Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!gargoyle!stuart From: stuart@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Stuart Kurtz) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Detroit's dying dinosaurs. Message-ID: <209@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Fri, 28-Sep-84 09:45:11 EDT Article-I.D.: gargoyle.209 Posted: Fri Sep 28 09:45:11 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 29-Sep-84 10:28:03 EDT Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science Lines: 30 Last February I decided to part with my old car, a beloved '67 Impala with 100K miles. So I looked and I considered and I studied, and I finally bought an '84 diesel Rabbit. Now, last week I drove 515 miles, and burned only 9.2 gallons of $1.20/gallon diesel fuel to do it. It's not like I only do 55 mph for hours on end; about 1/3 of that total is on Chicago's Dan Ryan, an 8 lane parking lot euphemistically referred to as an expressway. I regularly get 55 mpg. What I want to know is why in the hell Detroit can't build a car I'd like to buy? Why, when I go into a Chevy showroom did some jerk of a salesman only show me $10,000+ cars getting <30 mpg (EPA)? Why can't I buy a car for $7200 (what I paid for the Rabbit), that will get 50+ miles to the gallon (screw EPA, I mean *on the real road*). Yeah, I drove the Ford diesel escort -- I found a hill in Will County that it couldn't take in 3rd gear. (My God, *Will County* is flatter that an anorexic 4th grader!) Also, I don't see why a should prefer a Japanese engine (Izusu on the Ford) to a Brazilian one (where VW builds their's). I'd damn sick and tired of hearing how I should have bought genuine USA car. As far as I'm concerned, GM can take their damn tilt-wheel and sit on it in six different positions. I want a reliable car that will stretch a gallon of fuel. You can keep the f'ing electric nose-wipers. I grew up in suburban Detroit; hell, I even *prefer* Strohs' beer. But I've had enough of their cars. They should learn how to copy what the Germans and Japanese are doing. Maybe once they learn how to do that, we should let them try to design their own again. Stu