Re: what's the world coming to?

[Joe Elliott <jee@domain.elided>]

At 12:23 PM -0500 2/22/02, Carscribe@domain.elided wrote:
>It's more likely to be the other way around-- a car pretending to be a truck!
>Cheers,
>Paul Mitchell

So even if it's that much safer and that much sportier, it's still 
less safe and less sporty than a proper car.  Every time I see an X5 
I cringe and think of all the perfectly good spare parts for someones 
5-series wagon that were wasted for the construction of that POS.

At 11:30 AM -0500 2/22/02, Brian Shorey wrote:
>Alfa and Volvo have been selling trucks forever - what's the problem of
>going upscale with SUV's?
>
>Porsche has always been doing sports cars, and nothing else, so yes, SUV is
>quite a departure for them.  However even Lamborghini sold an SUV (LM002).

Heavy trucks serve a purpose and are operated by people who are 
specially trained and licensed to operate such vehicles.  Sure, if 
the USA could depend more on railroads it would make our air cleaner 
and our roads safer, but as it is our economy depends on heavy 
trucks, and I see this as excusable.  No matter how safe Volvo builds 
an SUV, it's still less safe than a real station wagon with which 
Mrs. USA would probably be more satisfied if she didn't have various 
asinine preconceptions steering her towards the truck.  Likewise, no 
matter what Alfa and Porsche can do to build a truck or pseudo-truck 
that's enjoyable to drive, there's no way that it could compete with 
a GTV or 928 made of the same components.  (Now if Porsche did an 
ass-engined SUV, that'd be at least as hilarious as my mom's old VW 
Squareback--but you could never be too sure which axis such a beast 
would be about to swap ends around!)

At 9:25 AM -0800 2/22/02, Ian Lomax wrote:
>i hate to admit it, but i like porsche's approach to
>marketing their first suv... by tieing it into their
>rally success with the 911/959.  i think that will
>appeal to a lot of people imnsho.

Definitely good ads.  Make me sick though.  The 959 was jacked up to 
go off road.  If Porsche wants to build an AWD road car there's no 
need to jack it up.  I think they've already proven that.  If Porsche 
feels the need to build a people mover, that's great.  I'd buy a 928 
wagon.  But no, they're abandoning their heritage to make money. 
Something tells me they could have remained profitable without 
selling their soul to the automotive devil.  I'd say that I've lost 
all respect for Porsche, but I think I've done that once already in 
the last decade, so there's not much left to lose.  What a shame...

Joe Elliott
'82 GTV6
'73 Opel GT (anyone want to give me the February "Practical Classics"?)

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