🚀 go-pugleaf

Leif Erikson wrote:
> 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.
>

Do the research then flap your gums. Both the solstice and the sky are
based of GMs Kappa platform. This architecture has been around for some
time now in Europe in the form of the Opal speedster. As far as price
and quality go these models are too new to make that kind of
determination. But they don't have to go very far to keep up with
Mazda in these categories. Remember Mazda has not always kept up in the
quality and reliability ratings with other Jap imports such as Toyota
and Honda. Stupid people seem to have the misconception that if the car
is Japanese it must be superior. But only uninformed fools think like
this. Because when it comes to quality and reliability among the
Japanese auto imports Mazda pretty much brings up the tail end of the
dog.
>

> > 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.
>
Do you realize that only in the U.S. can auto makes like Mercedes and
BMW sell their car models at such exorbitant prices. Its not because
they are sooo much better it because fools are with retarded ideas
about auto quality are willing to pay through the nose for slightly
above average crap.

> 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.
>
What American cars are you looking at, fully opposable wipers have been
standard on U.S. built cars since the early nineties. I own several
American cars and just how do you think I clean the snow off of their
windshields every winter. In fact the last American car I owned that
didn't have opposable wipers was in 1985.

> 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.

Wrong, the foot but went out in the late 70s I once owned a 1978
Pontiac Grand Prix and even that had the high bean selector on the turn
signal.
>
> 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.
>
Again American cars may have lagged behind in the suspension department
at one time but that has be pretty much rectified since the late 70s
early 80s and radial tires have been common since the early 70s.

Btw, how fucking old are you anyway? Your knowledge of the American
auto industry seems to be stuck 1975.

> 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 difference in horsepower ratings between these two cars doesn't
impress me much. As for the torque 7ft/lb can almost be negligible. It
more a coefficient of the torque curve, without comparing the two
curves I cannot honestly tell how efficiently the torque is delivered
across the length of the curve. As they say Horsepower brings customers
into the showroom but torque delivery sells the car. As far as the gas
mileage goes, according to my research their almost dead even in fact
the Ford beats the BMW by 1 mile each way. Besides when you consider
the price difference and since the 5 series cost on average $20,000
more than the Ford it damn well better outperform the Ford. If it
didn't it would make owners of BMWs extremely stupid.
>
> 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.


I'm not going to argue the food issue with you, because I agree with
you the restaurants you mentioned serve little more than swell. But as
far as the American car market is concerned you are correct to a
degree. But what you are relaying happened 30 years ago during the
early to mid 70s. Back then the American car industry did have a
monopoly and once competition in the form of cheap Japanese econo-boxes
came along, they paid the price. But that was then and this is now and
you really need to move into the 21st century with the rest of us.
Besides back in the day when the American auto industry held their
monopoly over the car market the average European car was absolute
shit. Did you ever drive a 70s vintage BMW? I'd rather drive a
Volkswagen.
>
> 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.

I haven't really come across this but to be honest it's a big
country with diverse regional tastes and you will find fat people
everywhere you go, even on the coasts. In fact I hear they even have
fat people in Europe now.
>
> '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.

You do have something of a point, I'll give you that. But I still say
your knowledge of the American car scene sucks.