"... Including a ZR-1. U.S. OUT OF DETROIT."
I had to Google ZR-1. Then, I screamed.
But I've got to say: If the Segway hadn't already been made, the Obama administration would have funneled hundreds of millions of public money into developing it. And it would still only be ridden by that one guy, and as he scoots by, everybody who sees him thinks: No way!
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When did they drop Elkhart Green?
It looks like the front wheels are bigger than the rear wheels.
U.S. OUT OF DETROIT
USA! USA!
"I had to Google ZR-1. Then, I screamed."
Why?
But seriously folks, I have purchased 6 new autos in my adulthood, none of them made in the U.S. I would consider a Ford for my next car, but the residual ill will from the Chrysler and GM bailout/bankruptcies will not disappear in my buying lifetime.
It's a damn sin that the company that makes the sweet sweet Corvette was run into the ground by dopey management, shortsighted unions and govt regulations.
What's the big problem here with Coal Powered mini cars?
They run quiet like the sewing machines they really are.
Segways are coal powered too.
"Why?"
Sorry to be ambiguous. I thought "horror" was clearly connoted.
I suppose I might have screamed with sexual ecstasy? Is that what you're thinking, Curious?
It doesn't look exceptionally more ugly than anything else on the road.
Model T's and the like look best to me. Things are functional.
Ann,
The ZR1 is the perfect midlife crisis car for Meade. You need to buy him one.
You need to buy him one.
I've been assuming that "Starting at $110,300" is what brought on the scream.
Ran into the former president of the company making Segways about a year ago at an all-firm attorney retreat in Scottsdale.
The resort we were staying at was large enough that the security people used Segways to scoot around the place. I talked to one, and managed to get him to let me try one when I came back an hour later. He was about to do so, when this guy walks up and starts talking about Segways. He had a lot of great stories about them, including the time that GW Bush went flying over the handle of one, naturally caught on film. This guy's decision was whether to take the hit on bad publicity by pointing out that Bush (43) was avoiding hitting something like a kid or pet. And, that Bush (41) was riding another just feet away. His decision was to take the publicity hit, for the sake of the country.
One probably little known fact is that Segways can go much faster than they are allowed to go, and that the control of this is in the big key thing that is inserted to make them go. Also, they have a special operations version that can go 45 or so MPH, and some of our special forces types train on them.
The guy had also apparently broken a leg on one - you can drop maybe 4 feet safely on them. Sometimes. And that was what he was trying to do at the time, when he crashed. But this feature lets a skilled operator go down steps quickly.
My Hyundai was built here in America.
Did you know Segways are the vehicle of choice to view the DC Monuments? They even rent them out. You can buy 2 hours. So you can tour. With or without a guide who is on a Segway.
But Obama doesn't have to call you!
All politicians dial for dollars! Even Reagan would have called ya. ONE, if you could get enough folk into your living room. He'd even "visit."
And, why does Obama have to use a Segway? He's got a golf cart.
Doesn't the golf cart defeat the purpose of golf? Yet they sell. And, golfers don't want no Segway! Even when they hire caddy's to lug their clubs.
garage mahal said...
U.S. OUT OF DETROIT
USA! USA!
9/27/11 12:32 PM
Throw in Dearborn and you have an astonishingly good idea sir!
@ A. Shmendrik said...
My rear is still raw from the GM reaming Obama gave me as a GM bondholder. As for GM and Chrysler products: I recently rented a fully equipped Grand Cherokee and while not bad it doesn't even come close in ride comfort and performance to a similarly priced Japanese or German import. My dad bought a Cadillac SUV which he now said sucks compared to the comparable priced Audi SUV and nothing rides smoother and quieter than a full size Lexus.
The only prayer those two companies have is that the next president and congress passes a national right to work act, repeals the Wagner Act and the NLRB. If that happens the companies have a chance to beef up their products without draining so many funds to the retirement plans. Otherwise the next bankruptcy filling will be a liquidation as the trade creditors and bondholders won't take another shafting again and the next time congress won't bail them out (the trade creditors and the UAW).
Ann, if you rode about Madison's campus on a Segway, plenty of kids and staff would think its cool!
What's the big problem here with Coal Powered mini cars?
Reminds me of what I saw on a long stretch of I-70 between Green River Utah and the Colorado line. There was a Smart Car sandwiched between two semis, with traffic moving about 80 in the slow lane. I thought to myself that I surely didn't want to be in such, if the first semi stopped faster than the second one did. The car looked about half as long as a real one, and likely would have looked like a pancake if squashed by the two trucks.
Steps?
Every single public space in America that has "steps" at the entryway ... ALL have ramps!
And, Wisconsin's as flat as a pancake. You could probably travel all over the state ... on a Segway.
Can you imagine if you built two Segways together ... and put a cow on it ... Why it would just roll to the slaughter.
I've been assuming that "Starting at $110,300" is what brought on the scream.
Seriously, for that kind of cash you can start looking at the Italian exotics and other more classy rich-person toys. "I spent a hundred grand on a Chevy" is the kind of statement that doesn't impress people so much as make them consider calling the nice men in the white coats.
But then I drive a beat-up Sentra, so I'm no authority.
Ann Althouse said...
"Why?"
Sorry to be ambiguous. I thought "horror" was clearly connoted.
I suppose I might have screamed with sexual ecstasy? Is that what you're thinking, Curious?"
Well, geez Ann, there are actually many reasons why one would scream...it could also be "delight" for example.
But I assumed "horror" (or sometting along those lines), I just wanted to know why you were. What about the 'vetter made you scream?
"...And, Wisconsin's as flat as a pancake. You could probably travel all over the state ... on a Segway."
You, Carol, have obviously never run the Paavo Nurmi Marathon or skied the Birkie.
"I've been assuming that "Starting at $110,300" is what brought on the scream."
That is certainly the first thing I noticed and just kept thinking you've got to be kidding me!
That car isn't worth that kind of money. I'm curious what their margins are and how many they are selling.
I used to love the corvette and the older models from the sixties and seventies outclass the new ones by a country mile.
What's this I hear that Althouse is getting grognard commenters a ZR-1? Sweet! That Amazon link must be workin' out...
I think I'll hold on to these and my InstaPoints and trade up to the Veyaron...mmmm...16 cylinders, 4, count 'em, 4 turbos.....
A former boss of mine was in construction, but after a buddy of his lost his legs in an accident on the job he helped developed a Segway wheelchair that is, apparently, all the rage.
Of course, truck driving construction workers would come up with something like this:
http://youtu.be/y8DjU5LcPVQ
@A Shmendrik, we recently replaced my wife's Subaru with a Ford product. She loves it! But I note that the Subaru was assembled in Indiana while her new car was assembled in Mexico. So tell me which care was made in the US?
I do feel the way you do about GM and Chrysler, but I have been hankering to own a hemi since I was a high school student (I won't say it was long ago, but we took notes in cuneiform on clay tablets). So maybe when my almost teenaged Intrepid bites the dust I'll replace it with a Charger instead of a Mustang.
Or maybe not.
It looks like a Corvette had a baby with a Probe.
BTW, that's a nice-looking deuce coupe in the background.
"The ZR1 is the perfect midlife crisis car for Meade. You need to buy him one."
Midlife? Well, I hope he lives to be 114.
You need to click the Corvette tag and find the old comments threads advising me whether or not to buy a Corvette. Meade was on the side of buying an Audi TT, which, in the end, after my Beetle got crushed, I did buy. Later, Meade arrived in Madison and took over driving it.
Now, you speculate about when Meade had a midlife crisis, if ever, and whether he's got one now or yet to come... if you like.
The ZR-1 is one butt-ugly car, which means a lot coming from me. I'm so not a car person that they pretty much all look alike. It has to be very ugly to stand out as ugly to me.
But scream? That's a little over the top. Then I saw the sticker price and understood.
Remember when Segways were supposed to fundamentally change the way cities are built, the way humanity is organized? Yeah, Obama would have thrown billions at it.
"I've been assuming that "Starting at $110,300" is what brought on the scream."
Only in combination with how ugly it is. Why, otherwise, would I care that a particular car is expensive?
Be sure to buy a car made in Japan, South Korea or Germany where they already have universal government sponsored health care.
Minor quibble: When did "nickle" become an acceptable spelling of nickel?
Buying a car made in Japan, South Korea or Germany is a good way to say national health care works. Thanks for buying that Audi Ann!
I can remember when people, i.e. liberals, i.e. progressives, i.e. socialists, were demanding that the U.S. federal government subsidize the development of high definition televsion, insisting that the Japanese would monopolize the market if we did not sink billions of tax dollars into it.
Can you imagine how crappy and expensive HDTV would be if the federal government had run it instead of the free market?
I'm not seeing much use for a top end of 205 mph.
Meh. It's fine. I don't like it as well as the Challenger and I don't like the Challenger as well as the Camaro and I wouldn't buy either one of those.
And if you're talking about Iowahawk and government cars, you simply have to play his masterpiece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdY
I've never got over the trillions we forked over to banksters. Still have all my money in mattresses. Take THAT Chase. I feel so free now and I'm not embarassed to tell the whole world!!
Out of Bowling Green, KY.
You can tour the plant and visit the Corvette museum.
ZR-1?
If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Great winter car.
Here's a '63 'vette, but the price is almost as high as the one Ann linked to...
You people should all be driving Priuses.
And the ZR1 is the flagship. The Z06 is a wimpy 505 HP.
The Nissan GTR is a match for the Z06, but nothing will touch the ZR1 for the price in the 200+ MPH cars.
The Grand Sport at $55k sports a 430 HP 6.2l engine.
You folks should get out more.
I think you can find a Porsche that will achieve the same performance numbers, but it will have garish fairings, and spoilers...whale tail.... like the Corvette.
Why is it that the high performance cars must be gauche?
Of course, the kid down the street has a 4-door Lezburu with a huge cheese slicer on the trunk lid. What's up with that?
They rent Segways in the neighborhood we stay in San Diego. I love watching tourists wipe out on them. The only person who looked good on a Segway was Job Bluth.
What Brian said.
And no one here (perhaps except Brain) should be driving a ZR-1.
And let's not forget that the owner of the Segway company plunged to his death when he rode a Segway off a cliff in England.
And Professor, I was kind of impressed by your TT, but it was not you? And from the sound of it, you still have not learned to appreciate it?
Meade should get you to visit with Bob Bondurant and learn about the finer things in life.
jrberg3 said...
That is certainly the first thing I noticed and just kept thinking you've got to be kidding me!
That car isn't worth that kind of money. I'm curious what their margins are and how many they are selling.
I used to love the corvette and the older models from the sixties and seventies outclass the new ones by a country mile."
Older 'vettes are beautiful cars, but they pale in every area to the new ones. Power, sudpension, brakes, build quality.
The ZR1 is actually a great value for wat you are buying...it rivals exoctics for performance and half of the cost.
And sorry Ann...you have a '05 TT and think the vette is ugly? Wow.
What Curious George Said. The ZR-1 is actually the best car GM makes. And no one with an Audi TT has a right to comment on any car's looks ever again.
Sorry Ann, you are a law professor in your 60s who drives a TT. You have a lot of smart opinions. But none of them relate to cars.
I bought a Dodge this year, but it was a 2009, so it's not really a Government Motors piece of crap it's a O.G. GM piece of crap.
@madAsHell
The last high performance car I can think of that wasn't overbusy looking is the McLaren F-1. Well, other than a couple of strakes on each door. It just looks right.
The Astin Martin DB9 or DBS are not flashy looking. They are just beautiful and stylish. And they are very high performance.
For well under 25k you can get a 312HP Camaro V6. It will go a lot faster than almost anyone would reallywant to go.
On the other hand, if you are considering a Ferrari, the ZR-1 will out perform it at less than half the price.
In fairness to the Segway, while the insane hype of "reinventing our cities" unsurprisingly fell through, they've become quite popular, I hear, for warehouse workers and (local example from here in Portland) transit police and downtown cops.
So they're actually, despite looking dorky, a useful invention - and with not a cent of public money needed.
(Plus, seconded what Iowahawk and Shmendrik said.
Hell will freeze over before I buy a GM product new. Chrysler is only slightly better in terms of possibility, in that I might consider it in a few decades if they're not bankrupt.
But GM? Never.)
I like it. The performance is awesome and at least world class. I like the look too. It's kind of how a 70's sports car would look if they didn't have a government mandated brain fart back then. It's not at all European looking. I like the European look in most cases, but this is frickin Vet. It's very American looking and just right.
And having a great time after the kids have grown and you finally have money is the opposite of a crisis. It's called a crisis out of pure envy.
You people need to grown down.
I'd rather WALK that drive something that received one dollar from Obama.
*foot stomp*
"I'd rather WALK that drive something that received one dollar from Obama."
Ahh yea. It wasn't Obama's dollar. It was mine and he gave it to the union to guarantee I will have to pay more for the car than needed. I can't see why I'd be against that.
And sorry Ann...you have a '05 TT and think the vette is ugly? Wow.
Hee...I suspect a lot of people buy ZR-1s so that whenever they see a TT, they can make it implode into a tiny dot in their rearview mirror before their eyes are permanently damaged.
It was mine and he gave it to the union to guarantee I will have to pay more for the car than needed.
It will cost taxpayers around 14 billion, or, just a tad north of the 12 billion in cash that was lost in Iraq. Anyone remember?
"One CPA official described an environment awash in $100 bills," the memorandum says. "One contractor received a $2m payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency. Auditors discovered that the key to a vault was kept in an unsecured backpack.
"They also found that $774,300 in cash had been stolen from one division's vault. Cash payments were made from the back of a pickup truck, and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices. One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.
"The LS7.R engine is a variation of the LS7 used in the highly successful C6.R American Le Mans Series racecar. It was crowned as Global Motorsport Engine of the Year by a jury of 50 race engine engineers on the Professional Motorsport World Expo 2006 in Cologne, Germany," according to Wiki.
The LS7 is used in the Z06.
"The memorandum details the casual manner in which the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority disbursed the money, which came from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets."
From the news story Garage Mahal linked.
It was Iraqi money.
"It was Iraqi money."
I'm sure that part was just an oversight by garage. Maybe he didn't read that far.
I got to admit, Garage you are the consummate leftie with facts and such. Congratulations!
Still not sure what his point was. It's OK to piss away money now because someone lost some in Iraq? Is that it, garage?
I think most reasonable people, if they are being honest, would conclude that the hundreds of billions spent in the Iraq shithole pales in comparison to saving our auto industry, here.
BrianE - I went to a gearhead site looking for a large funnel to pour gas without spilling. Now the adserver bots think I really want a crate motor. You can get an LS7 for the small price of $27K. Plus shipping. Without a car surrounding it.
Maybe you could bolt it on a Segway.
That's not so ugly a car as it is a crappy representation. The picture is supposed to give the impression that it was taken with about a 24mm lens from about a foot away. Look down the ad for a better profile picture. It's not a bad looking car if you like recent Corvettes.
I've considered this these last several hours, and have concluded this post is incomprehensible, even to its author. Sometimes, that's just the way it is.
Garage,
We have a constitution.
War is the Federal Government's job - making cars is not.
Even $1 spent on GM is still wrong.
We have Segway tours here in Boston. My kids are so used to them that they don't even look twice at them or ask waht they are.
Althouse, The ZR1 was not designed to attract women in their 60's, even when driven by men at that age, so your lack of enthusiasm is understandable.
The Ultimate Corvette was made almost 50 years ago, the 1964 Split Rear Window Stingray!
A. Shmendrik said:
"But seriously folks, I have purchased 6 new autos in my adulthood, none of them made in the U.S."
If you bought those six in the last two decades, you could have bought:
Ford Focus/Escort (Mexico)
Saturn Astra (Europe)
Chevy Camaro (Quebec) - Pvs Generation
Ford Crown Victoria (Canada)
Chevy Aveo (Korea)
Various Buicks (China) - Starting in 2011
Meanwhile, you would bee missing out on these fine US-made cars:
Toyota Corolla/Chevy Nova/Geo Prism
Toyota Camry
Honda Civic
Honda Accord
Nissan Sentra
Nissan Maxima
Mazda 6
And that's just off the top of my head.
Just so we understand... Iraq was expensive so anything we spend on anything less than we spent on Iraq is automatically a good idea.
So... Ford has apparently pulled the series of successful advertisements proclaiming "we didn't take bailout money so you should buy our cars" after being asked to do so by our government.
The part-owners of the competition.
Asked them to stop showing effective ads that make the competition look bad.
It's not just the MONEY garage. It's the corruption inherent in the resulting situation.
It's the notion that the auto industry itself is represented by a company, now partly owned by government itself, and can't be allowed to fail... or even face effective competition.
The auto industry wasn't going to fail. GM was going to fail. Other car manufacturers exist in the US and some weren't going to fail. And they'd fail even LESS if the big company about to go under wasn't artificially propped up using tax funds.
That's a slap in the face if there ever was one. Here you work hard and make responsible decisions, provide a product, and when the economic sh*t hits the fan you find that you're going to be able to squeak through it after all. And then after you've done that the other guy who couldn't compete not only gets a hand up, but you get asked not to point that out.
You get asked not to point that out by the people who have authority over your financial regulatory environment.
Actually the split window coupe was produced one year- 1963.
But yeah, that was always my dream car. 327 sbc 340 hp, muncie 4 speed close ratio. Yep.
Try getting one of those for the price of that ZR-1.
Of course a C6-- any C6, would run circles around it.
The ZR-1 was GM's answer to the 625 HP Viper. Rumor has it the 2012 Viper, if there is one, will sport a 700 HP 8.4 liter V10, but possibly on an Alpha chassis.
I thought you were completely nuts by writing "I screamed." More crazy Althousian conservatomania.
But then I clicked on your link. And I screamed too!
I miss the days when America was truly, really in love with cars.
Also, let me know when you come across the next rock/pop/punk song to sing lovingly about Camrys and Sentras.
If only Ronald Reagan had such political fortitude, we could still be driving AMC Pacers and Gremlins!
So... Ford has apparently pulled the series of successful advertisements proclaiming "we didn't take bailout money so you should buy our cars" after being asked to do so by our government.
Ford wasn't asked. They were threatened. If they didn't self-censor, the Obama Regime would unleash some tactics designed to harass and disrupt Ford's business. Some embarrassing factory raids to check for undocumented workers, for instance. Or pass down instructions through the huge Federal bureaucracy to stop buying Ford vehicles. In fact, the Obama Regime doesn't even need to name a specific threat, since everybody already understands that they have myriad ways to ruin you.
Brian - '63 split window $79,998 ...
Synova & Dead Julius: Ford says they haven't pulled the ad. It's just out of rotation at the moment and will be back after four weeks, as with the rest of their ad cycle. Nor have they pulled it from YouTube.
Would that 'one guy' be the one who rode it off a cliff?
It will cost taxpayers around 14 billion, or, just a tad north of the 12 billion in cash that was lost in Iraq
garage, I pledge to not buy any Iraqi cars either. Feel better?
As someone mentioned, the ZR-1 is one fabulous car, Euro supercar performance for way less. The cost savings are apparent in the interior trim and lack of sophistication in other areas, but it's still a magnificent car. And I daresay when something breaks it'd be far less expensive to fix than a Lambo, a consequence of the relative simplicity. I'd probably go with the Nissan GTR though, after-the-purchase money being no object, of course.
There will also be the renovation of 20 Hanover Square which is a Grade II listed building. This will contain further office space plus a restaurant, with the part of the site that bounds New Bond Street and Brook Street to also have retail space with active frontages seeking to attract West End shoppers, and six new private market apartments.
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