Our cars have cancer


I made a quick grocery run during the lunch hour, and, as usual, noticed that my car was made invisible when I parked it. My little Honda Fit was surrounded monstrous huge pickup trucks — trucks that I could barely see over the hood when I stood next to them, with looming huge intimidating grills, and increasingly tiny beds. This is the consequence of taking the truck analog of testosterone, you become huge in certain ways, but shrink where it counts.

Don’t try to tell me these are work vehicles. These are costly signals emitted to flaunt membership in a club of assholes. It’s become obvious and unsupportable.

This year, the average weight of a new car in the US was more than 4,300lb (2,000kg) – a full 1,000lb (450kg) more than in 1980. It’s not just that people are opting to drive larger models; the same models themselves have expanded. You can see the evolution most clearly with pickup trucks. Take, for example, the iconic Ford F-150, as Axios does in this comparative graphic (see above). Since 1970, the truck has become progressively larger, even as its bed – the fundamental point of owning a pickup truck, one would think – has become smaller.

You all know the Irish Elk went extinct, right?

These are gas-guzzling killers. Out here in the rural US (also, coincidentally, Republican US) the roads are full of these monsters. I just looked out my office window at the university parking lot and didn’t see any F150s or Dodge Rams, but any trip outside our environmentally conscious bubble means you have to share the road and parking lots with something equivalent to a tank.

It should be obvious that bigger, heavier cars are an ecological disaster. Without the trend towards bigger and bigger SUVs, global emissions from the motor industry would have fallen by 30% between 2010 and 2022. And even though a heavier electric vehicle (EV) is still preferable, emissions-wise, to a lighter petrol-engine vehicle, a lighter EV is obviously more efficient than a weightier one. The heavier the vehicle, the larger the battery it requires – and with it, more critical metals, and more electricity required for each charge.

The arms race in vehicle size is also a safety disaster, for other drivers and certainly for pedestrians. The individual logic makes sense: would you want to drive on the same highway as Mr Tinydick’s 7,000lb (3,175kg) Dodge Ram if you’re in a Mini? Of course not – in a collision, the Ram would probably just drive straight over you, like a monster truck rally malfunction. And the driver of a similarly sized vehicle wouldn’t even see a small child in front at close distance. The macro-level effects are deadly. In the US, deaths in car crashes rose by 33% between 2011 and 2021, while pedestrian deaths have risen by 77% since 2010.

Meanwhile, in France…

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has now proposed tripling parking rates for SUVs in central Paris to €18 an hour, and €12 an hour for the rest of the city. The measure, which would include hybrids and electric vehicles over a certain weight limit – though with an exemption for Paris resident parking – would affect roughly 10% of the cars in the city. And beyond Paris, Tesla’s 6,800lb (3,080kg) Cybertruck probably won’t be coming to Europe at all, because at that weight, it requires a trucking licence to drive (I write this with a sigh of relief).

Compare the best-selling vehicle in France with the most popular road-thing in the US:

I swear, this entire country is fucked.

Comments

  1. dschultz says

    I have an old (gets a senior discount now) car from before the bloat. Many is the time that I have stepped out of a store and wondered if my car had vanished. But as usual, it was hiding behind something else.

    The likelihood of it being stolen has dropped over the years since the ability to drive a manual transmission has faded.

  2. Tethys says

    There is another reason why that parking lot is filled with trucks and SUVs, which has more to do with evading any sort of fuel efficiency standards, which profits the oil and automotive industries nicely.

    In this telling of the story, the growth began in the 1990s when baby boomers demanded bigger cars for their growing families. SUVs like the Ford Explorer and the Jeep Cherokee were more expensive and less fuel efficient than sedans, but boomers didn’t care; they were the richest generation in history.

    Then as millennials started families over the last decade, the growth continued. And that’s how we ended up in a world where SUVs and trucks make up roughly 70% of the car market.

    “We’re providing the vehicles that consumers want,” Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president for North America, told the New York Times recently.

    But this story overlooks the crucial role that automakers played in shaping those consumer preferences. It overlooks the incentives that these companies had to build SUVs. And most importantly, it overlooks the policies that automakers lobbied for over the last 50 years to create those incentives.

    https://www.distilled.earth/p/the-loophole-that-made-cars-in-america

  3. nomaduk says

    I swear, this entire country is fucked.

    In the head, sideways.

    I remember my Dad’s pickup truck, a Toyota. Slim, low, with a bed that would hold a sheet of 4’x8′ plywood. Great truck. It would be dwarfed by these monstrosities.

    If you visit the UK these days, you will be struck by the number of huge, USA-ish SUVs and pickups on the road. It’s insanity, and it’s clearly imported from the fucking Americans. Advertising works across geopolitical boundaries, and without level heads such as the one atop the mayor of Paris, the whole world gets run over by American stupidity. Vive la France.

  4. says

    And most pickups are completely useless for hauling anything without also have a trailer. I have a Honda Passport that has more cargo length (with the seats down, of course) than most of the trucks I looked at. Never mind the just ridiculous prices that trucks command. A Ford Rangers STARTS at $45k and is one of the smaller trucks on the market. And it has a 5′ bed. My niece’s minivan can fit a full 4X8′ sheet of plywood with the tailgate closed. In most trucks, you’d have 3′ of that sheet hanging over the end of the bed, 2′ with the tailgate down. Then good luck when you’re too heavy on the gas pedal from a standing stop.

  5. says

    Remember a 1996 Honda Civic I was fond of. Maneuverable, efficient little thing. Ended up regretting the car I traded up to, and when it broke down entirely, I looked for a new Civic. The new model was Civic in name only. Currently have a Honda Fit, and even then I wonder if I should have looked for something smaller.

  6. charley says

    I remember the MSU farm’s Ford pickup I drove in the 80’s. 8′ bed, 2 doors, vinyl bench seat, 6 cylinder engine, manual transmission. A fitting vehicle for a Spartan. And it could pull a trailer with a tractor on it down the highway. That was an honest work truck.

  7. raven says

    I just saw an article on this, this morning.

    Moneywise
    Why the average new car costs $50K — and why cheaper options are disappearing
    Chris Clark
    Wed, November 20, 2024 at 4:37 AM PST 4 min read

    Why the average new car costs $50K — and why cheaper options are disappearing
    Why the average new car costs $50K — and why cheaper options are disappearing
    Transportation once came with relatively basic costs. Not anymore: the average price of a new car in the U.S. has skyrocketed to $50,000 — just $9,000 less than the average annual salary.

    Affordable new models under $20,000 have all but vanished from dealer lots, pushing many buyers toward used cars. While prices for used vehicles are falling, high loan rates remain high.

    Why can’t automakers produce budget-friendly new vehicles anymore? The answer might be found in a perfect storm of rising production costs and the industry’s shift toward electric vehicles (EVs) and SUVs.

    Why affordable cars are disappearing
    A decade ago, budget-conscious shoppers could easily find sedans and reliable hatchbacks for under $20,000. Buyers may have had to settle for cheaper models, with manual windows and cheap seats. But those have all but disappeared as automakers shift their focus to more profitable SUVs and trucks. continues

    It is a lot worse than just giant pickups everywhere.

    .1. The average car (I mean vehicles including pickups) now averages $50,000. Those people driving those giant pickups mostly don’t own them.
    The bank does and they have a car loan for 6 years to go with their student loans from two decades ago.

    .2. The US doesn’t make small pickups any more. Even the foreign makes manufactured in the USA don’t make them.
    Toyota stopped making small pickups in 2004. The newer Tacomas are mid sized or larger.

    .3. The US car manufacturers don’t make gas sedan cars any more either. It’s all pickups and SUVs. And maybe an EV here and there.

    .4. Those giant pickups with the small beds don’t get great mileage either. I drove a giant SUV for a few days on a plane trip as it was all the rental company had.
    The tank held 24 gallons and the miles per gallon was dismal.

    .5. There aren’t even many entry level econo boxes to buy new. You have to go with foreign makes and their aren’t all that many.

    Yeah, I don’t get it.
    The USA is getting poorer rapidly in terms of buying power per average yearly income.
    You would think cheap compact cars like the old Toyotas or Honda Civics or…Volkswagon Beetles or whatever that get good gas mileage and run forever would be in demand and offered for sale new.
    Not happening.

  8. says

    Is this ‘autos on steroids’ a psychological manifestation of ego or insecurity? It sure has fully captured the car/truck designers and drooling buyers! Too many people are buying into the ‘safety escalation’ size game: ‘I’ve got to have a huge truck to when a huge truck slams into me I’ll survive’. buttheads in bumpercars syndrome. I’d love to have a station wagon of the size of the early-1950’s models that would have greater fuel efficiency (or better yet, electric). They had great visibility, too. they, didn’t rely on a bunch of stupid bewildering cameras shown on a theater sized dash screen.

  9. Matt G says

    I encourage people here to visit the subreddit called cyberstuck for all kinds of stories about this disaster of a vehicle.

  10. Hemidactylus says

    The Fit is sorta like Civics once were before they morphed into what Accords used to be. I had a 2001 Civic and before being unceremoniously rear-ended en route to work a 2012 Civic. Now I have a 2022 HR-V which is kinda a model replacement for the Fit and being a smallish utility vehicle a slight step toward the Irish Elk. I do love the higher profile. Being off the ground more is nice. The Civic was killing me scrunching in and out. I love the cargo space though Civics are quite surprisingly capacious in the trunk. For some reason the HR-V gets about the same or better fuel mileage as my 2012 Civic did. I love the backup cam. Other than that it’s a basic feature SUV (???) with no major bells and whistles. Give me Bluetooth and I’m happy.

    Those behemoths you complain about, I hate them too. They tend to block my view, though it was worse in the Civic. Add diesel and ability to roll coal to the oversized trucks in the runaway escalation to top asshole.

    As for smaller vehicles of yesteryear I was treated to this video in my algorithm last night:

    A big block 454 in a Chevy Vega is nucking futs. There has always been a tendency to excess. I’ve long wanted a short bed late 60s-early 70s pickup with a roughly 300 cubic inch (283-302) V-8 maybe lowered a little. That’s just me. Nothing too excessive there.

    The kids these days with their weirdly cambered stance cars…now don’t get me started on that excessiveness. But at least the stance cars are usually smallish Japanese cars tricked out.

    Cars can be extensions of our ego or persona. Oversized trucks may be compensating, but the crew cabs do have a function that trades off with bed capacity for people who actually use them as work trucks. Older short beds seemed to have more capacity than some of the newer stuff.

    I had thought there was a tax incentive driving the popularity of large trucks. Hmm…
    https://www.inc.com/dan-furman/the-suv-tax-deduction-loopholeis-alive-well-but-its-not-what-you-think-it-is.html

  11. says

    @11 Matt G wrote about: the subreddit called cyberstuck for all kinds of stories about this disaster of a vehicle.
    I reply: there are SOOOO many reasons why I wouldn’t buy one of those. Looks like a dumpster, way too expensive, not enough cargo room for a few bags of groceries, stainless steel that rusts?!?, buying one makes the evil elongated muskrat even more obscenely wealthy, too many ‘recalls’, likely won’t last more than a few years without ending up a piece of junk up on concrete blocks in some rtwingnut redneck’s yard.

  12. jrkrideau says

    THE USA and now my idiot Gov’t in Canada have slapped 100% tariffs on any EV import from China.

    It was actually possible to buy a small, inexpensive EV before that. See https://motowheeler.com/ca/electric-cars/byd/. Scroll down to see them.

    Clearly they cannot be allowed into the US or Canada. The automakers still tell stories of the invasion of the Honda Civic back in the 1970’s.

  13. tfkreference says

    “Don’t try to tell me these are work vehicles.”

    Look at the trailer hitch. If it’s not rusted, it’s likely an oversized sedan.

  14. says

    Still perfectly happy with my 10 year old Toyota Yaris.
    Great milage, fits easily in my garage with room to spare.
    Haven’t had anything that that I couldn’t fit yet. And if I do, I’ll have it delivered.

  15. raven says

    Both Yaris and Yaris Hatchback have been discontinued, making 2020 the last model year for each vehicle. If you’re a current Yaris or Yaris Hatchback owner, you’ll still receive great service from your local Toyota Service Center.

    Looks like a good reasonable car for anyone not towing a boat.

    So, of course, they don’t make or sell them in the USA any more.

  16. gijoel says

    The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has now proposed tripling parking rates for SUVs in central Paris

    Oh no, my freedom is under attack /s

  17. antigone10 says

    I miss my Ford Escort. Small, light, compact car. Got great gas mileage.

    They don’t make them any more.

    Our 2007 Ranger finally gave up the ghost. We had to buy a Maverick. We lost a foot and half of bed space (but the truck is heavier! Despite being the exact same length) and now are going to have to buy a tow-hitch conversion just to be able to transport plywood. We couldn’t get a longer bed if we wanted to buy new.

    I miss the old S-10s and Rangers (The thing they call a Ranger now is a monstrosity). I cannot be the only people who want a light working truck for the city.

  18. microraptor says

    I tell you another trend I hate in modern vehicles: making everything controlled via a touchscreen. Dropping all the buttons so that you have to take your eyes off the road if you want to adjust the temperature or change the radio station is not a great design choice.

  19. Hemidactylus says

    raven @17
    Just looking at PZ’s Fit versus my HR-V may be a microcosm of the vehicle market trend. Like the Yaris, the Fit is no longer made, the latter replaced by my vehicle. I don’t feel guilty about my vehicle at all. It gets decent gas mileage for a non-hybrid. I can more easily step in and out of it. I can’t even imagine trying to climb into one of the supersized trucks.

    I guess the US has voted excessively large trucks in alongside fascism. I always scream under my breath at Trump trucks all decked out in their fashy displays.

    antigone10 @19
    One of my earlier memories is my dad’s late 50s Chevy Apache rustbucket. He later had smaller trucks like a Datsun and maybe a Toyota. My first new vehicle was a mid 80’s Nissan pickup. I liked the smaller trucks. Great for lowering.

    The newer Ford Broncos look kinda neat. But yeah the old S-10s and Rangers were a nice smaller size. Hell I recall the days of the El Camino, which was kinda like taking the rear roof off a station wagon.

  20. robro says

    My partner had a used Toyota pickup from before they were called Tacomas. It was a useful size and reasonable in the city. Two people could ride comfortably in it. When it died, we bought a new Ford Ranger. A little bigger but still small enough for around town though only two people could ride in it…or one person and two dogs. I’ll leave it to your imagination who was driving in that scenario.

    That guy last over 20+ years but finally it was just too expensive to repair it. So, we’ve been truck-less for several years. Sometimes we think of getting a new one because my partner is a pack rat (for example, we have about a dozen dog beds but rarely more than one dog). But, the new trucks are so huge.

    My son explains that it’s because of something called the CAFE (“Corporate Average Fuel Economy”) standards which determine how vehicles are classified for fuel economy. As I understand it, which I don’t fully get, the standard makes it uneconomical for auto makers to sell light trucks because they are treated as autos with poor fuel economy…or something like that. In any case, there’s a disincentive for automakers to build small trucks.

  21. says

    #7: that sounds like my uncle’s truck that he used on his ranch. Half the size of a modern truck, but big enough that we could load it up with hay bales and drive it out over the fields to feed the cows.

    #21: The Fit is no longer made? We’ve had ours for about 14 years, it shows no signs of failing on us, but if it did, we’d want another one. Or something smaller.

    We’ve made a couple of flights out to Seattle this year, and had to rent cars to get around in. Every time we get the economy car, I ask for one as small as they can get it, and every time my wife refuses to drive it because it’s way too big. She’d probably divorce me if I bought an F150. I’d divorce me too.

  22. Rich Woods says

    I recall an American friend telling me about how her family used to regularly visit their friends when she was a child. When she said that her family’s friends lived three hundred yards up the road, I imagined them putting their shoes on and walking the three hundred yards along the pavement in their residential district up to their friends’ house. No, I was wrong. They used to pile into their car, back it out of the garage and onto the road, drive those three hundred yards in a straight line all along the kerb, and pull into their friends’ drive before all piling put and knocking on the door to see if they were in. If their friends weren’t home yet, they all got back into the car and drove home.

    Lazy, wasteful, and near pointless. Like switching all the house lights on in the evening regardless of which rooms are being used, then only drawing the curtains once the lights are due to be switched off (if at all). The only viable conclusion is that the people who do that have more money than sense.

  23. Matthew Currie says

    Most of the time I drive a Hyundai Accent. I hope that by now (I’m almost 77) I’ve learned enough good defensive driving and whatnot to survive here in rural Vermont at least. But its sobering to be reminded every time I go to a parking lot that most of the recent pickups parked next to me have hoods higher than the roof of my car!

    I do also have a “mid sized” pickup some years old, which is only moderately oversized, which is to say tiny by current truck standards.

    Long ago on a job our vehicle was a 1966 VW pickup truck, same base as the microbus. It had a flat cargo bed larger than any full sized pickup made in the US, and a true carrying capacity of a ton (and I can vouch for its being able to carry a ton and a half, if a bit squirrely). Of course you can’t get one of those any more.

  24. Hemidactylus says

    PZ @24

    I definitely misspoke. My US-centrism acting up again. The Fit is no longer available in the US:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Fit

    For us it no longer exists.

    Nissan Versas are still available in the US. Maybe other makes that are equivalent to the Fit.

    Wait. What the hell?
    https://fortune.com/2024/08/07/mitsubishi-discontinues-mirage/

    Mitsubishi plans to discontinue to the Mitsubishi Mirage in the U.S. market, which ends the vehicle’s 46-year run. The company will instead focus on other core models.

    […]

    The Mirage was one of a very small number of new vehicles that carried a sticker price below $20,000 for new models: The Mirage hatchback started at $18,015 and the Mirage G4 sedan cost $19,115. As those disappear, only Nissan will have a sub-$20,000 car for sale—the Versa.

    […]

    Detroit’s Big Three automakers—General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford—began doing away with compact and subcompact cars roughly six years ago, citing low profit margins and consumers’ increasing shift to SUVs and trucks.

    Ughh!!!

    Hey, you might like the HR-V or similar small crossover down the road.

  25. says

    And let’s not forget the oil problem caused by heavier EVs, either. Leaving aside lubricants (which can be economically synthesized from plant oils, even if you reallyreallyreally don’t want to know about the pollution that emits and dangers to workers at industrial quantities), just consider all the plastics and above all the tires. They’re all synthesized from petroleum… and the tires, especially as a vehicle gets heavier, are a bonus source of uncontrolled and probably uncontrollable damage to watersheds and even air through particulate emission as they wear down.

  26. tacitus says

    I drove a pickup truck (a Dodge Ram 1500) for the first time in my life earlier this year, simply because that was all Hertz had left when I came to pick up my rental car.

    Not a great time to be learning how to drive a honking great big truck on unfamiliar streets at 11pm after a long day’s travel, and one of the first things I noticed was that you can’t even tell if there’s a car behind you (at night) when stopped at traffic signals because you can’t see their lights.

    I also didn’t trust myself when changing lanes to the right. Is there a car next to me? Maybe, maybe not.

    Everyone in line at the car rental had booked a car, so I couldn’t help be concerned that they were unleashing dozens of rookie truck drivers out across the city and into the night…

  27. drew says

    What #23 robro’s kid said. It’s CAFE standards.

    That’s why station wagons were replaced with minivans and SUVs. That’s why the “dick car” changed from Corvette and Camaro/TransAm/Firebird to a truck, which was previously anything but posh and comfy.

    Want that to change? Lobby your Democrats to relax CAFE standards. Republicans live to relax standards. It should be an opportunity for some hot bipartisan action!

  28. cheerfulcharlie says

    Some years ago, I worked at a place where I could see the parking lot in a nearby strip mall. There was a dry cleaners near me. I was always amused when a massive SUV pulled and parked and a small women clambered down from the beast to take a hand full of laundry in to the dry cleaners. Then made the big climb back into the massive SUV.

  29. sincarne says

    I was at my local hospital early in the morning for some imaging, and happened to be leaving around shift change. All the nurses were driving up in their F-150s. For all the hauling nurses need to do.

  30. cheerfulcharlie says

    And now winter starts. We have all seen pictures of the rusting Tesla cCyber Trucks. This will be the first year Tesla Cyber Trucks will face winter in Northern states with snow and ice. And sand and salt. I predict a lot of very unhappy Cyber Truck owners come May 2025 in these Northern states.

  31. Tethys says

    From my link @3

    The birth of the SUV loophole

    In 1975, Congress passed a law that forced automakers to double the average fuel efficiency of their vehicles to 27.5 miles per gallon by 1985. For a few years, the bill worked as intended. The average fuel efficiency of American vehicles went from 13 MPG in 1975 to 19 MPG in 1980.

    But then something strange happened.

    After leveling off between 1980 and 1985, average fuel efficiency actually fell over the next 20 years. It’s been a half century since Congress passed its first fuel efficiency standard and the average vehicle produced in America still doesn’t get 27.5 MPG. So what happened?

    The short answer is that auto lobbyists happened.

    The intent of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 was to make all passenger vehicles in America more fuel efficient. But auto lobbyists convinced regulators to make a subtle change to the bill’s text. While efficiency standards for cars would be written into the law itself, the standards for trucks were to be set by regulators at the Transportation Department.

    As Keith Bradsher writes in High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV, “The automakers wanted any fuel-economy standards to be set by regulators, not by Congress. Their reasoning was based on the fact that once Congress passes a law, it is extremely difficult to undo it…Regulators could also be lobbied to set less stringent standards later.”

    This proved to be a genius, if unethical, strategy. Out of the public eye, lobbyists were able to score regulatory wins that would have consequences for decades.

    One of the first things that officials at the Transportation Department had to do was define what a truck was in the first place. Automakers convinced them to go with the vague definition of “an automobile capable of off-highway operation.” Thus, as long as an SUV had four-wheel drive and decent ground clearance, it could avoid the more stringent car regulations and instead be regulated as a truck.

    Automakers also convinced regulators that any vehicle with a gross vehicle weight above 6,000 pounds should get a carve out. Their justification was that vehicles this big were made for commercial uses like farming, not shuttling kids to football practice.

    When these emissions rules were first proposed, a third of vehicles produced had a gross vehicle weight of more than 6,000 pounds. In order to avoid regulations, automakers started producing heavier cars. By the time the rules were finalized and implemented a few years later, two-thirds of cars were heavy enough to avoid the regulations.

  32. chrislawson says

  33. says

    Is that a Renault Clio? I drive one of those! 😃 Well, barely lately. I’ve moved closer to my work in Copenhagen so on a daily basis I’m using the highly efficient public transport system. I’ve left my car with my youngest daughter who lives on the country side so she can more easily get to work there. I do love my Clio though. Planning to keep it until it dies and then switch to electric if I can afford it.

  34. redwood says

    I drive a Japanese kei (light) car, which has these restrictions in size and power:

    the law consistently specifies a maximum vehicle length, width and height under 3.4 m (11.2 ft), 1.48 m (4.9 ft) and 2.0 m (6.6 ft), respectively, and engine displacement under 660 cc (40.3 cu in). A ‘gentleman’s agreement’ for a maximum power of 64 PS (63 hp; 47 kW) was reached between Japanese automakers and lawmakers.

    That may seem impossibly small, but thanks to innovations in engines, I can easily drive 120km/h (75mph) on expressways here in Japan, though I rarely do because getting into an accident in such a small car at that speed can’t be good for one’s health.

    Kei-cars can cost less than $10,000 and have cheaper taxes than regular cars. The one I drive was built for pregnant moms with bags of groceries to drive, so I can easily get my large bulk in and out of it, which I can’t for much bigger cars. Oh, and I get 20km/l (almost 50mpg) driving locally. I live in the countryside, where cars are a necessity, and these kei-cars are perfect. I just wish they could make EV keis, but apparently the batteries make them too heavy to be practical.

  35. redwood says

    Oh, the car from above (@42) is a 2019 Daihatsu Move, which has since been discontinued. My wife drives a 2007 Move that still runs perfectly.

  36. Dunc says

    The average fuel efficiency of American vehicles went from 13 MPG in 1975 to 19 MPG in 1980. […] It’s been a half century since Congress passed its first fuel efficiency standard and the average vehicle produced in America still doesn’t get 27.5 MPG.

    Good grief! The Model T Ford got somewhere in the range of 13 to 21 MPG.

    For comparison, the average fuel consumption of European Light Duty Vehicles (LDVs) in 2019 was 6.0 litres gasoline equivalent per 100 kilometres (Lge/100 km) – which is equivalent to 39.20 U.S. MPG. And that’s down from what it had been previously, due to the increasing fashion for larger vehicles.

  37. submoron says

    Alexander Hurst (original article) refers to the Mini. I wonder whether he’s referring to to the original Issigonis/ Moulton design or the absurd, hypertrophied ‘thing’ that we have now? I saw a Mini Countryman parked next to a Range Rover and the latter wasn’t much bigger that the former. Only the shape was the like the 1959 original.

  38. unclefrogy says

    Hell I recall the days of the El Camino, which was kinda like taking the rear roof off a station wagon.

    I remember when I was a kid before they sold the el camino or the ranchero (there was also a ford falcon model) that some people did just that all patched up with sheet metal and mastic and screws to make a functional truck out of a station wagon.
    I drove a 66 chevey pick up with a v8 and a one ton rear axle way past when it became too expensive it just drove and drove rebuilt or replaced the engine 3 times it did anything I asked. now I drive a dodge Dakota still a truck but much better mileage but discontinued as well.
    One of the things I noticed about “The Expanse” (a nice scifi serial) was seeing the “dikes” around the harbor cities in the long shots they did not talk about it but it was there in the back ground.
    We are heading for that result without much if any slowing I can see. What I am interested in is what will this season’s arctic summer be like?

  39. StevoR says

    I hate feeling so old and old fashioned by saying this but they just don’t make them like they used to.. is something I really feel is true these days cars~wise.

    For good and ill but too often for ill here in this area.

  40. StevoR says

    @ unclefrogy : “What I am interested in is what will this season’s arctic summer be like?”

    Hot – in a bad way. Bad in that ice will melt very quickly and things will go south – literally and metaphorically and go to water literally and metaphorically real damn fast. Folks can follow this with only slight day or so time lag here :

    https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today

    Whilst it lasts. Before Trump shuts it down or attempts to do so..

    You know how Earth used to have two polar ice caps? That’s gunna change fast esp in the northern Summer. For a breif time at first but then increasingly for longer. Probly exponentially quicker and ever quicker than erring-to-the-conservative-side science predicts.

    I don’t want to be so doom-y & depressing here but .. (Long string of expletives.)

  41. muttpupdad says

    I still dream of finding a early 50’s Studebaker Champion like we had on the farm,Six cylinder, 3 speed manual transmission would go anywhere and haul just about anything on the farm. Until that dream is realized I will remain without a 4-wheel vehicle until then. Great living where they have a real public transport system.

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