That was beautifully eloquant, yet utterly insulting to pretty much the entirety of gen Y. I loved it. A few of my favorite parts:
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Sports cars and supercars — yes, we are finally getting to cars — used to be real ass-kickers themselves, you know. Think of a Miura blowing down the autostrada at 170mph when the average Italian car couldn’t break a hundred. Or an early short-wheelbase 911 trying actively to kill its driver on the Stelvio Pass.
I had a weekend with a '79 Porsche 930 Turbo once. You felt every second you were driving that car, it was trying to murder you. In fact I believe it was the car that murdered Pelle Lindberg. Booze and a 930 turbo was a recipe for disaster. A little to heavy or light on the throttle in a corner, and you were facing the wrong direction. I was incredibly scary, but incredibly exhilarating at the same time. The car did 0-60 in about 5 seconds, but 3.5 seconds was turbo lag and the other 1.5 was the actual acceleration. Once the watermelon sized turbo spooled up, you thought you you going to achieve low earth orbit. THAT was a mans car. And you had to be a skilled driver to tame that beast at anything more than 50% throttle. It was what a sports car was meant to be.
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It is the appearance of masculinity serving in the stead of its actuality, an unemployed gym rat living with his parents and riding a Hayabusa covered with tribal graphics to the 7-Eleven on Saturday nights.
This was the exact reason I ditched my Hayabusa. Every single guy that owns one, is the guy above. Biggest bunch of flaky, loser roid heads that would rather stand around at a gas station talking about riding, than actually, you know.....riding. "Hey man you should turbo that thing, and put a 300 rear tire on it. Then plasti-chrome the entire thing, so not only will you not be able to corner with your tractor tire, you will be completely invisible on the highway. Hey, wheres your affliction ink man?" Biggest bunch of idiot, loser riders ever. And the "wanna-own-a-busa" guys ALWAYS try and corner you and talk bikes with you everywhere. Even had them follow me until I stopped to talk "If I could afford a bike." talk. Best decision ever getting rid of that thing.
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Which leads me to the new Lamborghini SUV. I think it’s called the Urus, which is some kind of contraction of “Ursus”, which means bear, and “Anus”, which means rectum.
Just added that part for the LOLs.
I get it. The days of super sketchy-ultra scary sports car has been neutered by technology, and consumer demand by crappy drivers that think driving a "paddle-shift" is driving a manual. They have never enjoyed the challenges of cable clutches, gated shifters, non ABS cars, RWD posi-traction, and sports cars without power steering and AC. Somehow, anyone under 30 somehow thinks, a Civic Si, or a Sunfire GT is ACTUALLY a performance automobile. It saddens me, that the young guys coming through our delaership never knew the joy of rebuilding their own carbeurators, doing their own brake jobs, or renting a bay at U-wrench to do an engine swap.
The raw mechanical connection to cars has truly been lost, and replaced by urethane bushings, sound dampening material, and electronic tuning. I wish you could buy a circa 70's Mini Cooper kit as a do-it-yourself automobile build kit, and it shows up in a giant box with a snap out tray like the old revel models did. Broken down to the tiniest pieces, even the engine had to be built-up. Unfortunatley crash test standards, sissy-ass drivers, and mini van owners that need heated cup holders have spoiled all the fun, for the true enthusiast.
fin
Last edited by pylon; 04-20-2012 at 10:09 PM.
The Following User Says Thank You to pylon For This Useful Post:
They have never enjoyed the challenges of cable clutches, non ABS cars, RWD posi-traction, and sports cars without power steering and AC.
He said while taking a break from yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
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Originally Posted by pylon
The raw mechanical connection to cars has truly been lost, and replaced by urethane bushings, sound dampening material, and electronic tuning.
Have you heard about the solution for the new 991?
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Originally Posted by sae.org
An acoustic channel picks up intake vibrations between the throttle valve and air filter and a membrane incorporated in the channel reinforces the vibrations and transmits them as an engine sound into the cabin.
That was beautifully eloquant, yet utterly insulting to pretty much the entirety of gen Y. I loved it.
Yeah, not bad huh? Jack Baruth puts out some great stuff...most of it equally hilarious and or scathing. Porsche has put the guy on their black list after a particularly bad review of the Panamera (which you can read into here if you wish http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...-the-panamera/)....even though the guy owns three of em and is the type of guy the company likes to think it talks to.
I'm probably much more the "modern man" in this article than I would like to admit (mechanically, I'm pretty inept...i come at cars more from the design side of things), but I can definitely relate and appreciate the sentiment behind it all. The cars I still lust after are the simple old beasts....and one day day I still hope to make my 911 dreams come true. As much as I like the 930, it's honestly probably too much car for me....plus let's face it, I'm much more of a weekend drive in the country type enthusiast as opposed to someone with actual skills who tracks. But at the end of the day, regardless of our skills, it's that sheer exhilaration we are all after. And that's harder and harder to come buy with today's rolling computer couches.
Have you heard about the solution for the new 991?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sae.org An acoustic channel picks up intake vibrations between the throttle valve and air filter and a membrane incorporated in the channel reinforces the vibrations and transmits them as an engine sound into the cabin.
I hear ya, but I think even the core cars are getting a little soft around the edges, and plump with weight, due to demands of the masses. The 3 series has gotten a little more concerned with ride and luxury every new generation and less so with handling, and a lot of the newer reviews seem to indicate this is true with the new one too. IMO in the case of BMW the 1-series is the new 3-series because it's still focus mostly on driving (personally, the 128i was one of the more fun cars Ive driven in the last 10 years).
Some manufacturers are waking up. The new S4 makes less horsepower than the last generation, but it blows the doors off of it because it is significantly lighter and the new torque vectoring electronic Quattro system is just nuts, and it is by far the best handling Audi besides the R8 that has been built.
GM has said they are no longer interested in a horsepower war (mostly because of emissions) and the Corvette team is looking to improve performance by weight savings.
It finally looks like "Oh crap, it's super heavy? Put a bigger engine in" is coming to an end. Power is fun, but heavy cars just aren't.
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It's now all about satiating the brand whores of the world. In the case of Porsche, instead of building a sub-Boxster which a lot of enthusiasts have been clamoring for, they are now going to be building a baby Cayenne. Instead of giving us a nice wagon, BMW gives us some bloated Crosstour wannabe. Audi won't even let you get a Quattro wagon with a manual, but pushes you into some lilly crossover.
It seems the model lameness is a North American problem. The Cayenne came out for North American buyers to eat up and save Porsche (I still hate this vehicle and everything it stands for) and in Europe, no problem getting an Avant Quattro with a manual, or even a manual and a diesel.
Yeah, not bad huh? Jack Baruth puts out some great stuff...most of it equally hilarious and or scathing. Porsche has put the guy on their black list after a particularly bad review of the Panamera (which you can read into here if you wish http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...-the-panamera/)....even though the guy owns three of em and is the type of guy the company likes to think it talks to.
I'm probably much more the "modern man" in this article than I would like to admit (mechanically, I'm pretty inept...i come at cars more from the design side of things), but I can definitely relate and appreciate the sentiment behind it all. The cars I still lust after are the simple old beasts....and one day day I still hope to make my 911 dreams come true. As much as I like the 930, it's honestly probably too much car for me....plus let's face it, I'm much more of a weekend drive in the country type enthusiast as opposed to someone with actual skills who tracks. But at the end of the day, regardless of our skills, it's that sheer exhilaration we are all after. And that's harder and harder to come buy with today's rolling computer couches.
hard to beat a Miata for driving, trying to decide whether to trade in my mazda for a second hand M3 right now.
AFC, that's my favorite BMW of all time as well. Sexy as hell, and photos don't ever seem to do it justice.
Same here, came close to buying one a couple of years back but I don't have a garage so really couldn't look after it properly, went for a Miata instead.
