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[quote=Ferrer (from "This Forum is Dying" thread);993905]I'm sorry, but all this silly green malarkey has gotten up my nose. If I can afford it I want a big V8 with a big exhaust. I want people to choke on my exhaust gases and to get scared when they hear me coming, not go to work on a comunistical bycicle saving the planet because oh look at me how trendy and cool I am.
Mmmm I feel much better now, I needed to get it off my chest.[/quote]
It really grinds my goat when I see people complaining about environmental regulations or bragging about the damage they've done to the environment.
It's myopic, childish, and selfish to assume that governments and people are becoming more unfriendly to cars just because they don't want us, an insignificant group of the population, to have fun. Whether or not you think climate change is a thing, visit any populated area and see the horrible shit man gets up to when he's given carte blanche on a piece of land; it is quite obvious that humans can have an effect on their environment and very often a negative one. When I'm home, there's a freeway I often drive on from which I've seen the ocean maybe ten or twenty times through the haze. This is a freeway I took to school and back every day for four years plus trips to friends' houses on weekends. This shouldn't be.
Sure, it's annoying that the car seems to be the scapegoat for these types, a pariah in a world full of pollution, but just because they are wrong about the breakdown of pollution sources does not mean their underlying point is. It would be nice if that wasn't the case, but that's true for a lot of things.
While there are plenty of self-righteous assholes who give environmental consciousness a bad name, there are also the equally-annoying twats in Rams with stacks and a fetish for black smoke (Edit: or overly-aggressive drivers in sportscars who give us gearheads a bad name). Making an analogy to cars, we still like BMWs, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis etc... despite the fact that a significant plurality of their drivers are unpleasant. Focus on the song not the singer.
Perhaps, as I child of the '90s, I've been brainwashed by all the "green" pop culture that began to emerge back then, but I would like to think that I've reached these ideas of my own accord. I have never really gotten the wanton opulence and waste that so many seem to pursue. I'm not saying that people shouldn't waste, excesses are fun, I'm just saying that they should have to pay accordingly.
People talk about the imminent horsepower crash like it's the end of driving fun. You don't need a 3,000,000 bhpz 65 ton car to have fun and I actually think that the inevitable downsizing (of cars, not engines) will be a good thing. As Da Vinci said when paraphrasing my old sig, "simplicity is sophistication" and shouldn't be so universally disregarded as low-tech.
I've lost my train of thought, so I think I'm going to end this here, so discuss...
Besides, our vitriol should be direct at safety standards, anyway... :rolleyes: Or, at the very least in this particular instance, the cult of celebrity.
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HellCat,
Well said. +1, gold star, green mushroom, achievement earned.
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I don't like waste for the sake of waste. And I hate annoying twats in cars regardless of them being nice or bad.
But, I don't like being criminalised for enjoying my [I]petrolheadness[/I]. The problem is that for every imbecile in a straight six BMW there are many people who hate speed and V8s and petrol and everything we, car enthusiast like.
Also, downsizing is taking away many of the great affordable engines. These days to access a 6 cylinder engine you need to spend at least 50grand and go for a car with 300bhp or more. Four cylinders and turbos are the devil's work.
When you are in the minority of minority, well, you get this.
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Making regular commuter cars fuel efficient is fine by me (plus the majority of populations around the world drive little four-pot cars 40 miles back-and-forth daily; or whatever). It makes sense anyway. What my gripe is is that manufacturers are sacrificing the fun factor in most sportscars all for the sake of fuel efficiency. Electronics to limit carbon emissions, paddle-boxes to limit carbon emissions, KERS-hybrid-giant-box-thingy-that-stores-energy-andgivesawesome-MPG-stuff...
That's fine and all, but for Christ's sake could there be just a few manufacturers that still make a good ole mechanical sports car without all the electronic bells and whistles?
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[quote=LTSmash;993973]HellCat,
Well said. +1, gold star, green mushroom, achievement earned.[/quote]
Yes. Red mushroom too!
I would like to see a more comprehensive and intelligent path on the road to a more environmentally friendly world. I do not think that it is going to happen.
LT the bells and whistles comment is spot on too. Basics would be fun to have but I think we won't get them.
I'm very fatalistic about both the environment and the car market. We are likely going to reap a terrible toll on billions of humans due to pollution. I just feel there is little I can do to stop it, and that nothing effective is ultimately going to be done.
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The BMW 320i E46 had a normally aspirated straight six.
In the E90 you had to step up to the 325i to have a normally aspirated staight six.
In the current 3 Series range you can't have a normally aspirated engine at all, and you have to step up to the 335i to have a six.
And there's more.
The only current generalist saloons with 6 cylinder petrol engines are the Opel Insignia and the Skoda Superb.
10 years ago we had, aside from the Superb and the Vectra, there were 6 cylinder-engined version of the Ford Mondeo, the Citroën C5, the Hyundai Sonata, the MG ZS and ZT, the Mitsubishi Galant, the Peugeot 407, the Renault Laguna, the Rover 45 and 75 and the Volkswagen Passat.
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[quote=Ferrer;993978]I don't like waste for the sake of waste. And I hate annoying twats in cars regardless of them being nice or bad.
But, I don't like being criminalised for enjoying my [I]petrolheadness[/I]. The problem is that for every imbecile in a straight six BMW there are many people who hate speed and V8s and petrol and everything we, car enthusiast like.[/quote]
As always, you've managed to make my point better than me. I think cars are the unfortunate and undeserved losers in our current situation, but I'm still (passively) in favor of it.
[quote]Four cylinders and turbos are the devil's work.[/quote]
Preach.
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[quote=Ferrer;993985]The only current [B]generalist[/B] saloons with 6 cylinder petrol engines are the Opel Insignia and the Skoda Superb.[/quote]
I love this term. I don't even know if it is real English, but it sounds amazing. Catalan-English translation fail?
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[quote=Kitdy;994000]I love this term. I don't even know if it is real English, but it sounds amazing. Catalan-English translation fail?[/quote]
Possibly.
Who knows maybe it'll catch on! (if it isn't English)
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[quote=Ferrer;994006]Possibly.
Who knows maybe it'll catch on! (if it isn't English)[/quote]
This is a generalist statement.
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I first started getting into the non-smogged cars out in California. The loophole there is that any car made in 1973, I believe, or earlier is not subject to smog checks or standards. Made life a lot easier. Cheaper, too, because California's registration fees were about $60/yr for the average '60s vehicle, and $200+ for most of the cars people drive the most (that is, cars under 10 years of age or so).
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[quote=jcp123;994024]I first started getting into the non-smogged cars out in California. The loophole there is that any car made in 1973, I believe, or earlier is not subject to smog checks or standards. Made life a lot easier. Cheaper, too, because California's registration fees were about $60/yr for the average '60s vehicle, and $200+ for most of the cars people drive the most (that is, cars under 10 years of age or so).[/quote]
Here cars over 25 years old (that's 1988 this year) are exempt from road tax.
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[quote=Ferrer;994029]Here cars over 25 years old (that's 1988 this year) are exempt from road tax.[/quote]
Surprisingly lax...
...or maybe it's that Mediterranean easygoing attitude.
Probably.
Or something.
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One thing I've just realised is how stupidly overdone modern steering wheels are.
They've got way too many buttons.
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I don't hate the buttons. But I am no fan of those boy-racer wheels with squared bottoms. Give me a circle, please.