Not to be that guy, but I am likely the biggest Aston Martin (1913-2000. RIP) fan in this group, so I had to correct a tiny mistake. Towns Lagonda, at least the wedge shape one, was introduced in 1976. In 1974, his previous design Lagonda was put into production, with a grand total of seven being produced. This was an elongated version of the V8 in production at that time. Or, more correctly, the DBS-V8 and the AMV8 were shortened versions of the original Lagonda design of 1967. David Brown wanted desperately to put it into production, but the times were more desperate at Aston, so only one was made as a personal car for DB himself. When Company Developments took over, they figured this was a cheap and easy way to introduce a new car, so the Aston Martin Lagonda was born. A slightly more luxurious AMV8, with a wedged in pseudo Lagonda grille, it did about as well as anything Aston at the time. Bankruptcy followed in 1975, with the New ownership team, lead by Canadian George Minden, bringing Aston back to life, and developing the wedge Lagonda to catch the worlds attention.
I could stare at that gauge cluster all day and night while my inner 11 year old dreams of taking it apart just to see what’s inside and try to put it back together.
My sister-in-law's boyfriend had a Fiat Spider; she would get so angry when I'd say "nice Miata." She got even angrier when he bought an Audi A4 and I'd say, "Nice Jetta!"
My cousin who lives in LA was telling me about her "New Porsh".
I asked her what model and she said a Macan. I said something about it being an Audi Q5 with a different engine and sheetmetal and she got indignant. I didn't have the heart to tell her to look behind a front wheel for all the Audi logos on the suspension parts.
We watch this lady on youtube who lives in a village with buildings dating back to the Middle Ages in the mountains above the Riviera. I don't think they're mega rich, maybe upper-middle class at most, but everything they do is elegant and classy. When the Japanese try it it comes across as cheesy, and Americans, well, we're definitely better off not even bothering to try!
They're definitely not wage slaves, but they drive a Kia and dirty themselves with housework and home improvement projects and they just don't strike me as millionaires. I could be wrong, though.
I've always pronounced Toblerone with an accent acute (a long vowel sound) on the final E. The brand name is a portmanteau of one of the founders' names, Tobler, and the Italian word for nougat, torrone, which is pronounced "tow-row-nay". The Swiss company that makes it, however, pronounces it "tobler-own".
That reminds me of how the Rokeach (the Hebrew word for apothecary, pronounced row-kay-ach, with a gutteral ch like achtung) kosher food company used to run ads in the NYC area with the seeming rhyme "Reach for Rokeach", which led to people mispronouncing the brand name.
HUD in my wife's fancy CX-9 = fantastic. The screen? I barely look at it and praise the Lord above for guiding Mazda's engineers towards including buttons.
Moving the glove box button to the screen is my favorite.
Remember when the Safety Nazis would rail against the slightest fault in a car? Crickets from them now that you have to take your eyes off the road to work the screen in your 7000 lb EV.
The S4 not only has buttons for everything, it has redundant buttons for some things like volume and station switching. It even has a dedicated button for turning off the screen entirely. I can't think of anything you'd need to use the screen for while driving. The MMI display in the gauge pod (I know it's a screen too but highly configurable) can be set up every which way to be controlled by steering wheel buttons. Even the HUD can be configured and turned on and off by its own physical switch.
Same on my (departed) Mazda6. Worse yet, when I *had* to use the screen, I would have to wait 2 - 4 seconds *every time* after touching the screen, before it would react. This was especially infuriating because certain electronic nannies had to be turned off EVERY TIME after starting the car. Ugh!
Why would it be much longer than a crank on an inline V8?
GMC made an 11.5 liter V12 called the Twin Six. The crankshaft was forged in one piece, was four feet long, and weighed 190 pounds. It spun in seven main bearings, with four-bolt main bearing caps, strengthened saddles, and supportive webbing cast into the block.
Does it matter? How many of these cars will accumulate even 10,000 miles over their lifetime? C'mon, one wouldn't *actually drive* it, would they? It may lose value!
I don't get what you're trying to conclude. As someone who partakes in this bullshit, albeit to a smaller scale with watches and jackets and other metrosexual things, others could say the same thing about you.
That this has more zeroes behind it is the only difference. Also Bugatti only caters to a specific end of the market, at least in its current incarnation, and everyone is aware of it.
I'm trying to appreciate <<l'esprit du bricolage>> here, and I am sure that they made some more sense at the time, but now I have a pretty strong gag reflex for just about any of these VW-based kit cars.
This one is not all that bad, I suppose. I'm reserving judgment on the "Puma GT."
Kit cars were a big thing back then, and yes, there’s a level of revulsion because of how badly proportioned many looked, but I have an appreciation for the back yard tinkerer who decided that he was going to build HIS car. We don’t usually think of kit cars this way, but I admire that individualism these guys showed, no matter the end result.
The first picture (and only) I saw has that screen, and I recoiled in horror. I am glad it gets tucked away. My favorite part of the new Bugattis is their design to be timeless and shunning of screens.
I love the point about these hypercars with such excellent gas/ice engines. Only the rich get the goods in the new world order. Same as houses- you and I should move to the city, live in a 200 sq ft apartment, while the elite live in 6,000 sq ft apartments and escape to the Hamptons (single family homes!) on the weekends.
"They never intended to ban the internal combustion engine; instead, they envisioned a future where you commuted to an open-plan office via a battery-powered penalty box while they blasted past with the frenetic mechanical symphony of a 9,000-rpm V-16."
This. People ask, "I thought CA was filled with exotic car people. How are they going to deal with no ICE after 2030?" Obviously the answer was always, "They'll be bought and registered by their AZ and NV LLC's."
Corporations are people too!
You'd think my local NJ Porsche shop was in Montana, if you judged solely by the license plates.
An actual masterpiece. But more importantly, this is a transitional moment in that what was once seen as "ultraluxury" is now Real, Actual Luxury. Everything below it is parts-bin commodity luxury. Doesn't matter what badge you put on it.
Same for everything when you move its manufacture to China. Why buy Bosch or DeWalt over Harbor Freight, when it all probably comes from the same factory in China.
Everything in a Harbor Freight store has been vetted by Harbor Freight.
I bought a $30 airbrush on Amazon that literally did not spray straight and consequently spattered paint all over the place. The one I got at HF cost less and actually works.
When assembling electronics I use a $4 Harbor Freight flush cutters far more often than the $50 Knipex that I have.
I've been working in oil and gas for 35 years. I go to at least one refinery conference every year, often two. I also like the idea of electric cars: instant torque, lower maintenance. That being said, the shine has come off the electric wave (Musk should have sold to Ford when they stopped making all cars except the Mustang in the US).
Refineries even in Green Germany are hearing from national polticians: "We need to make more electric cars" while the local politicians are saying, "More diesel, please." That is almost a direct quote from a major refinery manager from a conference about a month ago.
"I also like the idea of electric cars: instant torque, lower maintenance. "
Agreed, but there's always the imminent specter of "bricking" ahead of you. Rarely in my life have I had a conventional vehicle just go dead and stop working with no clue as to why.
No doubt, which is why I'm only ever thinking about a hybrid.
I was in Amsterdam taking a Tesla X to my hotel from the airport (all taxis in NL are electric now). I figured a Taxi driver would give me the straight dope on how it is to live with a Tesla. He said the company has a rule that you MUST leave 100km "in the tank" because there had been multiple (I think it was 2, but it might have been 3) "bricking" incidents.
Bricking is super expensive for a taxi because you can't just bring a jerry can of electons. You have to have the car towed back to a shop and in addition to the towing, the car is out of service for at least the rest of the day.
He ragged on Teslas for other reasons (he said Audis are the best electrics), but that is another story. If you take the added expense and time to charge and then lop 100km off the range, BEVs lose all their shine for me.
Is there any incidence of non-Teslas doing this? I would suggest it is a Tesla thing, not an EV thing.
When my Bolt started throwing weird error messages, I did the same thing you'd do with any modern car that started doing that: I replaced the 12v battery. Fixed.
I've probably mentioned it before, but after 30 years of working at many places, I have consistently observed that hardware companies do not care about software. Their belief is that only hardware matters, software is just a necessary a necessary evil to move their hardware. So, you outsource your software to the lowest bidder (Boeing, anyone?), and impatiently cut their deadlines until there's something barely good enough to ship.
Not to say their hardware is perfect, either. I've lost count of hardware problems I've had to "fix in software," which really doesn't work, but hey, if the boss says so ...
Yet another reason I will never drive anything with a battery larger than the traditional 12V DC one.
It is unlikely that VW will disappear, but if they stop supporting this it will brick just as much as any electric car.
It is interesting seeing the attempts at replacing the computers on x100/x150 for manual swaps. That is mainstream compared to any attempts to replace electronics on this after support is ended.
At the same time the people who buy this could fund the needed Rd to come up with the solution.
If I was running RM/Sotheby's I'd be looking to purchase a bespoke electronics engineering company to be able to continue to restore late model cars. I doubt there is anything in a 2024 model year car that can't be reverse engineered if you throw enough money at it.
The post mentioned the Aston Martin Lagonda. There's a company that makes replacement electronics for that car that apparently work better than the OEM stuff.
A private version of Japan's Takumi project (https://japan-forward.com/editorial-the-preservation-of-japans-cultural-treasures-is-in-peril/) involving industries moreso than craftsmen would be helpful in that regard. It would suck if all late model vehicles became obligate restomods in 50 years. On the other hand, much of today's complicated tech, excl. engine management, will probably only be preserved for the sake of historical authenticity and nothing more. Nobody'll be nostalgic for auto-dimming mirrors.
You definitely got it right about the elite separating themselves from the rest of us. EVERYTHING they've been doing for over a decade now, has been with that focus. EVERYTHING.
They've made travel increasingly harder and harder, as well as more expensive. Now with that stupid 'Agenda 21' crap, and all of the appliances they're working on banning, has all been to force us into shoe-boxes in urban centers, while the people pushing these things have multiple 10,000 sq ft estates that they commute to in their private jets, while driving million dollar supercars.
A middle class that enjoys the material comforts of the past 70 years - and a broader world that enjoys the stability this produces - is kind of a historical fluke. I loathe what the Davos set wants to set in place (or rather, more how they want to do it), even though I believe in climate change, etc.
The issue isn't the Davos sets actual consumption per se. Even if you took away half of Larry Fink's wealth or BOTH of Taylor Swift's Dassaults, that'd be a drop in the book. But the living standard adjustments that have to be made by the middle and upper-middle might be made more palatable if the public had a sense the ultra-wealthy had to adjust as well, even a damn tiny bit.
Look at me, suddenly advocating for Warren's wealth tax lol
a part of me wishes the problems could be solved with fewer people both here and abroad but theres no real way to broach that topic without sounding like youre advocating for genocide or forced sterilization
Specific to climate change, we're mostly tinkering at the margins unless you can pull down the carbon curve in India and China. These margins are still important, because every fraction of a C has huge outcomes, but I'm not sure electorates feel the same way.
The main thing no one really talks about is that there are only trade-offs. No pan-issue "solutions." You see this more pointedly in Europe right now. Pushing EVs for 2035 heavily tilts the industry in China's favor, but there's no way to meet the necessary volume without China. Banning GMOs etc. while simultaneously having carve outs for imports knee-caps your own ag sector. But NOT having carve outs might be a disaster for overseas farmers who are dependent on EU exports, which would then just add to the migration crisis.
The big society-level shifts that might need to happen in the future - like a managed pull-back from a coastal city because of perpetual flooding - will happen by executive order in, say, Guangzhou. But we're going to count on some combination of democratic process and market function to do the same in, say, Miami. And how will either be credible, if we haven't been honest that we've been in era of hard trade-offs vs shiny solutions?
it is with great surprise i acknowledge the difficulty of orienting the entire world towards a goal
moreover emissions reduction in china would most likely come from industry as their one child policy is going to make a rather large dent in population going forward and india is showing no real signs of slowing its population growth
either of those would have massive impacts on total carbon output
Man is not causing the Earth's temperature to change one bit - we're not that powerful.
If the Earth goes through a warming period (One can hope, because those always bring good times) there will not be 'increased flooding'. Because a warmer atmosphere holds more water and the atmosphere holds a lot of water.
When I worked on the top floor of an office building in downtown Chicago, I used to tell the lefties I worked that they were sitting in the very spot that disproved climate change.
I told them that 13,000 years ago, a mere blip in geological time, right where they were sitting, Chicago was covered by a mile of ice. I asked them, where did the ice go? Henry Ford hadn’t been born, and it didn’t melt because of Indian campfires. Where did it go? Of course, I never got an answer, only blank stares. It’s such a simple question, yet no lefty or green zealot can answer it.
The fact of the matter is, increasing living standards, specifically reductions in infant mortality, have generally driven massive reductions in birth rates. It's almost like the "invisible hand" at work. What sliver of optimism I still cling to believes there can be a 2050 or 2100 with a naturally reduced population with no major cataclysms.
We could use mandatory national service. Wouldn’t be specific to military service, but imagine every 18 year old being assigned to some public enterprise via random lottery for 2 years, ideally somewhere far from their home. Troubled kids have an “out” and something (maybe) to look forward to. Rich kids have to mix it up with the proles for once. We - a grateful nation - would pick up their college bill or equivalent. As a plus, 20-24 year olds might make better college students. There’d probably be less encampment-style drama, at least.
The only viable window we could’ve even broached this topic was right after 9/11. Instead, Dubya told us to go shopping
Trouble is, the politicians don't want this because they want assets, specifically their real estate, to go up. So we'll essentially have genocide of the West with human reproduction offshored to lower-cost providers, especially India.
I walked down the street to Publix last night (perhaps half a mile each way).
In the same shopping center - an older and “established” property - sits a Barnes & Noble. I believe it was one of, if not the first Barnes & Noble locations in Atlanta. I recall shopping there when I was a child.
I walked by right at closing time and observed: Two homeless people fighting in the parking lot; said parking lot was covered in trash and debris; a third homeless person sleeping sideways across the front door to the attached Starbucks; a fourth homeless person sleeping INSIDE the Barnes & Noble.
Despite this, I believe that we need MORE people, because we have a growth-based economy.
When the people you're importing aren't smart enough to use flush toilets, no, you're not getting a growth economy. Pretty soon (in a couple of generations) once the average IQ pretty much drops below 120, society as we know it STOPS. Because it takes smart people to keep all of the tech running.
This is why 3rd world countries stay 3rd world: The majority of the inhabitants are morons.
As for a growth based economy, well maybe if we stopped destroying the family and encouraged women to have kids instead of the opposite, we'd be looking at a better future.
But sadly, people fell for the BS and the future is not bright at all.
Yes, I'm quite familiar with what the average is supposed to be. I also know the USA's average is higher than a hundred, however it has been dropping, as all the illegals are in the 90's at best.
those with the power to shape the country are either doing so willingly or are somehow unaware of the potential effects of importing a quadrillion squatemalans
Willingly. They think that they will rule for life. What they don't realize is that the new people being brought in will elect rulers that look like THEM. In fact, in some places, this is already starting to happen.
This reminds me of the Sam Kinison routine where he says we have to stop bringing food to starving Ethiopians, instead just have them move to where the food is.
Serious Question for Sherman: Why is an American with an IQ of 79 considered an unemployable burden, but a Guatemalan with an IQ of 79 (which is AVERAGE, BTW, in Guatemala) HIGH-OCTANE FUEL FOR GROWTH?
At least the American dimwit can communicate with his caregivers in English.
I took HGH for 4 years as an adolescent, otherwise I’d be about 5 feet even.
Also, I only made a 1590 on the SAT (despite getting every question correct on the math portion, I scored a 790 - that’s the bell curve for you; i.e., the test was a little too “easy” on the day I took it, and too many people got every math question right). I took it several times, and that was meaningfully higher than my other math scores 30-40 points IIRC. I made a perfect score on the verbal portion every time I took it - that part of the test is ridiculously easy.
Another ridiculously easy test is the ACT. I took it as a sophomore and made a 34, then I took it a year later and made a 36 (perfect score). I wanted a perfect score on both the ACT and the SAT, but oh well!
I think there is maybe a *little* bit of a leap in logic if you expect me to be the defender of the open borders orthodoxy.
I simply said we need MORE people; i.e., more consumers and more workers. More people to buy housing and cars and Netflix and Doritos and Funko Pops and so on; more people who will fund those purchases with debt and do so with a piece of plastic.
But also, more people to compete for work in service industries so that you don’t feel like you’re getting ripped off when your plumber shows up.
Finally, since I am an evil racist, I would prefer that those additional people be natural born American citizens. But I’d take warm bodies over nothing, as a declining population is a terrible demographic fate.
Finally finally. I had a phone conversation last night with a friend in which IQ came up (he was in line at In-N-Out; we were discussing the relative merits of Chick fil A and his preferred purveyor of mediocre fast food burgers).
This guy is in a senior finance role at an OEM. We both struggled to articulate what characterized a truly “average” IQ. I wonder how often I have genuine social interaction with someone who has an IQ below the 50th percentile / below “100.”
"I...observed...homeless people fighting...covered in trash and debris...homeless person sleeping...a fourth homeless person sleeping....Despite this, I believe that we need MORE people, because we have a growth-based economy."
How is it a "leap of logic" to not assume that you were OK with an average Guatemalan, which is probably WELL ABOVE our typical Biden Era Open Border New Arrival?
But still, why are you so damn sure that importing retards who will be net negatives (and likely reproduce like rabbits) is NOT superior to returning to previous population levels? Japan is doing fine, and even BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is realizing that lower population will probably work out just fine:
I can remember a time when those "homeless" folks were kept off the streets, but among other things, Geraldo Rivera did a whistleblowing series on local NYC news about abuses at the mental hospital on Staten Island. Simultaneously, civil libertarians lobbied to close those institutions and prevent people from being institutionalized against their own wishes.
Before that we had "bums" but they kept themselves to the local skid row and didn't set up encampments all over town.
I know that activists like to portray the homeless as single mothers cruelly put out on the streets but the simple truth is the vast majority of homeless have mental and/or substance issues.
I have recently become aware, but have not read or evaluated, a book that claims that MORE people are presently in bondage due to "mental health" than in the past:
Broad brush, but the whole world except Africa is below replacement level on birth rate. S Korea is an extreme case at 0.9 (2.1 is approximately the static state), but it’s coming everywhere anyway. And, all other things being equal, it will be profoundly deflationary.
Not the whole world. Israel is above replacement level. The fertility rate in Israel is 2.9, one of the highest in the developed world. Even non-religious Israeli Jews, who are in the majority, have lots of kids.
I did say "broad brush" to allow for outliers like Isreal, for whom I imagine it must feel existential. But Isreal is a small drop in a large bucket heading the other way.
The rich do not pay taxes. The 'wealth tax' Warren is advocating for won't cost him squat. It'll just stop people like me from becoming rich.
And the whole global warming thing is just another lie. Historically, warming is GOOD for the Earth, Humanity, the Environment, all of that. Also, the sea level goes down, not up. Has to do with the amount of water vapor in the air increasing and the atmosphere can hold a lot more than people realize.
No, it's these people miss the days of royalty and nobility and they want it back. They want the power that comes with it. They are, in short, evil. All of them.
I think it was Frederick von Hayek, who when asked why Socialists and Communists promote their ideology when they know it doesn’t work, responded that it’s probably because they just want to dominate and subjugate other people. Pure evil.
I've been coming around to the idea that the main difference is not between left and right political ideologies, collectivism vs rights as individuals, but rather between totalitarians who want to control others and those who prefer to be in control of themselves. Simply put, the left is far more interested in being in control than it is in implementing a workers' paradise. The workers' paradise is the means to a totalitarian end.
The two parties obviously have a difference in core beliefs, but that’s almost quaint these days. I think many more of the public now see the parties and their elite systems for the insider vs. outsider structure of spoils that it truly is. Control of the people is a big thing for the insiders because they crave power and money.
long ago article explained why the rich were for the income tax: they knew that however little it was it would prevent people from getting as rich as they had--which happened without an income tax
Your use of the word "believe" is telling. Is your assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow morning based on a belief or something based on evidence?
The end goal of The Left is to murder 99% of mankind and keep the survivors in medieval slavery, while the Left themselves enjoy all the comforts of 21st Century technology, lording their aristocracy over the powerless wretches.
As luck would have it, check out the “Rare Classic Cars and Automotive History” YouTube channel—the concept car itself was at the Eyes On Design show at the Edsel Ford house in Grosse Pointe, MI, this past Sunday. I’m sure Ronnie will have some comments about that at some point.
There is a current attempt to revive Packard. I spoke to Scott Andrews, who owns the rights to the Packard brand at the SAE convention in April. He said they'll be making an announcement sometime this summer, and that they'll be using their own, bespoke, platform, not retro body on something like a F-150 chassis. For now, they are selling Packard branded watches.
The modern designers pushing prewar styling must all end up at Morgan or unemployed, and Morgans only work because they go whole hog. I'd say prewar grandeur is best expressed in some recent Cadillac and Merc concepts: Ciel, Elmiraj, Sixteen, Maybach 6, etc.
Partly that's because much prewar "styling" goes back to brand identifying radiator shells/grilles. As cars got lower and sleeker, it became difficult to integrate tall, vertical radiator grilles into the overall design.
Retro can be done well - see how Dick Teague Packard Predictor concept paid homage to the original Packard "horse collar" grille.
"I bet Horacio received a few cancellations yesterday."
The form factor of the cars is SO different I have trouble imagining such an outcome. Surely most of the customers would just add a Tourbillon to their expected outlay for 2026, and enjoy their Pagani between its arrival date and then?
Contrary to what Rich Person Correspondent Matt Farah claims, a lot of the guys who buy this stuff don’t buy every single hypercar offered to them. They try to build the best possible relationship with their favorite to ensure that they can get the most special cars. Or so I have been told by people #blessed to be in such a position.
Why would you give Horacio your money when he’s just not innovating like the competition? Plus, his interiors are tacky - Bugatti has him licked on that front now.
With few exceptions, investment bankers can’t afford that kind of toy - nowhere near.
A good Managing Director might average $2MM / year pre-tax over a decade or so. At many firms, there is some stock or deferred comp or both. And then taxes.
And then the mortgage(s), property taxes, your wife’s allowance (she doesn’t work and would dump your ass in a hurry if your career hiccuped), private school tuition, summer camp, family vacations (minimum 5-6 long weekend trips plus a week or two in Europe over the summer), car payments, food, clothing, etc.
Oh, and saving for retirement so you don’t have to be a traveling money salesman forever.
I know a guy, old dude who lives in my hometown, dresses like a mechanic and always smoking a robusto cigar of some stripe: owns a Veyron, BMW Z8 (which he purchased from an old hippy who owns a few health food stores!) SLR McClaren, three Ford GTs (two 05 models and a new one). Plus a host of other cars. Has a house in Vero Beach, Telluride. Occupation? Owned a huge commercial excavating business.
The wealthiest guy in said hometown? Owned a large woodworking retailer, international window manufacturer, oil & gas firm, a million gas stations, etc. Owned a $40 mil house in Jackson Hole, also a house on Vero Beach, and a home on Martha’s Vineyard. Started it all from scratch with a single gas station; his father was a music teacher. No cool cars though: for my entire lifetime, he drove an ‘02 BMW X5.
Sherman once told me, when I thought I’d enjoy being a BigLaw attorney, that the peril of said occupation was trading time for money: it’s a giant hamster wheel. The truly wealthy don’t seem to do that.
I remember some of the highly paid traders I worked with, who had all of the spending responsibilities you accurately listed, being visibly jealous when someone they viewed as beneath them (me), bought a nice car or took a nice trip.
Once I was on the trading floor, was bored, so I was reading a library book. Our head trader walked into our booth, picks up the book, sees from the library stamp that it’s from a wealthy suburb’s library, and asks “whose book is this?” I say it’s mine, and he says “you live in this suburb?” I say yes. He can’t believe it, so he asks “you really live there?” I said, “is there something wrong with that? I live there because it’s really nice”. He starts backpedaling and says of course not, good for you. I find out later that he lived in a nearby pedestrian middle class suburb that people from my town wouldn’t be seen in. Ah, the benefits of buying the worst house on the block.
When I reviewed the total household financial statements of traders at one of the exchanges in Chicago, it was common for high income traders to have no savings and $50k in credit card debt. This was 25 years ago. Many times, my net worth was higher than traders who made 10-20 times what I made.
That was the biggest financial eye-opener of my life.
The “easy go” part was pretty bad to see up close. I had to give out multi million dollar margin calls guys couldn’t meet. No fun.
Some of my trader friends who made it big and then lost it all kind of never recovered career wise. Hard to work in an office after being a trader. As a trader you could make enough money by 10am, then go golfing or go to Wrigley Field.
Most of my information on this comes from Brett David and/or Horacio's kid, but they have a loyal customer base that is thinking about Pagani first and foremost. Many of them like Pagani because it's not as corporate as Bugatti -- I mean, the CEO of Bugatti is basically a mercenary.
As I slip comfortably into my Grown & Sexy middle aged period, I’m starting to turn into you! I’m simultaneously coveting badly made British cars AND two-tone bespoke dress shoes (see comment elsewhere with link to Permanent Style profile).
I would very much like to read a book about Bristol if you know any. What a bizarre, hilarious company seemingly run by a man who hated selling things, loved the Chrysler 440, and also made like three very pretty re-bodied Dodge Vipers to be sold alongside a car with a frame developed in the 50s.
It's fascinating to me that Pagani himself must have overlooked (?) the possibility, but *some random country bubbas in Loxahatchee FL* figured out how to get that same Mercedes V12 to 9k RPM recently: https://www.gooichimotors.com/m120-v12-parts
Agreed re: the $3M 1 car question. Funny to think how one might spend that (“What is your choice, and why is it the Koenigsegg Gemera?”)
Damning by faint praise: the *sound* of the benz 12s in the Zonda and now Huayra convinced me to stop ignoring them out of hand. Shame that the exterior design of the cars is so bizarre
Nothing wrong with the basic design, double A arms with a vertical link, but the implementation was iffy. A lot of race cars in the late '50s and early '60s used what appear to modern eyes as dangerously skinny tubing in their frames. You should see what a late '50s Ferrari looks like naked. Scabrous welds on 1" tubing.
From my article linked above: "For safety reasons, the continuation Cheetah is not an exact duplicate. Shortcomings with the frame and front suspension have been rectified, with thicker tubing and more stiffening members welded into the frame."
youre right the double a arm is fine its just the orientation and design of them is poor with regards to the heim joints
if you follow the load paths youll see that the joints are not in line which would lead to bending and potential failure and yeah you could make everything bigger to handle the loads no problem its just not the right way to do it but there are times in which that is the only option available
I'm not an engineer, but then I don't think Bill Thomas was one either.
I once heard the Harley-Davidson method of R&D described as, "If it breaks, make it bigger and heavier. If it breaks again, make it even bigger and heavier."
By the way, people say that Colin Chapman's Lotus cars were fragile due to his obsession with reducing weight but it should be remembered that his degree was in structural engineering. Before he started Lotus he worked for an aluminum company trying to pitch the alloy as a structural building material. The heavier you make a bridge, the even heavier it must be made to support all that weight.
im infinitely far from chapman when it comes to vehicle design chops but ive always considered his cars sort of like icarus and he just flew too close to the sun sometimes
i think his cars were light because he had such a small margin of safety which given the tools of his era is incredibly impressive
there is a pleasant simplicity to just overbuilding stuff though
Part of being ultra-wealthy is the in-person experience vs doing it via tech.
Even better if it puts even more distance between you and others.
I imagine one of the best perks of flying "La Premiere" on AF is how "someone else" handles everything: passport control, baggage check and screening, and even boarding (sort of... you don't use the gate at all. Unlike those biz class proles, you're driven across the tarmac from the LP lounge directly to the plane). You have a dedicated purser, not an app or SMS updates.
AF makes it impossible to book LP with straight points, so it's positioned to be as a close to flying private as possible.
This is one of the basic themes in Great Gatsby. All the proles are busy working while Tom and Daisy are sitting around frittering their time away and driving around in coach built "coo-pays" and roadsters. Life is cheap for the working class. Life is meaningless expensive distraction of cars, whiskey, and cuckery for the wealthy. Not much in between.
Here we are 100 years later and it's the same old shit Fitzgerald griped about through Nick's eyes. If guess if a rich guy runs my loved ones over in a Toubillon I'm obligated to make him catch three hot ones in his infinity pool.
Not that I'm likely to ever meet a Tourbillon owner, but I wonder how quickly I could irritate them by looking at the gauge cluster and exclaiming "Oh wow, just like the 1st gen IS300!"
If there's any positive trickle down from this car, it's that maybe designers will try to emulate the no screens look when building cars attainable to the working man. Maybe Lincoln could take the existing Mustang platform and build a Mark IX with a screen-free interior worthy of the Continental name..
Not to be that guy, but I am likely the biggest Aston Martin (1913-2000. RIP) fan in this group, so I had to correct a tiny mistake. Towns Lagonda, at least the wedge shape one, was introduced in 1976. In 1974, his previous design Lagonda was put into production, with a grand total of seven being produced. This was an elongated version of the V8 in production at that time. Or, more correctly, the DBS-V8 and the AMV8 were shortened versions of the original Lagonda design of 1967. David Brown wanted desperately to put it into production, but the times were more desperate at Aston, so only one was made as a personal car for DB himself. When Company Developments took over, they figured this was a cheap and easy way to introduce a new car, so the Aston Martin Lagonda was born. A slightly more luxurious AMV8, with a wedged in pseudo Lagonda grille, it did about as well as anything Aston at the time. Bankruptcy followed in 1975, with the New ownership team, lead by Canadian George Minden, bringing Aston back to life, and developing the wedge Lagonda to catch the worlds attention.
Pinned -- this was sheer laziness on my part, as I'd forgotten the four-door DBS car.
I could stare at that gauge cluster all day and night while my inner 11 year old dreams of taking it apart just to see what’s inside and try to put it back together.
And see if it works without the 7 pieces I would have left over
Truth!
But you’re also adding lightness. So you have that going for you. Which is nice.
it just means youve engineered it better than the factory
only seven? are you sure you took it apart?
I’m way too poor to know how to pronounce “Tourbillon” so I’ve been calling it the Bugatti Toblerone and I kinda hope that pisses people off.
It's a VW at heart.
My sister-in-law's boyfriend had a Fiat Spider; she would get so angry when I'd say "nice Miata." She got even angrier when he bought an Audi A4 and I'd say, "Nice Jetta!"
My cousin who lives in LA was telling me about her "New Porsh".
I asked her what model and she said a Macan. I said something about it being an Audi Q5 with a different engine and sheetmetal and she got indignant. I didn't have the heart to tell her to look behind a front wheel for all the Audi logos on the suspension parts.
My sister in law was considering a Macan and I was thinking how she'd respond to me saying exactly that.
Not as much as the Veyron and Chiron were. The Tourbillon has a lot more to do with Rimac.
Say it with a French accent! Plenty of poor people in France can pronounce it, lol.
Even the poor in France are more cultured than my flyover country hillbilly ass.
We watch this lady on youtube who lives in a village with buildings dating back to the Middle Ages in the mountains above the Riviera. I don't think they're mega rich, maybe upper-middle class at most, but everything they do is elegant and classy. When the Japanese try it it comes across as cheesy, and Americans, well, we're definitely better off not even bothering to try!
Cf. https://www.permanentstyle.com/2024/06/reader-profile-tetsuya.html
dude is stylin as hell
My jaw dropped at that pair of John Lobb Paris “Lopez” loafers which he had, ahem, bespake.
French and Japanese. The culture is just dripping from this twink.
If you peruse his Instagram - it’s good - you will see that he is married.
To a woman.
I'd be very surprised if they're not much wealthier than you imagine.
They're definitely not wage slaves, but they drive a Kia and dirty themselves with housework and home improvement projects and they just don't strike me as millionaires. I could be wrong, though.
Would you mind sharing the name of the channel when you get a chance?
Hmmm. I did not consider a WV or Eastern KY accent trying to do a French accent. That could be a real challenge.
I just hope someone asks President Biden how to pronounce it.
TORABILLUH
Charles Barkley: Turribleon
OK, now that there’s funny—I don’t care who you are
I'll wait for the Bro-ham edition
TURDBELLY?
I doubt it.
I like Bugatti Toblerone, hope it catches on. FYI it's tour-bee-yawn
I will affect a nasally French accent and say “Toby-YAWWWn”
As you hold the 2 1/2 foot long giant Toblerone bar in front of the car. https://www.toblerone.co.uk/giant-toblerone-4-5kg-bar/12914705.html
Haw haw haw...
terbillion
Terrible Way To Spend Millions?
probably a great return on investment actually
If Taylor Swift buys one will it be nicknamed "Her billions"?
I've always pronounced Toblerone with an accent acute (a long vowel sound) on the final E. The brand name is a portmanteau of one of the founders' names, Tobler, and the Italian word for nougat, torrone, which is pronounced "tow-row-nay". The Swiss company that makes it, however, pronounces it "tobler-own".
That reminds me of how the Rokeach (the Hebrew word for apothecary, pronounced row-kay-ach, with a gutteral ch like achtung) kosher food company used to run ads in the NYC area with the seeming rhyme "Reach for Rokeach", which led to people mispronouncing the brand name.
rules (gauges really) for thee and not for me huh
best i can hope for is a trickle down with vehicles eschewing screens in the future but im not counting on that any time soon
the car looks pretty slick however
HUD in my wife's fancy CX-9 = fantastic. The screen? I barely look at it and praise the Lord above for guiding Mazda's engineers towards including buttons.
Moving the glove box button to the screen is my favorite.
Remember when the Safety Nazis would rail against the slightest fault in a car? Crickets from them now that you have to take your eyes off the road to work the screen in your 7000 lb EV.
The S4 not only has buttons for everything, it has redundant buttons for some things like volume and station switching. It even has a dedicated button for turning off the screen entirely. I can't think of anything you'd need to use the screen for while driving. The MMI display in the gauge pod (I know it's a screen too but highly configurable) can be set up every which way to be controlled by steering wheel buttons. Even the HUD can be configured and turned on and off by its own physical switch.
My wife’s cx-30 wont let you use the touchscreen unless you are parked/not moving, I really don’t mind, and plenty of knobs/buttons.
Same on my (departed) Mazda6. Worse yet, when I *had* to use the screen, I would have to wait 2 - 4 seconds *every time* after touching the screen, before it would react. This was especially infuriating because certain electronic nannies had to be turned off EVERY TIME after starting the car. Ugh!
that might actually drive me to homicide
How do they deal with the crank walk on this thing man thing must be a metre long
generously sized thrust bearings on an engine designed for purpose means its likely not an issue for any owners
You would have to actually drive the thing to find out. Cars can always be pushed onto the lawn at Pebble.
even if you made a habit of beating the everloving hell out of it on a daily basis for years crank walk is unlikely to ever be an issue
Why would it be much longer than a crank on an inline V8?
GMC made an 11.5 liter V12 called the Twin Six. The crankshaft was forged in one piece, was four feet long, and weighed 190 pounds. It spun in seven main bearings, with four-bolt main bearing caps, strengthened saddles, and supportive webbing cast into the block.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/the-cast-iron-madness-of-gms-11-5-liter-v-12/
Does it matter? How many of these cars will accumulate even 10,000 miles over their lifetime? C'mon, one wouldn't *actually drive* it, would they? It may lose value!
I don't get what you're trying to conclude. As someone who partakes in this bullshit, albeit to a smaller scale with watches and jackets and other metrosexual things, others could say the same thing about you.
That this has more zeroes behind it is the only difference. Also Bugatti only caters to a specific end of the market, at least in its current incarnation, and everyone is aware of it.
“Jealousy”
Not just a Gin Blossoms song.
just put krugerrands in your old penny loafers. no other modification is necessary
With socks or without?
Despair not, for you can join the Bugatti family today!
https://gillette.com/en-us/products/gillette-labs/bugatti-heated-razor-by-gillette
Thanks for the chuckle...
I worked with a guy who had one of these, the first Bugatti by VW. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1927-bugatti-custom-replicar-type-35b/
I'm trying to appreciate <<l'esprit du bricolage>> here, and I am sure that they made some more sense at the time, but now I have a pretty strong gag reflex for just about any of these VW-based kit cars.
This one is not all that bad, I suppose. I'm reserving judgment on the "Puma GT."
Kit cars were a big thing back then, and yes, there’s a level of revulsion because of how badly proportioned many looked, but I have an appreciation for the back yard tinkerer who decided that he was going to build HIS car. We don’t usually think of kit cars this way, but I admire that individualism these guys showed, no matter the end result.
Post war, there were the hot rodders, but there were also Americans who wanted a European style sports car, and fiberglass cars were the answer. https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/front-page/undiscovered-classics-forgotten-fiberglass/welcometouc/
The first picture (and only) I saw has that screen, and I recoiled in horror. I am glad it gets tucked away. My favorite part of the new Bugattis is their design to be timeless and shunning of screens.
I love the point about these hypercars with such excellent gas/ice engines. Only the rich get the goods in the new world order. Same as houses- you and I should move to the city, live in a 200 sq ft apartment, while the elite live in 6,000 sq ft apartments and escape to the Hamptons (single family homes!) on the weekends.
"They never intended to ban the internal combustion engine; instead, they envisioned a future where you commuted to an open-plan office via a battery-powered penalty box while they blasted past with the frenetic mechanical symphony of a 9,000-rpm V-16."
This. People ask, "I thought CA was filled with exotic car people. How are they going to deal with no ICE after 2030?" Obviously the answer was always, "They'll be bought and registered by their AZ and NV LLC's."
Corporations are people too!
You'd think my local NJ Porsche shop was in Montana, if you judged solely by the license plates.
Montana is quickly becoming a flag of convenience, much like Liberia is for oil tankers.
An actual masterpiece. But more importantly, this is a transitional moment in that what was once seen as "ultraluxury" is now Real, Actual Luxury. Everything below it is parts-bin commodity luxury. Doesn't matter what badge you put on it.
This is why a company like Jaguar dies. Nothing to distinguish them from other cars in the EV age. But they’ve stupidly embraced EVs, so FAFO to them.
Same for everything when you move its manufacture to China. Why buy Bosch or DeWalt over Harbor Freight, when it all probably comes from the same factory in China.
Yup, just bought an HF Icon rechargeable LED flashlight with a fold out wand. It’s really high quality.
You got lucky. The Icon light is so good it disappears almost immediately from my local HF.
Why buy Harbor Freight over Temu?
The ease of exchanging a defective product in the store. That and sometimes you are knee deep in a project and need a one-time use tool NOW.
And there’s always a coupon.
“Are you getting our mailer?”
Everything in a Harbor Freight store has been vetted by Harbor Freight.
I bought a $30 airbrush on Amazon that literally did not spray straight and consequently spattered paint all over the place. The one I got at HF cost less and actually works.
When assembling electronics I use a $4 Harbor Freight flush cutters far more often than the $50 Knipex that I have.
I've been working in oil and gas for 35 years. I go to at least one refinery conference every year, often two. I also like the idea of electric cars: instant torque, lower maintenance. That being said, the shine has come off the electric wave (Musk should have sold to Ford when they stopped making all cars except the Mustang in the US).
Refineries even in Green Germany are hearing from national polticians: "We need to make more electric cars" while the local politicians are saying, "More diesel, please." That is almost a direct quote from a major refinery manager from a conference about a month ago.
Every year it is about the same.
"I also like the idea of electric cars: instant torque, lower maintenance. "
Agreed, but there's always the imminent specter of "bricking" ahead of you. Rarely in my life have I had a conventional vehicle just go dead and stop working with no clue as to why.
No doubt, which is why I'm only ever thinking about a hybrid.
I was in Amsterdam taking a Tesla X to my hotel from the airport (all taxis in NL are electric now). I figured a Taxi driver would give me the straight dope on how it is to live with a Tesla. He said the company has a rule that you MUST leave 100km "in the tank" because there had been multiple (I think it was 2, but it might have been 3) "bricking" incidents.
Bricking is super expensive for a taxi because you can't just bring a jerry can of electons. You have to have the car towed back to a shop and in addition to the towing, the car is out of service for at least the rest of the day.
He ragged on Teslas for other reasons (he said Audis are the best electrics), but that is another story. If you take the added expense and time to charge and then lop 100km off the range, BEVs lose all their shine for me.
“I don’t want my car to brick so I’m sticking with hybrid”
Laughs in 4xe.
As if Jeep was a paragon of reliability 😂🤣
75k rental miles between my 3, lots of rough road/off road, zero warranty claims so far!
Interiors are a little rough
If you know of a hybrid that has bricked, please post and I'll sit corrected. AFAIK it is only BEVs that brick.
Is there any incidence of non-Teslas doing this? I would suggest it is a Tesla thing, not an EV thing.
When my Bolt started throwing weird error messages, I did the same thing you'd do with any modern car that started doing that: I replaced the 12v battery. Fixed.
https://www.google.com/search?q=taycan+bricked&oq=taycan+bricked&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQLhhA0gEIMzg1MWowajGoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Read it and weep for the poor E-PORSH dorks!
On the one hand: Nelson Muntz "HA HA"
On the other hand, I can find just as many results searching for bricked Cayennes and 718s. Again more a crappy OEM thing than an EV thing.
Which leads to the question: In the modern overseas-software era, is ANY manufacturer functional enough to make cars that depend on complex software?
A very valid question!
This is an excellent question I’ve not seen addressed anywhere. I would love to hear from a Detroit insider how this really works.
We know how it turned out for Boeing.
I've probably mentioned it before, but after 30 years of working at many places, I have consistently observed that hardware companies do not care about software. Their belief is that only hardware matters, software is just a necessary a necessary evil to move their hardware. So, you outsource your software to the lowest bidder (Boeing, anyone?), and impatiently cut their deadlines until there's something barely good enough to ship.
Not to say their hardware is perfect, either. I've lost count of hardware problems I've had to "fix in software," which really doesn't work, but hey, if the boss says so ...
Yet another reason I will never drive anything with a battery larger than the traditional 12V DC one.
It is unlikely that VW will disappear, but if they stop supporting this it will brick just as much as any electric car.
It is interesting seeing the attempts at replacing the computers on x100/x150 for manual swaps. That is mainstream compared to any attempts to replace electronics on this after support is ended.
At the same time the people who buy this could fund the needed Rd to come up with the solution.
Reminds me of this video on the history of auto wiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOMH_DN33q4
From one- to one-thousand-page wiring diagrams, and ballooning computer counts to match.
Oh that's terrible.
If I was running RM/Sotheby's I'd be looking to purchase a bespoke electronics engineering company to be able to continue to restore late model cars. I doubt there is anything in a 2024 model year car that can't be reverse engineered if you throw enough money at it.
The post mentioned the Aston Martin Lagonda. There's a company that makes replacement electronics for that car that apparently work better than the OEM stuff.
A private version of Japan's Takumi project (https://japan-forward.com/editorial-the-preservation-of-japans-cultural-treasures-is-in-peril/) involving industries moreso than craftsmen would be helpful in that regard. It would suck if all late model vehicles became obligate restomods in 50 years. On the other hand, much of today's complicated tech, excl. engine management, will probably only be preserved for the sake of historical authenticity and nothing more. Nobody'll be nostalgic for auto-dimming mirrors.
With people getting trapped in the damned things when they can’t find the emergency manual releases!
You need one of those stupid hammers “approved by the TUV”.
You definitely got it right about the elite separating themselves from the rest of us. EVERYTHING they've been doing for over a decade now, has been with that focus. EVERYTHING.
They've made travel increasingly harder and harder, as well as more expensive. Now with that stupid 'Agenda 21' crap, and all of the appliances they're working on banning, has all been to force us into shoe-boxes in urban centers, while the people pushing these things have multiple 10,000 sq ft estates that they commute to in their private jets, while driving million dollar supercars.
A middle class that enjoys the material comforts of the past 70 years - and a broader world that enjoys the stability this produces - is kind of a historical fluke. I loathe what the Davos set wants to set in place (or rather, more how they want to do it), even though I believe in climate change, etc.
The issue isn't the Davos sets actual consumption per se. Even if you took away half of Larry Fink's wealth or BOTH of Taylor Swift's Dassaults, that'd be a drop in the book. But the living standard adjustments that have to be made by the middle and upper-middle might be made more palatable if the public had a sense the ultra-wealthy had to adjust as well, even a damn tiny bit.
Look at me, suddenly advocating for Warren's wealth tax lol
a part of me wishes the problems could be solved with fewer people both here and abroad but theres no real way to broach that topic without sounding like youre advocating for genocide or forced sterilization
Specific to climate change, we're mostly tinkering at the margins unless you can pull down the carbon curve in India and China. These margins are still important, because every fraction of a C has huge outcomes, but I'm not sure electorates feel the same way.
The main thing no one really talks about is that there are only trade-offs. No pan-issue "solutions." You see this more pointedly in Europe right now. Pushing EVs for 2035 heavily tilts the industry in China's favor, but there's no way to meet the necessary volume without China. Banning GMOs etc. while simultaneously having carve outs for imports knee-caps your own ag sector. But NOT having carve outs might be a disaster for overseas farmers who are dependent on EU exports, which would then just add to the migration crisis.
The big society-level shifts that might need to happen in the future - like a managed pull-back from a coastal city because of perpetual flooding - will happen by executive order in, say, Guangzhou. But we're going to count on some combination of democratic process and market function to do the same in, say, Miami. And how will either be credible, if we haven't been honest that we've been in era of hard trade-offs vs shiny solutions?
it is with great surprise i acknowledge the difficulty of orienting the entire world towards a goal
moreover emissions reduction in china would most likely come from industry as their one child policy is going to make a rather large dent in population going forward and india is showing no real signs of slowing its population growth
either of those would have massive impacts on total carbon output
Carbon is not a pollutant.
Man is not causing the Earth's temperature to change one bit - we're not that powerful.
If the Earth goes through a warming period (One can hope, because those always bring good times) there will not be 'increased flooding'. Because a warmer atmosphere holds more water and the atmosphere holds a lot of water.
When I worked on the top floor of an office building in downtown Chicago, I used to tell the lefties I worked that they were sitting in the very spot that disproved climate change.
I told them that 13,000 years ago, a mere blip in geological time, right where they were sitting, Chicago was covered by a mile of ice. I asked them, where did the ice go? Henry Ford hadn’t been born, and it didn’t melt because of Indian campfires. Where did it go? Of course, I never got an answer, only blank stares. It’s such a simple question, yet no lefty or green zealot can answer it.
finally a coherent thought congruent with physical reality!
youre right obviously
i really should have said pollution as a catchall term than carbon output
The fact of the matter is, increasing living standards, specifically reductions in infant mortality, have generally driven massive reductions in birth rates. It's almost like the "invisible hand" at work. What sliver of optimism I still cling to believes there can be a 2050 or 2100 with a naturally reduced population with no major cataclysms.
That goes for everyone, I hope.
We could use mandatory national service. Wouldn’t be specific to military service, but imagine every 18 year old being assigned to some public enterprise via random lottery for 2 years, ideally somewhere far from their home. Troubled kids have an “out” and something (maybe) to look forward to. Rich kids have to mix it up with the proles for once. We - a grateful nation - would pick up their college bill or equivalent. As a plus, 20-24 year olds might make better college students. There’d probably be less encampment-style drama, at least.
The only viable window we could’ve even broached this topic was right after 9/11. Instead, Dubya told us to go shopping
does the phrase 'involuntary servitude' ring a bell?
Trouble is, the politicians don't want this because they want assets, specifically their real estate, to go up. So we'll essentially have genocide of the West with human reproduction offshored to lower-cost providers, especially India.
I walked down the street to Publix last night (perhaps half a mile each way).
In the same shopping center - an older and “established” property - sits a Barnes & Noble. I believe it was one of, if not the first Barnes & Noble locations in Atlanta. I recall shopping there when I was a child.
I walked by right at closing time and observed: Two homeless people fighting in the parking lot; said parking lot was covered in trash and debris; a third homeless person sleeping sideways across the front door to the attached Starbucks; a fourth homeless person sleeping INSIDE the Barnes & Noble.
Despite this, I believe that we need MORE people, because we have a growth-based economy.
surely we can be a bit more choosy about who gets in no
canada is experimenting with the everyone and their brother policy and its been suboptimal
When the people you're importing aren't smart enough to use flush toilets, no, you're not getting a growth economy. Pretty soon (in a couple of generations) once the average IQ pretty much drops below 120, society as we know it STOPS. Because it takes smart people to keep all of the tech running.
This is why 3rd world countries stay 3rd world: The majority of the inhabitants are morons.
As for a growth based economy, well maybe if we stopped destroying the family and encouraged women to have kids instead of the opposite, we'd be looking at a better future.
But sadly, people fell for the BS and the future is not bright at all.
For the record, the average is 100 by definition (though some countries do better and some worse) but your point stands.
Yes, I'm quite familiar with what the average is supposed to be. I also know the USA's average is higher than a hundred, however it has been dropping, as all the illegals are in the 90's at best.
those with the power to shape the country are either doing so willingly or are somehow unaware of the potential effects of importing a quadrillion squatemalans
Willingly. They think that they will rule for life. What they don't realize is that the new people being brought in will elect rulers that look like THEM. In fact, in some places, this is already starting to happen.
A certain demographic that can’t speak English that a Western English speaker would understand!
This reminds me of the Sam Kinison routine where he says we have to stop bringing food to starving Ethiopians, instead just have them move to where the food is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwA
Another gone too soon!
Serious Question for Sherman: Why is an American with an IQ of 79 considered an unemployable burden, but a Guatemalan with an IQ of 79 (which is AVERAGE, BTW, in Guatemala) HIGH-OCTANE FUEL FOR GROWTH?
At least the American dimwit can communicate with his caregivers in English.
thank you for your sympathies
its hard down here
What do tall retards call short smart guys?
Boss.
I’m lucky to have the inches I’ve got.
I took HGH for 4 years as an adolescent, otherwise I’d be about 5 feet even.
Also, I only made a 1590 on the SAT (despite getting every question correct on the math portion, I scored a 790 - that’s the bell curve for you; i.e., the test was a little too “easy” on the day I took it, and too many people got every math question right). I took it several times, and that was meaningfully higher than my other math scores 30-40 points IIRC. I made a perfect score on the verbal portion every time I took it - that part of the test is ridiculously easy.
Another ridiculously easy test is the ACT. I took it as a sophomore and made a 34, then I took it a year later and made a 36 (perfect score). I wanted a perfect score on both the ACT and the SAT, but oh well!
Because they know that Guatemalan will vote democrat. Sole reason.
Yeah, they don't look the other way when it's the Cubans trying to make it to Miami Beach.
Sorry, I just saw this.
I think there is maybe a *little* bit of a leap in logic if you expect me to be the defender of the open borders orthodoxy.
I simply said we need MORE people; i.e., more consumers and more workers. More people to buy housing and cars and Netflix and Doritos and Funko Pops and so on; more people who will fund those purchases with debt and do so with a piece of plastic.
But also, more people to compete for work in service industries so that you don’t feel like you’re getting ripped off when your plumber shows up.
Finally, since I am an evil racist, I would prefer that those additional people be natural born American citizens. But I’d take warm bodies over nothing, as a declining population is a terrible demographic fate.
Finally finally. I had a phone conversation last night with a friend in which IQ came up (he was in line at In-N-Out; we were discussing the relative merits of Chick fil A and his preferred purveyor of mediocre fast food burgers).
This guy is in a senior finance role at an OEM. We both struggled to articulate what characterized a truly “average” IQ. I wonder how often I have genuine social interaction with someone who has an IQ below the 50th percentile / below “100.”
I can't read your mind. You WROTE:
"I...observed...homeless people fighting...covered in trash and debris...homeless person sleeping...a fourth homeless person sleeping....Despite this, I believe that we need MORE people, because we have a growth-based economy."
How is it a "leap of logic" to not assume that you were OK with an average Guatemalan, which is probably WELL ABOVE our typical Biden Era Open Border New Arrival?
But still, why are you so damn sure that importing retards who will be net negatives (and likely reproduce like rabbits) is NOT superior to returning to previous population levels? Japan is doing fine, and even BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is realizing that lower population will probably work out just fine:
https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2024/05/03/larry-fink-migration-bad-productivity-wealth/
I can remember a time when those "homeless" folks were kept off the streets, but among other things, Geraldo Rivera did a whistleblowing series on local NYC news about abuses at the mental hospital on Staten Island. Simultaneously, civil libertarians lobbied to close those institutions and prevent people from being institutionalized against their own wishes.
Before that we had "bums" but they kept themselves to the local skid row and didn't set up encampments all over town.
I know that activists like to portray the homeless as single mothers cruelly put out on the streets but the simple truth is the vast majority of homeless have mental and/or substance issues.
I have recently become aware, but have not read or evaluated, a book that claims that MORE people are presently in bondage due to "mental health" than in the past:
https://robwipond.com/your-consent-is-not-required
Broad brush, but the whole world except Africa is below replacement level on birth rate. S Korea is an extreme case at 0.9 (2.1 is approximately the static state), but it’s coming everywhere anyway. And, all other things being equal, it will be profoundly deflationary.
Not the whole world. Israel is above replacement level. The fertility rate in Israel is 2.9, one of the highest in the developed world. Even non-religious Israeli Jews, who are in the majority, have lots of kids.
This writer says it's a cultural thing:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/danielle-kubes-the-truth-behind-israels-curiously-high-fertility-rate
Amazing what people do when their government does not hate them and try to genocide them out of existence through DEI, immmigration, etc.
I did say "broad brush" to allow for outliers like Isreal, for whom I imagine it must feel existential. But Isreal is a small drop in a large bucket heading the other way.
Of all the things a government could subsidize, a pro-natalist incentive structure is by far the most important.
but that means more whites so itll never fly
Show me somewhere it has worked or something better (doesn't work in Poland, Hungary, etc).
I believe Mr. Schreiber is correct in that it is cultural - children and future generations simply are not valued cf line go up DINK lyfe
People respond to incentives.
So, back to steam trains, men in hats and women in the kitchen? Happy days!
if those things come with a high trust society and a government that gives a shit about me im sold
"Historical fluke" perhaps, but SOMEBODY'S gotta be the first.
The rich do not pay taxes. The 'wealth tax' Warren is advocating for won't cost him squat. It'll just stop people like me from becoming rich.
And the whole global warming thing is just another lie. Historically, warming is GOOD for the Earth, Humanity, the Environment, all of that. Also, the sea level goes down, not up. Has to do with the amount of water vapor in the air increasing and the atmosphere can hold a lot more than people realize.
No, it's these people miss the days of royalty and nobility and they want it back. They want the power that comes with it. They are, in short, evil. All of them.
I think it was Frederick von Hayek, who when asked why Socialists and Communists promote their ideology when they know it doesn’t work, responded that it’s probably because they just want to dominate and subjugate other people. Pure evil.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Sexist.
some theys just want to watch the world burn
I've been coming around to the idea that the main difference is not between left and right political ideologies, collectivism vs rights as individuals, but rather between totalitarians who want to control others and those who prefer to be in control of themselves. Simply put, the left is far more interested in being in control than it is in implementing a workers' paradise. The workers' paradise is the means to a totalitarian end.
The two parties obviously have a difference in core beliefs, but that’s almost quaint these days. I think many more of the public now see the parties and their elite systems for the insider vs. outsider structure of spoils that it truly is. Control of the people is a big thing for the insiders because they crave power and money.
long ago article explained why the rich were for the income tax: they knew that however little it was it would prevent people from getting as rich as they had--which happened without an income tax
" even though I believe in climate change, etc."
Your use of the word "believe" is telling. Is your assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow morning based on a belief or something based on evidence?
Environmentalism is a Gaia-worshipping religion.
The end goal of The Left is to murder 99% of mankind and keep the survivors in medieval slavery, while the Left themselves enjoy all the comforts of 21st Century technology, lording their aristocracy over the powerless wretches.
Nice dash. Too bad about the nose. They should’ve named it Aardvark.
I was personally hoping to see it resemble something like a Type 35 instead of another variation of the Veyron.
prewar styling is hard to translate to modern design
previous renditions of packard duesnberg and more recently hispano suzia styling look
challenged
Or, great styling soundly rejected by modern designers.
https://blog.consumerguide.com/packard-twelve-concept/
ill leave you to decide on that
On the other hand, this wasn't so bad: https://www.story-cars.com/1995-chrysler-atlantic
thats certainly something
As luck would have it, check out the “Rare Classic Cars and Automotive History” YouTube channel—the concept car itself was at the Eyes On Design show at the Edsel Ford house in Grosse Pointe, MI, this past Sunday. I’m sure Ronnie will have some comments about that at some point.
Let’s not forget the ‘66 Duesenberg. https://bortzautocollection.com/cars/1966-duesenberg-ghia/
you know thats not too bad
The ironic thing is that the Packard Twelve concept was fairly advanced in terms of mechanicals but the styling was unfortunate at best.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/buying-and-selling/if-you-want-to-buy-packard-ask-the-man-who-owns-it/
There is a current attempt to revive Packard. I spoke to Scott Andrews, who owns the rights to the Packard brand at the SAE convention in April. He said they'll be making an announcement sometime this summer, and that they'll be using their own, bespoke, platform, not retro body on something like a F-150 chassis. For now, they are selling Packard branded watches.
great article
i never know which way to turn when it comes to modernizing old vehicles
how much of the styling do you keep and how much ought to be updated
The modern designers pushing prewar styling must all end up at Morgan or unemployed, and Morgans only work because they go whole hog. I'd say prewar grandeur is best expressed in some recent Cadillac and Merc concepts: Ciel, Elmiraj, Sixteen, Maybach 6, etc.
Partly that's because much prewar "styling" goes back to brand identifying radiator shells/grilles. As cars got lower and sleeker, it became difficult to integrate tall, vertical radiator grilles into the overall design.
Retro can be done well - see how Dick Teague Packard Predictor concept paid homage to the original Packard "horse collar" grille.
And to think this car is the most attractive expression of Veyron-type styling.
Love this car! For everything it is (and is not).
Bugatti has slyly conveyed that the V-16 will be used in additional applications, including potentially a front-engined GT car.
FWIW, Cosworth is responsible for the engines in the Aston Martin Valkyrie, Gordon Murray T.50 and T.33, AND the Tourbillon.
Meanwhile Pagani makes do with an old Merc V-12 that redlines at ~7K RPM. I bet Horacio received a few cancellations yesterday.
"I bet Horacio received a few cancellations yesterday."
The form factor of the cars is SO different I have trouble imagining such an outcome. Surely most of the customers would just add a Tourbillon to their expected outlay for 2026, and enjoy their Pagani between its arrival date and then?
Contrary to what Rich Person Correspondent Matt Farah claims, a lot of the guys who buy this stuff don’t buy every single hypercar offered to them. They try to build the best possible relationship with their favorite to ensure that they can get the most special cars. Or so I have been told by people #blessed to be in such a position.
Why would you give Horacio your money when he’s just not innovating like the competition? Plus, his interiors are tacky - Bugatti has him licked on that front now.
With few exceptions, investment bankers can’t afford that kind of toy - nowhere near.
A good Managing Director might average $2MM / year pre-tax over a decade or so. At many firms, there is some stock or deferred comp or both. And then taxes.
And then the mortgage(s), property taxes, your wife’s allowance (she doesn’t work and would dump your ass in a hurry if your career hiccuped), private school tuition, summer camp, family vacations (minimum 5-6 long weekend trips plus a week or two in Europe over the summer), car payments, food, clothing, etc.
Oh, and saving for retirement so you don’t have to be a traveling money salesman forever.
I know a guy, old dude who lives in my hometown, dresses like a mechanic and always smoking a robusto cigar of some stripe: owns a Veyron, BMW Z8 (which he purchased from an old hippy who owns a few health food stores!) SLR McClaren, three Ford GTs (two 05 models and a new one). Plus a host of other cars. Has a house in Vero Beach, Telluride. Occupation? Owned a huge commercial excavating business.
The wealthiest guy in said hometown? Owned a large woodworking retailer, international window manufacturer, oil & gas firm, a million gas stations, etc. Owned a $40 mil house in Jackson Hole, also a house on Vero Beach, and a home on Martha’s Vineyard. Started it all from scratch with a single gas station; his father was a music teacher. No cool cars though: for my entire lifetime, he drove an ‘02 BMW X5.
Sherman once told me, when I thought I’d enjoy being a BigLaw attorney, that the peril of said occupation was trading time for money: it’s a giant hamster wheel. The truly wealthy don’t seem to do that.
I remember some of the highly paid traders I worked with, who had all of the spending responsibilities you accurately listed, being visibly jealous when someone they viewed as beneath them (me), bought a nice car or took a nice trip.
Once I was on the trading floor, was bored, so I was reading a library book. Our head trader walked into our booth, picks up the book, sees from the library stamp that it’s from a wealthy suburb’s library, and asks “whose book is this?” I say it’s mine, and he says “you live in this suburb?” I say yes. He can’t believe it, so he asks “you really live there?” I said, “is there something wrong with that? I live there because it’s really nice”. He starts backpedaling and says of course not, good for you. I find out later that he lived in a nearby pedestrian middle class suburb that people from my town wouldn’t be seen in. Ah, the benefits of buying the worst house on the block.
When I reviewed the total household financial statements of traders at one of the exchanges in Chicago, it was common for high income traders to have no savings and $50k in credit card debt. This was 25 years ago. Many times, my net worth was higher than traders who made 10-20 times what I made.
That was the biggest financial eye-opener of my life.
Easy come, easy go.
That attitude is particularly prevalent among traders.
The “easy go” part was pretty bad to see up close. I had to give out multi million dollar margin calls guys couldn’t meet. No fun.
Some of my trader friends who made it big and then lost it all kind of never recovered career wise. Hard to work in an office after being a trader. As a trader you could make enough money by 10am, then go golfing or go to Wrigley Field.
Most of my information on this comes from Brett David and/or Horacio's kid, but they have a loyal customer base that is thinking about Pagani first and foremost. Many of them like Pagani because it's not as corporate as Bugatti -- I mean, the CEO of Bugatti is basically a mercenary.
Those two are also terribly biased, obviously.
It’s easy to sell out a car when you make double digit production runs.
'Twas not always so, ask Aston Martin and Bristol!
I adore the Blenheim - https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2005/01/bristol-blenheim/
As I slip comfortably into my Grown & Sexy middle aged period, I’m starting to turn into you! I’m simultaneously coveting badly made British cars AND two-tone bespoke dress shoes (see comment elsewhere with link to Permanent Style profile).
setright could explain about the simple twisted bristol marketing strategy. kinda like ask the man who owns one...if you can find him!
I would very much like to read a book about Bristol if you know any. What a bizarre, hilarious company seemingly run by a man who hated selling things, loved the Chrysler 440, and also made like three very pretty re-bodied Dodge Vipers to be sold alongside a car with a frame developed in the 50s.
The Huayra's interior is plain weird and ugly, not just tacky.
Ford did a better job with the SN-95.
It's fascinating to me that Pagani himself must have overlooked (?) the possibility, but *some random country bubbas in Loxahatchee FL* figured out how to get that same Mercedes V12 to 9k RPM recently: https://www.gooichimotors.com/m120-v12-parts
More coverage of a functioning vehicle with said engine, that I would like to use to drive to work: https://engineswapdepot.com/?p=117149
i bet you any money the pagani mill can do 9k rpm
living there and remining reliable while still doing everything a modern passenger car engine needs to do is another story entirely
I was pretty disappointed by that engine in a $3MM+ car. There is a manual offered, but for $3MM or more I don’t want to compromise!
There are so many options in that pricing realm, as well:
Pagani
Koenigsegg
Hennessy (lol)
Bugatti
Singer DLS
Gordon Murray
Aston Martin Valkyrie
Mercedes AMG One (lol)
Ferrari SP3 Daytona
Bugatti
I’m sure I’ve forgotten some.
Agreed re: the $3M 1 car question. Funny to think how one might spend that (“What is your choice, and why is it the Koenigsegg Gemera?”)
Damning by faint praise: the *sound* of the benz 12s in the Zonda and now Huayra convinced me to stop ignoring them out of hand. Shame that the exterior design of the cars is so bizarre
The Absolute Sound (😉) has to be the HWA-sourced V-12 in the track-only Huayra R.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEG8YrDVcc4
Or try Tuthill 911K...
absolute nutball of a machine porsche or otherwise
the redline of a sportbike and the curb weight of a loaded diaper
This might be the one that I'm thinking of. But IMO a lot of pagani NA V12s sound great
Most phallic production car ever?
Plymouth Prowler?
SLS AMG?
All “K” Cars
That thing Ace & Gary rolled around town in?
They never rerun those episodes.
"What are you looking at?"
"Nothing..."
Smart ForTwo. For the chodes out there.
E-Type coupe has a scrotum to go with the phallus, though the actual title belongs to Bill Thomas' Cheetah.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/09/the-cobra-and-the-cheetah-a-muscle-car-tale-part-two/
holy crap that chassis is garbage
suspension design like that would get you shot if you brought it to an fsae judge
Nothing wrong with the basic design, double A arms with a vertical link, but the implementation was iffy. A lot of race cars in the late '50s and early '60s used what appear to modern eyes as dangerously skinny tubing in their frames. You should see what a late '50s Ferrari looks like naked. Scabrous welds on 1" tubing.
From my article linked above: "For safety reasons, the continuation Cheetah is not an exact duplicate. Shortcomings with the frame and front suspension have been rectified, with thicker tubing and more stiffening members welded into the frame."
youre right the double a arm is fine its just the orientation and design of them is poor with regards to the heim joints
if you follow the load paths youll see that the joints are not in line which would lead to bending and potential failure and yeah you could make everything bigger to handle the loads no problem its just not the right way to do it but there are times in which that is the only option available
I'm not an engineer, but then I don't think Bill Thomas was one either.
I once heard the Harley-Davidson method of R&D described as, "If it breaks, make it bigger and heavier. If it breaks again, make it even bigger and heavier."
By the way, people say that Colin Chapman's Lotus cars were fragile due to his obsession with reducing weight but it should be remembered that his degree was in structural engineering. Before he started Lotus he worked for an aluminum company trying to pitch the alloy as a structural building material. The heavier you make a bridge, the even heavier it must be made to support all that weight.
im infinitely far from chapman when it comes to vehicle design chops but ive always considered his cars sort of like icarus and he just flew too close to the sun sometimes
i think his cars were light because he had such a small margin of safety which given the tools of his era is incredibly impressive
there is a pleasant simplicity to just overbuilding stuff though
Part of being ultra-wealthy is the in-person experience vs doing it via tech.
Even better if it puts even more distance between you and others.
I imagine one of the best perks of flying "La Premiere" on AF is how "someone else" handles everything: passport control, baggage check and screening, and even boarding (sort of... you don't use the gate at all. Unlike those biz class proles, you're driven across the tarmac from the LP lounge directly to the plane). You have a dedicated purser, not an app or SMS updates.
AF makes it impossible to book LP with straight points, so it's positioned to be as a close to flying private as possible.
you can book it if your status is high enough but it's at least 200K one-way. Since I'm sitting on over 1M miles, I might treat myself to it one day.
This is one of the basic themes in Great Gatsby. All the proles are busy working while Tom and Daisy are sitting around frittering their time away and driving around in coach built "coo-pays" and roadsters. Life is cheap for the working class. Life is meaningless expensive distraction of cars, whiskey, and cuckery for the wealthy. Not much in between.
Here we are 100 years later and it's the same old shit Fitzgerald griped about through Nick's eyes. If guess if a rich guy runs my loved ones over in a Toubillon I'm obligated to make him catch three hot ones in his infinity pool.
Not that I'm likely to ever meet a Tourbillon owner, but I wonder how quickly I could irritate them by looking at the gauge cluster and exclaiming "Oh wow, just like the 1st gen IS300!"
If there's any positive trickle down from this car, it's that maybe designers will try to emulate the no screens look when building cars attainable to the working man. Maybe Lincoln could take the existing Mustang platform and build a Mark IX with a screen-free interior worthy of the Continental name..
that would be neat
i mean theyd never do that but it would be cool if they did
If they do it now they'd build it in China.