DAN'S PAPERS, September 11, 2009 Page 51 www.danshamptons.com
Sports/Outdoors
News Yentas and Sarah Palins on Wheels Usually, I channel surf between early morning cable news shows during my breakfast, from CNN to Morning Joe on MSNBC. The other day it dawned on me that the newscasters on these two broadcasts are really just news yentas in the extreme. CNN beats a story to death and Morning Joe consists of an attractive and educated group of folks who delve into every little facet of a story like hens pecking on a dead chicken. It seems that has become the nature of network news. The same can be said of auto journalists, who unfortunately can sometimes make or break a car’s reputation with a misplaced opinion or story. Take all the bad press GM, Ford and Chrysler have been getting over the last few years. Certainly, the American big three have been making the wrong cars for the last decade and losing sales to other brands, but they weren’t bad cars. There were other factors like high labor costs and misguided product management that have led to their financial problems. However, the automotive press for the last decade made it sound like Toyota and Honda could do no wrong, while Detroit could do nothing right. Quality was always a big talking point with the automotive elite. I always got a kick out of the reference to the size of the fender-to-door gap as an indicator of a car’s build quality. How silly pretending that the tighter a car’s body seams was indicative of anything. Has anyone ever dared to mention how poorly built the Ferrari motorcars of the ‘80s were? Those 308 (Magnum PI) series Ferraris were terrible, low rent places in which to sit. They had the slowest electric window lifts (when they worked) I’ve ever experienced. However, in the automotive world, it’s heresy to knock any Ferrari. To the automotive press, the big three have recently been the juicy prey, the Sara Palins on wheels.
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thought the 928 was more “Mercedes” in size and execution than the 911, and that was exactly what it was designed to be. You see, Porsches were getting more expensive and the average Porsche buyer was now more of a fat cat than the 356 and 911 sports car enthusiast of the past. The larger, heavier and more plush 928 was designed for the new Porsche demographic. Surprise, it seemed even the fat cats wanted the sleeker, lighter handling old 911. Of course once word was out about poor 928 sales figures, the automotive press found reasons to hate the 928. To this day it is the banished fat brother to the Porsche 911, especially at snooty Porsche club events. Has anyone noticed that the new 911s are putting on a little girth? Today, the car scribes are all over hybrid cars, spreading lots of information and misinformation. The hybrids are a sign of the times and possibly, the future of economical transportation. As everyone knows, the key to any electric car is the battery, and the battery used in virtually every new hybrid is the lithium-ion battery. It holds 10 times the battery power of the lead acid battery used in the average car. The following are some interesting facts about lithium: The lithium battery pack in the new Chevrolet Volt hybrid cost $16,000. Lithium is unstable, but in my mind no more dangerous than the tank of high explosive gas with which we all drive around. The only lithium produced in North America is in Nevada. 90% of laptops have lithium batteries. Bolivia has 50% of the world’s supply. Bolivia is not a friend of the U.S. Lithium is used as part of the trigger for the atom bomb. Enough with this “fun with lithium” trivia. Just get used to hybrids, pray the battery in your Chevy Volt doesn’t go bad and don’t believe everything you read.
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Years ago, I remember reading about how one of the finest and most important sports cars ever built, the 1955 to 1958 Mercedes Gullwing coupe, was tricky and a mite dangerous to drive really fast around curves because of its rear swing axle suspension. Well, when I finally had a chance to drive one, I realized that the car’s bad reputation was pure fantasy. The car was a joy to drive, especially when compared to what the world had to offer in fast cars in 1955. By comparison, the highly touted spanking new 1955 V-8 Chevrolet was a stagecoach compared to this German dreadnaught. Of course, another car with such bad press, which eventually led to its demise, was the Chevrolet Corvair. Word was out that the car had poor handling because of its rear engine placement. Ralph Nader, the car “expert” lawyer who coincidently never drove a car and never had a driver’s license, wrote a book about the Corvair called Unsafe At Any Speed. The title alone says it all. Nader, the ultimate car Yenta. However, no one in the automotive press seemed to mind that two other cars in the market place had very similar handling to the Corvair, the successful air-cooled Volkswagen Beatle and the ever popular Porsche 356. Truth be told, both these cars would spin out of control in the wet if cornered too fast. I often wondered if Porsche didn’t eventually install rear windshield wipers on its 911s because so many Porsches have swapped ends going around a rain soaked curve. The wipers gave the driver a better view out his rear glass to see where he was heading. Lots of machinery gets bad press because they sell poorly, not because they are bad cars. Take the Porsche 928. It really was a very good car. Once thought to be the replacement for the 911, it turned out to be a sales flop for Porsche. Initally, the automotive press
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