Showing posts with label vehicle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vehicle. Show all posts

Sunday, January 18, 2009

50's cars

Specifically 50's Buicks. They're beautiful. I love the styling. The chrome accents look awesome, and I love the bit of white close to the bottom. Why don't they make awesome looking cars anymore? I've been looking at 50's Buicks on Flickr all day and they all look so fantastic. They used to be so iconic, all cars of different brands looking so distinguishable. Now they all look largely the same, save for certain brands having stupid looking grills across their entire line (take Jeep for an example). In fact, grilles seem to be the only distinguishing factor between brands anymore. Different genericars of different brands may have slightly different appearances, but they all look so similar. 50's cars are the best, especially those from Buick and some from Ford. C'mon car companies, can we see some revivals of some amazing 50's cars? I'm not talking new cars with similarities to retro cars. They tried that with the PT Cruiser and it came out horribly wrong. It's like a McDonald's cheeseburger in comparison to a $20 cheeseburger you got at a wonderful restaurant. This might be a bad example though, because there's a number of ways they could make a retro-looking car that's not as sinfully ugly as the Cruiser. But I digress.
If they started remaking all the Buick models from the 50's and just gave some subtle differences (maybe a different name for the car, like instead of  "Special" it could be "Special Revival") to distinguish them from the rarer classics I'd definitely get one. I mean I like these like I like the Mini.
Also, I take back that the PT Cruiser is the ugliest car. I was wrong, I have decided that the ugliest car is actually the PT Cruiser Convertible.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Smart Cars: Why?

Why do they make these? They look strange and are small as hell. I'm told they don't behave well on highways and although they get some pretty good milage, you can have better milage with a Prius. A Prius also gives you more room to move and a backseat and a trunk that is bigger than a box of Triscuits. They do cost a somewhat hefty  bit more (a Prius starts at 22k while last I checked, Smarts started at 17k), but for the extra money you get more room, a back seat, a trunk, colors that don't look crazy on that car, no weird plastic on the sides, better milage, a car that hooligans don't tip over for fun, and some neat styling. You also get some nice customization options.
There's been the possibility of a hybrid Smart. Unfortunately, I'm sure the reason that doesn't exist is because they'd have to make it bigger for the hybrid components. It may have been nice before hybrids caught on, but their moment of glory was very short-lived. If they'd just make it a bit bigger, maybe make a "family" version with a back seat, they could make it a hybrid. That could make some sense. But almost immediately after typing that, I realized that there was already a family hybrid Smart, and it's called the Toyota Prius.
You might like a Smart for it's strange design, so whatever, get one. I'm just saying if you're buying it for the environment, take a look at the Prius. Hell, if you don't mind getting slightly less (as in it is hardly worth mentioning the difference) milage, you can also get a Mini Cooper, which starts at a mere 1k more than the Smart. The Mini gives you a backseat, trunk, great handling, and confidence that your car is unconditionally better than everyone else's. Think about that.

Edit: Further research (see: boredom) has lead me to realize that I was wrong about several things in this post. Feel free to disregard most of it.