Like this POS WART? Saw an ad on TV for it the other night..Said to be 'worlds smallest 4 seated' car Gawd, you would have to be a 2 foot tall midget to sit in the back seats!! Wouldn't catch me dead in either this or one of those 'Smart' death cars! I will stick with my BIG SUV(Durango, which happens to get 21MPG BTW)

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Jon
SAM #0396
BAR 02/07
NAR 86940
KF4GUL
Aim high, fly straight!

Jerry, that is SO true. The poor cannot afford a new Prius or Volt, and end up driving older cars with lower MPG and higher emissions. They also cannot aford all the new super-green appliances for their homes, or insulation for reduced energy bills. I'm speaking from experience here.

Some things should just not be taxed.

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John Adams
"There is a lot of rocketry under 20ns"

With the government continuing to raise CAFE standards, we'll be seeing more cars in this micro size. The Japanese have been building these for decades known as the Kei class cars.

Oh Geesh.. not more "K-Cars"... LOL those things SUCKED! OL JR

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Ya know, what I'd LOVE to see is more of the Ford Festiva's... I'd buy a brand new one in a heartbeat if I could get one! They were built by Kia... Dad had two... he bought one for a work car and then Mom liked it so well he bought another one and gave her the first one... ran the wheels off those things (52 mile drive to work each way daily).

They drove it to upstate New York on vacation a few years ago, and then across the Great Plains to Oregon, down through California, and back home to Texas... averaged 52 miles/gallon, steady as a rock... freeway, mountains, whatever... just a solid, dependable, car... and ergonomically it was as roomy and comfortable as my F-150... and we're NOT "little folks"... Dad is about 6 feet tall and was about 350 lbs at the time he was driving it, I'm 6-1 and 350 lbs, and Mom's 5-3 and about 275... so it's not like we're 4-8 inch tall 93 pound Japanese folks... Yet for a small compact car, the Festiva was AMAZINGLY roomy! The back seat wasn't much fun, but the front seats, no problem... like I said, just as comfy as my F-150 (well, except for air conditioning, which Dad was too cheap to add on... but I certainly would!)

That car had plenty of power too... we'd drive out to Junction (100 miles the other side of San Antonio) to go hunting, and it'd be pretty funny going up the steep hills out there... you'd be climbing a grade straight up a small mountain and you'd be passing big V-8 Suburbans and F-150's like they were sitting still; they'd be wound up floorboarded and dragging up the mountain at 60 mph, we'd pass them doing 75 with the little 1.3 liter four banger in that Festiva and never miss a beat... then going downhill the guys in the pickups and Suburbans would be SO PO'd that they'd floor it and pass you going downhill doing 85-90 mph, while we'd still be toodling along at 75, steady as a rock... til the next hill came up, and we'd pass them all again... they just COULDN'T STAND being passed by this little bitty car with a four banger burning 1/3 as much gas as they were on their best day! It was funny...

These were ALL GAS cars, too... 1.3 liter four cylinder with a five speed manual transmission... 52 mpg all day long... no stupid batteries, no stupid electric motors and complicated powertrain to incorporate it all, just plain gas motor and a gearbox to the front wheel drive... Personally I'd want an air conditioner for the hot weather we get (I don't care if it DOES drop the mileage by 10 mpg, 42 mpg is STILL outstanding IMHO and well worth the extra gas cost when it's 106 degrees outside!) The other thing I'd want is cruise control... sure makes those long trips nice!

What I don't understand is WHY we could get a car with SUCH good mileage in 91-92-93-94 and now even the dinky Smart Car, which is HALF the size and weight of a Festiva, can only get MAYBE 40MPG on it's best day?? Heck my wife's been driving the 2000 Escort my Dad bought to replace the Festiva's once he put 300,000 miles plus on them, which is a TOTAL POS and ONLY gets about 28-30 mpg on its best day... we got my MIL's 96 Buick Roadmaster with a 350 V-8 and it gets 25 mpg all day long, so the POS Escort is just sitting in the driveway... the old Roadmaster is a MUCH MUCH nicer and better car and gets NEARLY the same mileage out of an engine over twice the size and pulling a car body weighing at least twice as much! Heck my F-150 4 door SuperCrew gets 18-20 mpg, and I don't consider "good mileage" to be worth thinking about til it's over 40 mpg... and I don't mean 42 either... the ONLY way I'd ever even CONSIDER driving a small car is if I could CONSISTENTLY (well, except for hot weather with the AC cranked high enough to frost the windows over!) get AT LEAST 50 mpg... WHY can't the automakers build a decent STRAIGHT GAS or DIESEL powered car (not a friggin' hybrid!) that can get 50-60-70 mpg??? Heck small cars now don't get as good a mileage as they did in friggin' 92!!! It's rediculous!

They say that nobody wants to drive a small car-- no market for them, and all that... well, heck no, not if the mileage sucks!! Why should I squeeze my big butt into a stupid Escort that's less comfortable than a freakin' golf cart if it's ONLY going to get about maybe 5-10 mpg better mileage than my freakin' 02 Supercrew F150 pickup?? (I'm NOT!) The other thing is price... the Festiva was $8500 brand new driveout price... (back in 91-92). Even with gas hovering around a dollar a gallon back then, Dad paid for the car with what he saved in gas... NO WAY am I paying $25,000 or $30,000 bucks for a POS microcar nowdays that is only going to get 30-35 mpg... no freakin way! I can buy gas for my 20 mpg F150, which is paid off, for the next 20 years for what that little new POS would cost...

Meh, I wouldn't think of buying a NEW car anyway--- they're WAY MAJORLY OVERPRICED nowdays... heck we got the F150 in 04 with 29,000 miles on it for HALF PRICE of what it sold for in 02 brand new... got 260,000 miles on it now, paid off a year ago and I have NO plans to replace it... repairs are cheaper... same with gas... I don't like those $400-500 a month car notes... not one bit! Heck the old 96 Buick is a better car than 95% of the crap on the dealer lots nowdays anyway! Same with the pickup... the new stuff just seems crappier to me... talked with a dealer about a Ford Flex when they first came out at a county fair-- I asked about the motor and powertrain-- he didn't know anything-- all he wanted to talk about was the GPS and I-pod dock and compatibility with all the electronic garbage... I could care less about that CRAP! I'm buying a friggin CAR, (TRANSPORTATION!) NOT a freakin' ENTERTAINMENT CENTER! He just didn't get it... so I walked off shaking my head...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Ha! The Kei class cars can fit into the trunk of a K-Car!

[QUOTE=What I don't understand is WHY we could get a car with SUCH good mileage in 91-92-93-94 and now even the dinky Smart Car, which is HALF the size and weight of a Festiva, can only get MAYBE 40MPG on it's best day?? Heck my wife's been driving the 2000 Escort my Dad bought to replace the Festiva's once he put 300,000 miles plus on them, which is a TOTAL POS and ONLY gets about 28-30 mpg on its best day... we got my MIL's 96 Buick Roadmaster with a 350 V-8 and it gets 25 mpg all day long, so the POS Escort is just sitting in the driveway... the old Roadmaster is a MUCH MUCH nicer and better car and gets NEARLY the same mileage out of an engine over twice the size and pulling a car body weighing at least twice as much! Heck my F-150 4 door SuperCrew gets 18-20 mpg, and I don't consider "good mileage" to be worth thinking about til it's over 40 mpg... and I don't mean 42 either... the ONLY way I'd ever even CONSIDER driving a small car is if I could CONSISTENTLY (well, except for hot weather with the AC cranked high enough to frost the windows over!) get AT LEAST 50 mpg... WHY can't the automakers build a decent STRAIGHT GAS or DIESEL powered car (not a friggin' hybrid!) that can get 50-60-70 mpg??? Heck small cars now don't get as good a mileage as they did in friggin' 92!!! It's rediculous!

Later! OL JR [/QUOTE]

That has been my point for a long time but no one listens! Except I've vented on the industry conversion from carburated to fuel injection. That they claim was to improve gas mileage! These new cars are just now getting what some carburated engines did 30-40 years ago. In high school I drove a little Dodge Dart with a 318 V-8 and 2-barrel carburetor. That thing would go 2 or 3 weeks between fill ups.

But, they don't want you to know about that!
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Yeah, that and the pollution controls... I think that's what's really FUBAR'd the gas mileage since the old Festiva... I know since they started adding emissions crap to the diesels that their mileage isn't any better than a gasser anymore... or only by a tiny margin... used to a diesel pickup got DOUBLE the mileage of an equivalent gasser... not any more! Heck with the higher price of diesel, the higher sticker price, and the higher maintenance and repair costs of the diesel, you're WAY better off buying a gasser pickup nowdays!

What really cracks me up is the new farm equipment... the "Tier 4" emissions is utter crap... I'll keep my decade old stuff and screw the modern crap...

Got news... the farmers are going to sh!tcan all that emission crap as soon as they can anyway, soon as folks start coming out with chips and work-arounds to fool the computer engine controls...

Later! OL JR

__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Smog equipment and reformulated gasoline. The reason modern diesel autos get so much better mileage is less smog equipment than a gas car.

I follow this stuff. The CAFE standards are causing car companies to switch from safer, cheaper steel to aluminum for primary structural elements. Get in an accident and break out the jaws of life. Buy Alcoa and Allstate.

Government regulation is literally hazardous to your life as well as your money and freedom.

Rocketman

Not any more. New diesel cars and trucks must use selective catalytic reduction technology to reduce NOx emissions and the operators required to periodically put refined cow piss into the DEF tank. Not sure about locomotives and ships...


Bill

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It is well past time to Drill, Baby, Drill!

If your June, July, August and September was like this, you might just hate summer too...

Please unload your question before you ask it unless you have a concealed harry permit.

: countdown begin cr dup . 1- ?dup 0= until cr ." Launch!" cr ;

Give a man a rocket and he will fly for a day; teach him to build and he will spend the rest of his days sanding...