car_demon
10-09-2005, 09:36 AM
A lady friend at work is going through the typical mid-life cougar crisis. Divorced for quite awhile, single mom with child of 10, re-inventing herself with a sexy body, trying to be fashionable ;she is still young at heart, okay looking but still desires in her repressessed way to get mens attention. She was hounding me for opinions on what car to get as long as it was japanese sporty.
It was one of those woman that have 10 other guy friends that were babbling; her preference in styling and size and price-range came down to her owning a RSX, CELICA, RX-8,or MAZDA 6 SPORT. She wanted to learn manual, but my car was a NO-NO! and I recommended she look in the yellow pages to take a professional 3hr crash course from a driving school to forget what she thought she knew. You see, most people that drive M/T operate it but have not strived for perfection or art of smooth shifts in daily driving. They show-off with the all to common 1st-2nd major whiplash jerk, and wrong gear selection for terrain and cruising speed. You notice these things as a passenger reading a book or trying to sip a hot beverage.
A few weeks ago she bought a Premium 2005 RSX 160 HP@6500 w 141ft/Trq@4000, leather, snroof and leather coming to around $36K in her case. She asked me to take it for a wee lil\' boot on the 401 to suburbia here and drop her home and tell her what I thought of the vehicle.
1st things first. Most people buy certain automobiles according to thier preference, affordability, main usage and conveinience. That being said, I was told by her to give my opinion. Being a Japanese car fan in-general we all pay homage and tip our hats to certain landmark or heritage car makes and lineage for craftsmanship, trendsetters and those that raised the bar on how cars should be built. I don\'t have a shrine for dedicated to HOnda/Acura the VTEC gods but my feelings had to be released.
Just circling the car I could see the seemless body panel construction, the fit and finish, the nice simplistic layout, ergonomics etc that come with Japanese based builds and this car I guess is considered mild sport luxury I guess. Whatever that all meant was demolished in the fact that the transmission was automatic with the optional manumatic/tiptronic/sportshift/psuedo manual sportmode transmission.
I know people who have never driven manual cars justdetest the arrogance and conversation of automobile die-hards who claim M/T is the best. Certain cars and especially 4cyl in-general benefit from rowing your own gears. From the standpoint of what she paid and the type of sporty pretensions her choice, just spoiled the car as I told her. It all came down to the power robbing, delayed response and hindered performance that lay dormant in her tranny choice of a car with such potential. She admitted that she wanted more power with the Type S but it was only offered in manual and she bought the car impulsivley without the learning curve of learning manual and it got me thinking. Most of us will get a wee bit older, have commitments and will get the cute-ute or mini-van, but coming across some additional income we will crave some sporty performance BMW, AUDI, ACURA, MAZDA, INFINITi, NISSAN, PORSHE and the thought of A/T should not even cross our mind.
It was one of those woman that have 10 other guy friends that were babbling; her preference in styling and size and price-range came down to her owning a RSX, CELICA, RX-8,or MAZDA 6 SPORT. She wanted to learn manual, but my car was a NO-NO! and I recommended she look in the yellow pages to take a professional 3hr crash course from a driving school to forget what she thought she knew. You see, most people that drive M/T operate it but have not strived for perfection or art of smooth shifts in daily driving. They show-off with the all to common 1st-2nd major whiplash jerk, and wrong gear selection for terrain and cruising speed. You notice these things as a passenger reading a book or trying to sip a hot beverage.
A few weeks ago she bought a Premium 2005 RSX 160 HP@6500 w 141ft/Trq@4000, leather, snroof and leather coming to around $36K in her case. She asked me to take it for a wee lil\' boot on the 401 to suburbia here and drop her home and tell her what I thought of the vehicle.
1st things first. Most people buy certain automobiles according to thier preference, affordability, main usage and conveinience. That being said, I was told by her to give my opinion. Being a Japanese car fan in-general we all pay homage and tip our hats to certain landmark or heritage car makes and lineage for craftsmanship, trendsetters and those that raised the bar on how cars should be built. I don\'t have a shrine for dedicated to HOnda/Acura the VTEC gods but my feelings had to be released.
Just circling the car I could see the seemless body panel construction, the fit and finish, the nice simplistic layout, ergonomics etc that come with Japanese based builds and this car I guess is considered mild sport luxury I guess. Whatever that all meant was demolished in the fact that the transmission was automatic with the optional manumatic/tiptronic/sportshift/psuedo manual sportmode transmission.
I know people who have never driven manual cars justdetest the arrogance and conversation of automobile die-hards who claim M/T is the best. Certain cars and especially 4cyl in-general benefit from rowing your own gears. From the standpoint of what she paid and the type of sporty pretensions her choice, just spoiled the car as I told her. It all came down to the power robbing, delayed response and hindered performance that lay dormant in her tranny choice of a car with such potential. She admitted that she wanted more power with the Type S but it was only offered in manual and she bought the car impulsivley without the learning curve of learning manual and it got me thinking. Most of us will get a wee bit older, have commitments and will get the cute-ute or mini-van, but coming across some additional income we will crave some sporty performance BMW, AUDI, ACURA, MAZDA, INFINITi, NISSAN, PORSHE and the thought of A/T should not even cross our mind.