A glimmer of hope

[Tessie McMillan <tessmc@domain.elided>]

After slogging painfully through the past few days' worth of digests -- 
a mercilessly endless stream of "babe" and "m*dget" posts, where even our 
esteemed John H. takes folks to task on SAABs -- I had concluded the 
world as we know it must be about to end.

Then my eye caught the subject line: "why do Alfas burn?", and I nearly 
died laughing. &:-) OK, I'll jump in on this one!

In the U.S., Alfas are kind of unknown and under-appreciated. 
I think the tendency is for insurance companies to junk them if there's 
any kind of accident, but I don't think that's the norm -- there being a 
known parts stream for used parts-houses for many other marques. So if you 
go to the junkyard, you'll see an over-representation of Alfas, since 
nobody knows what to do with them. It is unfair to sample just from the 
junkyard....

To really compare cars by their form of "death", you need to compare the 
number of cars manufactured per year by marque and collect the numbers and 
kinds of "deaths", then factor out the location, the owner, and what the 
car was used for -- since these will contribute to the likelihood of one 
type of "death" over another.

Where's Dana (our resident Epidemiologist) when you need him? He could 
explain this better than I can.

And anyway, everyone KNOWS that early 356s burn better than ANYTHING ELSE 
in the world! If you want excitement, just open the hood when starting one 
and watch the flames from the carbs! &:-)

Tess
currently driving a silver 356 with screaming yellow racing stripes... 
and a fire extinguisher
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