You have a chance to get three (and only three) cars from this collection as tax-paid gifts from the dead guy’s estate:
Read the descriptions and so on at the linked article, then make your choice and post in Comments.
Assume that you won’t immediately sell them and pocket the money. Play the game.
My three choices (in order):
I’ve ranted on and on about how I hate the intrusion of technology into the simple act of driving, but my ire is approaching volcanic levels. Try this little snippet (via Insty, thankee, Squire):
While it’s often easier to sync your phone to a vehicle, it doesn’t allow the company you purchased the vehicle from to maximize its data harvesting capabilities. It also lets you circumvent their operating system to a large degree and any apps that might be tied to commerce, which is why automakers are now trying to sweeten the pot. The ultimate goal is to basically convert your vehicle into something that can sweep up just as much information about you as your smartphone — if not more.
“If you’re using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, then you’re kind of limited [for use of applications]”, Alexander Schoenhals, a Mercedes-Benz engineer working on third-party apps, explained.
Do they even realize how sinister this all sounds? Every time I read shit like this from MB, BMW or VW, I want the 8th Army Air Force group to be re-constituted just to fly over and bomb their fucking factories into rubble (and repeat with Detroit on the return leg), simply to weed this bullshit out and force the aforementioned data harvesters to start from scratch all over again.
I’m unlikely to buy a new car anytime soon, if at all — more likely, I’ll be driving New Wife’s Fiat 500 forever, once my non-technological Tiguan has breathed its last drop of 89 octane unleaded.
But mark my words; I will never drive some information vampire like the modern breed.
I’d rather find a way to get my hands on something from the pre-technology era (1970s) like a VW Thing, a Jeep CJ5 or others of that ilk (other suggestions in Comments), and deal with their discomfort and unreliability.
As for modern car manufacturers: fuck ’em, and the motherboard they’re surfing in on. I want no part of their shit.
Here’s an interesting question. How many of you, O My Readers, would be up for this little piece of German engineering (assuming funds etc. and all the stuff that goes along with my hypotheticals):
I, for one, find it quite charming. And if like me you’re sick of driving all the wind-tunnel identicars of today, this would certainly make a personal statement.
Remember, it would be a toy, not an everyday drive — but it would certainly put a smile on my face every time I stepped into the garage.
The Greatest Living Englishman sounds off about bicyclists, and one has to sympathize with his take. However, it should be said that the reason that there’s so much friction twixt the two-wheeled and four-wheeled sets is simply that Britishland roads, whether in- or out of town are just too damn small and narrow to accommodate both.
Over Here, we don’t have much of a problem with cyclists, largely because our roads are much wider (certainly here in north Texas, anyway), and even if one encounters a group (gaggle? mob? idiocy?) of cyclists taking up a full lane, there’s lots of room to go round them, all while shaking one’s head at the lunacy of riding a bike in the searing midsummer Texas heat. Also, we have large pickup trucks and people with guns in them, hence the relative politeness of American cyclists compared to their Brit counterparts.
By the way, if you scroll further down the linked article, you’ll see that Clarkson’s take on the proposed Ford Capri redux is exactly the same as mine.
GMTA, and all that.
Loyal Readers will remember that I love the 1970s Ford Capri:
…so one would think that the news of Ford reissuing the lovely thing would have me panting.
Alas, no.
Rather than a petrol-guzzling coupe, it will be re-marketed as an electric sports crossover capable of reaching 0-to-62mph in around 6.4 seconds with zero emissions, a Ford staff member has revealed.
And I bet that the “new” Capri won’t look anything like its predecessor. Instead, it will look like all the other modern wind-tunnel-shaped anonymities, so in fact the only thing common to the two models will be the name.
Pass, with prejudice. Fucking morons.
This article got my attention:
Why is grey the most popular car colour for the fifth year running? How subtler shades have dominated the market for a decade — and the reason brighter tones have fallen out of favour.
The reason, as any fule kno, is simple:
Consumers are concerned about a bright colour ‘driving down the resale value of their car’.
Which is fine, I guess. Certainly, if I were buying another car today, I might not accept that ghastly bronze-y color of a decade back — even if the thing was really cheap because of it.
The problem, of course, is that car colors can date a car, e.g.
Haven’t seen too many modern cars looking like that, have you? (I’m talking about the color, of course — although that applies to its styling too.)
And let’s be honest: as much as they are the boring same-ol’-same ol’, black, gray, white and silver cars do carry over the years (and even decades), whereas brown, bronze, “champagne” and so on do not.
The latest color craze I see nowadays is that ghastly “putty”- or “cement” gray:
Ugh. And the trend towards matte finishes should be halted by legislation.
Interestingly enough, there are non-bland colors that stay popular: red, yellow, dark blue and dark green (a.k.a. “British Racing Green”), but that really depends on the car, of course, e.g.
…but even I might draw the line at a purple Dino, especially if I had another choice:
Ah-ha! white and silver, just like the article suggests. But even for a Dino, I’d never take one of these:
…because, you see, I live in Texas — where the last thing you want is a black car which turns your car into an oven (against which the Dino’s puny lil’ Italian a/c unit stands no chance).
That’s not a problem they have in Britishland, of course.