Ahhh…mangeorge, you bring back some memories. Many a time I drove my little '69 bug over the Grapevine. While truckers were forced to hibernate for the night in the cruddy little town of Gorman (worst chili in the country!), I was was able drive right through with a $100 set of snow tires! Alas, the tires lasted longer than the chassis.
ManGeorge, a VW Bug has several major advantages that most 4WD pickups don’t have: 1. An engine (or the majority of the vehicle’s weight) over the drive axle.
2. A fairly well distributed mass.
3. Narrow tires; exactly what you want on snow.
Your standard 4WD pickup with AT tires will bog down in snow in a heartbeat, even with chains, unless the driver is reeaallyy careful with the throttle.
During the one serious snowstorm I had to take my Jeep through, I put about 300lbs over the back axle, broke out my roadside air compressor and put about 5-10 additional psi in all my tires, put on my snow chains, dropped it in LO and kept my foot off the gas and feathered the brakes when I needed to stop.
I laughed my ass off at all the 4WD pickups slipping and sliding off the road as I passed them at 10 mph.
Goes to prove a maxim I live by: all the fancy hardware in the world can’t compensate for the laws of physics, common sense and a touch of skill.
<FONT COLOR=“GREEN”>ExTank</FONT>
“Beep Beep, Jeep Jeep!”
My pet peeve: I own a Dodge Ram Van. Yes I use it. I haul horses, go camping, skiing, road trips, etc. I don’t care if it gets dirty, or even scratched. My problem is parking. When did everyone start owning “compacts only”? I swear they must come out every night and make the spaces smaller. I think I live in the SUV capital of the world, and I totally agree with the assesment of latte drinking yups being the primary owner of these vehicles. They wouldn’t dream of even letting their precious cars get dusty! As far as safety, Volvos are very safe, I hear!
This is third hand, but it’s a good story if you add salt.
The VW bug was designed by the same guy that designed the Porsche. Lots of parts can be interchanged (or could with the 60’s models anyway) I am told. There was a fellow who took a Porsche 911 engine and put it into a bug, with just a little modification (apparently there was a hump sticking up, partly obscuring the view out the rear window; otherwise it looked like an ordinary beetle).
His habit was to roll up to stop lights in southern CA and challenge the sporty cars to drag race. The drivers of those mustangs, trans ams, etc. were mighty surprised to find themselves left in the dust by a VW beetle going 180mph in about twelve seconds.
I don’t know about 180 mph, but with a little rework and a little bolting-on you can have a Beetle that’ll do a 1/4 mile in 14 sec. That’s with a VW engine!
Add some more stuff and you can get into the high 12’s and low 13’s.
Wanna drag?
Peace,
mangeorge
Jeep Cherokee…old beat-up thing was used to haul a huge german shepheard. Now gets to go to bush roads. I love the 4x4. But I am falling in love with a Subaru GT2.5 Sedan. Please don’t tell my Jeep.
Cogito Ergo Vroom
I think therefore I ride fast…
I’d say maybe 30% of SUV owners actually use them as a “sports utility vehicle.” The remainder are a combination of soccer moms seeking new options to a minivan, egocentric men seeking new options for a behemoth truck, and moneyburners seeking to be a part of the latest trend.
I find them to be a most unattractive and impractical vehicle, both for its awkward size and gas-guzzling habits. I did find it somewhat amusing when gas prices shot up out here in southern CA to around $1.75/gallon; SUV owners were the ones complaining the loudest, whereas I was paying maybe $3.00 more per fill up in my little 30mpg Civic. It will be interesting to see how popular SUVs are should the economy turn around, as another predicted.
I don’t like them because, well, I drive a Civic. I already had my last Civic totaled by an 18-wheeler, and my fortune in that accident actually has me paranoid that next time I will not be so lucky. I won’t win a battle with an SUV, and tend to drive very passively around them.
And parking! What is REALLY stupid is while these SUVs have gotten larger, parking spaces have shrunk. Every time I go to Kaiser, I swear I am cheating death–their parking structure is so compact, not to mention the spaces themselves, that I struggle just to fit my little car in the spaces–nonetheless next to a large truck or SUV. Then, of course, I’m blind backing out. Stupidstupidstupid.
Oh, and someone said a SUV is a woman’s car. Naw, the supreme “girl’s car” is that new Volkswagon Beetle. How many straight men do you see driving one of those things, with its built-in flower vase?
And on that note, I’m off to work. Avoiding SUVs all the way…
Laura