Canadians Get Smart; Americans Get Fat
What "matters" to a car writer. Image by m197203. Some rights reserved.
I would never trust a car-writer around children or, more importantly, around household appliances and certainly never behind the wheel of a car.
(If a car-writer hit a cyclist while ejaculating, would the police excuse the killing?)
Still, every now and then, a car-writer will emerge from his mechanico-sexual fantasies and point out something interesting.
In a column in today's Washington Post, Warren Brown notes that Chrysler knows Americans are dumber than Canadians. This is revealed in the way Chrysler is introducing diesel engines to the U.S.
Canadians get a fantastically fuel efficient, maneuverable, small car. Americans get a blubbermobile:
VANCOUVER, B.C. DaimlerChrysler introduced advanced diesel technology in Canada in the seemingly most sensible way. It started small, very small, bringing forth its Smart ForTwo car in 2004 with a 40-horsepower, 0.8-liter, three-cylinder, direct-injection diesel engine.
The thing got the U.S. equivalent of 65 miles per gallon on the highway. It sipped less fuel than anybody's gas-electric hybrid car in city traffic. You could park it in a third of the space required by a full-size family sedan. And if you could live with a top cruising speed slightly north of 60 miles per hour, you were golden -- quite literally, considering the money you saved at the gas pump.
. . .DaimlerChrysler initially planned to sell only 900 of those models annually in Canada. But it wound up selling more than 4,000 in its first year . . .
In the U.S., Chrysler is going with silly, heavy, glistening, roaring, style-machines - not efficient transportation:
[Chrysler is introducing diesel engines in cars] that reflect[] the European auto industry's belief that U.S. drivers are more interested in heavyweight power than they are in petite fuel efficiency.
The Chrysler 300 V-6 CRD is a blubbermobile -- this boat weighs 4,210 pounds.
Amusingly, Brown calls it "agile" on the highway and "borderline clumsy" in the city. Translation: If you want a car that only goes straight and fast it's fine, but if you want to drive it anywhere else, the thing has problems.
But to a car-writer it looks cool:
Head-turning quotient: [the Chrysler 300 V-6 CRD] has all of the lines and the same bold, in-your-face grille that made the Chrysler 300 a styling hit.
To a car-writer, an "in-your-face grille" is a styling hit, not a BBQ accident.
Brown seems to think focusing on style, comfort, and unneeded power is not only a sensible marketing decision but a good thing -- this blubbermobile is a "car that matters":
[Introducing the 300 V-6 CRD] will prove that Cerberus is committed to giving consumers cars that matter -- automobiles that get great fuel-efficiency without attendant penalties in performance, comfort or styling.
To be fair to Brown, perhaps the "cars that matter" line is only a car-writer's reflex. Brown also thinks Chrysler should bring the Smart to the U.S.
Is Brown on the verge of recovering from car-writer syndrome? I don't think so. He doesn't think drivers need to obey the law:
I averaged 41 miles per gallon on the highway driving at speeds ranging from 60 to 70 miles per hour. (Yes, I know Virginia's speed limits are 55 miles per hour on urban/controlled access interstates and 65 miles per hour on most rural highways. But try remaining at those statutory speeds with 18-wheelers rumbling on your tail. Good luck!)
Comments:
· http://freewheelingspirit.blogspot.com He's always defended SUV's as what Americans really want. If that's true, why is it that when Daimler put Chrysler up for sale, no one wanted to buy it?
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06/05/07 @ 18:55 
