When you think about ultra-high-performance cars, you usually think of brands like Ferrari, Lamborghini or McLaren. But brands like Chevrolet and Nissan are also playing in the supercar realm, as are luxury brands like Acura and Lexus, which are not usually known for extreme sports cars.Two of the cars he cites, the Acura NSX and Corvette ZR-1, are revivals of nameplates that debuted in 1990, for heaven's sake. One of the brands he lists is Audi, which has a pedigree that includes the Quattro and S4. And it's not like Nissan's GT-R fell off the turnip truck last night, either...
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?
The writer's bio blurb claims he's a lifetime car enthusiast and has been covering the auto beat for CNN/Money for seven years, so this paragraph rates a great big WTF?
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I heard there is this new company making some crazy car out there. Doing pretty good for a start-up. Bugsomething, them and Zonda both look like they might go somewhere with this new direction for them.
When was the last time McLaren made a "famous" car? While I'm pretty sure the other makers mentioned are synonymous with silly super cars, I'm not sure if MaLaren fits in there so much. It's like talking about 4 door sedans and going, Taurus, Maxima, Accord, Bentley Continental. Not as extreme, but still stands out.
I still equate McLaren with CanAm and Denny Hulme, not some squidley street-box, and Audi with the AutoUnion hillclimbers - back when the Bergwagen fans wore high leather boots and held the black spider-flag...
(The Audi TT convertible should have cut-out doors, a longer hood, and a hump over the driver's seat...)
Forget The Quattro and S4, Audi's entire history starts with amazing race cars.
http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/AutoUnion.html
Kids these days will just make you feel super extra old with the reply:
"What's Wings?"
I believe the replacement could be either "Did you know Will Smith had a TV show?" or "Did you know Ice Tea used to be a Rapper?"
I'm waiting to hear "Who's this Madden guy and what does he have to do with football?"
Tim D, I'm trying to decide which is worse, "What's Wings?" or "Who's Paul McCartney?"
Hell, I made a joke about Kiss, and some kid who overheard it explained to a friend that it was an old band full of dead people.
Ezra Klein is writing about cars now?
Was his band Better than Ezra?
Also not mentioning that the everyday pedestrian Corvette has caused no end of consternation in the supercar community since '96 when Chevrolet decided that it was finally going to make a world class sports car.
Automotive writers reduced to complaining about the kinds of plastic used on the interior because they could no longer look down their noses on the engine, transmission or suspension any more was amusing as all hell.
Seven years? Well, that explains it. He wasn't around when the Quattro changed rallydriving for pretty much Ever, or when the NSX was the only supercar that would run more than twelve hours without needing to be burped and have it's diaper changed by an expensive mechanic.
Youth is wasted on the yong, lord knows.
On the other hand, if you got a gig when Wings disbanded, you could be retired now.
Now that i think of it, a lot of guys would probably like some youth on their yong.
He's not writing for the gearhead audience, and when he talks about "brands" that that audience would "think about" for ultra-high-performance, he's pretty much right.
He did not say "the only companies that ever made high performance cars were Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren", which would be hilariously wrong for a car enthusiast - or indeed anyone else.
The words he actually said are true as actually written; e.g. Nissan is not Usually Known for Extreme Sports Cars, even though the GT-R is not new. Apart from gearheads, who are both a minority and not his audience, who even knew about the GT-R Nismo homologation?
Sometimes the words actually matter, rather than the vague implications of them...
Oh, Sigivald, you and your facts and your logic... :D
Still, I'm not much of a gearhead, and the terms "Corvette ZR1" and "Acura NSX" have all been equated with "sooperdooper car" in my head for over a score of years.
I kinda liked some of the early Paul McCartney and George Harrison work. But then George left Paul behind and did that Traveling Wilbury's thing, and I kinda like that "Handle me with care" video.
So, tell me. How come the native tribes are all like up in folk's faces about naming professional, college, and high school sports teams and arenas after references to Native Americans -- and not saying a word about the Michigan tribes immortalized by GM, like Cadillac, Pontiac, and others?
Og;
You make me feel old. I did almost exactly that. I started at the Patch Factory in 1980 and Wings broke up in '81. AAMOF, I think we've done more tours with McCartney POST Wings than he ever did with Wings ... OR that earlier band... wossernames... combined.
And now I'm supposed to retire? Just when I can regale the new kids with all the tales of my career in the bigs?
M
That said, I really want an R-34 Skyline, or even more so, just because I'm really weird, a 260RS Stagea. Which is the R-34 Skyline as a station wagon.
Because making people at the race track cry with a station wagon is the best thing ever.
It's about time for some man to wonder why there are no women who blog about politics.
But a guy who covers the car scene apparently has never heard of Le Mans, where Audi is racing a hybrid Quatro.
Next he will say that no one uses a diesel engine in a race car. (In case you aren't paying attention, Audi won "12hrs at Sebring" with a R18 - you guessed it, a diesel.)
Hey, Cummins ran a diesel at Indy in the '50s. If I remember my reading correctly, the car was plenty fast, but heavy and hard on tires.
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