What about the HHR . . . ?
Not exactly a thing of beauty
I don't know, @Mountainbike, those three wheel vehicles don't look very stable to me. They look like they would flip over in a 15 MPH turn.
The Boss Hoss gets about 29 mpg highway and 24 city. But the owner’s F450 gets 15 on the highway if he’s lucky.
meanjoe75fan
What’s ridiculous about the HMMWV? You need a go-anywhere military transport; it was a good one.
Um, that was pretty much my point. How many of the general public need a go-anywhere military transport? I just thought it was ridiculously impractical.
How would you have improved it?
Eh, I think you and I are just looking at this thing in different ways.
I’m a Nissan fan,but it seems to me they have the market cornered on ugly and quickly dated vehicles,the Cube looks rather loathsome in my opinion as does the treefrog styling on the Juke,but I’ll have to say the Altima is a very handsome vehicle-just my two pennies-Kevin
meanjoe75fan The first time I drove a HMMWV off road Was chasing the local Army National Guard hot air balloon. I had to drive through some fairly rough off road and it was very capable. The balloon pilots wife in my passenger seat was shouting "WOO, WOO! On the paved highway it was a dog! In the late 1980s Was at our training area on the Oregon coast. I sent 2 young soldiers on an errand into town to get something needed. They were driving an old M151 jeep. The Army did not think we needed the new tactical vehicle since we were aviation and had our own flying transportation. When they returned they told me the stopped at a red light beside a bright yellow HMMWV. It was driven by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He even had the giant cigar in his mouth. He was filming Kindergarten Kop in Astoria, Oregon. The 2 kids gave him a thumbs up. He gave them the “finger”! If Arnold in his number one HUMMER has no respect for our military I have no respect for him!
I agree the Prowler, SSR, and HHR are abominations. What were they thinking with the Prowler?
To be honest I have the same negative feelings seeing the big trucks on the road, however we need to keep in mind that there is no statute in the US to require buying what you NEED. You may freely buy what you WANT and there may be a difference. In defense though, in Minnesota, if you have a boat, a trailer, hunting or fishing gear, etc. to haul, you pretty much need a truck anymore.
As for poor Arnold, there must be a statute against giving the finger to military. I guess his wife though discovered later than sooner who he really was.
One of my former high school teachers paid a very significant premium to get his hands on a new Prowler
Gotta love Top Gear videos. Best quote, “I’m getting used to it…”
I dunno, bscar, the one that raced at LeMans seemed pretty stable…
Actually, when Iso originally designed the Isetta (the one I drove) they designed it with one wheel in the rear and it kept tipping over. The one I drive had two wheels in the rear 6" apart. It was enough to keep it upright. The design was then licensed to over 25 different manufacturers, each of whom made a modified versions.
The car in your photo was one of the countless “bubble car” designs (as was the original Isetta) sold across war-torn Europe after their manufacturing infrastructure and their economies were largely destroyed by the Germans. They were dirt-cheap and they ran. That was enough to help Europe get back on its feet. A stop-gap measure, if you will. The modern delta-cars are worlds apart in stability and safety from the bubble cars.
Based on the data collected from the racecar, the concept should be able to significantly improve gas mileage without compromising safety or comfort. My guess is that we’ll see them in a hybrid powertrain in the not too distant future and we’ll all be amazed at the mileage.
I like “out of the box” ideas like this. Always have. It’s those that start with a “clean slate”, focus solely on the goal, and ignore conventional thinking that push technology forward in leaps and bounds.
The Prowler and SSR were meant as factory hot rods. If you don’t like hot rods, you won’t like these. The SSR is actually popular. Resale value on a loaded 2006 is over $20,000. The HHR is a Cobalt wagon. It was used a lot by businesses that needed a small utility truck.
jtsanders Long Lost Magliozzi BrotherJune 14
The Boss Hoss gets about 29 mpg highway and 24 city. But the owner’s F450 gets 15 on the highway if he’s lucky.
The Boss Hoss (a semi-custom production motorcycle that’s powered by a 350 cubic inch automobile V-8) also weighs 1100 pounds, has an 80 inch wheelbase, and a gas tank so huge that sitting on it has you spread eagle like you are in a gynocologist’s exam chair. If you accidently drop it in a parking lot, you better be in a group because you will need help picking it back up.
It’s the ultimate stupid useless motorcycle.
I recently traded my ZRX1200 for a Kawasaki Ninja 300. At 377 pounds, it feels like a bicycle compared to the ZRX. It gets over 70 mpg if I cooperate and even people who drive like complete idiots get 52-60 mpg on this model. It’s actually more fun to ride, especially when the road stops being straight. The 140/60-17 rear tire still has enough thread to pass inspection with 12 k miles on it. The ZRX wore out a 180/60R17 rear tire every 5k miles and only got around 45 mpg, not much better than my car. The more I thought about it, the more I began to think “this completely misses the whole point of a motorcycle, an economical alternative to a car that’s easy to park and fun to ride”.
The Hummer as originally made for the military was made available till the public realized how much they actually cost. Throwing a Hummer like shell on a 3/4 ton PU chassis was a way to make the Hummer mentality available. They are totally ridiculous vehicles because they compromise efficiency and practically in use just to make a buck when the standard SUV with the same bod, does the job better.
They sell(sold) because they were cool, not because they were any better at anything other then being a poor man’s knock off. It’s like a FG kit car you buy of a Ferrari and put over a VW chassis. It’s still a VW. But, the auto industry has a bunch of examples that do the same thing for years. It must make the auto designers who strive for altruistic car design values feel pretty guilty about collecting their pay checks. IMHO, it would be like Ford discontinuing the present Mustang line and raising it later with a Mustang body on a Focus chassis. The original Hummer and these knock offs share only one thing…the Name.
" IMHO, it would be like Ford discontinuing the present Mustang line and raising it later with a Mustang body on a Focus chassis."
We’ve already been there
Remember the Mustang 2 . . . on the Pinto chassis
Score Mustang 2, boredom 0! How about “the most ridiculous car advertisements ever”?
People aren’t rational. If someone wants a Boss Hoss for whatever reason, they can have it. It isn’t my thing either. I used to ride a Honda CB400F. It was quicker in the quarter mile than any production car - sub 13 seconds. It was all anyone needed. But my friends had bigger bikes. They didn’t need the a Triumph Trident or the BMW R75/6, but they wanted them anyway. Many people are crazy about the Harley Davidson FL. I don’t see it, but lots of others do.
"We’ve already been there"
I am crushed. Well, at least the Pinto had rwd . At the time, the Mustang was trying to find it’s way between being a sports car and an Eco version of one. It had to walk the line. The Pinto was a Stella performer in it’s own right. What a masterful design !
The harley in my opinion has become like any good thing that got popular and now only wealthy people can own it. Kind of watered down and a lot just accepting whatever the brand puts out as the best.
Examples - Harley, John Deere, Land Rover, Gibson guitars. All just riding that brand image wave.
@Fender1325, I don’t think it’s fair to say that. Like every motorcycle manufacturer, Harley-Davidson has lower displacement motorcycles with a relatively low price of entry. The links below provide a few examples.
http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Motorcycles/iron-883.html
http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Motorcycles/street-750.html
http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Motorcycles/street-500.html
H-D seems to be doing a pretty good job of reacting to competition from the metric cruiser market to me. If you look at the metric cruisers coming from Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, you’ll find that their high displacement V-twin cruisers aren’t that much cheaper than comparable H-Ds these days. Maybe they’re also reacting to competition from Victory and the new Indian, which are definitely examples of motorcycle companies with a high price of entry.
I give H-D credit for giving its motorcycles electronic fuel injection before Honda did, and for the fact that their low displacement V-twin cruisers are liquid-cooled. H-D is showing a lot of signs that it can adjust to a changing market. Keep in mind I’m not a Harley guy. I’m just an impartial observer of the motorcycle market. Actually, I’m a Honda guy, but even I have to admit Honda isn’t making the right moves to be competitive in the motorcycle market. They were the last to add EFI to their motorcycles, and none of the motorcycles in their lineup have self-adjusting valves.
Gibson guitars is having a hard time finding good wood to build new guitars with, so with shrinking supplies of raw wood, their costs have significantly increased. I don’t hold that against them.