Kris
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,631
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Jan 20, 2006 18:31:38 GMT
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Some new cars interest me, some don't. Had a ride in a Fabia VRS a while ago and was VERY impressed with it The newest Corsa is the most dead, remote feeling car I have ever driven though As a original Mini owner, I think the new MINI is a fantastic car. I spent a year working at the Cowley plant and really enjoyed working with them, plenty lift-off oversteer on wet painted floors ;D
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Jan 20, 2006 18:33:12 GMT
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i'd love a company car - something bland, diesel and silver. i'd go to the shops in it, leave it outside the house at night without worrying, maybe take the dog up to the woods. but i'd never be without at least one retromobile just for something to tinker with and take for a drive at the weekend and offend people's sensibilities.
my best mate.... worked his way up through hard work and saving until he was in a position to buy a new car from a dealer, aged 22. Went through a G reg Fiesta, L reg Citroen ZX, P reg Megane Coupe till he could afford a spanking new Clio 172. Traded that in two years later for a 182 model, still new.
Realised how much money he was spending on the repayments. Sold it at a rather large loss at 8 months old, now owns a R reg Calibra V6 and loves it every bit as much as the Clio, but is thousands and thousands better off. And the clios were always in the dealers with faults, the Calibra has only needed a service.
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Never trust a man Who names himself Trevor. Or one day you might find He's not a real drug dealer.
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Jan 20, 2006 18:52:58 GMT
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I've had the odd modern car, well, three of them in 19 years of driving, but I always sell them (at a huge loss) very quickly because I just can't be doing with it. Something deeply "wrong" I can't get into. I can see the "its modern, reliable, etc. etc." arguement but my Audi blew the mains out at 96K miles with a full VAG servce history, one elderly previous owner, etc. and that was the last modern I had. I like my old cars, aways have, and they're no use as an ornament so I might as well drive them to work etc. (at least while we are still allowed to!)
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Jan 20, 2006 20:27:46 GMT
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I wish I hadn't turned up late to this thread, it's looking quite interesting, I've been ill and busy a lot lately you see so I haven't been on much.
Firstly - My thoughts on 'Direct Debit Culture' (that's a good term for it actually!) are well known on here, anyone who's been on the forum for any length of time will have seen several hundred such rants already so I won't put another one here, needless to say entirely agree that the car industry is just one that serves the "Keeping up with the Joneses" culture, making you think that if you don't have the latest, newest, coolest thing (and at the moment cool is retro in more than just cars) then you're a social deviant or outcast and will be punished by society at large, you'll spot many such industries the next time you find yourself in a town or city centre, turn on the television, read one of many magazines on the subject etc.
Secondly, on retro styling, as I said, it's not a new thing of course, nor is it limited to 'lazy' car designers, everyone wants to be retro at the moment. Nor is it a new thing, hands up who lives in a mock Tudor house built in the 19/20th century, or works in a similarly aged office building with faux Roman columns, and gargoyles above the doors and windows, or has on holiday stayed in a modern hotel or ate in a modern restaurant with mock beams on the ceiling and supposedly antique 'industrial' or 'nautical' clutter, all of it completely out of place and context, big wooden gears and old chains, barometers, copper saucepans and all manner of old stuff you aren't really bothered about the origions of decorating the walls? Retro is not a new thing.
Nonetheless, I'm not a fan of many 'retro' modern cars. Not because I'm some foaming at the mouth retro-purist who considers anyone who owns one a disgraceful sellout or a pretentious fool trying to look like an enthusiast, but because the cars rarely live up to the reputation they're buying into. Often they're not bad cars, sometimes they're relatively good when compared with the competition, the problem is that their retroness is often the only thing they have to stand out from the crowd with, they're otherwise nondescript cars using legendary labels to gain fans. The New Mini has none of the ingeniousness and simple effectiveness that made the new breed of 50s/60s small cars like the Mini, Imp and small Fiats so legendary, it's just a worthy modern city car with the famous badges on and a vaguely retro look. The same goes for the PT Cruiser, which has none of the qualities of the cars who's image it's attatched to, it's a comfortable mini MPV from America that looks vaguely like an old car, which isn't what I look for in a car.
The main thing though, that puts me off many modern cars, is that they just don't have character. Now character is a hard thing to define, you seem a bit mad if you start trying to personify the car by outlining qualities that a piece of machinery can't logically have, but nonetheless I think cars do have character, and I found myself sitting on a train today thinking about what gives an old car character. (Well I forgot to buy a newspaper before I got on so I had nothing else to do!)
For some, a car is quite like a toaster or a fridge. They have no strong feelings about them, so long as they continue to do a satisfactory job there is no reason to put much thought into them. The thing is, these are people who will rarely ever have a pleasant journey, because to them travelling is just something that you must do, like taking a shower. As such, to them a journey is merely satisfactory or it isn't, in which case they will probably complain about it. These people probably have the same attitude to many things in life, their job (i.e. it's satisfactory, the hours are not worse than tolerable, the pay pays the bills in reasonable fashion, they get on with their colleagues in a satisfactory fashion and the work is neither too tedious nor too difficult for them.), which to me seems a very dull, pleasureless, John Major-esque way of life to me!
The thing is though, I grew up on the road, so travelling still conjures up memories of charging accross countries in an old lorry with good company, stopping in nice places, eating nice food, doing interesting things and meeting interesting people and living a good life, (I am trying to ward off the rose tinted shades effect by the way!) As such, I don't think a journey should be merely as satisfactory as having a haircut (although I haven't done that in a good while myself!), there's no reason why it can't be fun, no reason that you can't use your car for more than transporting your self to work and your offspring to school, a journey can be so pleasant that you actually undertake a journey just for the purposes of taking a trip and enjoying the ride. In a modern, anaesthetised car, where there's no feel at all and you get the feeling that you're only driving because there's not yet a computer able to do it for you while you read The Times and contemplate the satisfactory journey home, it seems that the commuter can't have an enjoyable journey unless he/she breaks the law in the process, and it doesn't look to be getting any better. These days even people going on what should be the most enjoyable car trip of the year, their holiday, don't enjoy themself, look inside the car of most families on holiday and you see wailing kids, and parents arguing about the route and telling the kids if they don't shut their faces they're going home.
So what's the solution to the modern car journey, which is at best grey and satisfactory, and at worst dismal and unpleasant? Drive a retro car. A genuine retro one, not a modern car with an old badge. In my experience, an old car allows you to have a pleasant drive at under the speed limit, and depending on the car, and whether seatbelts are installed all round, you might even be able to use your retro car all the time, taking the family on holiday in style, why squeeze in a Focus and spend the rest of the trip miserably griping about everything under the sun as you hurry along in the rat race you went on holiday to avoid, when you can cruise along in a pleasant car that actually feels like you're in control, turn on the radio (you might want to install a discreet modern radio/CD player, that's entirely possible in many retro cars these days) to keep the kids amused, and watch as other road users wave and point and let you through, safe in the knowledge that if the car doesn't entirely behave itself, it's not a disaster as the family wait by the side of the road for a lift from the AA because the Focus is unfixable, but you merely get out, pull out the toolbox, and the spares, and fix the car at the side of the road. To me having a retro car as a normal car is not an impossible proposition for anyone, from the skint, money conscious student who wants to be able to run a little car on a decent budget and wants to be able to service and fix the motor him/herself, but doesn't want a knackered Eurobox that used to be their gran's, to the family man who wouldn't mind a classic Volvo or a big Humber as an alternative to a Vectra or Avensis, to the enthusiast who wants to be able to enjoy something unusual and sporty, without having to charge along at well over the speed limit to get a kick, (it's not much of a kick when you get points and a fine, and even less of a fine if it comes to something worse!)
Not sure how relevant all that was, I sort of got carried away with pent up thoughts from today, but nonetheless my points still stands, there's no reason why everyone can't enjoy a retro motor at some time, and there are better ways to do that than buying an anodyne modern car that just looks like a brilliant old one.
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"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"
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