« What's worse than screaming kids in a restaurant? | Main | Diesels: Boring, noisy slow, right? Nein! »
March 16, 2006
Something old, something new
On the left, the 2007 Volkswagen Golf, decontented (read: stripped) to sell at $16K. On the right, the 1992 Honda Civic, about $2K.
I would think that if you were trying to generate enthusiasm for a new design, you'd try to avoid making it look like a 14-year-old economy car -- albeit a very good economy car.
So, for an extra fourteen large, you can get a bare-bones German car that needs a lot of warranty work (see Consumer Reports), but at least it looks reliable.
Via the folks at Autoblog.
Posted by Mike Lief at March 16, 2006 07:49 AM
| TrackBack
Comments
What time is it?
Time to unpimp your ride.
Deutschland in the house.
Posted by: Puka Shells at March 17, 2006 08:19 PM
Leave it to a Republican website to focus on the price, size and look of this car vs. that car while totally ignoring the fact that mankind is on the brink of disaster due to CO2 emissions caused by the industrial age and its byproducts. Friends, as we speak Greenland is melting at an alarming speed. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3922579.stm) Researchers finding underweight polar bears in northern regions bite their tongues and admit that the bears may soon become extinct due to shrinking ice. ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601899.html)
We must insist on a peaceful version of the Manhattan project for the good of all mankind. The world's top scientists should be locked in a room until a clean, viable alternative to fossil fuel can be developed for global use. We must act! The future of the world is at stake!
Posted by: Sbarro at March 18, 2006 08:36 AM
Sbarro,
Without conceding that global warming is a result of human activity, two points:
First, the developing world, i.e., nations other than the U.S., Japan and Western Europe, spew more pollution into the atmosphere than the modern, industrialized West.
The ChiComs have a terrible environmental record, as did the former Soviet Union; it's breakup revealed toxic waste and devastation on a scale never seen in the "evil" U.S.
Second, your Manhattan Project reference was particularly apt. If you are serious about reducing global emissions of CO2 and related bad gas, then you must be a supporter of building more nuclear power projects. You are, aren't you?
Nuclear power is the only zero-emission power-producing technology ready today to provide plentiful, cheap power.
In addition, it has the added benefit of reducing dependence on the Arab world. You do favor that too, don't you?
As to a "Republican website," let me say first that I'm a Conservative, not a Republican. But I also didn't realize that writing about cars was a sin in the worldview of anonymous Internet denizens who comment behind the name of a huge, multi-national corporation selling pizza to the masses.
Cars are the primary mode of transportation for 99 percent of the American people. They also represent the second biggest expenditure most people ever have, after housing.
Do you drive, or do you live within walking distance of your job -- or along a major public-transit line?
Most people I know like cars, reading about them, driving them, talking about them. If you don't, feel free to skip over the car-related posts.
Thanks for the comments, Sbarro.
Posted by: Mike at March 18, 2006 11:51 AM
Three out of five days I ride my bike to work. The other two days I'm in school and I live "close enough to walk"!! I don't hate the idea of a car, just gas guzzling cars. I love the way that you point fingers in every direction and use the energy consumption of other countries to explain why you are then paralyzed from making a difference. Sometimes you just have to lead the way. We need to lead the world in clean, alternative fuel consumption instead of gas and coal burning industrialized super smoke machines. Besides, most of the word has been opressed by the West for so long that they are entitled to catch up a little. Ever more the reason for us to lead the way and to accept the cost of the cleanup since we have indsutrialized the globe and built the most cars and smoke stacks.
Nuclear power is just crazy. Remember 3-Mile Island? Remember what happen to the Russians with Chernobyl? With all the smarts this country has, you can't tell me with folded arms that our scientific community isn't capable of coming up with a bold solution?! Where there is a will, there is a way my Grandfather always said. If you are dead set on living in a CO2 hothouse then just keep pumping out all of the green house gases your heart desires. If you choose to be smart and to take your head out of the sand Mr. Mike, then you will join greens like me in urging Congress to get off of their bribed corporate butts to fund a scientific project that will save this world. Don't just dance around Mr. Mike while the Earth is turnin' in a way that you just can't imagine. How can you sleep Mr. Mike when your bed is burnin'?
Posted by: Sbarro at March 18, 2006 09:32 PM
I believe that I value a clean environment as much as the next guy. I think the jury is out as to whether or not the rising temperatures we are seeing spring from natural rather than manmade forces. Thus the shrillness of Sbarro's vitriol is an annoying reminder of slogan spewing libs I encountered at public university.
Posted by: Bill H. at March 19, 2006 04:09 PM