What do you Drive?

[dks]

If you own a forum you should be able to afford a couple 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Maybe if I owned one of those "special unterest" forums on a Russian server, but I really don't think a niche forums for Plier People is going to make jt there.

Def

[dks]

[dks]

Tesla commercial, disguised as journalism.....



At some point, after driving it for a total of 5 minutes, the "reviewer" says "It's a Tesla. What's not to like?".... 
I can never take the magazine or Tesla seriously again,

[dks]

[dks]

[Smashie]

RR Velar
Another car designed to compete against other models made by JLR but still manages to look as boring as the rest of the range 

[Reinier]

Are you driving all those cars dks?

[dks]

ofcourse

[Reinier]

My Mondeo is now on its 19" summer tires. This looks way better than those tiny 16"s

[Aloha]

My Mondeo is now on its 19" summer tires. This looks way better than those tiny 16"s

(Image removed from quote.)

Great lines on this car 

[Gareth]

My Mondeo is now on its 19" summer tires. This looks way better than those tiny 16"s

(Image removed from quote.)

Great lines on this car 

Absolutely.  A four door Aston Martin.

[glenfiddich1983]

My Mondeo is now on its 19" summer tires. This looks way better than those tiny 16"s

(Image removed from quote.)

[Grant Lamontagne]

My Mondeo is now on its 19" summer tires. This looks way better than those tiny 16"s

(Image removed from quote.)

Very good looking car!  I loved how even the guys on Top Gear thought it was an Aston Martin. 

Over here we call is the Fusion, but it's the same car otherwise.

Def

[Gareth]

My Mondeo is now on its 19" summer tires. This looks way better than those tiny 16"s

(Image removed from quote.)

Very good looking car!  I loved how even the guys on Top Gear thought it was an Aston Martin. 

Over here we call is the Fusion, but it's the same car otherwise.

Def

Whereas here if you bought a Ford Fusion you'd get one of these.

[Reinier]

Thanks guys I think we discussed the Aston/Fusion thing before

I once rented a 2010 Fusion in Canada and when the car rental lady handed me the keys labelled "Ford Fusion" I thought I was getting that ugly (European) pensioners car-like thing Gareth posted. But it turned out to be this one:

[dks]

So, would you be  happy if you got an Aston and people said "Nice Mondeo"   ??   

[Reinier]

So, would you be  happy if you got an Aston and people said "Nice Mondeo"   ??   

With a Volvo key

[dks]

Especially with Volvo being Chinese these days....

[Gareth]

So, would you be  happy if you got an Aston and people said "Nice Mondeo"   ??   

Ah, you mean the rare 2 door Mondeo Coupe, right?

[dks]

ofcourse ...

It reminds me of when a 3 series BMW came out  that was basically a scaled down 5 series, which could easily be mistaken for the 5 series - So people were getting excited about their cheaper car looking like a more expensive one, ignoring the people that bought the more expensive one which now could be confused for the smaller model...

[Reinier]

Especially with Volvo being Chinese these days....

That's not entirely true

[Grant Lamontagne]

That's not a bad idea- it shouldn't be too hard to buy Aston Martin badges on eBay and swap out the Ford Logos.   

That's exactly what I'd do, but then I gave serious thought to putting Ford logos on my jeep just to screw with people.   

Kind of like what Beerplumber did years ago when he pried the Jeep "Trail Rated" badges off his Jeep and stuck them on (I think) a Suzuki Swift. 

Def

[gregozedobe]

That's not a bad idea- it shouldn't be too hard to buy Aston Martin badges on eBay and swap out the Ford Logos.   

That's exactly what I'd do, but then I gave serious thought to putting Ford logos on my jeep just to screw with people.   

Kind of like what Beerplumber did years ago when he pried the Jeep "Trail Rated" badges off his Jeep and stuck them on (I think) a Suzuki Swift. 

Def

I have a genuine Bentley key that I had the guts of my VW transporter (medium sized van) key transplanted into (VW own Bentley and the internals of the keys were very similar).   Just to mess with the people working on my van I sometimes roll up, put the (what looks like a Bentley) key onto the counter and announce that I'm dropping off my Bentley to have some work done.  One poor lackey was completely taken in and tried to explain they only brands they work on are VW, Skoda and Nissan, and that I should take my car to a Bentley dealership.   

In a similar vein I once put a Range Rover badge on an aftermarket steering wheel I was fitting to my Toyota LandCruiser.  In the one action I managed to annoy the fans of both LandCruisers and Land/Range Rovers, while it also confused the Nissan Patrol fans (but to be fair, some of them were easily confused ...      ).  But I was completely outdone by the bloke that transplanted a Chev 350 engine and Nissan Patrol chassis and running gear into (under ?)  an FJ40 Landcruiser Troop carrier (that thing was an absolute beast !)

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'll bet.... did you know the story of the Land Cruiser?

It was originally called the BJ, and while that sounds like a joke, it wasn't.  It was powered by a B type engine, and of course the J stood for Jeep, because it looked almost exactly like one.

Jeep sued Toyota for copyright issues and Toyota was forced to change the name.  Since they'd already upset the folks at Jeep they decided to take a stab at the next most iconic brand and named it Land Cruiser to annoy the folks at Land Rover.  And, just to keep needling Jeep, they still kept calling them FJ's.

Next time someone tries telling you that Toyota doesn't have spirit, remember that story, and that the American car manufacturers are directly responsible for making sure no one worldwide can get a BJ.

Def

[jzmtl]

Jeep sued Toyota for copyright issues and Toyota was forced to change the name.  Since they'd already upset the folks at Jeep they decided to take a stab at the next most iconic brand and named it Land Cruiser to annoy the folks at Land Rover.  And, just to keep needling Jeep, they still kept calling them FJ's.

Next time someone tries telling you that Toyota doesn't have spirit, remember that story, and that the American car manufacturers are directly responsible for making sure no one worldwide can get a BJ.

Def

I've pissed off quite a few people telling them their FJ stands for Fake Jeep. 

[dks]

The car brand situation is very confusing on its own these days..

You have FIAT and JEEP together, exchanging parts and quality control   (and ofcourse you have fiat, Ferrari, alfa romeo etc in too),  Land rover and Jaguar are owned by the same Indian company that makes the Tata Nano (talk about prestige) You have the VAG group that could do no wrong as they enforced a higher ethical standard, being German, than the rest of the world, manipulating their emissions, cheating really, with their German flagship the Tuareg (and Q7 and others) actually being made in Slovakia, though the dealers always tell you that they are made in Germany, Volvo motors is owned by the Chinese and the production is slowly being shifted to China, what we consider US cars being made outside of the US (and Japanese cars made outside of Japan), despite what the dealers will tell you most electronic and peripheral systems are not unique to their company but actually produced by a few companies and sold to all interested car companies (The NCAP test show that premium and non premium companies can achieve similar scores, using many of the same systems, Porsche Cayenne uses Korean tyres as OE)  and so on.

Whereas any company can produce a good product in any country, as long as they use the same equipment and have good training and QA, QC, they all imply that their products area actually made in the country where their company originated from, charging a premium for the higher cost of their country, local expertise, traditional craftsmanship, ethical superiority etc...  Do you know of any car manufacturers that significantly lowered their prices after moving design/production/ownership etc to a lower cost country or becoming part of a more efficient group ?

[dks]

Opel Vauxhall, sold, Nissan and Renault, Mercedes making a premium Nissan pickup, Aston making the Cygnet, a premium Toyota

I am not sure who makes what where these days

[Gareth]

I have a friend who was a test driver for Nissan and he was very proud of the fact that the UK's Sunderland plant was held up as a beacon of "how to do it" throughout the global group.

My car is a Renault, based on a Nissan drive system, built in Korea.   As long as it works then what have I got to complain about?

[Smashie]

My car has a German engine and was built by a bunch of communists sorry people in the midlands, it's also being MOT'd today so no doubt I will be facing yet another huge bill this afternoon