Michigananders Love Their Domestics

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No, it was the correct spelling. Michigan-anders...

We also go by:
- Michiganian
- Michigander
- Michiganite
- Yooper (A person from the Upper Peninsula)
- Troll (A name given to people in the Lower Peninsula by Yoopers because we live uner the Mackinac (pronounced Mack-in-aw) Bridge)

And yes, we are the state that looks like a hand. We all do it to show where we live.
 
No, Michiganander is not a proper word. A search for it on Wikipedia reveals no article by that name or even mentioning that word, and there are only 79 Google results to that word (presumably one of which is this thread) - it refers you instead to "Michigander" which has 388,000 results. Whoever convinced you "Michiganander" was a word pulled a fast one on ya. :p
 
M5Power
People think the Phaeton was some sort of godsend for its cheapness in the class. No vehicle that costs $10200 more than the arguable best-in-class model, Lexus's LS430, is a bargain. Calling the Phaeton a class deal is totally false.

arguable and very much so.
 
Doug, now after the masive failure of the Phaeton, the depreciation has hit like a bag of hammers. What are the values now compared to other similarly aged and equipped cars? I'm sure the Phaeton is looking like more of a bargain than ever.

(A little off topic, I have been to Michigan in the winter, it's pretty pathetic)
 
exigeracer
Doug, now after the masive failure of the Phaeton, the depreciation has hit like a bag of hammers. What are the values now compared to other similarly aged and equipped cars? I'm sure the Phaeton is looking like more of a bargain than ever.

A bargain to buy i'm sure - but i wouldn't fancy servicing and repairing a high-milage W12 engine.
 
exigeracer
Doug, now after the masive failure of the Phaeton, the depreciation has hit like a bag of hammers. What are the values now compared to other similarly aged and equipped cars? I'm sure the Phaeton is looking like more of a bargain than ever.

(A little off topic, I have been to Michigan in the winter, it's pretty pathetic)
Fair point - I was quite interested to find out myself, so I did a bit of research on AutoTrader and came up with the following statistics:

Vehicles are listed with their as-new price, and AutoTrader's average price, plus percentage of retained value.

2004 Lexus LS430: $55400/$45800 (82.7% retained)
2004 BMW 745i: $69300/$53700 (77.5% retained)
2004 Audi A8L: $68500/$49700 (72.6% retained)
2004 Mercedes S430 [RWD]: $74300/$50600 (68.1% retained)
2004 Volkswagen Phaeton V8: $64600/$43400 (67.2% retained)
2004 Infiniti Q45: $52400/$33900 (64.7% retained)

As for the twelve-cylinder models:

2004 BMW 760Li: $117200/$79700 (68.0% retained)
2004 Volkswagen Phaeton W12: $94600/$57900 (61.2% retained)
2004 Mercedes S600: $122900/$72100 (58.7% retained)

So it's pretty clear the Phaeton has depreciated pretty quickly compared to the rest of the V8 pack - its depreciation is worsted only by the Infiniti Q45, which is barely even a luxury sedan and didn't sell at all, and is just worse than the S430, which was a) just replaced, b) overpriced to begin with, and c) four years old in 2004 compared to the Phaeton, which was brand new. Phaeton has done a bit better than the S600 in 12-cylinder models, but the same things apply as above and do note that the S600 is still $15000 more expensive overall. Alas though $43400 and $57900 are no "bargain," it's a relative one, and the Phaeton will indeed be a bargain in a few years.
 
exigeracer
(A little off topic, I have been to Michigan in the winter, it's pretty pathetic)

What part of Michigan? You've got to get the lake effect exprience, or head to the top of the hand or to the U.P. to get the full expirience. Winters here in Grand Rapids haven't been as bad as they once were, but we are long-overdue for a big storm this winter season.

The only really bad one this past year was when we were given a bit more than a foot overnight due to the combination of lake effect and a front moving through, and it all turned into a big icy mess.
 
I was in Michigan for new years a couple years back, and to be honnest there wasn't any snow on the ground. At all.

Mind you this was rather south, near K-zoo.
 
exigeracer
I was in Michigan for new years a couple years back, and to be honnest there wasn't any snow on the ground. At all.

Mind you this was rather south, near K-zoo.


Okay, not too far away from me then. I think they are a titch too far inland to get the good stuff. Go somewhere like Muskegon or Holland (due west of Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo), and it can be bad in the winter.
 
I know people in Holland (well not exactly Holland) and I stayed in a hotel there. The friends live down highway 31, I think, along the shore.

I've been to Grand Rapids too, but only for an afternoon. That was last year in September I think. I know a lot of people who live in Michigan, and also a fair number who go to school there, mostly Midwestern and MSU. I lived in Michigan for 7 weeks last summer and the summer before, and I still go there often. I went earlier this month and I'm going next week for a couple days. It's a killer drive for me, like 15 hours...

When I do go, I usually complain about the abundance of domestics. I count out loud every domestic over every import, they're usually fairly far apart.
 
exigeracer
I know people in Holland (well not exactly Holland) and I stayed in a hotel there. The friends live down highway 31, I think, along the shore.

I've been to Grand Rapids too, but only for an afternoon. That was last year in September I think. I know a lot of people who live in Michigan, and also a fair number who go to school there, mostly Midwestern and MSU. I lived in Michigan for 7 weeks last summer and the summer before, and I still go there often. I went earlier this month and I'm going next week for a couple days. It's a killer drive for me, like 15 hours...

When I do go, I usually complain about the abundance of domestics. I count out loud every domestic over every import, they're usually fairly far apart.

Yeah, it is pretty funny when you try to do it. I think the highest I've gotten was 30 or 40 before seeing an import, usually German or Sweedish.
 
My father is from western Michigan and we went to Holland, Muskegon, and then up to the resort town of Mears for a family reunion last summer. For an entire weekend (in Mears), I saw not one Volvo or Saab.

But then that's little changed from any rural area. On my road trip to every Colorado county this summer, I became unbelievably excited upon seeing an E39 528 in Colorado's rural eastern plains. (later I saw an NSX. You can imagine how I reacted to that)
 
You see some weird things here. I was driving to work down E. Beltline the other day and saw a Ferrari 360 coupe go by in the opposite direction. A double take was required, but it isn't like you aren't going to notice a Ferrari-Red supercar in the middle of a pack of black Impalas and grey Foci.
 
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