Ben’s Car Blog

I love car magazines. I love free stuff. What’s not to love about a free on-line car magazine?

Winding Road is literally free, yet it’s a propper car magazine. It’s free because they have almost no distribution costs. All their costs are paid through their advertising.

WR focus on what could be loosely called drivers cars so the uncharitable could say that they’re avoiding things that they’ll have to say are awful. They’re based in the US so they’ll occaisionally feature things that people in the rest of the world don’t get (or are spared). I’ve often heard my US-based car-blogging friends complain that the US auto press are scared to say that “domestic” cars are any good or to criticise foreign cars, particularly Honda and BMW. The current issue of WR has a US v. Europe feature and if you think the results are obvious, it’s worth a read.

Just thinking about a few things:

• Tarmac rallying, as currently implemented in Australia is a Bad Thing.
• What makes a car a “classic”?
• What gives a car “character”?

Oh, yeah. The thesis is with my proofreader and my supervisors for final checking.

T’other day, John Markos O’Neill posted his ambitious eleven point plan to eliminate the private car. This provoked Jalopnik to dismiss him out of hand and other bloggers, particularly, J G Halmayr from Ride (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) to take the time to carefully consider each point of the plan.

I might weigh in on specific points of the plan a bit later, but here’s some quick big picture views I have of it:

The plan, and the peak oil forum discussions that promoted it, assume that all cars polute, now and in the future. I am guessing, though it is not explicit that the view is also that cars take up land that could be otherwise used for housing, parks, etc. This is true, but that argument can also be applied to horses, bicycles, trains, busses, taxis, etc.

The plan makes the tacit assumption that everyone lives in a densly populated city. Croak from The Barvarian Falcon has already pointed this out. Public transport would not work for my in-laws who live only 10 minutes from a medium-sized rural town. Nor would self-propelled transport. Steep hills, stinking hot weather (this is Australia and it was about 30 degrees celcius when I was at their place recently and it’s late Spring here) and they’re both 60+ years old — remarkably fit for 60+ but, still.

The plan assumes everyone is white collar and disregards blue collar workers who, you know, make stuff in factories and must travel to where their work is. This point of mine specifically relates to the idea of telework which I will elaborate on later.

The plan attempts to solve an unstated problem. Why are cars so bad?

The plan tacitly assumes that all cars are equal and equally bad. A Toyota Yaris (that’s a Scion xA, I think) is the same as a Hummer is the same as a Prius is the same as a 65 Mustang in this plan.

Finally, and this is my biggest criticism, the plan assumes that cars are the problem. This is, I think, shortsighted. The problem is urban sprawl. The problem is dormitory suburbs. The problem is that cities have grown to be so big that people can’t live close to where they work or that places of work are undesirable as places to live near (it has ever been thus — no-one wants to live near a tannery). The “problem” is that some people don’t like to live in big cities (where things like car-sharing or home-delivery for groceries scale properly) for a whole bunch of reasons. Cars are a symptom.

I got an email from Bill Discher today about his research project. He thought that I was a “mechanic/body work” car blogger. This is what I sent him in reply:

I think you may have miscategorised me. This is not your fault, as I try to defy categorisation. Also, I think your categorisation scheme is good, though I have a few suggestions, if that’s OK.

First, a bit of background to establish my credentials in giving you this adivce: I’m a research student myself, studying IT, sociology and speech recognition. As well as being a car-nerd, I’m a geek. I’m into tech of all sorts from the web to cars to just about anything else. Because I have a Human-Computer Interaction background I’m also interested in design and Design (caps matter!) even crossing into architecture and industrial design as well as more ephemeral stuff like interaction, appropriation and so on. I blog about that sort of stuff at New Now Know How . I have a car-specific blog because I wanted to separate out my hard-core car-nerd stuff from my more researchy stuff (though I see them as interrelated at times).

My Dad is a straight out business dude, an corporate accountant actually. From a young age I was reading the Australian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times as well as mainstream car magazines. So I have an interest in the business side of cars, too.

I sort of see myself as crossing a bunch of boundaries.

I like old cars, like Harvey the 1500ss Maz-ota, just because they’re old. They’re sort of anti-technology at the same time as being quite high-tech. I mean, I understand more about the Document Object Model than I do about the basic working of a Weber (or even SU!) carb. I’ve often spoken with and debated people why old cars are interesting and it sort of comes down to character but a bunch of other things, too, that I can only really explain by dipping into some words and ideas from sociology (which I can do if anyone out there is interested).

That said, I have no idea at all what I’m doing with Harvey. My Dad, and a bunch of my friends, is/are the shade-tree mechanic(s) — I’m just the ignorant apprentice.

I like (old) Mazdas because on the whole they have that elusive thing, character. French cars, too. And British sports cars, and Italian… Well, you get the idea.

I like new cars because they’re new. I like them because they’re an expression of the Design Process and sometimes because they’re not and it’s fun to pick holes in things that had hundred million dollar budgets and a bunch of smart people working on them and they still turn out to be only 60-70% as good as they should be.

I like motorsports and the smell of burning rubber and walking the pits and peering into people’s engine-bays. I like rallying and dirt and everything that goes with that sport. I can’t for the life of me understand the enduring appeal of drag-racing as a spectator sport.

So, what does this have to do with your classification scheme? I think you need to open it up to being a faceted scheme, allowing people to cross the boundaries between the categories. Perhaps even a graduated scheme, with rankings on the categories for the degree to which each blogger sees themselves as belonging to each category. Or, perhaps you could stick that idea in a “future work” section.

Bill Discher posted a survey on his research website. Here are my answers.

1.) What is more important to you as a car-blogger LINKS or POSTS ? and why?

…waiting for clarification of the question… Aha.

Links are more important in terms of attracting traffic and google. My stats go up when someone links to my blog (which isn’t very often).

Posts are important in creating something that would make a reader come back. Content is still king when it comes to making someone read your stuff.

In terms of what I want to achieve as a blogger, links are more important and are something that I can’t control.

2.) Are you aware of any studies or other evidence that either links or posts have more powerful effects in getting the bloggers message out?

…waiting for clarification of the question…

No. (Also: Ha! I can spot a student asking for references a mile off!)

Well, yes, but only obliquely. Consider “google bombing”.

3.) Why do you blog? ( that can be a tough one, if you really like something I understand that it’s a question that has no easy answer)

• As a creative outlet
• Because I’m opinionated
• Because I think I’m right
• To get noticed (let’s be honest, right?)
• To practice writing — my dream job is something like Jeremy Clarkson’s. I’d only want half what he gets paid, too.

4.) What do you think (beyond your own personal satisfaction) is important about Car Blogs as a whole?

Connection with the car-blogging community and ultimately with manufacturers and other industry stakeholders.

5.) In reference to question 4, can you point out a study or some other evidence that agrees with this? [told’ya I’d ask you to back-it-up. ; ) ]

Witness Swade over at Trollhattan Saab’s “Tell GM About It” campaign.

6.) Roughly, how many friends/associates have you met OFF-LINE that you can talk about cars/automotive related subject at the depth that you want to?

Umm… 10? The on-line/off-line dichotmy is fuzzy for me. I have met people initially off-line who I have later encountered on-line, and, obviously, vice-versa. I have met more people off-line who I have previously met on-line through car discussion forums than through blogging.

Also, there are varying topics that I’m interested in. I have met more people both on- and off-line with whom I can discuss technical car stuff (carbs, fuel-injection, suspension) than with whom I can discuss car industry stuff. Car tech geeks are more common, in my experience, than car industry geeks.

7.) referring to Q 6., Roughly how many have you met ON-LINE ?

Too many to count. I help moderate a fairly large Mazda Rotary discussion site and I participate in several other sites with varying focii.

8.) Have you ever met another car enthusiast on-line then met them face-to-face?

Yes. Often.

9.) Do you have opportunities to meet other car enthusiasts (that you don’t already know) face-to-face in events such as car-rallies, car-specific conventions, auctions, swap-meets, parts flee-markets, etc. ?

Yes. Often.

Channel 10’s “creativity” knows no bounds. DriveTV is a pretty much direct rip-off of Top Gear, from the unseated audience to the mystery driver who posts times in hot cars for comparison. Sadly, on DriveTV they mystery driver’s name is “The Chip” which is much less enigmatic than TopGear’s “The Stig”.

Michael Stahl, one of my favourite motoring journos, is the main presenter. He’s no Clarkson but with only one episode under his belt he might loosen up in a while.

It’s on Saturdays @ 4pm. If you’ve never seen TopGear, DriveTV is probably a revalation. If you have, well, it’s almost there.

I love Cars! Cars! Cars! just because they’re so snarky about the car industry. Witness today’s example. (I’d have to quote the whole thing so just click the link, you’ll be glad you did.)

I’ve decided to change this site’s direction a little. As much as I enjoy writing about cars, keeping up with the (admittedly limited amount of) Australia-relevant car news is a PITA.

So, this marks a turning point. No more plain vanilla car news; lots more opinion, substantiated and otherwise.

The Petrol summit won’t make petrol cheaper…

Mr Howard played down the possibility of significant price falls as more biofuels - including ethanol-petrol blends and biodiesel - were used.

“We’ve never represented this as being some kind of comprehensive answer to dearer petrol,” he said. “It can make some contribution over time, but it should not be seen as some magical answer.”

…but it will prop up the sugar-cane industry.

(Petrol summit to fix ethanol’s bad image)

I don’t mind the look of the 380 but I’ll reserve judgement for seeing one in the flesh. The base-spec cars look a little under-wheeled on their 16″ rims but that’s easy to fix.

Every Magna (post the original ones) I’ve been in has been very good and certainly above the quality of the same years Falcadore. I don’t care for their feel-free steering but their handling is “safer” feeling than pre-BA Falcons I’ve driven (whether that’s inherrent understeeryness I’m not sure).

If they sell these to people who would have bought an Accord Euro or Mazda6, instead of targeting fleet sales and Falcadore buyers, I think they’ll do well.

Of course, overcoming 20 years of prejudice against Mitsu’s and 10 years of heavy discounting will be the hardest part. Shame.