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SchizophrenicMC

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  1. SchizophrenicMC
    I just love the Voodoo. It sounds like a strange cross between a flat-plane V8 and something beefy and American, which I guess is what it is. But also all those revs, sweet Jesus. But I also appreciate that Ford shot those videos with the cars moving. Nothing is less indicative of how an engine sounds, to me, than free-revving in a driveway. Engines sound different under load, and that's what we all really want to hear anyway.
  2. SchizophrenicMC
    Aww yiss
  3. SchizophrenicMC
    I don't know about you, but I drive my Jeep a whole helluva lot faster than I drive my 240SX. The V8 torque, the AWD grip, the well-tuned damping, and the actually-competent roll control just egg me on.
  4. SchizophrenicMC
    He just doesn't want to think, ever. Probably not the best kind of guy to have on the road.
  5. SchizophrenicMC
    No food in my car, though since I got the mopar cupholder insert, I will now allow drinks for the front passenger. Any rear seat passengers can get fraked. No food or drink is allowed in the Nissan. It has no cupholders and it is also a sports car. I also control the radio and climate with an iron fist. So far I haven't had anyone try to light up, but if that ever happens, the passenger is walking home.
  6. SchizophrenicMC
    If everyone had to drive stick, there would be no more traffic jams. Everyone would get sick of the hassle and they'd learn to merge, match speed with traffic, minimize lane changes, and quit rubbernecking. Not to mention texting and driving would drop sharply- it's tough to text if you're shifting gears. Actually, it's a real problem. Drivers get distracted because their mind isn't occupied enough by the driving task. That's why you see a lot of one-car accidents on long, straight, empty stretches of highway. There's little mental stimulus and drivers lose focus for long enough to lose control of the vehicle. The same thing happens in normal driving with an automatic, which is why there's been a significant uptake of eating, calling, texting, playing with your infotainment, and what have you. You need something to occupy your attention because driving just isn't enough to do that when the car is doing everything but brake and steer. And that's a problem, because if your attention is on your phone or your cheeseburger, and not the car ahead of you, well, suffice it to say distracted driving is a leading cause of deadly accidents. It's for a similar reason that I have mixed feelings about traction control. Performance driving feelings aside, I accept that traction control and vehicle stability control can be a big help in inclement conditions, but I also think they remove the need for the driver to display a sense of finesse in their throttle control and the need for the driver to think about his throttle and brake inputs. Why bother, when the car will figure it all out for you? That just encourages unsafe driving, and it takes yet another focal point off of driving. Don't get me wrong, I like my luxury and comfort too. But then look at the new Mustang. The Premium Package (which can be selected irrespective of transmission option) gives you 10-way driver and passenger power leather heated and cooled seats, an 8" infotainment screen powered by Sync/MyFordTouch (with steering wheel control and voice commands, which also control the dual zone automatic climate), GPS navigation, XM Radio, bluetooth streaming, bluetooth handsfree, iPod integration, and a couple of other features I'm forgetting. This, on a $25,000 sport coupe, available in 320hp I4 turbo, or 400-some hp V8. You don't have to be in an Escort SE to get a manual transmission. Hell, Cadillac still sells its ATS sedan with a manual transmission. Even the $100,000 BMW M5 can still be optioned with 3 pedals. (Albeit in America, only) These cars make a Lexus look like the Camry it is. Manual transmissions aren't about cheapness or sportiness, they're about driver engagement. Connecting the driver to the car in a meaningful way and allowing him to have the experience of driving. Much as I love my Jeep, I can't consider driving automatic to truly be "driving". You're just steering and braking. The car does the rest. And, much as I love my Jeep, I always have more fun in the Nissan, even though the Jeep is faster, has more power, and doesn't draw attention when I'm speeding. I never speed in the Nissan- it's a cop magnet, and I need to get through September without getting another speeding ticket, for this deferred disposition. But it's so much better an experience than driving the Jeep most of the time. (And only "most of" because it still has some reliability concerns from the car being 25 years old, and because I haven't worked out how I want to build the audio system in the Nissan, which was a much easier task in the Jeep because of the inherent differences in 4x6" speakers and 6.5" speakers) Flappy paddles and sportmatics don't count. If you don't have that third pedal, you don't get the driver engagement. I don't care if you're in a flappy-paddle Fit or a Pagani goddamn Zonda, you just can't get the driver engagement that the third pedal and H-pattern shifter give you. And while I can excuse flappy paddles in hypercars because PURE SPEED that no human driver can achieve with a third pedal and a right arm, I disagree that "you can get the best of both worlds". No. You can either drive stick and enjoy it, or you can be a nimby.
  7. SchizophrenicMC
    God that's a sad thought.
  8. SchizophrenicMC
    I. wat. But no seriously, driving stick is easy. I have severely reduced mobility in one of my arms and I can still drive stick.
  9. SchizophrenicMC
    The Countach was a mid-80s Italian car. Yes, it was a Lamborghini, so it was very fast and very striking. But it's a mid-80s Italian car. Things like reliability, ergonomics, creature comforts- these things were not important. The car was a purely outrageous machine in a time of ridiculous extravagance. You could never build it today. People are far too conscious about that sort of thing now. I miss the more decadent days of the 80s and 90s. When people could do something crazy just because they could. Now we have to weigh consequences first, and pussy out second. I still bet you could get a considerable amount of the female population to drop panties by saying 5000QV in Italian though. Ferrucio knew what he wrought.
  10. SchizophrenicMC
    "I'm sorry for doubting you, Triceracop. You're the best damn partner I ever had."
  11. SchizophrenicMC
    Two Volkswagens and a Renault enter a motorway.
  12. SchizophrenicMC
    That's definitely true, and I'm getting tired of stylish cars. I want handsome cars, not stylish ones. Cars that will age well because they have simplistic designs. Look at Nissan with their AUTISTIC HEADLIGHTS and Ford with its pointless angry shark mouth and 20 lines in the hood. The Honda Accord is a big, fat mess today, and in 10 years it'll be hideous. The CB generation Accord never stood out, but it will never look bad. And why should a sedan stand out? It's 4 wheels, 4 doors, and 4 cylinders of get-where-you-need-to-go. This is the one place I've fallen out of favor with Mazda: they're designing stylish cars, and it takes the focus off their great engineering, which really should be the main reason you buy a Mazda. If you want to make cars with long hoods, build them RWD. We're all still waiting on a new RX car. It's all a part of the rampant bloat we're seeing in cars now, and as more millennials become car designers, it will only get worse.
  13. SchizophrenicMC
    The ND is a bag of mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, the engineers got everything right. On the other hand, the designers got everything wrong. To speak of the good, Mazda developed 2 hoods for the car: one for the US, where pedestrian safety regs are still loose, and one for Europe and Japan which uses pedestrian impact sensing and a set of airbags to push the hood up and away from the hard bits underneath. That adds, I want to say 75lbs to the E-code car, but they make up for it with a lighter engine and less emissions gear. What I really like about the ND is it weighs less than the NC. Like a solid 200lbs less across the board. Mazda did some really clever stuff to pull weight out of the car, like trading traditional seat springs for a composite polymer design that weighs less but is expected to be even more durable. They used a few structural tricks to get the weight down too, and to all the people asking why the ND doesn't have a hard top: soft-top convertibles are exempt from US NHTSA FMVSS rollover requirements, meaning they could use less-stringent Euro-NCAP requirements as a basis for the car and cut the weight down some more. And then you get things like 4-lug wheels on all models, greater use of aluminum in the powertrain and suspension, and so on. All in all, I think the final car weighs like 2400lbs. That may be heavier than the NA, but not by much. All the same, the designers were trying too hard. The ND looks too aggressive. The Miata has always been a goofy-looking car that wears its heart on its sleeve: it's slow, but you'll be smiling just as hard as the opening in the bumper. It's a car driven for the experience of driving, not for its street presence or how many girls it's prone to scare off. Honestly, I could see myself driving any of the first 3 generations of Miata and enjoying every minute of it. In the ND, I'd feel like people would think I was trying too hard to compensate for some kind of insecurity. You can't have masculine insecurity and drive an NA with the top down. All in all, I still think Mazda is the only Japanese carmaker that still gets it. That still understands that cars, and driving, matter. Everyone else has gone and diluted their brand with junk to appeal to fad markets, but Mazda has hunkered down and refined their core. They only make 6 cars. But damn if they're not 6 of the best in their respective classes. I look at a new Mazda and I see a Mazda. I look at a new Toyota and I see a junky, tinny piece of profit-leader trash and it takes a second to figure out whether I'm looking at a Corolla, Camry, or Avalon. I look at a new Nissan and I see some French buggery. I try not to look at Hondas too much. (Which is difficult because I work at a Honda dealership) I'm caught somewhere between "I don't want to grow up" and "When I grow up, I want to be Agent ONE". Must be nice.
  14. SchizophrenicMC
    Adding vertical adjustment requires additional mechanisms that make the seats taller at their lowest point. I don't know if the Camaro has height adjustment or not, this is just a blanket statement. It also adds cost and complexity to a car made by a company known for cutting corners, especially in interior quality.
  15. SchizophrenicMC
    This is the first I've heard about it being a Japan-only license. It's been my understanding that Bandai has global Star Wars model kit licensing rights.
  16. SchizophrenicMC
    Let's also not forget that the VF-1 has a lot of vernier thrusters on its belly- apparently enough to give it VTOL capabilities in 1G environments. Employing these as a factor of the flight control system could compensate for reduced pitch authority of the thrust vectoring nozzles at low thrust during landing.
  17. SchizophrenicMC
    So you may have noticed, every car today has a really tall grille and hood, and it's kind of ugly. There's a reason for this. European and Asian pedestrian safety regulations (which are slowly bleeding into the US's regulatory body) require a certain amount of clearance between the bottom of the hood and the top of the engine, radiator support, and cowl. I wanna say it's somewhere in the field of 88mm. You can only make the engine and radiator support so short, especially now that engines have tons of plastic covers on them, covering up all the junk that makes their valve covers come so high like individual coil packs and direct injection systems. So the hood line comes up. When the hood line comes up, the base seating position for the average driver (a model against which car interiors are designed, generally consisting of a 5'10-6' male's typical dimensions) has to come up so the visibility over the hood and past it are retained. In reality, people above 6' aren't incredibly common, generally not enough to justify developing seats that go down lower for them. It's always been a problem in car design. Of course in most cars, in response to the hood line and seat height raising, the roof line comes up, and then the car is lengthened and put on 17-19" wheels to maintain the proportions of a car with 15-16" wheels. (And to clear the brakes needed to stop something that heavy within acceptable distances) This isn't the case in the Camaro, where the roof line only comes up a little bit. GM just doesn't have any competent designers. That's what I've decided. The rest of the automotive industry has followed the trend toward bloated obese homogeny out of necessity, because otherwise people don't fit. GM has bucked that, and now even normal sized people don't fit, there's no cargo space, and the car weighs very nearly 2 tons despite having an engine that has long been praised as being very small and lightweight for its output. At least for the Challenger's mass and huge outward size, you get a big interior and a car that acts the part of the sedan chassis it's based on. Actually I think more cars should be like the Honda Fit. It's a small car with a huge comfy interior, it weighs considerably less than my nimble 1990s Japanese sports car, and its sticker price is almost always below $20k but it never feels like quality was sacrificed. (Unless you see the 3 in the first digit of the VIN)
  18. SchizophrenicMC
    The only guy I ever knew who didn't have a problem fitting in his Camaro was 5'5". I have no idea why Camaros are so big, so heavy, and so cramped. I can only chalk it up to GM not knowing how to build cars.
  19. SchizophrenicMC
    I drove an Ecoboost Mustang. I loved it instantly. They really nailed it. It feels like it weighs less than it does and it has just enough boost lag to be fun. Interior quality took a huge improvement too, and it shows itself off as a total clean sheet design. They paid attention to detail and it shows. The new Camaro though? I'm calling it now: they didn't update the chassis, it's still just a 2-door Commodore. Losing 200lbs? That's normally impressive, but in a car that weighs closer to 4000lbs than 3000, it's not so much. And how can such a big, heavy car have such a small, uncomfortable interior? The Challenger may be heavier and bigger, but at least it has some visibility and usable seats. Oh and you know, vents that don't aim at the hips. Seriously, that's interior design 101: face-level vents are at face level.
  20. SchizophrenicMC
    Sixth Generation Camaro: Because why even try?
  21. SchizophrenicMC
    "basically indestructible" My dick. The stuff doesn't fade, it just comes off in ungainly chunks. It's really prone to rock chip damage (which takes chunks off, revealing the inevitable red paint underneath) and it's actually pretty weak on parts that rub on things, like door handles. And if you take it out on the trail, the first tree branch you even look at will take a nice chunk out of the bedliner. And unlike clear coat, which just scratches and can be buffed out, you have to recoat when the bedliner is damaged. And it's been my experience that bedliner doesn't like to stick to cured bedliner. ie, get out the angle grinder. Then again, looking good isn't the point with bedliner. Actually I'm just not sure what the point is. That piano drop on the Morris Marina though.
  22. SchizophrenicMC
    I need that MG Rinascita.
  23. SchizophrenicMC
    At least you can easily get rid of dirt and oil on the surface of a Delorean. And it's easy to hide scratches on. Matte black, yeesh. It also absorbs a ton of heat, which sucks in southerly climes. For that matter, it absorbs every bit of UV that gets thrown at it by the big sky ball, so it looks lighter and lighter as time goes by and the paint oxidizes. And it's not like gloss where you can just buff and polish it back, and wax to protect the paint and maintain the finish. I just can't express my disdain for matte black enough.
  24. SchizophrenicMC
    I hate matte black. If you want your car to look like trash, paint it matte black. If you never want to be able to repair paint or body damage without a total respray, paint it matte black. If you don't want your finish to be maintainable, paint it matte black. Matte black sucks. I have similar feelings about wheel color. It has to match your car's color. Gloss black wheels on light or bright cars, white wheels on white cars, silver wheels on everything else. Painted insets are allowed, so long as they follow the theme. (eg factory moss green pearl insets on the wheels of the Grand Cherokee Orvis Edition, which was only sold in MGPC) Matte wheels are never allowed. Semi-gloss is acceptable. Chrome sucks, but whatever. Polish aluminum is a super gorgeous finish, but it's a lot of work to maintain it without really expensive clear coats that will bond to the metal without disturbing the polished finish. Those are only somewhat less work to maintain. Basically all I'm asking is that people practice good color sense, and display a reasonable sensibility regarding the permanence of their car's finish. I'm not gonna say rattle cans can't get good results, but if your plan hinges on rattle cans and blue painter's tape, and not much else, you should probably save the money and keep driving your ugly car, because you won't be making it pretty any time soon. I dig that Mod Max Silvia though.
  25. SchizophrenicMC
    Satin as the primary finish on a car is lame.
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