british-cars-request@alliant.com (02/21/90)
Whoa! All of the things you mentioned in your followup, Wayne, are simply trade-off points. The decision on which areas of a car's envelope to emphasize and which to weaken are not a reflection on the quality of the engineering done so much as an assessment of what the market wants. The engineering just extends the possibilities and gives management more room to trade off. I remember some years ago, Ford (and probably others) started offering a lot of "owner maintenance" features. They bombed. Americans want to look under their hoods as infrequently as possible. So enter the highly reliable and predictable electronics and fuel injection and all the other things that make 7500 miles between checkups possible. Maybe Miata's success will force the bean counters to reconsider. I think the biggest problem with the mainstream cars is boredom. Despite all the flashy ads, sitting in a Buick has all the excitement of sitting in your favorite TV chair. Maybe Americas ready to have fun again. Of course, opinions are like noses: everyone has one! Them's mine. - Dale
ed@tandem.com (02/23/90)
[stuff about engineering and lack of maintanence deleted] >Maybe Miata's success will force the bean counters to reconsider. >I think the biggest problem with the mainstream cars is boredom. >Despite all the flashy ads, sitting in a Buick has all the excitement >of sitting in your favorite TV chair. Maybe Americas ready to have >fun again. > > - Dale I agree with this. But I also think that most people who have purchased the Miata want the fun without the burden of having to go tweek the carbs on weekly basis and put up with strange electric systems to boot. Most people I know would love to have an old convertible fun machine but they are afraid of having to work on them. Sadly, I think that if the Miata had to have the oil changed every 2500 miles and started life wiht a reputation of being finicky(sp?) (That is, it was produced by a lesser manufacturer) it would not have done so well. But, I also think things are changing. Maybe enough people will realize the fun quotient and such cars will become more common. Also, I was looking at one of the car mags, don't remember wich one, and saw something interesting. Back in the fall when they put out the issue on the new cars and concepts of the future there were two models shown that may be a step in the right direction. One was by Pontiac and I can't remember who did the other, I seem to think it was Japanese. Both the cars were small recreational vehicles that were convertible. One of them could even have all the glass removed as well as all the seats etc. The idea was you could just hose the sucker out when it got dirty. It was a Fluorescent Green color. Don't much care for the color but the idea sounds fun. Ed Hand Intergraph uunet!ingr!b11!wizard!ed