- Regular: Impala, Accord (USDM), Passat
- Full-Size: STS, RL/Legend, A6
- Large Sedan: DTS, (no Honda), A8

However, trucks are generally hard to define. The "segment busters" that include the likes of the Dodge Dakota/Mitsubishi Raider for pickups and Dodge Durango for SUVs get things screwy. Generally, I usually go by the GM tape-measure:

- Compact SUV: Theta (Saturn VUE)
- Mid-Size SUV: GMT 355, GMT360 and GMT960 trucks (H3, Trailblazer, Outlook)
- Full-Size SUV: GMT900 (Tahoe)
- Large SUV: GMT900 (Suburban)

...Then trucks:

Compact: GMT355 (Colorado)
Full-Size: GMT900 (Silverado 1500)
Large: GMT900, GMT530/560 (Silverado 2500/3500, Kodiak)
 
americans go by interior volume size and length of wheelbase (Yss, correct me, please). the only size examples I can think of are for ford, so bear with me

We use length as the SOLE determining factor to classify vehicles. Official organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration use interior volume, but they end up with vehicles in weird classes that are never used outside those agencies. Wheelbase is used by no reputable source to determine vehicle classification.

The only thing that can change the use of length as the determinant of a vehicle class is the manufacturer's pitch - for instance, the Dodge Durango, which is a large SUV by length, is pitched as a midsize SUV, a classification that a lot of people unknowingly (and incorrectly if you look at the dimensions) parrot. Another example is the last (99-04) Grand Cherokee, which was shorter in length than a Saturn Vue, but was pitched as and accepted as a midsize SUV.

Length is god.
 
But the Durango, once you get inside it, is definitely midsized. So is a local Isuzu SUV (based on the shared Colorado platform)... it's over 5 meters long, but still doesn't have the same interior volume or seating comfort of a full-sized American truck.
 
I always see car mags using Wheelbase as important factor in determining the interior size on new cars.

"The wheelbase on [model here] has increased by 2 inches, which translates to [some random number here] cubic feet of added interior space..."
 
The problem with that is considering what's between the wheels. If the wheelbase has expanded by pushing the front wheels forward, not much happens. If they push the rear wheels back on a car, it usually results in more legroom for second row passengers.

Of course, some cars can benefit from increases in interior room by juggling of components within the wheelbase.
 
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