Monday, April 20, 2009
Cars
I have been sitting in Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, watching the evidence of Detroit's stupidity drive by. Here's the paradox: America makes the most and the worst cars in the world. I have posted before on the Chrysler Sebring as the worst car in the world, but I was too kind. It's the worst machine in the world, its suspension lethal, its gear box laughable. All the most horrible cars I have ever driven have been American. I'm pottering around here in an American Ford Focus which is okay because it was breathed on by Richard Parry Jones, the British genius behind the Mondeo, the greatest car in the world. The spectacle on Collins Avenue was grotesque. One hideous Detroit disaster succeeded another. At one point I saw a Cadillac Escalade followed by a Range Rover. The former was designed by an idiot who wanted everybody to look like a drug dealer who never went round corners, the latter by a genius. Not that anybody else can feel superior, aesthetically at least. Porsche has just launched its Panamera, which looks almost as horrible as the Cayenne, but which, apparently, is designed to appeal to Asians who need a chauffeur. German cars in general have looked terrible since the Mercedes of the early nineties (I think). BMWs are vile, they make me want to be dead. Japanese cars look stupid, not really designed at all. All Land Rovers are lovely and I'd like to like the look of current Jaguars but I don't. Does it matter? Well, yes. Cars are everywhere and they ought to be beautiful, even if they are engineered by imbeciles. The best looking cars on Collins Avenue were the Ford Crown Victoria taxis. Okay, they're horrific on corners, but at least they look as though they know what they're for. People who care about beauty don't notice cars. They should.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Best line ever: "BMWs are vile, they make me want to be dead."
ReplyDeleteThe cars may suck, but you don't. Sense of humor is running on all cylinders, Bry!
And what does a journalist sitting on his arse all day sipping Pina Colada, tapping aimlessly on his netbook know about cars?
ReplyDeleteLets start with Detroit, Europe produces better cars because its car industry is set up to cater for the different nations tastes, this diversity produces better engineering and thus better products. BY contrast Detroit is the EU of the USA, they try and produce model Ts for the whole of the US regardless of the tastes of folks in Florida or Iowa, and what they arrive at with this ongoing equation is crass equilibrium.
Agreed the Mondeo is a truly fantastic car, especially in the new one BUT it does not have the badge and thats why BMW although more costly sells more, but i am sure in yours and Bams brave new order, the market will be directed.
That said I have a 335i salon and along with the merc 190e cosworth (which I also own, lovingly stored in my garage) and along with surprisingly enough the original Pug 205gti (roller skates with engines) and the Focus 1.8 Zetec (both formerly owned) is one of the best handling cars on the road. Ive just had a weekend driving around Scotland, 750 miles and I am refreshed and at by desk early this Tuesday morning. Effortless.
Range Rovers, well what Can I say, things must be dull if the only thing worthy of a glance on Florida's road is a range rover. And what do they use them for down south? getting the over inflated family to the dinner for a another bowl of Grits?
Now I like 4X4S DONT get me wrong, living in the hills they are needed on icy April mornings, but if you are going to have one, get one that is true utility, a pick up, the Hilux is great but I went for the Nissan Navara Double Cab Aventura. 69k for a RR worth buying against 22k for something 4/5ths as good and more useful?
Maybe living in the smoke you sit for hours in traffic looking at the shape of cars too much, maybe if you had roads that you could drive, you would feel differently about the issue.
Now the Snake pass that's what I call a road.
Personally I've never in my whole life been excited about a road. they are all just boring bits of tarmac between the things I'm travelling to see. Car wise, agree totally with Bryan. Modern american cars suck. BMW's are ugly. Porsche Cayennes are ugly. Merc's are ugly. I just saw a new renault megane yesterday and I found that to look quite rakish. Audi has some quite pretty new ones, but they are audi's and thus driven by people called Troy who live in 'executive' apartments and own jet skis.
ReplyDeleteis that really paradoxical, Mr. A? everyone knows quality normally suffers with quantity.
ReplyDelete''Cars are everywhere and they ought to be beautiful.'' that's more like paradoxical. but I know nothing about cars, I'm not even sure I like them that much.
Will, to an untrained eye (mine), European cars all look the bloody same. they just come in different sizes.
ReplyDeleteI want an Alfa Romeo. I have a Vauxhall Astra. This makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteHi Bryan,
ReplyDeleteI always liked the Range Rover styling. The biggest problem is with reliability, so I probably wouldn't own one. Or if I did, I wouldn't expect to own it for very long.
GM is still tops in quality on this side of the pond, and that includes all the Japanese, Korean, European, snd the rest of the world's companies. This is a fact that people want to gloss over when it's so much more "cathartic" to put the company down. Of course, everyone knows somewhere in the backs of their minds, that if we can squeeze the retired auto workers out of their pensions and retirement benefits, cars will cost less. And when this happens, what shall we say to them, "Hey, life sucks sometimes, you old geezer, but how do you like my new car?"
Yours,
Rus
I got a sebring as a courtesy car and it was without doubt the worst car I have ever driven, it also looked like a cubist blancmange. A double serving of wrong.
ReplyDeleteCars are cars, all over the world...
ReplyDeleteI'm with Nige. Cars are machines for getting to a place. The only car I've ever had an aesthetic appreciation for was a brown Triumph Dolomite. It was kitsch.
ReplyDeletewill, you need to get in touch with your inner road.
ReplyDeleteSophie, get yourself a new man who will buy you one, any man that makes his wife suffer in a astra is a girl.
Rus, most cars of of such a minimum build quality that you rarely come across a dud, this is not the seventies. ANF one of the reasons the car industry is on its knees is they build cars with such reliability that people hold on to them for much longer.
Nige, states the bleedin obvious and Brit FFS!
Living by a small market town I find there are too many to notice. I have noticed one in the last couple of years - after commenting here that I couldn't find cars beautiful I saw one that was phenomenally beautiful, a vintage 50s American thing, red, silver and vast. Something from another world. As for all the rest, I might feel differently if the speed limit was reduced to 30 on all roads in and out of small market towns; you'd no longer hear them and it might encourage more interest in beauty. (No doubt because I'm an idiot I believe in electric cars and think they would also provide more scope for beautiful design.)
ReplyDeleteHi Sean,
ReplyDeleteThere is the phenomenon taking place of people holding onto their cars longer. However, records sales were set at different dealerships three to five years ago. These people were on cycles of trading their cars every three to five years.
When I call them up now to ask if they'll be in the market, they no longer respond with, "Oh, my car is about to be out of warranty, and I've been thinking about that new Malibu." What I hear is that the car only has 30,000 miles on it, and is running fine, "I love it and wouldn't trade it for the world." This is how people think in our frozen economy. I cannot blame them. I've had my car for going on eleven years and it gets me back and forth.
Yours,
Rus
Visually, the most important cars of the last fifty years have been the Jaguar E type, and Aston Martin DBS of the nineteen sixties, the original Renault Twingo, never produced in right hand drive, the Audi 80 of the nineteen seventies, and the A2 and R8.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Towns, an odd character dressed from head to foot in Rohan schmutter designed the DBS in the days when Astons broke down with greater frequency than did Lotus.
Car design today is more about working within engineering constraints and meeting NCAP and pedestrian impact regulations.
Some of the great designs are never produced, Fords Visos, introduced at the same Frankfurt show as the R8 never made it, the car was produced by IVM in Russelsheim, they have recently fallen victim to the end result of the bankers wrongdoings.
Not sure I agree with you about Munich's finest, they looked odd under Bangle but as someone who spent a half million miles in them in twelve years and ain't dead yet..
Fascinating subject, cars, or not.
The best car I ever owned was a 1967 Chevrolet Malibu that was stolen from me in 1980. Funny thing is that the last time I went to buy an American car, most of the parts were made in Canada and they were assembled in Mexico. So I bought a Volvo. At least I knew where it was made.
ReplyDeleteCrikey, Sean. You are so right - I do suffer in the Astra. It is the dullest car I have ever owned. My previous was a Mazda RX8 which made me suffer in a different way - the humiliation of a flooded engine (twice!) - but never dull. I'm afraid the combination of an empty wallet and middle age has taken its toll.
ReplyDeleteBMWs feel great from the inside - the suspension is heavenly. But they look, if not exactly ugly, somehow brutal and arrogant. As McCabe noted once, if it wasn't for BMWs, drug dealers would have to take public transport.
ReplyDeletei used to drive a battered 3rd hand Ford Escort. It looked shit, it drove shit, indeed it was shit, but it did the job. Most things in the 21st Century are shit and don't even work properly.
Since cars are so ubiquitous it would be nice if they were aesthetically pleasing but beauty comes awfully low on most people's list of desirable qualities.
The styling of my two year old BMW 530i is bland.
ReplyDeleteAnd it goes like stink. Amazing that a full size saloon can shred roads like it does.
I also have a 17 year old 325i, 205,000 miles on the clock. It is still reliable, solid, and goes like stink.
And a 12 year old Ford F-150. Still reliable, solid, and, well, it is a truck, for pete's sake.
Each of them, in their own way, are outstanding examples of design and engineering.
To say otherwise (of almost any car, excluding the Chrysler Sebring) is to admit pretty much complete ignorance about what goes into getting a car onto the road.
I seem to be incapable of noticing cars. Indeed, I live in fear that I might one day witness a bank-job getaway and annoy the police rather dangerously by
ReplyDeletewittering "black car I think, maybe dark blue, brown possibly?"
Surely, they're utilitarian contraptions at best - something like a hedge strimmer or a washing machine? The whole car = art object = freedom = sex thing -
where does that all come from? Imagine, if you will, a TV show where Clarkson and pals exchange laddish banter while test-driving the new Hotpoint Aquarius (or whatever): "Mmm, love the way it just shudders into the spin cycle there", "Yes, but what's with the colour-fast prewash, isn't that all a bit gay?"
Only car I ever had feelings for was the old Austin 7 my dad drove in the early 60s. Best feature: the mouses's nest in the glove compartment.
Sophie, friend reunited, find the guy whos done the best and your say hello, I am sure you will brush up well. :0)
ReplyDeleteelb, RACISM...ill scream it again for effect RACISM.
ReplyDeleteBlack Mans Wheels hey! I am ashamed of you, you will be happy in Italy.
Elberry, I have finally realized you are Kafka reincarnated. Truly, if he were living now, he would be Elberry.
ReplyDeleteSusan, that is extremely disturbing as just last night i awoke convinced i could hear mice scurrying about my room. The noise disappeared as i came to full consciousness but as i was trying to get back to sleep a fragment came to me which - while quite good - is so Kafkaesque i felt as if the man had slotted it into my head. If i were Kafka's reincarnation it wouldn't bother me so much, i mean it would be explicable; but i'm not so it does disturb me. We have quite a lot in common (office work, not being entirely human, neurotic, mad, etc.) but i insist on clear lines here, he is he and i am me and there's an end on it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, i can't see Kafka in a beat-up Ford Escort or experimenting with facial hair, or eating pie (as i do, regularly).
I'm like Honda Accord These are practical and beautiful cars
ReplyDelete