The timeless wonder of monopoly capitalism

[hirez]

Dear ChryslerChevrolet

Piss off out of my nice country and go bankrupt as soon as you can manage, there's loves.

Your latest alleged advert lives somewhere beyond hateful. No-one wants SUVs. Not even the emotionally stunted bullies and apprentice sociopaths that's it's clearly pointed towards.

Or do I mean GM? I can't tell recent attempts at vehicles apart these days. God knows what I'm going to do when all the proper Saabs wear out.

Edit: So it turns out I do mean GM after all. Aptiva? Captiva? One of those.

Good job, really. I won't have to swap out the Challenger usericon for a Camaro.

Comments

[eljaydaly.livejournal.com]

Little Hondas are OK, though, aren't they?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Of course.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. About every third vehicle up here is an SUV! And the rest are Subaru.

[angel-emma.livejournal.com]

I have a Chrysler PT Cruiser & love it. I hold my hands up as I used to have a Mitsubishi Shogun - which I think is the advert you are referring to?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

:p

There's always one.

In truth, I more or less learned to drive in old Land Rovers and still covet a classic Rangie, so any SUV-ranting I do must be viewed through the ex-bumpkin filter.

It's the advert that starts off looking like some random fairytale until a particularly ugly vehicle is dropped from the sky and starts running people over. It pushes all my 'No, never going to buy one of those ever.' buttons with a single swipe.

Lord alone knows what the creative team were smoking when they came up with that, but I think they need to open a window in order to let the fumes disperse.

[lastaii.livejournal.com]

*lust*
I am this >< far from getting a PT Cruiser to replace my dodgy old Rover, as they're dirt cheap second hand and really comfortable.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

The 95 I tried was pleasing in many ways. I think you'll be OK.

I'm with you on the Chrysler ad, though.

[badnewswade.livejournal.com]

SUVs should be crushed with their owners still in them. Horrible style-less pieces of shite, of use only to people who like intimidating other road users and running cyclists off the road.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

(Unless it's a particularly nice classic Rangie, obv.)

Boggler. And indeed boggler.

[jendama.livejournal.com]

I argue for an exception! My Subaru Outback XT is classified as an SUV but it gets decent gas mileage, is insanely safe and easily to drive here in the crazy heavy winter snow and steep hills, and it does not hog up parking lots or block the road like other SUVs.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Critical cultural difference: we have (or had) things called estate cars or shooting brakes. Yr Scooby is obviously one of those, not a Dodge Ram with a crew-cab.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Why do they call them "S"UVs, though? I like the fact that my Daihatsu Tonka Terios is a practical utility vehicle in so far as it has an enormous cargo capacity (two armchairs, no problem) and can trek through muddy fields and flooded roads without fuss, but sport?

I can appreciate someone buying a 4x4 for "utility" even if they only occasionally get it dirty. It's one of those preparedness "just in case" things, like a breakdown triangle, a torch or a spare mobile phone on a different network. The road outside my house only floods for about ten days a year, but for those ten days, I can get in and out of my home and my wife's Golf can't. I'll typically only need to stuff six empty 47kg gas bottles in it twice a year, but on those days, my car will take the bottles and my wife's won't. And I've only ever once needed to put two armchairs in it.

But at no point does anyone ever need "sport" just in case. There are no circumstances in which you accidentally end up on a competitive racetrack.

Either you have a hobby racing cars or you don't.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the point of big engined cars, they are massively more economical on long motorway journies if you want to keep a steady 70-85mph (hence why we're taking my wife's 2 litre Golf GTI on holiday to France and not mine). But that isn't "sport" either.

And even if you wanted a vehicle for yer actual racetrack racing, you wouldn't pick anything American, even if you needed a 4x4. A 4x4 sports car looks like a Subaru Imprezza, not like a gay pigmy Landcruiser like wot my car does.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

The 'sport' in this specific case was part of the alleged lifestyle-package the advertisers are/were trying to sell you.

I should think that the somewhat iconic image of surfers piling their long-boards into the back of a battered GMC with roll-bars and a lift kit was part of it. Thus the builder's friend Hilux gets a bull-bar and some surplus plastic and graphics to become a L200. Or whatever.

SUVs are alleged to allow the urban professional to indulge their frontier-person fantasy by piling expensive (climbing|camping|cycling|windsurfing) kit in the back and going for a camp handy for the (woods|seaside|lake|mountains) where they'll need the 4wd for pottering a few hundred yards off the trailhead and out of sight of the people with the RVs.

In fact, yr average SUV is largely useless should the going get a bit sticky. At that point you're better off with a real Landie, classic Rangie, Landcruiser, SWB Jeep or G-Wagen. Or something light like a Suzi CJ.

Or indeed a 2CV.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

If "having large bootspace, large ground clearance and slight H/T capability" is all that is required to qualify as "sport", that's clearly quite silly.

But I do have sympathy with the requirement; that's me. I frequently want to move large/heavy cargo over less-than-a-field's-length of uneven/slippy/steep terrain, and whilst attempting to do so in other cars I have written off several exhaust pipes (notably, Volvos) and got stuck (notably, Vauxhall Astras, which is odd because their little sister the Nova/Corsa is actually quite handy on unsurfaced roads).

I just wouldn't classify that as "sport" though.

I don't think it's unreasonable to have a requirement for minor off-road ability (both 4x4 and ground clearance) combined with bootspace, though. That fits for mums who "do" village fetes (and before you start, that's Mel this Monday), anyone who's had to use the overflow carpark at the Three Counties Showground, and anyone trying to camp in the Forest of Dean. Equally, whilst I can and indeed have successfully navigated flooded, icy or muddy regular roads in many two-wheel drive cars, I find it a lot easier to do so in my 4x4 (ie. I don't have to spend half an hour shaking, recovering from fear when the journey is complete).

I don't need to be attempting to climb Snowdon in a mudslide to find the ability to deal with short lengths of minor off-road situations very useful and occasionally mandatory.

Would I prefer a Subaru Outback or a Landie Defender? Hell yes. But a Daihatsu Terios is twelve grand brand new, a Suzuki Jimny is less than ten grand, both with 5 years unlimitage milage warranty, whilst the Outback starts at 22k. All you get for your extra 10,000 is faster acceleration and the ability to drive above 95mph for which the coppers will pull you in a heartbeat anyway. Second-hand prices still don't change this result.

I also have a lot of sympathy for mums and dads who need to do all of this PLUS carry three children including the ridiculously over-specced and- as a result- over-sized, child safety seats. That would require something far bigger than a Terios or Jimny, and is probably where the Rav4, Shogun, Vitara and other similar 15-25 grand midsized 4x4s come in. (Do remind me to give you the rant on how over-specced child safety car seat laws have made it much more difficult for rural children to socialise.)

Occasionally requiring minor off-road ability AND carrying lots of kids is still not "sport" though, unless you count "getting your wife up the duff" as an olympic event.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

FAMILY utility vehicles. That's what they should call them.

That would also solve the problem of urban bachelor tossers buying them for supposed "cred" (or is it "respect" these days? Excuse my lack of hip).