Les Voitures Discret de la Bourgeoisie.
Nov. 13th, 2010 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirezIt's probably just me pretending to be quasi-intellectual, but I'm rather taken with the contradictory nature of buying Baudrillard's The system of objects and a new mobile on the same shopping expedition.
If an Alfa-Romero is a zombie car, does that mean Alfa-Roneos are a kind of pinky-purple and come in multiples?
Speaking of matters automotive, it's become Mater's habit to leave me the Torygraph motoring section to fulminate over. I should just stick to the bits containing James May, but absent a weekly dose of Carcoat Damphands, I find myself drawn to the 'Honest John' bits.
I suspect that a decent Ballardian would have more to say about what is given away in a newspaper's motoring section, both by its location and how the readership respond. The Manchester Guardian, for instance, don't really like to acknowledge the existence of private cars. There's one page, hidden at the back of the colour section as if it were some deviant pornography (which it is, in strictly Ballardian terms) and a regular stream of reader's letters denouncing whatever it features in the manner of a closeted Tory MP chuntering about homosexuality.
The Torygraph are a bit more open about their perversions. Their kinks are not my kinks, but their kinks are... Not ok and smell of misplaced empire. It's still the seventies in there; they keep caravans, go on motoring holidays, foreign cars are not to be trusted, sensible vehicles have space for a set of golf clubs and luxury is an auto box. It's a set of aspirations and cultural signifiers that are completely alien.
Which leads me to a poll. Yer man in the advice column seems to be on a mission to promote left-foot braking for the slushbox-equipped. It seems to me that it's fine if you're the likes of Stig Blomqvist hoofing a 99 turbo sideways through a forest in darkest Finland, but asking for trouble more or less anywhere else. For instance(s), an ex-employer used to drive about with her foot resting on the brake pedal of her (auto, obv) Crapi. The discs were glowing a dull red when she came back from one expedition or other. Meanwhile, the first time I drove an auto (Mid 90s 5-series. It went some.) I stabbed at the 'clutch pedal' while parking up. Due to the magic of ABS, the car stopped dead. JHR, however, kept moving and bounced nose-first off the steering wheel.
Anyway:
[Poll #1644150]
If an Alfa-Romero is a zombie car, does that mean Alfa-Roneos are a kind of pinky-purple and come in multiples?
Speaking of matters automotive, it's become Mater's habit to leave me the Torygraph motoring section to fulminate over. I should just stick to the bits containing James May, but absent a weekly dose of Carcoat Damphands, I find myself drawn to the 'Honest John' bits.
I suspect that a decent Ballardian would have more to say about what is given away in a newspaper's motoring section, both by its location and how the readership respond. The Manchester Guardian, for instance, don't really like to acknowledge the existence of private cars. There's one page, hidden at the back of the colour section as if it were some deviant pornography (which it is, in strictly Ballardian terms) and a regular stream of reader's letters denouncing whatever it features in the manner of a closeted Tory MP chuntering about homosexuality.
The Torygraph are a bit more open about their perversions. Their kinks are not my kinks, but their kinks are... Not ok and smell of misplaced empire. It's still the seventies in there; they keep caravans, go on motoring holidays, foreign cars are not to be trusted, sensible vehicles have space for a set of golf clubs and luxury is an auto box. It's a set of aspirations and cultural signifiers that are completely alien.
Which leads me to a poll. Yer man in the advice column seems to be on a mission to promote left-foot braking for the slushbox-equipped. It seems to me that it's fine if you're the likes of Stig Blomqvist hoofing a 99 turbo sideways through a forest in darkest Finland, but asking for trouble more or less anywhere else. For instance(s), an ex-employer used to drive about with her foot resting on the brake pedal of her (auto, obv) Crapi. The discs were glowing a dull red when she came back from one expedition or other. Meanwhile, the first time I drove an auto (Mid 90s 5-series. It went some.) I stabbed at the 'clutch pedal' while parking up. Due to the magic of ABS, the car stopped dead. JHR, however, kept moving and bounced nose-first off the steering wheel.
Anyway:
[Poll #1644150]
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We called Lemuel "Gimpy" on account of his extra leg
Date: 2010-11-13 09:50 pm (UTC)Bloody awful pedal positioning for heel'n'toeing, but it is possible; what I'm wondering is how the fsck does anyone without that basic driving skill do a hill start?
Re: We called Lemuel "Gimpy" on account of his extra leg
Date: 2010-11-13 11:32 pm (UTC)I have to admit that all the cars I drove on L plates that weren't the actual learny-learny cars had buggered handbrakes. I suspect dad thought that sort of thing wasn't worth fixing; leave the thing in gear and have a block of wood handy if you have to leave the thing on a hill.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 10:57 am (UTC)Mind, I don't think I've ever encountered a Citroën so equipped. Don't think I have anyhow: I can't actually remember what either the 2CV or the CX had for a parking brake. GS had the yank it out of the dashboard thing, and the Xantias (borderline on "proper" what with self-cancelling indicators and all, but the hydropneumatics give it the benefit of the doubt for me) had yr bog-standard lever in the middle.
Pug re-skin or no, the ZX was good value though: cost us £400, fetched £120 for the metal from the scrappie, and did 50mpg+ for over a year in between.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:56 am (UTC)Intrigued by both the car and its handbrake, I must admit, as the 4 was a very strange beast.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 12:07 pm (UTC)The hateful Chevy Impala had a foothandbrake. Perhaps it was a crap Citroen built backwards by stroppy Americans.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 02:54 pm (UTC)Amazing how little fuel you can use if most of the time you haven't even got the engine fired up and you never, ever touch the brake pedal.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 10:04 pm (UTC)Beta-Romero, the first choice for second car.
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Date: 2010-11-13 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 10:32 pm (UTC)I did that clutch-reflex-on-brake-pedal thing once, when driving someone else's car with wonky pedal spacing. Some kind of Renault, I think. Did most of an emergency stop by accident, on a sliproad.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 11:27 pm (UTC)However, if you're likely to swap between auto and manual cars as a matter of course (ie - pretty much everyone with a manual licence), then left-footing it is just going to cause startlement one way or another.
On the other other hand, this could be a New Thing in driving techniques. I should probably do some proper research instead of fulminating.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-13 11:55 pm (UTC)(It's one of those times when a spare car and a patch of ground to play on would be jolly useful)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:42 am (UTC)The technique (on turbo cars at least) originated with rally Audi ur-Quattros in the '80s, as a way of winding the turbo up whilst still slow in a corner, then letting it all loose as soon as you exited.
Then there was Group B, 800HP and everything turned into grasstrack racing,
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 12:29 am (UTC)I drive a Land Rover Series 2. Anything less than 3 gear levers, and it just ain't right.
(I've actually been contemplating the fitment of an overdrive. Because that would give me four gear levers.)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 08:21 am (UTC)Though it did require one to be reasonably familiar with the middle-seat passenger, when there was one.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:46 am (UTC)The internal splines on it wear, but don't wear over their full length so that they they leave a razor edge at the end. When we pulled it out to swap it into the Poor White Shark muggins here tried to lift it out with a finger inside the spline and it yakuzaed me.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 12:00 pm (UTC)If you want more levers, there's always a Lenco box.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 12:27 pm (UTC)Slightly primitive website here (http://www.heystee-automotive.com).
The Spanish Land Rovers are a strange spin-off of the British product. Over the years they've developed in all sorts of different ways. If you want a brand-new leaf-sprung Land Rover, you can get one - but it'll have a modern front end and it'll be called the Iveco Massif (http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/04/04/109983/Video-and-pictures-Santana-off-roader-becomes-the-Iveco.htm). Crazy name, crazy wheelarches...
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 02:10 pm (UTC)