re: scheme to fund crushing

[Joe Elliott <jee@domain.elided>]

At 11:23 AM -0500 2/8/02, alfa-digest wrote:
>  So you're implying that your GTV-6 gets better mileage than an '80 Dodge
>Colt?  Must be something seriously wrong with my Milano, 'cause 24 mpg would
>be a dream.

For fear of sounding like Fred, I dare say there's something 
seriously wrong with your Milano.  My best friend's Milano averages 
about 24mpg and gets 27-28 on freeway trips.  FWIW, my GTV6 averages 
25mpg (I guess I do more out-of-town driving on a regular basis) but 
only gets 26 on the freeway (damn customized 5th gear that was in the 
transmission APE sold me...).


My opinion on the car-crushing scheme (damnit, I told myself I wasn't 
going to write this...): For sure no good will come of it, but I 
think it may be less evil than similar bills passed in Europe years 
ago, and probably won't have as detrimental an impact to the old car 
hobby as we fear.  Someone did say that there are too many car 
enthusiasts in the USA for this to pass, and while there may be large 
quantities of illiterate morons filling out Summit Racing's web form 
letter to protect the mass-produced American family car from the '70s 
which they consider classic, the politicians aren't going to care. 
Remember that this isn't the "crush old cars bill," it's just one 
section of a huge bill.  Our wonderful two-party political system is 
going to treat the car-crushing issue as follows:  Democrats will 
either vote for the bill because it's an energy bill that will 
theoretically decrease our dependence on foreign oil and they've been 
brainwashed into thinking that old cars are the root of all 
environmental evil, or they will know that crushing old cars doesn't 
accomplish anything and will vote for the bill because the rest of it 
seems sound, and not enough of their constituency collects old cars 
for it to affect getting re-elected, or they will vote for the bill 
and promote the car-crushing scheme because it will get their, 
friends in the pro-greed, anti-responsibility party to vote for 
something they generally wouldn't (an energy conservation measure) 
because it will sell more cars.  Sorry gang.  It could be worse, but 
what it basically comes down to is whether or not someone can 
convince enough House Republicans to vote for something that would 
reduce energy consumption and the associated revenue--the 
car-crushing aspect is more-than-likely going to be overlooked and 
the bill will pass or fail for other reasons.  And just for the 
record, I think this Greg guy is easily the most naive person on the 
Alfa Digest.  I'm not sure what he's smoking, but that first post was 
so asinine that I thought it was meant to be a joke!!

Cheers,
Joe Elliott
PS> Can anyone scan the Opel GT article in the February "Practical 
Classics" magazine and email it to me?  Pretty please?

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided