SIr Charlie - your thoughts?

[Monty91]

"I have never seen any logical reason why roads, a vast nationalised state monopoly paid for out of heavy taxation, should appeal to free market fanatics. Nor can I quite see why motor cars themselves should appeal to this sector of society. Mass-produced cars are barely profitable, the companies that make them often receive open or disguised state support. They spend most of their lives depreciating expensively at roadsides or in car parks, their costly and elaborate engines sitting idle for at least 22 hours out of every 24. It's hard to think of a better example of inefficient use of capital.

They also make us utterly dependent for our main fuel on some of the most unpleasant and fanatical regimes on the planet, who get rich and powerful thanks to our car obsession.

I suspect that these wasteful, ugly machines appeal to individualistic ‘libertarians’ because they enable them to express what they call their personalities, allowing them to be noisier, faster, more dangerous and more showy than they could be if they were not sitting in the midst of a ton of steel, glass and rubber, protected from the world by heavy locked doors, airbags, antilock-brakes, side-impact-protection and seat belts.

Actually cars and roads destroy settled societies, wreck landscapes, divide and distort cities, by subjecting non-drivers to the needs of cars and abolishing the walkable, human spaces which existed before. Once car ownership is general, it becomes obligatory.

Whatever this is, it is not conservative, any more than expressing contempt for other particular societies is conservative. If you respect your own culture, and expect to be left alone to enjoy it, then the least you can do is to show the same favour to other cultures. Patriotism doesn't consist of expressing contempt for other nations."

[Berni]

They allow the individual to go huge distances quickly, going where they want, when they want, alone, in comfort and without having to rely on or share space with anyone else.

That is a level of individual freedom that no other invention has ever provided. For that alone, cars are wonderful.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

I don't care about the opinions of this dribbling retard, though.

[Classic Jorge]

And a bunch of middle aged men with shrivelled *****es like Clarkson too

[Monty91]

[Berni]

my car now and be in Edinburgh by bedtime. I don't have to buy a ticket, sit among strangers or follow a prescribed route or do any of the things that a train or coach or plane would require. I can go all that way without talking to another human being or even breathing the same air as them. I can simply translate myself from one place to another.

That is something that has simply not been possible throughout human history. Not to see how that ability has transformed the status of the individual is simply cretinous.

[Berni]

[Brentwood]

As long as you don't mind stopping for 30 mins for a rapid charge along the way

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2012/09/lead5-2012-tesla-model-s-fd-1347337015.jpg

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Curiosity, nothing more.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Berni]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Classic Jorge]

[Classic Jorge]

Only kidding, I'll stop now.

Are there even five different types of car though. Coupe/Saloon, 4x4, fwd sports car......MPV? I'm lost beyond those

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Berni]

I hate it when you go to one that hasn't exploited its retail opportunities to the max and is just a few car air fresheners, a range of chocolate bars and porn mags.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

my dear old Dad's old Rolls Royce :-(

[Berni]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

In fact, it was two years ago today.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Every May they take her away on a trailer, do a service and an MOT and deliver her back. Last year I noticed that she'd done 12 miles in the year :hehe:

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

A van? A truck? I'm not a tradesman, j.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

We got a bit pissed afterwards.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

[Ashberto]

Or how air travel has its environmental issues? Or how coaches also use the roads? Or what complete c**ts the bicycle makes of its pilots?

Anyway, this is not the USA. The noble pedestrian is still well-catered for here.

[Berni]

you were letting me drive you around in it. :hehe:

Can't say I wasn't relieved, mind.

We got a teensy bit tiddly, yes. Mind you, it was that sort of day.

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

denote the kind of car you could blast from London to Nice overnight in. Nowadays, of course, one can comfortably do such a thing in a Ford Focus, but the Aston Martins and Ferraris and Maseratis of the period were really the only way to cover big distances at speed.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

You're trying to force the issue now.

You need to relax and play a more natural game.

[Berni]

stale.

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

It was somewhat melancholy, even from my point of view.

[Rich]

the age of 30-35.

Are they any good or will it break shortly after I purchase?

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Far from stale, plenty of mileage left in that line of schoolyard humour.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Probably better than, in fact, given that most of them left the factory with multiple faults.

Not Rolls Royce's finest hour when it came to quality control.

[Berni]

And yes. Still. Two years, eh? On one level, I want to say 'Is that all?', but on another it seems like yesterday. Odd.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

You do understand that it is a Fiat, don't you?

The Ghibli is a nice car.

[Classic Jorge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_rBidCkJxo

[Monty91]

All together now...

[Berni]

Is there a Mrs T? Or is he...y'know? A bit...the other way?

NTTAWI

[Monty91]

:bitracist:

[Monty91]

[Classic Jorge]

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

People leaving open goals and inviting the tap in.

[Monty91]

[Berni]

[Supermac1976]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

Forever befriending poor children? Check.

None of it looks good.

[Brentwood]

Where, for example, someone says something like, "you need to take it really slowly and make sure you hit it hard enough"..."that's what I said to your mum"

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Back in the game.

[Rich]