I'd better hurry or I'll miss the boat (pardon the pun)

Do you have prejudices, at least subliminally, against certain countries?  I remember my dad would not buy a German or Japanese car, saying "I fought those bastards in WWII, and I'm NOT going to drive one of their cars today!"  His reaction was obviously a generational thing as my generation loves both German and Japanese cars.  I've had Audi's and Honda's and Mazda's and loved them all.

It's hard to imagine that one of the worlds absolute finest luxury SUV's...

...and most iconic sports car marques are both owned by an Indian company, Tata Motors (even though they are designed, engineered, and built in the UK).

My generation seems to have a problem with Vietnam and China.  I cringe when I pick up a coat, for example, and see the tag that says it was made in Vietnam.  And now I subliminally rule out Volvo as it is owned by a Chinese company, even though they are still Swedish in origin.  As we all know (?), most Chinese companies have their strings pulled by the Chinese government, the Chinese COMMUNIST government.  Ewwwww!

A few years ago I was given a private tour of the Boeing complex in Renton, Washington.  We were on the back loading dock where my guide asked, "See anything unusual about those shipping crates" (each the size of a small house)?  Turns out they were made of bamboo plywood, because they contained the empennage for a 737 (in this case the horizontal tail assembly) which was made in China...COMMUNIST China.  Aren't these the same folks that gave us kids toys made pretty by lead paint?  Ouch!  

Today I read the Chinese company, Haier, is buying the appliance division of General Electric for $5.9B.  It's hard enough trying to understand the customer service rep in India.  I shudder to think...

Now more than ever, it looks like the old saying "you can't judge a book by its cover" holds true. The terms "old"  "mature" and "change" sometimes are hard to reconcile.  *sigh*

S



 

The power of advertising

Somewhere outside Detroit, 1990:  "Hey Maury, we've got 500 acres out back filled with station wagons that we can't give away.  We need to move 'em or the boss is gonna have us inventorying radiator hoses in Fargo for the rest of our careers."

"I hear 'ya Ralph."  *long pause*  "OK, how 'bout we try this:  Why don't we pry off those little chrome stick-on things that say 'Vista Wagon Family Truckster' and re-badge them 'Sport Utility Vehicle'?  Sounds sexy, huh?  What....too long?  OK then, SUV." 

And thus was born the runaway bestseller Ford Explorer, the original SUV.

Never mind that Land Rover....

....and Jeep had them 40 years earlier.  The difference?  By the 1990's Ford was a master marketer and advertiser, while Jeep and Land Rover were still hawking theirs in Field and Stream and The Sheep Rancher's Gazette.

Yesterday I was sitting on my balcony watching the cars go by on Warren Parkway below me.  What I noticed was a few soccer mom's in their minivans with the little stick figure window decals....you know, dad and mom, some old guy in a wheelchair, two kids, and a couple of pets....along with the bumper sticker that says "My child is an honor student at Betty Sue Shnurtner Middle School".

Then there were a few pickup trucks, the beds still holding a bunch of empty beer cans and a turned over cooler from the weekend, with their bumper stickers proudly proclaiming "My kid won early release from the Texas Department of Corrections".

Then aside from a few sedans, all the rest were Sport Utility Vehicles, or as they like to call them today, "crossover" vehicles.  Seems like everyone wants a crossover, which I find odd as they're nothing more than old fashioned station wagons.

The car companies can't seem to make them fast enough.  The funny thing to me is these same car companies have been telling us for years that they can't bring their cool European "hatchbacks" to the US because Americans won't buy hatchbacks.  Oh really?  Lemme think....hatchbacks have doors at the back that open up.  Crossovers have doors at the back that open up.  Hmmmm... 

I think someone forgot to give Rolls Royce....

....and Bentley

....and even Lamborghini, the bad news.

You think maybe we could convince them to call them "station wagons" again?  Then the back pasture would fill up with them all over again and we could buy them at fire-sale prices.  *Interest free financing for 200 months!  But wait....there's more!  The first 50 callers will get absolutely free....*  

That's about the only way I could ever afford a Lambo.  No, probably not even then.  :(

Damn you Maury and Ralph!

S

Auto Show debrief

Yesterday my friend Neil and I had a good time at the Dallas Auto Show.  We rode the light rail to the convention center, avoiding all the traffic and parking hassles....easily worth the few bucks it cost, and we arrived ahead of most of the crowd.  Much to my delight and surprise the show was NOT dominated by Bubba trucks.  I was rather disappointed that there weren't any wild concept cars.  None.

Of course I was immediately drawn to the European exotics:

Like this 2014 Aston Martin Vanquish.

Of course I ordered mine "Well Equipped".

After gawking at this more proletarian Vantage ($150K) for a while I was invited inside the velvet rope and assigned my own personal advisor, Aaron Stephenson IV*. Before long I had one of his high-dollar catalogues and was calling him "Biff" and picking colors and accessories.  He's probably still waiting for me after I excused myself for a rest room visit.

Maserati Gran Cabrio

McLaren MP4-12C

The new, soon-to-be introduced Jaguar F-Type.

I didn't say there weren't ANY Bubba trucks there.  This was some kind of "wrap" treatment you can cover your truck with enabling you to hide from ducks and deer and such.

I'm not a big Range Rover fan, but I must admit the Evoque ($58K) was rather impressive.

There were some vintage oddities stuck over in one corner, like this Datsun 2000.  It was quite a screamer back in its day....

....as was this '71 Datsun 240Z.  As a college student I lusted for one of these.  ('Course, I lusted for all kinds of things back in my college days. ;)  As I didn't have $34 dollars back then, much less $3400, it became another of my lost loves.

Awwww, my little Fiat 500 Abarth.  Innit cute?  One of these days I'm gonna convince K it followed me home.

One thing I took away is that cars are getting ridiculously expensive.  A decent BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus, Infinity, etc, is just more than I want to pay for wheels.  They're for those who want a "look at me" experience.  Or Lottery winners.

What I found was that Subaru and Mazda in particular have some quite good cars at very reasonable prices....mid-upper $20's.  Even Volkswagen's are getting pricey, although the new GTI @ $33K still seemed like a good value.  Chrysler products seemed way behind the curve, and poor GM seems to be in a continued slow decline.  Ford, however, had some good small world-class cars worth looking at.

The Geneva or Frankfurt or New York show it wasn't, but all things considered the Dallas show was worth the effort to attend.  Oh...and the "booth babes"?  Not a disappointment, either.  ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On today's "to-do" list?  I asked K if she wanted to go to the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade and Alcohol Soiree, but she said she'd rather take a bullet to the head.  I guess that's a "no".   At this point I'm just hoping for lunch out.

Have a great weekend everyone.

S

*not his real name