Footnote: Temper the above praise with the knowledge that I would NEVER

Once upon a time, I was gt6638b.

1. Middle America loves their American made pickup trucks. There are still people who will (verbally) battle to the death (well, almost) over whether a Ford or a Chevy pick-up truck is better. For towing and such, the big American pick-up trucks are still viewed as highly superior to the imports. That may change, but it’s going to take an awful lot of time to do so.

2. In general, lower end American cars and specifically used American cars are cheaper than the inputs. And there’s a lot of people in the country who are below the average income range (half of the population to be exact) who can’t afford to buy brand, shiny new autmobiles. They just need something to get them from point A to point B. And, they need it relatively inexpensively. Unfortunately, for them, a lot of the lower income people don’t always factor in repair costs (where the less expensive American cars bite you, especially as they get older). So, again, there’s still a market for American cars.

3. Rental cars suck. The Chevy Malibu (unless it’s a newer Malibu Max) is one of the worst (the Impalla’s not much better). Chevy can’t do user interfaces to save their lives. I’ve driven a lot of different rental cars and I still can’t figure out how to set the clock on Chevy vehicles (a real bummer when your trip happens to include a time change weekend). Also, you have to remember that a lot of time, especially if you’re getting a cheap rental car, you’re going to get a lower end model. It’s not going to have all the fancy electronic gizmos that many people see as standard options now (power seats, power locks, power windows, remote lock and unlock key fob thingy). Don’t judge all the cars by the rentals you get.

4. I completely agree with the need for an aux input to be standard on all stereos in all vehicles starting like three years ago. The fact that the stereo in my less than year old Toyota Matrix doesn’t even play MP3s in the standard CD player is highly annoying. The fact that there wasn’t an option to upgrade to a stereo that would, or that had any provision for having an auxilary input attached is just downright embarassing. I really like my Matrix, but the fact that the stereo is stuck in the early to mid-1990s should be an embarassment to the company.

5. And, while we’re ranting about automobile features. Is it too much to ask that vehicle cup holders be designed such that they will accomodate a standard (Nalgene) 32 oz water bottle? Among the younger crowd, water bottles of that size are almost as ubiquitous as iPods and, darn it, cup holders should be sized to accept them.

We can use it as entry for a blog I reserved on blogspot: wysiwtf