🚀 go-pugleaf

Ragnarsghost@hotmail.com wrote:

> Nexus7 wrote:
> 
>>Leif Erikson wrote:
>>
>>>In these horrific excess emporiums in America,
>>>particularly the Fridays/Applebees/Chilis/Max-and-Ermas
>>>chains, no one cares about the food.  It's all an MBA
>>>project, intended to make money.  If the MBAs running
>>>the places thought they could make more money selling
>>>engine valves to GM or collection services to banks,
>>>they'd be doing that.  They don't *care* about food.
>>
>>And you've inadvertently hit upon the problem with the US auto industry
>>too. It is an MBA/actuary/anyone-but-engineer project designed to sell
>>quantity over quality. Whether in pounds or units sold.  A look at the
>>current lard-butt Mustang or Corvette compared to a Miata illustrates
>>the difference in perception of what a sports car should be,
> 
> 
> Then explain the Pontiac solstice and the Saturn sky.

Don't know anything about them, but I'm willing to bet 
money they're not even half the car as their import 
competitors, for a comparable price.


> Don't say the
> American car industry has no perception on what a sports car should be.

In general, the American car industry has a very bad 
perception of what *any* car should be.


> The problem is, niche filling two seat roadsters have limited sales
> potential and it has nothing to do with appeal and everything to do
> with practicality. Almost everyone loves the small sports car, fat
> Americans and thin Europeans alike. But as an everyday driver they come
> up short and they just don't fit in with most peoples needs.
> Also comparing a high performance car like the vet to a miata is hardly
> fair. Each vehicle caters to a different type of driver. The miata
> delivers decant handling capabilities coupled with rather lackluster
> performance while the vet delivers on all accounts.

Why can't the 'murkans build anything like the Miata at 
all?  Why don't the 'murkans have anything remotely 
comparable to BMW or Mercedes?  Don't give me any 
crapola about "niche" - I see more Mercedes S500s and 
BMW 7-series cars on L.A. freeways than I see of all 
Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler sedans combined.

No one - I mean, no one who isn't stuck driving a 
donkey cart - aspires to own any American car.  For 
anyone with any taste and panache, American cars are 
what you make do with if you can't afford European or 
Japanese.

The 'murkan manufacturers just haven't figured out, in 
over 40 years, that people with any discernment don't 
like 'murkan cars.  They *still*, after all this time, 
have the attitude that they'll tell us what we want, 
and what we need.  I used to have committed to memory a 
list of about 15 items that the 'murkans get utterly 
wrong while all the Europeans and Japanese get 
completely right.  Only a couple come easily to mind 
now, but they're emblematic.  Look at the windshield 
wipers on 'murkan and imported cars.  On *all* imported 
cars that I've ever seen, the wipers stand up 
completely perpendicular to the windshield, and stay 
there, so you can let go of the FUCKING things when you 
clean the windshield.  On *every* American car I've 
seen, for decades now, the FUCKING things lift off the 
windshield a couple of inches; you have to hold the 
thing up with one hand while working the squeege with 
the other.  THIS IS BAD.  Imports 1, 'murkans 0.

High beam switch.  It took for-FUCKING-ever for the 
'murkans to begin to put the high-beam switch in the 
turn indicator, rather than the stupid little foot 
button.  I wouldn't be the least surprised to learn 
that the switch *still* is that same little annoying 
can't-find-it aluminum foot button on certain big 
lard-ass American cars like the Ford 500 and (do they 
still make it?) Crown Victoria, and whatever the 
comparable Chevy models are.  Imports 2, 'murkans 0.

Some things the 'murkans eventually copied from the 
foreigners, but it took them too damned long: 
McPherson strut suspension, radial tires, etc.  Imports 
3, 'murkans 0.

And then there's that performance "thing".  Somehow, 
the Germans manage to get more performance out of a 
3-litre engine than the 'murkans do out of 4 litres.  I 
just looked at the specs for a BMW 530 vs. a Ford 500. 
  Both have 3 litre engines, but the BMW gets 225hp to 
the Ford slug's 203; BMW gets 214 ft./lb. of torque to 
the Ford hay bale's 207.  And the BMW gets better gas 
mileage to boot!  Imports 4, 'murkans 0.

The problem is that the 'murkans for a long time had a 
nearly captive market of lard-ass 'murkan customers who 
don't know quality from their asses, which is why they 
eat at Bob Evans and Denny's and Applebees to begin 
with.  The 'murkans could get away with making bigger, 
mushier handling sleds, and the fat lard-ass 'murkan 
public lapped it up.

Back to the food angle of this:  it abso-fucking-lutely 
cracks me up that in red-state flyover territory, fat 
cardboard palate 'murkans actually are resentful of the 
fact that we more discerning people on the coasts like 
foreign foods.  I used to do some business travel to 
some red-state backwaters, and when it came time to 
pick a spot to go to lunch, the yokels in the local 
offices always had some snide comment to make about 
west coasters eating sushi, tofu, etc.  I don't think 
they even knew about Thai or Indian food being commonly 
available out here, and Chinese to them *only* meant 
bland Cantonese fare; if you said "Hunan" to them, they 
thought you wanted to know who Mr. Nan was.  And of 
course, where we always wound up eating was Applebee's 
or Max & Erma's or some other greasy shithole, and they 
had the 44-inch waists to go with it.

'Murkans - correction:  red-state flyover 'murkans - 
eat too much bad food and drive too-large bad cars 
because they have no discernment, and they never will. 
  To these benighted sweaty fundamentalist lowbrows, a 
lot of something of low quality is *always* preferable 
to a modest amount of something of high quality, and 
that isn't going to change.