Spring Break Shark Attack, Or, How to Drive a Ticking Time Bomb

The sun is shining, the birds are gently calling out, the sun is slowly melting the dirty snow, and the days are growing longer. Dear readers, Spring is here. For many of you, this means that you can finally stop hounding your children to put on their snowpants. For others, this means that you can finally go to that dusty corner of your garage and wheel out your old convertible. Yes, Spring is a glorious time of sunshine, awakening, and peace for the majority of the population.

Unless you are between the ages of 18 and 23. In your case, Spring means one thing and one thing only: Spring Break.

For those of you who aren't a member of the rebellious youth or a raging alcoholic, here's a brief visual of how your kids spend your paycheck.

Panama City Beach Hotels 35% Off This Week, With Complimentary Room Service & Chlamydia!

Surprise!

When boiled down, this equates to a week or so of very questionable decisions. Naturally, my friends and I had to take part. So, with dreams of terrible lawsuits in our heads, my buddies and I packed our bags into a 2007 Saturn Outlook and hit the road.

Beauty. Power. Refinement. Sex Appeal......These Are Not Actually The Words That Come To Mind...

Our route was long and perilous. The GPS on my phone informed me that our journey would take roughly 17 hours, assuming we never had to stop. After estimating that we would have to tack on an hour and a half or so for gas stops (because that's how cars work...) and bathroom breaks, we estimated our overall drive at about 18 and a half hours.

We were so wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.

The first few hours of the drive passed by without incident. We quickly left the ice and wind of Michigan behind us and, apart from a minor detour, crossed the Sixth Circle of Dante's Hell (Ohio) with time to spare.

It was only when we hit West Virginia that things began to go amiss. 

While driving through the winding mountain roads of coal country, we began to notice that the car had begun to shift a bit...violently. By that I mean that whenever the transmission attempted to swap a cog, it was accompanied by a terrifying lurch and a bang like a gunshot.  In addition, the tachometer was informing me that the engine was running at 5,500 RPM. To provide a bit of context, we were doing 74 and were, by my reckoning, in sixth gear. Commence your wincing.

Now, this could be caused my a number of issues. The gearing mechanism could be faulty, the clutch could be slipping, something could be on fire, and there was really no way of knowing without checking it out. As sensible, well-educated men, we immediately pulled over to examine the transmission.

By that I mean that we're a group of guys in our twenties and simply pushed a bit harder on the accelerator pedal, hoping that whatever foul witchcraft was occurring within the bowels of the Saturn would simply go away with added speed.

Happy Happy Happy, The Car is on Fire, La Dee Da Dee Da!

Spoiler alert: It didn't go away.

When the entire dashboard suddenly lit up with warning lights like the surface of the sun, we finally decided that we may need to examine the car.

Pulling into a service station near the Virginia border and consulting the manual, we determined that the car would be fine, given some time to cool down. This particular car had over 120,000 miles on its odometer and therefore, we reasoned, it made sense that it was struggling with the hilly terrain. Google also told us that our particular transmission, GM's Dexron VI, had a history of mild overheating and that it should be just fine, given time to cool down.

We simply ignored this. The dire pronouncements of "catastrophic transmission overheating" and "idle engine immediately" were treated like the pathetic warnings they were: designed for weaker men than ourselves.

Shockingly, the car's symptoms did not dissipate. As we rolled slowly into service station after service station, the shadow of the car grew longer as it flickered across the endless expanse of tarmac. Night was coming and the temperatures were dipping perilously close to zero.

Ominous.

Complicating our situation, we are all avid cinephiles and, in accordance with our cinematic educations, we knew that we were about to be kidnapped and murdered by the mutants from the Hills Have Eyes.

A Free Luke Bryan Concert, a Bad Tan and a Crappy Tank Top Weren't Worth This!

As the day grew shorter, our stops grew longer. Google informed us that there were no rental car agencies within 100 miles (primarily because there was nothing resembling civilization within 100 miles). We sat, disconsolate as the sun gave up its last desperate twinkle, and dipped below the horizon. 

Realizing that our combined mechanical prowess was nowhere near sufficient to fix a transmission, I decided to simply kill and eat my friends, so as to prolong my struggle against the inevitable mutant assault.

It's a Lie. Everyone is Fair Game.

When hope was all but lost, we finally decided to "fix" the transmission. This meant pulling into a truck stop in Southern Virginia, opening the hood, and checking the transmission fluid. When the dip stick informed us that the fluid was at the proper level, our mechanical expertise was officially exhausted, and we climbed back into the car, reasoning that if we were going to die, we might as well be warm for as long as possible.

This was when the Great Miracle of 2013 occurred.

While wandering through the aisles of the truck stop searching for a bathroom, we discovered the small bottle that you see below. Reasoning that our transmission couldn't be in worse shape (NEVER ASSUME THAT), we purchased it, and proceeded to simply dump the entire bottle into the transmission.

The Label Should Actually Read: "God Fluid"

This is the part of the story when, by rights, my writing should trail off into agonized screaming as the car completely dies and I am pulled from the burning wreck by terrifying hill mutants.

But that isn't what happened.

Surprisingly, the problems immediately disappeared. This was surprising because, by this point, we truly though that the car was dead. Transmission problems are very rarely something that one can fix on the side of the road. Although the engineering behind a transmission isn't overly complicated, the level of detail to which they are built and the numerous small parts make a roadside repair the stuff of nightmares.

With the car no longer shuddering and sounding like something from the Industrial Revolution, we were able to get back on the road. Six hours after our original estimated arrival time, we rolled into the driveway of our condo, exhausted, but triumphant.

You're All Damn Lucky That Amerigo Vespucci Made The Maps and Not Me.

If I can say that I learned one thing from this experience, it would be that man always triumphs over machine.

Or not.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are depending heavily on a vehicle, don't ignore the signs that something is amiss. Check it out, get it to a service station, and have someone who didn't waste a couple grand on a liberal arts degree look over the flaming wreck that used to be your car. 

That's the smart thing to do.

Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Swiss People, Oh My: The Return of the Auto Intern

I will begin this post with a heartfelt apology to you, dear Slovenian reader. Google analytics tells me that you comprise an increasing share of my readership and I haven't updated this blog in roughly five months. Well, fret no longer, because readers in Ljubljana and perhaps even some Western cities can go back to enjoying (read: screaming furiously at) my automotive commentary.

I could list the reasons for my lengthy absence, but research tells me that we live in a visual society and that none of you have the attention span to read something as prosaic as a list, so I've provided some visual representation of my activities.

Yep that was basically it. Either that or exams. Not entirely sure. Can't remember.

But now it's time to delve into the reason for this post: Geneva.

Geneva is a gorgeous Swiss city that sits nestled at the foot of the Alps. It is one of the world's most important financial centers and has gained some renown for manufacturing hideous watches. 

This will make women think that I have large, fully functioning genitalia! I just know it!

But each March, as Winter recedes back to the mountains and the flowers bloom, Geneva is home to a very special event: The Geneva Motor Show. How special you ask? Well, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Ferrari all chose this event to roll out new models. We also got to see the convertible Corvette Stingray, the new Golf, and some great new prototypes. So, all in all, important event.

Let's start with the Golf, as that's what most of you don't care about. It's a basically the exact same thing as the old Golf, but it offers a much wider variety of powertrain options that lead to better fuel economy. That's about it. Oh, and odds are good that it will only be available in Europe for the time being. That's good for you industrious lads in Slovenia, but bad for the majority of my readership, which is still American.

Check yourself VW.

The Lambo is much more interesting. It appears as though the design studio finally took Audi's memos to keep it safe, mildly interesting, and rather normal and fed it to the army of vampire bats that they secretly keep in the basement. This car would not look out of place with some Bond-esque torpedos. It would not surprise me if it released fireballs every time you open the doors. I would be stunned if it was powered by anything other than a dying star. Quite simply, it is an amazing throwback to the insane Lamborghinis of old.

No caption is really necessary. 

Simply astonishing.

Now, this segways very nicely into the new Ferrari. Typically, the Italian supercar manufacturers are...a bit competitive. By that, I mean that Enzo Ferrari and Ferrucio Lamborghini's meetings over cocktails used to go something like this...

Sound business practice.

And by "something like this," I mean "exactly like this." So, it goes to reason that the latest Ferrari should be even more insane, even more rabid, even more completely unhinged than the latest Lambo right?

Eh, not exactly. Let's start with the name. Ferrari's new offering has been gracefully titled, La Ferrari. Yep. That's it. They had the entire developed world breathing down their necks, waiting with irrepressible excitement for the successor to the famous Enzo, and the gave us La Ferrari. The name of their company, with a "la" tacked on. For those of you who aren't fluent in Italian, Spanish, or any other language that loves to place the letter "L" in all of their articles, let me enlighten you as to the translation of this name. "La Ferrari" is translated to English as "The Ferrari."

Now, Ferrari has been very hit or miss with its naming conventions ever since it debuted the Scuderia (Team) in 2004.  Ferrari has produced some great names, such as the F12 Berlinetta, but this definitely falls under the "Why Even Bother" category. This was unveiled on the same day as a rival company produced a car called "Veneno." That brings to mind images of snakebites, adventure, poison, and death. "La Ferrari" calls to mind images of a slightly depressed, overweight man named Ricardo sitting in a cramped cubicle in the bowels of a Ferrari satellite facility who has been made to generate a name before he heads home to hang himself.

Good idea guys. Put Milton in charge of naming a multimillion dollar flagship model.

Don't get me wrong, the La Ferrari has some amazing technology under the hood. It's the first car to employ the HYKERS system, which pairs an electric motor with a gasoline motor to create a hybrid supercar. The electric motor not only allows for better fuel economy and increased range, but it also provides a stratospheric amount of torque off the line, which enable this car to go from 0-60 in well under 3 seconds. For those of you who don't grasp the significance of that number, know that it will basically peel the skin off of your face if you floor it from a standstill.

...to this.

Your face goes from this...

Remarkable stuff, no doubt. But the rest of it is a bit...lacking. It hits a top speed of 205 mph. That's 3 mph more than the current Ferrari 458, which costs significantly less. The design is relatively pleasant. Some aspects, such as the sloped roof, are a clear homage to departed Italian designer Sergio Pininfarina. Those aspects are incredible. But the rest just appears to be recycled from old Ferrari bits.

For a company that claims to be the vanguard of automotive brilliance, that's a bit annoying.

"Bring Back TVR," or, "Keeping the Russians Happy"

In the months since I first started this blog, I have picked up a substantial Russian following. Despite this, I have really done nothing involving any sort of Russian car. Lately, this has been weighing heavily on my mind. I watched 27 minutes of the film Eastern Promises and I have realized that I simply must do something to appease the Russians. If I don't write something about a Russian car, I fear that this may happen to me:

Aragorn stabs an unsuspecting blog writer in the face...or something

From a cursory examination of the headlines, I have deduced that if you are in Russia these days, you are either a natural gas oligarch or you are Pussy Riot. If you are the former, you may be in the market for a high priced performance car. If you are the latter, you are currently in jail and unfortunately will not be driving any time soon.

Not the intended audience.

This brings me neatly to the case of TVR. Although TVR will forever be considered a British car (much like Jaguar is considered British despite the fact that the man in charge is named Ratan Tata and he has chosen to headquarter the company in Mumbai) the 21st Century saw it as the plaything of a young Russian businessman named Nikolay Smolensky.

Unfortunately, Mr. Smolensky's management of the company was less than satisfactory, and in July, TVR was officially shut down for good. At this point, 96% of the world's population breathed a sigh of relief, because it meant that the company would stop churning out poorly made death machines. You honestly had a better chance of surviving a game of russian roulette (see what I did there?!?!?) than you did of surviving a Sunday drive in your TVR.

And that's a shame. They weren't bad looking cars and they had a rich racing history.

Sort of like a Lotus Evora but much more...violent

There's something incredibly sad seeing such a storied company fade into the annals of history. Well actually, TVR still exists, they just make wind turbines. Either way though, that's an extremely ignoble end to an automotive icon.

I will end this with an appeal. Mr. Smolensky, please bring back TVR. Proper TVR. Not wind turbine TVR. The Dutch have wind turbines covered. The Russians need this. And so do we.

"Don't Tase Me Bro," or, "An Exploration of Electric Cars"

Earlier this week, Nissan was hit with a major class-action lawsuit. The focus of the litigation? The range of Nissan's electric Leaf. After paying almost $37,000 for a plastic box that can travel a smaller distance that a paralyzed cocker-spaniel, it seems as though several drivers felt as though they were duped.

At least it looks goo-.....wait...no. That's a lie.

Let me preface the following post by stating that I really feel no sense of pity for these people. Fully electric cars such as the leaf are useless vanity pieces for people who now believe that the Toyota Prius is "too mainstream." These people generally have beards and listen to bands like Grizzly Bear while snacking on overpriced granola. I have no patience for these people and I have no patience for the Nissan Leaf.

But it's like, totally sustainable!

For starters, let's be honest. Electric cars do not work. Let me repeat that. They. Do. Not. Work. They take half a day to charge and then run out of juice after you make it thirty miles down the road. Once the car dies, you will have no means of charging it up, as electric car charging ports are not what one might call "plentiful."

"Ah," you might say, "but the you love the Chevy Volt, and its an electric car!"

Not so. The Chevy volt is, for all intensive purposes, a hybrid. It happens to be the best designed and least offensive hybrid on the market, and it's magnificent. It is not an electric car.

Saving the earth, Michael Bay style

Please don't misunderstand the purpose of this post. I truly believe that we need to reduce our dependence on oil and that the automotive industry will have to switch to a more sustainable fuel source very soon.

With that said, electric cars are a pipe dream. Hydrogen is, for the time being, the only reasonable alternative to gasoline and diesel.

"Let's All Connect to Facetube," or, "The Rise of the Infotainment System."

Today, Ford announced that it will fix its infotainment system, "MyFord Touch." This pronouncement was initiated following recent Consumer Reports surveys that (I'm paraphrasing here) declared that Ford's infotainment system was less intuitive than complex integration calculus and less attractive than a decomposing corpse. Plainly, this was not good news.

Oh...This looks.....fun?

But here's a crucial fact. All infotainment systems are awful. Trying to use satnav in a Honda is comparable to playing the first edition of Zelda on a Super Nintendo. It was revolutionary when Clinton was in office, but now it's a bit sad to be honest.

He knows what's up.

And unfortunately, it's only going to get worse. Recently, Autoblog broke the news that Apple would be adding a Siri button to the upcoming vehicles of several major manufacturers. For those of you that live under a rock or are above the age of 76, Siri is the all-knowing robotic assistant that comes with all new iPhones. Sort of like Stanley Kubrick's Hal, but female.

Humanity is obsolete. Thanks for that one Steve Jobs.

Everyone seems to think that this is an amazing development. Everyone except me. I personally believe that these developments are roughly equivalent to the arrival of the antichrist.

Hello, my name is Damien, and I drive a Honda Civic.

More technology means more distracted driving. More distracted driving means that more people will be killed on the roads. This means that we will need more safety technology. This means that cars will get heavier and more unwieldy. This means that driving will lose much of its appeal. This is bad.

As I've said before, I'm a huge fan of a stripped down, no-frills driving experience. And I'm terrified that this is dying out.

“It shall be the Source of All Things, or, How Much is Too Much?”

As I’ve previously stated, I think that there are some odd things going on in the world of automotive design. One of most notable is also one of the most understandable. I’m talking about the “go anywhere, do anything” phenomenon that seems to be cropping up in new designs.

This phenomenon takes the notion of “market segments,” shreds it, and then throws it to a group of wolves that haven’t eaten in 6 weeks for disposal.

Final Destination for the Market Segment.

A prime example is the new Nissan Quest minivan. Let’s be clear, this is a minivan. A machine designed to allow a young mother to cart around 3 children, a load of groceries, and several dogs at once and with great economy. That’s all it’s supposed to do.

A Somewhat Liberal Interpretation of the Concept.

So, you can imagine the confusion now that Nissan has unveiled the newest iteration of the Quest.

Here was a minivan that claimed to be the start of a new chapter in the grand tale of minivans. Here was a minivan that promised classic hauling capacity along with unprecedented levels of luxury and sumptuous comfort. In short, Nissan tried to break the mold and satisfy everyone.

And it failed. Horribly. Cataclysmically.

Mere words cannot describe the awful nature of the Quest. That said, I will endeavor to do so anyway.

First, let’s start with the exterior. There’s no other way to say this. It appears to have been designed by someone that at some point lost the gift of sight. I mean, honestly, what were they thinking? The mirrors are straight off of a delivery van. The body has a Janus-like split identity. The front looks like a minivan and the back looks like a small truck. The fusion is spectacularly awful.

KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!
Image courtesy of the NY Times.

My Labrador saw a picture of this car on my computer and was promptly sick.

The interior isn’t much better. The steering is a bit numb and the button configurations and total layout appear to have been drawn up for a driver with several tentacles and a complete lack of spatial awareness. Most notably, silence, the most important hallmark of any luxury car (or any car designed to take many people a long way) is utterly and completely absent. The shocking amount of road noise would convince a blindfolded passenger that they were in New Orleans, circa 2004.

It's Sort of Like This, But Louder.

The car is awful. Biblically awful. And this is because it tries too hard to satisfy everyone. There is a reason that there are market segments. There is a reason that people buy cars with different priorities in mind. The Nissan Quest is a perfect example of the horrors that result when a company tries too hard to please everyone. They please nobody.

"Burning Rubber or Perhaps Conserving it for the Drive Home," or, "What is a Driver's Car?"

Several days ago, I was out at a track running some tests for work. There was a retinue of beautiful cars that each cost about half a million dollars and there was a Fiat 500 that we were using to kart around cameras and testing gear.

My Trusty Steed.

At one point, I had to hop into the little Fiat to move a group of tripods to the other side of the track. I followed a coworker in a V12 Aston Martin onto the track, expecting to immediately be left in his dust as his performance-bred machine employed the 510 horses that were crammed under its hood and sped away. I was right. He was completely out of sight within 15 seconds.

Fire Breathing Track Dragon. Also Comes in Blue.

However, when we exited our cars at the destination point a few minutes later, he was dripping with sweat and looked unbearably tense. I, on the other hand, was grinning ear to ear and laughing madly. Somehow, I was the one who enjoyed the drive more.

This got me thinking: what really is a driver's car?

Companies have tried to convince us that the best cars to drive are those that produce enough power to level Hiroshima again and enough torque to spin the Earth in a counterclockwise manner when they accelerate. They are wrong. These are not the best cars. The reality is, you can never actually use this power. Naught to 60 in 2.8 seconds? Why should that matter? When do you ever have to go from a standstill to 60 mph? 50 to 80, aka what you do when you merge onto the freeway, is a much more important number. Ergo, cars with gratuitous amounts of power are out.

This Goes 260 MPH. It Is Also Immensely Stupid.

Besides, if you purchase one of these cars, what you are telling the world is that your penis is a bit too small. Soon, you will get into arguments with other people with foreshortened penises about the horsepower in their cars, and then you'll end up getting in a fistfight over your penises. As you've both been taking Viagra, you will die of an exploded heart mid-fight, and your bodies will be found in an embarrassing position. Don't have this happen. Don't buy a car with a stupid engine.

Others will say that extremely expensive bespoke cars made from ridiculous and exclusive things like myrrh, redwood, and Elton John's pubes are the best cars. Why simply drive around in a Ford Fusion when you can waft about in a Rolls Royce, laughing at the misfortune of the poor 99 percenters that don't have their transmission fluid replaced with Chablis and their steering wheel leather replaced with penguin hide? The reality is, again, that these cars are immensely stupid. Unlike cars with big engines, which just signify your unfortunate lack in the gentleman's region, these cars cause people to actively hate you.

Feel the Hatred Rise Within You Young Skywalker.

The reality is, the absolute best drivers cars are little roadsters like this, the Mazda MX 5.

The Mazda doesn't have a large amount of power, it doesn't have a rock-hard suspension, it's filled with plastic, and there are no penguins. It costs about $24,000, and it's excellent.

This is What Fun Looks Like.

This is because the people at Mazda know the truth. Driving becomes fun when you do it at the limit. The limit of an Aston Martin's performance, that moment right before it slides off of the road, hits a tree, and incinerates you, is impossibly high. Nobody but a highly trained race driver can even come close to approaching it.

On the other hand, the limit of an MX 5 is quite low. Ergo, driving around town, you can have the top down, the wind in your hair, the sunlight on your face, and the feeling of perfect synthesis between man and machine, even though you're really only doing 45 down your best friend's twisty backroad. Because really, that's what this is all about.