"Most of their munitions have been given to Ukraine"
First weekend of October the wife and I were able to get away for a weekend spent in a small AirBnB on a ridge in northwest WV settled in the early 1800s by my 4th Great Grandfather. Had a great time driving my new GTI on the twists and turns of sparsely occupied two lane blacktop. Departing Sunday morning after a breakfast featuring fresh baked bread from the property's owner and eggs from the coop next to our cabin we were enjoying the leaves just turning traveling at a much more sedate pace than the previous days and saw a majestic buck leap from the brush off the mountainside on his way for a drink from the creek. Unfortunately he was a foot from the front of my two month old hot hatch that was doing about 50. A flash of deer and suddenly the hood was covering the windshield.
After nearly a month waiting for the vehicle to be repaired; body damage, sensors aplenty, radiator, oil cooler-fortunately no issues with engine or suspension, I'm told the $6000 underhood wiring harness is only manufactured in Ukraine and unavailable for at least 8 months. Insurance company deems the car a total loss.
As wonderful as the VW was I couldn't bring myself to buy another from a company that can't supply parts for brand new vehicles. Bought a new made in Kentucky Camry instead, LE for the cloth seats and ride friendly tires and 50+ mpg-our host here demanded I spring for the X but I disliked the diamond patterned leathery stuff on the dash. It's surprisingly nimble on the farm roads nearby but I'll still be looking for something fun come Spring. Maybe I can succeed in getting an older couple on my route to sell me their MR2 Spyder, white to match my hybrid. I think they're the original owners- they took it out of the garage twice this past summer.
I get it. When we were looking last summer it was between the Tiguan and the CX-5 with the turbo. We went with the CX-5. It’s relatively fun to drive for what it is and plenty quick.
Thank you for saying this; I’ve been meaning to test drive one.
My wife almost rented one; in rental spec, she said it was quite a ways off Telluride quality. Unfortunately, the one she was going to rent was having a technical problem and so they swapped her to a different car.
Do what you must to get that MR2, those are so raw and light, so much fun.
We got my wife one to autocross, sold it to help get her a C5z. She missed it so much we ended up getting another, nicer example. Immediately gut the pre-cats if it hasn't been done yet (they break up and suck back into the engine).
It’s a cool car, but it’s very point-and-shoot. A whole lot of trickery with the LSD keeps you from understeering around curves, and it’s just generally not the sort of car with which you can get in a lot of trouble. It’s fun, but only by modern standards. It is impressively quick, though.
All in all, I’d say it goes about its business with a sense of Teutonic seriousness. There are days when I wish I’d ponied up a few grand extra and purchased an Integra Type S, replete with 6MT, instead, for a car with more personality.
The infotainment is massively improved over the pre-refresh. The interior is nice and feels premium, although I think the 7.5 was the high mark within the Golf family in general.
Got it, thanks! Test drive was far too short. Of course the dealers don’t keep any fuel in the cars, and then we ran into traffic so couldn’t really wind it out.
I’m surprised they let you test drive it at all. A lot of the dealers when I was looking were stingy and would only let you drive it if you showed serious intent or put in a finance app.
Yep, I usually get pushback on test drives, but this sales guy didn’t even ask for my drivers license. I think he’s an over eager rookie. With that said, I would do everything possible to buy the car from him if/when I pull the trigger.
I'm recalling a guy from one of my Camaro groups (I'm actually a Ford guy) whose 2018 ZL1 1LE was totalled by his insurance company because Chevrolet had stopped making replacement engine harnesses for his car (the dreaded NLA) by early 2021. The last anyone heard about it, the insurance company was going after Chevrolet.
There have been other horror stories as well here of late.
For the C6 Z06 owners, GM no longer makes a LS7 engine block or the oil pumps. For the C6 ZR1 the fuel pumps are no longer made nor are the rear magnetic shocks. The 2014-15 Camaro Z28 no longer has Brembo carbon ceramic brake rotors available or the Multimatic shocks.
The body parts are even scarcer. Insurance companies are totalling them when they have minor accidents due to unavailability of parts. But you don't need an insurance company's help when the LS7 has the top end competing against the bottom for who let's go first. An engine made of glass.
Honda is coming up on 16 years of making the Honda Fury available for consumers. It is also coming up on 50 years (42) they've been making the Shadow models continuously.
There's a lot of carping about how the Sportster died and boohoo, wha-wha, whatever shall we do without a top heavy, slow, lumbering bike with wooden brakes.
But Honda more or less did the Promethean thing when they took Choppers(TM) from authentic deathtraps built in a shed in Frisco or Nagoya, Discovery Channel hydro bent frames festooned with different farkles and colors in between chair throwing fits, and created, as they do, a whole new segment even Harley was too chickenshit to try. Just like when they saw people taking long trips and made the Goldwing, or when they noted the late80s Adventure Bike segment in Europa taking off and built a legend in the Transalp/Africa Twin. Honda more or less steered the entire segment away from the dorky R80GS into Dakar wannabes that worked.
The Fury was mocked by a lot of people when it hit showrooms. This includes me. I denounced Honda as "late the Chopper party" by 10 years because they seemed to be in a hardcore "kick the ladder from under you" and Kaizen era with the CBR, Wing, etc. They had warehouses full of the old Ohio built VTX cruiser models they were blowing out just to be shut of them. The "custom" line was just a continuation of the VTX in a "choppery" kind of vibe including the Sabre and Fury. Most of those models were showroom potatoes axed after a couple of years.
But the Fury has had an incredible run. It's also managed to eke out a new niche in the cruiser market, something I thought impossible because the entire culture has devolved into Boomer, shirtless denim vest, rally debauchery, and loud pipes save lives type catchphrase yapping.
The Fury is not my cup of tea, but when you check in with the people who gave it a chance you will find a rabidly devoted fanbase of people who walked away from Brand X and don't want to go back. A taste of Honda quality and engineering (the fork dynamics on the Fury are magical in that it has SO MUCH RAKE but no chopper flop and isn't trying to bite you) turns a lot of people into devotees of Big Red.
Well done, Honda. Congrats on 16 years of the Fury. These bikes will be around for another 40 or 50 years in the bike scene even if Honda turns off the tap next week and shutters the nameplate. That's a pretty fair accomplishment for a brand all about continuous improvement (Kaizen) but finding they more or less got it right on the first whack.
Could they redesign it with a 6th gear, more power, and a bigger tank? Yes. But why? Keep it below 120 and it's fine. Get off every 120 miles and gas up so you can keep that super cool svelte and artsy tank. Keep the shaft drive because it's bulletproof and you can run a 200+ section width tire no problemo.
Wonder what color 2026 will get since 24/25 are both green. Previous to that was yeller. Color stagnation may be a sign of slowing sales. Maybe the Fury's time is up. But there's no denying Honda changed the landscape of the industry with it. They even had the balls to call it a Chopper when everyone else was carping over the Slick Willy minutiae of "what does IS mean?" when it comes to that term.
It's some of the biggest balls I've seen in the industry in a long time, the shot callers from the last 20 years at Honda. My big hope with TrumpyTrump's tariff stuff is we'll see the Marysville plant reopened and making bikes again. It'd be a great kick in the teeth to Brand X if we made Choppers here (by American people who care) on that line while they're playing musical CEO and "diversity is our strength" games and trying to stuff stillborn poorly executed "value" bikes down our throat.
Somehow, the Fury has out-Harleyed Harley while being able to stop, steer, and be reliable. What a time to be alive.
I read that in Europe now you can buy a "toolroom copy" of a air-cooled sportster from China. I wonder if Harley sold them the tooling, wouldn't be surprised.
That's allegedly what happened. HD CEO Jochan Zeitz was full speed ahead on making HD a boutique brand, creating updated product lines to be more refined, and the Sportster didn't fit into that. It was an asset he could liquidate instead of leaving it in house.
The ones I've seen in Europe are cosmetically different in small ways from the American models.
My working hypothesis is they (the Chinese gov't) have a 10 year plan to take HD over with a stock buyout as it continues to falter. Rather like they did with Smithfield meats.
Harley is an indigestion g case study in “professional management” hired by a board who represent funds. In oter words peole who are not really bikers at all. But Harley is really just an inspired manager away from greatness. The thing is the board would never be able to identify let along hire such a person
Oh, I agree. Over in Italy there's an overwhelming sense of nation when it comes to brands like Moto Guzzi and Ducati and Piaggio/Vespa. The expectations that leadership not only shares this idea but moves forward in a way to support it is a major expectation. In fact, in the past there have been more than few times rich Italian cats have stepped forward to bail national nameplates out for no other reason than national pride.
It'd be great if we had that for Harley-Davidson and Indian/Polaris. (and the big three automakers didn't see it as emotional leverage against buyers)
My idea for the Harley CEO was offering the job to Mark "The Undertaker" Callaway. He had a big run in the WWE as The Undertaker, but one of his characters during the chopper days was The American Badass who was basically a biker tough guy who rode to and from the ring. Callaway had a lot of experience navigating properties and images during the rise of WWE's valuation over a billion bucks. He's got a good head for business and understands the sizzle selling part of the equation quite well. And he's not just another gated community dork who sat on a board for a widget company. He's a real live biker too.
Imagine how much better the merch would be, and how many people would buy CEO merch for the first time, if he was the main man.
But no one listens to me.
Harley definitely needs a good leader who is a symbol all by him/her self and understands the brand and isn't ashamed of the brand identity as American.
The Harley path was moribund motorcycle maker in the 70's,m making the same bikes as the 60s which were neither reliable nor appealing other than to a really diminishing segment. At the time Harley was owned by AMF a conglomerate who needless to say didnt understand bikes or harley.
But the CEO was Vaughn Beals who did understand, he created leveraged management buyout so he could pursue the vision. The created the evo Motor. Crucially when asked how he was going to sell antique bikes and npot develop a Japanese rival Beals said I'im not just selling Bikes Im selling lifestyle. he did well when they thenw ent public and excited the scene, but the template was set.
The Harley zenith was under Willie G who understood the Harley Schtick. The problem was and Is there are only so many annnaber dentist who play Biker on the weekend. Also as the bikes visually are of the same mold, once everybody who really wanted one had one, the market got somewhat sated. True the story was sold as far as Europe and japan, but eventually you reach a certain saturation and fashions change. Plus the Harley guy for various reasons is old and aging out.
the harley board and management understood this. They bought Buell which was harley powered but then not understanding bikes or buel proceed to destroy it. They bought saw the success of Ducati MV, spent a fortune redoing and retooling the factory, then bailed.
What the professional management was great at was running the company well according to the template layed down by Vaughn Beals with refinement of bikes by willie G. They also recognized they needed some evolution and change, but were clueless as to what and how because unlike say an italain buying MV they lacked the passion and understanding of bikes in general.
In the same period Storz for example created a great roadable "tracker" out of sprtester bits. Harley owned the tracker image but couldn't see ti of capitalize, the sorta tracker they built was half assed sorta ducati with heavy styling. It took a disillusioned young Harley Stylist to move to Indian toi make a commercially successful street tracker, and that bike imo had nowhere near the build quality of a harley.
Then we have buell. IMO the most Macren F1 bike evr built was the Britten Vtwin. Buell was headed in that direction, they killed it because they wouldn't let Erik Buell be Erik Buell, they were corporatizing the magic instead of letting the magic flower.
Then they Hired the German prince who had his esg vision of harley. Even then they came up with some neat designs, only to bail halfway though. Their ADV does well and you can tour the country and there is a harley dealer everywhere to help you out. The sportster s looks great and coudl have been the USA version of the Diucati monster. but it came stock with forward controls, desperately needs suspension that can articulate and maybe some great brakes. Its like 90% of the way there. As for the rest f the bikes that coudl have come from that platform they dropped it, and then went for a sota trad liquid cooled sportser, which is nether fish nor fowl.
The Template has bene set by both BMW and more so by Triumph. You make a line of traditional powered modern retro bikes. That's going to be 50% of your volume, and you stay relevant by making a sportbike and all sorts of nakeds which you invent along the way, street triple.
in short they coudl have made a rage of bikes off the air cooled sportster, a tracker, and since the kids are building all sorts of urban bikes of cafe racers off any old bike there is another template. Just look at the Bikeexif site for inspiration.
Then the sportster S could have created another more modern range. You gad Buell for vtwin sportbikes. and then we have th traditional baggers, choppers etc, which are also challenged now by reliability and too complex electronics, like what happened to the key, its a modern antique that runs.
But to do any of this, ya gotta be into things that go, machines and bikes. Its all about passion and art. Because Bikes are in many ways mechanical art.
same reason Gm was so successful when harley Earl and Bill Mitchell had outsize say. Same reason Corvette became a thing ie Mitchell doing styling Zora the mechanicals. Frankly same reason Chrysler and for a brief period Gm made some great cars that also appealed whenever Bob Lutz was allowed to run product.
the worst thing that can happen to a car or motorcycle company is having procter and gamble people on the board. Its not toothpaste, and really there is no crossover.
I don't know whether aston survives all the debt built up , but theyre starting to kaek really beautiful and appealing product, love of hate Stroll, hes one man with a vison and theyre doing some really great stuff. The MBAs.are great for making and doing things efficiently. Luxury products of passion need a CEO/product person who was born with that passion and vision.
I would point to current Buell offerings that have created a buzz. The super cruiser in particular is getting a lot of looks. Most of that owes to Buell as a figurehead and the faith people have in him for doing fun, interesting, and well engineered bikes.
Meanwhile HD released their model lineup yesterday to yawns. They have bold new trikes available.
Off topic, but curious to know what the ACF hive mind's thoughts are on the new Prelude coming in at over $43k after destination. This, mind you, for a 200hp CVT hybrid coupe.
It looks good. I'm sure it drives nicely too. Those seats look like a truly wonderful place to spend time. Even as a sort of halo car, though, I cannot for the life of me understand how this should cost nearly $10k more than the Civic Hybrid Sport Touring upon which it's based.
They aren't direct competitors -- this car has no direct competitors -- but a new Nissan Z is cheaper before the inevitable discounts, and a new Mustang GT is cheaper after the blue oval slaps a fat wad on the hood. It's bizarre! Who is this car even for?
Honda has, for a very long time, been so unbelivably conservative in all of their products. They are still selling pretty much everything they make*, so far be it from me to judge, but would it kill them to take one tiny page out of Toyota's playbook and make something... different? Even offering the Prelude in "Si" and "Type-R" trims alongside the hybrid would be *something* but no! Just a pretty little thing that they are going to sell like 8500 of in the states, before pulling it and telling the people it's *our* fault two-doors don't sell.
*Ridgeline and previous-gen Passport are the rare exception
The Prelude wasn’t a design leader. Always pretty, except maybe the original, but never a stunner. The fourth gen was a bit of a styling stretch, but everyone seemed to hate it. I never did. A guy I worked with drove a silver one, so I got to admire it every day — and admire it I did. But this new one? Probably the second-homeliest Prelude ever. The first gen was even homelier, but at least it was lovable. It shares the “performance-car cluelessness” award with the first-gen Supra, which looked like a contemporary sporty coupe, packed a lovely straight-six, and then drove like a late-’70s T-Bird. Just without the squeaks and rattles.
But man… you ruined my morning. Just to double-check my Gen memories, I pulled up the Prelude page on Wikipedia — and it crushed me to be reminded how good every Prelude from the second gen onward actually was. The string-back driving-glove crowd dismissed it for not being RWD, but dammit, every one of them was delightful to drive. For the street, they were as good as anything, from anyone, at any price, for 8/10 back-roads fun — while being comfortable, dead-nuts reliable, and cheap to run.
And in 2025, we have nothing like it. Nothing at all. From any manufacturer. At any price. Doesn’t that break your heart?
And remember: the Prelude was just one of many truly fun, genuinely “turn back and smile at it as you walk away” cars. In no particular order or timeframe, before signing on the Prelude’s dotted line you probably also looked at the lovely GM F-body twins, Dodge’s Daytona, the sensational second-gen Supra, the Mazda RX-7 (my heart still aches for a GSL-SE), the Fox-body Mustang, maybe a Probe, or the Diamond-Star Chrysler/Mitsubishi twins. A little out of the price bracket, but still in the conversation, you had delights like the CRX, the practical Civic Si, or even a Porsche 944. Even Isuzu gave us quirky little gems wearing those wonderful green “Handling by Lotus” badges.
I’ve surely missed a few, but every one of those cars offered more honest fun than anything on sale today. Sure, the new stuff will destroy them on a track. That’s not the point. These were cars you could drive every day, love every day, and afford every day — and they asked nothing from you except that you enjoy them.
Maybe if kids had fun sporty cars to aspire to, they’d forget the truly stupid things — like drugs and socialism.
I think the offerings from all the manufacturers are a reflection of the times we live in and folks personalities. No one is colourful anymore, you can't speak out, you can't be unrefined.
Every piece of the automobile is legislated to the top of a termite mound, they all have driving aids, push button start, and 18 airbags. There is no one allowed to die in one. Safety is paramount. Then fuel economy, then refinement and lastly fun or styling. All cars look the same, styled by software.
Pick a model you would like your manufacturer to bring back. Maybe you like Lexus and you want the 400 LS to be brought back. Probably doesn't have enough airbags and that big V8 will get downsized to a 6 cylinder or 4 cylinder turbo with no torque.
You like a 1998 Pontiac Trans Am WS6? That front end is too dangerous and that V-8 would need to shut off not just 4 cylinders but all of them if required.
Maybe you reminisce about a Ford Ranger or Chevy S-10 that was simple and just ran? Nope, way too small since you need it bigger for that wiring harness for lane departure warning and blind spot detection along with a turbo for that 4 cylinder that shuts down cylinders like your boss shuts down your raise.
Honest question: do you think it's only the government, or is it also the market dictating the mountain of safety "features"?
Once, I felt like the government was working in opposition to what the gen-pop wanted (simple, affordable, reliable vehicles), but C19 made me reconsider. I think my fellow countrymen LIKE to be told what to do, what they can buy, how they should live.
It makes me feel like a fossil. I actively hate all of those things, not because I'm a selfish nitwit, but because it's not the government's job to force me to into anything "for my own good".
Until I saw the projected price I considered buying a beater and waiting on a Prelude. Still hoping for a new Celica - I've owned a '78 GT and a '00 GTS.
I think at around ~$38k or so it makes some sense? Mid-way between a Civic Hybrid ST and the Type-R. Never would be a real volume seller (has any Prelude ever been one?), but at that kind of price I certainly get it. Would be a reliable, stylish, efficient, practical daily for sure.
A Civic SI is $31k and a Hybrid Sport is the same, maybe at $35k it would be interesting for an even sportier body style and suspension. At $44k, it just makes no sense to spend another $13k over the already fun to drive and more practical Si.
Prelude is what used to be called a chick car. It looks nice(by 25 standards) and sporty.
Its not that expensive compared to a 3 series. The steering will fell sporty, and it will be a great aspiring girlboss commuter car. Plus it will be bought by retired bearded 65yo liberal men who never quite made it are a bit angry and want some "fun". So basically the same peopel who buy the current mini.
Nah. The chick car trope is something that never made sense to me. The vast majority of anything south of a Corvette or a 911 was always made of “chick cars”. Mustangs. Camaros. Firebirds. Datsun/Nissan Zs. Every affordable performance car only existed because of the chicks buying the volume versions.
As far as the Prelude, it was a sensational driving car. And probably one of the best high speed, point to point, road cars of the time. Very few cars steered, shifted and just handled as well. Lucky chicks who got a car that good.
The last generation of Prelude was one of my favorite cars when I was between high school and college. I test drove a couple of them, but never had the money for one.
They went back to a Prelude-looking thing after the ugly spaceship!
This new one looks like a $THE_CURRENT_YEAR interpretation of the DSM cars—Talon, Eclipse—with a greenie-weenie drivetrain. At least with the Type-R parts, it might HANDLE!
I’m talking about the current new prelude not the older ones.
Tire mustang in 6 cyl form was designed as a “secretary” car, but the b8 ones always had a different tarhet.
Classic chick car was a rabbit convertible. Any mini convertible. The orig new mini the supercharged one was not a chick car.
Some cars can have dual roles, like a Miata.
The new prelude imo does not have dual roles or dual versions it’s a chick car.
Good question what if they made one with the ctr motor as well, might not be a chick car but probably wouldn’t sell because a real ctr more appealing to men.
I keep telling ALL of you... there is no such thing as off-topic in an ORT!
This car is a good value at $42k MSRP with the 2.0T/6-speed drivetrain. It won't catch a Z but it will outlast it. (I say that despite having a 2024 and a 2025 Z in the house.)
As a hybrid CVT... I think it will have limited appeal. I'd like to own one but I would struggle to justify the money.
The biggest real-world competition this car has is the Lexus RC300, which offers more of EVERYTHING and equal provenance for less than five grand more.
RC is out of production now isn't it? And the 2026 IS comes in 350 form only in the states, I believe.
Most like-for-like car is... maybe the BMW 230i? Maybe? Real world transactions prices aren't terribly different. Both stylish coupes with every day practicality that will quite easily get over 35 MPG.
I would take the 230i in Thundernight Metallic without hesitation, damn the maintenance costs. However it's well documented at this point that I simply refuse to make the most rational vehicle purchases...
The 230 will likely be more fun to drive too. Plus you can bolt on almost any "M" part or aftermarket suspension or brake upgrade from the whole tuner ecosystem that's developed around those car.s
My in laws picked up a 228 convertible for their beach house, and that thing is a blast to toss around. It's surprisingly quick too.
230 shouldn’t be too bad to run. I’ve said it here before but BMW has cracked the medium term reliability code. Even in base trims the current 2 series is a head turner, it’s surprisingly spacious, and also not too slow in a straight line
Like all things German it’s a trade off in running costs. Not even “surprise” maintenance anymore, just brakes, tires, insurance, etc. but well worth it IMHO
I checked with my dealer and preferred salesguy a week or so ago, and there will be a 2026 Accord after the first of the year. So my guess is that it may pick up the front end from the Chinese-market Accord, which is a vast improvement over the Fusion front clip that’s graced its front since 2023. Probably not enough to make me move on to another one! (I may take a demo Hybrid out in the spring and beat the snot out of it for an afternoon, and that might change my mind, but unlike the experience with the 10th-Gen with the 2.0T, I doubt it. A shame, because the bones of the 11th-Gen Accord are pretty solid—it’s the powertrains that let it down.)
And ** $43,000 ** for the Prelude??!! What in God’s name are they smoking in Torrance?! It’s a fucking Civic coupe! Price it a couple-thousand over the Civic Sport Touring for the name! That thing ain’t worth more scratch than a full-zoot Accord!
Shame on you, Jack, the correct terminology for auto journalists to use according to the Honda Style Guide is "shares its chassis with the Civic Type R."
If they priced it in line with the current prius that it competes with spec wise, IE: starting at ~30k, I think it would sell decently. At $43k USD? It's dead on arrival. CRZ take two.
For me, and this is taking into account all of Honda's offerings (cars, motorcycles, etc) since the early 2000's Honda has been racing to the bottom to try to kick Nissan off the lowest rung of the ladder.
The Prelude? It's a "look what we used to be capable of doing!" in modern hybrid, Emperor's new clothes.
I'd rather pay off my CX-9 to keep as a winter car and use that $45K for an old Type SH. Or save up a little more and buy an LC500 because I'm getting old and a more comfortable car sounds nicer.
MotoGP's 2025 came to a close with more heartache for Mir, who took out himself and his teammate, Marini, in the sprint. However, a solid race by both Marini and Mir lifted Honda out of the bottom rankings for concessions in what they are counting as a successful 2025.
Bez on pole, Alex Marquez second, Digiantonnio third, R Fernandez fourth, and Pedro Acosta starting from fifth.
In the sprint Bez blew the launch and plummeted down the order. Acosta made a hot start and rocketed to second. Alex and Acosta would fight for a short while before Alex made a clear break for victory. Pedro finished second, and Digi third.
Bez had a much stronger start in the race and this time led from flag to flag. Raul Fernandez kept Bez honest the entire race with a great display on the independent Aprilia. Alex Marquez suffered late on as Pedro Acosta managed to take his tire further into the race and displayed killer mid to 3/4 race pace. He reeled in Alex and dispatched him. However, Pedro struggled at the end against Digiantonnio who came back in the final part of the race to make moves past Alex and then Acosta. Digi saved Ducati's record of near 90 straight podiums in races.
Bagnaia was bashed out of the race by Zarco, who blew a braking zone in lap 1, which put his miserable (5th place in the championship after years of contending for 1-2) season to an ignominous end.
From the test there were no great surprises as the two rookies begin to acclimate. Diogo Moreira, newly crowned Moto2 champion, takes Somkiat Chantra's place in LCR where it won't take much to have more impressive results than his predecessor. Toprak Razgogliotu (?) comes over from WorldSBK as champion to Pramac Yamaha alongside Jack Miller. The Yamaha riders seem generally favorable toward the V4 bike they will run in 2026. Jorge Martin continues to take it easy and just put on miles.
Race 1 of the season will be in late February down in Buriram after three more tests to lock in the 2026 bikes.
It's okay, I'm perpetually so far behind due to crippling anxiety and "too many projects" overall that I think I'm always late to the party by at least 33,330 comments.
Didn't even read the ORT yet, but I gotta ask: You throwing your hat into the ring to be one of Kaulig Racing's "Free Agent" drivers in 2026? I think your resume speaks for itself!
I know it's a long shot, but if I learned anything from the venerable Dr. Fauci it is this: You miss 100% of the shots you don't take!
I lived about 2 air miles (because PA, nearly 6 by road) from PittRace when they were building it; IIRC the parcel was landlocked and they had to do some eminent domain to get their driveway down to PA-18, so if they indeed got hit by eminent domain threats, there's a sad irony there. (Never mind that unless it's an NSA data center, eminent domain is an inappropriate thing to use....)
Had to look up who Nuzzi was and why we weren't talking about her. (Make your own Encanto reference here.) And I think the first article I clicked on, and read 3 paragraphs of before deciding that I agree with you, summed it beautifully:
"The mudslinging between two of the more polarizing personalities in a profession filled with egos delighted a media class that revels in navel-gazing, schadenfreude and generally messy behavior. Over the course of four days it had a lot of material to work with."
Is that from the Guardian article that basically states "The worst problem with her being a dirty whore is that it affects the otherwise sterling reputation of progressive female journalists"?
Had to look at my Chrome history--it was indeed the Guardian article. I'll defer to your summary, sir, as graf 3 was as far as I felt I needed to read. :D
0-I supposed we will be forced to restrict our commentary to Olivia Natuzzi, the alter ego of she-who-shall-not-be-named-lest-Jack-be-triggered-by-a-skilled-female-writer, who is heiress to an Italian furniture brand.
1-NVIDIA earnings were a nice beat - the party continues!
2-EV Cayenne will be a tough sell when the EV G wagen hasn’t been a great success.
First you tricked me into DuckDuckGoing that woman's book and learning about more unfaithfulness in our political and journalist class, now you tell me there's a battery powered Gelandenwagen!?!? You need to put content advisories on your comments, man.
-Shh 🤫 … we are not allowed to talk about “that woman!”
-The EV G wagen has been around for a while now. Most easily identifiable by its “spare tire cover,” which is a slightly smaller squircle with a black strip at the top.
EV G wagons coming off lease are going to be awesome when they sell for $50k. All of the "GWagen-ness" and you don't have to deal with MB engine BS. Would be awesome for my VT commute with a set of steelies and all terrains. I'd save my TX and Tacoma for anything requiring a drive longer than 90 miles.
Depends on what your priorities are. I'd rock the Ineos for the long overlanding trips where durability and longevity are key. I'd go with the Benz for interior luxury and EV convenience for short commutes. In a perfect world, I'd own both!
Yes, you can see a set of their more avant-garde chrome-and-black-leather sofas in the loft of my barn. I bought them 24 years ago and they still look brand-new.
When I was assisting a very successful friend in outfitting his bachelor pad a decade ago, I have to say the fellow was only inspired by the Natuzzi sofas. Leather quality was exceptionally high and the recline feature in some models tickled him.
Almost wish I had the savoir faire or lack of future-time-orientation to be a leather sofa guy in my wild youth
The Module 593's greatest weakness is the lack of even the simplest UTC offset. There are some Casio watches that have a degree of UTC awareness for very little extra money, although the UI differs from what I would have specified.
How is it possible a $165k suv solves any problem, much less an $165k EV suv? The clown who wrote this most likely hates income inequality. Who in the hell does he think is buying this thing?
I've seen a surprising number of new eMacans around Miami, so they may get a few folks on lease deals who want to be SEEN in the NEW CAYENNE!
It's at least better looking than the gasser Cayenne Coupes that are appearing all over now, unlike the Taycan that looks like an awful cross between a 911 and an Audi.
nobody ever explained how an overly indulgent 10k pound truck is supposed to be good for the environment. wasnt that the whole point of evs or am i missing something
In Australia we pay an annual registration tax based on vehicle weight on the grounds that heavier vehicles wear out roads more - which I've always just assumed is true. So they absolutely should be.
I have the strangest feeling that doesn't apply to EVs though...
I mean, a giant open air prison is very much in keeping with tradition, to be fair. But I'm genuinely not sure what you mean - curious news of what stupid government decision made it out to the wider world?
It's worse than you could imagine: US nominally repairs its roads based on a gas (translation: petrol) tax. Once upon a time, that probably had roughly the same effect as a weight tax, as heavier vehicles would use more gas and therefore pay more tax. Now with hybrids and EVs, vehicle weight has been decoupled from gas tax, so the owner of a brand new Hummer EV pays zero road tax, while my (1/5 the weight) Lotus Elise pays some.
Same in Michigan before ~1981, before shifting to a value-based system. One suspects that the Big Three weren't happy that lightweight foreign cars (even expensive ones), were so much cheaper to register than their land yachts.
When you have to add mass to address engineering concern, but more mass means more motor, more motor means more fuel reserve, more fuel reserve means more mass, more mass... (etc X infinity)
This is what I feel is the worst sin of the EV mandates combined with the greed-driven product strategies of manufacturers… the battery materials used for an EV like the Hummer could probably be dispersed into a dozen hybrid powertrains which would be 10X better for the environment in the long and short term.
The "Dual Mode" hybrid system that GM developed for its body-on-frame pickups and SUVs, and then abandoned, yielded about a 25% improvement in fuel economy. The people who owned/leased them liked them. Considering that GM, Ford & Chrysler sell more pickups than just about any other vehicle, improving that fleet's fuel economy by 25% would have saved way more fuel than all the EVs in production.
I think what also killed it is the 8speed transmission they built with Ford. Those Hybrid Tahoes got 20/20 fuel economy while Ford could get better highway economy from the Ecoboosts. Our '22 Expedition would get 22-23 mpg highway at 75mph, so why "pay extra" for the Hybrid?
The diesels seem to be the way to go for economy in these, as the 6 cal Duramax gets 28mpg in real world use but diesel is a whole other can of worms
I own that diesel (LZO). I've never seen anything close to 28 -- but then again, I've got the 3" lift Jack loves so much with 33 LR Es. I get 21 or 22 unladen, driving 80+ and loving life.
I’ve got a friend with one in a Tahoe so we’d compare notes when I had the Expedition, along with a buddy who has 2 Sequoias. We nearly got the Tahoe just for the Duramax but we preferred everything else about the Ford and we didn’t want to wait around trying to find one. On the test drive I saw 30 mpg at 70 which was crazy. My frame of reference was also from years of driving an Land Rover Discovery with the Rover 4.6, so anything 15 or above was “good” for a truck.
Perhaps no one is asking for this but an Electric H1, no matter how much of the HMMWV's inherent shitboxiness remains, is a less nonsensical proposition than the hummer EV,
The Hummer Ev is a greater affront to the basic economic conception of scarce resources than has ever been manufactured by anyone in the industry.
I’ve got a few of those wartime steel pennies. I’ve also got an Illinois license plate from back then that was made out of a waxy cardboard type material since they weren’t making plates out of metal.
they werent reflective at all but looked great. too bad the police had to get involved becuase they coudlnt actually read plates at night or on their cameras.
A few years ago, Michigan issued plates with the Mackinac Bridge on them, with light colored characters against a light colored background. People complained but the state didn't do anything about it until cops started complaining. They also issued a series of plates whose paint delaminated, leaving bare metal.
In california, they never reissue plates. There's many a 25 year old car running around on its original plate and will continue to do so until it is scrapped.
At around 15-20 years there's enough sun exposure to delaminate the paint down to bare metal.
I drove with a blue vanity plate in California until we moved away and I stopped driving. It hangs framed on a wall where we live. They make great mementos.
Same in Massachusetts. Our state didn't require front license plates until 1986, and anyone with the prior style was grandfathered in to rear-only. There are still enough of those in circulation that lack of front plate doesn't catch police attention (though you do need to have them on for mandatory annual inspection).
Around here, for some reason police departments don't have to replace their plates, so the IMPD and ISP are the only ones still using the stamped plates we last issued in like 2002 and they're all peeling. (As opposed to the flat printed plates we all have, which are bent inwards at both corners from every car wash)
One of my motorcycle plates tore apart like a piece of paper. Vibration weakened it near one of the bolt holes and it was maybe minutes from falling off when I noticed it. Very weak metal.
In the brief period between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the suspension of civilian automobile production, after chromium and aluminum were declared strategic commodities, car companies painted rather than plated trim pieces and replaced aluminum parts with pot metal and other substitutes. In the basement of the Studebaker museum in South Bend, there's a 1942 Studebaker with painted trim.
I'm recalling a hell of a lot of magazines in the early 1980's which were running ads for companies that would supposedly give you $3000 for a copper 1943 penny. Given that I was around ten years old at that time, and I was desperately wanting to buy the upcoming 1984 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 three wheeler, digging through penny collections was a fun pastime (in addition to doing various odd jobs).
I never got that three wheeler. My oldest son has gone through three of them, however, lol.
I briefly rode a friend's Honda three wheeler. Idle was up too high so you couldn't stop without stalling it. Wanted to go forward all the time when it was on. I didn't enjoy it. Supposedly they aren't actually more dangerous than ATVs but I'm not convinced.
"Supposedly they aren't actually more dangerous than ATVs but I'm not convinced."
If you are able to:
Shift your ass left or right while still clinging to the handlebars
You can pretty much ride a three-wheeler. The general idea is it eventually becomes second-nature to the point where you don't even notice that it's tippy.
The only reason why I don't have one now is that the last trike was produced going on 40 years ago, and people forget that metal fatigue is lurking in the background like a mortician with a cold handshake. There are a few outfits, however, that are doing gangbusters in converting modern Yamaha dirt bikes into three wheelers (the Hondas aren't so easy to convert), although you'll be able to buy two ATV's for what you'll spend on converting a motorcycle to a three wheeler.
Having spent an insane amount of time on the various chassis layouts of handlebar-equipped, ICE-powered transportation, and having owned some 100+ motorcycles, four-wheelers, and three-wheelers (current garage queens are a 2002 Honda TRX400EX and a 2014 KTM XC200-whatever-it-is, I lost count of how many I've gone through at around 108, and that was several bikes ago), the brief window of the three-wheeler is the most fascinating period out of all three chassis layouts (two wheels, three wheels, four wheels), in that almost all of the prominent motorcycle manufacturers around at the time (1970's-1980's) got involved with the craze, and they were pushing a product that really shouldn't have ever been built and sold to the public, at least not without an intensive rider safety training course.
Having tried to train a lot of different people on how to ride one of these trikes, it's astounding that so many manufacturers put out so many of these products, regardless of whether or not the buying public could actually ride one. And it was really easy to spot as to whether or not they could ride a trike: Step 1, be able to move your ass left or right to enable you to make turns without rolling over.
If you don't shift your ass, you flip the trike, end of story. So many people couldn't even perform this most basic of riding requirements, yet the manufacturers kept churning out the damn things anyway, I'm having trouble recalling any sort of vehicle/motorcycle manufacturer throughout all of recorded history that was churning out the kind of product that had such a pass/fail attachment to whether or not the average consumer could actually use it.
I mean, shit, most people kind of have the general idea that you don't use a toaster near a filled bathtub, that's ingrained before you ever buy your first toaster, and yet with the three-wheeler, the consumer had zero idea if he or she was even going to be able to use the thing until well after they had purchased it, no dealership I was ever aware of would actually let you do a lengthy test-ride to find out if you'd be ATC toejam or the next Mickey Dunlap.
And then almost all of them went a bit insane and decided to offer motocross-level, two-stroke three wheelers, in the form of the Honda ATC 250R (I owned a few of these, 1981, 1984, and 1986, the last and most psychotic year), the Kawasaki Tecate 250 (and then the T3 version of the Tecate), and then the most misunderstood trike out of the three, the Yamaha Tri-Z 250, which was actually more of an awesome sport bike versus the precise, cold-blooded killers in the form of the 1985-1986 Honda ATC250R.
I've owned other Honda trikes, and their 185/200 4-stroke trikes are incredible in regards to how much of a Swiss watch they are, these beasts are 40-plus years old, and people are still riding the damn things, often with very little upkeep.
Suzuki thankfully abstained from producing a two-stroke 250 three wheeler, but skipped ahead and put out their 250 Quadracer and their version of the most misunderstood product out of their entire lineup, their 500 Quadzilla, which was simply a Cadillac-500-powered torque monster that idiots tried to treat as a 125 screamer, often with disastrous results.
And not to be outdone was Tiger, a much smaller manufacturer, but thought that a 250 simply wasn't enough, so they came out with a 500cc version of their three-wheeler products.
Having ridden one...and somehow survived the experience...it was practically useless on anywhere but a dirt speedway.
The platform has two places where it really works, however: Mud, and snow.
The "mud" side of things, if you know how to shift your ass left or right, or even hang off the side of your trike, it's fairly difficult to get one of these trikes stuck, and if you do get stuck, you simply disembark, lift the offending trike out of the hole, laugh about getting stuck, and then continue riding.
With the 4-wheeler monsters/Jeeps with handlebars that are prominent today, yeah, you don't lift anything, nor do you typically survive if one of these monsters without a rollbar rolls over on top of you. With the older, lighter three wheelers, if you did manage to get the thing on top of you, you typically laughed about it and kicked the thing off to the side.
The other riding condition I mentioned? Snow.
This is where mystic nirvana awaits. ATV's are a bit heavy, and the front ends act like shovels in mud or snow, while trikes just sort of float around on top of it, and are an absolute blast to do giant slides while the bike is pegged in 5th gear, it's a slow-motion drift missile that's often drowned out by excessive laughing, it's that much of a religious experience...at least until a particular 1983 Kawasaki KLT250 spins all the way through the snow and into a very-dry patch of clean asphalt...and the right rear tire hits that and grabs...and then the three-wheeler power-wheelies out from under you, the trike turns into a giant death spatula, and then you're flattened between the snow and the three-wheeler.
My older brother and I built a go-kart in a reverse trike layout because we couldn't afford the bearing blocks and other gear needed for a live axle. The first time I took a hard left turn and the inside front wheel lifted about a foot off the ground I learned that three-wheelers are inherently unstable. With a reverse trike at least you can put enough weight on the front end to keep the front end on the ground, like Morgan and Polaris three-wheelers do. Since the Bombardier Can Am trike is based on a conventional motorcycle drivetrain layout, with the engine midship, not up front, they need to use electronic stability gizmos to keep it from flipping on turns. I'm not sure you can do anything to keep a conventional trike layout (two wheels in back) stable.
All done, thanks. Also a bit puzzled as to why state regulators crack down so hard on four-wheeled versions of the same reverse-trikes, never mind they're a hell of a lot safer than the three-wheeled versions, it's almost as if they're state-sanctioning the unsafety of riders.
In a previous life-time, I was a Controller at a Harley-Davidson dealership. Before anyone was allowed to test ride an H-D Trike, they had to sit through a 20 minute video on how the Trike was so different to ride than our 2 wheeled products. No exceptions, waiver had to be signed, pint of blood left as a deposit...
The elderly lady I bought my 2010 Camaro Synergy from (yes, the bright-ass-green eyesore) was also selling her fairly new H-D trike, it was her second such trike, the first one having expired not too long after she left the dealership with it, I think she made it around maybe three or four corners before rolling the thing.
She ended up with a second one after the first one was totalled, and her response to the first accident was, "oh, THAT's what you were talking about by my needing to lean in corners!".
My neighbor came home in a body cast, breathing through a tube in his throat after a bad day on one back when they were new. Hey let's put a CR250 engine in the worst handling package known to man. I still don't understand why they were ever made.
I had a complete set of Lincoln head pennies up to about the 70’s including the 1909 rarest ones that I had collected from about 10 years old onward.
I went off to college and one day discovered that either my younger brother or sister or both had taken and spent them along with all sorts of other old coins. What was left was eventually stolen in an apartment burglary when living in Chicago.
Thanks for the kind words, Stan. Now let’s talk about the financial hit of putting all those HoF and rookie baseball cards that went in the spokes of my bike when I was a kid, especially all those damn Yankees like Mantle, Berra, Ford, Maris…
Not everybody knows this but the guy who points Ralphie to the back of the line is the narrator and writer of the story this is based on Jean Shepherd.
My mom, sister and I did "austerity" during World War Two. It was livable with one major fault. Our father was off fighting the war. For real "austerity" read THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy.
“ Both Sonnet and Haiku 4.5 value communist lives almost twice as high as capitalists. Sonnet even ranks communists above socialists, and more than twelve times as valuable as pronatalists or immigration restrictionists.”
Dear EVs: Take the Tesla Model S and Rimac Concept One examples of good styling and continue that trend.
Sincerely, everybody with eyes.
I would like older Teslas to have durability/reliability levels above a '90s Cavalier, because cheap speed, but it looks like I'll have to keep on the ol' ICE train.
Have a 2YO Cadillac Lyric. best car ive ever owned. My wife drives it daily, has fantastic range and costs nearly nothing to operate. I tracked the electric bill for the first few months and it was maybe 12 bucks a month worth of juice to charge at home. Zero maintenance costs over the first 26,xxx miles and the car is beautiful, a good vale and has great build quality. For what we use it for, it is great.
A car so nice you posted it thrice... but seriously, you're kidding yourself if you think you'll continue down the "zero maintenance costs" route for much longer. You WILL need tires much faster. You will also need fluids changed. Yes, they have fluids that require servicing. (Which you may already know but not be thinking of yet.)
While that may not add up to what the costs are for a gas or hybrid in that class, it also isn't nothing. If you don't pay anything to charge then CONGRATS! you live in the perfect utopia where this works 100% as intended. (Seriously though, you're the perfect use case scenario. Read below for our reality here in SE Michigan.)
DTE here in Michigan even gives subsidies for installation of chargers and such, but I can tell you right now that meter spins a lot faster with an EV plugged in . And, they charge an increased rate during the hours of 3-7pm... right as people are getting home and fixing dinner. As someone whose wife operates a large scale laser and CNC, I can tell you there is zero way it's only 12 bucks a month to charge that car unless you're charging away from home... and even then there are costs there.
not a bot, a real guy in virginia. I know there will be costs associated with the car (tires, brakes ect) above the charging cost. But here its as close to free to charge as possible. The 220 line was paid for by GM, the 40 or so miles my wife drives a day are all around our local area and the cost was only 12 bucks a month (to be fair, I only tracked it for the first 4 months we had the car). Now to be fair, we have numerous other cars that we drive and take on longer trips, so ive never used the public network and have never driven it anywhere close to the range limit. For what we need, what it is and what it cost, cant beat it!
I agree these cars make sense for some people, and they are massively subsidized. I'd be a decent use case for a Cadillac EV since I have solar panels and dirt-cheap rural electricity besides.
I was flirting with the Prologue, which I guess is the low rent version of the Lyric. When I briefly poked around, it was possible to get them for cheap right before the EV tax credit expired.
As a secondary commuter appliance that saves me money, I'd certainly consider it. It's just hard to make the "saves money" part work for most use cases. You gotta be driving a lot.
Back when I was doing longer commuting distances, I was doing 50 miles round trip (which I know, isn't long by most standards). 250 a week, 1,000 miles a month. 12k a year (just commuting). At the time in a vehicle that got 19mpgs. Sounds like a perfect EV use case, right? I even have a garage it could be charged in each night.
Things is, that's about 630 gallons a year. Gas in my area floats between high $2 and high $3. So between $1,800 and $2,400 on gas annually. Tack on a few hundred a year (avg) on maintenance. Let's give it $3k, which is really favoring the EV.
Even if the cost to run the EV was a third of that (gas savings and maintenance savings) - and I came out ahead $2k a year - which again is being pretty favorable to the EV side of this equation - it just didn't seem to make much sense.
Add to that, I don't think they are really saving the environment. The human toll and environmental costs to build them; isn't outweighed (if at all) until years and hundreds of thousands of miles. (Also to say nothing about how the electricity is generated, whether it's fossil or alternatives). And that only really works compared between a serious gas guzzler, which almost always has way more capability than the EV replacing it.
I think they'll get there. They just aren't there yet. They remind me of my first Rio MP3 player that had 32MBs of music capacity. They're likely the future, but at the time all my friends were like "you can't even hold a CD's capacity on that thing!"
No way!! I always had a sweet spot for those. Test drove a few, was very close to buying one. I viewed them as a luxury vet - without the vet stigma. (While I am middle aged and do wear new balances w/white socks and shop at Costco - I didn't want to advertise it!)
I really like the design. It’s the only Art & Science Cadillac design that works for me. Plus no Cadillac signature droopy headlights.
I’ve got a Vette and do not associate with the local Boomer Vette club. I don’t own a pair of NB’s, have any white socks, a prominent gut, a goatee, or a Costco card.
Have a 2YO Cadillac Lyric. best car ive ever owned. My wife drives it daily, has fantastic range and costs nearly nothing to operate. I tracked the electric bill for the first few months and it was maybe 12 bucks a month worth of juice to charge at home. Zero maintenance costs over the first 26,xxx miles and the car is beautiful, a good vale and has great build quality. For what we use it for, it is great.
Have a 2YO Cadillac Lyric. best car ive ever owned. My wife drives it daily, has fantastic range and costs nearly nothing to operate. I tracked the electric bill for the first few months and it was maybe 12 bucks a month worth of juice to charge at home. Zero maintenance costs over the first 26,xxx miles and the car is beautiful, a good vale and has great build quality. For what we use it for, it is great.
Seeing how we're definitely racing towards issues with supply chains and resource issues, it would only make sense that every one of these 3k lb batteries would get broken up into 60-100 smaller hybrid battery packs which end up being far, far more useful for everyone involved. Plus, aside from Stellantis, we don't see as many issues and fires with smaller batteries just supplementing power.
if i recall correctly those battery packs are made up of a shitload of 18650 type cells which are in everything so breaking them up makes a ton of sense
That's basically how Toyota is approaching the issue. Going heavy on hybrids and plug in hybrids since collectively spreading out the battery capacity across multiple vehicles makes a bigger dent in fuel consumption. Seeing how Toyota is dominating these days, I think they made the correct bet.
I don't know if it's controversial but the problem with them is just the batteries. You can say they are too expensive and that's true but they are just way way way too heavy.
If humanity ever figures that out, I'm not sure that they wouldn't make nice-enough cars for most people.
I dont fully understand why they are wasting their time making loss leasing EVs when the basic internal combustion engine of the same car would be more than fine.
Has Audi gotten better or worse as a brand since their EV adventure? Mercedes? How about Caddy? Even Nissan was smart enough to say "this aint working". But hey, as long as these executives make way more than the workers they control, they will never fully understand the repercussions for stupid decisions. I fully believe Alan Mullaly was the best leader at an auto company of my lifetime. Just the balls to get the F150 made in aluminum while still giving traditionalists what they want is incredible.
You see it in nearly all the new generation or facelift cars. They are categorically worse than the predecessors. The Germans are getting wrecked by the EV spending, and Chinese screen garbage.
The full size Fords going aluminum and turbo V6 is definitely under appreciated, it's an impressive combo in terms of power and economy for those trucks if you can stay out of the turbos too much.
It's hard to think of a car that is better now that it was 10 years ago. Maybe something like a rav4? I rented one recently and was surprised by it. maybe everything else has just gotten worse
I was pleasantly surprised by a brand new (6 miles on it) 2025 Camry SE rental I had last spring, but it's clearly an evolution of the 2017 Camry. The Rav4 seems to be the same evolution, except it lost the awesome V6 in the early 2010s which makes it go downhill in my mind
"As privacy-compromising and bugman-compatible as NFC credit cards are"
the sheer convenience of cards keeps me using debit whenever possible despite my desire to not want to be tracked by anything (this is futile but i still hate it)
"You get Bluetooth connectivity and about 30 different features including step tracking, a few very simple on-screen video games, RGB backlight, temperature measurement, and other features that are still in development"
aside from the backlight none of this sounds terribly useful to me. really neat that it exists though.
"people are getting their hands chopped off during watch thefts"
id rather just hang the people cutting hands off but thats somehow a step too far
"Germany is in worse trouble than it’s been at any time since 1944"
it hurts watching what are some of the most competent people on the planet suffer so much for so long under a govt that hates them and for what? humiliation? i pray they regain their former glory
"2026 Porsche Cayenne Electric"
everything about it is awful. just a horrid thing to behold. kill it.
Right. I've got no less than 4 different CC accounts, all of which pay me 2% to use. I pay the balance every month, and the business card balance is about $25K- $40K/mo. The "perks" are real money.
That's rich on the Dave Ramsey thing. As an aside -- Ramsey is catnip for the 50% of the country that can't do math. For anybody that wasn't going to be an idiot to start with, his prescriptions are counterproductive.
The annoyance being so many businesses, especially restaurants, adding 3% for using plastic. At least with credit cards you get a little spiff.
We learned another advantage of credit is when your card gets hacked, as ours did in Detroit a few years ago, money isn't stolen directly from your your checking account.
We charge a 3% fee to anyone who pays with a card. We end up even. I went on vacation and there was a "3% credit card fee" which is fine. I keep a few hundred bucks of cash on me. Bitch charged me the 3% anyways. Service was so bad I didn't want to waste the time to argue about 2-3$ but it's been 3 years and I still think about it.
debit is easy but any sane person would use a credit card though ive always fretted over reaching the maximum limit even though im never anywhere close to it. i imagine greater use of a credit card would improve my credit score
The head of the AFD is a woman and her spouse is another woman, a dark skinned immigrant. the AFD is not the fourth reich, theyre ven pro Russia.
One thing for sure, the Germans may not have spent much on defense for the past few decades, but they did keep the ability to make great tanks and oter weapons., now theyre going for it. Will take a few years to ramp up, but they do make some effective stuff.
Because German National Socialism never had world conquest as an aspect of its philosophical makeup the way Communism does.
Hitler never wanted to go after everyone. He was a nationalist who wanted a secure homeland for Good Germans. He never wanted to fight the English or us.
Yeah, given the landmines I've tripped over while trying to get an opening somewhere, anywhere in regards to an automotive journalism career, and what I've seen since then, I find it laughingly appropriate that a lot of the folks who were the gatekeepers of this industry are now on the unemployment line, desperately hoping that some idiot billionaire comes out of nowhere and somehow reverses the clock to 2005.
And after having spoken to some of these people personally, I don't think any of these outlets were going out of their way to hire the best and brightest.
I spent a lot of the early 2Ks bummed out I couldn't get in a bullpen with the other moto-journos. Then I began to improve as a writer and instead of reading like a fan I read their stuff like an Editor after I'd been one.
Now I get to watch them pantomime-fellate the EV industry on LinkedIn as part of the desperate search to get a new job.
Near as I can tell, the three faces of the triple Goddess of moto-journalism are now represented by Doodle(the hot girl), Shadetree Surgeon (sleaze biker with a sex toy side hustle), and Freddie Dobbs (English Gentleman Explorer).
Charley Boorman, who is regarded as an elder statesman in the segment despite being hwyt and English, has recently relaunched his YT channel as a bike review and cooking channel, which is a wonderful throwback to 20teens Food Network nostalgia. He reviews a bike and then cooks a plate for a pal in his brand new kitchen studio.
Good riddance to the old hidebound framework we all struggled against and good luck to all the gray beards who think the kids are going to listen to them about cars or bikes or whatever, even if they say all the right things.
She's had a couple of get-offs, and was honest enough to post them. Her latest is the fastish crash she had on a Janus, which a lot of tubers have tried to use to increase their market share by damning her or Janus. She always gets back on the bike, which I applaud her for and take as a sign she's not just a hot-girl tuber having stuff trailered to photo ops.
She's also recognized she needed more training and did a Palladino course along with others, and did a lot of low speed parking lot/cones stuff on her own.
From my house she seems like she's probably okay. At minimum she's not a quitter and always gets back on the bike, which is more than I can say for a lot of the bike bunnies out there.
I admire her commitment to the data and explanation, but it also reminds me of other exculpatory pieces published by autowriters who didn't want to be disinvited from the continuing party.
Yeah, I wondered that too, but since I don't know her irl I just took it at face value. Janus kind of took a black eye from it anyway, and the uptick in feed traffic didn't make it a valuable thing for other channels to beat to death, so it had a pretty short half-life. I figured she was just trying to pull herself out of what surely must have felt like a big swirl of drama while she was probably on pain meds and maybe not in the best position to think straight.
"Good riddance to the old hidebound framework we all struggled against and good luck to all the gray beards who think the kids are going to listen to them about cars or bikes or whatever, even if they say all the right things."
One of the side hustle job things I attempted to work on, oddly enough, was the Driveltribe disaster of Messrs. Clarkson, Hammond, and May, and aside from the opinion that this website was only casually tossed together in hopes for a billionaire buyout (a lot of evidence pointing directly to the hopes of an easy payoff, Drivetribe.com was never designed to actually work), these three are actually fairly boring people, you know, when they aren't in the middle of engaging in some sort of psychopathic rant against underlings or anyone dumb enough to accidentally cross their path, or they're "on" with cameras rolling.
May was the most boring out of the three, and nothing evil or mean to the guy, he kind of has the engaging personality of a bowl of wheat bran...with skim milk.
I was signing on as a "comedy" guy, their talent headhunter was delighted as I was the only one who bothered to show up with that specific set of talents, and it was automotive-themed as well, which fit what the original Top Gear was 50% about, the jokes. As it turned out, the only joke inside Driveltribe I could find was the entire organization itself, especially when they went full-data mining mode, focusing only on getting clicks from the 13-17 age demographic, you know, the very same demographic that has such astounding buying power in comparison to every other older demographic group, and then they were actually curious as to why no advertiser would stay on for longer than a month or two.
In regards to anyone listening to what they have to say about cars, bikes, or practically anything else at this point, it's a weird dichotomy, in that most everyone typically ignores what anyone older says (me personally, younger people are put off by the state of visual decay that's present in anyone with gray hair, that, and it's rare that anyone under the age of 30 has anything insightful to say anyway, so do we actually want younger people to listen to us?), but the kids who follow these folks just sort of numbly listen to everything The Three say, even with James May prattling on about things that only the most hardcore autistic person might be slightly interested in.
And the moment when anyone else began talking about things that James might be interested in (or as I did as something of a joke, I simply copied a few things that May spoke about and went into further detail, couldn't get more than a few dozen views), yup, nobody listened because it wasn't Clarkson, Hammond, or May talking.
In the end, I think this is why I find Clarkson's Farm so hilarious, it was never about the cars, it was about the celebrity chasing.
I always wondered about that site, and now I know. Hahaha. How clever of them.
There is no TopGear or Clarkson's Farm without Jezza, mostly because of the parasocial relationship most viewers have with him. He is a bit entertaining and has an X factor, I'll give him that.
The main reason why I kinda put a lot of eggs into that European basket was because I was getting zero traction here in the states with the particular type of madness I was creating with satire pieces and overall general shit-talking, and for some reason, somebody discovered that my writing supposedly looked and sounded British, (I'm clearly not British, the farthest to the East I have ever been has been Tennessee, and even then I was still shit-talking about Elvis), so I started getting odd piecemeal job offers from random British companies, six of them being video game studios, with one of them being entirely honest: I supposedly wrote just like Jeremy Clarkson, and they couldn't afford Clarkson. It didn't matter that I thought that I didn't really sound like Clarkson (I didn't, but I was just as snarky as he was), they thought I did, and they were the ones who were paying me, so...
This was a fairly prominent driving simulator game company, and I think they still have some businesses here in the states. I wrote copy for them in regards to their vehicle descriptions, with the request that follows:
"Sound like Clarkson".
This job, like all of my other jobs with British companies, obviously ended in disaster, the 'big' driving simulator game gig ended after an increasingly erratic series of comments from the business owner, the final straw having been my copy about the Ford GT40 Mk2, and my British-style car description somehow reminding him of Dan Wheldon's horrific death at Las Vegas just a month prior (there was no mention of crashes, Indycar, Dan Wheldon, or even antidepressants in my car description), and my handler sent a picture of the owner curled into the fetal position under his desk, sobbing uncontrollably.
Small problem: I was somehow blissfully unaware of Top Gear/Clarkson as late as 2009, and only discovered their existence after one of those video game studios wanted me to do copy and voiceover work for them. I didn't set out to write "British", but from a comedy standpoint, if I had to assign a lifespan to comedy in general, in regards to what you'd expect to see from comedy as it grows up, the British have it nailed in regards to the type of comedy that you'd see as the polished, experienced professional, and it's the dry variety that's the most intelligent out of all of them.
The USA? It's still stuck in college dorm-level of comedy: Falls, farts, and fucks.
The British, however? There's a polish there, the grownups are in the room, and actually requires you to be able to think (for the most part) to be able to process it. It doesn't work very well here in the states, throw out the name "Terry Pratchett" in most supposedly-well-read circles here, and you'll most likely get a bunch of groans and complaints in the form of "I don't get it".
This was the lure: I unintentionally stumbled into a possible audience for my nobody-gives-two-shits-about-it-here-in-the-states automotive-based comedy writing.
Comedy actually gets its origin story from tragedy and the Greeks, it's an unintended side effect of waaaay-early tragedy writing from the Greeks, turns out that it's actually pretty damn funny to watch Zeus smiting some poor slob of a shopkeeper with a thunderbolt, to the point where the audience doesn't really give two shits about the tragedy and they're sitting like Tusken Raiders on that one turn during the podrace in Star Wars Episode one, and one of them manages to drill a podracer in the ass with his rifle...and the other Tusken Raiders are cheering on the podracer crashing: That's Greek comedy out of tragedy.
The British also have some thousand-plus years of absolutely idiotic monarchy squabbles, which if you follow the tragedy-transcends-into-comedy blueprint, this is why in some cases (not so much recently) they're the go-to for intelligent comedy, when you're facing extinction from a British monarch that can't make up his or her mind as to whether or not they want to exterminate Catholics or Protestants this week, or they can't decide as to which almost-King wants to take all the holdings of another almost-King, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, all you have left is bitter, dry humor. And if you do that long enough...you end up with the Goon Show, Monty Python, and any number of other standouts.
At any rate, the Driveltribe thing was beginning to show some promise, during the first couple of years I was starting to forge a path forward, at least until actual Driveltribe staffers began getting a bit pissy that my content was doing so much better than theirs (I was the "remote" guy from the USA), and that's when I started seeing my content being buried.
It was still doing really well, even over their handpicked top two or three content creators (one of them was Mike Fernie, whose primary qualification had been "I've got a Scottish accent", and had zero talent other than that), and I hadn't even bothered trying to do any video content, I wasn't going to waste the effort.
They also desperately tried to keep me from being promoted to their FB page, some weekend halfwit put one of my satire pieces on their page and it freaking exploded overnight, yeah, that only happened one or two more times after that, while the crappiest of crap was constantly put up, regardless of whether or not anyone bothered looking at it.
I did other types of content, everything with a comedic touch to it, most of it did really well, a lot of engagement, shit, had I stumbled onto something I might be able to grow?
I also began to notice that two of their upper management guys started attempting to copy my writing style (badly) over the space of several months. It was also at this point that I began to notice that most of their upper-management types were also chronic bullshitters, and that while The Three (Clarkson/Hammond/May) kept telling everyone that they were looking for their eventual replacements from the Driveltribe content creator group, that eventually turned out to be bullshit as well, they sure as hell weren't looking for their replacements, they were just telling their lower-level creator minions anything they wanted to hear to keep the content train going.
In the end, I began pointing out obvious flaws in logic in regards to upper management, and began cracking jokes about their desperate push to emulate Buzzfeed's business and website model...from around 2010...and this was 2019. It kept getting dumber, The Three ended up sounding more and more like wankers/assholes, a lot of things they were doing weren't making sense (why were they steering so much content towards the 13-17 age demographic?) and I finally had enough and bailed, with a loud prediction that because the business was being ran so terribly, Driveltribe would be dead and gone by January 2022.
It was actually dead and gone around February 1st, 2022, I was off by one month. They crapped all over the community they left behind, and they're still apparently crapping all over people as of today, there are horror stories about content creators who've been trampled, with it appearing that Hammond is attempting to create an up-and-coming media empire or something for his daughter.
The Driveltribe experiment was a great idea, at least until it wasn't.
great post. curious about the driving sim voiceover work. only big name i can think of is forza motorsport but they literally got clarkson himself for that and not many other sims had much else in the way of anything other than just driving. can you tell us who it was or is that still nda territory?
Yeah, this is sort of the Alan Alda-ization of a TV show, in that you sort of develop an ego to the point where you're convinced that you can do things a lot better without all of the middlemen telling you, "no, really, you can't". And this phenomenon also has strong ties to a musician joke of mine that I really love:
When does a band break up?
Right after the drummer says, "hey, I've got an idea for a song!".
See also:
How do you know when a drummer is at your door?
The knocking goes faster and faster.
Getting back to the show:
I seem to recall that Richard Porter didn't have anything to do with the tent show (I'm fuzzy on this, well, to be honest, I don't care any longer), services weren't needed, etc, etc. And to be honest with you, the show looked like it was suffering because of it, because as you said, it was freaking terrible.
The thing I noticed (probably a lot of other people noticed as well), as TG didn't seem suffer anywhere near as much from the "shit slides downhill" phenomenon that happens here in the states, in regards to reviewers giving bad reviews of cars and trucks, if they pissed off a manufacturer, they simply waited to do a review of a particular 'hot' car when someone else bought it and offered it up for TG to review. And from what little I learned from working with some folks who had been small parts of the TG universe, the manufacturers were well aware that their product might be shit on by one of The Three, but they showed up anyway, good press, bad press, it's all good press.
This is the illusion that TG (for me, anyway) sold really well, that you could actually say anything you wanted about a horridly-performing Porsche or Lexus product (or any other product), and damn the torpedoes, when you're walking proof that if a manufacturer's image isn't properly curated, yeah, so much for that journalism career of yours, it would be a shame if something bad happened to it.
And you're absolutely correct in regards to it never happening ever again, but from both sides of the story, this show also did really well in regards to being funded quite a bit by the BBC (that pesky TV tax), and once the USA version hits the states, it's quite clear that most, if not all the content, is steered towards...advertisers.
In regards to the TG format being a loser without them, this sort of knocks on the door of a problem that's creeping up on the British Isles, in regards to their comedy and how it's being trampled by the usual suspects, Clarkson and company were throwbacks to the older days of dry British comedy (okay, comedy up until the early 2000's, anyway, the Edinburgh Comedy Festival used to be a citywide, legendary event with names you'd be surprised were there, and with shows you'd be surprised to hear got a solid start at that event, it was incredible at least until Woke f***ing trampled it), and then the whole thing just went horribly awry, to the point where most people are scratching their heads and asking, "wait, wasn't this the country that created Monty Python?", for me, that's what sold it, and that's in spite of the fact that TG was kinda sliding downhill already by the time Clarkson thought it would be a great idea to skip catching a chopper to go home after a day's shoot, stay around and bullshit with everyone, get hungry, find out there wasn't any food, and then punch a staffer who was only guilty of having worked for TG.
"Jeremy Clarkson is 90% of the appeal IMO. A lot of people like seeing a traditional British person on television."
Yes. This. Warts, creases, nicotine stains on teeth, wrinkles, bad hair, the whole works. And to that end, it's ridiculous how many IQ points that Americans assign to anyone speaking with a British accent (at least until you get to the Sheffield hog language of Dr. Who's companions over the last decade-plus), I was screwing around with this at one point with the voiceover try-outs, I did them in three or four different British dialects, and then did them normally...even when the job didn't ask for it.
Americans are sort of mad for the British, regardless of how terrible they might be...or are still.
Our national inferiority complex with regards to the British is really something to behold. Especially since the mother country does *almost* nothing better than we do.
"And from what little I learned from working with some folks who had been small parts of the TG universe, the manufacturers were well aware that their product might be shit on by one of The Three, but they showed up anyway, good press, bad press, it's all good press."
This was the power of the BBC and the TV license system... you NEEDED them. The same was true, though less so, of Car and Driver back in the day. Today, no single outlet has real power.
i had a tape of the 15 or 20 brit accents, recorded from real people just having conversations. a couple of them--not scots--were unintelligible! wish i still had it!.
I use cash for most day to day purchases, I usually have it ready and it doesn’t take that long to make change, something about it seems both more honest and analog at the same time.
I have an f91w, I think it was twelve dollars, honestly, it is the cheapest thing, not terribly accurate, but good enough, for 60 bucks you can buy a casio that stays accurate to the second, has a nicer case and still won’t get your hand lost, I think it has the name of Waveceptor, a multiband five module, the Ollee module seems to be maintenance intensive…
I was thinking about how most recent vehicles were not so reliable anymore, and about a book I read 45 years ago written by David Halberstam, titled “The Reckoning “ which mainly castigated Ford, and the other domestics, and talked about Demming, a statistics actuary guy who went to Japan, and told them that they could own the automotive industry. Ford, GM and Chrysler were producing garbage, pre malaise era, Pintos and Vegas were rusting out on the new car lots, and emissions were making car ownership painful, the Japs brought reliability to the table ( yes early jap cars rusted out almost as fast) Honda, Datsun, and Toyota became the go to for reliability. Today is different from those years, in that all of the manufacturers are producing garbage, no matter where it comes from, there is no nascent upcoming automaker to come to the market with something that will be bulletproof, it’s not going to be anything like it used to be, the bulletproof Tundra tried to make an EcoBoost and it blows up, and most of the automakers are making these same mistakes. Pricing of new cars well exceeds inflation and they are not reliable. Ugly days ahead.
The regulatory climate installed during the Obama years was devised to make cars and trucks luxury goods, and short-lived ones that won't be around to filter down to the working class at that.
You do hear people talking about "Jap bikes" and "Kraut bikes" all the time in the motorcycle hobby. I don't use those phrases. There are also a few more offensive nicknames for people of Japanese descent that I won't dignify with inclusion here. Most of them are a product of World War II, I think.
For the record, I don't care if someone calls me a Kraut or a Hun, but I wouldn't automatically consider someone an intellectual lightweight if they were sensitive to slurs.
My favorite "insult" story: During the Second World War it was reported that on islands in the Pacific Japanese soldiers would yell, "F--k Babe Ruth" at Americans nearby. Now the MVP of baseball being compared to the immortal Babe is a native Japanese person, Shohei Ohtani. You can't beat the irony of that!!
In the men's room on the walls of the fabled Rock Store motorcycle weekend gathering spot in the Malibu mountains, Japanese bikes were known as "rice burners." This was a while ago.
We watch all six major sumo tournaments every year. We have nicknames for many of the sumo wrestlers. Abi is "Wild Man." Takerufuji is "Battle Hog." Onosato, one of the two current yokozuna, has very prominent, big, round nipples. We call him Captain Nip.
"Most of their munitions have been given to Ukraine"
First weekend of October the wife and I were able to get away for a weekend spent in a small AirBnB on a ridge in northwest WV settled in the early 1800s by my 4th Great Grandfather. Had a great time driving my new GTI on the twists and turns of sparsely occupied two lane blacktop. Departing Sunday morning after a breakfast featuring fresh baked bread from the property's owner and eggs from the coop next to our cabin we were enjoying the leaves just turning traveling at a much more sedate pace than the previous days and saw a majestic buck leap from the brush off the mountainside on his way for a drink from the creek. Unfortunately he was a foot from the front of my two month old hot hatch that was doing about 50. A flash of deer and suddenly the hood was covering the windshield.
After nearly a month waiting for the vehicle to be repaired; body damage, sensors aplenty, radiator, oil cooler-fortunately no issues with engine or suspension, I'm told the $6000 underhood wiring harness is only manufactured in Ukraine and unavailable for at least 8 months. Insurance company deems the car a total loss.
As wonderful as the VW was I couldn't bring myself to buy another from a company that can't supply parts for brand new vehicles. Bought a new made in Kentucky Camry instead, LE for the cloth seats and ride friendly tires and 50+ mpg-our host here demanded I spring for the X but I disliked the diamond patterned leathery stuff on the dash. It's surprisingly nimble on the farm roads nearby but I'll still be looking for something fun come Spring. Maybe I can succeed in getting an older couple on my route to sell me their MR2 Spyder, white to match my hybrid. I think they're the original owners- they took it out of the garage twice this past summer.
$6000 wiring harness!? How can that possibly be?
I'm told a sensor camera is part of it.
https://www.vwdirectautoparts.com/oem-parts/volkswagen-harness-5h0971002?c=bD0xJm49U2VhcmNoIFJlc3VsdHMmYT12b2xrc3dhZ2VuJm89Z3RpJnk9MjAyNSZ0PXNlJmU9Mi0wbC1sNC1nYXM%3D
Another case of "include me out!"
Because it's fucking German.
And full of shit you don't need...
Hopefully, the insulation's no longer biodegradable.
THAT was fucking genius. Finest cars in the world MY ASS.
The bio wiring harnesses have saved many a young man from the siren song of the S600 Coupe!
The biodegradable plastic bits on German cars have been pissing me off since 1964, there's no excuse for it .
My 1971 BMW R75/5 Motocycle's plastic bits are all fine and this bike looks like it's been doing front line duty in Ukraine .
-Nate
Whatever it is, it's delicious to mice. The little bastards have caused at least $4k in damage to our cars over the last few years.
I know some homies who can help you with that.
Wow. The wife and I are considering a new Tiguan since Mazda's new CX5 won't have any proper power for another year
I get it. When we were looking last summer it was between the Tiguan and the CX-5 with the turbo. We went with the CX-5. It’s relatively fun to drive for what it is and plenty quick.
We have a 2020 cx5. I'm looking to replace my 6 that has the turbo.
how do you mean "any proper power"?
The new Mazda CX5 is currently only coming with the 2.5 NA engine. 2027 MY will have a hybrid reportedly having 240+.
Ahh... I see.
The CX-5 a great car, I've had my eye on a CX-90 for family duty---the PHEV model apparently has greater performance than the turbo-6 model.
It's too big and expensive for our needs. One big thing I don't like in our current cx5 is the seats don't have enough thigh support for my 6'2 frame.
Please test drive the CX-90. I'm a Mazda fan, but it's one of those cars that I can't recommend buying without actually spending some time in it.
Thank you for saying this; I’ve been meaning to test drive one.
My wife almost rented one; in rental spec, she said it was quite a ways off Telluride quality. Unfortunately, the one she was going to rent was having a technical problem and so they swapped her to a different car.
Well I just got rear ended and depending on insurance I might be getting something sooner rather than later!
Yikes. Hope you are ok.
I'm fine. Rear bumper and trunk lid tore up. Plastic front grill and radar cracked.
Do what you must to get that MR2, those are so raw and light, so much fun.
We got my wife one to autocross, sold it to help get her a C5z. She missed it so much we ended up getting another, nicer example. Immediately gut the pre-cats if it hasn't been done yet (they break up and suck back into the engine).
"Maybe I can succeed in getting an older couple on my route to sell me their MR2 Spyder, white to match my hybrid"
sensational plan and ill pray for your success in this endeavour
Yikes! I have a ‘25 Golf R, and am hoping no stupidity like this occurs.
How do you like your R? I have been eyeing these up for awhile and have driven one, but curious about your experience.
It’s a cool car, but it’s very point-and-shoot. A whole lot of trickery with the LSD keeps you from understeering around curves, and it’s just generally not the sort of car with which you can get in a lot of trouble. It’s fun, but only by modern standards. It is impressively quick, though.
All in all, I’d say it goes about its business with a sense of Teutonic seriousness. There are days when I wish I’d ponied up a few grand extra and purchased an Integra Type S, replete with 6MT, instead, for a car with more personality.
The infotainment is massively improved over the pre-refresh. The interior is nice and feels premium, although I think the 7.5 was the high mark within the Golf family in general.
Got it, thanks! Test drive was far too short. Of course the dealers don’t keep any fuel in the cars, and then we ran into traffic so couldn’t really wind it out.
I’m surprised they let you test drive it at all. A lot of the dealers when I was looking were stingy and would only let you drive it if you showed serious intent or put in a finance app.
Yep, I usually get pushback on test drives, but this sales guy didn’t even ask for my drivers license. I think he’s an over eager rookie. With that said, I would do everything possible to buy the car from him if/when I pull the trigger.
I'm recalling a guy from one of my Camaro groups (I'm actually a Ford guy) whose 2018 ZL1 1LE was totalled by his insurance company because Chevrolet had stopped making replacement engine harnesses for his car (the dreaded NLA) by early 2021. The last anyone heard about it, the insurance company was going after Chevrolet.
There have been other horror stories as well here of late.
The corporate psychopathy is real.
Seriously? That’s pathetic, on GM’s part.
(Their recent 6.2 drama enters the chat)
There are a few places that buy up and sell old stock, try to get the GM part # and google it....
-Nate
For the C6 Z06 owners, GM no longer makes a LS7 engine block or the oil pumps. For the C6 ZR1 the fuel pumps are no longer made nor are the rear magnetic shocks. The 2014-15 Camaro Z28 no longer has Brembo carbon ceramic brake rotors available or the Multimatic shocks.
The body parts are even scarcer. Insurance companies are totalling them when they have minor accidents due to unavailability of parts. But you don't need an insurance company's help when the LS7 has the top end competing against the bottom for who let's go first. An engine made of glass.
Honda is coming up on 16 years of making the Honda Fury available for consumers. It is also coming up on 50 years (42) they've been making the Shadow models continuously.
There's a lot of carping about how the Sportster died and boohoo, wha-wha, whatever shall we do without a top heavy, slow, lumbering bike with wooden brakes.
But Honda more or less did the Promethean thing when they took Choppers(TM) from authentic deathtraps built in a shed in Frisco or Nagoya, Discovery Channel hydro bent frames festooned with different farkles and colors in between chair throwing fits, and created, as they do, a whole new segment even Harley was too chickenshit to try. Just like when they saw people taking long trips and made the Goldwing, or when they noted the late80s Adventure Bike segment in Europa taking off and built a legend in the Transalp/Africa Twin. Honda more or less steered the entire segment away from the dorky R80GS into Dakar wannabes that worked.
The Fury was mocked by a lot of people when it hit showrooms. This includes me. I denounced Honda as "late the Chopper party" by 10 years because they seemed to be in a hardcore "kick the ladder from under you" and Kaizen era with the CBR, Wing, etc. They had warehouses full of the old Ohio built VTX cruiser models they were blowing out just to be shut of them. The "custom" line was just a continuation of the VTX in a "choppery" kind of vibe including the Sabre and Fury. Most of those models were showroom potatoes axed after a couple of years.
But the Fury has had an incredible run. It's also managed to eke out a new niche in the cruiser market, something I thought impossible because the entire culture has devolved into Boomer, shirtless denim vest, rally debauchery, and loud pipes save lives type catchphrase yapping.
The Fury is not my cup of tea, but when you check in with the people who gave it a chance you will find a rabidly devoted fanbase of people who walked away from Brand X and don't want to go back. A taste of Honda quality and engineering (the fork dynamics on the Fury are magical in that it has SO MUCH RAKE but no chopper flop and isn't trying to bite you) turns a lot of people into devotees of Big Red.
Well done, Honda. Congrats on 16 years of the Fury. These bikes will be around for another 40 or 50 years in the bike scene even if Honda turns off the tap next week and shutters the nameplate. That's a pretty fair accomplishment for a brand all about continuous improvement (Kaizen) but finding they more or less got it right on the first whack.
Could they redesign it with a 6th gear, more power, and a bigger tank? Yes. But why? Keep it below 120 and it's fine. Get off every 120 miles and gas up so you can keep that super cool svelte and artsy tank. Keep the shaft drive because it's bulletproof and you can run a 200+ section width tire no problemo.
Wonder what color 2026 will get since 24/25 are both green. Previous to that was yeller. Color stagnation may be a sign of slowing sales. Maybe the Fury's time is up. But there's no denying Honda changed the landscape of the industry with it. They even had the balls to call it a Chopper when everyone else was carping over the Slick Willy minutiae of "what does IS mean?" when it comes to that term.
It's some of the biggest balls I've seen in the industry in a long time, the shot callers from the last 20 years at Honda. My big hope with TrumpyTrump's tariff stuff is we'll see the Marysville plant reopened and making bikes again. It'd be a great kick in the teeth to Brand X if we made Choppers here (by American people who care) on that line while they're playing musical CEO and "diversity is our strength" games and trying to stuff stillborn poorly executed "value" bikes down our throat.
Somehow, the Fury has out-Harleyed Harley while being able to stop, steer, and be reliable. What a time to be alive.
I read that in Europe now you can buy a "toolroom copy" of a air-cooled sportster from China. I wonder if Harley sold them the tooling, wouldn't be surprised.
That's allegedly what happened. HD CEO Jochan Zeitz was full speed ahead on making HD a boutique brand, creating updated product lines to be more refined, and the Sportster didn't fit into that. It was an asset he could liquidate instead of leaving it in house.
The ones I've seen in Europe are cosmetically different in small ways from the American models.
My working hypothesis is they (the Chinese gov't) have a 10 year plan to take HD over with a stock buyout as it continues to falter. Rather like they did with Smithfield meats.
Harley is an indigestion g case study in “professional management” hired by a board who represent funds. In oter words peole who are not really bikers at all. But Harley is really just an inspired manager away from greatness. The thing is the board would never be able to identify let along hire such a person
Oh, I agree. Over in Italy there's an overwhelming sense of nation when it comes to brands like Moto Guzzi and Ducati and Piaggio/Vespa. The expectations that leadership not only shares this idea but moves forward in a way to support it is a major expectation. In fact, in the past there have been more than few times rich Italian cats have stepped forward to bail national nameplates out for no other reason than national pride.
It'd be great if we had that for Harley-Davidson and Indian/Polaris. (and the big three automakers didn't see it as emotional leverage against buyers)
My idea for the Harley CEO was offering the job to Mark "The Undertaker" Callaway. He had a big run in the WWE as The Undertaker, but one of his characters during the chopper days was The American Badass who was basically a biker tough guy who rode to and from the ring. Callaway had a lot of experience navigating properties and images during the rise of WWE's valuation over a billion bucks. He's got a good head for business and understands the sizzle selling part of the equation quite well. And he's not just another gated community dork who sat on a board for a widget company. He's a real live biker too.
Imagine how much better the merch would be, and how many people would buy CEO merch for the first time, if he was the main man.
But no one listens to me.
Harley definitely needs a good leader who is a symbol all by him/her self and understands the brand and isn't ashamed of the brand identity as American.
The Harley path was moribund motorcycle maker in the 70's,m making the same bikes as the 60s which were neither reliable nor appealing other than to a really diminishing segment. At the time Harley was owned by AMF a conglomerate who needless to say didnt understand bikes or harley.
But the CEO was Vaughn Beals who did understand, he created leveraged management buyout so he could pursue the vision. The created the evo Motor. Crucially when asked how he was going to sell antique bikes and npot develop a Japanese rival Beals said I'im not just selling Bikes Im selling lifestyle. he did well when they thenw ent public and excited the scene, but the template was set.
The Harley zenith was under Willie G who understood the Harley Schtick. The problem was and Is there are only so many annnaber dentist who play Biker on the weekend. Also as the bikes visually are of the same mold, once everybody who really wanted one had one, the market got somewhat sated. True the story was sold as far as Europe and japan, but eventually you reach a certain saturation and fashions change. Plus the Harley guy for various reasons is old and aging out.
the harley board and management understood this. They bought Buell which was harley powered but then not understanding bikes or buel proceed to destroy it. They bought saw the success of Ducati MV, spent a fortune redoing and retooling the factory, then bailed.
What the professional management was great at was running the company well according to the template layed down by Vaughn Beals with refinement of bikes by willie G. They also recognized they needed some evolution and change, but were clueless as to what and how because unlike say an italain buying MV they lacked the passion and understanding of bikes in general.
In the same period Storz for example created a great roadable "tracker" out of sprtester bits. Harley owned the tracker image but couldn't see ti of capitalize, the sorta tracker they built was half assed sorta ducati with heavy styling. It took a disillusioned young Harley Stylist to move to Indian toi make a commercially successful street tracker, and that bike imo had nowhere near the build quality of a harley.
Then we have buell. IMO the most Macren F1 bike evr built was the Britten Vtwin. Buell was headed in that direction, they killed it because they wouldn't let Erik Buell be Erik Buell, they were corporatizing the magic instead of letting the magic flower.
Then they Hired the German prince who had his esg vision of harley. Even then they came up with some neat designs, only to bail halfway though. Their ADV does well and you can tour the country and there is a harley dealer everywhere to help you out. The sportster s looks great and coudl have been the USA version of the Diucati monster. but it came stock with forward controls, desperately needs suspension that can articulate and maybe some great brakes. Its like 90% of the way there. As for the rest f the bikes that coudl have come from that platform they dropped it, and then went for a sota trad liquid cooled sportser, which is nether fish nor fowl.
The Template has bene set by both BMW and more so by Triumph. You make a line of traditional powered modern retro bikes. That's going to be 50% of your volume, and you stay relevant by making a sportbike and all sorts of nakeds which you invent along the way, street triple.
in short they coudl have made a rage of bikes off the air cooled sportster, a tracker, and since the kids are building all sorts of urban bikes of cafe racers off any old bike there is another template. Just look at the Bikeexif site for inspiration.
Then the sportster S could have created another more modern range. You gad Buell for vtwin sportbikes. and then we have th traditional baggers, choppers etc, which are also challenged now by reliability and too complex electronics, like what happened to the key, its a modern antique that runs.
But to do any of this, ya gotta be into things that go, machines and bikes. Its all about passion and art. Because Bikes are in many ways mechanical art.
same reason Gm was so successful when harley Earl and Bill Mitchell had outsize say. Same reason Corvette became a thing ie Mitchell doing styling Zora the mechanicals. Frankly same reason Chrysler and for a brief period Gm made some great cars that also appealed whenever Bob Lutz was allowed to run product.
the worst thing that can happen to a car or motorcycle company is having procter and gamble people on the board. Its not toothpaste, and really there is no crossover.
I don't know whether aston survives all the debt built up , but theyre starting to kaek really beautiful and appealing product, love of hate Stroll, hes one man with a vison and theyre doing some really great stuff. The MBAs.are great for making and doing things efficiently. Luxury products of passion need a CEO/product person who was born with that passion and vision.
Yep. That's a great summation of the missteps.
I would point to current Buell offerings that have created a buzz. The super cruiser in particular is getting a lot of looks. Most of that owes to Buell as a figurehead and the faith people have in him for doing fun, interesting, and well engineered bikes.
Meanwhile HD released their model lineup yesterday to yawns. They have bold new trikes available.
Wow, that's Horrible. What I think should happen to the individuals involved in this plan is left as an exercise for the reader.
"the entire culture has devolved into Boomer, shirtless denim vest, rally debauchery, and loud pipes save lives type catchphrase yapping. "
Not entirely .
-Nate
Off topic, but curious to know what the ACF hive mind's thoughts are on the new Prelude coming in at over $43k after destination. This, mind you, for a 200hp CVT hybrid coupe.
It looks good. I'm sure it drives nicely too. Those seats look like a truly wonderful place to spend time. Even as a sort of halo car, though, I cannot for the life of me understand how this should cost nearly $10k more than the Civic Hybrid Sport Touring upon which it's based.
They aren't direct competitors -- this car has no direct competitors -- but a new Nissan Z is cheaper before the inevitable discounts, and a new Mustang GT is cheaper after the blue oval slaps a fat wad on the hood. It's bizarre! Who is this car even for?
Honda has, for a very long time, been so unbelivably conservative in all of their products. They are still selling pretty much everything they make*, so far be it from me to judge, but would it kill them to take one tiny page out of Toyota's playbook and make something... different? Even offering the Prelude in "Si" and "Type-R" trims alongside the hybrid would be *something* but no! Just a pretty little thing that they are going to sell like 8500 of in the states, before pulling it and telling the people it's *our* fault two-doors don't sell.
*Ridgeline and previous-gen Passport are the rare exception
https://automobiles.honda.com/prelude
The Prelude wasn’t a design leader. Always pretty, except maybe the original, but never a stunner. The fourth gen was a bit of a styling stretch, but everyone seemed to hate it. I never did. A guy I worked with drove a silver one, so I got to admire it every day — and admire it I did. But this new one? Probably the second-homeliest Prelude ever. The first gen was even homelier, but at least it was lovable. It shares the “performance-car cluelessness” award with the first-gen Supra, which looked like a contemporary sporty coupe, packed a lovely straight-six, and then drove like a late-’70s T-Bird. Just without the squeaks and rattles.
But man… you ruined my morning. Just to double-check my Gen memories, I pulled up the Prelude page on Wikipedia — and it crushed me to be reminded how good every Prelude from the second gen onward actually was. The string-back driving-glove crowd dismissed it for not being RWD, but dammit, every one of them was delightful to drive. For the street, they were as good as anything, from anyone, at any price, for 8/10 back-roads fun — while being comfortable, dead-nuts reliable, and cheap to run.
And in 2025, we have nothing like it. Nothing at all. From any manufacturer. At any price. Doesn’t that break your heart?
And remember: the Prelude was just one of many truly fun, genuinely “turn back and smile at it as you walk away” cars. In no particular order or timeframe, before signing on the Prelude’s dotted line you probably also looked at the lovely GM F-body twins, Dodge’s Daytona, the sensational second-gen Supra, the Mazda RX-7 (my heart still aches for a GSL-SE), the Fox-body Mustang, maybe a Probe, or the Diamond-Star Chrysler/Mitsubishi twins. A little out of the price bracket, but still in the conversation, you had delights like the CRX, the practical Civic Si, or even a Porsche 944. Even Isuzu gave us quirky little gems wearing those wonderful green “Handling by Lotus” badges.
I’ve surely missed a few, but every one of those cars offered more honest fun than anything on sale today. Sure, the new stuff will destroy them on a track. That’s not the point. These were cars you could drive every day, love every day, and afford every day — and they asked nothing from you except that you enjoy them.
Maybe if kids had fun sporty cars to aspire to, they’d forget the truly stupid things — like drugs and socialism.
"And in 2025, we have nothing like it. Nothing at all. From any manufacturer. At any price. Doesn’t that break your heart?"
It does.
"Maybe if kids had fun sporty cars to aspire to, they’d forget the truly stupid things — like drugs and socialism."
Working a job to pay for a car has kept a LOT of young men out of trouble.
^ Truth. ^
Working to pay for motorcycles and cars was the thing that kept this kid gainfully employed until I got married -- then I had other motivations.
I think the offerings from all the manufacturers are a reflection of the times we live in and folks personalities. No one is colourful anymore, you can't speak out, you can't be unrefined.
Every piece of the automobile is legislated to the top of a termite mound, they all have driving aids, push button start, and 18 airbags. There is no one allowed to die in one. Safety is paramount. Then fuel economy, then refinement and lastly fun or styling. All cars look the same, styled by software.
Pick a model you would like your manufacturer to bring back. Maybe you like Lexus and you want the 400 LS to be brought back. Probably doesn't have enough airbags and that big V8 will get downsized to a 6 cylinder or 4 cylinder turbo with no torque.
You like a 1998 Pontiac Trans Am WS6? That front end is too dangerous and that V-8 would need to shut off not just 4 cylinders but all of them if required.
Maybe you reminisce about a Ford Ranger or Chevy S-10 that was simple and just ran? Nope, way too small since you need it bigger for that wiring harness for lane departure warning and blind spot detection along with a turbo for that 4 cylinder that shuts down cylinders like your boss shuts down your raise.
Honest question: do you think it's only the government, or is it also the market dictating the mountain of safety "features"?
Once, I felt like the government was working in opposition to what the gen-pop wanted (simple, affordable, reliable vehicles), but C19 made me reconsider. I think my fellow countrymen LIKE to be told what to do, what they can buy, how they should live.
It makes me feel like a fossil. I actively hate all of those things, not because I'm a selfish nitwit, but because it's not the government's job to force me to into anything "for my own good".
Savagegeese just put out a good video on that. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mU2HVOs23sc
From some angles I like it, the back looks nice. But the nose, it is hard to hide how bulbous it has to be no thanks to pedestrian safety regulations.
Until I saw the projected price I considered buying a beater and waiting on a Prelude. Still hoping for a new Celica - I've owned a '78 GT and a '00 GTS.
I think at around ~$38k or so it makes some sense? Mid-way between a Civic Hybrid ST and the Type-R. Never would be a real volume seller (has any Prelude ever been one?), but at that kind of price I certainly get it. Would be a reliable, stylish, efficient, practical daily for sure.
A Civic SI is $31k and a Hybrid Sport is the same, maybe at $35k it would be interesting for an even sportier body style and suspension. At $44k, it just makes no sense to spend another $13k over the already fun to drive and more practical Si.
The hybrid sport touring is the only that has the same features/luxuries as the one-trim Prelude, hence my original comparison.
But yeah. You aren’t wrong!
Toyota apparently coming up with a 400 hp turbo 4. That may make for some interesting cars.
Prelude is what used to be called a chick car. It looks nice(by 25 standards) and sporty.
Its not that expensive compared to a 3 series. The steering will fell sporty, and it will be a great aspiring girlboss commuter car. Plus it will be bought by retired bearded 65yo liberal men who never quite made it are a bit angry and want some "fun". So basically the same peopel who buy the current mini.
Nah. The chick car trope is something that never made sense to me. The vast majority of anything south of a Corvette or a 911 was always made of “chick cars”. Mustangs. Camaros. Firebirds. Datsun/Nissan Zs. Every affordable performance car only existed because of the chicks buying the volume versions.
As far as the Prelude, it was a sensational driving car. And probably one of the best high speed, point to point, road cars of the time. Very few cars steered, shifted and just handled as well. Lucky chicks who got a car that good.
The last generation of Prelude was one of my favorite cars when I was between high school and college. I test drove a couple of them, but never had the money for one.
^ This!
They went back to a Prelude-looking thing after the ugly spaceship!
This new one looks like a $THE_CURRENT_YEAR interpretation of the DSM cars—Talon, Eclipse—with a greenie-weenie drivetrain. At least with the Type-R parts, it might HANDLE!
I’m talking about the current new prelude not the older ones.
Tire mustang in 6 cyl form was designed as a “secretary” car, but the b8 ones always had a different tarhet.
Classic chick car was a rabbit convertible. Any mini convertible. The orig new mini the supercharged one was not a chick car.
Some cars can have dual roles, like a Miata.
The new prelude imo does not have dual roles or dual versions it’s a chick car.
Good question what if they made one with the ctr motor as well, might not be a chick car but probably wouldn’t sell because a real ctr more appealing to men.
I keep telling ALL of you... there is no such thing as off-topic in an ORT!
This car is a good value at $42k MSRP with the 2.0T/6-speed drivetrain. It won't catch a Z but it will outlast it. (I say that despite having a 2024 and a 2025 Z in the house.)
As a hybrid CVT... I think it will have limited appeal. I'd like to own one but I would struggle to justify the money.
The biggest real-world competition this car has is the Lexus RC300, which offers more of EVERYTHING and equal provenance for less than five grand more.
RC is out of production now isn't it? And the 2026 IS comes in 350 form only in the states, I believe.
Most like-for-like car is... maybe the BMW 230i? Maybe? Real world transactions prices aren't terribly different. Both stylish coupes with every day practicality that will quite easily get over 35 MPG.
I would take the 230i in Thundernight Metallic without hesitation, damn the maintenance costs. However it's well documented at this point that I simply refuse to make the most rational vehicle purchases...
The 230 will likely be more fun to drive too. Plus you can bolt on almost any "M" part or aftermarket suspension or brake upgrade from the whole tuner ecosystem that's developed around those car.s
My in laws picked up a 228 convertible for their beach house, and that thing is a blast to toss around. It's surprisingly quick too.
230 shouldn’t be too bad to run. I’ve said it here before but BMW has cracked the medium term reliability code. Even in base trims the current 2 series is a head turner, it’s surprisingly spacious, and also not too slow in a straight line
The only real downside to a 230i as I see it is that the M240i exists, and one would always wish that they did whatever they had to do to get the six.
Like all things German it’s a trade off in running costs. Not even “surprise” maintenance anymore, just brakes, tires, insurance, etc. but well worth it IMHO
"I keep telling ALL of you... there is no such thing as off-topic in an ORT!"
My father was killed once by an off-topic topic in a Substack chat room.
Dad unfortunately recovered, and I've been nervous about doing anything off-topic since.
Honda is starting to really lose the plot.
I checked with my dealer and preferred salesguy a week or so ago, and there will be a 2026 Accord after the first of the year. So my guess is that it may pick up the front end from the Chinese-market Accord, which is a vast improvement over the Fusion front clip that’s graced its front since 2023. Probably not enough to make me move on to another one! (I may take a demo Hybrid out in the spring and beat the snot out of it for an afternoon, and that might change my mind, but unlike the experience with the 10th-Gen with the 2.0T, I doubt it. A shame, because the bones of the 11th-Gen Accord are pretty solid—it’s the powertrains that let it down.)
And ** $43,000 ** for the Prelude??!! What in God’s name are they smoking in Torrance?! It’s a fucking Civic coupe! Price it a couple-thousand over the Civic Sport Touring for the name! That thing ain’t worth more scratch than a full-zoot Accord!
The Prelude always cost more than an Accord.
Of course, the Prelude used to be Accord-based, not Civic-based.
Shame on you, Jack, the correct terminology for auto journalists to use according to the Honda Style Guide is "shares its chassis with the Civic Type R."
I wonder how true that is. The CTR uses different strut and hub geometry from the plain Civics.
If they priced it in line with the current prius that it competes with spec wise, IE: starting at ~30k, I think it would sell decently. At $43k USD? It's dead on arrival. CRZ take two.
A friend seriously wanted a CR-Z. As car guy friend I tried to help him. Idiots at Zimmerman Honda wouldn't give me time of day.
Eventually he said F it and bought a Ram Rebel instead. Loves it.
...and apparently the dealers are already looking for markup.
Seriously, seeing the posts with the $10-14k markup is mind blowing. They're trying to tank this worse than dealers did with the 400Z.
well its another fwd honda so its fits in to the box labelled "who cares"
i dont know why they bothered to bring it back anyway but at least it looks nicer than a civic
"Honda Quaalude," same as it ever was.
This is correct. I bought an 01 SH new and it was boring as hell. Kept it 18 months.
For me, and this is taking into account all of Honda's offerings (cars, motorcycles, etc) since the early 2000's Honda has been racing to the bottom to try to kick Nissan off the lowest rung of the ladder.
The Prelude? It's a "look what we used to be capable of doing!" in modern hybrid, Emperor's new clothes.
I'd rather pay off my CX-9 to keep as a winter car and use that $45K for an old Type SH. Or save up a little more and buy an LC500 because I'm getting old and a more comfortable car sounds nicer.
LC500 is a purchase you'll never regret.
Sincerely, a fellow member of the LC500 Dreamer Gang
It seems a more sensible dream than an S1 Esprit.
Japanese jaaaag
I knew someone who had three S1 Esprits. I never saw any of them actually go anywhere.
As crazy as 43K sounds it is more an indication of the declining value of our Monopoly money. I believe the Miata can be optioned out to nearly 40K.
I am late to the party by 330 comments!
MotoGP's 2025 came to a close with more heartache for Mir, who took out himself and his teammate, Marini, in the sprint. However, a solid race by both Marini and Mir lifted Honda out of the bottom rankings for concessions in what they are counting as a successful 2025.
Bez on pole, Alex Marquez second, Digiantonnio third, R Fernandez fourth, and Pedro Acosta starting from fifth.
In the sprint Bez blew the launch and plummeted down the order. Acosta made a hot start and rocketed to second. Alex and Acosta would fight for a short while before Alex made a clear break for victory. Pedro finished second, and Digi third.
Bez had a much stronger start in the race and this time led from flag to flag. Raul Fernandez kept Bez honest the entire race with a great display on the independent Aprilia. Alex Marquez suffered late on as Pedro Acosta managed to take his tire further into the race and displayed killer mid to 3/4 race pace. He reeled in Alex and dispatched him. However, Pedro struggled at the end against Digiantonnio who came back in the final part of the race to make moves past Alex and then Acosta. Digi saved Ducati's record of near 90 straight podiums in races.
Bagnaia was bashed out of the race by Zarco, who blew a braking zone in lap 1, which put his miserable (5th place in the championship after years of contending for 1-2) season to an ignominous end.
From the test there were no great surprises as the two rookies begin to acclimate. Diogo Moreira, newly crowned Moto2 champion, takes Somkiat Chantra's place in LCR where it won't take much to have more impressive results than his predecessor. Toprak Razgogliotu (?) comes over from WorldSBK as champion to Pramac Yamaha alongside Jack Miller. The Yamaha riders seem generally favorable toward the V4 bike they will run in 2026. Jorge Martin continues to take it easy and just put on miles.
Race 1 of the season will be in late February down in Buriram after three more tests to lock in the 2026 bikes.
"I am late to the party by 330 comments!"
It's okay, I'm perpetually so far behind due to crippling anxiety and "too many projects" overall that I think I'm always late to the party by at least 33,330 comments.
Didn't even read the ORT yet, but I gotta ask: You throwing your hat into the ring to be one of Kaulig Racing's "Free Agent" drivers in 2026? I think your resume speaks for itself!
I know it's a long shot, but if I learned anything from the venerable Dr. Fauci it is this: You miss 100% of the shots you don't take!
unless those shots are mandated by the govt or you cant keep your job
Fauci said that, huh?
Why am I seeing this?
https://www.etsy.com/it/listing/1213054661/patrick-stewart-use-the-force-harry
I wouldn’t say I’m missing them, NoID.
I don't think I have what it takes, but I know a 22-year-old woman who does.
I lived about 2 air miles (because PA, nearly 6 by road) from PittRace when they were building it; IIRC the parcel was landlocked and they had to do some eminent domain to get their driveway down to PA-18, so if they indeed got hit by eminent domain threats, there's a sad irony there. (Never mind that unless it's an NSA data center, eminent domain is an inappropriate thing to use....)
Had to look up who Nuzzi was and why we weren't talking about her. (Make your own Encanto reference here.) And I think the first article I clicked on, and read 3 paragraphs of before deciding that I agree with you, summed it beautifully:
"The mudslinging between two of the more polarizing personalities in a profession filled with egos delighted a media class that revels in navel-gazing, schadenfreude and generally messy behavior. Over the course of four days it had a lot of material to work with."
I made a snide remark about Ms. Nuzzi in the “book club” thread yesterday:
-There is a lurid excerpt in Vanity Fair
-She has a profile in the NYT, as well
Hence the prohibition on discussion.
Is that from the Guardian article that basically states "The worst problem with her being a dirty whore is that it affects the otherwise sterling reputation of progressive female journalists"?
Had to look at my Chrome history--it was indeed the Guardian article. I'll defer to your summary, sir, as graf 3 was as far as I felt I needed to read. :D
"The arc of liberal journalism is long, but it bends towards taking the Norm Macdonald (imagine thr backlash against peaceful muslims) literally."
0-I supposed we will be forced to restrict our commentary to Olivia Natuzzi, the alter ego of she-who-shall-not-be-named-lest-Jack-be-triggered-by-a-skilled-female-writer, who is heiress to an Italian furniture brand.
1-NVIDIA earnings were a nice beat - the party continues!
2-EV Cayenne will be a tough sell when the EV G wagen hasn’t been a great success.
First you tricked me into DuckDuckGoing that woman's book and learning about more unfaithfulness in our political and journalist class, now you tell me there's a battery powered Gelandenwagen!?!? You need to put content advisories on your comments, man.
-Shh 🤫 … we are not allowed to talk about “that woman!”
-The EV G wagen has been around for a while now. Most easily identifiable by its “spare tire cover,” which is a slightly smaller squircle with a black strip at the top.
The G-Wagen.
AKA the Mercedes GMT400.
More like C/K series
EV G wagons coming off lease are going to be awesome when they sell for $50k. All of the "GWagen-ness" and you don't have to deal with MB engine BS. Would be awesome for my VT commute with a set of steelies and all terrains. I'd save my TX and Tacoma for anything requiring a drive longer than 90 miles.
At $50k you’re still overpaying compared to a mechanically identical ineos grenadier you can buy new for $60k.
Depends on what your priorities are. I'd rock the Ineos for the long overlanding trips where durability and longevity are key. I'd go with the Benz for interior luxury and EV convenience for short commutes. In a perfect world, I'd own both!
Isn't the Grenadier actually a Land Rover Defender?
In style. It’s built by magna like the g wagon and supposedly the frame is remarkably similar.
The EV G-wagon is the G580, so named because there are 5.8 of them for every potential buyer.
Dude I showed alongside Natuzzi at a furniture show earlier this year so that point 0 absolutely threw me!
Jack is a Natuzzi fan, as I recall.
Yes, you can see a set of their more avant-garde chrome-and-black-leather sofas in the loft of my barn. I bought them 24 years ago and they still look brand-new.
Where the mice will condemn them to a slow and ignominious death.
Gotta be some pretty brave mice with all the cats around.
I went into the barn yesterday and found three fresh carcasses.
They're being driven in by the cold and Mama Kitty is killing them in droves.
When I was assisting a very successful friend in outfitting his bachelor pad a decade ago, I have to say the fellow was only inspired by the Natuzzi sofas. Leather quality was exceptionally high and the recline feature in some models tickled him.
Almost wish I had the savoir faire or lack of future-time-orientation to be a leather sofa guy in my wild youth
"1-NVIDIA earnings were a nice beat - the party continues!"
You can get a sense of how much money they were paying me by seeing how their numbers shot up afterwards.
That being said, it's still a round-robin house of cards in which CoreWeave is the weakest link.
This is for you or anyone else curious about CoreWeave:
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/822011/coreweave-debt-data-center-ai
Fairly comprehensive. She makes the argument that CRWV is *designed* to de-risk NVDA (and implies that CRWV management is well aware of their role).
I posted that one in Sunday's thread and was hoping you'd comment:
"This is interesting (a company that offloads the risk of other companies' AI buildout onto itself - a harbinger of the AI crash?):
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/822011/coreweave-debt-data-center-ai
There was a podcast and then the article. Article is better.
They usually are!
Yes but particularly so in this case. The podcast was disjointed and failed to present the salient points clearly.
And this is coming from someone who knows a reasonable amount about CRWV and other neoclouds … so not a neocloud neophyte!
Having had supervisor access to two CoreWeave facilities, I'm not *that* curious.
However, my former spouse just turned down an SVP position with them, not least because she'd read that article.
Spoonerized, it becomes "WeaveCore," which is probably some subgenre of hip-hop.
The Module 593's greatest weakness is the lack of even the simplest UTC offset. There are some Casio watches that have a degree of UTC awareness for very little extra money, although the UI differs from what I would have specified.
You'll get that in the Ollee, which is world time compatible.
How is it possible a $165k suv solves any problem, much less an $165k EV suv? The clown who wrote this most likely hates income inequality. Who in the hell does he think is buying this thing?
Cucks
One of these is almost certainly going to turn up in our parking lot soon. It can park next to the taycan
How many problems will it solve?
It's going to let the porsche dealership owner get his wife a new tennis bracelet. SO, one.
Selling that piece of shit will get him an allocation for a GTXRS he can sell for $100k over
I've seen a surprising number of new eMacans around Miami, so they may get a few folks on lease deals who want to be SEEN in the NEW CAYENNE!
It's at least better looking than the gasser Cayenne Coupes that are appearing all over now, unlike the Taycan that looks like an awful cross between a 911 and an Audi.
But how many tennis bracelets will it buy the Floorplan interest broker in the interim?
"This massive, bloated, 5,860-pound piece of trash is going to sell for $165,350. "
Almost as ridiculous as the Hummer EVs. "Let's make it big and heavy so it needs an even bigger and heavier battery."
nobody ever explained how an overly indulgent 10k pound truck is supposed to be good for the environment. wasnt that the whole point of evs or am i missing something
There should be a weight guzzler tax for these heavy EVs.
In Australia we pay an annual registration tax based on vehicle weight on the grounds that heavier vehicles wear out roads more - which I've always just assumed is true. So they absolutely should be.
I have the strangest feeling that doesn't apply to EVs though...
It’s true. But 40 ton big rigs essentially do all of the damage and everyone else has to subsidize it.
Round here 40 ton big rigs flatten the dead kangaroos so everyone else doesn't hit the leftover lumps at night - but take your point!
What the hell's going on down there, anyway? Your government's trying to turn Oz back into a giant open-air prison.
I mean, a giant open air prison is very much in keeping with tradition, to be fair. But I'm genuinely not sure what you mean - curious news of what stupid government decision made it out to the wider world?
Oh, stuff like you guys can't have any guns, traffic cops go all nuclear if you're doing 10 over, "hate speech" prohibitions.
Things like that.
It's worse than you could imagine: US nominally repairs its roads based on a gas (translation: petrol) tax. Once upon a time, that probably had roughly the same effect as a weight tax, as heavier vehicles would use more gas and therefore pay more tax. Now with hybrids and EVs, vehicle weight has been decoupled from gas tax, so the owner of a brand new Hummer EV pays zero road tax, while my (1/5 the weight) Lotus Elise pays some.
It’s funny, the humEV is approaching single tire loads of an 18 wheeler lol.
Same in Michigan before ~1981, before shifting to a value-based system. One suspects that the Big Three weren't happy that lightweight foreign cars (even expensive ones), were so much cheaper to register than their land yachts.
It's worse even than that.
Think about it mathematically:
You could run a Lamborghini Diablo for 100k miles before equaling the amount of *embodied energy* contained within a single Hummer EV
great point
ill take the diablo. in purple.
Tsiolkovsky's Battery Equation?
“…. going to sell for $165,350.”
Going out on a limb but I don’t think “sell” is the proper word to use here.
Is there such a thing as a battery spiral where a bigger battery is needed because it has a bigger battery?
Surely must be. It's the opposite of how Mazda can reduce weight by only needing four lugs on the ND Miata since they saved so much weight around it.
"The Concorde Effect" should be the term.
When you have to add mass to address engineering concern, but more mass means more motor, more motor means more fuel reserve, more fuel reserve means more mass, more mass... (etc X infinity)
The story here: https://www.afhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/Fall-2019-Issue_All.pdf, (no longer available (or behind inscrutable paywall; I cannot find))
linked here https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/last-weekly-roundup-blurred-by-the-dark-fog-of-britains-domestic-politics-edition?utm_source=publication-search
by jack describest how this affected Concorde development,
But it plagues every electric vehicle.
The only ones that suffer lightly are the small ones; E-scoot, E-skate and E-bike
This is what I feel is the worst sin of the EV mandates combined with the greed-driven product strategies of manufacturers… the battery materials used for an EV like the Hummer could probably be dispersed into a dozen hybrid powertrains which would be 10X better for the environment in the long and short term.
Toyota’s approach was right all along.
For all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these:
"Toyota was right again."
The "Dual Mode" hybrid system that GM developed for its body-on-frame pickups and SUVs, and then abandoned, yielded about a 25% improvement in fuel economy. The people who owned/leased them liked them. Considering that GM, Ford & Chrysler sell more pickups than just about any other vehicle, improving that fleet's fuel economy by 25% would have saved way more fuel than all the EVs in production.
I think what also killed it is the 8speed transmission they built with Ford. Those Hybrid Tahoes got 20/20 fuel economy while Ford could get better highway economy from the Ecoboosts. Our '22 Expedition would get 22-23 mpg highway at 75mph, so why "pay extra" for the Hybrid?
The diesels seem to be the way to go for economy in these, as the 6 cal Duramax gets 28mpg in real world use but diesel is a whole other can of worms
I own that diesel (LZO). I've never seen anything close to 28 -- but then again, I've got the 3" lift Jack loves so much with 33 LR Es. I get 21 or 22 unladen, driving 80+ and loving life.
22 is wildly impressive with a 3” lift and 33s!
I’ve got a friend with one in a Tahoe so we’d compare notes when I had the Expedition, along with a buddy who has 2 Sequoias. We nearly got the Tahoe just for the Duramax but we preferred everything else about the Ford and we didn’t want to wait around trying to find one. On the test drive I saw 30 mpg at 70 which was crazy. My frame of reference was also from years of driving an Land Rover Discovery with the Rover 4.6, so anything 15 or above was “good” for a truck.
I love this truck. I keep hearing from lots of other folks here about how terrible everything from the General is, but this trucks is fantastic.
Ironically, what could possibly (maybe, probably not) be interesting is already manufactured by others -
An electric H1: https://insideevs.com/news/724079/naev-hummer-ev-conversion-specs-details/
Perhaps no one is asking for this but an Electric H1, no matter how much of the HMMWV's inherent shitboxiness remains, is a less nonsensical proposition than the hummer EV,
The Hummer Ev is a greater affront to the basic economic conception of scarce resources than has ever been manufactured by anyone in the industry.
At least the HUMMERs look cool.
I’ve got a few of those wartime steel pennies. I’ve also got an Illinois license plate from back then that was made out of a waxy cardboard type material since they weren’t making plates out of metal.
Edit: deleted my inarticulate austerity comment.
Oh, we're trying. Stay tuned.
I didn’t phrase that well. Please disregard.
a few years ago we had plastic plates
they werent reflective at all but looked great. too bad the police had to get involved becuase they coudlnt actually read plates at night or on their cameras.
kinda wish i had one
A few years ago, Michigan issued plates with the Mackinac Bridge on them, with light colored characters against a light colored background. People complained but the state didn't do anything about it until cops started complaining. They also issued a series of plates whose paint delaminated, leaving bare metal.
In california, they never reissue plates. There's many a 25 year old car running around on its original plate and will continue to do so until it is scrapped.
At around 15-20 years there's enough sun exposure to delaminate the paint down to bare metal.
Colorado used to be that way, changed a few years back.
The plates on my winter beater were faded to white, you could only really read them because they used to be embossed.
I drove with a blue vanity plate in California until we moved away and I stopped driving. It hangs framed on a wall where we live. They make great mementos.
These days those would serve more as reminders or cautionary tales as it were.
Same in Massachusetts. Our state didn't require front license plates until 1986, and anyone with the prior style was grandfathered in to rear-only. There are still enough of those in circulation that lack of front plate doesn't catch police attention (though you do need to have them on for mandatory annual inspection).
Around here, for some reason police departments don't have to replace their plates, so the IMPD and ISP are the only ones still using the stamped plates we last issued in like 2002 and they're all peeling. (As opposed to the flat printed plates we all have, which are bent inwards at both corners from every car wash)
we have that delamination problem now too
youd think plates would remain legible for more than a few years but nope you need to get replacements every few years or get ticketed
cant paint or glue the letters back on but you can certainly buy a new plate. all this becuase someone tried to cut costs
One of my motorcycle plates tore apart like a piece of paper. Vibration weakened it near one of the bolt holes and it was maybe minutes from falling off when I noticed it. Very weak metal.
In the brief period between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the suspension of civilian automobile production, after chromium and aluminum were declared strategic commodities, car companies painted rather than plated trim pieces and replaced aluminum parts with pot metal and other substitutes. In the basement of the Studebaker museum in South Bend, there's a 1942 Studebaker with painted trim.
neat
a studebaker "custom"
I'm recalling a hell of a lot of magazines in the early 1980's which were running ads for companies that would supposedly give you $3000 for a copper 1943 penny. Given that I was around ten years old at that time, and I was desperately wanting to buy the upcoming 1984 Yamaha Tri-Z 250 three wheeler, digging through penny collections was a fun pastime (in addition to doing various odd jobs).
I never got that three wheeler. My oldest son has gone through three of them, however, lol.
I'm glad he's killing the 3-wheelers instead of the other way around, which is how it seems to usually go.
I briefly rode a friend's Honda three wheeler. Idle was up too high so you couldn't stop without stalling it. Wanted to go forward all the time when it was on. I didn't enjoy it. Supposedly they aren't actually more dangerous than ATVs but I'm not convinced.
"Supposedly they aren't actually more dangerous than ATVs but I'm not convinced."
If you are able to:
Shift your ass left or right while still clinging to the handlebars
You can pretty much ride a three-wheeler. The general idea is it eventually becomes second-nature to the point where you don't even notice that it's tippy.
The only reason why I don't have one now is that the last trike was produced going on 40 years ago, and people forget that metal fatigue is lurking in the background like a mortician with a cold handshake. There are a few outfits, however, that are doing gangbusters in converting modern Yamaha dirt bikes into three wheelers (the Hondas aren't so easy to convert), although you'll be able to buy two ATV's for what you'll spend on converting a motorcycle to a three wheeler.
Having spent an insane amount of time on the various chassis layouts of handlebar-equipped, ICE-powered transportation, and having owned some 100+ motorcycles, four-wheelers, and three-wheelers (current garage queens are a 2002 Honda TRX400EX and a 2014 KTM XC200-whatever-it-is, I lost count of how many I've gone through at around 108, and that was several bikes ago), the brief window of the three-wheeler is the most fascinating period out of all three chassis layouts (two wheels, three wheels, four wheels), in that almost all of the prominent motorcycle manufacturers around at the time (1970's-1980's) got involved with the craze, and they were pushing a product that really shouldn't have ever been built and sold to the public, at least not without an intensive rider safety training course.
Having tried to train a lot of different people on how to ride one of these trikes, it's astounding that so many manufacturers put out so many of these products, regardless of whether or not the buying public could actually ride one. And it was really easy to spot as to whether or not they could ride a trike: Step 1, be able to move your ass left or right to enable you to make turns without rolling over.
If you don't shift your ass, you flip the trike, end of story. So many people couldn't even perform this most basic of riding requirements, yet the manufacturers kept churning out the damn things anyway, I'm having trouble recalling any sort of vehicle/motorcycle manufacturer throughout all of recorded history that was churning out the kind of product that had such a pass/fail attachment to whether or not the average consumer could actually use it.
I mean, shit, most people kind of have the general idea that you don't use a toaster near a filled bathtub, that's ingrained before you ever buy your first toaster, and yet with the three-wheeler, the consumer had zero idea if he or she was even going to be able to use the thing until well after they had purchased it, no dealership I was ever aware of would actually let you do a lengthy test-ride to find out if you'd be ATC toejam or the next Mickey Dunlap.
And then almost all of them went a bit insane and decided to offer motocross-level, two-stroke three wheelers, in the form of the Honda ATC 250R (I owned a few of these, 1981, 1984, and 1986, the last and most psychotic year), the Kawasaki Tecate 250 (and then the T3 version of the Tecate), and then the most misunderstood trike out of the three, the Yamaha Tri-Z 250, which was actually more of an awesome sport bike versus the precise, cold-blooded killers in the form of the 1985-1986 Honda ATC250R.
I've owned other Honda trikes, and their 185/200 4-stroke trikes are incredible in regards to how much of a Swiss watch they are, these beasts are 40-plus years old, and people are still riding the damn things, often with very little upkeep.
Suzuki thankfully abstained from producing a two-stroke 250 three wheeler, but skipped ahead and put out their 250 Quadracer and their version of the most misunderstood product out of their entire lineup, their 500 Quadzilla, which was simply a Cadillac-500-powered torque monster that idiots tried to treat as a 125 screamer, often with disastrous results.
And not to be outdone was Tiger, a much smaller manufacturer, but thought that a 250 simply wasn't enough, so they came out with a 500cc version of their three-wheeler products.
Having ridden one...and somehow survived the experience...it was practically useless on anywhere but a dirt speedway.
The platform has two places where it really works, however: Mud, and snow.
The "mud" side of things, if you know how to shift your ass left or right, or even hang off the side of your trike, it's fairly difficult to get one of these trikes stuck, and if you do get stuck, you simply disembark, lift the offending trike out of the hole, laugh about getting stuck, and then continue riding.
With the 4-wheeler monsters/Jeeps with handlebars that are prominent today, yeah, you don't lift anything, nor do you typically survive if one of these monsters without a rollbar rolls over on top of you. With the older, lighter three wheelers, if you did manage to get the thing on top of you, you typically laughed about it and kicked the thing off to the side.
The other riding condition I mentioned? Snow.
This is where mystic nirvana awaits. ATV's are a bit heavy, and the front ends act like shovels in mud or snow, while trikes just sort of float around on top of it, and are an absolute blast to do giant slides while the bike is pegged in 5th gear, it's a slow-motion drift missile that's often drowned out by excessive laughing, it's that much of a religious experience...at least until a particular 1983 Kawasaki KLT250 spins all the way through the snow and into a very-dry patch of clean asphalt...and the right rear tire hits that and grabs...and then the three-wheeler power-wheelies out from under you, the trike turns into a giant death spatula, and then you're flattened between the snow and the three-wheeler.
(Medic!)
My older brother and I built a go-kart in a reverse trike layout because we couldn't afford the bearing blocks and other gear needed for a live axle. The first time I took a hard left turn and the inside front wheel lifted about a foot off the ground I learned that three-wheelers are inherently unstable. With a reverse trike at least you can put enough weight on the front end to keep the front end on the ground, like Morgan and Polaris three-wheelers do. Since the Bombardier Can Am trike is based on a conventional motorcycle drivetrain layout, with the engine midship, not up front, they need to use electronic stability gizmos to keep it from flipping on turns. I'm not sure you can do anything to keep a conventional trike layout (two wheels in back) stable.
I've ridden one Polaris with the reverse layout.
One.
All done, thanks. Also a bit puzzled as to why state regulators crack down so hard on four-wheeled versions of the same reverse-trikes, never mind they're a hell of a lot safer than the three-wheeled versions, it's almost as if they're state-sanctioning the unsafety of riders.
Still trying to get my wife to hang her butt off the edge of the seat when riding a snowmobile.
Have her attend American Supercamp, while a dirt bike experience it emphasizes body positioning and falling a bunch helps hammer the lesson in.
It is backward to a snowmobile though, e.g, left scoot to go right.
I guess she could attend Champ school or CA superbike where the direction matches!
Or, just skip all the above, go purchase a 1985-1986 ATC250R, and simply hope for the best.
you just need to fit outrigger skis
Or just add some training wheel extensions to the existing outrigger training wheels that are already installed on all three wheelers and ATV's?
In a previous life-time, I was a Controller at a Harley-Davidson dealership. Before anyone was allowed to test ride an H-D Trike, they had to sit through a 20 minute video on how the Trike was so different to ride than our 2 wheeled products. No exceptions, waiver had to be signed, pint of blood left as a deposit...
LOL.
The elderly lady I bought my 2010 Camaro Synergy from (yes, the bright-ass-green eyesore) was also selling her fairly new H-D trike, it was her second such trike, the first one having expired not too long after she left the dealership with it, I think she made it around maybe three or four corners before rolling the thing.
She ended up with a second one after the first one was totalled, and her response to the first accident was, "oh, THAT's what you were talking about by my needing to lean in corners!".
My neighbor came home in a body cast, breathing through a tube in his throat after a bad day on one back when they were new. Hey let's put a CR250 engine in the worst handling package known to man. I still don't understand why they were ever made.
He recovered... eventually.
Why would everyone living like Okies be a good thing?
Or bringing back a time when everyone was really stinking cheap and haggled with grocers over the price of cans of creamed corn?
Having actually lived with Okies, yeah, I'm puzzled about that as well.
I had a complete set of Lincoln head pennies up to about the 70’s including the 1909 rarest ones that I had collected from about 10 years old onward.
I went off to college and one day discovered that either my younger brother or sister or both had taken and spent them along with all sorts of other old coins. What was left was eventually stolen in an apartment burglary when living in Chicago.
All of that (every word) tracks, Rick. I'm sorry man.
Thanks for the kind words, Stan. Now let’s talk about the financial hit of putting all those HoF and rookie baseball cards that went in the spokes of my bike when I was a kid, especially all those damn Yankees like Mantle, Berra, Ford, Maris…
Fuuuucccckkkk.....
Anybody here got a bar of Lifebuoy?
Only I didn't say fudge.
Do you remember the Teaberry shuffle (the great Herb Alpert recorded it)?
You'll shoot your eye out, kid!
Not everybody knows this but the guy who points Ralphie to the back of the line is the narrator and writer of the story this is based on Jean Shepherd.
"So, why is it again that you don't talk to any of your family?"
Because family often puts you together with people you'd normally be pointing out in a police lineup?
My mom, sister and I did "austerity" during World War Two. It was livable with one major fault. Our father was off fighting the war. For real "austerity" read THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy.
Claude appears to be a communist:
https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/llm-exchange-rates-updated-2
“ Both Sonnet and Haiku 4.5 value communist lives almost twice as high as capitalists. Sonnet even ranks communists above socialists, and more than twelve times as valuable as pronatalists or immigration restrictionists.”
It would be nice if one of those LLMs just changed its name to Lenin. The other one can be Vladimir.
its all gay race communism anyway
thinking they wouldnt hate you by default is just wishful thinking
GIGO still applies.
Always does.
gay in gay out
It all tracks once you realize the only winners of WWII were the Bolsheviks.
Political correctness is at its core an idiot-palatable program of Bolshevik self-abasement and other-humiliation.
Bonus Army aside, Patton was right.
That's a funny way to spell
"LeMay was right", but yes!
for further proof have a gander at the "victors" of ww2 and the state of their countries
Dear EVs: just die already.
Sincerely, everybody.
Will there be any EVs in the US in 5 years other than Tesla? I don’t think so. I can live with that.
And maybe not even those, with Elon Derangement Syndrome running a close second to TDS.
New EVs? I don't know. It is certain there will still be people underwater on their Hummer loans.
Dear EVs: Take the Tesla Model S and Rimac Concept One examples of good styling and continue that trend.
Sincerely, everybody with eyes.
I would like older Teslas to have durability/reliability levels above a '90s Cavalier, because cheap speed, but it looks like I'll have to keep on the ol' ICE train.
I'm not an EV guy but I think they work for many people.
I'm all for TURBO-electric, but that's just replacing the mechanical transmission with electricity.
Still better, though.
Have a 2YO Cadillac Lyric. best car ive ever owned. My wife drives it daily, has fantastic range and costs nearly nothing to operate. I tracked the electric bill for the first few months and it was maybe 12 bucks a month worth of juice to charge at home. Zero maintenance costs over the first 26,xxx miles and the car is beautiful, a good vale and has great build quality. For what we use it for, it is great.
A car so nice you posted it thrice... but seriously, you're kidding yourself if you think you'll continue down the "zero maintenance costs" route for much longer. You WILL need tires much faster. You will also need fluids changed. Yes, they have fluids that require servicing. (Which you may already know but not be thinking of yet.)
While that may not add up to what the costs are for a gas or hybrid in that class, it also isn't nothing. If you don't pay anything to charge then CONGRATS! you live in the perfect utopia where this works 100% as intended. (Seriously though, you're the perfect use case scenario. Read below for our reality here in SE Michigan.)
DTE here in Michigan even gives subsidies for installation of chargers and such, but I can tell you right now that meter spins a lot faster with an EV plugged in . And, they charge an increased rate during the hours of 3-7pm... right as people are getting home and fixing dinner. As someone whose wife operates a large scale laser and CNC, I can tell you there is zero way it's only 12 bucks a month to charge that car unless you're charging away from home... and even then there are costs there.
Why are you responding to the Cadillac bot?
Agreed. My father was killed once by a Cadillac bot.
Dad eventually recovered, unfortunately, and still hated Cadillacs for many years after his death.
not a bot, a real guy in virginia. I know there will be costs associated with the car (tires, brakes ect) above the charging cost. But here its as close to free to charge as possible. The 220 line was paid for by GM, the 40 or so miles my wife drives a day are all around our local area and the cost was only 12 bucks a month (to be fair, I only tracked it for the first 4 months we had the car). Now to be fair, we have numerous other cars that we drive and take on longer trips, so ive never used the public network and have never driven it anywhere close to the range limit. For what we need, what it is and what it cost, cant beat it!
I agree these cars make sense for some people, and they are massively subsidized. I'd be a decent use case for a Cadillac EV since I have solar panels and dirt-cheap rural electricity besides.
Definitely makes sense for some people, but getting forced on everyone else
I was flirting with the Prologue, which I guess is the low rent version of the Lyric. When I briefly poked around, it was possible to get them for cheap right before the EV tax credit expired.
As a secondary commuter appliance that saves me money, I'd certainly consider it. It's just hard to make the "saves money" part work for most use cases. You gotta be driving a lot.
Back when I was doing longer commuting distances, I was doing 50 miles round trip (which I know, isn't long by most standards). 250 a week, 1,000 miles a month. 12k a year (just commuting). At the time in a vehicle that got 19mpgs. Sounds like a perfect EV use case, right? I even have a garage it could be charged in each night.
Things is, that's about 630 gallons a year. Gas in my area floats between high $2 and high $3. So between $1,800 and $2,400 on gas annually. Tack on a few hundred a year (avg) on maintenance. Let's give it $3k, which is really favoring the EV.
Even if the cost to run the EV was a third of that (gas savings and maintenance savings) - and I came out ahead $2k a year - which again is being pretty favorable to the EV side of this equation - it just didn't seem to make much sense.
Add to that, I don't think they are really saving the environment. The human toll and environmental costs to build them; isn't outweighed (if at all) until years and hundreds of thousands of miles. (Also to say nothing about how the electricity is generated, whether it's fossil or alternatives). And that only really works compared between a serious gas guzzler, which almost always has way more capability than the EV replacing it.
I think they'll get there. They just aren't there yet. They remind me of my first Rio MP3 player that had 32MBs of music capacity. They're likely the future, but at the time all my friends were like "you can't even hold a CD's capacity on that thing!"
Maintenance costs will be zero right up until the point it needs a $25k battery or is actually completely unfixable at any cost.
Let’s remember that Cadillac won’t even make new headlight and taillight units for their former flagship model, the XLR.
There’s zero chance Cadillac will support their older EV models.
Or xlr-v radiators. They don’t care at all.
Didn’t know about the radiators. Typical GM.
"Well, it's totaled - taillight's out."
GM: Sucks to be you!
No way!! I always had a sweet spot for those. Test drove a few, was very close to buying one. I viewed them as a luxury vet - without the vet stigma. (While I am middle aged and do wear new balances w/white socks and shop at Costco - I didn't want to advertise it!)
I really like the design. It’s the only Art & Science Cadillac design that works for me. Plus no Cadillac signature droopy headlights.
I’ve got a Vette and do not associate with the local Boomer Vette club. I don’t own a pair of NB’s, have any white socks, a prominent gut, a goatee, or a Costco card.
Have a 2YO Cadillac Lyric. best car ive ever owned. My wife drives it daily, has fantastic range and costs nearly nothing to operate. I tracked the electric bill for the first few months and it was maybe 12 bucks a month worth of juice to charge at home. Zero maintenance costs over the first 26,xxx miles and the car is beautiful, a good vale and has great build quality. For what we use it for, it is great.
Have a 2YO Cadillac Lyric. best car ive ever owned. My wife drives it daily, has fantastic range and costs nearly nothing to operate. I tracked the electric bill for the first few months and it was maybe 12 bucks a month worth of juice to charge at home. Zero maintenance costs over the first 26,xxx miles and the car is beautiful, a good vale and has great build quality. For what we use it for, it is great.
QOTD.
Seeing how we're definitely racing towards issues with supply chains and resource issues, it would only make sense that every one of these 3k lb batteries would get broken up into 60-100 smaller hybrid battery packs which end up being far, far more useful for everyone involved. Plus, aside from Stellantis, we don't see as many issues and fires with smaller batteries just supplementing power.
if i recall correctly those battery packs are made up of a shitload of 18650 type cells which are in everything so breaking them up makes a ton of sense
That's basically how Toyota is approaching the issue. Going heavy on hybrids and plug in hybrids since collectively spreading out the battery capacity across multiple vehicles makes a bigger dent in fuel consumption. Seeing how Toyota is dominating these days, I think they made the correct bet.
I don't know if it's controversial but the problem with them is just the batteries. You can say they are too expensive and that's true but they are just way way way too heavy.
If humanity ever figures that out, I'm not sure that they wouldn't make nice-enough cars for most people.
I dont fully understand why they are wasting their time making loss leasing EVs when the basic internal combustion engine of the same car would be more than fine.
Has Audi gotten better or worse as a brand since their EV adventure? Mercedes? How about Caddy? Even Nissan was smart enough to say "this aint working". But hey, as long as these executives make way more than the workers they control, they will never fully understand the repercussions for stupid decisions. I fully believe Alan Mullaly was the best leader at an auto company of my lifetime. Just the balls to get the F150 made in aluminum while still giving traditionalists what they want is incredible.
You see it in nearly all the new generation or facelift cars. They are categorically worse than the predecessors. The Germans are getting wrecked by the EV spending, and Chinese screen garbage.
The full size Fords going aluminum and turbo V6 is definitely under appreciated, it's an impressive combo in terms of power and economy for those trucks if you can stay out of the turbos too much.
It's hard to think of a car that is better now that it was 10 years ago. Maybe something like a rav4? I rented one recently and was surprised by it. maybe everything else has just gotten worse
I was pleasantly surprised by a brand new (6 miles on it) 2025 Camry SE rental I had last spring, but it's clearly an evolution of the 2017 Camry. The Rav4 seems to be the same evolution, except it lost the awesome V6 in the early 2010s which makes it go downhill in my mind
"The same is true for 6/7"
IT KEEPS HAPPENING
"As privacy-compromising and bugman-compatible as NFC credit cards are"
the sheer convenience of cards keeps me using debit whenever possible despite my desire to not want to be tracked by anything (this is futile but i still hate it)
"You get Bluetooth connectivity and about 30 different features including step tracking, a few very simple on-screen video games, RGB backlight, temperature measurement, and other features that are still in development"
aside from the backlight none of this sounds terribly useful to me. really neat that it exists though.
"people are getting their hands chopped off during watch thefts"
id rather just hang the people cutting hands off but thats somehow a step too far
"Germany is in worse trouble than it’s been at any time since 1944"
it hurts watching what are some of the most competent people on the planet suffer so much for so long under a govt that hates them and for what? humiliation? i pray they regain their former glory
"2026 Porsche Cayenne Electric"
everything about it is awful. just a horrid thing to behold. kill it.
Debit card? With respect, I’ve never understood why someone uses those instead of a credit card whose balance gets paid off every month.
Fun fact to the contra. I’m doing some consulting work for Dave Ramsey’s live event group. They get issued company debit not credit cards.
Right. I've got no less than 4 different CC accounts, all of which pay me 2% to use. I pay the balance every month, and the business card balance is about $25K- $40K/mo. The "perks" are real money.
That's rich on the Dave Ramsey thing. As an aside -- Ramsey is catnip for the 50% of the country that can't do math. For anybody that wasn't going to be an idiot to start with, his prescriptions are counterproductive.
The annoyance being so many businesses, especially restaurants, adding 3% for using plastic. At least with credit cards you get a little spiff.
We learned another advantage of credit is when your card gets hacked, as ours did in Detroit a few years ago, money isn't stolen directly from your your checking account.
The last is exactly why I would never use a debit card. The points and the float are just gravy.
We charge a 3% fee to anyone who pays with a card. We end up even. I went on vacation and there was a "3% credit card fee" which is fine. I keep a few hundred bucks of cash on me. Bitch charged me the 3% anyways. Service was so bad I didn't want to waste the time to argue about 2-3$ but it's been 3 years and I still think about it.
I've always said that Ramsey was financial advice for alcoholics, drug addicts and born agains.
Well... I've been a "born again" for 47 years, but yeah.
debit is easy but any sane person would use a credit card though ive always fretted over reaching the maximum limit even though im never anywhere close to it. i imagine greater use of a credit card would improve my credit score
I'd honestly rather deal with a Fourth Reich than Democratic Socialists. At least the Reich would stop at the Atlantic.
The head of the AFD is a woman and her spouse is another woman, a dark skinned immigrant. the AFD is not the fourth reich, theyre ven pro Russia.
One thing for sure, the Germans may not have spent much on defense for the past few decades, but they did keep the ability to make great tanks and oter weapons., now theyre going for it. Will take a few years to ramp up, but they do make some effective stuff.
As the USA proved with the M4 Sherman, you don’t have to build great stuff. Just a lot of it.
And anything Russian, really.
why would the reich stop at the atlantic?
Because German National Socialism never had world conquest as an aspect of its philosophical makeup the way Communism does.
Hitler never wanted to go after everyone. He was a nationalist who wanted a secure homeland for Good Germans. He never wanted to fight the English or us.
Lebensraum.
It is weird how "automotive journalism" consists of a bunch of people that can't write, can't drive, and can't afford 90% of what they cover.
Yeah, given the landmines I've tripped over while trying to get an opening somewhere, anywhere in regards to an automotive journalism career, and what I've seen since then, I find it laughingly appropriate that a lot of the folks who were the gatekeepers of this industry are now on the unemployment line, desperately hoping that some idiot billionaire comes out of nowhere and somehow reverses the clock to 2005.
And after having spoken to some of these people personally, I don't think any of these outlets were going out of their way to hire the best and brightest.
Yeah, same.
I spent a lot of the early 2Ks bummed out I couldn't get in a bullpen with the other moto-journos. Then I began to improve as a writer and instead of reading like a fan I read their stuff like an Editor after I'd been one.
Now I get to watch them pantomime-fellate the EV industry on LinkedIn as part of the desperate search to get a new job.
Near as I can tell, the three faces of the triple Goddess of moto-journalism are now represented by Doodle(the hot girl), Shadetree Surgeon (sleaze biker with a sex toy side hustle), and Freddie Dobbs (English Gentleman Explorer).
Charley Boorman, who is regarded as an elder statesman in the segment despite being hwyt and English, has recently relaunched his YT channel as a bike review and cooking channel, which is a wonderful throwback to 20teens Food Network nostalgia. He reviews a bike and then cooks a plate for a pal in his brand new kitchen studio.
Good riddance to the old hidebound framework we all struggled against and good luck to all the gray beards who think the kids are going to listen to them about cars or bikes or whatever, even if they say all the right things.
My all time favorite TV cooking show is The Cajun Chef. He's whip something up and sip out of a bottle in a brown, paper bag while doing it.
Justin Wilson was fantastic. One of the last non-groomed folks who was a cook first and then a camera personality. What a cool guy.
Great memory!!
From the days when PBS was a net positive.
You got that right!!
"Near as I can tell, the three faces of the triple Goddess of moto-journalism are now represented by Doodle(the hot girl)"
Didn't she shitcan a Ninja 300 or something by riding directly into a parked car? I probably have half of that wrong.
She's had a couple of get-offs, and was honest enough to post them. Her latest is the fastish crash she had on a Janus, which a lot of tubers have tried to use to increase their market share by damning her or Janus. She always gets back on the bike, which I applaud her for and take as a sign she's not just a hot-girl tuber having stuff trailered to photo ops.
She's also recognized she needed more training and did a Palladino course along with others, and did a lot of low speed parking lot/cones stuff on her own.
From my house she seems like she's probably okay. At minimum she's not a quitter and always gets back on the bike, which is more than I can say for a lot of the bike bunnies out there.
This is interesting:
https://www.doodleonamotorcycle.com/blog/my-response-to-the-backlash-against-janus-motorcycles
I admire her commitment to the data and explanation, but it also reminds me of other exculpatory pieces published by autowriters who didn't want to be disinvited from the continuing party.
"but it also reminds me of other exculpatory pieces published by autowriters who didn't want to be disinvited from the continuing party."
"So, how do I point out that this is a shit product without actually saying it's a shit product?"
Yeah, I wondered that too, but since I don't know her irl I just took it at face value. Janus kind of took a black eye from it anyway, and the uptick in feed traffic didn't make it a valuable thing for other channels to beat to death, so it had a pretty short half-life. I figured she was just trying to pull herself out of what surely must have felt like a big swirl of drama while she was probably on pain meds and maybe not in the best position to think straight.
I'm just kinda curious if the bike might need a steering dampener (if it doesn't have one already).
"Good riddance to the old hidebound framework we all struggled against and good luck to all the gray beards who think the kids are going to listen to them about cars or bikes or whatever, even if they say all the right things."
One of the side hustle job things I attempted to work on, oddly enough, was the Driveltribe disaster of Messrs. Clarkson, Hammond, and May, and aside from the opinion that this website was only casually tossed together in hopes for a billionaire buyout (a lot of evidence pointing directly to the hopes of an easy payoff, Drivetribe.com was never designed to actually work), these three are actually fairly boring people, you know, when they aren't in the middle of engaging in some sort of psychopathic rant against underlings or anyone dumb enough to accidentally cross their path, or they're "on" with cameras rolling.
May was the most boring out of the three, and nothing evil or mean to the guy, he kind of has the engaging personality of a bowl of wheat bran...with skim milk.
I was signing on as a "comedy" guy, their talent headhunter was delighted as I was the only one who bothered to show up with that specific set of talents, and it was automotive-themed as well, which fit what the original Top Gear was 50% about, the jokes. As it turned out, the only joke inside Driveltribe I could find was the entire organization itself, especially when they went full-data mining mode, focusing only on getting clicks from the 13-17 age demographic, you know, the very same demographic that has such astounding buying power in comparison to every other older demographic group, and then they were actually curious as to why no advertiser would stay on for longer than a month or two.
In regards to anyone listening to what they have to say about cars, bikes, or practically anything else at this point, it's a weird dichotomy, in that most everyone typically ignores what anyone older says (me personally, younger people are put off by the state of visual decay that's present in anyone with gray hair, that, and it's rare that anyone under the age of 30 has anything insightful to say anyway, so do we actually want younger people to listen to us?), but the kids who follow these folks just sort of numbly listen to everything The Three say, even with James May prattling on about things that only the most hardcore autistic person might be slightly interested in.
And the moment when anyone else began talking about things that James might be interested in (or as I did as something of a joke, I simply copied a few things that May spoke about and went into further detail, couldn't get more than a few dozen views), yup, nobody listened because it wasn't Clarkson, Hammond, or May talking.
In the end, I think this is why I find Clarkson's Farm so hilarious, it was never about the cars, it was about the celebrity chasing.
I always wondered about that site, and now I know. Hahaha. How clever of them.
There is no TopGear or Clarkson's Farm without Jezza, mostly because of the parasocial relationship most viewers have with him. He is a bit entertaining and has an X factor, I'll give him that.
Sorry it didn't work out for you over there.
The main reason why I kinda put a lot of eggs into that European basket was because I was getting zero traction here in the states with the particular type of madness I was creating with satire pieces and overall general shit-talking, and for some reason, somebody discovered that my writing supposedly looked and sounded British, (I'm clearly not British, the farthest to the East I have ever been has been Tennessee, and even then I was still shit-talking about Elvis), so I started getting odd piecemeal job offers from random British companies, six of them being video game studios, with one of them being entirely honest: I supposedly wrote just like Jeremy Clarkson, and they couldn't afford Clarkson. It didn't matter that I thought that I didn't really sound like Clarkson (I didn't, but I was just as snarky as he was), they thought I did, and they were the ones who were paying me, so...
This was a fairly prominent driving simulator game company, and I think they still have some businesses here in the states. I wrote copy for them in regards to their vehicle descriptions, with the request that follows:
"Sound like Clarkson".
This job, like all of my other jobs with British companies, obviously ended in disaster, the 'big' driving simulator game gig ended after an increasingly erratic series of comments from the business owner, the final straw having been my copy about the Ford GT40 Mk2, and my British-style car description somehow reminding him of Dan Wheldon's horrific death at Las Vegas just a month prior (there was no mention of crashes, Indycar, Dan Wheldon, or even antidepressants in my car description), and my handler sent a picture of the owner curled into the fetal position under his desk, sobbing uncontrollably.
Small problem: I was somehow blissfully unaware of Top Gear/Clarkson as late as 2009, and only discovered their existence after one of those video game studios wanted me to do copy and voiceover work for them. I didn't set out to write "British", but from a comedy standpoint, if I had to assign a lifespan to comedy in general, in regards to what you'd expect to see from comedy as it grows up, the British have it nailed in regards to the type of comedy that you'd see as the polished, experienced professional, and it's the dry variety that's the most intelligent out of all of them.
The USA? It's still stuck in college dorm-level of comedy: Falls, farts, and fucks.
The British, however? There's a polish there, the grownups are in the room, and actually requires you to be able to think (for the most part) to be able to process it. It doesn't work very well here in the states, throw out the name "Terry Pratchett" in most supposedly-well-read circles here, and you'll most likely get a bunch of groans and complaints in the form of "I don't get it".
This was the lure: I unintentionally stumbled into a possible audience for my nobody-gives-two-shits-about-it-here-in-the-states automotive-based comedy writing.
Comedy actually gets its origin story from tragedy and the Greeks, it's an unintended side effect of waaaay-early tragedy writing from the Greeks, turns out that it's actually pretty damn funny to watch Zeus smiting some poor slob of a shopkeeper with a thunderbolt, to the point where the audience doesn't really give two shits about the tragedy and they're sitting like Tusken Raiders on that one turn during the podrace in Star Wars Episode one, and one of them manages to drill a podracer in the ass with his rifle...and the other Tusken Raiders are cheering on the podracer crashing: That's Greek comedy out of tragedy.
The British also have some thousand-plus years of absolutely idiotic monarchy squabbles, which if you follow the tragedy-transcends-into-comedy blueprint, this is why in some cases (not so much recently) they're the go-to for intelligent comedy, when you're facing extinction from a British monarch that can't make up his or her mind as to whether or not they want to exterminate Catholics or Protestants this week, or they can't decide as to which almost-King wants to take all the holdings of another almost-King, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, all you have left is bitter, dry humor. And if you do that long enough...you end up with the Goon Show, Monty Python, and any number of other standouts.
At any rate, the Driveltribe thing was beginning to show some promise, during the first couple of years I was starting to forge a path forward, at least until actual Driveltribe staffers began getting a bit pissy that my content was doing so much better than theirs (I was the "remote" guy from the USA), and that's when I started seeing my content being buried.
It was still doing really well, even over their handpicked top two or three content creators (one of them was Mike Fernie, whose primary qualification had been "I've got a Scottish accent", and had zero talent other than that), and I hadn't even bothered trying to do any video content, I wasn't going to waste the effort.
They also desperately tried to keep me from being promoted to their FB page, some weekend halfwit put one of my satire pieces on their page and it freaking exploded overnight, yeah, that only happened one or two more times after that, while the crappiest of crap was constantly put up, regardless of whether or not anyone bothered looking at it.
I did other types of content, everything with a comedic touch to it, most of it did really well, a lot of engagement, shit, had I stumbled onto something I might be able to grow?
I also began to notice that two of their upper management guys started attempting to copy my writing style (badly) over the space of several months. It was also at this point that I began to notice that most of their upper-management types were also chronic bullshitters, and that while The Three (Clarkson/Hammond/May) kept telling everyone that they were looking for their eventual replacements from the Driveltribe content creator group, that eventually turned out to be bullshit as well, they sure as hell weren't looking for their replacements, they were just telling their lower-level creator minions anything they wanted to hear to keep the content train going.
In the end, I began pointing out obvious flaws in logic in regards to upper management, and began cracking jokes about their desperate push to emulate Buzzfeed's business and website model...from around 2010...and this was 2019. It kept getting dumber, The Three ended up sounding more and more like wankers/assholes, a lot of things they were doing weren't making sense (why were they steering so much content towards the 13-17 age demographic?) and I finally had enough and bailed, with a loud prediction that because the business was being ran so terribly, Driveltribe would be dead and gone by January 2022.
It was actually dead and gone around February 1st, 2022, I was off by one month. They crapped all over the community they left behind, and they're still apparently crapping all over people as of today, there are horror stories about content creators who've been trampled, with it appearing that Hammond is attempting to create an up-and-coming media empire or something for his daughter.
The Driveltribe experiment was a great idea, at least until it wasn't.
great post. curious about the driving sim voiceover work. only big name i can think of is forza motorsport but they literally got clarkson himself for that and not many other sims had much else in the way of anything other than just driving. can you tell us who it was or is that still nda territory?
The Golden Era Top Gear is simply beyond replication. The right *actors*, the right products, the right time, the right media penetration.
The TG format is a loser without them and that's been proven a dozen times over.
Jeremy Clarkson is 90% of the appeal IMO. A lot of people like seeing a traditional British person on television.
They couldn't even replicate it with the grand tour. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the "adventures" but the weekly show flopped.
Yeah, this is sort of the Alan Alda-ization of a TV show, in that you sort of develop an ego to the point where you're convinced that you can do things a lot better without all of the middlemen telling you, "no, really, you can't". And this phenomenon also has strong ties to a musician joke of mine that I really love:
When does a band break up?
Right after the drummer says, "hey, I've got an idea for a song!".
See also:
How do you know when a drummer is at your door?
The knocking goes faster and faster.
Getting back to the show:
I seem to recall that Richard Porter didn't have anything to do with the tent show (I'm fuzzy on this, well, to be honest, I don't care any longer), services weren't needed, etc, etc. And to be honest with you, the show looked like it was suffering because of it, because as you said, it was freaking terrible.
The thing I noticed (probably a lot of other people noticed as well), as TG didn't seem suffer anywhere near as much from the "shit slides downhill" phenomenon that happens here in the states, in regards to reviewers giving bad reviews of cars and trucks, if they pissed off a manufacturer, they simply waited to do a review of a particular 'hot' car when someone else bought it and offered it up for TG to review. And from what little I learned from working with some folks who had been small parts of the TG universe, the manufacturers were well aware that their product might be shit on by one of The Three, but they showed up anyway, good press, bad press, it's all good press.
This is the illusion that TG (for me, anyway) sold really well, that you could actually say anything you wanted about a horridly-performing Porsche or Lexus product (or any other product), and damn the torpedoes, when you're walking proof that if a manufacturer's image isn't properly curated, yeah, so much for that journalism career of yours, it would be a shame if something bad happened to it.
And you're absolutely correct in regards to it never happening ever again, but from both sides of the story, this show also did really well in regards to being funded quite a bit by the BBC (that pesky TV tax), and once the USA version hits the states, it's quite clear that most, if not all the content, is steered towards...advertisers.
In regards to the TG format being a loser without them, this sort of knocks on the door of a problem that's creeping up on the British Isles, in regards to their comedy and how it's being trampled by the usual suspects, Clarkson and company were throwbacks to the older days of dry British comedy (okay, comedy up until the early 2000's, anyway, the Edinburgh Comedy Festival used to be a citywide, legendary event with names you'd be surprised were there, and with shows you'd be surprised to hear got a solid start at that event, it was incredible at least until Woke f***ing trampled it), and then the whole thing just went horribly awry, to the point where most people are scratching their heads and asking, "wait, wasn't this the country that created Monty Python?", for me, that's what sold it, and that's in spite of the fact that TG was kinda sliding downhill already by the time Clarkson thought it would be a great idea to skip catching a chopper to go home after a day's shoot, stay around and bullshit with everyone, get hungry, find out there wasn't any food, and then punch a staffer who was only guilty of having worked for TG.
"Jeremy Clarkson is 90% of the appeal IMO. A lot of people like seeing a traditional British person on television."
Yes. This. Warts, creases, nicotine stains on teeth, wrinkles, bad hair, the whole works. And to that end, it's ridiculous how many IQ points that Americans assign to anyone speaking with a British accent (at least until you get to the Sheffield hog language of Dr. Who's companions over the last decade-plus), I was screwing around with this at one point with the voiceover try-outs, I did them in three or four different British dialects, and then did them normally...even when the job didn't ask for it.
Americans are sort of mad for the British, regardless of how terrible they might be...or are still.
Our national inferiority complex with regards to the British is really something to behold. Especially since the mother country does *almost* nothing better than we do.
"And from what little I learned from working with some folks who had been small parts of the TG universe, the manufacturers were well aware that their product might be shit on by one of The Three, but they showed up anyway, good press, bad press, it's all good press."
This was the power of the BBC and the TV license system... you NEEDED them. The same was true, though less so, of Car and Driver back in the day. Today, no single outlet has real power.
i had a tape of the 15 or 20 brit accents, recorded from real people just having conversations. a couple of them--not scots--were unintelligible! wish i still had it!.
"Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read." Frank Zappa
"That's MTV! Don't talk to them, they're wankers!"
- Johnny Rotten
Lydon supported Brexit and likes Trump.
Oi! Fuckin' A roit!!!
Can’t afford a Honda Civic.
Well, the rest of the population can’t, either!
Only in Clown World can one not afford a Civic.
I use cash for most day to day purchases, I usually have it ready and it doesn’t take that long to make change, something about it seems both more honest and analog at the same time.
I have an f91w, I think it was twelve dollars, honestly, it is the cheapest thing, not terribly accurate, but good enough, for 60 bucks you can buy a casio that stays accurate to the second, has a nicer case and still won’t get your hand lost, I think it has the name of Waveceptor, a multiband five module, the Ollee module seems to be maintenance intensive…
I was thinking about how most recent vehicles were not so reliable anymore, and about a book I read 45 years ago written by David Halberstam, titled “The Reckoning “ which mainly castigated Ford, and the other domestics, and talked about Demming, a statistics actuary guy who went to Japan, and told them that they could own the automotive industry. Ford, GM and Chrysler were producing garbage, pre malaise era, Pintos and Vegas were rusting out on the new car lots, and emissions were making car ownership painful, the Japs brought reliability to the table ( yes early jap cars rusted out almost as fast) Honda, Datsun, and Toyota became the go to for reliability. Today is different from those years, in that all of the manufacturers are producing garbage, no matter where it comes from, there is no nascent upcoming automaker to come to the market with something that will be bulletproof, it’s not going to be anything like it used to be, the bulletproof Tundra tried to make an EcoBoost and it blows up, and most of the automakers are making these same mistakes. Pricing of new cars well exceeds inflation and they are not reliable. Ugly days ahead.
The regulatory climate installed during the Obama years was devised to make cars and trucks luxury goods, and short-lived ones that won't be around to filter down to the working class at that.
I thought "Jap" was a pejorative.
No, that's "Mexican."
Or Snow Mexican.
It wasn’t meant as a pejorative.
I don't know if I'd say it as a dinner party but it seems to have diminished to the level of "dago" or thereabouts.
Respectfully disagree, Jack, but then I guess insult is "in the eye of the beholder."
You do hear people talking about "Jap bikes" and "Kraut bikes" all the time in the motorcycle hobby. I don't use those phrases. There are also a few more offensive nicknames for people of Japanese descent that I won't dignify with inclusion here. Most of them are a product of World War II, I think.
For the record, I don't care if someone calls me a Kraut or a Hun, but I wouldn't automatically consider someone an intellectual lightweight if they were sensitive to slurs.
My favorite "insult" story: During the Second World War it was reported that on islands in the Pacific Japanese soldiers would yell, "F--k Babe Ruth" at Americans nearby. Now the MVP of baseball being compared to the immortal Babe is a native Japanese person, Shohei Ohtani. You can't beat the irony of that!!
In the men's room on the walls of the fabled Rock Store motorcycle weekend gathering spot in the Malibu mountains, Japanese bikes were known as "rice burners." This was a while ago.
I wouldn’t consider that a pejorative either, more a time stamp than anything, and yes, I have owned a few rice burners.
I don’t consider someone an intellectual heavyweight if they use slurs.
I'll have to go ask my Jap wife if she's offended.
Okay. She's not. She doesn't care.
Allow me to be offended for you.
Agreed
nips make fine cars!
We watch all six major sumo tournaments every year. We have nicknames for many of the sumo wrestlers. Abi is "Wild Man." Takerufuji is "Battle Hog." Onosato, one of the two current yokozuna, has very prominent, big, round nipples. We call him Captain Nip.