In recent days I have avoided any TV except BBC America: It carries the automotive show Top Gear and the news is detailed, avoiding inane sound bites like those from one candidate on Pennsylvania primary day, “I think a win is a win.”
Am I the only one that finds a potential President uttering such gibberish to be even more problematic than the price of diesel? And to imagine I used to think Bush’s speach wuz baahd…seems nothing is really new in politics or cars these days.
This is merely a single indicator of the state of education, reasoning, or intelligence in the U.S. but similar uneducated/not new theories are reflected daily in the world wide web of wheels:
Many of the posts regarding last year’s Lamborghini Reventón included a reference to the first fighter-cockpit-like dash display that can be reconfigured. High-end motorhomes had reconfigurable non-fighter-like instrument displays years ago, and although those coaches cost about the same as the $1.3 million Lamborghini, a damn nice house was part of the deal.
BMW’s new X6 “four-door coupe sports activity vehicle” is out, looking like a 21st century version of the AMC Spirit 4WD coupe or all those 4WD freaks guys made by putting a Z-car, Charger, Vega et al style body on a short-wheelbase 4WD chassis. Clearly a case of image marketing and selfish desires to be different, I’d wonder what buyers and BMW were thinking except I can’t believe any thought went into the process.
BMW’s own like-priced 535xi wagon with the same 300-hp twin-turbo six and all-wheel drive system offers a choice of manual or automatic gearbox (but no 400-hp V-8 like the X6), has significantly more headroom, seats more, is considerably faster, scores 4 mpg better and weighs 800 pounds less, In the same footprint.
Then I accidentally clicked a BusinessWeek.com story about the BMW 128i convertible wherein the writer, who has served as editor and reporter in places as varied as Minneapolis, MN to Frankfurt, Germany, relates, “I have to say that I found the 128i convertible noticeably slower than the 3 Series coupes and sedans I test-drove.” After giving the respective times he surmises, “It may just be that the convertible versions of each model are a bit slower than the hardtops (though why that would be I'm not sure).”
I’m not SURE, but any competent tester (I’m including myself here) is quite confident it’s because convertibles weigh more than coupes, about 240 pounds more on the 1-series and 440 pounds more on a 328; BusinessWeek.com seems no better with car numbers than the Wall Street Journal. It is bad enough that most car-guy readers know more than the writer, and made doubly-worse by the author mentioning weight earlier in the story.
Fortunately I find TDR contributors to have more product knowledge and basic reasoning skills, and we have the audience to keep us honest. I am sure I can’t take the politics and web-idity until November, so now it’s your turn: What have you seen called “new” that isn’t, and what’s your favorite website screw up?
Hopefully it won’t have my name on it.
