Fast Cars

For a long time, I have been searching for a soul in Japanese car industry. After long reflections on why I cannot find a Japanese car that captures my interest, I have realised that the Japanese car industry makes one very particular mistake - They make everything. It is very difficult to put a unique character on a brand and design, if you want to do everything at the same time. European car manufacturers generally represents a certain character, a certain identity of users. BMW stands for high performance and quality engineering. Volvo stands for safety. Jaguar represents an English heritage etc. What does Toyota represent? Well, in all fairness they have come to represent predictable quality and reliability, but this signals better than average, rather than excellence. However, could it be that Japanese car manufacturers will find their unique soul in environmentally friendly car technology. This is something that modern car buyers are becoming gradually more aware of and a Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc. are building up a really unique identity around environmentally friendly cars.

Have to return to the academy on Monday for a defensive driving class. This means that I’ll probably be transporting bandits on occasion soon. That’s the only reason that they make you take that class is if they plan on asking you to be a taxi driver for naughty people. Anyway, the cool thing is that after I get this certificate for this class, my car insurance company will give me a twenty percent discount. I think that they assume that taking such a class will make you a safer driver. Heh.

The Tokyo Motor Show opened this week, with a heavy emphasis on hybrids and hydrogen. Among the many reveals was the flagship Lexus LF-Sh luxury hybrid, combining a V8 with the hybrid drive. And Volkswagen presented its EcoRacer (pictured at right) —a mid-engine diesel sports car with fuel consumption as low as 3.4 liters/100km (69 mpg US) and a maximum speed of 230 km/h (143 mph).

This drag racing submission, which is not so unlike one of my own first attempts at short story writing, is clearly the work of someone who has a voice but not a whole lot to say… yet. Don’t get me wrong, I love stories about cars and street racing (I own a Mustang with a cold-air induction system that I installed myself), and I love stories about those forbidden, unpredictable, dangerous places that young people go to raise hell. Somehow, though, this story is lacking in a real resolution. The odd things that happen to the drivers on the track are interesting, and the pace of the story is excellent, but there’s no explanation or revalation or even resolution. It was like reading the first section of a longer story. The narrative voice in this piece is very strong, and once Mr. Green finally settles on a plot and/or a set of characters that not only mean something to him but actually describe something significant and entertaining, I have no doubt that he will be a very proficient writer.

Ok, Here I go… Had a Ford 500 in Boston, the Colbot was too small so I upgraded. This car blows. When I hit 100 I was scared for my life the car was an out of control POS. For some reason I thought a car like this would handle a little better, and I thought it would be like the 3ooc but its nothing like it. I am in vegas now, got a Navigator from Hertz, feel like I might try and give it a push

Which one has the better campaign? Think about it this way: Allstate takes itself seriously; Geico takes nothing seriously. Which one would you want the next time you’re in a car accident?

SUV’s are not only Stupid Urban Vehicles, they are also DOP’s (Deadly tO Pedestrians), according to a report in the British Medical Journal. Forbes has a piece on this story, excerpted below:

This new GT racing car, which is based on the latest Aston Martin production sports car, DB9, is being prepared by Aston Martin Racing’s partners, Prodrive, based at Banbury, UK. Prodrive is responsible for the design, development and management of the DBR9 racing programme.

Thats it. I’m off to get drunk and race cars (on my computer. I’m not stupid enough to drink and then get behind the wheel in a real car).

The season has once again been primarily about Jeff Ward. Despite a slow start to the season by the time everyone headed to the final round it was Ward that held a commanding 31 point lead. Back in June, when the season first got started at Road America, Wardy was still trying to race cars. The distraction of going cage racing meant he wasn’t training and that showed with a pair of fourth place finishes. He followed those up with an equally uncharacteristic 6/4 showing at Shawano. It was at Copper Mountain here in Colorado that the Team Troy Lee Designs rider really hit his stride winning all four of the races held during the Suzuki Cycle Fest weekend. That quad set of victories propelled him into the points lead in the championship and he backed that up with a second and another victory at the Nashville round. When the riders showed up in Reno for the Red Bull Superrmoto A-Go-Go all the money was on Ward to sew up his second Supermoto championship. I even predicted as much in my race preview last Friday.

The V8 also has “Displacement on Demand” Technology. Simply put you run on like 4 or less cylinders if I recall, until you punch it and the other cylinders get fuel. Sounds like a nightmare. Mind you, It could be “good” on gas. But still, that seems a little intrusive in the driving experience.

Yamaha R1 vs. Porsche Carrera4 on the racetrack.

On the way back from the wonderful Converge South journalism/blogger conference in the very bloggy City of Greensboro, I decided to stop of at JR’s in Alamance County just to make sure they were OK after that devastating 25-cent hike in the tobacco tax. Rest assured, thing are humming along. The shelves are lined with plenty of cheap knick-knacks from electric blue dolphin lava lamps to the classic ceramic “freckle faced country boy” figurine. Dorals are on special for $18.79 a carton and you can still get any NASCAR jacket you ever wanted.

In the Basilica di San Antonio, I saw the strangest relics: St. Anthony’s tongue mounted on a gilded stand, his larynx in another, and the usual moth-eaten saintly-robe-and-slippers display. The university’s botanical garden - the oldest in the world, founded in 1545 - housed “Goethe’s Palm”, the palm that inspired the German writer’s ideas for his Metamorphosis. I spent the weekend back in Monza, along with thousands of race car fans there to see Italy’s Formula One race. Marco saw me off to the train station for the last time to meet George in Munich.

Cadillac is now offering KVH’s TracVision satellite system as a dealer-installed option on its Escalade sport utility vehicle, an industry first. GM is considering prewiring its SUVs for satellite TV starting with 2007 models, Watson said.

I have always seen myself as being somewhat materialistic in the sense that I always spend money on crap that I don’t need, ya know, like the iPod, the Canon digital camera, the PS2, and on and on. It’s entertainment but it’s not like I need it to survive (maybe the iPod). Inevitably, there are people out there that are 10 times worse than me. Porterville, a city of about 50,000 has what seems to be the highest number of luxury cars per capita in the area. Not to mention all the teenagers with their “fixed up” rides rolling on 24’s with airbags (not those kind), and even suicide doors. I forgot to mention the audio system, as well as the DVD player with TV screens mounted on the back of headrests. It’s freaking crazy how much people spend on their cars. It’s funny how this all works out. It’s like a race to see who has the most toys. It’s not unusual to see cars pass by with the DVD monitors on, but nothing playing, just to show off the goods.

After our children were grown, my husband and I moved to the Sacramento area. One summer day we were stopped at a light in the little red Miata of his midlife crisis. The top was down, he was holding and latte, and my blond hair was streaming. A bunch of teenagers in an SUV stopped next to us and one of them called out, "Look! It's Barbie and Ken!" I shrieked in disbelief: me, of all people! Talk about self-satire.

Forget other manufacturers owning sports car companies, Porsche, the richest car company, is doing the opposite!

*Jeff was driving home from work one day. He was stopped at a read light, sitting in the left hand turn lane waiting for the green light to illuminate his path to freedom. Some guy in a BMW (why is it always the fucks in the pseudo luxury cars? Buy a Mybach and maybe then you’ll impress somebody you fuck.) was flying down the road going a minimum of twenty miles over the limit. Jeff looked up and noticed that his light had finally turned green and he accelerated, ready to zip through the intersection. It’s was at this point that Mr. BMW decided that he was not going to go straight, through this intersection like he had planned. He was now going to cut Jeff off and zoom past him to ensure that he made it through this light and didn’t have to sit through another one. So Mr. BMW did it, he flew into the intersection and cut Jeff off while coming alarmingly close to side-swiping him in the process. Jeff was already rolling into the intersection and accelerating to make it through, so he had to pull the E break in order to avoid crashing into Mr. BMW. Jeff’s quick thinking and cat-like reflexes saved him from trashing his car. After taking a second to collect his thoughts Jeff looked in his rear view mirror and noticed that there was no one behind him in the left turn lane. He then realized that if Mr. BMW would have just slowed down; he could have gotten in line behind Jeff and made it through the intersection just fine.