Ohhhh, I would
I'd never own a rice burner. And as for motorcycles, my Harley eats crotch rockets for breakfast!
Ford and GM brand loyalty.
- Thread starter Joe Namath
- Start date
Ohhhh, I would
I'd never own a rice burner. And as for motorcycles, my Harley eats crotch rockets for breakfast!
Yeah, it's rare to see the ubiquitous Calvin peeing a <insert band name> decal.
the only work ive not done is electrical, brake jobs, exhuast replacement, head gasket, AC repair, water pump, oil change, and many other small issues. im not a huge motorsports fan, like ill sit and watch rally racing or formula 1, but im not all about it. my girlfriend is a huge NASCAR fan, so much that it scares me sometimes. as far as brands, im not loyal to one, as long as the company doesnt issue a 2-3 recalls a week for 18 months *wink wink*
Maybe I should amend my thoughts to say NASCAR or NHRA fans. I doubt most F1 fans can drive around in a Ferrari or a McLaren. Back in the day when both of those organizations were great, the reason the big three automakers backed racing was "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday."
I have done pretty much every mechanical and electrical job you could name on my own cars, and helped others with theirs. Right down to engine transplants and roll cages, to swapping transmissions, suspensions and mild tuning.
I love rally racing (the poor WRC is nothing compared to what it used to be), Targa racing, most track racing from touring cars to F1, things like Dakar, and of course Moto GP. I have even helped out a few smaller teams with wrenches in the past.
After having owned most major brands I keep going back to the same brand, and it ironically is the same one my father always preferred. My last car purchase, I took 4 months of research and testing almost every car over 2 categories (that is more vehicles than you think as some overlap into other categories). I looked at Hyundai, Kia, Ford, GM, Dodge, Fiat, Alpha Romeo, Vovlo, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Nissan (owned by Renault), Honda, Mazda, Subaru, VW, Seat, Renault, and Peugeot.
The things I will not compromise on a car are safety, and the ease of doing my own maintenance on the vehicle (that rules out more vehicles than you would think). Safety for obvious reasons, I can't understand driving around in a death trap when it is one of the easiest ways to die. Now maintenance, I can't stand companies who think so little of their customers that their engineers when designing a car make it almost impossible for the customer to work on their own cars. In my humble opinion, GM and BMW have been very guilty of this in the past.
I'm not bashing those two, in fact my very first vehicle was a 1956 Chevy pickup and my wife just got rid of her BMW 135i Msport. BMW gets around this with free service contracts, but I feel for the person who owns some of their cars 10 years down the road.
Anyway, after my extensive search, I narrowed it down to: a Seat Leon, Subaru WRX, Ford Fiesta ST, Mazda 3, Renault Clio Renaultsport, Alpha Romeo Mito Quadrifoglio, VW Golf, and surprisingly the Suzuki Swift GLX and the very ugly Peugeot Partner Teepee. So many cars I wanted to include got excluded due to safety concerns, the country where I was buying the car doesn't have the same laws for safety as many would expect, things like side airbags are often omitted except for on the highest trim levels of a car. Shockingly, the VW Polo, Toyota Hilux and Mazda 2 had no side airbags available at all, and that Hilux is not cheap.
Anyway, the Subaru dealer managed to find me a year old WRX hatchback which had been forgotten at the import lot for over a year, in the exact colour my wife wanted, for about 2/3rds of the original cost, with 12km on the odometer when delivered. So I purchased that. My previous car was a 2002 WRX hatchback which stayed with me pretty much problem free as I drove it very hard all over the North America 3 times (literally).
Besides the obvious advantages of horizontal engines (ask Porsche and BMW motard about that one), and the symmetrical layout of the Subaru drive train, the safety is 2nd to none (and boy have I seen some of their cars in crazy accidents) and working on one is almost like playing lego.
I learned to drive in my Dad's old 1988 Subaru GL 4wd which got hit by a deer and written off when the odometer was well over 400,000 km(original clutch and every other major component), he now owns 2 Outback H6 (in the same colour strangely), my sister has a Forester, cousin has a Impreza VX, and now my step son just bought a WRX. The brand won us over with good mechanical engineering, reliability, performance, safety and ease of maintenance. My father, who got his mechanics license through an apprenticeship at Rolls Royce, has also tried many other brands, but now he doesn't even bother shopping around, he just buys Subaru.
I will always shop around and see what is available as things constantly change, but I have a strange feeling one brand will keep me coming back to them.
I love rally racing (the poor WRC is nothing compared to what it used to be), Targa racing, most track racing from touring cars to F1, things like Dakar, and of course Moto GP. I have even helped out a few smaller teams with wrenches in the past.
After having owned most major brands I keep going back to the same brand, and it ironically is the same one my father always preferred. My last car purchase, I took 4 months of research and testing almost every car over 2 categories (that is more vehicles than you think as some overlap into other categories). I looked at Hyundai, Kia, Ford, GM, Dodge, Fiat, Alpha Romeo, Vovlo, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Nissan (owned by Renault), Honda, Mazda, Subaru, VW, Seat, Renault, and Peugeot.
The things I will not compromise on a car are safety, and the ease of doing my own maintenance on the vehicle (that rules out more vehicles than you would think). Safety for obvious reasons, I can't understand driving around in a death trap when it is one of the easiest ways to die. Now maintenance, I can't stand companies who think so little of their customers that their engineers when designing a car make it almost impossible for the customer to work on their own cars. In my humble opinion, GM and BMW have been very guilty of this in the past.
I'm not bashing those two, in fact my very first vehicle was a 1956 Chevy pickup and my wife just got rid of her BMW 135i Msport. BMW gets around this with free service contracts, but I feel for the person who owns some of their cars 10 years down the road.
Anyway, after my extensive search, I narrowed it down to: a Seat Leon, Subaru WRX, Ford Fiesta ST, Mazda 3, Renault Clio Renaultsport, Alpha Romeo Mito Quadrifoglio, VW Golf, and surprisingly the Suzuki Swift GLX and the very ugly Peugeot Partner Teepee. So many cars I wanted to include got excluded due to safety concerns, the country where I was buying the car doesn't have the same laws for safety as many would expect, things like side airbags are often omitted except for on the highest trim levels of a car. Shockingly, the VW Polo, Toyota Hilux and Mazda 2 had no side airbags available at all, and that Hilux is not cheap.
Anyway, the Subaru dealer managed to find me a year old WRX hatchback which had been forgotten at the import lot for over a year, in the exact colour my wife wanted, for about 2/3rds of the original cost, with 12km on the odometer when delivered. So I purchased that. My previous car was a 2002 WRX hatchback which stayed with me pretty much problem free as I drove it very hard all over the North America 3 times (literally).
Besides the obvious advantages of horizontal engines (ask Porsche and BMW motard about that one), and the symmetrical layout of the Subaru drive train, the safety is 2nd to none (and boy have I seen some of their cars in crazy accidents) and working on one is almost like playing lego.
I learned to drive in my Dad's old 1988 Subaru GL 4wd which got hit by a deer and written off when the odometer was well over 400,000 km(original clutch and every other major component), he now owns 2 Outback H6 (in the same colour strangely), my sister has a Forester, cousin has a Impreza VX, and now my step son just bought a WRX. The brand won us over with good mechanical engineering, reliability, performance, safety and ease of maintenance. My father, who got his mechanics license through an apprenticeship at Rolls Royce, has also tried many other brands, but now he doesn't even bother shopping around, he just buys Subaru.
I will always shop around and see what is available as things constantly change, but I have a strange feeling one brand will keep me coming back to them.
Last edited:
Similar threads
