Never Not Ever No Way

Commenting on this post about my car issues, Longtime Reader Fred Z. asks:

“Have you considered a small motorbike for short trips and simple errands? Cheap to buy, cheap on gas, cheap to maintain.”

And easy to fall from, be struck by another car with, and a host of other dangers.  As the meme goes:

I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, was last on one (my uncle’s) at age 10 and never again since.  Ain’t gonna happen.

I’d drive an EV before a bike, but only if it looks like this:

Bright, high-visibility yellow.  No doors so I can jump out easily if the fershlugginer thing catches fire.

Kinda like riding a bike, except with four wheels.  I am aware of the irony, thank you.

Does that answer the question?

Sour Taste

Was chatting to my insurance guy the other day, and the result of said discussion was that as far as my VW Tiguan is concerned, I’m screwed if I ever get into a wreck because the book value of the 2013 model with 130,000+ miles is in the single-figure thousands.

This would be barely enough for a deposit on a “new” (i.e. second-hand) replacement, assuming I could even find one in acceptable condition — mine is near-perfect because I look after my cars, and it has the “leatherette” seats which are like hen’s teeth in this model.  (I’m a huge fan of the Tiggy because I’ve owned two, consecutively, and neither ever gave me any trouble, for a total of 210,000 miles.)

And to continue on the math of the thing, a $5,000 deposit would result in a $450+ monthly car payment, which I can’t afford #CrappyCashFlow.

So I’m stuck with what I’ve got, and the only thing I’ve got going for me is that a month’s total driving tops out at about 200 miles.  Had I not done Uber for a couple years, the mileage would now stand at about 40,000 miles, but I had no option in the matter (did I already mention #CrappyCashFlow?).

Anyway, I’ll just have to be careful out there, as a wise TV cop once said.

But there is an advantage to not having a modern — i.e. 2015+ — model, in that the electronics of the Tiguan are minuscule:  no keyless entry, no mapping software or any of that jive.  In fact, other than electric windows and -rearview mirrors, it’s about as electronics-free as one could imagine:  no seat “memory”, no “touchless trunk-closer”, none of any of those apparently-must-have “features” which are now common in cars nowadays.  Hell, my Tiggy doesn’t even have an Event Data Recorder (EDR) chip installed (that came after the 2014 model year).

This non-modernism is a real advantage when it comes to dealing with bastardy of this nature:

In a world where privacy is becoming increasingly elusive, drivers are facing an invisible foe that could be costing them money. A New York Times report details how automakers are sharing information on driving habits with insurance companies which can have a harmful impact on people’s wallets.

Insurance companies have “offered incentives to people who install dongles in their cars or download smartphone apps that monitor their driving, including how much they drive, how fast they take corners, how hard they hit the brakes and whether they speed.”

Car companies have established relationships with insurance companies, so that if drivers want to sign up for what’s called usage-based insurance — where rates are set based on monitoring of their driving habits — it’s easy to collect that data wirelessly from their cars.

But in other instances, something much sneakier has happened. Modern cars are internet-enabled, allowing access to services like navigation, roadside assistance and car apps that drivers can connect to their vehicles to locate them or unlock them remotely. In recent years, automakers, including G.M., Honda, Kia and Hyundai, have started offering optional features in their connected-car apps that rate people’s driving. Some drivers may not realize that, if they turn on these features, the car companies then give information about how they drive to data brokers like LexisNexis.

Here’s the thing:  I am one of the world’s most careful drivers;  in fifty-odd years of driving, I’ve had two wrecks of any consequence (and none at all in the past forty years) and two — count ’em, two — speeding tickets (both for doing less than 50 in a 40mph zone).  That’s it.

So if anyone would qualify for a lower insurance premium, assuming that I’d agree to let my insurance company snoop on my driving, it would be me.

But I’ll see them all burn in hell before I agree to this bullshit.  Fuck these assholes, fuck their Big Brother snooping, and fuck any car company who goes along with this foulness.  I’ll stick with my old ‘un, thankee:

No wonder ol’ Fred’s smiling.  He doesn’t have to put up with all this bullshit.

Comparison

Maserati re-released their GT model a year or so ago, and made a great to-do about its heritage, comparing it all the way back to the A6 tourer.  Okay;  let’s take a look:

1956 A6G/54 Zagato

2023 GT

Leaving aside the new GT’s Whore’s Red Lipstick (or whatever it’s called) color, and ignoring completely the fugly rims…

…the new one’s not bad (although surprise surprise, the 1956 model is the one that gets my dangler tingling).

Sadly, of course, it no longer has the V8 Ferrari engine of the earlier 2010-era GT, but the replacement 3.0-liter V6 is the same engine out of the excellent-but-impractical MC20 racer:

…so it can’t be all bad.

The new GT retails for just under $170,000 here at Boardwalk Maserati in Plano — a relative bargain in these inflated-money / overpriced sports car times, and $100k less than, say a Ferrari Roma — so at least it’s not that stupid, price-wise.  (The older GT used to cost about $150k, and the 1956 A6 G/54 will set you back well over $900k, if you can find one — they made fewer than a hundred, all told.)

Lovely, all three of them.  But what else did you expect from Maserati?


Some more pics of the 50s Maserati Zagato:

And the Frua-bodied Spider, which is so beautiful it should be illegal:

Lies? Oh No!

Say it ain’t so:

Electric cars have up to a third less battery life than advertised when driven in real-life conditions, an investigation has found. 

The official figures provided by car manufacturers for how many miles an EV can drive on full charge are based on a standardised test done only in warm conditions. 

But an investigation by What Car magazine has found that when the cars are driven in the real-world, particularly in colder temperatures, their batteries go flat much faster. 

In other revelatory news, politicians’ promises aren’t to be trusted, he won’t call you next time he’s in town, and she does love you just for your money, Mr. Murdoch.

The Panther

Stumbled on a nice 15-minute history of DeTomaso’s Pantera.  To my mind, along with Bizzarini’s offerings, this was the ideal marriage:  dago styling coupled with a decent Murkin engine.  (Of course, in the beginning “Italian styling” went hand-in-hand with “Italian build quality”, but at least that was rectified in the Pantera’s second production year.)

And I have to say that I do prefer the pre-1980s Pantera:

…even in the fugly late-70s American trim with the loathsome “safety” bumpers:

…without that fat, ostentatious wing that was added later:

Hell, I’d drive one today — yeah, I know, “Kim prefers an early-1970s car over a modern one, quelle surprise.”