A 17MPG Lincoln – Well, There’s Your Problem
In the summer of 1976, back when we had some money, I went out one morning and bought a new Corvette Stingray. It was bright red with white leather interior. I tell you this only to let you know that I am not immune to the “need for speed”. After a year, a couple of speeding tickets and the horror of the first year’s insurance premium, I sold the ‘Vette. I decided that what I needed was a way to get from Point A to Point B with the minimum of fuss and expense. I bought a new Chevette, a horror of an automobile if there ever was one.
The key word in the paragraph above, for today’s rant, is need. I do truly believe that we are shortly going to be living in a world based much more on need than want. This will be a radical departure for those who have enjoyed the good fortune for generations of living in the rich, industrialised, privileged nations, such as . . . er . . . excuse me, the U S of A.
For instance, who needs this:
I’m not picking on Lincoln in particular. My fight is with Detroit (Okay, okay, US auto makers and all the hangers-on who prosper by the continuing excesses of the industry). Click on the ad and look at the bottom. After bragging shamelessly about employing relatively ancient technology (it’s been around for a while) to achieve “Cleaner, Faster, Smarter”, they continue the gloating by announcing that this automobile gets 17 MPG! Is that supposed to impress me? It does, but not the way they want it to.
Note my emphasis on the word faster in the paragraph above. How fast do we need to go anyway? Passenger cars with engines producing in excess of 300 HP have no place in the rational world today. Who buys these cars and why?
If you’re still with me, it probably means that you don’t own one of these battleships.
By the way, what happened to styling? You used to be able to identify an automobile a block away. Now they all look the same. Oh, sure, there are “styling” differences, but this does not fool me. Cars look pretty much the same today because they are all up against the same physics of streamlining. There is only so much you can do with the shape of an automobile to make it distinctive. If you veer far from the theoretical ideal to achieve a particular look, you’ll loose points for fuel efficiency. Therefore, the more aerodynamically efficient cars become, the more they will look the same.
End of rant. I need to pet my dog now and simmer down:
Isn’t Sheba adorable? She’s nearly three years old now. Sheba’s easily the smartest dog that we’ve had. We’ve put a lot of effort into training her and it has paid off nicely. Usually it only takes a facial expression or a gesture of the hand to let her know what I want her to do. If she can’t see me, she responds very quickly to voice commands. She does occasionally get carried away. In that case, the whistle comes out. She knows that she can’t ignore that without being called a “bad dog”. She really hates that. I’m convinced that mongrels make the best pets. That’s probably because I am such a mongrel myself.
I have a couple of more images for you today.
On the way back from Blueblood on Sunday we were cruising in Mike Cassell’s boat, Felmara. Our friend Dr. Pascal Michon was doing a little fishing. He needed to blow off a bit of steam, as he had, only a little while earlier, lost his glasses when he dived off of the boat while wearing them:
Here’s an amusing image of a Shimano reel in the late afternoon sun:
Pascal caught a three kilo Spanish Mackerel, little consolation for loosing his glasses. We’re going to do a dive there to see if we can find them. I did manage to find Amanda Watson’s prescription sunglasses for her when she did the same thing. It’s all up to luck.
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Tags: fuel efficiency, inefficient cars, lincoln mks
Hey Jan! As I said on FaceBook, my teen years, and some beyond, were filled with cars that went way too fast and used way too much fuel. (In addition to the GTO, I also owned a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T — body style of the “Dukes of Hazard” fame.) My last gasp — and it relates to your point about wanting something versus “needing” it — was my leasing of a ‘92 Vette, after some years of driving saner, but still, performance-oriented cars. It was a totally crazy thing to do at the time, financially, but I just felt I *had* to have it. It felt like a “need” but it was really a want. When the insurance bills hit, and the gas bills, and the maintenance, I was swamped, and had to let go of the car as soon as I could “break” the lease. It was a very, very expensive “last gasp” of immaturity on my part, but damn, I did love that car for its ride and performance.
In the years since the ‘92 I’ve become more and more “green,” and more and more aware of how destructive our addiction to oil and fossil fuels are. As I said on FB, my wife and are carless now – have been for 3 years now — and we are walkers and users of the great Bay Area Rapid Transits – BART. To me, a car like the one you pointed out getting 17 mpg at this point in time is sheer insanity, and self-indulgence. And yet even though we surely face “the end of oil” somewhere in the next 50-100 years, depending on which expert you listen to, today the companies are build performance cars that totally blow-away just about everything but the fastest cars of the late ‘60s and early 70’s. 300 hp is quite common for top-end performance sedans, and you can buy cars now with 400, 500, even 600 plus horsepower — like the new ZR1 Corvette. As someone who loves still can love thrill of brutal acceleration and near 1 g-force handling (and you must have enjoyed that as a pilot, right?) I find today’s performance cars amazing. But I also see them, and gas-guzzling Humvees and sport-utility behemoths (yeah, you have to have 300 plus hp and 4 wheel drive to drive to the mall in urban America, by gawd!) as a sign that millions of Americans still just don’t get it, just don’t see how self-indulgent and environmentally reckless these cars are. But the obvious gas guzzlers are easy targets — what’s really criminal is the role of American auto makers in all of this, and big gas companies, and their governmental lackies. Better stop here, though, I can feel rant about to erupt
PS — Oh-my-gosh– what a CUTE dog. I just wanted to SMOOSH Sheba the instant I saw her. We can’t have pets where we live, and my wife and I both big time animal lovers. We really miss having dogs and cats around. I’m so glad you and your have such a wonderful dear companion.
PPS — Any theology, or religion, that doesn’t include (to just name two creatures) dogs and cats in some final vision of heaven, or liberation or creative redemption, is morally and spiritually bankrupt, and I’ll have none of it.
Well, Steve, thanks for saying all of the things that I did not have the cojones to put out there. I might just start throwing up some pictures, making a few pointed remarks, and letting you write the rest in your comments. It would save me a lot of time. (You know, I have fooled around with the idea of starting a colaborative blog, something on the order of BoingBoing. It would need to have some sort of focus, however. I wouldn’t bother with it if it couldn’t get big enough to make some money. I can’t afford to spend any more time journalling unless I get some moolah for it. I refuse to put ads on Madang – Ples Bilong Mi, though I’ve had offers. It would feel like pimping my sister.)
My only “performance” car, hee heee, that I still own is a 1973 Triumph Spitfire 1500 that is better than it was the day it rolled out of the factory. It’s sitting in a garage in Indiana, all wrapped up and ready to roll. It’s got everything you can imagine on it, all HP stuff under the bonnet, and a CD changer in the boot. You can see a picutre of it at http://www.messersmith.name/wordpress/2008/04/19/buy-our-car-1973-triumph-spitfire-1500/ It is still the most “fun to drive” car that I’ve ever owned. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. My wife and I spent a bloody fortune rebuilding it by hand from the bare metal out. I runs like a scalded dog.
Speaking of dogs, you are right. Sheba is almost unbearably lovely. We know how lucky that we are to have her. She’s the first dog that I’ve had that has a reasonable chance of outliving me. There’s a kind of comfort in that. I’m absolutely certain that, if there is a heaven, there are things there that will be the emotional and spiritual equivalent of dogs and cats. A beautiful, well mannered but spirited horse to ride would also be nice.
Jan, sorry for the prolixity…it’s probably a sure sign I need to get that blog of my own, as you kindly suggested. I think that’s probably coming soon….I’ll try to reign it in on *your* journal…
Oh, man, that Spitfire is *sweet!* What a beautiful job you did. My very first car was a Triumph TR4-A, so I have a real fondness for these babies, and the Spitfire was, pardon the expression, just the balls!
My wife loved the shot of Sheba, too. What you said about cats and dogs and heaven rings true….essential being, minus limitations. Heaven.
M,
Article is spot on bro!
Like the Rolling Stones song…. “You can’t always get waht you waaaannt…”
Wanbel stap.
R
Harleys’, Corvettes’ and Triumphs’… can we be mates?
Thanks, Robert. I like the reference to The Stones. In fact, I like any reference to The Stones. If you get to Madang we’ll go for a ride on my Harley up the North Coast Road.
Steven, I have no desire to slow you down. I find your comments a valuable enhancement to my journal. What’s the point of doing it if it doesn’t provoke discourse? Comment away and damn the torpedes! If I’m not able to find time to reply in detail, don’t read anything into that. We are critically short staffed here and 50 hours a week is about my limit for working in Paradise. One has to have time to enjoy it also.
The Spit is one of my most treasured possessions. That’s mostly because of the love (and money) that we put into it. My wife refuses to sell it for less than $10,000 and I can’t argue the point; it was a joint project. I suppose it will sit in the garage until we die. Maybe somebody will come along and see the value of buying a totally restored Spit for a fraction of the cost of doing it himself starting with a rusty hulk that doesn’t even run.
Thanks, Jan, you are very gracious. Your site, and comments, bring out the best in me, I think, and so that’s why I respond so strongly. Plus, it’s just good to find someone with so many common interestes — and an attitude! Still, as I recall, there *is* something in my background about walking the Middle Way…hmmm, need to think about that…
Btw, I think your $10,000 is a terrific price for your car given the type, vintage, and all that you two have done to it. If it helps you, I hope it sells, though I’m sure a part of you would hate to see it go…..and if someone finds that after you’re both gone, it will be considered a amazing find and treasure, because it is now.
Also, couldn’t agree more about styling at G.M…..and it wasn’t that there were some brilliant designers….it was top management that was the reason for some of the ugliest cars ever created.
Now I can’t stop thinking Edsel, Edsel, Edsel . . . http://www.tvhistory.tv/1958%20Edsel%20Convert%20Green.JPG