tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27207760213860367142024-03-13T14:47:58.184-04:00States of MotionThe human story is speed.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-87640201647314515732023-04-02T09:11:00.002-04:002023-04-02T09:58:00.632-04:00Physiology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3nz-53qyrv01DMajI0WAi6JkEbj6hlwUdN29PATIQCvrr9z-NwiJwmbKSM2qJLpu2nyagMPISgIKjpuE5Y1amT_joRwn7Edcz9FNEMFDNpHjFPVQj1RKZA5Aowc0nieAa0hYPX50DmMqAqh3IT93pf_3F21StwN4pHsftr1rLkzVDwJp_wN4CIIdGA/s3070/Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3070" data-original-width="2258" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3nz-53qyrv01DMajI0WAi6JkEbj6hlwUdN29PATIQCvrr9z-NwiJwmbKSM2qJLpu2nyagMPISgIKjpuE5Y1amT_joRwn7Edcz9FNEMFDNpHjFPVQj1RKZA5Aowc0nieAa0hYPX50DmMqAqh3IT93pf_3F21StwN4pHsftr1rLkzVDwJp_wN4CIIdGA/w294-h400/Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour.jpg" width="294" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">You do not want to hear a <i>clunk</i> from your left front when tagging a small bump while going around a corner, especially if you've just poured mid-four figures into chassis maintenance and upgrades. So Momoko has been a guest at the dealer for the last week, first getting a new transmission mount and now waiting for turnaround on a warranty claim for a possibly defective front strut.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">And I've been driving a new CX-30 AWD Turbo with the Premium Plus package, the service loaner cheerfully provided while we sort this out (apparently pouring mid-four figures into chassis maintenance and upgrades earns you a bit of goodwill from the dealer), and I have not been enjoying myself.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">It's taken a few days to understand exactly why I have not been enjoying myself, though.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Dear reader: Before you dismiss this as another tired anti-crossover whingefest and go do your taxes or something, be advised that isn't one of those. Nor is it a cranky rant railing against a full battery of modern safety/convenience sensors and warnings, which could certainly be written and which makes driving this thing feel like you're sitting next to a neurotic shoulder-tapping droid (speed limit 55! something's next to you! here, let me turn the headlights on! something's in front of you! here, let me project how fast you're going so you can't miss it, and it's still speed limit 55!) but again, not now.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">I think I've figured out something that concerns myself specifically, but I wonder if it's a subliminal but still present concern for a fair number of people.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Historical background: I have a very, occasionally annoyingly sensitive inner ear. I was always the kid that got carsick in our big Buick station wagon. The enjoyment of an otherwise fantastic whale-watching trip off Cape Cod a few years back was mitigated by my distress when the boat started to pivot all over the place and my stomach did much the same. This may have been part of the issue with the motorcycle, especially with the way the rear tire wavered over pavement seams.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">And it did not, and does not, take long in the CX-30 for some sense of uneasiness and a mild headache to settle in place.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">I seriously wonder if being up that much higher than usual for me, and especially the way my head waves around when turning and going over rough pavement, is giving my sense of equilibrium a pretty meaningful and unappreciated workout.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">More history: When official family car duties shifted from the Buick to a first-generation Ford Taurus with its vastly better body control, my motion-sickness issues simply stopped. I've never owned anything taller or more upright than either my dear departed Mercedes W123 or maybe the Jetta, and neither of those were what anyone would call high-riding. I have been a passenger in any number of taller vehicles, though, and few if any have been memorably endearing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Much more recently, one of the thrilling upsides to the new suspension on the 3 - Racing Beat springs, about 20% firmer and a half-inch lower than stock, and Koni Special Active dampers - is the firmer ride motions and subsequent reduced roll. (Seriously, the package is an absolute home run. Better steering feel, much better turn-in, reduced impact harshness (!), it is exactly what I wanted and expected and I don't get to say that often enough in this life.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Go from that into the CX-30 and its fairly lumpy ride and the way that I'm getting wobbled around at a very unusual-for-me amplitude, and I think a good part of my dislike for crossovers is about a very innate sense of motion and how I simply do not correlate with their very design.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9DxQgc2cq8togBJJqA3x_POiJYNA19ioRtcKHOCSXBkqCzcFtRwLlBq6lxIih42WD4BdmJMbkwuHgLKq_yD-_HL2MkpLQTF1f_sk_KJCecm39adqVVqaZhSTfy1UTttoTB0vfouaQrYw7hWBOCTxUZo-yVVOhlS88l-ik_jBJ55Wimk62LkFvNg8zng/s699/1-1250426x7.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="699" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9DxQgc2cq8togBJJqA3x_POiJYNA19ioRtcKHOCSXBkqCzcFtRwLlBq6lxIih42WD4BdmJMbkwuHgLKq_yD-_HL2MkpLQTF1f_sk_KJCecm39adqVVqaZhSTfy1UTttoTB0vfouaQrYw7hWBOCTxUZo-yVVOhlS88l-ik_jBJ55Wimk62LkFvNg8zng/w400-h195/1-1250426x7.png" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=120357"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=120357</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Expand this a bit. Maybe it's me, but I don't think it's only me: does the popular preference for a higher seating position that drives so many crossover sales have a quiet downside in subtle but real occupant discomfort, at least for a fair part of the population?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">The nuances of tuning - powertrain, chassis, seats, all of it - and perception of same do not get a lot of attention or respect in a very spec-sheet-heavy culture like ours, despite their outsize effect on our actual appreciation for a vehicle. The plight of so many owners of really good cars is convincing their peers that it's all the intangibles of driving and using that make something so gratifying.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">It's a game of subtleties and understandings, and also a fair number of judgement calls and personal preferences. Not everyone is going to be fully in alignment with the feel of, oh, random example: a 1995 BMW M3. There's actually grounds for some to prefer the additional layer of isolation and padding and tranquility in something like a Volvo sedan, especially over long distances if that's someone's reality.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">But it sometimes takes time to fully perceive an issue or preference, and even more to understand why that exists if that can be done at all. And modern vehicle sales are specifically not designed to allow customers to get a really through sense of a vehicle, because a developed personal preference is usually the enemy of a quickly closed deal.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">And then back to crossovers. Not the numb handling, not the excess fuel consumption, not the projected image of rugged yet refined individualism as a reflection of manifold social anxieties, but simply the higher seating position that so many people say is the great benefit of the genre and its effect on one's sense of equilibrium.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">So: Given the overwhelming popularity of these creations, I wonder if a subtle epidemic of mild motion sickness is a small but real part of why we as a society are so grumpy and irritated lately.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">There are any number of other elements of daily life that combine popular surface appeal with quiet but real liabilities (looking at you next to me here, iPhone) but most of them aren't as physical. Fewer still are as hard to accept when you're trying to remind yourself that the cause of the problem is actually supposed to be an advantage.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">So as I wait for Momoko to be restored to full health and uneasily consider what's available as a future consideration that works for me, here's to hoping that properly low cars maintain a meaningful place in the market. We need more balanced and harmonious options out there.</span></div>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-90475437403535688062023-02-16T12:31:00.021-05:002023-02-16T21:10:25.575-05:00When the shadow goes away<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixR2NqVE44uTF_MSbcbkhWhw3kEiyBCh__CwABSTWR_oMkvkVI4ycPThjvC2uSGA6WSQKqxnBeQhAEOmO6qpD27zzTj-aC99TSmAe5oDfDrn8Hc8siGzaIKcxHf5d5q9q-iqeJqEN6Y7m7BayayoHBAHzffnJB73jIVWqJBLMYQZI5rtXD2oHTzJWJIA/s4032/EF125851-271D-4896-BD46-1232B6EEB1B2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixR2NqVE44uTF_MSbcbkhWhw3kEiyBCh__CwABSTWR_oMkvkVI4ycPThjvC2uSGA6WSQKqxnBeQhAEOmO6qpD27zzTj-aC99TSmAe5oDfDrn8Hc8siGzaIKcxHf5d5q9q-iqeJqEN6Y7m7BayayoHBAHzffnJB73jIVWqJBLMYQZI5rtXD2oHTzJWJIA/w640-h480/EF125851-271D-4896-BD46-1232B6EEB1B2.jpeg" width="640" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">So the last report from the AirTag that was tucked in the toolkit shows it - and, presumably, my bike - near the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel at a quarter after three in the morning of December 11th. I remain curious about whether the thieves found it and destroyed it at that point or if they managed to somehow shield it from detection by the iPhone phalanxes in Brooklyn or what exactly happened, as well as how they coped with the intensely loud and annoying alarmed disc lock on the front wheel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Both of these concerns, as well as the eventual fate of one 2022 Honda CB500FA, are academic now. At least this time around I got to ride it, dialing up almost five thousand miles over the course of about seven months of riding. But such is life in Manhattan; as one of the cops said, you just can't have nice things here.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There's a dark humor in seeing how the considerations that went into buying and keeping it while I did turned out to aid in its undoing: sure, let's get the inexpensive naked roadster that doesn't have a ton of easy-to-fence plastic (but which is built on a platform shared with a whole line of Honda middleweights at a time when spare parts are impossible to acquire) in a neighborhood full of rich-folks apartments and UN missions (all of whom are loathe to share footage from security cameras for various reasons) and where plenty of other motorcycles park (some beat, some weird, few which stay in one place for more than a day). I'll happily give lots of credit to my agent at Progressive's Suffolk office this time around for being as empathetic and supportive as he was efficient, which was a huge improvement over my experience from three years ago.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's different on a personal level this time around too, less of a shock and more of a sense of disgust and odd humiliation and a sort of fatalistic shrug. Fine, whatever. It's not the end of the world, I didn't get physically injured, and yeah, crime is and will always be a thing and this gets added to the statistics regarding the current wave of vehicle thefts, which has to be one of the less obvious effects wrought by the pandemic. (Not long before my bike got nicked, someone managed to jack a brand-new Wagoneer in the same posh neighborhood. That one's actually kinda impressive.) Such is history, such is life. It still hurts, though.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">-</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And yet...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I suppose the cops and the insurance company are on to other cases at this point, so I can finally say this without things getting extremely awkward: I wasn't going to keep it anyway.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And it's not even about that specific bike. This is about motorcycling in general, this decades-long unfulfilled fascination that was finally made real and turned out to be a bundle of concern and ill vibes and disappointment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When people talk about bikes and riding, everything seems to revolve around some grand sense of liberation and the intensity of the experience and the joy of being swept along. No one really talks about how it feels to actually ride the silly thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Important note: I would eventually discover that my first few weeks on the bike were done on seriously underinflated tires. The book said 36 psi front and 42 rear; off the showroom floor in late April they were both in the twenties. Objective handling was fine - it did about what I told it to do and was perfectly accurate - but it just felt incredibly eerie and unpleasant. (Thanks and much love again to Sam Smith for reminding me to check that regardless of my fondness for a usually good dealer.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't know the degree to which those first few weeks ruined the rest of the experience, but that uneasiness tended to persist in my thoughts as I was riding. I just never felt secure and stable, or at least secure and stable enough.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A lot of it was about cornering. The act of turning a motorcycle is a phenomenally complex physics problem involving steering inputs and lean angles and roll centers and multiple gyroscopic effects and the way the tire contact patches change as you bank over and God knows what else - and I felt every bit of it being processed and kept waiting to see if something wasn't going to work as it should. Successfully negotiating a good sweeping bend tended to give rise not to a sense of Oh, that was wonderful and gratifying but rather Whew, I sort of did that right and didn't end up in the trees or grinding along the median barrier or something. I eventually grew tired of the idea that riding was a (hopefully) continuing sequence of good-that-didn't-go-wrongs instead of something innately enjoyable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The regular physical discomfort got old, too. Even here in the Anthropocene - maybe more because of it? - weather and conditions here in the Northeast militate against a consistent sense of good times in open air. May morning temps would still be in the forties up through Westchester County, which resulted in some deep-ache wind chill. The flip was humid heat while paddling through yet another backup on the Deegan wearing a heavy leather jacket. As much as I was willing to masochistically endure it and put up a brave face, every once in a while something in the back of my mind would suggest that, y'know, right now you could be in a Volvo. With a heater. And a cupholder for coffee. And Bach on the stereo. Kinda nice and civilized, no?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">That sense of exposure obviously carried over to other parts of the experience. As much as I rationalized it and stayed as conscientious as possible and planed routes with risks in mind and internalized the specifics of the Hurt Report saying how I was not part of the blatant problem groups, I simply could not get past the sense that I was doing something that eventually would not end well. Departure in early mornings always included a longing look at the sleeping forms of Anna and Tom and thoughts of what might happen. A whisper of doom always accompanied me checking the fasteners of my jacket and taking my helmet off the shelf. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">By about October I was having serious misgivings about this whole thing. The proportion of enjoyable to not-enjoyable was getting desperately out of line; the very occasional blissful stretches of pavement framed by sun-dappled trees did not counterbalance everything else that was either immediately unpleasant or could get that way very quickly. The rear end would squirm over pavement seams. The tendency for people to change into my lane while I was next to them grew gratingly normal. I would have to debate the multiple stresses of lanesplitting versus the stifling tedium of waiting in a jam, and as the weather was changing the opportunity to get on the bike was gradually being reduced to switching parking places ahead of alternate-side days.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I finally cracked - really, something in my brain went "pop" - after seeing one too many death notices on Instagram. Great friend and wonderful human and the rest, accompanied by a photo of a fully geared-up person leaning on an adventure bike, they'd just gone down the road for a minute and it happened. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Enough. Enough with the cloud of dread, enough with the sense of playing into a scene from some awful maudlin Lifetime movie, enough with worrying about what would happen with Anna and Tom - and, news item by the way, our next one due in June - if something happened to me. Enough with beating myself up in the name of some vague ego complex and rapidly-deteriorating ambition.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The night after that conclusion, I slept better than I had in months.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">And then not too long after that it goes and gets stolen, and if that's not God and fate telling me to just get on with being irrevocably done with this whole line of reality then I don't know. It's over, now and forever.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Regrets? Only that it took so goddamn long for me to get to this realization. All those years of stopping in at dealers and poring over road tests and dropping semi-informed comments online and endlessly wishing, being a total wannabe without ever getting far enough into the reality of it, grind on me just a bit. Lots of circumstances involved in that wait, and I'll never second-guess doing this like I did, but just to have it work out this way is depressing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Would it have been different if I'd been able to start twenty-five years ago? Maybe. Would my mentality have a different alignment if I didn't have a family at home? Probably not by that much. Would a different bike (or properly inflated tires from the go) have produced a different result? I doubt it, although it might have taken longer. And none of this navel-gazing matters anyway; life is what it is and as it is.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's been surprisingly easy to cleanse most of the motorcycle content from my life, although I still have to figure out what to do with two near-new jackets and a helmet approaching its recognized end of life. I suppose the jackets can go on eBay; I've been resisting the urge to just throw the helmet in the East River as some sort of statement. But the ready ability to release this has been a pleasant surprise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">-</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">That does't mean that the greater situation is completely at peace, though.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The bike wasn't just about motorcycling in its specific sense; it was supposed to be a solution to personal desires and interests within the constraints of life where and how I live. This was my sports car replacement or analogue, the more vivacious and ebullient complement to the good-natured everyday functionality of the Mazda - and one that didn't require another parking space. The Honda and the Mazda were a near-ideal two-vehicle garage, sans garage.</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZIlX1LzWHq35HZtNGD4Ba3JUitG9RF89PlVxp19LYOUexwwYt1B_501IG24kC_CizbYFTUkGwjw1sYBtnbbnrfPufhmKurUQu1ttL3Q8HvnjLLlId1hrQq8pkPu4Ik8pnCe20gLp3a1D4JmJ8LzyIvndWQSqkDR56JUbVKJIeLzKaDfDFWA72yLLKw/s4032/IMG_1933.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1ZIlX1LzWHq35HZtNGD4Ba3JUitG9RF89PlVxp19LYOUexwwYt1B_501IG24kC_CizbYFTUkGwjw1sYBtnbbnrfPufhmKurUQu1ttL3Q8HvnjLLlId1hrQq8pkPu4Ik8pnCe20gLp3a1D4JmJ8LzyIvndWQSqkDR56JUbVKJIeLzKaDfDFWA72yLLKw/w640-h480/IMG_1933.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A brief togetherness.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Well, so much for that, and now there's a conceptual hole in that conceptual garage that I'm spending entirely too much time trying to parse and resolve.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Realize one thing, and I think this relates to a lot of the above: as much as personal transportation means a lot to me, it's not the most important part of my life. Anything that I do has to fit into the parameters that are defined by one very deep and long-lived and continuously wonderful relationship and its various derivatives (that would be the kids), and that most immediately involves our current address and its various built-in limits. I'll happily put up with the inability to easily fulfill my own selfish wants for the sake of our togetherness. I mean, I did just this for a long time when that situation wasn't a concern, so it's not a huge drag.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">That said, I do still want something fun to drive and enjoyable to own. That understanding has never been challenged, even as I get older and the car world goes in directions I do not necessarily appreciate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Yes, I could go find a different car, but there's two parts there: first, I have to find something else that works, and second, do I really want to be rid of something that works so ridiculously well?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">If I'm looking for a new set of wheels, there's a few essentially mandatory considerations: It has to hold four adults (read: two adults and two baby seats). It has to have some modicum of safety equipment, which means three-point belts and probably ABS. It has to get minimum something like 20 miles per gallon on the highway. And it has to conceivably survive living on the street in Gotham.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Past that, the usual subjective stuff. I want something that drives well, sure, but also has an aura of dignity and elegance to it. I'm trying to bring my life around to a bit more of a sense of bourgeois respectability, and this would naturally be a good part of that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">What works here? I've been batting around a few ideas. I keep coming back to BMW E24s - not the M6, with it voracious thirst and harshness and unusable excess, but just the standard 635CSi. I did spent a few days entertaining the idea of a Maserati Granturismo until I found out that insurance wouldn't be much fun. I still have an image from a year and a half ago of a black Mercedes E-Class Cabrio on the Cross County being driven by a very model-looking guy and carrying three very, <i>very</i> model-looking girls, so that's not a bad association. Always wanted a convertible anyway. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">But the hard part is replacing the Mazda. Momoko is just such a perfect fit for everything right now; good size inside and out, terrific fuel economy, doesn't attract much attention from the wrong people, and just an excellent all-rounder. It's extremely hard to justify going in on the expense and unknowns of getting new wheels into the current situation when the status quo is so agreeable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">So I'm more into trying to have some fun with what I've got. I'm pretty sure that after nine years and 130,000 miles the suspension bushings are shot - directional stability and turn-in are both kinda blah lately - so this seems like a fine time to indulge in some upgrades: Racing Beat springs and maybe exhaust, Koni Special Actives, 17-inch Enkei EV5s wearing Michelins, a better stereo amplifier and considerations on speakers, some attention to the scuffs in the paint. Not so much boy-racer as aspirations to a more upscale experience.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Is that going to be the Complete Solution? I don't know. But completeness is a weird idea now, and maybe it's more about being complete in the moment than grasping after some ideal that ultimately doesn't match this reality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I think I've done exactly that quite enough lately.</span></p>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-46021274033490235652022-11-13T16:14:00.003-05:002023-02-17T14:49:26.208-05:00The Agreement<p style="text-align: left;"><strike><i><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"></span></span></b></i></strike></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwZJpn06A9Fgamsd3_vUK4YuvOAMVBO9AzyYbDTvCkxjjUrMX53zPeUMqh7TTONG0TdAPYXkSOms0tBIP88p8k04eyLkq28X9uykKp1rZGQ-orZ_DHUefb9E6r9vkVgzsQizTdC7hEuiKOb27VfPbR3nyGQIicqtghCRtZ6Xep6S3S49cjrK0vnaoEQ/s1200/eau-rouge-and-raidilllon-corners-at-spa-francorchamps-planetf1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1200" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrwZJpn06A9Fgamsd3_vUK4YuvOAMVBO9AzyYbDTvCkxjjUrMX53zPeUMqh7TTONG0TdAPYXkSOms0tBIP88p8k04eyLkq28X9uykKp1rZGQ-orZ_DHUefb9E6r9vkVgzsQizTdC7hEuiKOb27VfPbR3nyGQIicqtghCRtZ6Xep6S3S49cjrK0vnaoEQ/w640-h410/eau-rouge-and-raidilllon-corners-at-spa-francorchamps-planetf1.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></span></div><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b style="font-style: italic;"> </b> The designs came in dreams; not as words, not as images, but as pure thought patterns. The latticework of abstract concept shifted and warped and folded and resolved into understandings, and those understandings were later made real. The true origin of those forms was never discovered by a multitude of observers, although a subliminal signature was always included in the design somewhere. That was part of the agreement.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Days during the design process were a ritual. Alistair awoke at six-thirty, did some basic exercises, washed his face and shaved. He dressed in a white button-down shirt and dark trousers, selected a pair of shoes and buckled on the overweight wristwatch that the sponsor provided to senior members of the team. He made his tea to precise measurements, toasted bread purchased from the same bakery he had favored for ten years, and read through the BBC News on his smartphone while spreading orange marmalade or raspberry jam on the toast. After quietly eating his toast and drinking his tea, he took a bottle of mineral water and sat at his computer. At exactly eight he picked up his stylus.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He closed his eyes.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>For hours his hand interpreted the concepts in his dreams. His body was motionless during his trance while the stylus traced along the tablet surface, translating those mental currents into pixels and code that were sent over an encrypted gigabit connection to engineers and technicians who ran machines in workshops which sculpted titanium and tailored carbon fiber into elegant shapes.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>When assembled, those pieces – airfoils, suspension joints, inlets sized according to certain rules, a precisely shaped and positioned engine bay and cockpit – formed a car. That car won races, won races as a function of destiny, won races as his designs had done for years.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>When the church bell in his small village outside Milton Keynes tolled noon he slipped out of the trance. Lunch was always a small sandwich and a simple salad, taken looking out a window over the fields; at one PM he resumed. The stylus was laid down again at five PM. He went for a walk, picked up some groceries if necessary, often stopped for dinner at the same pub he had favored for ten years. He returned home, listened to music – Mahler symphonies, Brahms chamber pieces, live recordings of the second Miles Davis quintet or Thelonious Monk – or read books on philosophy, then went to sleep.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The designs came in dreams: ethereal, transcendent, perfect.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He spoke on the phone with the engineers and technicians several times a week. He occasionally made the trip to the works in Milton Keynes to meet with team members in person and see the cars come together, abstract pieces slowly assembled in a space that was part operating room and part starship hangar. When the power unit specialists reported on developments that suggested chassis updates or the simulation specialists highlighted a particular quirk in their predictions, he nodded and asked for notes to be forwarded, mostly for show; he knew that these changes will be fully coordinated and developed without his input over the next few nights.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The engineers had enough respect for the results to not ask exactly how he worked. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>They never learned about the agreement.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair had started as a prodigy, a designer with an extraordinary ability to balance forces and translate human intention into car movement. He had interned with McLaren, worked in the Weissach wind tunnels, been engineer in charge of suspension tuning at Williams, sat as apprentice and assistant to the greats of that era.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The first and second cars he created as chief designer moved a midpack team into regular contention for podiums. The third, after he was acquired by a team somewhat further up the grid, came within two points of winning the constructor’s championship. The fourth had that accolade in hand by mid-September. His designs dominated.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>But after a few years he lost his feel for the balances. The aerodynamics got to be too intense, the tires became unpredictable under new rules and ever more radical power curves, the drivers always cried for something to be more precise one day and more gradual the next.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>His formerly genial demeanor became ragged as he pushed his genius to its limits. He became hypersensitive to flaw, once berating a helpless machinist when he witnessed a poorly-treated piece of aluminum crack on a milling machine. His college-sweetheart wife, already sick of the long hours and endless travel to one concrete monstrosity of a race facility after another, couldn’t abide his increasingly unpredictable moods; she filed for divorce and later took up with a wellness guru in Copenhagen.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Eventually even his towering talent and skill faltered and he faced the truth: he needed help. And he understood that the help he desired could only be arranged a certain way, and he knew that the price would be very high.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The address appeared to him in a dream. The next day he loaded it into his nav computer and aimed his tuned Porsche 911 toward southern Wales.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>It was near sunset when Alistair arrived at the ancient house. He rang the small bell by the door. He suddenly realized that he has no clue what to say.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The door was opened by an old man, vaguely familiar to Alistair although he couldn’t place him. The man looked at him and said, “Come back tomorrow morning,” and closed the door.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair spent a restless night at a local inn. The next morning he returned to the old man’s house and rang the bell. The old man opened the door, looked at him again, and said, simply, “Late August. The rest will follow," and again closed the door.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>That meant exactly one thing to Alistair.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>They did not meet at the crossroads, but rather in the garden of the Manoir de Lébioles hotel to the west of of Spa-Francorchamps, on the Monday morning after the Belgian Grand Prix. That was a condition of the Prince.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>His steps were soundless. He wore an impeccably fitted navy blue suit with a dark crimson tie. “Alistair,” he said, in a soft voice that sounded of millennia of such conversations in many languages.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair looked up into the Prince’s eyes. Scarlet glowed behind the irises. A breeze carried the scent of a particularly fine strain of ozone. “I suppose I was expecting something more sulfuric,” Alistair said as the lump in his throat subsided.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The Prince smiled. “Preconceptions are such awful things. I prefer to be a bit more current. Sulfur is so very steam era.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The negotiations were short and to the point, as both expected. In exchange for a life that to any observer would appear isolated and morose, and then the standard payment – an anguished, deprived soul – at that life’s end, Alistair would receive the ability to create magnificent, endlessly successful racing cars.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The Prince extended his hand. Alistair slowly reached to grip it. He felt the flow of plasma under the Prince’s perfectly dry skin. The frustration of the last season was drawn away, replaced by a serene clarity tinted with a slight darkness.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair saw the Prince off. As the flawless silver BMW 3.0CS drove away, he turned and walked back to his Porsche. The short run back to the team’s transporters somehow felt both promising and ominous.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The engineers in Milton Keynes didn’t usually grasp the depth of the designs or the interrelatedness of every part, but comprehension was not necessary; they only needed to heed the guidance and fit together everything in the physical world as perfectly as Alistair’s conceptual currents indicated.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>There were still variables outside even his control. Sometimes the powerplants – always just another component in Alistair’s mind – were excellent; occasionally they were peaky or soft; one season they were absolute monsters that tended to explode spectacularly every few races. The drivers, that rotating cast of prima donnas and eccentrics with reflexes bettered only by their egos, were often less than perfect. Race tactics sometimes gave away what should have been wins. But the series of designs that came from Alistair’s hand were beyond improvement; the cars were wonderfully wieldy, dynamically maximized precision instruments that took what would normally be compromises and turned them into collaborative forces.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Those designs could be approached, almost matched; the squad from Stuttgart in particular, with banks of supercomputers and divisions of well-schooled engineers working in motivated coordination, were worthy rivals for a few solid years. But eventually a minor misfiguring would find its way into the design and they would slide back, and the navy and crimson racers would reassert their singular dominance.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>When his cars scored one of their regular victories the yammering media hordes fell over themselves to praise the drivers, who responded with feigned modesty and an eye-rolling tendency to dedicate their triumphs to various people.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair politely tolerated this, but always knew that those victories were his. When the driver won, it was his win. His car, his work, had won. Any of the top ten drivers on the grid could have taken one of his designs to victory on a random weekend, finding success that would have required far more talent and luck in any other machine.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>His salary was boosted to titanic proportions, although he lived what that media consistently described as a monastic existence. He attended races partially as a job obligation but more simply to admire the result of those days at the tablet with his eyes closed.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He was a cordial but private presence around town and at the pub. On free weekends he would go for long bicycle rides in the countryside; it helped clear his thoughts.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>His cognitive mind was quite able to modulate and configure the nighttime floods of raw information. His sense of ethics quietly accepted the agreement and its implementation as a personal decision. His idea of self lived with the idea that he was a very capable conduit for something so otherworldly.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Most of the time, at least.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair awoke with a scream. The pulsating kaleidoscopic flow in his head dropped out. It was a little more than two years after the day with the Prince, two fantastically successful seasons later, early days working on the AF11, two forty-five in the morning.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He was gripping the sides of his mattress. The sheets were kicked to the floor. His eyes stared out into space. Eventually he composed himself, rolled out of bed, went to the kitchen. He reached to the back of the freezer for a bottle of Tanqueray, unscrewed the cap, knocked back a slug of the ice-cold fluid. He leaned back against the countertop.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>For lack of a better way to communicate at that moment, he started yelling at the ceiling. “ENOUGH! ENOUGH! I AM DONE WITH YOU, YOU MONSTER! I WILL RECLAIM MY INDEPENDENT SOUL! I AM MY OWN MASTER! I RENOUNCE!”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The next morning he sat and started scribbling, eyes open, Aphex Twin on in the background. He worked for two weeks, barely breaking for food or sleep. He reached back into himself to grasp at his old talents and tie them to the unholy inspirations of the past few years. The gigabit connection to Milton Keynes glowed with information.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> </span>The car was a disaster. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: 24px;">The suspension geometry fought against itself at certain loads; i</span><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">t was skittish in low-speed corners and trucklike when the wings and venturis started to work. When the front wheels were turned past a certain angle the radiators would be starved for air. Top-speed runs down straights would occasionally induce a resonance in the frame which encouraged the crank to blow out the bottom of the block. The drivers barely maintained their diplomatic façade in front of the media, and sensitive ears heard them howling about its hopeless drivability in the garages. The race engineers were between baffled and panicked. Communications from sponsors took on a sour tone.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>By Silverstone Alistair was waiting at the edge of a muddy British parking lot as the silver BMW arrived. The Prince walked over with a mild scowl, grumbling about the human ego and the dirt on his shoes and pants; he was used to both in these situations.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>They walked together for a while. “Remember,” the Prince said in his age-softened voice, “no one is doing this for you. You are the creator; what you produce is very much of your own. The nature of the agreement simply allows you access to everything outside of yourself, to all the truths and relationships present in the universe.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair nodded and let himself come to terms with this clarification.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Towards the end of the season the team picked up two wins.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The seasons became predictable: the design was set by the end of winter, the car was intimidatingly fast from the early practice sessions, the permitted updates kept it up front, other teams had to win on inspired racecraft or sheer luck when possible. Sometimes someone drew close, more often the navy blue and scarlet cars were unrivaled. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>A quiet November morning, tea steeping, bread in the toaster. Alistair is scrolling through the news; his thumb stops the screen at a death notice. A Pritzker-winning architect, famed for his audacious designs across Britain, had passed after a long but puzzlingly lonely life with his last few years spent in near-exile from society. A single photo from a conference decades ago accompanies the story.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The man standing between I.M. Pei and Philip Johnson in the photo is the old man from Wales.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>“Yes, I understand that the carbon weave is more difficult to execute this way. Yes, it is ABSOLUTELY necessary. There’s a modulus factor that results in a very particular degree of bending along a certain plane. No, it’s way too much to get into now; just get it down, maybe run the resin a bit thinner to prevent distortion.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Six years into the agreement, an irritated Alistair arranged for a meeting in Barcelona after the Gran Premio. The two discreetly walked along a side street. The slight smell of ozone prompted one or two café dwellers to instinctively check the clear sky for thunderclouds.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>“I have questions, as you might have guessed. We’re four races in and the Ferraris are completely dominating. I can tell that they’re on some kind of higher level. Are you double-dealing on me?”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The Prince smirked. “Alistair, my dear, why so accusatory? Surely you understand that I’m not the only force in this game.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair’s snap response caught in his teeth. A pause, and his eyes narrowed. “But that means…”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>A wave of a hand, a knowing chuckle. “They are Italian, after all. There’s some history of note there. But be patient; they are as human as you, and your kind just are not that good at handling the divine. Especially in groups that large. Give it a few weeks.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The prediction held. Faith started to be taken for granted, hubris and small mistakes began to build, and by Montreal the red cars started to end up in walls or the garage. Alistair’s dark blue machines were then again at the forefront.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>One evening in March; outside the sound of a motor cut abruptly, followed by a knock. Alistair put down his Hegel and answered the door. A young man, perhaps a bit older than twenty, Indian or Pakistani or Bangladeshi, dressed in an Alpinestars motorcycle suit and holding a helmet, stood before him. He was resolute, fearful, wordless.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair said, “Come back tomorrow," and closed the door.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The message for him was part of the dream.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The next morning at ten before eight the young man reappeared. By all indications he had tried to sleep under the bridge a quarter-mile away.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair said, “End of May. The rest will follow,” and again closed the door.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair felt for the young man, but he understood.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The young man mounted his Yamaha sportbike and rode home to Manchester. That night, after a last fight with his girlfriend over the phone, he opened his laptop and a third bottle of Fuller’s 1845 and made arrangements to be on the Isle of Man during the Tourist Trophy races.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He retired at age 68 as the formula was set to change substantially for the next year. He had done enough, more in a sense of completion than of fatigue, and was all too aware that the organic complexity of modern Formula One designs were already testing the capacity of even his phenomenal mind to translate the dark inspirations. The valedictories heralding twenty-some seasons of consistent competitiveness and success grew almost tiresome.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He continued to follow the sport from a remove. Eventually the navy blue and scarlet missiles that racked up cubic meters of trophies fell from the top of the order. Some said that the magic was gone; no one who said that understood how true it was.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He was content, if absolutely alone, in his idle years. The enormity of his bank balance barely registered on his everyday life, although he did acquire a small second home near Aix-en-Provence and, in a nod to his esteemed rivals, purchased a new Mercedes E-Class every few years; he also picked up a museum-quality example of the limited-production 911 he had revered as an adolescent.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>When not out on his bicycle in the countryside or casually experimenting with trying to cook some of the foods he had tasted around the world, he toyed with the idea of designing a street-legal sports car. He sat for the occasional interview, recalling fond trackside moments and gently explaining that the creative process was a mystery even to him and claiming that he had no favorite design among his work; he took everything as a sum, a sigma, a symphony in many movements. He admitted that the AF9 was perhaps the prettiest.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>An offer to write a book was respectfully declined.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>A motorsports writer in Shenzhen doing a technical analysis of the AF18 some years later puzzles over the curious arrangement of some lines, reads a report about the unusual weave of the carbon fiber in a wing. She feels a chill on her neck, but shakes her head and gets up to turn on her Nespresso machine. By the time she sits down with her coffee the pattern is no longer perceptible.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">-</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Eventually, years later, it is time. He is alone in his room in the hospital on the edge of Avignon, the windows open, the sun growing orange in the late afternoon. The bed is turned so he can look over the fields.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He smells a particularly fine strain of ozone and looks up at his guest.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>As always, the Prince is in his exquisite dark blue suit and scarlet tie. His face has not changed since that day in Belgium decades ago. He bows gently, as is his habit when final terms come due. It is time to harvest that lifetime of anguished isolation and regret.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>“You are a curious one,” he says in his same soft voice. “You’ve never betrayed the slightest bit of sadness or sorrow with being so completely alone. So it is; some can keep these things deep inside.” He looks at the sun as it eases down to the horizon. “I tend to prefer those, actually. They’re so much more thoroughly extended and developed, so much more powerful in their repressed pain.” He straightens his tie. “Anyway…”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He extends his hand. Alistair slowly reaches out his. They grasp each other. Alistair feels the plasma flow again.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The dignified little smile fades from the Prince’s face. He grips harder.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>There is no darkness to transfer. There is no anguish, no regret, nothing.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The scarlet behind the irises flickers brighter. “I am expecting my balance under our agreement.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>“I’m sorry,” said Alistair. “You never understood. All I ever wanted in this life was to create something perfect, something that would win; and I did, over and over.” A gentle, almost apologetic shrug. “Each of those cars, each of those victories, they were what gave me a sense of meaning; I never needed or, really, had room for anyone else. Being alone was a blessing of sorts. Take what I did and it was more than enough; I could never ask for more.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>“This was a beautiful life.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>The Prince lets the hand slip. His fury is at a simmer, but he is not beneath granting a slow nod of respect. “I told myself long ago that I would be more careful dealing with artists. I didn’t expect one in such a, shall we say, technical discipline.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>He turns and walks soundlessly from the room. A few minutes later the silver BMW pulls from the parking lot.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Alistair smiles, at peace. The last breath quietly flows from his lungs. His soul lifts free and dissipates, its energies dispersing among the cosmos, joining the latticework.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> He had won one last time.</span></span></p>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-12720743249333099852020-12-20T16:13:00.003-05:002020-12-22T13:08:13.288-05:00The Christmas list<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyvTo0iF9b-Kw-FKgR7Kw5enyGYMaB6q83C2oernQjOp00icSaCud_N7QePkUi0qsZ8k83750GXzIPg73NCYzgoPtPlnXqHDzn53vNsje2Zzi1Ua8bHNPoJvK0M0T8Q31X3-xwDh7mrwXM/s1280/santa-158092_1280.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="762" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyvTo0iF9b-Kw-FKgR7Kw5enyGYMaB6q83C2oernQjOp00icSaCud_N7QePkUi0qsZ8k83750GXzIPg73NCYzgoPtPlnXqHDzn53vNsje2Zzi1Ua8bHNPoJvK0M0T8Q31X3-xwDh7mrwXM/s600/santa-158092_1280.png" width="600" /></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />St. Nicholas of Myra</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1225 Navidad Lane</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Urho Kekkunen National Park, Savukoski</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Republic of Finland</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My dude,</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wow, I do <i>not</i> envy you your situation this year.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm pretty sure you get the BBC or Reuters online or something at home and have at least heard about what's been going on down here in many places, so I would imagine you haven't been too surprised by the tone and direction of the letters you've been receiving for this upcoming </span>Christmas. This has not been a good cycle of seasons for a great number of people in the world, and the next few months will continue to be pretty bleak even as glimmers of hope are present on the horizon. I cannot imagine how you are going to handle the requests ranging from debugged video games for distraught stay-at-home types to resurrection of family members that you've got in front of you right now, or keep track of who is offering what for someone else - that's got to do something messy when you cross-reference that with the naughty-and-nice list.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The mood in our household this season is one of tired gratitude; we are enormously fortunate that the now three of us (you did get that notification in the July update, right?) and our extended family remain healthy and stable. The state of the world does continue to weigh upon me, and the harshly circumscribed nature of everyday life wears at the soul. But again, we remain profoundly thankful for continuing good fortune in the face of epidemic disease and economic and social turmoil.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">So, continuing in the spirit of many of those letters you have received, it seems inappropriate to do something so excessive as ask for stuff this year. Instead I'd like to take my usual wishes and turn them around into requests on behalf of others, both broadly and specifically, through the New Year and beyond. (And really, the number-one item this year for me would be a good parking space or garage, but that has way more to do with managing the impossible situation in this neighborhood than anything. So don't worry about that.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Therefore, my Christmas list for this portentous year 2020:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- We need a workable formula and low-cost production system for solid-state lithium metal batteries. <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/vw-partnered-quantumscape-claims-legitimate-battery-breakthrough/" target="_blank">We're getting close</a>, but a little extra magical push towards popular effectiveness and availability would be a fantastic benefit for the industry and the world at large.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- Environmentally and politically benign sources for said element would also be useful while we're at it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- Let some extra quanta of inspiration and enlightenment strike product planning committees and accelerate their ideas and ambitions past the bovine-herd tendencies of consumer clinics, and let corporate heads see the wisdom of those ideas and ambitions as the industry moves into its new era. Stuff is going on that will require vision and daring beyond the kind of thought patterns that gave us the Toyota Highlander.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- Help this collision of galaxies that is Stellantis (oops, sorry, STELL/\NTIS) to produce real, honest Lancias and Citroëns and Chryslers and other cars with character and style and individuality, all of which the world really desperately needs. (And please make sure as much of it all as possible is available to us deprived Yankees.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7yu0tzl9JInYaVlkpRbbdOy9JiRGylHrEkUQJP0euzGzszsd-VJXlh-CuGvPL1b44hvuPV_WVibkxr4p_w7gUxD3ET11XynlBv5Q_kdW2_YoZupYqernzlBgbadNwbSDENfeS-7HmAZ6i/s1200/Citroen-C4-2021-everything-that-is-known-so-far.img.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7yu0tzl9JInYaVlkpRbbdOy9JiRGylHrEkUQJP0euzGzszsd-VJXlh-CuGvPL1b44hvuPV_WVibkxr4p_w7gUxD3ET11XynlBv5Q_kdW2_YoZupYqernzlBgbadNwbSDENfeS-7HmAZ6i/w640-h336/Citroen-C4-2021-everything-that-is-known-so-far.img.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In blue, s'il vous plait.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- Give Scuderia Ferrari and Team McLaren competitive cars next year. Yes, AMG-Mercedes deserves every bit of success that they've imperiously claimed and Hamilton is the kind of global figure F1 has long needed beyond his dominance of this absurd season, but the sport needs to actually be a sport again.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- Send one of your teams of special-forces elves to stealthily rework the Tesla assembly lines so that the Model 3s in particular stop being such compromised, slapped-together pastiches of their promise.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlZcUadYr86paYfPufNYRMfRj6ydA7w8HrEvYgmvtcFkPhtCC3ZjR9_V22ih-uGwX3VyRkHz69dlLk-fvnQwOnuqXzZkH7cshcq2aTSc56CwwVyTvQ1RAp9HHgTmyNgDkYueg756qhSMrY/s2880/model-3-presskit-hero.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1048" data-original-width="2880" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlZcUadYr86paYfPufNYRMfRj6ydA7w8HrEvYgmvtcFkPhtCC3ZjR9_V22ih-uGwX3VyRkHz69dlLk-fvnQwOnuqXzZkH7cshcq2aTSc56CwwVyTvQ1RAp9HHgTmyNgDkYueg756qhSMrY/w640-h232/model-3-presskit-hero.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Performance. Technology. Panel gaps.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- Have another group clean out whatever is in the water coolers and coffee pots at BMW. That's just getting out of hand.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- As <a href="https://www.imsa.com/news/2020/12/17/new-lmdh-cars-signal-bright-future-for-prototype-racing/" target="_blank">top-flight endurance racing shows signs of making a comeback</a>, let the teams all know that they can opt for livery patterns that include colors beyond white, black, and red.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">- And as many of us seek to give our social reality a lift on the far side of All This, open the ears and minds of those at the tortured extremes of the transportation debate. Let it be better known that "car culture" is not sociopathic cretins in oversized coal-rolling pickups; likewise, have others understand that coexistence with pedestrians and bicycles is not a threat to their identity.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I think that covers most of it for now, or at least that's about all or which I can not-too-unreasonably ask of a major mythical figure at the moment. Again, I know you've got a lot in front of you, so take all this as you can.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Hope all is well up there with the missus and the workshop crew, give the reindeer nose boops for me, will be trying to keep it together here.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">With good cheer as always,</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Patrick</div>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-66848941312464751522020-09-15T20:07:00.037-04:002020-09-15T21:35:26.975-04:00Liveblogging the Nissan Z Proto Reveal<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcHk41cjYpTorBwwUsvLNg27r5y_gAu9ORKLs8gGm3C9dcDj-8lF7AvP3xELw-LfuokXCyivDUFOID5SkrP7lOCLqw2WYog6ZiJc1ZohyVJLr0V1BDut9Rv-O7UxL5aren-uq0mH4OQJ7R/s2048/Screen+Shot+2020-09-15+at+8.26.35+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcHk41cjYpTorBwwUsvLNg27r5y_gAu9ORKLs8gGm3C9dcDj-8lF7AvP3xELw-LfuokXCyivDUFOID5SkrP7lOCLqw2WYog6ZiJc1ZohyVJLr0V1BDut9Rv-O7UxL5aren-uq0mH4OQJ7R/w640-h400/Screen+Shot+2020-09-15+at+8.26.35+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>8:05 - Good evening and welcome to what will hopefully be a candle of hope and joy in this Hieronymus-Bosch-on-mescaline painting of a year, although with Nissan these days who knows.<p></p><p>Tonight we get what is loudly and clearly NOT the next Z-car, but the concept/preproduction/teaser/trial balloon version of the model to follow in the next few years. The show starts at 8:30, so find a comfortable chair.</p><p>8:10 - The significance of doing this is not just about Nissan's next step with its oldest (in America, at least) and probably most culturally significant model designation. It's a read into Nissan's current state as it shows how they move forward past a car that has been on the market for eleven years, with a basic platform stretching back another seven before that.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjikZ5eK2z4FL33o5vlm9YIKjeZx4lwIqbjRbUGWa81gI1e_JIaTqZ4Up7e0PhcEifHzkIumKaiJr9gIcp20Lq1CPNPZhRhHNs52-DGSVvyasIlzgGAzT-pdmZBLalCIZacpIsHcz7LUNdM/s2511/2560px-2004_Nissan_350Z_3.5_Front.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1253" data-original-width="2511" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjikZ5eK2z4FL33o5vlm9YIKjeZx4lwIqbjRbUGWa81gI1e_JIaTqZ4Up7e0PhcEifHzkIumKaiJr9gIcp20Lq1CPNPZhRhHNs52-DGSVvyasIlzgGAzT-pdmZBLalCIZacpIsHcz7LUNdM/w640-h320/2560px-2004_Nissan_350Z_3.5_Front.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This car predates the Iraq invasion.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIimzlmFINUDeapGITQ-D_Swziosy37UxOekr_pMAlhOS9Xq6JXvNAHIOSPbPlxgqaq22dYH52q0dhV3T4hRmlil1XQzY6KpaXI55fS8AJMh5jVmpqxwOGzdX64LuvgztD4CvXpG-pdTrS/s2048/2560px-2020_Nissan_370Z_50th_Anniversary_Edition_front_NYIAS_2019.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="2048" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIimzlmFINUDeapGITQ-D_Swziosy37UxOekr_pMAlhOS9Xq6JXvNAHIOSPbPlxgqaq22dYH52q0dhV3T4hRmlil1XQzY6KpaXI55fS8AJMh5jVmpqxwOGzdX64LuvgztD4CvXpG-pdTrS/w640-h350/2560px-2020_Nissan_370Z_50th_Anniversary_Edition_front_NYIAS_2019.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This one was right in time for the Great Recession. (Both photos: Wikipedia)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:20 - What we have to work off of at this point is a few murky smears of film and some closeups of various retro-ish signifiers, plus a GIF that apparently shows someone operating a manual transmission.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqtFAi0gmWrS6K9P4eKLunXFD2tvAeR-ypIVNa2Az57-K6Vt-hpn086It8MbBLHjX5c1fXuepw7KdCXA_mKRZ_NcOZrvRVMtdtFFY9bQbHjAOUODXDutLZJdQUzdAD5AIWMuvFh_yIpIO/s1200/20200913084052_Nissan-400Z.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="1200" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqtFAi0gmWrS6K9P4eKLunXFD2tvAeR-ypIVNa2Az57-K6Vt-hpn086It8MbBLHjX5c1fXuepw7KdCXA_mKRZ_NcOZrvRVMtdtFFY9bQbHjAOUODXDutLZJdQUzdAD5AIWMuvFh_yIpIO/w640-h424/20200913084052_Nissan-400Z.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I am concerned. This shot gives me the creeping suspicion that this will be nothing more than another reskin of the current car. The beltline is about the same height in particular.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I suppose we should be excited/appreciative of the manual transmission that is strongly implied, but that depends on a few things - seven speeds? clutchless operation? something else equally irritating? We'll see.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:30 - Underway with a reminder that the Z name is 50 years old.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Manufacturers, feel free to never use the wub-wub music again.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:32 - Well, there it is.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:33 - uhm. That front intake.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:34 - Lots of Lexus LC in that greenhouse.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:37 - That interior shot is the best part of the car so far.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:38 - Great choice of inspirations - easily the two best models in Z history - but not sure how much of that got carried over.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:40 - oh GOD no not Adam Carolla.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">headdesk headdesk.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:41 - I am considering it a sort of journalistic duty to tolerate this idiot in hopes of hearing something meaningful, or at least knowing when he's done so we can see what comes after.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:43 - If you are introducing a new model, the time to do the historical highlight reel/slavish cult spotlight is BEFORE there reveal, not after.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:45 - Car and Driver is saying/confirming twin-turbo V6 and six-speed manual. Wish the rest of us had gotten that news instead of dealing with Carolla.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:47 - We desperately need to see this thing in other colors: white, red, silver.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:48 - He did not just say "katana sword." Please.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:50 - You cannot get a good sense of the body sculpting in this color. Sigh.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Same platform? Same roof peak, same high beltline.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:53 - It's starting to come together for me a bit more now. Better than the current car, better than the 350Z, if still a bit heavy and they really need to do something about that front opening.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:57 - Softball questions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Curious about the metal spars on the roof and how they'll mesh with the body colors. Wonder if the black roof will be standard.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8:59 - Starting to wonder about pricing. This is going to probably be a lot more expensive than the current car - maybe not GT-R territory, but probably past that psychological $50K barrier.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9:02 - Run the hemming and hawing of these folks and I think we're looking at something more Z32 than S30. Okay, makes sense in the modern world.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfznyc_r8f7Jj2O_TtFT8k0cTbhmmOrhO12QSWzaYI8Q5FnzsnIpJe2FN5QqNFGEO1ChtNPZnTZShPlxHhQTeDg00D5dGWldhC1weGhD0T9p-fTL4fpujtH8eC3naILmycgJ9s1Ejb6sbJ/s1526/1990_Nissan_300ZX.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="1526" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfznyc_r8f7Jj2O_TtFT8k0cTbhmmOrhO12QSWzaYI8Q5FnzsnIpJe2FN5QqNFGEO1ChtNPZnTZShPlxHhQTeDg00D5dGWldhC1weGhD0T9p-fTL4fpujtH8eC3naILmycgJ9s1Ejb6sbJ/w640-h254/1990_Nissan_300ZX.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">From the big W again.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If they get even close to what the Z32 was, that will be a massive step forward.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9:08 - Okay, shiny spars stay. Will there be any other brightwork to complement it?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9:10 - Okay, lots of lofty babbling about international influences. Scripted-sounding questions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Calling off, I guess. We're not going to get any other news from these guys.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9:12 - So here is the news in hand: <a href="https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/releases/new-nissan-z-proto-looks-to-the-future-inspired-by-its-past">https://usa.nissannews.com/en-US/releases/new-nissan-z-proto-looks-to-the-future-inspired-by-its-past</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's...okay, I guess? An improvement, at least visually. Will be interesting to see how much turns out to be really new.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhU1Gsc-DLq8_4K-bchQBn9V22vG20jg8PvJg-OWTRtwRxusAF2SXqJTFazAjziPV2XIcd0FPmi8Scx30YlnhGSpDi9dodbwfejTC11WpA6Ze4JT1Nt1UhhBN11YNHdlGoV88KrytaLOJd/s800/embed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhU1Gsc-DLq8_4K-bchQBn9V22vG20jg8PvJg-OWTRtwRxusAF2SXqJTFazAjziPV2XIcd0FPmi8Scx30YlnhGSpDi9dodbwfejTC11WpA6Ze4JT1Nt1UhhBN11YNHdlGoV88KrytaLOJd/w640-h320/embed.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Yeah, sorta. Photo: Nissan</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Still not happy with that boring rectangle smack in front, but this might work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9:19 - So what did they really say and what does this say about Nissan? Lots of leaning on a storied past. They can draw a good-looking, if slightly conservative, GT car. Nothing seems startlingly progressive or ambitious - the likely-recycled platform which is approaching age of consent is disappointing - but it's generally appealing on what was probably a minimal budget.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On some level I give credit to Nissan for even giving us a new Z car. I'm sure that the business case was not an easy sell in the modern environment and especially given Nissan's troubled situation.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Much left to learn. Let's see how it is as a car instead of just a styling study.</div>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-75902652106591343202020-04-25T22:53:00.001-04:002020-04-25T22:57:45.039-04:00Black flag<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>"Those of us who move will die. Those who don't are already dead." - Jean Behra</i></div>
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Two of the runn<span style="font-family: inherit;">ing <span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(135, 135, 135);">clichés</span> in this particular episode of history so far are that we have all forgotten what day of the week it is and we al</span>l now have all the time we supposedly haven't had before to do all those things that have always been put off or labeled as secondary priorities. Life for me defies both of these small-talk topics; I've spent the last month remotely managing department stuff and my two math classes, which are all still very locked into their particular schedules, and I've devoted a ridiculous amount of time to producing an increasingly intricate series of instructional videos on trig and statistics to the point where one of my students ratted me out to the dean for not grading tests from a few weeks ago. (Completely copped to it and am now getting caught up on that.) The semester ends in two weeks so at that point I'll apparently have more time to do all that stuff, along with getting settled into the new apartment here in Midtown East and trying to prepare for the baby, expected in mid-June.<br />
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Past school stuff and a running series of anxiety attacks (and it is one of the great cosmic jokes of this time that the symptoms of a decent anxiety attack closely echo the symptoms of The Thing, maybe minus the fever) I have had some time to think about all of this, although it's entirely too early to draw any conclusions about great societal shifts and so on. I'd like to think that more people will start to have some respect for the folks in what are too often called menial jobs who have kept life going through all of this; maybe we'll see some renewed understanding of the importance of adept government agencies and informed expertise in the midst of complex developing issues. That said, I have no idea what will change or how those things will change. Societies are unpredictable and fractious, and humans are strange creatures. Everyone thought at first that 9/11 was going to bring us back to some sort of noble core ideals about community and what it means to be an American, and instead we ended up with several years of Paris Hilton.<br />
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Que sera, sera. It's more important to focus on the now, on getting through, on managing the mild dissonance of knowing that this will eventually end and knowing that we have no idea when (or how) it will end. And, maybe, also managing the many other mild dissonances that are accompanying this moment.<br />
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I have started my car maybe four times since the last trip home from Bridgeport. It sat for so long that when I had it double-parked with the blinkers on during the move, the battery died. (Jumper cables, folks. Best $20 or so you'll spend for your car.) On a certain level I miss regular driving, in the engagement and gratification that speed and control provides; I also find it to be tremendously irrelevant right now. Looking through what classified listings are being posted recently feels almost inappropriate in light of the reality of near-random death outside. Discussion and debate about the future directions of the industry is now secondary to worrying about just who will be able to be there in that future.<br />
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That is clearly not the case for racing, though, as discussion and debate are now heading into some truly new territory. I'm wondering if the sudden popularity of esports and simulator racing is simply a result of us all being shut-ins right now, or if this is a sort of pull-the-curtain-back moment for the motorsports industry. Maybe all the pageantry and expense and excess of it all can be binned since we now see how racing can essentially be construed - and sold - as pure operator manipulation of an algorithm, which deep down it always has been anyway (if in a very non-virtual, non-digital environment). Given preexisting attention to environmental issues and questions about the relevance of race-car development to consumer products, I would not be surprised if a season of big names playing iRacing at home does serious damage to the systems of real-life professional-level competition.<br />
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Fast cars and fast driving are probably in for a beating in the next few months anyway, given not just the media exposure granted to amoral assholes in white Audis and blue Gemballas but increasingly direct and day-to-day questions about the purpose and usefulness and significance of cars and driving in general. That's not to say that driving is going away; once this is over we will have places to go again, and it's starting to become evident to everyone that autonomous rideshare services will not be covering 50% (or 0.05%) of total vehicle miles anytime soon. But I wonder if more people will more seriously question whether high-performance cars, especially ones with limits well outside the bounds of the normal driving environment and costs that may be increasingly difficult to justify, make a whole lot of sense in this world.<br />
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I suppose this is just another of those grand sociocultural what-comes-nexts that I said I would avoid. But if we supposedly have all this time to consider things, isn't this something worth considering? What roles does a car play in a person's life, and how are those roles best filled?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEmlVdgUa9K9t5glVpvaLAjepZYXe-MU0m6I4KbxJcyeMvAAcSxN9vf5URuCBLaenNoQbjASXbHyJwJRPntk4nzIgCcmS2HUrvkCCP-sTbg2HqlfwBpq_EoKyUImCJits6gadkwS7AT-9/s1600/5BED410B-2EC3-4480-B92E-F25EDB236C54.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAEmlVdgUa9K9t5glVpvaLAjepZYXe-MU0m6I4KbxJcyeMvAAcSxN9vf5URuCBLaenNoQbjASXbHyJwJRPntk4nzIgCcmS2HUrvkCCP-sTbg2HqlfwBpq_EoKyUImCJits6gadkwS7AT-9/s640/5BED410B-2EC3-4480-B92E-F25EDB236C54.heic" width="640" /></a></div>
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I dunno. Maybe it's the creeping dad-to-be thing. Maybe it's how part of me continues to be unhappy that I went with a perfectly normal modern hatchback instead of something more alluring and idealistic like an Alfa Spider or an MGB even as the 3's innate capability and practicality has been used to great effect over and over, and I'm trying to come to terms with that same idea of purpose and use. What really matters, what is merely desirable or enjoyable, and how does one answer those different priorities?<br />
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I'm not even sure I know anymore. Or maybe I actually do know and the truth is far more pedestrian and banal and uninspiring than I care to completely admit to myself, at least as far the current situation goes.<br />
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What really matters right now is surviving, managing the risks and the fear, doing what I can to make sure that Anna and the baby are both okay, keeping up with work with the hope and expectation that work will somehow keep going.<br />
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Driving will happen again. I'm still left wondering what it means, though.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-64606240243850372592019-08-12T16:51:00.004-04:002019-08-12T16:51:48.828-04:00Rapid Rental Review: 2019 Ford Mustang EcoBoost Premium Convertible<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6lkDxkzc15lvszMclve8IIugUxE5bRSmNi21aqhFc88Uz89tckRCq8lz3gSUZGi0E3yy3JV2F7IY6h08nZcfLzNnnxapweNVu3p1t4brQl4mgt4nKnKfQoD0RPi30I0l1zZ6pras7hyY/s1600/IMG_3101.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6lkDxkzc15lvszMclve8IIugUxE5bRSmNi21aqhFc88Uz89tckRCq8lz3gSUZGi0E3yy3JV2F7IY6h08nZcfLzNnnxapweNVu3p1t4brQl4mgt4nKnKfQoD0RPi30I0l1zZ6pras7hyY/s640/IMG_3101.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>The vehicle:</b> The most recent iteration of Ford's abiding mass-market grand touring car, part carrier of significant tradition and part attempt to cope with the modern world. Turbo 2.3-liter inline-4 maxing out at 310 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque, 10-speed automatic. More packages than a trust funder on Rodeo Drive: 201A brought the reconfigurable instrument display and a batch of creature comforts, Wheel & Stripe added a nice set of 19-inch alloys and some black decals that barely registered against the lovely Kona Blue paint, Safe & Smart installed contemporary automated safety nannies like lane keeping and automated emergency braking. MSRP worked out to be about $42,600 plus delivery, making this one of the more expensive cars I've driven lately (or ever, actually).<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The setting:</b> A late-March week in the City of Angels on a mission to get desperately needed sunlight and fish tacos after a dismal winter. Picked up from Sixt at LAX; airport-arrival pickup for a rental is more or less mandatory unless you already have a ride to escape the airport zone, and the rental companies all know this and charge accordingly. Lots of hitting up the obvious places plus a few pleasant surprises: downtown, Mulholland, Malibu, Griffith Park, Beverly Hills, <a href="https://www.petersen.org/" target="_blank">the Petersen</a>, <a href="https://iconicmotorbikes.com/" target="_blank">Iconic Motorbikes</a>, the Sunset Strip, some very random side neighborhoods, the works. Piled on a bunch of miles having an absolutely lovely time. (Yes, this review has been on hold for four months, but that's the way this year has been and the 2020 Mustang is apparently a carryover anyway.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Driving:</b> Expectations are strange things. I suppose the idea of "a Mustang" was fixed in my own thoughts back with the Fox-body cars, which were simple and compact. The S550 is (obviously) much more sophisticated and (maybe more subtly) much larger - and that latter trait was both the biggest surprise and the defining element of the experience.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a pretty big car - 107-inch wheelbase, 188 inches overall, 75 wide. More's the case that it <i>felt</i> big, especially when trying to park and swing open the long doors but also around town and when trying to get situated on a highway lane where those fenders stretched a bit further than seemed consistently comfortable. The steering was great along Mulholland but the tighter-radius curves showed up the Mustang as a bulky-if-fast cruiser instead of a tossable knife fighter, following the driver's lead instead of feeling closely connected.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Take a car of this size and lop the top off and you lose a significant part of the structure - and that loss was readily perceptible. Nothing rattled or crashed or felt loose, but bumps would induce a noticeable degree of flex and quiver. That said I'm seriously tempted to favor living with the ongoing experiment in body integrity, not only for the quality-of-life factor that comes with open air but because the convertible is a far more attractive overall design than the coupe with its ill-proportioned greenhouse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As far as what was installed in that somewhat large and supple body: I grew to deeply dislike the 10-speed automatic, which would have benefitted from the deletion of about three ratios. Trying to shift it manually felt like quick-flipping a trigger on a video game controller to keep up with the motor, and it never seemed to find its own groove when left to its programming. Flip side is that the EcoBoost motor is definitely one of the better turbo powerplants I've sat behind. No, it isn't quite as immediate and linear as a good naturally-aspirated engine through its long pedal travel, but it feels close - and once up on boost it lunges forward with enough thrust to mute stubborn traditionalists. Instrumented tests put zero-to-60 scores in the mid-five-second range.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It helps to be in one of the more ambitious drive modes, though. Sport amped up the responsiveness without being obnoxious, Sport+ was aggressive fun but a bit harsh, Normal was definitely too soft. Tried Track and Drag (or Launch? whatever flickered on the display) for a few seconds apiece before switching to something more civilized. Again, it felt like there were two or three too many modes on offer, and pedaling through the multitude of settings was often slightly exasperating and definitely more distracting than it should have been.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The presence of the Safe & Smart pack was personally noteworthy. This was my first experience with automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping assist, two technologies that quickly became annoyances. AEB never beat my own reflexes, although it came in on top of my pedal pressing more than once. The lane keeper was simply irritating as I worked through highway traffic. AEB may be important for the broad market, but I personally would have erred on the side of daring and dumb and left the Safe & Smart box blank.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakfA9HM4zT5_-6XOVPWalU88z5FGkVngrQfQlFTv2ncy1Vsks0UGyo4Kz7fRd2psyHF4YkH63_G4YoWkKuaI2Df0yIKX-k90NbNPimAy9F1Sg_-eE5KdT91o9HwCijYsZfq_jsijvSN80/s1600/IMG_3098.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakfA9HM4zT5_-6XOVPWalU88z5FGkVngrQfQlFTv2ncy1Vsks0UGyo4Kz7fRd2psyHF4YkH63_G4YoWkKuaI2Df0yIKX-k90NbNPimAy9F1Sg_-eE5KdT91o9HwCijYsZfq_jsijvSN80/s640/IMG_3098.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A study in degrees of disappointment: mildly oversized and misequipped vs. gratuitous hype and the worst fries on Earth.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Sitting:</b> Let's get the most important and endearing part out of the way first - this is the car that converted Anna from a somewhat anxious skeptic into a convertible fan. Twist the latch, let the motors do their thing, and the occupants get all the joys of open-air driving with no downside save that chassis flex. Top-down we were able to carry on conversations in essentially a normal tone of voice at highway speeds and I was able to wear a baseball cap without fear of it getting blown away. Visibility was predictably awful with the top up - the rear window is exactly as effective as its scant dimensions would indicate - but solving that problem was a simple and smooth process.</div>
<br />
That top covers a cabin that is surprisingly snug given those external dimensions, a feeling exacerbated by a low seating position and high sills; people of average height or less will have to reach up slightly to realize the classic elbow-out pose. We didn't get the chance to carry anyone in the back seat which was probably for the best because even reaching for a hat or purse was awkward, a situation made less enjoyable by the need to reset the seat back every time we flipped them forward.<br />
<br />
Our Mustang otherwise scored well on considerations of day-to-day comforts and conveniences. Materials quality was generally good if not lavish and controls felt solid in their logically expected places, although the reconfigurable instrument display is the definition of a gimmick. Sync mated quickly and effectively with my iPhone. Climate control for us mostly involved opening the top, although heated and ventilated seats were included to back up the air conditioner.<br />
<br />
<b>Concluding:</b> The Mustang has been around in one form or another for fifty-five years now, introduced as part of a wave of Ford products with names that drew upon Wild West mythology: the Bronco, the Ranchero, the Ranger, the Thunderbird. (And the Pinto and Maverick, I suppose, but anyway....) That original formula of reasonable size, daily practicality, and accessible performance has been stretched and trimmed along the way, but the car has usually held close to its identity and roots. A Mustang wasn't unreasonable for a high school kid with a decent job or someone just out of college, and it was both practical and gratifying to drive for a huge segment of the population.<br />
<br />
At least until recently. Yes, there's been some big Mustangs before (1971-73 in particular) and yes, we all talk about everything getting bigger and prone to bloat, but this is more than that. This is about a new ambition for the name. The Mustang isn't so much a teenager's speedster anymore as it is something that would be much more appealing - and more appropriate, in many ways - to that kid's parents.<br />
<br />
That's the truth that hit me at a certain point: The current Mustang is what the Thunderbird was, in its size and equipment and price and attitude. It's now very much a personal luxury car, not far removed from a BMW 4-series, and in that it works very well indeed. I suppose that means that the Mustang's original people's-sportster mission is now being fulfilled by the Fiesta ST and Focus ST, but...oh, right.<br />
<br />
That said, this is still at its core a very attractive and desirable car. Towards the end of the trip Anna asked (with a hint of wistfulness) if I would consider buying a Mustang. The short answer was: Not this one with the awful automatic and the optional excesses. But let's try this again with a base EcoBoost convertible with the six-speed or maybe with a GT coupe. The legend deserves further understanding, even if it's not what it once was.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-79210608269729070472019-08-06T11:48:00.003-04:002019-08-06T17:09:45.828-04:00August<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGsn9_iY9QtKKU5Pn-1qaKGvcasGrWO7wf1lst-1e-e40sCdYJOIAGjQb5z58WzkH7_f5_D9cycd2CW-c6QcyPXyXY7vc3QiJhI7vjL21fXVX9WfYXlX08pzyDQV0KM4pPEWp3qRG-DOFB/s1600/IMG_3418.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGsn9_iY9QtKKU5Pn-1qaKGvcasGrWO7wf1lst-1e-e40sCdYJOIAGjQb5z58WzkH7_f5_D9cycd2CW-c6QcyPXyXY7vc3QiJhI7vjL21fXVX9WfYXlX08pzyDQV0KM4pPEWp3qRG-DOFB/s640/IMG_3418.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It would be convenient for everything over the course of the last year or so to have a more or less linear narrative flow, to be some logical progression of events that make sense from one to another. Life unfortunately is not obligated to make sense, and sometimes the narrative is just a plotless recounting of a bunch of incidents. Or that's how it feels right now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Said past year has been mentally and emotionally dominated by an ultimately unsuccessful term teaching at one of the private schools on the Upper East Side, and the less said about it the better. Suffice to understand that pedagogical skills that are appreciated on the postsecondary level don't necessarily work well in a high school, and my traditionally questionable senses of fortune and destiny situated me with a department head with whom I could barely communicate, never mind connect. By the time I was able to get a sense of what was going on and how to run things the powers that be had made their own decisions, and so enough about that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The followup situation is in an increasingly frustrating holding pattern. Yes, I'm scheduled for at least something this fall, but a flock of applications sent to what seemed like certain full-time situations continues to decompose and fail piece by piece with few viable new opportunities becoming evident. Wait and see.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Said waiting and seeing means that any number of other potential situations and developments are also getting pushed back or sidelined, and that lack of certain initiative along with the effects of the inevitable entropy of life is taking its toll.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw3bGJJJqvr3Hd7BGLdnKabUBiMsehoCfSev_SOyVGjPE-CnM1r2EZDaTE9FyiB3LNhtVT0dYur3B3-uhbYvhJMkqbhBocGsRPcUR0DN3xEWm6g6PZwtFJMAFsXayXYRG5yGYDXacwDOLG/s1600/IMG_3403.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw3bGJJJqvr3Hd7BGLdnKabUBiMsehoCfSev_SOyVGjPE-CnM1r2EZDaTE9FyiB3LNhtVT0dYur3B3-uhbYvhJMkqbhBocGsRPcUR0DN3xEWm6g6PZwtFJMAFsXayXYRG5yGYDXacwDOLG/s640/IMG_3403.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So the Passat is gone, donated to some charity organization after not really running for a year and being allowed to turn into what would have been a classic B5 money pit even with a recently rebuilt front suspension because the electrics were starting to get very troublesome. The Jetta is gone, thirty-six months marked one payment at a time, capped with both the realization that I have no idea if I even will need a car in all its burden and frustration in the City anytime soon and the very real idea that for its acquisition cost of about ten thousand dollars I am very able to buy something with much more spirit and character (and much better throttle response). Action on that front waits to be informed about the commuting situation when it is resolved.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On top of all that then there's the case of <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Schrödinger's Honda</span>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So yes! On a rainy but still sublime April 22nd of this year I finally, finally, <i>finally</i> became an honest-to-God-and-Mike-Hailwood motorcycle owner and rider. Some twenty-eight years of waiting and wishing and reading magazines - all the way back to <i>Motorcyclist</i>'s December 1990 upcoming model-year special! - and the MSF course and cringing at bank statements and those aforementioned senses of fortune and destiny finally bowed to an indomitable strength of will (and a fully paid-off credit card) and the availability of a last-year's CB300F for well under MSRP at New York Honda-Yamaha. (Great folks, tell Chris I sent you.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm sure I've mentioned before about how I tend to take things entirely too seriously, so having Everyone's Official Choice For Best Starter Bike as my first just seemed like the way to go. Except in this case it actually was, given how anything with any more power would have made my little idiot newbie mistakes into something much more damaging. Would still love to know what combination of brake and throttle and weight transfer got me into that very unintentional monster hoik of a wheelie while splitting along the Queensboro Bridge a week or so into the whole program, but I remain glad that none of the witnesses were carrying badges.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was great for commuting to school once I learned to sprint up the West Side Highway and exit at 96th then head across the park, because nothing made me question the whole idea of having this thing like waddling through an endless series of dementedly sequenced red lights. It was pretty good on the Interstates, although I think the rear tire needs to run at slightly higher pressure and the preload needs to be cranked up a bit to feel more stable. Not a ton of power, but enough for right now. Super-neutral handling, zero tendency to fall into corners or misbehave under braking, pretty good seat. Just a nice all-around small bike.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmNMZY2Zod5kjUjQCeBkyoGWT0rVAOH9BkNvnkn85QZmB2KsvYgN86fQie8tE0Vv0_6rKSM_8xKzo6-WFh85k4gFdigHqtqulUcBZwDsovfN1olil4_sGI9033878aXJrdX9WE0JzdYHZA/s1600/IMG_3240.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1600" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmNMZY2Zod5kjUjQCeBkyoGWT0rVAOH9BkNvnkn85QZmB2KsvYgN86fQie8tE0Vv0_6rKSM_8xKzo6-WFh85k4gFdigHqtqulUcBZwDsovfN1olil4_sGI9033878aXJrdX9WE0JzdYHZA/s640/IMG_3240.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was stolen off the street in the early morning hours of May 24th, so just over a month and about 530 miles after I got it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was impounded by the NYPD a week later when some <i>absolute moron</i> was caught riding it downtown, ignition wired open, no license plate. Said operator also had no driver's license, which just makes the whole thing even more special. No clue what happened to the front brake disc, last seen by me as I was attaching a decently stout Abus disc lock.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No clue what shape it's in at all, since it remains in the possession of the normally very anti-motorcycle New York Police Department. I've already testified before the grand jury in the state's effort to bring the aforementioned moron up on felony possession of stolen property charges, and am apparently waiting for said moron's defense attorney to either exercise or waive her right to inspect the bike for whatever reasons she may deem appropriate for her case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm all for due process, but it's been more than two months and I want my damn bike back. This was supposed to be the summer that I spent learning how to ride decently well, heading up to Harriman and Bear Mountain a few times a week just to get onto some twisty roads and have some too-long-deferred fun.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jack Baruth remains a saint for offering use of his CB550 back when this first happened, although that's still a responsibility beyond what I think I can handle especially given how this happened. As it is, if this isn't resolved soon - the case isn't likely to go to trial before October at the earliest - I am considering buying something else just to make the regular trips to Bridgeport or wherever both more convenient and emotionally fulfilling. But just getting the CB300F back would be fine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I'm still a motorcycle owner, even if I'm not immediately now a rider. Which somehow isn't out of character for this year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other stuff is in a sort of frustrating purgatory too. Waiting to see if I'll have time to get back to contributing to CarsDirect, trying to figure out if I can effectively expand into more freelance work like I've been telling anyone who I can corner for more than five minutes that I want to do. Certain issues at home remain just as simultaneously portentous and deeply uncertain as anything else - probably more so, actually - although home itself has been and is wonderfully stable and comforting, at least.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want to do more. I should do more. I should go more places, be with more people, put it all into more words. If there's anything to take from the tragedy around Davey Johnson, both him as inspiration and the effect on everyone afterward, it's that both the collective we and especially I need to seriously push forward into the shoulds and coulds with a simple sense of purpose and openness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, I know too well from everything above; the push gets blunted, the purpose and openness diluted by the everyday and the incalculable. I'm still waiting for others to decide in a very real sense how I will do some of this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Do what can be reasonably done, I suppose, then do what comes after. There's enough other stuff going on that deserves consideration, as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still waiting to see if and when this all makes sense, although like everything else in the world that's not a given.</span>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-27236968401129753082018-06-14T14:21:00.001-04:002018-06-14T14:21:17.261-04:00Coordinated<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7AFt8pIpIQG3P8Rn11Wb0jICZBbluk8hKvfu3n8fgnwvxk7r4W4X5AlKIf6wNSBP38kCR4VfiTyZuoWGAIWleGeHnB8pUiklwdvUS1JqYrbJsg6CpsrN2JZ8d6d3F2g7m87RsZLfyUtW/s1600/IMG_2704.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7AFt8pIpIQG3P8Rn11Wb0jICZBbluk8hKvfu3n8fgnwvxk7r4W4X5AlKIf6wNSBP38kCR4VfiTyZuoWGAIWleGeHnB8pUiklwdvUS1JqYrbJsg6CpsrN2JZ8d6d3F2g7m87RsZLfyUtW/s640/IMG_2704.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Jetta is exactly seventy-nine steps down from here.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Through the windows I have heard cars, trucks, bicycles (sort of), motorcycles, scooters, horses, cruise ships, airliners, helicopters, fighter planes, and people.<br />
<br />
Many, many people.<br />
<br />
I have already spent more than two hours looking for a reasonable parking spot once. I like to think I am quickly learning the moves of what I am rapidly starting to call the Idiot Dance - the regular shuffle-and-pray ritual that is alternate side parking - and I have gotten supremely lucky more than once so far, but I know it doesn't work in anyone's favor. Our bicycles are waiting in the storage room in the basement.<br />
<br />
I can look almost due east into the windows of Road & Track's 8th Avenue office, where Bob Sorokanich is allegedly flipping me off. I am a ten-minute walk away from a ridiculous variety of auto dealerships, from Toyota to Bugatti. I have watched a camera crew document a fuel stop for a Lamborghini Centenario and been honked at by a balding slob in a Lincoln for simply crossing the street, in a crosswalk, with the light.<br />
<br />
I marvel at the sheer number and variety of motorcycles parked on my street. It both gives me hope that I can someday soon keep one here without undue fear or annoyance and provokes an ever greater frustration that, again, this summer is so far without significant work and my savings are going towards infinitely less life-fulfilling ends (and the lease and insurance on the Jetta, to be fair). The commute situation for fall may require drastic measures, though, because everything here seems to require drastic measures.<br />
<br />
We're trying to sell the Passat, which has mostly been an exercise in parsing wording for Craigslist ads and attracting cashier's-check scammers. It's being kept in a relatively safe place for now. I hope we can find a good home for it soon.<br />
<br />
We are back in New York - Manhattan, the collective consciousness's New York, not just one of the boroughs this time - and a few weeks in I remain completely overwhelmed by the unpredictable and unappreciated chain of events that brought us here and the omnipresent absurdity of this life.<br />
<br />
No one ever said this would make sense, but no one ever said I'd have to keep waiting this long for a garage, either.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-47781875094233980772018-03-23T16:31:00.001-04:002020-12-20T10:31:03.669-05:00De-reckoning<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha_uDnuBTxLU_nTMh0QQd8Ygjfac-82YXhIj1SBFlmGoxm-YFRD2q0UPy81MfqJcdq7DnYcy3HWcEg9VHGMq2wPUXYeKO_yBozaSK5laxRGrEgcAhrZkU4en8uPU71BZQWXbYAb1aONewg/s1600/man-standing-in-the-middle-of-the-road-in-iceland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha_uDnuBTxLU_nTMh0QQd8Ygjfac-82YXhIj1SBFlmGoxm-YFRD2q0UPy81MfqJcdq7DnYcy3HWcEg9VHGMq2wPUXYeKO_yBozaSK5laxRGrEgcAhrZkU4en8uPU71BZQWXbYAb1aONewg/s640/man-standing-in-the-middle-of-the-road-in-iceland.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: some completely random public-domain stock photo website.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is the time of my Great Unwinding.<br />
<br />
Life at this little juncture of reality is, inescapably, stressful. It's difficult for me to come to terms with an increasingly surreal and horrifying outside world, if that's even possible. It's a struggle to maintain the ever-growing intricacies and responsibilities of my career situation. It's frustrating to continuously adjust a net of wants and needs against the parameters of physical laws and social allowances and each other. It's uncomfortable to look ahead and know that the next few months will, again, be a time of upheaval and repositioning.<br />
<br />
It's been aggravating, irritating, depressing, numbing. My blood pressure is too high. My knees ache. My temper has become scarily short and hypersensitive. I haven't slept well in months.<br />
<br />
So: Enough. Time for <i>self-care</i>, like everyone seems to be talking about (or was a few months ago when it was the indulgent pop-psych concept du jour). Time to find a center, do what needs to be done and no more, invite well-being into my life*, be at peace with things.<br />
<br />
I'm actually making some progress on this concept, too, which is kind of cheerfully anomalous for me. I've essentially abandoned my Twitter account - as of now it's basically notifications of new entries at this here place of deeper contemplation - and dialed way back on Facebook and the news in general. Freeing myself from the world's number-one online stress generator has been hugely soothing, and if my days aren't suddenly filled with enough time to learn Japanese flower arranging or read the <i>Mahabharata</i> in Sanskrit it's still nice to not watch the clock melt away as I become ever more fatalistically hypnotized by an unending reel of humanity's continuing crimes against itself.<br />
<br />
I'm going to the gym more often (or was, until this past week or two, and yes, it'll be time to get back in there later today, I promise, seriously, I know). I've essentially given up butter and mayo and potato chips and ice cream. I've stopped making my coffee three times stronger than I should have been making it if I'd bothered to pay attention to the amount of coffee I was actually using to make two cups in the morning.<br />
<br />
And I'm loosening my grip on the need to dispute and argue and assert my opinion, which just <i>dissolves</i> tension and confusion and self-doubt and all the rest.<br />
<br />
Thing about a lot of arguments: they don't matter. The world will still keep going the way that it's going even if you "win" an argument. You can hold the absolute moral high ground and be the vessel of noble Truth and Sincerity and people are going to shrug and just do whatever they want to do and look for a good lease deal on something painted metallic gray anyway. And unless you can put enough capital behind an ideal to have the invisible hand tip the scales somehow, it's just going to float in space and not be relevant. (Side note tangent to this: Have also pretty much stopped paying visits to upscale car dealerships; got to the point where I was just feeling awkward and progressively more depressed that I literally didn't have any business being in places like those.)<br />
<br />
And a lot of the time the essence of an argument verges on a very personal belief or philosophical ideal anyway, as with a recent <strike>attempt to educate a bunch of clueless Philistines about the grotesque inappropriateness of</strike> consideration of whether the Civic Type R really needs seat heaters. Kind of more intellectual jerking off than anything, which doesn't do anything for the sake of the world and can't be that fun to watch.<br />
<br />
And I don't want to be the person who thinks that the two possible opinions on any issue are my own and wrong. Life is more interesting than that, and I can think of a few people who have that particular rhetorical corner covered anyway.<br />
<br />
And sometimes you just have to know how to pick your battles, know when to engage and when to acquiesce. And there are plenty of opportunities to recognize these situations and find in yourself the deep placid morality of Non-Ado and just let reality be what it is.<br />
<br />
Especially regarding crossovers.<br />
<br />
We are at the point in automotive history where the crossover, that lite-FM SUV on a car basis, is the functional market paradigm. Not only have they become the default family vehicle, but they're increasingly a predictable presence in the lineup of just about every carmaker on Earth. Not much mystery here; they sell, and they're profitable, so from a business perspective (and let's be real: carmakers are businesses, not religions) they make sense.<br />
<br />
In fact, looking at sales numbers they make an outsized degree of sense. Porsche is now more or less a luxury offroad manufacturer with a sideline in anachronistic street racers. The strongest cases for market legitimacy for a returning Alfa Romeo and a renewed Maserati are the Stelvio and Levante. The F-Pace made for half of Jaguar's 2017 sales. Lamborghini's new Urus is projected to be their most popular product out of the gate. Even freaking <i>Rolls-Royce</i> is teeing up an all-wheel-drive dreadnought that will be the ultimate vehicular lust object for anyone who occasionally takes a Holland & Holland side-by-side out for a bit of sporting.<br />
<br />
Can we argue about whether they're the right product for certain manufacturers? Sure, I suppose. We can also argue about whether all personal vehicles should be painted International Safety Orange. Does it matter to anyone? C'mon. We live in a world where BMW can market a slopebacked four-door-SUV as a coupe with a straight corporate face and get away with it. <i>Nothing</i> matters.<br />
<br />
So I'm done fighting against crossovers. People want to buy 'em, that's fine. There is increasingly little point in trying to stake a moral claim for the elegant logic of a good sedan or the soul-lifting vivaciousness of a convertible when The People continue to just do what they do regardless.<br />
<br />
And that's great! Folks aren't dumb. Solid attributes like cargo space and all-wheel-drive (which may not be totally necessary, but let's let it ride) are desirable. And in these weirdly anxious times, something that gives off a sense of strength and security can't be all bad. A good crossover does an impressive job crawling up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.<br />
<br />
I'm not totally immune anyway. We do outdoorsy things, so the ability to chase down a rough dirt road would help sometimes. And like basically every other human being in the industrial world I've got a soft spot for Jeeps. I can totally see getting a good old YJ sometime soon.<br />
<br />
So yeah, crossovers? Okay. Good, even. Let it be. Someone wants to make them and people want to buy them and it's a good business decision, sounds fine.<br />
<br />
Actually, let's go further: Crossovers are an important part of a good product lineup for everyone in the business. They're trendy! They're expressive! They're practical! They're profitable! Everyone loves them except for sniveling weirdos who read too many car magazines in the 1980s! So: Perhaps every automotive nameplate should have at least one soft-roading utility cruiser in its lineup.<br />
<br />
Trick is to have it match the manufacturer's priorities and identity. Even the goddamn X6 has a fair bit of BMW in it, what with the motors and however they figured out the handling.<br />
<br />
So who needs a crossover in their lineup, and what should/will it be like?<br />
<br />
To that effect, a few predictions:<br />
<br />
<b>Ferrari:</b> Spare us; we all know it's happening. The question is how, and the answer will be something like: The silhouette is a heavily tweaked derivative of the GTC4Lusso with an extra pair of doors and a more upright seating position; think Levante, but longer. Add larger fenders covering Z-rated Pirelli Scorpions. The V12 is a given; the all-wheel-drive system is purpose-built, fully integrated with a four-wheel-steering system derived from the 812SF and the newest generation of high-performance traction and stability control, and quietly shares a few pieces with the Jeep Grand Cherokee. The steering-wheel <i>manettino</i> now has "<i>sabbia</i>" and "<i>roccia</i>" settings just in case you miss the point. In testing it will lap Fiorano three seconds faster than an F50, accompanied by an unusual-for-a-Ferrari degree of body motion; after achieving this feat the test driver will disembark and promptly puke his breakfast out all over pit lane both from sheer horror at what he has done and from severe motion sickness. No list price is officially published, but it's rumored that the slightly larger than usual fender shields are a $6,580 option selected by each buyer literally to the person.<br />
<br />
<b>Aston Martin:</b> Andy Palmer's group of happy warriors has done away with the flirting and flat-out said they're going to take a run at this market segment, and it's not difficult to see how they could get there: Take the Rapide line which is underselling anyway, square up the hindquarters and add a liftgate, finesse in some fender extensions and rework the suspension for a bit more travel. Float the cheerful promise to (eventually) offer a a manual transmission, which exactly no one will buy but that's how they roll and it's still cool to know it's (theoretically) there.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Lotus:</b> The simplify-and-add-lightness folks have also made their intention to go crossover public, but one understands they'll be coming from a different perspective. Instead of a family mover, a Lotus SUV would essentially be a modernized first-gen Toyota 4Runner prepped as a desert prerunner - all stripped-down low-mass minimalism and snorting chainsaw engine and switch-flick manual transmission and harelike agility and unbelievable fookin'-hell/yeeeeeeehaw fun. Everyone who drives it will absolutely love it, they will sell twenty a month, and it will be pulled from the US market after three years amid mumbling about some previously unannounced DOT waiver expiring.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>McLaren:</b> The crew from Woking has sworn they won't go there, but why not? Bruce's New Zealand is sort of a crossoverish kinda place, so there's some thematic ground for a foundation here. And the spec practically writes itself: Reinforced carbon-fiber monocell with four butterfly doors (quasi-suicide rear-hinged in back for extra sci-fi effect). Flat-crank turbo V8 in high-torque tune with revised ratios in the dual-clutch gearbox. A suspension that combines bionic responsiveness with a Citroën DS-like ability to float above it all. It will be severely fast, it will be a high-water mark for materials and performance technology in a crossover, and - owing to McLaren's well-documented dislike of locking differentials - it will be completely useless on anything slipperier than a snowy driveway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Pagani:</b> If Horacio's Magic Shop has sort of taken the place of an increasingly mainstream** Lamborghini among the affluent and extroverted, then why not chase the entire range of possibilities? Yes! - <i>nuovo</i> LM002! Take the running gear from an AMG G65 and wrap it in Martian canyon-racer bodywork. Note: Cargo space may be compromised (and heated) by the retention of the trademark four-pipe center exhaust.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Caterham:</b> They've made their name perpetuating one British icon; why not add another? Introducing the Caterham Series IIA, an updated but not debased version of the 1961-1971 Land Rover 88. The chassis is the traditional steel ladder updated (but not too much) with a few CAD calculations and the aluminium body panels are done in-house alongside the Seven's skins. All the rugged glory and mountain-goat adroitness of one of Britain's most famous and well-loved vehicles is available new again! Kit available for $54,700; bring your own Ford Zeta 2.0 and T5 gearbox.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Don't you feel better too?</span><br />
<br />
*: I cannot believe I actually used this sentence.<br />
**: Relatively, I guess.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-36969598220331782452017-10-24T14:41:00.001-04:002017-10-24T20:52:50.222-04:00Touring through the family tree<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyj93JTb-lF2E5JDPBVaAhhVs-aQwQRzwc7qdnMRxpW8cnE1swP77bGVqF-AY9TQ_6_xvDr4XCjkirDO4c8zgtAC7p149EfR0WAuChSofaXwRy7AQSMJELRMdPh95CXm08-Kx340Sqnh7c/s1600/porsche-normal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="1344" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyj93JTb-lF2E5JDPBVaAhhVs-aQwQRzwc7qdnMRxpW8cnE1swP77bGVqF-AY9TQ_6_xvDr4XCjkirDO4c8zgtAC7p149EfR0WAuChSofaXwRy7AQSMJELRMdPh95CXm08-Kx340Sqnh7c/s640/porsche-normal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
If for some unspeakable reason Porsche decided to ditch the whole carmaking thing and go into the foodstuffs business, they could probably do fantastically well producing upscale ice cream. Not only do the potential senses of gratification and indulgence delivered by a <i>Badener</i> riff on Ben & Jerry's or, maybe more accurately, New York's cherished <a href="http://www.laboratoriodelgelato.com/thelab.php" target="_blank">Il Labratorio del Gelato</a> align nicely with their current attitude, but they have become the absolute masters at spinning off a seemingly endless variety of pleasantly differentiated product from the same basis.<br />
<br />
The newest flavor is of course <a href="https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/porsche-911-carrera-t-puristic-performance-driving-pleasure-touring-14410.html" target="_blank">the 911T</a>, announced Sunday night amid a fair bit of historically-tinged hype. Having taken the lesson of the 911R's triumphant popular reception to heart, the theme is "driver engagement": start with the standard base-model 911, add PASM and drop the suspension 20mm; gearing is shorter and there's a traditional mechanical limited-slip differential; the sport exhaust system is standard; the rear glass and soundproofing are lighter, and the Sport Chrono system is available (it's not on the standard Carrera) in "weight-optimized" form. Interior trim is revised; the pretentious but cute fabric door-release pulls are back. The rear seat has been left out, as has the PCM infotainment system; they can both be replaced at no cost.<br />
<br />
All this nets a weight loss of a whole whopping 20 kilograms - 44 pounds - over a comparably equipped standard base 911 Carrera and a MSRP of $102,100 plus delivery, a full $11,000 up from that base Carrera and closing in quickly on the Carrera S.<br />
<br />
And this is where I start to get a little confused about what Porsche is trying to say here. The intention to sell this as a stripped-down, more elemental car isn't exactly matched by what has been presented.<br />
<br />
As always with 911s, we have history upon which to reflect (with Porsche's active encouragement, in this case). The first 911T - Porsche says that T is for Touring, more about enjoyable driving than racing - was introduced in 1968 as the revised and somewhat decontented Euro-market base model. They came over here in that same market position in 1969, and they were universally loved for their good manners and all-around drivability, especially compared to the more temperamental MFI-fueled 911E and 911S.<br />
<br />
And yes, you could tune them a bit if you wanted. Still can.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pp6opr78BWc/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pp6opr78BWc?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
And doing this makes sense, because - as noted in that video - the 911T wasn't just the lightest but also the simplest of its contemporary 911 variants. Standard gearbox was a four-speed through 1971, standard wheels were rather narrow chromed steelies. The 911T that was produced in 1973 was the first Porsche with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection - again, not for maximum power but for improved everyday drivability. They were the truest thematic continuation of the 356.<br />
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So step forward almost sixty years and consider what Porsche has wrought with this iteration of the name.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTACmheNwrbaCzg51i3eI1DO6enzYze_sM5TPtw_f9ZjHWX3L_Lm7he63uhj6-Q9r2p0qkpWS9nnrsczmv4NQ6EUiMzlRAUs6r2wpGHt24S0XjpEIbZ8HCX4eJMsuDG2d5ZAH4XT9mho4/s1600/high_911_carrera_t_2017_porsche_ag.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaTACmheNwrbaCzg51i3eI1DO6enzYze_sM5TPtw_f9ZjHWX3L_Lm7he63uhj6-Q9r2p0qkpWS9nnrsczmv4NQ6EUiMzlRAUs6r2wpGHt24S0XjpEIbZ8HCX4eJMsuDG2d5ZAH4XT9mho4/s640/high_911_carrera_t_2017_porsche_ag.png" width="640" /></a></div>
The corporate tagline is, somewhat predictably, "less is more." Problem is, there's not a whole lot less here. Yes, the lighter glass (which frankly never sounds like a good idea on a street car) and the trimmed soundproofing (which frankly is rarely a bad idea anywhere lately, although turbo cars by nature don't make the most of it) add a bit of brochure attitude, as does the deletion of the rear seats and sound system - the latter of which will likely be spec'd in a huge majority of produced Ts. But then the sport exhaust system and the revised PASM are installed, and Sport Chrono and the GT3's rear-axle steering rack shows up as options. And unlike similar previous exercises (the Boxster Spyder comes to mind) the active aero remains. This is not really a minimalist machine.<br />
<br />
But leave that aside, string it all together without the marketing spin, and it starts to make some sense: this is supposed to be the all-chassis version of the 911, more a backroad runner or trackday special capable enough to render the S's 50 additional horses superfluous.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Interesting, but that's not less - and it doesn't make it a T. If anything, it sounds a lot like a base-powerplant version of the <i>Korb</i>-of-goodies approach that is the GTS.</span><br />
<br />
Really, the base 911 Carrera could be called the T going forward and it would make perfect sense, fitting the letter back into its traditional position at the base of the line with the sense of conceptual continuity - a wonderfully enjoyable all-around touring car without too many Le Mans pretensions - fully intact. Maybe it would even grant that model a bit more dignity and identity than it currently possesses as the mere entry-level 911 Carrera (which is not a bad thing, of course, but still).<br />
<br />
So granted the presented version of the 911T isn't really a 911T. What is it?<br />
<br />
Dispense with the "less is more" sales line. Yes, weight is down (marginally) and the reduced-content interior has a certain vibe, but this is not another 356 Speedster. And then there's the inclusion of all the suspension goodies and the airport gearing and the sport exhaust. No extra power, but plenty of implied handling and responsiveness.<br />
<br />
By my understanding Porsche picked the wrong historical reference. This isn't a 911T; it's a 911 Club Sport.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj79CJLgb3ZOXbh7OwnaWi9iV1TllADKCsMwCakBRhMEZdMx0e-Vvu8RySg6zI05qeWjQjygQf2rjDseF7NiopwP68S3Z8Lx-1WA8U0nUzDd1OKVocX-BV_BMf-JF4i4YFkOrDJvVDGYREI/s1600/911_27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj79CJLgb3ZOXbh7OwnaWi9iV1TllADKCsMwCakBRhMEZdMx0e-Vvu8RySg6zI05qeWjQjygQf2rjDseF7NiopwP68S3Z8Lx-1WA8U0nUzDd1OKVocX-BV_BMf-JF4i4YFkOrDJvVDGYREI/s640/911_27.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
One of Porsche's earlier efforts at pushing back against a growing rep for making plush luxury cars, the late-1980s Club Sport was a 911 Carrera with a batch of weight-saving measures (no radio, no A/C, no passenger sun visor), a bit of engine fiddling, and the upgraded sport suspension, although in that case they kept the MSRP even with the standard Carrera. (The model was an absolute disaster saleswise and consequently is now a prized collectible exemplifying all that is true about Porsche and tradition and etc. Kinda like an E30 M3 except more so.)<br />
<br />
And that's what we have here: the standard car optimized for canyon blasts and track days for those who don't want to go full GT3. In that it completely makes sense, and it should have been presented as such.<br />
<br />
I'm not even sure how much a truly much-less-is-supposedly-more hyperminimalist 911 would work anyway. Porsche is not Lotus. Porsche has always been at their best when their cars hit a distinct blend of well-managed raciness and everyday usability and high design, like an Eames Aluminum Group executive chair with a tendency towards oversteer. And in an era with heavy regulations and even heavier consumer demands, the idea of recreating something as elemental as a 1973 Carrera RS resolves to daydreaming. I suppose a properly motivated someone could buy a new 911 and strip it out and tune it to the edge of street-registration permissiveness, but that's more art project than manufactured product, and the GT3 covers that territory anyway.<br />
<br />
So what is in a name, anyway? And does it mean something when such an identity-sensitive company starts to blur an identity? Taken on its own terms, the 911T looks to be a welcome (if smallish) shift away from a pure-numbers game and back towards sharper street drivability. But summoning history as a tool means accepting everything that goes with references and associations, and the car deserves to be called what it is. Odds on that in this market the Club Sport name would have worked much better this time, too.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-50631068872044182192017-08-01T18:26:00.000-04:002017-08-01T21:41:52.233-04:00Rapid Rental Review: Peugeot 108<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5o-JKPLVZXr-A0KdRXVIsBEgvVzZJRYUl64SSMHsrHHfQNKzKnJaJBwKajvcgI7VwG4EwKSb-zTq_iBSvESBiQO0dOGbi75MTay2If8wzZNIiGwxmIgav9E9KTkqZkQzgKeMdgD7QC_iq/s1600/IMG_2319.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5o-JKPLVZXr-A0KdRXVIsBEgvVzZJRYUl64SSMHsrHHfQNKzKnJaJBwKajvcgI7VwG4EwKSb-zTq_iBSvESBiQO0dOGbi75MTay2If8wzZNIiGwxmIgav9E9KTkqZkQzgKeMdgD7QC_iq/s640/IMG_2319.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bon jour. Photos by the author.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>The vehicle:</b> Automobiles Peugeot's<span style="font-family: inherit;"> smallest offering; platform and major components shared with the Citroën C1<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> and </span>Toyota Aygo, all built on the same assembly line in the Czech Republic<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">. 1.0-liter inline-3, 5-speed manual transmission. Rented from Avis at the Aix-en-Provence train station. (Renting a car in Provence was expensive compared to Paris, at least on Bastille Day weekend.) Unsure about trim level but included such hedonistic excesses as power steering, remote locks, air conditioning, and apparently some form of Bluetooth phone mating.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The setting:</b> One day buzzing around a tinder-dry Provence from Aix to the monastery at Saint-<span style="font-family: inherit;">Remy where Vincent van Gogh spent his most insanely productive period to </span><span style="color: #363636; letter-spacing: -0.5px;">L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue for God's own Provencal lunch to the cloister and lavender fields outside Gordes, which was not nearly enough time to even scratch the surface of this ridiculously lovely and charming corner of the world.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Driving:</b> Start with one absolutely crucial measurement: Curb weight for a 108 is around 1850 pounds. That sub-Lotus Elise mass defines the dynamics of the car.</span><br />
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The foreign press, more attuned to this kind of machine, considers the 108 to be a bit soft and reserved in keeping with its semi-upscale nameplate. For an American driver willing to take the right approach, though, the 108 is a riot. You drive it like a rally car, foot often clamped to the floor out of necessity, reveling in the responsiveness that comes with not having to manage another couple thousand pounds of body weight. Driving it is like using a really good medium-sized kitchen knife: balanced and precise and direct without feeling excessively edgy. Typical front-drive understeer only becomes somewhat apparent when diving for a late waitgoHERE 90-degree turn to some side road. You can place it far over on the lane-and-a-half-wide roads with casual confidence when making room for oncoming traffic, and the tight dimensions are a godsend in tourist-crammed parking lots and undersized street parking spaces.<br />
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All this and the suspension tuning maintains the civilized French-car tradition of not beating you up or being irritatingly jouncy.<br />
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The one-liter three-cylinder was an unruly little thing. The triple's vibes led me to think it was a diesel at first until I paid attention to the "95 Sans Plomb" sticker by the gas door; it'll rev, making an endearing growl in the process, but you have to stay on it; the torque curve felt anything but linear, with an occasional and strange on/off-throttle minisurge. Refinement issues aside, one is faced with the (inevitable, severe) limitations that derive from the Toyota-designed motor displacing all of 998 cc and producing 68 bhp, even in a featherweight like this. Batting around Provence's austerely picturesque hills required constant and attentive shifting, often into third and occasionally second on some not-that-terribly-steep climbs.</div>
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Such histrionics were thankfully aided by a five-speed gearbox that was a joy to use, with a lightswitch shift action through a slightly-too-narrow gate and a clutch light enough for your cat to work the pedal.<br />
<br />
Wonderful One uneasily noted that the 108 didn't feel as stable and secure as the 500x on the <i>autoroute</i>, which makes sense given their size and weight disparities, but even in the midst of a midsummer mistral it tracked reasonably well. What <i>was</i> similar to the 500x was a realistic top cruising speed that matched the posted 130km/h, although (again) the two couldn't feel more different in the process - whereas the 500x had decent torque at lower speeds and just seemed to run out of drive at 130, the 108 would eventually work its way up through increasing difficulty pushing the air aside to a point of perceivable strain and a sense that that suspension tuning was approaching its effective limits.<br />
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That lightweight vibe was apparent in more than just nimble handling. Close a door with any force and you get a hollow metallic <i>pung</i> in response; the all-glass hatch dropped down with a simple <i>smack</i> against its rubber seal. I will admit that being inside something this light and small brought up a shadowy sense of vulnerability, but Euro-NCAP crash test scores are actually fairly decent.<br />
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<b>Sitting:</b> The silly-small external dimensions (137 inches overall, a full foot less than a Mitsubishi Mirage) belie a comfortable and accommodating pair of front seats and a rear seat that is actually usable if a front-seat occupant is of slightly less than average height.<br />
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For a definitively cheap set of wheels (as of this writing base price for a 5-door 108 Active in France equates to something well under $14,000) the 108 looks and feels like a quality piece of work. Switchgear is well-crafted and works smoothly. Seats are pleasantly unremarkable. There is no effort to hide the fact that the plastics are plastic, but they also look substantial and well-fitted. The air conditioner isn't overpowering, but on a harsh July day it kept up with the sun and heat.<br />
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Peugeot markets the 108 as a city car with the attendant understanding that someone using a city car usually doesn't require much cargo space. There's enough room for two weekend bags or a medium-sized stop at a farmer's market, but this is not a heavy hauler.<br />
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Other gripes? Few and minor. None of the cupholders could securely manage our one-and-a-half-liter bottles of Volvic, which seems like a frustrating oversight in a French car. A tachometer would have been nice given the necessity of abusing the gearbox to get the most out of the motor. Was there a trip computer? It would've been nice to fiddle with a trip computer to get an accurate fuel economy reading and so on. (Yes, I'm stretching here.)<br />
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<b>Concluding:</b> There was a certain point about halfway through our day - aiming down another narrow road between walls of trees, lining up another blind bend - where I realized I was making a wish list for the car, a short set of if-onlys: If only it had another cylinder, if only it was just slightly better balanced, if only it had a tachometer....<br />
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This is not a complaint. At all. When I drove the 500x, I didn't want to fix anything; I just wanted a different car. The 108 was so essentially good - and so much fun in its manic-but-mannered way - from the beginning that you just wanted to make it a little bit better. It's so close to some kind of esoteric ideal, especially an ideal created by someone who has seen too many photos of gaudily-painted hatchback Peugeots blasting through forests and up mountains over the past thirty-something years.<br />
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Taken on its own terms the 108 is a joy, proof that light and direct is all kinds of multifaceted gratification. No, it wouldn't work very well on the American market; the whimsy of constant foot-to-the-floor driving with the tiny motor would probably wear thin in a hurry, and I'll admit that it actually is too small if the intention is to regularly carry more than two people at a time. Eventually those personal-preference if-onlys add up to something like the 208, which lines up nicely against the likes of the Fit or the Fiesta - all of which are still just extensions of this idea instead of its antagonists.<br />
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Not that this will work in the first place in a market where Ford is apparently dropping said model due to a heartbreaking lack of sales, but that's a shopworn rant by now. Again, take it on its own terms: the 108 makes for some very enjoyable lessons about priorities in driving and life.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-289824903791270492017-07-21T15:43:00.002-04:002017-07-21T17:52:19.547-04:00Rapid Rental Review: Fiat 500x MultiJet<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All photos by the author.</td></tr>
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<b>The vehicle:</b> Fiat's cuddly-looking small crossover, built in Italy on the same line with the equally cartoonish Jeep Renegade. 1.6 (I think) MultiJet diesel powerplant, six-speed manual transmission. Rented from Europcar in Gare du Nord train station, Paris. (Note: If you're renting from someone other than Sixt there, ask me for directions. Rental desks are impossible to find for the uninitiated. Also, this is what I got when I reserved a "Fiat 500 or similar"; I expected "similar" to mean size, not model name.)<br />
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<b>The setting:</b> Road trip from Paris to Tours, with a side excursion to a conveniently-positioned Le Mans, to check out <span style="font-family: inherit;">châteaus</span> and get our fill of debatably functional pre-Enlightenment furniture.<br />
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<b>Driving:</b> I strongly encourage everyone who mindlessly repeats the rote dogma about how everyone would/should buy a car (preferably a wagon) with a diesel motor and manual transmission to give this thing a try. The torque curve is more farm implement than road car: a decent slug of thrust right off idle which quickly goes flat as revs climb to even moderate numbers. There's not much sense in running it above 2500 rpm (redline is 4500), and that ironically narrow power band gets frustrating in city traffic where the driver needs to shift almost as often as James Garner at Monaco in <i>Grand Prix</i>. After a while one tends to hold it a gear higher than usual, try to lean on the torque, and hope for the best around the epidemic spread of roundabouts that dot most two-lanes and small town streets.<br />
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Very happy otherwise rolling along on b-roads with 70 or 90 kilometer-per-hour speed limits, decent on <i>autoroutes</i> limited to 130 (observation: French drivers are quite respectful of speed limits), strained trying for literally anything over that number. The stop-start system did what it was supposed to do without drawing attention to itself short of the noisy crank to start the diesel; the defeat button is prominently placed but there was no reason not to leave it on.<br />
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The shifter is basically easy but has no feel or finesse - you glonk it from gate to gate. Glonking it into sixth requires a bit of annoying extra effort to keep it from slipping back into fourth, kind of like a reverse CAGS. Six gears is about two too many here; the motor happily tolerates skips, shifting 1-2-4-6 or 1-3-5-6 or whatever, with the intermediate gears mostly in play to run the motor in the narrow range that keeps the fussy upshift/downshift light content at moderate speeds. The clutch in this one wasn't as smooth as I would have liked.<br />
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Handling is typical crossover blah, slightly top-heavy and deliberate and numb if not outright awkward. Didn't try anything ambitious due to traffic/road conditions and the presence of an ambitious-driving-disliking passenger, but have zero reason to expect anything stimulating as speeds increase. (We did run the length of the Mulsanne Straight, but Joest is perhaps understandably still not returning my emails.) Brakes are surprisingly good: plenty of stopping power, nice modulation.<br />
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Switching between Eco and Sport on the drive mode selector between the front seats produced trivial results; didn't see the point in messing with the off-road setting in our travels when the furthest we went off-road was a curbhopping U-turn when we missed the turn to the Mulsanne and the occasional dirt parking lot. Fuel economy seemed at first to be alarmingly bad for a small diesel motor, but the ticking of the fuel gauge was more an indicator of the 500x's small tank than its large thirst. I didn't keep accurate track of mileage, but over the course of about 360 miles/600 kilometers we went through slightly more than one 48-liter/12-and-change-gallon tankful.<br />
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<b>Sitting:</b> Driver's seat was a tad narrow for your somewhat ursine author; Wonderful One claimed to be quite comfortable. Okay visibility for everything except backing up where the reverse sensors proved invaluable (and even then having a spotter helped). Seating position is typical crossover, slightly high but not Kenworthish, with a mild step up.<br />
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The steering wheel was covered in a downright odd grade of very soft, almost glovelike leather unrepeated in the interior. Flip side is that the stalk controls felt cheap and ill-fitted.<br />
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I'd like to have a long conversation with the staff that designed the instrument panel, who apparently prioritized anything other than what one usually looks for in an instrument panel:<br />
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That circular center display can be configured through a bizarre variety of settings using the switches on the left steering wheel spoke - longitudinal and lateral g-meters? - but sidelines the speedo and tach to undeserved margin positions. A speedo repeat with huge numbers can be displayed among what feels like several dozen options, but something more like Audi's virtual dash display or even the arrangement in the Camaro would be welcome.<br />
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The air conditioner was simply great, with output that approached classic GM pre-R134 levels of frost and controls that weren't too terribly fiddly (although aiming for the right button could require a few seconds of eyes-off-the-road hunting).<br />
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The cabin's general comfort and room belies the luggage situation:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All clumsy amateurish color manipulation by the author as well, but at least you get more detail this way.</td></tr>
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That's two overhead-bin-sized suitcases and one knockoff Israeli paratrooper briefcase/man purse, and that's it - the baggage compartment is essentially full. You can carry a couple pizzas on top, but anything more cubic is in a bad situation. No idea what you're supposed to do if you have one normal suitcase per passenger who may be sitting in the other available seats; turn our two suitcases sideways and move the man bag to the cabin and you might get a third in there, but Fiat's fondness for stylish curves over sensible packaging means it'll be uneasily close - and forget getting four to fit.<br />
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Shutting that rear hatch betrayed a slightly shoddy feel, as if the fasteners there weren't totally holding together. Our 500x turned over 30,000 km while we had it and the finish seemed to be mostly good otherwise, but that weird not-so-little sense of flimsiness makes me wonder about the long-term durability situation.<br />
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<b>Concluding:</b> I'm pressed to think of anything exciting or alluring about those two days with the 500x. It did what we needed it to do without meaningful complaint, but without really adding anything distinctly positive - or even distinct - to the experience.<br />
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After a certain point I admitted to myself that I would have been happier driving the Jetta. It would have worked at least as well as, and in many cases better than, the Fiat. And this comparison would doubtless hold for any other good small sedan: a Mazda3, a Focus, a Civic, an Impreza. In everything from dynamics to accommodations to build quality, the 500x struggled to make a case for itself.<br />
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At a risk of overgeneralization, let's extend this out: if this is at all representative, why do people buy small crossovers? Aside from possible all-weather considerations (which, in my experience seeing numerous ditched CR-Vs around Ithaca, reflect expectations which reality does not match) they're supposed to be capable medium-sized vehicles with plenty of space and comfort. Are they really? Marketing hype and fashion aside, I wonder if a literally measured appreciation would show some pretty harsh truths to the mindset powering the crossover crush.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-28556599136274517682017-04-25T12:04:00.001-04:002017-04-25T14:10:47.360-04:00Editorial: Keep the Dodge Viper on our roads<div>
(Item: Automotive News, <a href="http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20170424/OEM06/304249979/keep-the-dodge-demon-off-our-roads" target="_blank">Keep the Dodge Demon off our roads</a>)</div>
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The 645-hp Dodge Viper Coupe from Fiat Chrysler is so inherently fulfilling to the common desires of enthusiasts that </span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none;">its production as a road-worthy automobile should be extended indefinitely</strong><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We don't reach this conclusion lightly. There are more powerful, and even faster, vehicles available from other automakers that have rightly ended production.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But just as Nissan is (still) wrong to not build the IDx in favor of a seemingly endless series of CVT-equipped crossovers, Dodge is wrong to no longer offer a purpose-built road racer as a street-legal automobile.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From its barely legal slick tires to its monstrous acceleration, the Viper introduced in Detroit in 1989 is the result of a sequence of inspired corporate choices that places visceral driving thrills ahead of dreary focus group preferences.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lamentably, the entire industry has made great strides toward reduced vehicle enjoyment in recent years, even as it dials up infotainment complexity. But with the Viper, Dodge spat on that goal and gleefully moves in the opposite direction, knowingly placing drivers in danger of euphoric emotional overload in the process.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oddly enough, for a vehicle designed to set lap records and provide massive thrills, the Viper has already been certified for highway use by the appropriate regulatory bodies, the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation, allegedly for being "compliant."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Viper may not comply sufficiently with the tendencies of Fiat Chrysler's management to pursue off-putting and senseless product decisions, but in its current form it certainly does fulfill the spirit of more enlightened strategies. So get a clue.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To borrow a phrase from Sean Carter, you crazy for this one, Serge.</span></span></div>
Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-673628147964553182017-04-21T22:00:00.003-04:002017-04-21T22:19:40.571-04:00TherapySo I ordered one of those <a href="https://www.skillwise.com/sales/pwyw-learn-to-code-2017-google-go" target="_blank">learn-to-code packages</a> a few days ago, the kind that offers a few hundred hours of lessons in Java and Python and so on in one set of downloads. Figured it never hurts to have another marketable skill to put on a resume, especially given my debatable future in the increasingly Byzantine world of higher education; if I can pick up a few quick projects that might mitigate some of my perennial whining about money, so much the better; and (coincidentally) the price for the whole show was in enchilada-plate-and-two-draft-beers territory. Good stuff all around.<br />
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Also, it's probably going to be a slow summer and I'll need something interesting to do alongside the further care and nurturing of a nascent freelance-writing sideline (magazine/website friends: expect weird questions and awkward pitches) and attention directed to a few other deferred things, as I think to myself every time I walk past my neglected acoustic guitar or look at my half-shelf of books written in German.<br />
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(I was seriously considering a Honda XL250 project that I found on Craigslist, but it turned out to be a pretty worrisome pile. I know that taking a pile and offering it a second life is the point of a project but my bank account likely would not possess that same degree of altruism for the requisite length of time. I also had no reasonable way to get it home other than renting something which would have added an effective 40% to the purchase price, and Wonderful One informs me that having a half-stripped frame propped up on the side of the basement garage violates the terms of our lease.)<br />
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And just in general it'll be interesting to learn something new and slightly arcane, to have some greater sense of insight into these ubiquitous-but-slightly-forbidding devices that are so much part of the everyday but whose actual internal operations are dangerously close to an illustration of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws" target="_blank">Arthur C. Clarke's third law</a>. There's a kind of enlightened gratification - a satisfaction, a comfort - that comes with learning that magic, with being able to fluently manage something so cryptic and having a greater understanding of its innate reality - especially something that works in a very logical and (mostly) predictable manner.<br />
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In this, being able to code is nothing more than a contemporary and slightly ephemeral variation on mechanical skill, on being able to thoughtfully and effectively wield a tool, on being able to understand a system and the limits of that system and the possibilities inherent in knowing how that system relates to its plane of reality.<br />
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Extend that directly into the act of working on the mechanical parts of a vehicle, and associate that with the act of driving - or riding, or sailing, or piloting. All of this is tool usage to an unusually high evolutionary degree. All of these various exercises in motion require some sensing of active forces and the ability to exercise control over and within them - and requiring ever more of that ability as those forces start to face, and face off against, limits imposed by nature and reality. And it circles back to an understanding of the tools themselves, the machines, the motors and suspensions and linkages and how they all interact with each other and the world.<br />
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It's one thing to say that this sensing and ability and understanding Means Something. It does, of course; that's one of the lovely and vital elements of human nature. But I'm starting to believe that for a good few of us, this need to deeply know and exercise enlightened control just might see its roots in some dark places.<br />
<br />
For most modern people, sure, driving and car ownership is about the same as using an app in its exercise of pure function and very immediate capability. (For some people, their existence with cars has been subsumed <i>into</i> an app.) The app publishes a statement or a picture or whatever, the car carries people and stuff from place to place, and the mechanisms either requires to be able to do so are all but irrelevant. Use doesn't require deep understanding, and people behind the scenes are constantly working to make this ever more the case. They're aiming for that great ideal of seamlessness, where things just work without thought or effort. (The fact that a restaurant-delivery service whose ads disparage the idea of cooking at home is named Seamless is one of the great societal jokes of the age.)<br />
<br />
This in't that, of course.<br />
<br />
This is about cases where someone has a primal and innate need to be able to drive fast and well, to repair something correctly, to understand someone's engineering or business or competition decision and have some insight as to where it leads and what consequences it might bring - a need to be engaged with something that somehow <i>makes sense</i>, that is a manifestation of rationality and connectedness brought into this reality.<br />
<br />
This is about trying to find something that works with whatever consciousness and identity we each have when so many important and meaningful elements of this existence cannot do so, when life rudely defies our efforts to achieve or affiliate on some level or apathetically leaves us in some chaotic space without orientation.<br />
<br />
This is about a need to be fulfilled.<br />
<br />
Read enough articles and flip through enough social media posts and you start to get the sense that a lot of us who are intellectually and emotionally invested in cars and bikes and whatever are, to be quite blunt about it, walking psychological calamities.<br />
<br />
I'm not going to be so impolite as to name names or cite specific examples, and that's unnecessary anyway. Everyone in this ill-defined but understood sect of gearheads eventually reads the same stuff or gets clued in on various declarations and conversations or can read understandings into certain situations, and we've all seen plenty of dark matter on display lately. I will immodestly include myself within this situation, both because of an unavoidable sense of affinity and because incidences of "yeah, me too" in various forms of expression happen way the hell too often, both as reflections of someone else's reality seen in my own head and a variety of affirming responses received to expressions of mine.<br />
<br />
There's a pervasive, common sense of storm cloud out there for a lot of us, and I get the very real sense that it relates - leads - directly to a love of wheels and movement, and the order and control that goes with them.<br />
<br />
Take any number of roots: childhood traumas, strained or complicated family relationships, chronic depression, a lack of purpose or direction in life from the very beginning. From that ground then grows the frustrations of everyday life, especially the disempowering or irrational: job situations, romantic entanglements, a jumble of often-awkward interpersonal relationships or a sense of emptiness where there aren't enough of them. (My details are irrelevant; suffice to say there's enough of them, both concrete and suspected, to fill a very dreary supplementary essay.)<br />
<br />
Enter the Car, which even in the abstract is a set of lovely and sincere promises: rational systems, aesthetic allure, cultural significance, the eternal human dream of simple mobility. Then you drive, and with motion is engagement and empowerment and a truly extraordinary set of sensations that occur as a direct result of a constant set of agreements between a driver's will and a machine's design and universal law.<br />
<br />
Like I said, this <i>means</i> something. It fills part of a massive essential craving for meaning and order - a sense of satisfaction, a degree of comfort - in a world that too often actively tries to negate both of those. And in that it becomes something of a need.<br />
<br />
Is this everyone who cares about cars? No. Of course not. (Thank God.) There are certainly well-adjusted, well-balanced people who just find cars or or motorcycles or bicycles or boats or airplanes to be an interesting and rewarding avocation. Good on them, nothing wrong with that at all.<br />
<br />
But for a lot of us, this has become something vital. It provides a sense of stability, of sanity. Even beyond the ability of personal interests to help cope with the absurdity and evil of modern life, this devoted study of motion provides a center, a sanctuary of rationality and knowability.<br />
<br />
I think this sense of meaning that comes with understanding how to time a camshaft or feeling the forces acting on a car and its controls through a fast corner has always existed, although it has evolved - especially lately and especially with the further insidious spread of what Marxists would call alienation, that distance between work and product.<br />
<br />
Used to be that mechanical know-how was more common, either by necessity or association, and the satisfaction of understanding and skillfully using these mechanical systems was part of everyday life. Now it's not as everyday - as the folks with their apps ironically understand - and in that shift the meaning of the association has changed. In its emotional charge it has acquired a sectarian attitude. Being a mechanically-inclined person sets you apart now - maybe in certain ways that have historical roots, but with a new intensity borne of a changed definition of need.<br />
<br />
And there are plenty of historical roots, fault lines that act as a map or cryptographic code for some of us. Who has long stood as popular representatives of vehicle culture? Loners. Outsiders. Vaguely mystical eccentrics. The curmudgeonly sage in the grimy garage, the insular band of societal rejects. James Dean blasting toward the abyss in his Porsche 550, Brando rebelling against whatever ya got. Kerouac and his windblown world. Captain America and Billy on their Harleys. Kowalski. Dom Toretto and his family. As mechanical aptitude fades from popular understanding, these stand ever more in relief.<br />
<br />
Those of us who struggle to exist in this world can see that and find examples. And from there we can find truths, impossibly valuable axioms that provide a handhold. Yeah, it puts us at odds with the popular front in certain ways, but that was understood in the first place.<br />
<br />
There are parallels in other parts of life. You can see the same attitudes in play in the arts - the skill and devotion required to master a musical instrument, the focus and sense of intuitive technical understanding necessary in writing - although, let's face it, the track record for mental health among creative types alludes to many of the same bleak concerns.<br />
<br />
Expand past that. I'd like to think that finding some stability in this center allows us to make better sense of everyday life, but I lack evidence towards that conclusion. Maybe it helps us cope. Maybe that contrast between the systematic and the chaotic has its own lessons that help us develop into more complete and balanced human beings.<br />
<br />
Maybe not. Maybe we just get stuck in - or hide in - this understanding sometime and let antisocial tendencies take over. There's a certain truth to the scene in "Grand Prix" where Brian Bedford's Scott Stoddard snaps at his wife about how it is so much easier to deal with a car than a person, so much better to be able to take something apart and find out what's wrong and fix it and put it back together. Same goes with red-mist charges on back roads or argumentative parsing of FCA's latest hot take.<br />
<br />
Regardless, it's still there and it still means something intensely important. And in that it is simply something that is very, very good for a lot of us. We need to be able to make sense of something in this world and be able to have some sense of control.<br />
<br />
The idea of control is interesting. It's not so much some kind of totalitarian authority - my otherwise inadequate self will assert ABSOLUTE DOMINANCE over this electrical problem/qualifying lap/bench-racing argument! - as it is a sense of operating within a comprehensible system, of being a fair part of something. We act within certain limits; we occasionally work to find the very extent of those limits, or seek the means to change them, but we know they are there and they demand respect because they make sense in knowable ways. Again, there's a sense of security and even dignity in that.<br />
<br />
And, ultimately, that's a lot of what bothers me about autonomous shared mobility and so on. The chimera of the self-driving car, that generations-spanning dream of effortless motion monitored and managed by the panopticon - and now freed from burdens of ownership and responsibility - is the ultimate in seamlessness, in alienation: get me to this place and the means exist solely (and preferably invisibly) to enable the end. God knows we can be assholes enough about manual transmissions because of what they legitimately mean to us; what happens when the whole car is an app, and far too many people think this is a good thing? How do we connect with something that by its nature eliminates involvement?<br />
<br />
I see kids in my classes who are utterly adrift in anxiety and ennui, who haven't found that handhold in systems that make sense. I fear for them.<br />
<br />
And, increasingly, I fear for us as the world turns ever further against us.<br />
<br />
Coding isn't the same.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-11319421099830414842017-03-01T16:07:00.003-05:002017-03-01T16:07:34.200-05:00Square spaceI am currently working on about three different essays here. They are taking time.<br />
<br />
While I am doing this (or trying to do this, or getting to the point where I am doing this) go read <a href="http://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/sporting/a9619/vintage-volvos/" target="_blank">Blake Rong's masterful piece about Volvo wagons in Town & Country</a>, of all places.<br />
<br />
Now. Seriously.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-81492157660497083522017-01-06T16:11:00.001-05:002017-01-06T19:54:17.432-05:00Minimalism<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bLukAZApjTxy_AgdwT1mA_PMUjd10rlEtglKE0kTZKNSyHv2f2yq8TBilyuD20GlHjVx4o33WeuSLqk3YOc1HsmeD4w8pLVTFxBtbOmf33ptYmKZMSqS0Q4Wv2H0wC-0Yj4C_FaOTc3_/s1600/Ninco_JGTC_Fahrerfeld.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-bLukAZApjTxy_AgdwT1mA_PMUjd10rlEtglKE0kTZKNSyHv2f2yq8TBilyuD20GlHjVx4o33WeuSLqk3YOc1HsmeD4w8pLVTFxBtbOmf33ptYmKZMSqS0Q4Wv2H0wC-0Yj4C_FaOTc3_/s1600/Ninco_JGTC_Fahrerfeld.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ninco_JGTC_Fahrerfeld.jpg" target="_blank">Thomas Mielke</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the great things about Twitter is its ability to act as the proverbial office water cooler for a lot of us who no longer have steady access to an office water cooler; it's a mix of weird gossip, pompous pronouncements, hissing provocations, and all the other good stuff that comes with being around people, with the added bonus of being able to select just who you're likely to bump into at any one time (depending on retweets which originate from various uninvited and unsavory third parties, sincere intention to spark discussion notwithstanding).<br />
<br />
And like any proverbial water cooler, in that mix of gossip and pomposity and so on occasionally something genuinely interesting pops up.<br />
<br />
So a bit more than a week ago we got this:<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
What's the smallest engine you could use to power a car capable of moving under its own power?</div>
— Rory Carroll (@Rory_Carroll) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rory_Carroll/status/814220385688420352">December 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
Yeah, it sounds like the kind of question that would come up amongst a bunch of gearheads passing a bong and listening to <i>Ummagumma</i>-era Floyd in some off-campus basement. (Maybe that's actually what Twitter is?) But it's also a really good question.<br />
<br />
In fact this is a <i>great</i> question, a gloriously iconoclastic inquiry in a world currently obsessed with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_M8A" target="_blank">Can-Am-grade</a> outputs. Forget about the flood of recent mills that have made cars with 0-to-60 times in the four-second bracket seem lackluster. Set aside the Hellcats and the Lamborghini SVs and the ludicrous-mode Teslas and the rest. What's the <i>least</i> motor you need to get by in the world?<br />
<br />
Of course the answer is the same as the answer to the perennial question about what the Greatest Car In The World is: <i>it depends</i>*. Or, as quickly came up in the conversation:<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/HanSolex">@HanSolex</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Rory_Carroll">@Rory_Carroll</a> Parameters to define here:<br />
<br />
Moving under it's own power: ___ m/s<br />
<br />
Smallest: Displacement, external package etc</div>
— Ben Wojdyla (@Ben_Wojdyla) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ben_Wojdyla/status/814270205878763521">December 29, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Right. Of course this kind of rulemaking has a habit of getting into a deep ontological discussion about what a car actually <i>is</i> and how ridiculously tiny and flimsy a structure one can propose and still take seriously, never mind the inevitable mind-expanding dive into the possibilities of gear reduction enabling a Cox .049 motor to 'technically' motivate a GMC 3500HD or whatever. But those both get to the <i><a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/09/15/motor-attached-to-se.html" target="_blank">absurdum</a></i> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pASh-rVSGo0" target="_blank">part</a> of a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> way too quickly to be useful and eventually you're better off just admitting that the ultimate solution is to lose the motor completely and ride a bicycle, which is not a bad thing at all but also not the answer.<br />
<br />
If we're going to take this seriously - and this is a question well worth taking very seriously - let's consider those parameters that Wojdyla brings up and fill in some sensible judgement calls:<br />
<ul>
<li>First, let's make this a real car and not a Peel P50 or go-kart or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CL14ojbRM4" target="_blank">powered barstool</a> or something like that. Yes, we'll obviously have to skew small here, but we also want this to be recognizable as a car and (mostly) work in the real world. So small two-seater or very small four-seater, which matters more as weight (and to a lesser extent air drag) than sheer size.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Second, let's make this at least passably functional in the real world, which means that our hypothetical States of Motion MicroMotor Special will need to be able to achieve, oh, an arbitrary but not irrational 20 meters per second (that's 72 kph/~44.74 mph), which at least is good enough for suburban streets and country lanes if not Interstates.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Yes, we're going to mostly be using metric through this; it's much easier to perform calculations. I'll throw in a few converted figures when necessary. And there will be a bit of discreet rounding here and there, but it should all work out in the end.</div>
<ul>
<li>Third, to simplify the whole process a bit we will disregard concerns about packaging and displacement and instead arrive at a solution based solely on output, which tends to generally dictate the rest of that anyway.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Fourth, nothing else that we normally consider when thinking about a car - handling, design, safety, comfort, cruising range, long-term reliability, appeal to potential copulative partners - matters in the least here. We are strictly concerned with motivating a box capable of carrying a few nearly-normal-sized humans from one place to another.</li>
</ul>
So let's think about what it actually means to power a vehicle based on some elementary physics.<br />
<br />
In idealized steady-state driving, such as cruising along a flat and level highway, the vehicle only needs enough power to overcome various forms of drag, mostly air resistance and the deformation and stickiness of tires on the road surface, and some subsequent driveline friction. Find a way to reduce or eliminate that air resistance and tire drag - think magnetically-levitating hovercraft moving in a vacuum - and our vehicle acts as a pure inertia device which requires zero energy to keep moving. This doesn't work in the real world**, of course, but we can design this thing to be pretty slippery - and at 72 kph it's not going to be facing that much of a wall of air anyway - and we can also go ahead and specify ultra-low-rolling-resistance tires, maybe stolen from a first-gen Honda Insight or something. So barring a shipping container being dragged behind the car, cruising is not a major issue.<br />
<br />
I'll even say that acceleration isn't a huge issue here either. Yes, we need this thing to convert a certain amount of potential energy of some form into kinetic energy as it gathers up its skirts and eventually works its way up to our 72 kph, but we won't have a mandatory minimum acceleration parameter. Any continuing application of force sufficient to overcome drag will result in acceleration (basically force = mass times acceleration - or, as we'll use later, acceleration = force/mass - with some minor parasitic factors) and we'll have an adequate amount of that given how this is something which will get resolved in the course of dealing with our biggest concern.<br />
<br />
That biggest concern is what happens when that road isn't flat and level. We do not live on a giant ball bearing, and hills are a fact of life***. The SoM MicroMotor Special - oh, what the hell, let's call it the Mouse - will have to pull itself up an incline to be considered a functioning automobile, and this is where the fun starts.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTaZ5n50aU7zU63beN5vPbbDtAzg8ZdAeMBxMm4lnYdPdV7G5639JAhmd2Jg7ynnFt-JUP5FtkHmCFcqVMBWQIByDLrOs8ATImQ_OnDs7XUVDX0wAqDXXqW3K7RFDYLfCCL3YnxYYqzHTu/s1600/640px-San_Francisco_Street_on_Nob_Hill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="465" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTaZ5n50aU7zU63beN5vPbbDtAzg8ZdAeMBxMm4lnYdPdV7G5639JAhmd2Jg7ynnFt-JUP5FtkHmCFcqVMBWQIByDLrOs8ATImQ_OnDs7XUVDX0wAqDXXqW3K7RFDYLfCCL3YnxYYqzHTu/s640/640px-San_Francisco_Street_on_Nob_Hill.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Francisco_Street_on_Nob_Hill.jpg" target="_blank">Andreas Praefcke</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Let's add another bullet point to our list of Wojdyla parameters:<br />
<ul>
<li>The vehicle must be able to climb an arbitrary 7% grade of indefinite length while maintaining a speed of 16 m/sec (57.6 kph/~35.8 mph).</li>
</ul>
And for this to occur the motor must do honest-to-Archimedes work and deliver it at a set rate, which means we need to have a certain definite minimum power figure, which can be calculated.<br />
<br />
Notebooks out.<br />
<br />
So some terms need to be clarified: First, we're concerned with weight instead of mass. Mass is a measure of how much matter something contains; weight is that matter under the influence of gravity. A kilogram really doesn't weigh one kilogram, but rather 9.8 newtons***.<br />
<br />
Work is the act of moving an object by applying force. More commonly, and more relevant to our concerns, it's the act of lifting a certain weight a certain distance or rotating an arm (or a wheel, which is just kind of a continuous arm if you think about it...hey, anything left in the bong?) around an axis, which we all know as that glorious thing that is torque.<br />
<br />
Power is the act of performing that work in a certain time.<br />
<br />
Let's get our parameters set up in real units:<br />
<br />
A 7% grade is almost exactly 4 degrees from horizontal. That doesn't sound like much until you have to climb it; a 7% grade is the maximum permitted on Interstate highways and even then only for short distances in mountainous terrain (a 6% maximum is more generally enforced). For visualization purposes, 7%/4° converts to a rise of 1 meter for every 14.3 meters in straightline distance.<br />
<br />
We next need to consider the weight of the vehicle. Naturally the Mouse will be as light as is practical, but again we're aiming for at least some sort of real-world relevance so yes, a real structure, and no, not a carbon-fiber skeleton wearing a Reynolds Wrap skin. Quick research shows that most tiny people movers with (ostensibly) four seats - the Tata Nano, the original Issigonis Mini - scale in at about 600kg. Weave in some Japanese engineering genius and a small parallel-twin motorcycle engine and you have the Honda N360, which weighs about 500kg and which we'll accept as a reasonable minimum for something that won't fold in on itself*****.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6JiBW8XMnYSswMbQIHAIZEJsHbSUeEQX2bkqOswSK6WtCMv9kvx2mXcN-RuZEuTw5xWyH8OmNDXQg4_tNDQMCxVnfe2liBgyMTkTYgp-ESeAp-gjQTD1dbq1_WlogP2vSNlvUxV-lEEAs/s1600/640px-Honda_N360_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6JiBW8XMnYSswMbQIHAIZEJsHbSUeEQX2bkqOswSK6WtCMv9kvx2mXcN-RuZEuTw5xWyH8OmNDXQg4_tNDQMCxVnfe2liBgyMTkTYgp-ESeAp-gjQTD1dbq1_WlogP2vSNlvUxV-lEEAs/s1600/640px-Honda_N360_001.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <bdi style="background-image: none; color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Honda_N360_001.JPG" target="_blank">天然ガス</a></bdi></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That's just for the vehicle; at the very least we also have to include a driver. Yes, we could hire some winsome and fawnlike ultralight Eastern European fashion model to be our test driver, but let's again aim for a certain real-world element. Propriety says that to cover various arrangements of passengers and luggage and drinks in cupholders and whatever we should skew the driver's mass slightly large, towards the Matt Farah/Jack Baruth/yr hmbl svt end of the body mass index, and so we'll add 100kg****** as our operator/payload mass.<br />
<br />
That gets us up to 600kg that has to be hauled up this 7%/4° grade at the mandated 16m/sec by something more than good intentions.<br />
<br />
The equation to find the required power turns out to be very straightforward, especially when using those metric units:<br />
<br />
<b>Weight</b> (in newtons) times <b>rate</b> (in meters per second) times <b>distance</b> (vertical component only since that's what the work here is doing so sine of 4°) equals <b>power</b> in watts.<br />
<br />
(Yeah, I also thought it was too simple at first as well, except that a watt is defined as (kg × m²)/sec³ so that cleans it up in a hurry.)<br />
<br />
Plug in our Wojdyla parameters of 600kg vehicle mass and 16m/sec speed up the incline, and using the accepted 9.8m/sec² constant for gravity and rounding sin(4°) from 0.069756474... to a more palatable .07:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
600 × 9.8 × 16 × .07 = 6585.6 watts</div>
<br />
Or 6.6 kilowatts, or 8.85 horsepower. Add 10% or so for mechanical losses and various invocations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and we can say that the Mouse really needs no more than 7.5 kilowatts, or 10 horsepower.<br />
<br />
That's not much as far as motors go, even in the pre-Hellcat era.<br />
<br />
Just for the sake of it let's figure out the resultant torque and acceleration.<br />
<br />
Two things: First, given a constant power output the motor can either spin faster with less torque or spin slower with more torque. A motor producing <i>x</i> torque and turning at <i>n</i> rpm will make the same power as one producing 2<i>x</i> torque and turning at <i>n</i>/2 rpm. This conversion will happen repeatedly below.<br />
<br />
Second, one important note about calculating this and what it means to the vehicle itself: In order to know how much force is being applied to the pavement, we naturally need to know how much force the motor is generating at any one instant. This is not an easy thing to do with internal-combustion motors; because of cam timing and ignition curves and a bunch of other factors they do not produce consistent torque throgh the rev range, which anyone who has ever looked at a dyno chart knows. If we fitted the Mouse with a CVT we could theoretically have it run at a consistent ideal speed, but it's better to go ahead and use a power source which produces wonderfully steady (if subjectively boring) torque, run through a constant ratio.<br />
<br />
Yes, it's an electric Mouse.<br />
<br />
Okay, so those wheels and tires we stole off of someone's 2000 Insight are sized 165/65R14, so they have a circumference of just about 179cm. In order to make the Mouse move at that mandated flat-surface speed of 20m/sec they have to rotate 11.17 times per second, or 670.39 times per minute.<br />
<br />
10 horsepower being delivered at <strike>671 rpm</strike> <span style="color: red;">[HOLD ON IMPORTANT UPDATE HERE: We're NOT spinning the wheels at 671 rpm to get 10hp; that power calculation was done at 16m/sec so we actually have to figure this at 537 rpm - corrected numbers follow] </span>translates to a <strike>decent 78.3</strike> <span style="color: red;">agreeable 97.8 </span>foot-pounds of torque, or <span style="color: red;">132.6</span> joules, delivered consistently at the contact patch. (The motor will spin a bit faster; <a href="http://www.ebay.com/bhp/10-hp-electric-motor" target="_blank">redlines on commonly available 10hp electric motors tend to be around 1700-1800 rpm</a>. If we run it through effective 2.6:1 reduction gearing, that means the motor is making about <span style="color: red;">37.6</span> foot-pounds, or <span style="color: red;">51</span> joules. Seems about right.)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: red;">And by the way, this 25% correction means that the Mouse's motor now should make about 12bhp at max revs, given how torque tends to fall off a bit at top with electrics.</span><br />
<br />
The radius of the wheel-tire combo is 28.45cm (1/3.515 of a meter) and 132.6 joules is 132.6 newton-meters, so the drive wheels are pushing the Mouse forward with a more or less constant force of 132.6 <span style="text-align: center;">×</span> 3.515 = 466.1 newtons.<br />
<br />
Acceleration is force divided by mass, so 466.1n/600kg for the win.<br />
<br />
The Mouse will accelerate at a generally consistent rate of <span style="color: red;">0.78</span> meters per second, per second. It will take a little something over <span style="color: red;">26</span> seconds to hit our mandatory top speed of 20m/sec - but it will eventually get there.<br />
<br />
Yeah. Um...that's slow*******. (Not as slow as with the miscalculation based on 671 rpm, but still.) Admittedly if we used a multiple-ratio gearbox we could use that magical reduction gearing from very early on to get more force to the ground and clip a substantial amount of time off of this figure. Something to maybe work on later.<br />
<br />
----------<br />
<br />
Having gotten through all this, let's look at some parallel real-world/historical examples of barely-adequately-powered vehicles, even if none of them are electrics:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuN02YRwqFjila-pm3Yi6tjxGQyvB5bdy1ZlwytSmXC3ThVnF3Z59nddFqpEUaz2xLWAIIGEjwjNc4oxD7b9Lz-3jK0m6XgUqoU4UJiazBuYNkgt_CxTw6cNcUdnDP8KTaazykX8ORzmhL/s1600/benz-patent-motorwagen-w800xh320-cutout.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuN02YRwqFjila-pm3Yi6tjxGQyvB5bdy1ZlwytSmXC3ThVnF3Z59nddFqpEUaz2xLWAIIGEjwjNc4oxD7b9Lz-3jK0m6XgUqoU4UJiazBuYNkgt_CxTw6cNcUdnDP8KTaazykX8ORzmhL/s640/benz-patent-motorwagen-w800xh320-cutout.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Daimler-Benz</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We might as well start at the beginning. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen produced a whole roaring 2/3 of a horsepower (500 watts) from its near-liter of displacement but did so at all of 250 rpm, which means that torque at that engine speed was a slightly more palatable 14 lb/ft or 19 joules. (And it probably needed every bit of it to rotate those big carriage wheels from a start.) Even so, it was enough to get Berta Benz and her two teenage boys through a near-200km round trip to see her mama at about 15kph, which was audaciously fast in 1886.<br />
<br />
The N360 from earlier was overpowered for our purposes; its 354cc parallel-twin spun out 23kW, or about 31bhp, and top speed was an excessive 105kph/~65mph.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhktzAl1d_lbVzyXa8EgiruKZWqH0nlflvWpPXmueuBpXh1U9d_iRUiyf6PcmyphlOOK63TbKolfdeWvSSzslCsnjFAyAnKLXYcSsXhAjQMJE7R8clnNm8bp4UB3LArhlyVBeWKSZY4RLkw/s1600/Citroen2cvtff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhktzAl1d_lbVzyXa8EgiruKZWqH0nlflvWpPXmueuBpXh1U9d_iRUiyf6PcmyphlOOK63TbKolfdeWvSSzslCsnjFAyAnKLXYcSsXhAjQMJE7R8clnNm8bp4UB3LArhlyVBeWKSZY4RLkw/s1600/Citroen2cvtff.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Citroen2cvtff.jpg" target="_blank">Thomas Forsman</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The closest equivalent to the Mouse in real life is probably the Citroën 2CV, which weighs about 600 kg and in its early 375cc form cranked out 9 hp/6.7kW - although as with the Benz that would likely translate into a somewhat less existentially troubling torque figure. Unfortunately, its top speed of 65 kph was apparently adequate when meandering from charming Gallic village to charming Gallic village in the 1950s but doesn't measure up to our modern requirement. (Later ones were faster, although the idea of "fast" when talking about 2CVs is always a bit relative.) The electric motor might provide a bit more oomph, though, and its super-short 1st gear apparently gave it some impressive grade/stair-climbing potential.<br />
<br />
So that's what you <i>need</i>. Would anyone actually <i>want</i> a Mouse, though? No, not really. The inability to operate at Interstate speeds is a massive handicap, general around-town effectiveness would be marginal at best, and again we haven't thought about anything else that goes into making this thing the slightest bit likeable.<br />
<br />
Absolute minimum real-world power is probably along the lines of a 36hp Volkswagen Beetle, which again does better if you measure torque; in more realistic terms the 68hp of a three-cylinder Mitsubishi Mirage is about as low as anyone is willing to go to propel a modern car. Even the very Mouse-like Mitsu i-MiEV makes 63hp from its electric motor, and no one thinks of that as a rational all-around vehicle.<br />
<br />
But I do sometimes think it would be cool to own a 2CV, though.<br />
<br />
----------<br />
<br />
*: Of course this answer is a total evasion. Everyone really knows that the Greatest Car In The World is an Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ2, unless you unfortunately have to carry more than one other person with you and in that case it's a Mercedes W123 wagon. But no one wants to say this all the time because most normal people tend to get that kind of furrowed-brow thing going on when you say this, so it's better to punt.<br />
<br />
**: Although I'm certain someone in Silicon Valley thinks otherwise and will be hitting up venture capital shops to fund this particular exercise in disrupting an anachronistic status quo as soon as they figure out how to put it in an app.<br />
<br />
***: No, not <a href="http://www.snackworks.com/products/newtons" target="_blank">that kind</a>.<br />
<br />
****: Residents of Kansas may beg to differ.<br />
<br />
*****: Seriously. Even early Lotus Sevens weighed around 500kg (and those occasionally folded in on themselves).<br />
<br />
******: By happy coincidence also the normal weight of an average adult male <i>Ailuropoda melanoleuca</i>, or giant panda.<br />
<br />
*******: Maybe we should find one of those Eastern European models.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-54763009875332100872016-12-14T12:36:00.004-05:002016-12-14T12:40:51.019-05:00Hot takes to ward off the winter chill<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3RUJ2dWIDa3WNoI8CKfE4EQAIhYDRCnCnQ8XHERPaKfJLLTnqicgh4GotF5y8fxRXAmoXjuuN14kyMXQMsBZOa47NV4ajCTElK2Go1RTYR1eayX6zDsL1R6ySoFVaYPgyeo6Ocnyabme/s1600/match-268528_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh3RUJ2dWIDa3WNoI8CKfE4EQAIhYDRCnCnQ8XHERPaKfJLLTnqicgh4GotF5y8fxRXAmoXjuuN14kyMXQMsBZOa47NV4ajCTElK2Go1RTYR1eayX6zDsL1R6ySoFVaYPgyeo6Ocnyabme/s640/match-268528_1280.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Story ideas conceived and to some degree pursued then eventually left apathetically to gather virtual dust over the last few months (or longer) by a writer busy prepping lesson plans when not drowning in ennui, some with more substance than others:<br />
<br />
1. Pickup trucks are the new pony cars. (This one actually has a point to it, but it also meandered into some kind of sociological argument about changes in the working class and rock music vs. country and so on without actually getting past superficialities. Great for a serious feature article by a pro journalist who can get out and do interviews and so on, not so great for a geek blogger.)<br />
<br />
2. Simple is good! Old BMWs and Hondas are good! Quirks and gimmicks get old. (I think I've done this one before.)<br />
<br />
3. <i><a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/10/07/what_is_hygge_the_danish_concept_of_coziness_that_basically_means_candlelit.html" target="_blank">Hygge</a></i> but in car form. Insert many getting-snuggly-and-then-some-in-Volvos quips here.<br />
<br />
4. Insanely complex million-dollar-plus hypercars are irrelevant. Mostly. Somehow. But maybe not Lamborghinis, just because. It gets philosophical.<br />
<br />
5. Cars have identities. But identity is somewhat plastic and evolutionary. And does it matter that a Fiat is built in Japan or that a Corvette doesn't have round taillights? Does anyone care? (That question has an unfortunate double meaning here.)<br />
<br />
6. Variations on tired "favorite car/car you'd buy right now" questions to use when necessary: What car do you daydream about most often? What do you want to drive but not own? What car do you think your significant other most wants? (Besides, does anyone really have an all-time single favorite car?)<br />
<br />
7. Small and light and balanced and ~200bhp is better than big and heavy and thundering and 500+bhp and obnoxious. (See #2 above alongside many Mustang crash videos.)<br />
<br />
8. Joy of vintage racing, good people, cool cars often with license plates, etc.<br />
<br />
Dear Lord I need to get out more.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-79278560811332670652016-12-12T15:13:00.003-05:002023-10-07T12:18:18.823-04:00The comfort of the new<div class="p1">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWD49KHVmo8ogRqXFcm7GitvvbV5W8wCdVINFPfgXUSHJzyv4G-x0qq1bb1YfOn3CsvrRe5BopTKwbm5api9kofhC_J3ulHao6UgQpGOo0QBF3H0o2ULsMwYZKVuxz5XDqilNJ3lcw5Kx/s1600/IMG_2143.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWD49KHVmo8ogRqXFcm7GitvvbV5W8wCdVINFPfgXUSHJzyv4G-x0qq1bb1YfOn3CsvrRe5BopTKwbm5api9kofhC_J3ulHao6UgQpGOo0QBF3H0o2ULsMwYZKVuxz5XDqilNJ3lcw5Kx/s640/IMG_2143.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At rest in the suburbs of the Lord (with apologies to Peter Matthiessen).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">So
I'm now closing in on five months into my three-year term with the Jetta, and I
think I owe the collective vehicle manufacturers of the world a bit of an
apology: having a new car isn't that bad after all.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Yes,
really. It's not a total sacrifice of my ideals and ambitions. It's not
penance. I didn't sign the lease agreement with a pricked fingertip. I've just
had to realize a few things that were too easily glossed over before.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">As
one of those irascible reactionaries who venerates some past noble age of
directness and mechanical integrity - the Golden Era before stability control
and networked vehicle systems management and ventilated massaging seats became
mandatory either by regulation or product-planner diktat - and who greets each
great leap forward into a passive and cosseted future (autonomy! connectivity!
active crash mitigation! gesture control!) with a renewed determination to
someday have an Alfa 1750GTV as a daily driver, the idea of a New Car has just
seemed off-putting.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
<span class="s1">And it's not just me; a durable common consensus among Hardcore
Gearhead Nation is that there are a bare handful of factory-fresh machines
which are even remotely desirable or worth serious consideration, especially
compared to any number of wonderful and reasonably attainable vintage cars.
(And by no means does that select few automatically include upscale speedsters,
given their often-questionable usability and eye-watering continuous costs and
"am I wearing enough cologne? let's make sure!" owner image.)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But
right now I'm okay with the Jetta. This is working. I'm not exactly flooded
with a sense of exhilaration and aesthetic fulfillment every morning
pre-commute, but this is a net positive state of affairs in the current world.
If 2016 has been a year of ongoing disappointment and gathering melancholy,
having this thing is definitely one of its much lesser issues.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Part
of this state of general contentment is surely due to that fact that the Jetta
is a base-model S and as such is spared much of the gratuitous
hedonistic/anesthetic silliness that apparently enhances the popular appeal of
more upscale cars. Part of it is that it's a pretty good machine on its own
merits. Part of it is me growing up a bit.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">A
few notes behind this Zen-smiley-faced outlook:</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">1.
Given my usage and local conditions there's a primal sense of security derived
from something that hasn't aged excessively. Sure, it would be nice to have an
E30 325is or a slightly tuned NA Miata, but on a very day-to-day level it's
also nice to not have the accompanying 25ish-year-old suspension bushings and
coolant hoses and relays and the like. A new car is a not-worn-out car. And a
warranty helps.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">2.
Good marks for well-rounded usable performance. The turbo motor is a bit tricky
(more to follow) but once off idle it scoots. Handling is nice and direct
without being edgy, ride is well-controlled without being wallowy or brittle.
It lacks some of the tossability and forged-aluminum feel - light, simple,
strong - of my old Audi Coupe GT, but within its contemporary mainstream
paradigm it's very well-resolved.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">3.
Highway fuel economy has been startlingly high. I have to be driving like one
of several varieties of idiot to average less than 40 mpg on the short hop
between Norwalk and Bridgeport. An extended run in clean conditions will see
the trip average edge up towards 50 mpg indicated. Fuel stops are once every
three or so weeks, and I can (and did) make a round trip to Mom, 280 miles
away, and back on a single tank. Nothing that I was directly considering would
have come close to this. Serious fuel mileage is an underappreciated innate
Good too often dismissed by people who see an indulgent permissiveness in low
oil prices.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Purely
on the side, time spent so far has softened my deep loathing of steering-wheel
controls. Yes, I still find the redundant sound-system rockers to be less than
unnecessary, but having the trip-computer controls on the right spoke and the
cruise-control buttons on the left works really well. (No, I haven't even used
the cruise control yet, but it's still good placement.) And Bluetooth isn't the
worst thing in the world either.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">My
one demand going into this car-acquiring situation was that I needed three
pedals; turns out that many of the Jetta's quirks revolve around the
transmission and its interplay with the motor. Most immediately, gearing is
astronomically high - 1st overall is 12.6 to 1, which puts it at about 1 1/2th
in most gearboxes, and 5th overall is a Mulsanne Straght-grade 2.11 to 1 -
which helps explain both the excellent fuel economy and my occasional
tendency to stall during the first few weeks around town. Well-judged clutch
slip is a constant part of life.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">That,
um, relaxed gearing also means that getting into the power at highway speeds
often requires an assertive downshift to 3rd - and trying to rev-match across a
big gap with nonlinear pedal response (ECU tuning? random effect of boost
factored in?) makes a smooth shift almost impossible. I've taken to a very
deliberate and slowish 5th-to-4th-to-3rd approach in appropriate cases, even if
it means sometimes forgoing a potential opening in the midst of oblivious and
uncooperative Connecticut drivers.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">It's
interesting: When I was growing up in the '80s turbos were all heady top-end
rush with a gutless low end as the accepted tradeoff; think 930s or F1 cars.
This one, and by received description apparently many more using this kind of
trendy boosted-low-displacement approach, instead is punchy and torquey from
something like 1200-1500 up to maybe 5000 where it runs out of breath. I can
get a nice assertive jump away from a stoplight with a bit of clutch/throttle
shuffling, but short-shifting is required to keep things at max pull.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">That's
about it as far as unintuitive behavior goes here, which also kind of parallels
my one standing disappointment with the car: it doesn't have much character.
It's very rational and well-considered, sure, but it doesn't do much for the
soul. It is businesslike in the straightest sense of the term. It has no
interest in pursuing even a taste of the Bohemian sensibility of its air-cooled
and A1-chassis ancestors and very clearly wants to grow up to be an Audi A6
instead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYB9gxyKMF-Dnm3-MRGWm8BxwVXpWlJQOZr_C3Q-7KRhoCeSfkGoBdd12j4zvuhp9EzzeVR15cGo-5pvDxdI96ALZqar052wmdURJhvAF8wj55j753RbcZtQZUvYOk41gCdU61KcCKnW5/s1600/IMG_0014.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXYB9gxyKMF-Dnm3-MRGWm8BxwVXpWlJQOZr_C3Q-7KRhoCeSfkGoBdd12j4zvuhp9EzzeVR15cGo-5pvDxdI96ALZqar052wmdURJhvAF8wj55j753RbcZtQZUvYOk41gCdU61KcCKnW5/s640/IMG_0014.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">🎼Don't be afraid of the dark....</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">That's
part of what goes with buying new, though. Charm is something that tends to get
picked up along the way with mileage and the influence of an owner's
personality. Cool old cars often - usually? - start out as shiny,
emotionally inert new cars and only earn their panache over time.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">I've
been trying to work with my end of this bargain, jazz it up a bit with a few
well-considered stickers, trying to think of what else could be reasonably done
to shift it leftward out of its spreadsheet mentality, but at the same time am
mostly resigned to it being what it is for now.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And,
again, it's good. It works. It isn't a betrayal of the central idea of a
driving machine, even if it is mainstream and slightly tech-ish and has
mandatory stability control and fat A-pillars and (some of) the rest that
generally comes with being a new car in 2016.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Of
course, part of being good is again also because it's new, and in so being it's
not a continuously suspect pile of aging electronics and decaying rubber pieces
and incidents that the previous owner decided were best left unspoken during
the sales process. And on the flip it's also the beneficiary of plenty of
genuine progress in safety and useful tech and engineering - and their
subsequent trickle-down availability - in recent years. Hey, a streetable turbo
4-valve motor putting out over 100hp/liter bolted into a solid chassis with
multilink suspension and discs at each corner? This didn't really exist at
anything less than Serious Money all that long ago.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Even
the curmudgeons have a bit more reason to be comfortable with the status quo.
Peak New Cars Suck was probably about five years ago, to be honest. Since then
the market has seen more than a few good choices show up, especially at the
lower end. We now have the hugely desirable Ford STs and the return to form of
the new Civic (Si and R-Type still inbound but happily anticipated) and the
vintage-Alfa-reincarnate brilliance of the Mazda3 and the flawed but still
wonderful Toyobaru 86 and the ever-developing goodness of the Miata and the VW
GTI and GLI. Maybe even include the Chevy Cruze and Kia Soul if we just want
something really good to recommend to the neighbor who can't tell a braking
point from a shift point. All of which are perfectly desirable and satisfying from
a purist perspective.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And
many of which have a bit more character than the Jetta - especially the sneaky
superstar of the bunch, the Fiesta ST - and so maybe the undeniable logic of a
very agreeable monthly payment means I'm missing out. Tradeoffs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHpqXJBMSwYt6Fo9jnIPecEuW4DCLaAyuRdHt2Q-lW_-VdaXu7DsCNZ_Cnis2S6h0C1vJRXLwaotduAHmtT1ZelT2xZKYjWFVr2OWPHJVs1IdO4mpvwrGj2_9EySxWvxxh5alyAF0SM6sT/s1600/1435093682415586222.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHpqXJBMSwYt6Fo9jnIPecEuW4DCLaAyuRdHt2Q-lW_-VdaXu7DsCNZ_Cnis2S6h0C1vJRXLwaotduAHmtT1ZelT2xZKYjWFVr2OWPHJVs1IdO4mpvwrGj2_9EySxWvxxh5alyAF0SM6sT/s640/1435093682415586222.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simple is good. Simple and cheap is very good. Simple and cheap and hugely fun is very, very good.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">But
tradeoffs go every way, too. And how much do you trade to have this insulation
around anxieties about electrical gremlins and expensive suspension rebuilds?</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Depends
on the cars, of course. Or what you do to the cars in the process. Think
first-gen Miata, with the likely-for-me installation of a Racing Beat
suspension kit and the consequent ability to renew much of what has aged. Think
E30 and the simple-but-evolved effectiveness of its systems from the two-valve
straight-six to the trailing-arm suspension and how those can also be refreshed
on fair terms. (Yes, my yuppie-scum E30 grudge has thankfully been defeated.)</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Think
how often people grab for Shiny New even if the current state is still very
usable and enjoyable, and Shiny New isn't that much of an improvement.</span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And
it goes deeper than that.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">A
lot of us have been trained to venerate the old: we have vintage races, we have
concours shows, we have that joy of being slackjawed at Cars & Coffee as we
stare down a row of Weber carburetors perched atop hand-machined castings. We
have the equivalent of warrior sagas in Fangio chasing fate around
the Nürburgring and the 300SLR carrying Moss and Jenkins to
Valhalla-in-Brescia and #1075 pushed by angels a few hundred feet ahead of that
908 after twenty-four hours and many more.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">We
like old stuff. It's cool, in that classic echt-hipster definition of cool in
how it marks us as somehow enlightened. It's a signifier of intangibles like
feel and gratification over chilly rationality. And it's still eminently
usable, even if airbags are nice to have.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">And
they act as a way of showing what has changed, what has been gained and lost.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHXwUx5nEY8HnLk8CTCE5l6E78QPFGjnKdz8q1NdRECenuZcCjZxF6BSp4lJ4N4_CzH_Xx_zQv91drNQ_WMg8PnbfDdKOPl9IjHfRzKl7uR9qbEqyqykNZT31lwkbOBIlNsRFmrs_4u6br/s1600/mig.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHXwUx5nEY8HnLk8CTCE5l6E78QPFGjnKdz8q1NdRECenuZcCjZxF6BSp4lJ4N4_CzH_Xx_zQv91drNQ_WMg8PnbfDdKOPl9IjHfRzKl7uR9qbEqyqykNZT31lwkbOBIlNsRFmrs_4u6br/s640/mig.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">Even
if many of the legends have finally been eclipsed - there are any number of
modern sports cars that will run neat well-controlled circles around a 427
Cobra, and old muscle cars are now more cultural signifiers than actual
not-like-this-anymore speed machines - there's that understood pure sensibility
that goes with the Old that has been processed out from modern machines.</span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;">
<br />
<span class="s1">Used to be that Grand Touring machines meant something, were an
expert's tool that required skill and sensitivity to use well. Now anyone who
holds a license and can cover the bill can get a 650i Xdrive that will swiftly
run between Paris and Rome in any conditions without perturbation.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">There's not much meaning or satisfaction in that - but is it a
fair tradeoff? Do we or should we truly value stability and security over
visceral engagement? Turn it around: Would the well-dressed driver of 1966
facing a rainy mountain pass in his Maserati Sebring have had any problems with
skipping ahead fifty years to that 650i, with its scarcely credible advances in
speed and roadworthiness?</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">What do we want from the old, anyway? How do we find
justification for what often turns out to be troublesome and costly? What's the
significance here, other than subjective aesthetic appeal and some tactile
gratification and a limiter on a peculiar strain of proto-Marxist technological
alienation and the benefits of depreciation?</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">All of this kind of meshes together as we face up to the idea of
autonomous vehicles, which promise to strip away every bit of humanity and art
from the act of going from place to place. And that now seems the much more
worrisome concern.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">I suppose it's human nature to grasp for what has slipped by, to
recognize some greatness - or maybe just comfort - in what was normalcy as
things churn. A lot of it may be that as a culture we have a nasty habit of
backfilling wonderfulness into time gone by, letting slip frustrations about
difficulty even getting started on cold mornings and focusing on winding roads
and sunsets that may never have existed. And yeah, there are definitely any
number and kind of losses along the way.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">So still the two paths: find where that past greatness was
retained, or work to keep that which came before viable for today. Yes, there
is the potential case of simultaneously pursuing both - one daily driver and
one vintage toy, and the attendant dual citizenship in each world. Somehow
that's an unsatisfactory conclusion. It's not a complete answer.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">Maybe there is no complete answer, and maybe we just have to
pick our fights and arguments with some discretion and skill. And maybe we have
to still stubbornly advocate for what we even still have - those STs and GTIs
and 86s and Miatas and even kit cars - and hold the moral ground we even still
have, in terms both economic and influential, before it slips further away into
a wasteland of autonomous crossovers. You want good simple fun cars? Ask for
them. And then buy them. And tell other people to buy them.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">And at the same time maybe recognize where there is a shared
mentality - like in those base models that do without the excesses. There's
plenty to be appreciated about the simple minimal approach, which is much of
the point in the first place. Tuning also exists, and it's easier to add a few
choice pieces (hmmmm, those Rial wheels aren't too expensive...) to something
than strip off what needs to go. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="s1">Yes, part of me is already looking forward to what might come
after the Jetta. But it won't be that difficult to enjoy driving until then.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-35150472920911920602016-08-12T11:53:00.001-04:002016-08-12T12:27:49.745-04:00In memoriam<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-6mgSvvmveokbpYjmyqMk0NLW5kiFjL2lCRQj9IsGp6QFT4eV2Saumqx7vr_qOoe9D0iNlSSnY-p7TPoXZlgNHpbIW7RABAy52HRZrtV0fIWXpbRLo0aLNVSuKzBsEIb3dAZRK3DP2tEN/s1600/Sinking_of_the_Lusitania_London_Illus_News.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-6mgSvvmveokbpYjmyqMk0NLW5kiFjL2lCRQj9IsGp6QFT4eV2Saumqx7vr_qOoe9D0iNlSSnY-p7TPoXZlgNHpbIW7RABAy52HRZrtV0fIWXpbRLo0aLNVSuKzBsEIb3dAZRK3DP2tEN/s640/Sinking_of_the_Lusitania_London_Illus_News.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Less about wheels and more about writing about wheels:<br />
<br />
Of the smallish subset of humans who know (and inevitably have an opinion) about Gawker Media, I am in the distinct minority: I dearly love the place and have been watching the events of the past few months with nothing but dismay. Maybe I came along too late after their peak slash-and-firebomb, apocalyptically misanthropic years to really grasp why people think so ill of Denton and his legions as they still do. Maybe it's because I was just a weird kid from the Midwest and not the kind of gasbag that somehow attracts their kind of necessary puncture. I know I assign an outsize importance to the time I spent at Jalopnik and still feel a kinship with what goes on there even knowing how marginal my existence was (six months at one of the less-loved titles in the network) and how far removed it is from today. I am far from the only one so affected, though.<br />
<br />
So over the next few days Gawker Media as an independent entity will cease to exist, being up for auction early next week, and with its demise comes an end to a truly important experiment in the evolution of media. The dangers that Peter Thiel's monomaniacal action represents will have to be unpacked and hopefully countered over time, and I would like to think that someone will see the need for safeguards against this kind of assault on a free (if occasionally obnoxious and antagonistic) press. That this case was even given consideration indicates something worrisome in the waters of American jurisprudence.<br />
<br />
Beyond that I fear the loss of what Gawker is in itself as a sort of cultural autoclave, trying to burn layers of fatuousness from places which desperately need it. God knows that's what we tried to do at Jalopnik to and for an industry that still needs it just as much as New York media.<br />
<br />
(And which I only rarely managed to do with any skill or style in the midst of just trying to keep up, hammering through a straitjacket three-paragraph template and verging on circulatory-system trauma at least three times a day. I probably shouldn't have been there anyway. I'm too nice, too unwilling to be intrusive and accusatory. Matt had to cajole the hell out of me sometimes to get me in the right mood, and the only real lasting legacy from those exercises was a fit of frustration that tagged Bernie Ecclestone as the billionaire Muppet, which is admittedly still one of my prouder moments. And yeah, there was also the grad school thing.)<br />
<br />
All of which will most likely cease to matter in a few hours, depending on how the new corporate adoptive parents choose to treat their wild child. It will be interesting in a kind of postmortem sense to see how everything gets broken apart and redistributed and remade or shut down completely. I fear for the folks at Jalopnik and wonder how on Earth they'd fit in anywhere else, and that extends throughout the network.<br />
<br />
At the same time, there have been any number of Gawker alums who have started to remake the broader media world according to Denton's rules, kicking aside niceties and coziness in favor of high-level writing that lays reality bare in any number of older publications that needed it. So maybe that will work out.<br />
<br />
I'm just glad I was there for a while, fortunate to be part of something different. The world is less well off for its passing.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-32663762779203049322016-07-29T17:13:00.002-04:002016-07-29T17:17:32.239-04:00Acquiescence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrNxULgIWZ9kSXupoKNJUeehpW7OHA2rcAgM6fmk-iPLhj9N-t0I52OeYtcB2u7aD7SLSCqn4CWfyIjU_ep3t8dBPmiEqGSM1D0_5cROXkrLpQHP5wsZb3P4VxKvn7qfWK_FG0v7-KHGk/s1600/IMG_0012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrNxULgIWZ9kSXupoKNJUeehpW7OHA2rcAgM6fmk-iPLhj9N-t0I52OeYtcB2u7aD7SLSCqn4CWfyIjU_ep3t8dBPmiEqGSM1D0_5cROXkrLpQHP5wsZb3P4VxKvn7qfWK_FG0v7-KHGk/s640/IMG_0012.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I would like to think that in each battle between ideals and reality that there is always somehow some kind of happy synthesis, some way to gather together everything and frame it just so. I'm sure that could theoretically be one of many answers, given the right chain of coincidences and decisions, but reality is rarely so generous - to me, at least, and I would wager to most other people as well.<br />
<br />
Especially with calendar pages turning and a budget being eaten away by everyday life in parallel.<br />
<br />
So yeah. It's mine, at least for the next three years. 2016 Volkswagen Jetta S, 1.4 TSI motor, manual transmission.<br />
<br />
No, not what I wanted. Of course not, But probably what works best for the current situation. Or that's what I keep telling myself as a defense.<br />
<br />
It's a good car, decently direct and lively and usable, acquired in what seems like a really good deal. Volkswagen lease offers are ridiculously generous for some pretty obvious reasons right now. So for the money it was about as good as anything else I could have found, especially considering such necessities as upkeep and usability in potentially harsh coastal weather and so on.<br />
<br />
(Yes, I leased it, which is even more out of character for me. I'm almost wondering who actually bought or owns this machine.)<br />
<br />
And it's new, which resolved a number of nagging fears in my head whenever I thought about something else. And whenever I thought seriously about something else, a list of mechanical or situational neuroses tended to follow. Miata? Cooling system. RX-7? Apex seals. Audi A4? Terrifying maintenance costs. GTI or WRX? Tuning abuses. Honda? That plus theft. Fox Mustang? Same plus driving on icy roads. 944? Have a seat and clear your schedule. MGB? One big reality check required in every possible way.<br />
<br />
Never mind deep-seated uncertainties about twentysomething-plus-year-old suspension bushings and potential crash damage and so on.<br />
<br />
Do I even have to go into how it's so much easier to want than to have, to dream about the good stuff without feeling that stomach-tightening sense that something will inevitably go wrong? Especially given my budget ($5000ish) and the fact that whatever I get would be a year-round commuter machine between a couple different campuses in the region?<br />
<br />
Both parts of that fed into the ultimate decision. First, getting something even remotely good was likely to just about clear me out; if anything even moderately expensive had to be done on top of the purchase I was in bad shape. And if anything went wrong later on it would not only be financially troublesome but also cause major grief on a professional level.<br />
<br />
So yeah, reality. Reality in its dismal dream-grinding functionality now sits in the lot downstairs.<br />
<br />
I tried. Drove an MGB which had (more than) a few needs. Tried a well-worn and hail-damaged NA Miata; first thing the seller talked about was how easy it was to put back together after the radiator blew up on the drive to New Jersey from Virginia. Spent I don't even want to know how long scanning ads trying to find something that would work only to find repeated abuses against both cars and the English language.<br />
<br />
The Miata issue deserves its own lamentation, just because it seems that Miata sellers are weirder than the norm. Not more crooked, not more difficult, but definitely weirder. Tried to go see a weathered but still promising '95 M Edition while still in Ithaca - and had the seller accuse me of being a scam artist before she hung up on me, which is not how Craigslist usually works. Had another who never returned a number of polite calls. And so on. Probably gave serious effort to at least five, only really got to see the one, and ended up perplexed.<br />
<br />
Time and patience ran thin. With Wonderful One starting her new job my ability to do test drives would be severely compromised. Was in for more repairs on the Passat (see "A4," above), wandered the showroom, sales dude mentioned the please-help-us lease offers. Deal done in a few days. Problem solved.<br />
<br />
It's not bad for what it is. Excellent ride and handling blend, smooth and torquey motor which returns great fuel economy, pleasant environment even given the basic trim and so-so seats (really need more lumbar support). Gripes? The shifter is traditional front-drive VW in its less-than-machinelike feel, the sound system is super-fussy.<br />
<br />
And it's not really what I wanted. But again, that's life.<br />
<br />
I tell myself (and Wonderful One seconds) that having something like this frees me up to have a pure project situation, something to have and fix and tune and enjoy without forcing it to endure the indignity of everyday life. Something purely enjoyable and gratifying, right? Which is true, although fulfillment of this possibility is dependent on (again and always) my unexciting budget situation being able to manage it while living up to everything else, including those good-but-still-real lease payments. Something to think about and hope for as things take shape this fall.<br />
<br />
But this somehow seems slightly corrupt in its indulgence, in its failure to provide that synthesis from earlier. Going in to this whole process there was the wish for some kind of Grand Unified Solution, one good lovable car that would have worked for everything - the daily drive, the weekend two-lane blast, the trip to Mom's, autocrossing, whatever. But such is an ideal - it ironically requires a certain reality.<br />
<br />
And quite honestly maybe I need to put all of that aside for a while anyway. The pursuit of ideals has rarely been nice to me. Holding myself to act in accordance with some esoteric faith has usually caused me to miss out on any number of great whatevers in the course of providing what too often turns out to be a very attenuated and sort of hollow satisfaction.<br />
<br />
Maybe I just need a good set of everyday wheels to help manage reality for a while.<br />
<br />
I hope so. It's what I've got.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-16886256781677486002016-05-13T22:24:00.000-04:002016-05-13T22:24:06.808-04:00The joy of pure speculation. Or maybe not.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_rv113lp8xezd1oPNDxZuwv1_Wgfm_RWnVBMc8zEeUhi8opB1VtUXfbbV63RVNzSF2txMI31i2nbLJot9SOSPPhdil4_n9pWqUq27_JeVvqn-lfvuSU1ShXR8ZYa5ua3a4hYnJYwJPZb_/s1600/apple-311246_960_720+mod.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_rv113lp8xezd1oPNDxZuwv1_Wgfm_RWnVBMc8zEeUhi8opB1VtUXfbbV63RVNzSF2txMI31i2nbLJot9SOSPPhdil4_n9pWqUq27_JeVvqn-lfvuSU1ShXR8ZYa5ua3a4hYnJYwJPZb_/s320/apple-311246_960_720+mod.png" width="296" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
A mental game played through a very frazzled end-of-semester consciousness and a few pints of IPA:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So we all generally know and accept that Apple is working on a (<a href="http://statesofmotion.blogspot.com/2015/02/macdrive.html" target="_blank">whole</a>) car at this point. We can further guess that they're on the autonomy bandwagon because, well, that's that kind of thing right now, like it or not.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We also know with more certainty that <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-22/tim-cook-s-181-billion-headache-apple-s-cash-held-overseas" target="_blank">Apple is sitting on an absolutely ridiculous pile of cash</a> which it prefers to keep overseas because of US tax laws.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
News item today: Apple and China's largest ride-sharing/car-hailing service, Didi Chuxing, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/13/477911147/apple-invests-1-billion-in-chinese-ride-hailing-app" target="_blank">have entered a billion-dollar partnership.</a> (Lest you think that ride-hailing in China is some marginal entity, Didi Chuxung's customer base is about the same size as the population of the United States.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Among the platitudes about learning more about the Chinese market and effective corporate goodwill, put the three pieces together:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
How crazy is it to think that Apple could be planning to use its cash reserves to create a massive fleet of autonomous ride-sharing vehicles specifically to dominate the Chinese (and perhaps in time Indian, and so on) mobility market?</div>
Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-71122209570554191002016-04-24T16:39:00.002-04:002016-04-24T18:57:02.179-04:00Cyclonic patterns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiISJ3PLLRdYHxG3x02KcmXVX-xNk-DgYG5c5EVEgN8YUO5UU2jU9dFkz9orB0tFp9k5gqgmQGYqqdumXnjYxKARj1JdB5m2IjLNeJ_gcRWqMN-YwE9s1tLGTLWFfGH4dFmLrxpkuhZEso5/s1600/IMG_2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiISJ3PLLRdYHxG3x02KcmXVX-xNk-DgYG5c5EVEgN8YUO5UU2jU9dFkz9orB0tFp9k5gqgmQGYqqdumXnjYxKARj1JdB5m2IjLNeJ_gcRWqMN-YwE9s1tLGTLWFfGH4dFmLrxpkuhZEso5/s640/IMG_2009.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Notes after a test ride of a Suzuki SV650 yesterday:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">A 40<span style="color: #252525;">°</span><span style="color: #252525;"> morning is not the preferred time to be on a motorcycle for the first time in about three years. (Doubly so since that time three years ago was on a Kawasaki Eliminator 125, a baby cruiser with about as much power as a Waring professional bar blender, peddling around a Queens parking lot for my MSF course.) It's not so much that I was cold - that was very manageable - but that my visor would fog up to a </span><span style="color: #252525;">thorough</span><span style="color: #252525;"> and thoroughly unpleasant translucency in about ten seconds if I didn't keep it cracked open. Being on a fairly fast bike (more on that later) with limited visibility is not a good thing.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At least I remembered what I was doing. Didn't do anything stupid or painful, didn't drop, only missed one shift, made it around a good eight-mile loop without external drama.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #252525;">Much love to </span><a href="http://www.knhmotorsports.com/index.htm" target="_blank">K&H Motorsports</a><span style="color: #252525;"> in Homer for having a very reasonable test-ride policy and being all-around great guys.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This particular machine wore a K&N filter, a Dynojet carb kit, and a Yoshimura pipe. Don't know if that made the throttle as hypersensitive as it was, but something did. Even accounting for an uncalibrated (if very reserved) right hand, response was twitchy as hell and made shifting a bit of a herky-jerk kind of process. Definitely an adaptation situation, but not reassuring early on.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Going around corners from a start - think turning right at the stop sign - while being this out of practice felt like trying to go around a corner while jogging and carrying a bowling ball somewhere between my knees. Better to go way wide after making sure that nothing was coming for a mile or so than risk dropping, but still all kinds of awkward dealing with the balance. </span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once I got settled in this thing was weirdly comfortable. After about five minutes we came to a very agreeable sense of positioning - feet on pegs, knees fitting in correctly, wind blast present but not troublesome.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #252525;">Or else I was so busy with everything else that I didn't notice if anything was wrong there. I haven't faced this much sensory overload since at least the </span><a href="http://statesofmotion.blogspot.com/2014/06/circuitous-reasoning.html" target="_blank">kart race</a><span style="color: #252525;">. I can totally see how bad things happen sometime, especially for newbs like me: there is just SO MUCH going on all at once coming at you that it's hard to process correctly. Huge sense of motion and exposure, trying to manage a different set of controls, concerns about balance and positioning, watching out for the rest of the world, occasionally looking down to see how fast you're hurtling along some particular piece of road - it's just a lot.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flip side of that is that my massive phobia about having to deal with some clueless Ashley checking text messages in her CR-V or some chemically-impaired redneck or even some otherwise normal dude in an averagemobile who just makes a mistake and is pulling out directly in front of me without seeing me has now been mitigated. It seems manageable. Sure, still a present risk for which one must constantly be watching, but now not as unsettling.</span></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear God can this thing move. I would be very surprised if I cracked open more than quarter throttle at the absolute most simply to keep it from running away from me. A comfortably manageable 75 to 80 was no problem at all, and there was LOTS more to go. Even beyond the twitchy throttle this was way too much. Would it be better if I tried it again? Maybe, probably. Made me think of what someone once described as the three-session learning curve for club racers who got the chance to drive an old Can-Am car: the first session is all "Oh my GOD how does anyone manage these beasts? That is ridiculous! That is <i>insane</i>! I've never gone that fast!"; second session is more like "Wow, this is still a lot but I think I'm starting to catch up with it and it feels a bit better"; third session is, "okay, yeah...can we get more power somehow?"</span></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there won't be a second or third session for me on this one, at least anytime soon. All of the above will lead to a very grateful but somewhat regretful phone call to K&H on Monday telling them that I'll pass on this one. $2200 is a ridiculously good price for an SV650, especially one with a bunch of mods I would have wanted to do anyway, but the bike itself is too much right now.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And all of the above also deeply recalibrates my take on motorcycles in general, and makes me wary of a lot of received wisdom - and perhaps illuminates a few things which were between the lines in many cases.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First and most significantly is this idea about starter bikes and outgrowing a bike and a lot of the machismo which goes with the whole scene, which says that starting on something small is only a step towards a Real Motorcycle of serious (if not always well-defined) power and capability. SV650s have always been seen as being right on that border between "starter" and "Real" and well within reason for a capable newb, a decent mid-displacement mid-power machine that is fairly easy to learn, something that (per the script) You Won't Outgrow In A Few Months.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Screw that. This thing, all innocuous and cuddly per most magazine reports, is a ferociously fast and focused piece of machinery that will do 0 to 60 in less than four seconds and run a quarter mile in the twelves. You outgrow an SV like you outgrow a 911 Carrera S - you don't.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which makes me wonder about this whole "you'll get tired of it and move on" mentality. I'm not sure when motorcycling became infected with the idea that everything must be a stepping stone to something bigger and faster, or how that ties in with the absolute drought of sensible low- to mid-power bikes which are only now starting to be made available here.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And even then...the hipsterrific Ducati Scrambler makes about as much power as the SV, and everyone raves about how perfect that is as a first bike for undertrained fashion victims. Same with the somewhat heavier Triumph Bonneville. I can't speak to how touchy or edgy they are, and hopefully someone had the good sense to put in some heavier flywheels or something, but still - that's a lot of power and capability to be put into inexperienced hands.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other side of the argument is the lack of street cred granted to smaller bikes: the Honda 300s and 500s, the Kawasaki Ninja 300, and the Yamaha R3 most prominently on the new market, but really anything with single front brake discs and fairly narrow tires and power outputs in the 30 to 40 bhp range. The Yamaha Seca II works here; so does the Honda CB-1, so do a fair number of '80s machines.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Any of these would have been a world better underneath me than the SV, and most of them are now very high on my seriously-consider list. (The Ninja 300 in particular is drawing an inordinate amount of affection from me right now, but wait to see how that focus shifts according to availability and budget and so on.)</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Other stuff - bigger, faster, more aggressive - can wait, if it needs to be considered at all.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seriously: why the inexorable push for everyone to progress towards unearthly degrees of power and speed? Why the constant prodding to get a Real Motorcycle, as if the others aren't real enough?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A lot of this goes back to well-worn arguments about usability and reality. How fast does anyone really go? How does track weaponry like an R1 or a completely over-the-top creation like a Hayabusa interface with a world of jealously-enforced speed limits and blind corners and iffy surfaces and so on?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And for God's sake, what is it in society that gives anyone the idea that a Superbike makes a reasonable first machine? How do you manage a GSX-R1000 coming off of a bicycle? What failure of self-preservation vs. ego allows people to put themselves into these situations?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm not arguing that hypermachines shouldn't exist in the first place. That's a completely different argument which I do no believe and which I will not make. Instead I wish the general population emphasis was much more on real-world usability - including a fair bit of speed, to be sure - and, especially, a gradual but decisive defusing of the It Must Be Big thing.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #252525;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">Which actually gets mentioned once in a while, if quietly and sometimes obliquely, by those who know.</span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">Think about those small-displacement sportbikes. Read a few reviews - the one from <a href="http://www.motorcycle.com/shoot-outs/beginner-ish-sportbike-shootout" target="_blank">Motorcycle.com</a> last year works well - about the Ninja 300 and the R3 and the like. Given that the folks running the test have massive amounts of skill and experience and therefore would have every right and reason in the modern paradigm to look down with contempt on these tiddlers, what are they saying? Good Lord, they're <i>fun</i>. They're great in real life. They aren't going to gasp and fall over if you go up a hill. They're easy to manage, and in being so they're that much more enjoyable to both live with and throw around when the mood hits. And maybe they won't outdrag a GT-R, but they'll still get the jump on just about anything that's in the next lane at a stoplight and be more than fast enough to be a joy on a good road without being grating on a commute or a highway drone.</span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">Fun. Joy. Bikers - and too many times the rest of us - get so caught up in the push for ever-faster and ever-more-serious and so on that the pure fun part is marginalized or treated as less relevant. Power has to go up to remain competitive, everything gets designed around managing massive power, the intensity gets cranked up to levels which can be wearying on a day-to-day basis.</span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">And there's the too-rare alternative - call it the Miata mentality - the counterculture which cares less about winning a bench race and all the more about just going out and feeling that pure sense of movement and control and sensual stimulation and gratification in the midst of the everyday.</span><br />
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #252525; font-family: inherit;">If you outgrow fun, you need to go back.</span>Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-50553803559662575332015-08-24T21:25:00.004-04:002015-08-24T21:25:35.633-04:00Justin Wilson, 1978-2015Just back from two weeks in Germany and the Czech Republic - something on that soon - but tonight is obviously dominated by the very sad news from Pennsylvania.<br />
<br />
Lots of thoughts, hard to organize or connect them right now, but all under one very dark sky.<br />
<br />
Be at peace, sir.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2720776021386036714.post-33272708037163202702015-07-13T22:03:00.001-04:002015-07-13T23:06:57.094-04:00Wishing well<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Like just about everyone on the North American end of the scene, I've been watching with a kind of religious anticipation as Alfa Romeo stakes its measured return to our shores. Unlike a lot of others, at least openly, I've been doing so with a serious dose of apprehension and skepticism mixed in with the longing.<br />
<br />
If any single name embodies what I believe about cars and what I've intermittently tried to express here at SoM, it's Alfa Romeo - at least as it's presented in the rose-tinted oral history passed along by the true believers. The Giuliettas and Giulias and GTVs and Spiders, we are led to believe, existed simply to make the bliss of driving - in its spirit and elegance and Enlightenment empowerment, its ability to be a full performance art and act of evolved vitality - exist in the modern world. They were never scorchingly fast or exceedingly well-built, but they made the task of proceeding down a road into something very special.<br />
<br />
A quick look around the modern market shows that kind of vivacity to be in scarily short supply, and so the idea of Alfa Romeo - <i>Alfa fottuto Romeo</i> - coming back to reclaim its rightful place and save us from the automotive world's standing sense of dour competence is enough to spark the kind of heightened emotional excitement that's usually reserved for <i>Star Wars</i> films.<br />
<br />
So what's been going on?<br />
<br />
Alfa's North American effort has been handed to Reid Bigland, late of Ram trucks, whose sense of Alfa history seems little expanded from what's viewable on Wikipedia and whose pompous steakhead blustering is totally at odds with this most civilized of marques. The first tangible product of this latest cross-Atlantic offensive is the 4C, a profoundly unrefined carbon-chassis bullet which exists perhaps solely because FCA desperately needed a cultural touchstone beyond Dustin Hoffman and (apparently) racing gamers found the 33 Stradale somewhere and thought it is/was cool. It looks like a Lotus Elise with worrisome hormone issues and its dynamic profile has been subject to more dispute and conflicting opinion than the average political platform. We are all now loudly applauding the <i>mere idea</i> of the <a href="http://www.alfaromeopress.com/press/article/117019" target="_blank">new Giulia</a>, with a (promised) ridiculous amount of Ferrari-sourced power under the hood and a Maserati-derived chassis which is due to arrive sometime next year, probably, we hope. All of this does not give me confidence.<br />
<br />
But let's go broader. Never mind that the Giulia really does look like an F30 3-Series with a nose and tail job (pause to reflect on the loss that was suffered with the collapse of <a href="http://www.alfaholics.com/2011/03/1969-alfa-romeo-1750-gtv-mk1/" target="_blank">Bertone</a> and the diminishing of the other classic coachbuilding houses) and we have no clue how well anything will work with anything else. Quell the mixed emotions in the air about the 4C. And let's completely set aside the heresy of the CUV due to follow in short form <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20150402/OEM04/150409924/alfa-romeo-sedan-suv-coming-to-u-s-by-2017-bigland-says" target="_blank">according to their marketing plan</a>, lucrative though that will probably be in its own likely dreary way.<br />
<br />
Two things:<br />
<br />
First, we won't know if the Giulia is a real Alfa, and therefore the real renaissance, until someone actually drives it and can honestly tell us all that the magic is there. The power output is great for advertising, but is secondary to the sense of the car as sensual entity and ennobling driving device. The Giuliettas and Giulias never had much gross oomph - Christ, they were little inline-fours - but they were pretty much the main reason the word <i>brio</i> exists in the American vernacular as it does. We have to see how this thing <i>feels</i>, how it <i>is</i>, instead of just being satiated by a bunch of projected numbers<br />
<br />
Second, nobody wants to think that all this will be anything less than the Second Coming. Because that would be wrong.<br />
<br />
Yes, I'm skeptical. But I really, really want to have those skepticisms be proven totally groundless.<br />
<br />
We WANT this to be something brilliant and wonderful. We WANT this to succeed. We really desperately are praying that Marchionne's minions don't screw this up and hand us an overpowered lump of a car that ignores and defies what an Alfa is supposed to be.<br />
<br />
A lot of this is because of how legitimately special the idea of a new true Alfa is to us. Past the lingering bitter aftertaste of the Milano and the 164 and the last asthmatic plastic-clad Spiders, if even then, most of us have never been able to know the truth of the name from the showroom floor. We'll take the unresolved 4C as it is because we're so desperate for a return, but the new Gulia is the real case.<br />
<br />
A lot of it is because we, as enthusiasts, just don't like to see anything fail. Seriously.<br />
<br />
This wish goes beyond Alfa, useful though it is as a focal point. This becomes something more encompassing and uplifting, if too often unrequited and tragic.<br />
<br />
Being a gearhead is a constant exercise in hope and anticipation. Every new-model mention brings the promise of something better and more exciting. Reality hasn't been entirely kind to these ideals lately, but the constant flow of chatter and rumor serves to keep a sort of spirit alive. We want something good, we want something new, we want something that makes this emotional investment and devotion worthwhile.<br />
<br />
Maybe we are at our core a hopeful and optimistic folk. Maybe we've weathered enough induced silliness and deferred gratification that we'll project our wishes and expectations on any available screen. Maybe we just like to be titillated by something new and interesting.<br />
<br />
Take something far away from an established identity like Alfa's. Take <a href="https://www.startengine.com/startup/elio-motors" target="_blank">Elio</a>.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Yes, that ridiculous little three-wheeler econocommuter tooling up for production in the old GM truck fatory in Louisiana, with its pie-in-the-sky promises of simplicity and efficiency and extreme low price and so on.<br />
<br />
I'd <i>love</i> to see Elio become a sustaining success. I want them to come out and do well, almost just as a rebuke to the dreariness of the lower end of the market. I want them to be a lovably eccentric presence on the road. (Will I want to own one? We'll see.)<br />
<br />
Hell, take Tesla and all they've done. How can you resist the story of a slightly unhinged dot-com billionaire who stumbles through an unlikely and occasionally troubled start with a Lotus-based electric (two concepts that do not share space comfortably) roadster and then drops arguably the best car in the world on us? Yes, so they're behind on their ambitions for battery swapping and a few other things. The car is still amazing and the whole story should have us applauding every time one drives by.<br />
<br />
Enthusiasm isn't - shouldn't be - a zero-sum game. We want everything to be great, and we want everything on the horizon to fulfill some unspeakable life-fulfilling mandate. We want Camaros and Mustangs to both be terrific. We want BMW to rediscover its Wagnerian soul and Honda to relocate its Zen-speedster center. We continually hope that Jaguar somehow defies both its shoddy rep and underappreciated current product line and gets its act together.<br />
<br />
And we really, desperately, achingly want Alfa to be Alfa again.<br />
<br />
Because we don't want the world to fail us - again - when it can be so good.Patrick Frawleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670199912818531432noreply@blogger.com0