On Sun, 22 Dec 2002, Andrew Grebneff wrote:

>
> Yamaha's equivalent of a early Celica?  What I REALLY hate... and
> this IS blatant copying of "style"... is those Hardly Drivable
> copies. The originals are ghastly enough (ill-handling gutless
> far-too-heavy crude 2-wheeled tractors) but to COPY their misbegotten
> appearance???

People copy what sells.

Do people in NZ actually buy Harleys?  I always figured they only sold in
the U.S. out of patriotism.

> What people tend to call "personality" in a vehicle is quirkiness.
> Some of these are:
> unreliability
> need of constant maintenence
> uncomfortable/unnatural driving/riding position
> idiosyncratic/unergonomic controls/instruments
> difficult to work on

Sounds like a Vanagon. ;)

> No pick & pulls here. Some owners are lazy, and their cars suffer.
> But Toyotas take this kind of abuse in their stride.

In the U.S. there have been a lot of complaints about Toyotas sludging up
and seizing.  Probably people who don't change their oil -- American cars
take that in stride, though, generally.

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
| (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org
 \__, |\__,_|_|_| "To the optimist, the glass is half full.  To the
 |___/             pessimist, the glass is half empty.  To the engineer,
                   the glass is twice as big as it needs to be."