Car Ramblings

One of my favorite (non-expletive filled) sayings is, "That's too much car for you." Though, like most people, I almost never use this expression for its intended purpose, which is to describe someone who is driving a car that is too big, too fast or too powerful for what they need. Instead I break it out whenever I see someone undertaking a task that is way over their heads. However, the other day I had a chance to use it for the intended purpose when I was in a parking lot and saw a woman attempting to back out of her parking spot. Even though she had about another 10 feet of space to work with, she was hesitant to press the brakes too hard because she clearly thought even a tap would send her careening into the row of cars behind her. What resulted was roughly a 45-point turn, because she was either afraid of her car's power or has the worst depth perception of any human alive. I could have gone into the store and done all my shopping in the time it took this woman just to pull out of her spot. Here's the kicker, though: she was driving a Honda Civic. When you are afraid of the power of Honda Civic then I would assume any car has too much power for you. Perhaps it's time to switch to a bike.

-The other night I stumbled upon a film on HBO called Dirty Driving: Thundercars of Indiana. It was a documentary that was supposed to show how hard middle America had been hit by this latest recession by focusing on how this small town in Indiana was coping with most of the businesses having closed. The only thing left for these people was a small race track in town and most of the racers had to debate paying bills or fixing their cars. I'm sure I was supposed to feel bad for these people, but instead all that happened was I found an answer to the question of whether or not there was a level that white-trash people could look down on. Even the people getting arrested on Cops would think these people could stand to put on a shirt and watch their language. Now, I'm not the kind of person who gets offended easily and certainly not by someone swearing, but this was nuts. It was just being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. At one point there was just a stream of obscenities flowing for a couple of minutes straight, and that was from the grandmother. The best thing for this town might be the track closing, because I think they would all be better off inhaling fewer exhaust fumes.

-When you watch a lot of the Golf Channel, you see more luxury car commercials than normal. Therefore, I have seen this Lexus commercial a couple dozen times and I still don't get it. First off, I can only assume that they are banking on Americans going away from SUVs and instead trying to buy mini-racecars. Why else make a car with a V10 engine that is clearly a Lamborghini rip-off? This car appears to have a lot of features that will go unused by the average buyer. (How often do you think the "Lap Timer" feature will be turned on? Four, maybe five times in history, three of which will be by accident?) Still, I don't understand the appeal of this ad. It looks like they're either trying to prove that their car's engine is super loud or vibrates a lot. Trust me, as a man who has driven cars with loud engines and vibration problems, neither is a good sign. If the marketing people were smart they would have made it a point to emphasise the rear spoiler that appears to retract into the vehicle, because something tells me the geeks who buy this car in an attempt to act like they are car guys will really enjoy that feature more than whether or not the car has nice pitch.