Recently, Toyota, Saturn, Nissan and Honda have decided to make all new cars much more gasoline efficient. Leave it up to the Japanese to improve cars that are safe and reliable by making gasoline prices less expensive.
In Sweden, Volvo is the first car company to implement steel bars on the sides of its doors to help protect the drivers and the passengers from receiving bodily damage. Volvo is the first car company built on safety and has excelled for over 30 years.
In Germany, VWs, BMWs, Mercedes and Porsches are all cars engineered to show class and reliability for the consumer to be delighted. Their styles are innovative and sleek-looking. No one has ever said that the shape of their car is an art catastrophe.
Even Korea has made good use of whatever leftover scraps we Americans gave them to make quality, cheap cars that can hold up for five years.
But what about America and its car troubles? Why is it that every recall I hear in the news has to do with an American car that is capable of exploding at any time? The list goes on with Ford Explorers, Ford Broncos, Cadillac Devilles, Oldsmobile Aleros, Ford Pintos, Dodge Stealths… Jesus Christ, the list goes on! America is always duping the consumers by classifying their engines as powerful.
The new Dodge Durango is built on the premise of having DVDs in the car and a HEMI engine. That’s great. Now America can have one example of someone getting killed for watching The Matrix Reloaded while going 130 mph down the freeway! But since the car is very fuel inefficient, reaching that speed requires a helicopter that can refuel tanks in midair.
And people think that bigger cars mean safer rides. Bullshit. After getting into a car accident, the Chevrolet Suburban looked like a Chevrolet Lumina! The SUV was made of aluminum and plastic. Aluminum and plastic belong in a refrigerator – not on the road.
I think when someone buys an American car you have a death wish. The only American cars that I liked were made in the early 1980s, when you could bring your high school sweetheart to the oversized backseat and impregnate her. That is what America lost with its cars over the last 20 years.
Since America can’t build its cars on safety and fuel efficiency, I think America should revert back to those cars with oversized backseats and market them to 18-year-olds. That ought to bring back that American spirit of the football player with his cheap, oversized car having his fun with the hottest blonde cheerleader!
Seth Bleicher can be contacted at s.bleicher@umiami.edu.