The EVO-6's lines are clean, but I don't see the Tesseract as being anything other than eye-candy on some big budget c-punk flick.

The Chrysler one...WTF?! It looks like a reject from a Mad Max movie.

Still and all, I would not spend two and a half cents on those fugly things, let alone 2.5 mil.

Each his own, I guess.

You could almost see the Bombardier trike in a sci-fi movie sometime in the future.

I'd love to have the '57 Bel Aire trike.

The GX-3 would've been nice, if it had any space to stow groceries in.

Actually useful, or "where's the key you stick in the back of this thing?"

'Sides, the red one's much nicer looking....

PS: I'll weigh in with my opinion concerning the Smart Car, once I've heard from everyone who's going to respond.  

That brings back memories...a friend's '73 Malibu(with, I believe, a 454 small block and no noz) versus a 2003 Mustang down a lonely stretch of Georgia Highway 247 one hot summer night back in '04.

My friend ended up with both pink slips, and just before the Pulaski County Sheriff's cruisers and the GSP interceptors came howling down the road.

Which would've been unfortunate, because as anyone knows, no matter how fast one's car is, he still can't outrun a radio....

As for the "Smart" car, the racing one looks good, but, still, there's next to no cargo space(meaning no room for groceries from Wally World), and it ain't wheelchair(or handicapped) friendly. There's also the problem of stuffing a 6'4", 250 lb white man with bad knees(me, in case anyone's curious) into the damn frickin' thing.

(and they're ugly as sin to boot....)

Now, with a convertible wagon rear end like that last pic Shadow posted, the cargo and wheelchair space(my ex's 19-year old daughter is multi-handicapped with mobility issues)would be present in spades, but my old '72 Maverick got better gas mileage[I think] just by me performing a regular tune-up(with the factory 250 straight six, that was an easy vehicle to service, better than the '77 Chevette I stupidly sold it for).

Honestly, people are amazed at what regular tune-ups do for gas mileage. Just changing the plugs alone does wonders.

Back to the Smarts and other hybrids. Shadow brought up one of the most potent arguments against such critters, that being the overriding American passion for speed and performance, which will almost always doom attempts to make vehicles cleaner and more fuel efficent, especially given that most American car owners are total f*kwits who think that oil changes are something which happen to other people.

Also, the cost. If hybrids and their ilk cost an arm, a leg and both the family jewels to own, or at least entail a ruinous five-year payment plan, that kind of defeats the purpose of having a hybrid, especially if the economy continues the way it is. Most people will just go for keeping their clunkers as roadworthy as possible, even if it means an investment in chewing gum and bailing wire.

Personally, I'd love to see the development of a practical, relatively affordable hydrogen-fuelled vehicle, even(or especially) with a two-stroke internal-combustion motor. Relatively cheap fuel, water vapor for emissions, and it would fill the American mania for performance and power.

Of course, that millenium is still far off, given current costs to develop the technology in the first place.  

  

Well, that explains the mini-van. Ain't no shame in buying what you need.

Besides, Chrysler used to offer a sweet ground effects package for the Caravan, complete with rooftop rear air dam. I was real close to buying one back then (early 90s)...

Yep, I can immediately notice the difference on my 35HP motorcycle engines after changing the plugs. It always has a little more pep after that one, and my fuel economy resurfaces to 60mpg after the next fill up.

Sadly we as Americans have fallen victim to the "bigger is better" mantra, and it doesn't just affect the automotive market. You should see the motorcycle market these days, dealers and magazines are pushing 1500cc beasts as "mid sized/entry rider" bikes. I mean, 1.5 liters?! That's a friggin' CAR engine! They get as high as 2.3 liters on some marks (without breaking into the Boss Hoss I mentioned earlier that uses the 350-509ci vee-eights). When I bought my first bike twelve years ago, 500-900cc was considered mid sized/entry rider friendly, and an eighty cubic inch (1340cc) Harley Davidson was something no beginning rider had any business on. These days it's a real challenge to even FIND a bike under 600cc, I can count the available streetbike models on one hand without using my thumb. Each one is priced right out of its market...so buyers naturally gravitate to the "only slightly more expensive" bigger model. Outside of North America, a 250cc bike is considered a big bike whose rider is obviously well skilled in order to manage one. Here, it's a toy --- in a country where motorcycles aren't considered transportation, but toys themselves. Go figure.

Surely I'm not expected to believe that humanity has evolved as quickly as motorcycle technology in that time frame (by the end of this post, I intend to offer proof of that statement)...not when you compare high school drop out rates between now and then.

Re: that aforementioned $20K dealership price above. I picked my then-new 2004 Tacoma SR-5 extra-cab up for $3K less, while it may never net the same fuel economy, I definitely got far more vehicle for the money. For starters, it has a back seat...The original Smart For2 was targetted with a $10K U.S. MSRP, but of course that's back when it had a 660cc motor pushing it. Surely you don't think the manufacturer is going to pay for the R&D and retooling for a niche market, moreso after they just downsized the motor to 599cc...nay, pass that on to the buyers. Nope, we get the liter mill while Europe recieves the 599cc mill at the euro-equivilent $10K US price.

Now make that Smart a $10K car (as initially inteneded)...there'd be waiting lists at the dealers and nothing to demo.

Buying another vehicle for the sake of using less fuel rarely pays off. Sure, there are a few instances...I can stake a claim in that for my motorcycles...if I only had one. I literally do ride them every day to work, get groceries with them (not cart loads mind you, but what I need versus what I want and I may make more than one trip per week as such, but it's on the way home from work). I'll even ride in the rain if I absolutely MUST (fortunately for that sake, our annual rainfall here averages two inches). My insurance is $75/year for each bike versus $660/year for each truck, and with lower deductibles on the bike. I get around 60mpg on the average (some of my bikes go as low as 50 with a ham fisted throttle, others as high as 80 on a lightly throttled tank) compared to 24mpg on the trucks.

So even with the extra mandated service on the bikes: oil & filter along with new spark plugs every 4K miles, valve clearance checks & carburetor synchs every 8K miles, brake pads at 12-16K mile intervals, and tires & tubes that average 24K miles (which is actually phenomenal considering some bikes will need a new rear tire with every oil change, average MC tire life is 10-12K miles)...even considering the rediculous cost for MC parts it still doesn't make up the difference in insurance rates.

Alas, I'm in the minority here. Surely if I lived one or two hundred miles further north, that wouldn't apply as I would not try riding daily on snow covered icy roads.


Then you have to factor in the other costs. That Toyota Prius battery pack is something like an $8000 piece when it gives up the ghost, after 7-8 years. Half the cost of the new car price, no doubt more than the car itself is worth via Kelly Blue Book by then. If leasing a car ever made sense, that's the car to lease. It's definitely not the new car you want to buy and hang on to for the rest of your life, as I am currently doing with my 93 Toyota pick up.

Finally, there is the all too common factor --- which in itself deserves its own topic:


For my parting shot, I'm going to shoot the bullseye concerning the typical American consumer


Back in the 1970s, we had this thing called a gasoline crisis. People began to dump their inefficient American made vee-eights for imported four bangers to save on fuel. Once gas prices settled, the V-8 made a resurging comeback.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina wiped out the Galveston fuel refineries and gas shot up to $3/gallon. Everyone dumped their inefficient American made vee-eights for domestic and/or imported four bangers to save on fuel. Toyota dealerships nationwide had waiting lists on the Prius. Gas settled back down to $2/gallon six months later and those four bangers went up for sale in order to reclaim the vee-eights. Toyota dealerships nationwide couldn't keep the Tundra in stock.

Three years later to the day, commodities brokers inflated the price of sweet crude to over $100/barrel, jacking gas prices up to well over $4/gallon. Care to take a guess what happened as a reaction to this fuel crisis? Everyone with a 2005 and newer V8 traded it in for a domestic or import four banger. Care to take a guess what happened when gas dropped down to a very "cheap/affordable" $2.80/gallon? Mind you, that was 20¢/gallon less than the prior "fuel crisis". Yep, all those 2008 four bangers were traded back for 2008 and newer vee-eights. The top two selling vehicles for 2008 were the Ford F-150 and Chevy Sierra, both full sized trucks. In fact only two non-V8s made the top ten best seller list that year, the Honda Accord and Toyota Avalon (both flagship models with V6s, unless you came across a rare base model). Funny thing, we were allegedly in a recession during that time...

Remember EVERY newspaper article during each gas crisis? Remember the picture that accompanied each one? What was featured? Someone gassing up a late model big truck or SUV, quoting how the whining dipstick owner couldn't afford to fill it up. For the few of us that caught that, it was about the only accurate media offering from the last decade. And I don't credit the media for that either, instead I (dis)credit the typical American consumer that happened to be there when the media was. After all, they (the media) would have been waiting a much longer time for a four banger or motorcycle/scooter to roll in...so they take the first one they get. Odds always lean in favor of the common denominator.

To prove that even further, remember how everyone added a fuel surcharge (on top of a delivery surcharge) for delivery services last year? How come nobody rescinded those when gas became "cheap" again? Because obviously you need a Suburban to deliver flowers, a four banger sedan or minivan simply can't handle that kind of a payload.  I have a story behind that one, but we're already on a tangent...


So there's the promised proof: humans definitely have not evolved at the same ratio as motorcycle technology in the past twelve years. I'm no scientist, but I challenge anyone who is to disprove my theory that humans, on the whole, or at least in North America, are actually devolving instead.

Yeah, there's also that...

I have liability/comp/collision w/ $250 deductibles on the bikes. They have two things in their favor: Progressive (incidently my carrier) did a study a few years ago and one model I have made the top five least stolen list and another made both the top five least crashed and least stolen list. Oddly enough, they both carry the same premium (which I might surmise as being the lowest possible for either).

I have higher deductibles ($500) on the Taco and dropped collision on the 93, as I simply don't drive it that much and its retail value continues to plummet each year, so that figure is an average of the two. And in no way do I complain on that figure either, knowing what others pay for "lesser" vehicles out here.

And last but not least...



Sadly, that part is attributed to the global market that was enabled during the mid-90s. Now that everything comes out of China, well...everything truly is disposable. Honda closed their Marysville Ohio motorcycle plant this year (although they transferred all the employees to other outlets so no actual jobs were lost) so they could manufacture those bikes for less elsewhere. While a majority of the parts in Marysville were sourced in house, care to take a guess where some of the other parts hailed from? Not the home offices in Japan...I can only wonder where the bulk of future parts will be coming from, and it won't take long for the domestic marks to follow suit. They already carry more than sufficient foreign content mandating the loss of the coveted "Made in USA" mark as of 1995, believe it or not, the Marysville Honda models in 96 and 97 had enough domestic content to allow the mark. Big stink raised on that one in court...

But back to the topic. If you buy a $180 Bissel carpet cleaner and it breaks a year later (not due to owner lack of maintenance mind you, but due to the inferior cheap plastic gear that strips instead of what used to be a metal gear that outlasted the motor), it's gonna cost $100 to repair...so when it breaks again in the following year, do you fix it again or buy the $89 version instead? That's the dilemna I just went through, having invested $280 into a two year old $180 cleaner that needs further investment...I figure buy the lower end $89 model and if it lasts a year, I'll come out ahead by replacing it with another $89 model next year.

The alternative is purchasing an industrial grade machine for $699 and hoping the product doesn't get outsourced to China before it breaks down...which is what happened on my prior cleaner. Not much of a choice there, you can either buy expensive Chinese made cheap crap or cheap Chinese made cheap crap. Either way, you get cheap crap.

My Hoover upright is starting to make funny noises. I think I'll scour E-Bay for a 1976 Electrolux cannister or 1979 Kirby upright for my next vacuum cleaner, my parents have one of each in perfect working order, and neither is for sale...