I was listening to ?Car Talk? this morning 8/25/08 and was dismayed and disheartened at what should normally be a humorous show.
The caller, a concerned mother, called in looking for ways to talk her teenager out of buying a 1970s ?muscle car? and she sought advice from ?Click & Clack? on how to do so, she feared that the car was too powerful for her son. The car talk guys gave a myriad of reasons having to do with repair & maintenance cost, etc. But neither party ever mentioned the one obvious issue GAS MILEAGE!
It should have been impressed upon this caller that we?ve Soldiers being separated from their families for years on end and DYING in Iraq over petroleum and that the cars we drive affect the need for it. The United States is a market economy and we shed blood over economics. Regardless of your politics ALL agree that Oil is at least a strong factor in the reasons for the Iraq War. Don?t deny it, WE ALL KNOW IT. forget the WMD red herring or terrorism.
This exchange between the ?car talk? guys and this woman lasted for several minutes NEVER was it mentioned that this young man should avoid a gas guzzling ?Muscle Car? because it is the responsible thing to do.
The ?Car Guys? should have been talking ?Mom? into buying a used Toyota for the boy for that reason alone, forget how much it costs to get a 69 Chevy road worthy. These gas guzzlers should be in scrap heaps; save for a few museum pieces to remind us all of our wastefulness. It is not as though these ?Muscle Cars? are capable of providing some utility as even ?SUVs? are in adverse weather & terrain. Driving ?muscle cars? is not responsible to say nothing of economy.
As an Iraq war vet it is obvious to me that people in this country are oblivious and don?t care because most are not affected especially this brat who wants a ?muscle car? and his overbearing mother.
Her biggest worry is that he?ll drive too fast in a muscle car. For her it is all about ME ME and me protecting my brat from a too powerful car, no concern for the waste of resources!
I would ask this mother if she planned to send her son off to the Marines or Army so he can fight for the petroleum needed to drive his car to the mall at 11mpg. The Army will gladly provide him with a muscle car in the form of a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee) which he can navigate around the streets of Baghdad or Ramadi Iraq.
Roger
Richmond, Vermont
rbombuvm@yahoo.com
Please don’t feed the troll.
Ed B.
Precisely the attitude that has us in this mess (Iraq) in the first place, you make my point beautifully.
-R
DITTO !!!
DITTO !!!
These gas guzzlers should be in scrap heaps; save for a few museum pieces to remind us all of our wastefulness. It is not as though these ?Muscle Cars? are capable of providing some utility as even ?SUVs? are in adverse weather & terrain. Driving ?muscle cars? is not responsible to say nothing of economy.
Ya know, seeing as how the weather is supposed to be nice, but a bit warm, this week, I think I’ll drive my '65 Chevelle to work the rest of the week. At around 13 mpg, I’ll use a gallon each day since my round trip is 13.4 miles. Since I got friday off, that’s only 3 gallons of gas.
While some may see it as wasteful, how many are still running today, 40, 50, 60, or more years later? Tell me you can say that about ANY of the cars being made today.
Sure, technology has improved lots of things about our cars and our lives, but it’s also complicated lots of things as well.
You’re a vet, and you don’t seem to appreciate our freedom to choose?!?!? You don’t appreciate American made classics?!?!? I’m amazed at that!!
are we really running out of oil though?
Well, we may be running out of cheap oil.
The electricity you’re using to whine about this issue is for the most part generated by fossil fuel; usually natural gas or coal.
Maybe you could do your small part to conserve energy by shutting off the PC and only using it when absolutely necessary.
Not much fuel used, you’ll say. Well, your whine X millions of others adds up.
Surely with all of the problems in the world today you could find a much more important issue to snivel about.
The entire country has become a nation of bellyachers with everyone being offended about something every day.
I have a laundry list of things I would like done away with also, so I propose a sign-up day in which everyone can present the government with a list of evil things to be banned. Get 'em all in one fell swoop.
What bothered me was mommy not having the back bone to tell the son: “this is the car you are going to get”, period the end. If you don’t like it, you can walk.
OR having him sit down with the insurance rep & learn how much it would cost for HIM to insure the car, on his own. 'Cause I sure as heck wouldn’t put it on MY insurance, if I was her.
Our son WANTED a muscle car. He thought we’d buy it for him…after we got done laughing, we said.“do you see the cars WE drive? Get over it! You get the car we can afford & be happy you got a car!”
It was a 1984 T’bird…130k miles…we paid $400 for it. It got 21 miles to the gallon & 250 miles to the quart of oil. He knew that if he blew the engine or wrecked it, he’d be back to begging rides. There simply wasn’t any money to buy him another car.
He drove it for 2 years & gave it to a friend when he left for college. He was allowed to take our 1993 Buick Regal to college in his senior year.
His graduation present was the title to the 1993 Buick.
He graduated from college in 2007…
He got a good job & now drives a 2004 VW Passant.
IMHO, parents give their kids too much , these days.
That’s a good point, when I was 16 I bought my own vehicle and paid my own insurance, of course I bought a motorcycle instead of a car. When it got too cold for the bike, I also bought a $500 ford beater. Eventually, the ford died and I bought a rusted out VW bug that I drove until I finished college.`By the time I got rid of the VW it had holes through the floor and only had three shocks left (one of the shock towers had rusted away), it was on it’s third junkyard engine. Of course, that was a different time/place when everyone had a job by the time they were 14 and most of my friends didn’t go to college. No one “asked” their parents to buy them a car or asked permission to get whatever they could afford themselves.
Although that was an interesting “learning experience,” I wouldn’t let my kids near any of those vehicles today. Even then, those cars were not safe due to their condition. I didn’t have a state safety inspection for the last several years I drove the VW because it would not pass, I just ignored the tickets and kept driving it, I moved out of the state before they ever caught up with me.
I will end up buying decent cars for my kids, nothing too fancy but something that’s not going to fall apart. If one of my kids wanted a muscle car, they would not end up with a “real” muscle car, but I might consider a 60s vintage mustang or something similar (not a fully restored example, but something solid enough to drive everyday). Most of those cars were far from overpowered. Even though the handling and brakes were terrible by current standards, they were more than adequate for “normal” driving. You can still buy a pretty interesting old car for the cost of a late model econo-box, and they might actually learn something by working on it. The high school kid who lives across the street drives a pretty nice 60s dodge pick-up truck that appears to be in decent condition, it wouldn’t be my choice but it is pretty cool. I’m not talking about anything expensive, maybe a $10K car. When they earn their own money, they can buy whatever they want.
$10,000 for a car; thats more then alot of people can afford for their own vehicle and you want to spend that for your kids?
We are with the other posters that say let your kid earn the money to afford to buy his own car and insurance.
Our first car was a 76 Dart that our dad found for us with a very large water leak. We paid for the car though and we had nothing but problems with it. Then we got a little Datsun B210 that we loved; again paid for ourself. We were 18 when we got our first car and we earned the money delivering papers door to door and we continued to earn it doing papers.
There are plenty of jobs for a kid who wants to earn money and he doesnt need a car to get to work in most cases. Insurance for a 16 year old; male especially is pricy and if the kid wants a muscle car where rates are alot higher then he needs to know this when a parent sits in front of the insurnance agent with him along side and be told this.
The problem with alot of kids these days are they are spoiled by being handed too many things including in the case of Craig58; a car worth $10,000. They have no concept of what things cost or how long it takes to earn things.
I gave my Daughter my 98 Pathifinder to finish college. Being a Chemical Engineer Major (she finially decided on a Major) at MIT her work load is very high and doesn’t have a lot of time to get a full time job to buy a vehicle and insurance herself.
Well we got our car as we were going to college too far to commute without one. (3 bus rides one way) We still earned the money ourself. We then worked full time plus a part time job on our own to pay for it and rent during 4 years of college. No we didnt go to MIT. Parents couldnt afford that but the local community college then the local college.
Its nice you can afford MIT and a nice car for your daughter but that is not the case of most people in this country. Your daughter could have earned money during HS and summers. Did she work this summer to afford to pay some of the bills for it?
Still say her son needs to earn the money for his own car and insurance so he can appreciate what things cost and how long it takes to save for them.
No we didnt go to MIT. Parents couldnt afford that but the local community college then the local college.
It’s called full scholorship.
And when I went to college some 30+ years ago I couldn’t afford MIT and I didn’t get a scholorship. I too paid my way because my parents couldn’t afford it. But that doesn’t mean my kids had to do the same.
Did you learn anything? scholarship is spelt with an A not an O.
Why not? Did it hurt you any to work your way through college? so why should it hurt your daughter? Why shouldnt kids these days do something to learn that nice things including an education cost money?
My mom bought my first car for $50 from a family member and later sold it for that when I wasn’t driving. When I started wanting to drive, I bought my own car(a 91 Corrisca) with the savings bonds I had. I sold it later on to get the 95 contour. When the contour was drinking more antifreeze than I could put in it, I traded it in on my 99 civic(almost 6 years ago). A couple years ago I was wanting an old muscle car and found one in a local paper and bought it. The only car i regret owning is the Contour as it was an impulse buy. My civic(hell, even the chevelle was) was too, but I don’t regret it.
Now that I can afford a nicer car, I’m taking my time deciding what I want and what suits me perfectly. The longer I wait, the more I can afford.
Um…this is a car forum, not a political forum.
The brothers gave car advice, not political lecturing. Political lecturing has no place on their show.
Did you learn anything? scholarship is spelt with an A not an O.
It’s called a typo…I make HUNDREDS a day. Don’t really have time to proof read.
Why not? Did it hurt you any to work your way through college? so why should it hurt your daughter? Why shouldnt kids these days do something to learn that nice things including an education cost money?
Of course it didn’t hurt me…What are you saying…my daughter should give up her scholarship. Just because you or your kids couldn’t get one doesn’t mean that my daughter should give up hers.
$10,000 for a car; thats more then alot of people can afford for their own vehicle and you want to spend that for your kids?
…The problem with alot of kids these days are they are spoiled by being handed too many things including in the case of Craig58; a car worth $10,000. They have no concept of what things cost or how long it takes to earn things.
This probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I really don’t care what a lot of people can afford for their own vehicle. If you think $10K is to much for a kid’s car, we can talk about a $5K car, it doesn’t matter. Either way, I want my kids paying attention to school, not spending their time working for $10/hour to pay for some POS beater. If you are paying $10-20K per year for your kid’s tuition, do you want them to spend their time studying or flipping burgers someplace?
I also worked my butt off to pay for engineering school (then delayed grad school for about a decade when I ran out of money). I ended up going to grad school at night after I was married with a kid. All that accomplished was wasting time I should have spent studying, and delaying my career. I did well, but I could have done better. I’m not complaining because my parents did the best they could, but having a reliable car would have made a huge difference then. Competing with other students is difficult when you are spending more time working than studying, and very little time sleeping.
If I am fortunate enough to be in a better financial position than my parents, I’m not going to apologize for giving my kids every advantage I can.
BTW, you know you are getting old when you say things like “kids these days.” (-: