>Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:36:13 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Audial@aol.com
>Subject: Re: [Fwd: more humor/wasted bandwith]
[snip]
>
>Except that one of the wonderful side effects of this is that America is the
>World Capital of sport-utility vehicles. Remember those? Those pickup
>trucks with leather interiors and wood on the dashboard. Those monsters that
>weigh 4500+ lbs and get <15mpg. That everyone wants, that practically nobody
>needs.
>
>The most recent issue of Automobile magazine, the "upscale" car rag in the
>U.S., has the editor extolling the virtues of SUV's thus:
>
>"The Republic is overpopulated with people trying to prevent other people
>from enjoying themselves...the same killjoys and pecksniffs who regularly
>bring us fake crises like unintended acceleration [!!!?] and Isuzu Trooper
>rollovers. We will not be joining their lemminglike conga line. We don't
>stand up before the Daytona 500 and sing about 'the land of the carefully
>monitored and the home of the fearful'. We want torque and recoil and acrid
>fumes and P.J. O'Rourke with some woman's underpants on his head." while
>describing his longing for his Borla-exhausted, Antera-wheeled (take them for
>a run in the woods, Davis!), Ford Expedition.
>
>It makes me want to vomit that the intended acceleration fiasco is now being
>used by the editors of Automobile to justify the existence of
>sport-utility-vehicles, but I guess I'll just have to swallow it.
I think they were just using unintended acceleration as an example of the
unjustified "scandals" whipped up by the pecksniff press. Score one for
Audi, IMO.
But consider the fact that some popular versions of the Audi may weigh in
at 3600 lbs and get only about 26 mpg. Yet a 4wd V6 Explorer can weigh
merely a few hundred lbs more (not even 4000!) and get 20-21 mpg. Is _that_
the reason Audi merits _its_ "leather interiors and wood on the dashboard"?
Surely that little difference doesn't suffice to make an Audi worthy of
praise (and a luxury interior) while the Ford SUV is a "monster" and it's
F-150 sibling is trimmed with evident excess? ;-)
I'm sure many Honda Civic or Chevy Metro owners see our Audis as being
gross (and intimidating), gas-guzzling pigs.
Just what is a "pecksniff", anyway?
Phil
'89 100
'91 200q
'96 Explorer xlt (20 mpg with just a light tailwind)
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