Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:09:40 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Shazam <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: bashing was: vanagon engine conversions
In-Reply-To: <c803c1a70801161942o1deeacd5q2c7fa85cf5fae03a@mail.gmail.com>
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Hi Jeff,
You'd think so. Practicality is not sexy. Sexy sells. Big 'macho me a real
man' sells. Look at the commercials. The commercials are 'education' that in
order to be a 'real American' to be a real man, and to tow your 'really big,
real man, toys' you NEED this oversized vehicle.
They are not selling trucks. The are selling IMAGE ........and they have it
down too. All the men in the truck ads are rugged looking, construction
workers, happy American ones ......the message is over and over and over
...........about Image, how the consumer sees themselves as the owner of
this truck, this macho all American image maker thing, that will carry a
some things too. Which is incidental to their real purpose - jobs +
machoism.
It's almost subliminal and sexual even .........huge load just plopped into
the bed, ...truck just shrugs it off. It's psychological.
And you can BET that advertising people, and that's ALL they do, is
advertising , have it down to science how to make people see themselves in
that product. It's not about trucks at all. Its about sex and image.
Do they ever advertise vehicles showing them stuck in traffic jams? Not
very often. Is anyone ever upset, or bored, and angry in a car commercial ?
no, they are happy and 's u c c e s s f u l ' world conquering a m e r i c a
n s.. etc etc.
I'd want to make a car very basic, easy to work on, with parts that would
never wear out.
It could be thought, that now there's space in the market place for a
'radical newer more fuel effeicine smaller pickup ' ....and something will
come out. Never mind that the Toyota pick up was that in 1978,, the Hi Lux.
It's ALL marketing and hype.
What appears to offer the most sex appeal and features 'that you just must
have' at the lowest price.
I often think..............if someone could get an objective view, say they
went into a comma in 1985 and a Toyota pick up was what they considered
normal ( that was right before ford started the round nose, high cowl first
F-150's ...they had a strangley high hood and cowl at the time ) ....if they
woke up now, and saw your regular standard 2007 F-150 ................they'd
laugh their ass off ( hope that's not too 'bad' language for this group )
.............they'd see it as an oversize caricature, like we do monster
pickups at monster pick-uip events.........completely out of proportion for
it's purpose. The new giant, ( built in Texas ) Tundra's just ugly and
stupid to me.
Tell me, what do these giant pickups do, that regular size ones don't ?
more off road ground clearance ? ok, better view down the road to see
better..........sure. near 5 foot lift height to the bed ..........dumb !!!
fuel economy- hardly.
Anyway...........maybe they'll wake up someday. And how big will they get
?? it does seem that we could be reaching a crisis point re war in the
middle east, oil prices, real estate crash, a new president coming in, and
global warming.
The days for American indulgence hopefully will be ending.
And the silly thing is, companies like ford and hundreds of workers are gong
to in soup lines.
And, I've known forever it was silly to overproduce, and they do, they over
produce like crazy, then create demand, if the can, to use up the
overproduction.
On subaruvanagon today Brian of smallcar posted the real cost of car
production, in terms of global environmental impact. It's obscene. The
manufacturing cost, what a vehicle emits during it's life, the recycling
real costs ...........it's just awful . But humans do some dumb things,
very genius in many ways, completely dysfunctional in many others, and we
are extremely lucky for where we live, and that we can get food and gas, and
there are not bombs falling, ( brilliantly engineered satellite guided bombs
that are really, really good at killing people - humans are really smart all
right. ) . whew.
It's a wonder we are all as sane as we are.
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Lincoln [mailto:magikvw@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 7:42 PM
To: Scott Daniel - Shazam
Cc: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com
Subject: Re: bashing was: vanagon engine conversions
I think it's just stupid how giant new pick up trucks are, utterly dumb,
burn lots of gas, very high lift level to the bed, and they are largely used
as 'one person cars' really. Imagine how much fuel is wasted every day by
those things hauling around just one person. Where I am, any regular 'mill
worker type' male drives a huge pick up, like it was a one person commute
car. Like that's the 'normal car' around here almost.
Scott
I've been wondering myself why pick ups have gotten so huge. I think a car
company might be able to make a mint if they produced a normal "old school"
type pick up. You know not S10 small but "normal" Then again what do I know?
--
Thanks,
Jeff
'90 Carat (Grover)
'86 (We call this one Parts)
'85 GL (Preparing to move to a new Home)
'78 Bus (Melissa) Patty's Bus
