Is This The End Of Cars Like Ferrari?

A world without Ferrari is horrible to think about. I don't think it will come to that though, Ferrari is vital to the automobile industry.

 

THESE ARE THE GOOD OLD DAYS!!!

ENJOY OURSELVES, BECAUSE IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

I hope this won't be the future...But necessity, is the Mother of invention. Will we be able to afford to buy them and fuel them. Will they be built???

This appears to be the GOLDEN AGE, What the future holds for us, I don't know?

Ciao...Paolo

 

I wouldn't worry about it. There is ways around everything.

 

I believe we are witnessing the apex of the fossil fuel powered automobile. They will be globally regulated down to enemic, black boxed governed automobiles.

Revisit the lyrics of Rush's song "Barchetta".

My uncle has a country place, that no one knows about
He says it used to be a farm, before the motor law
And on sundays I elude the eyes and hop the turbine freight
To far outside the wire, where my white-haired uncle waits.

Jump to the ground
As the turbo slows to cross the borderline
Run like the wind,
As excitement shivers up and down my spine
Down in his barn
My uncle preserved for me, an old machine ---
For fifty-odd years
To keep it as new has been his dearest dream

I strip away the old debris, that hides a shining car
A brilliant red barchetta, from a better, vanished time
I fire up the willing engine, responding with a roar
Tires spitting gravel, I commit my weekly crime...

Wind in my hair ---
Shifting and drifting ---
Mechanical music ---
Adrenalin surge ---

Well-weathered leather
Hot metal and oil
The scented country air
Sunlight on chrome
The blur of the landscape
Every nerve aware

Suddenly, ahead of me, across the mountainside
A gleaming alloy air-car shoots towards me, two lanes wide
I spin around with shrieking tires, to run the deadly race
Go screaming through the valley as another joins the chase

Drive like the wind
Straining the limits of machine and man
Laughing out loud
With fear and hope, Ive got a desperate plan

At the one-lane bridge
I leave the giants stranded
At the riverside
Race back to the farm
To dream with my uncle
At the fireside...

That is going to be us, might not be next year, or 10 years, but soon enough regulations will stifle the unbridled horsepower races in the industry.

And all the more "Dietrich" inspired high speed accidents will bring the ugly roar of protestation from the masses to heel these monsters parading on our streets.

We'll probably have to go the outlaw areas of Russia and other ever expanding "developing" nations to have some fun. But then again, look at what happened with the Gumball Rally last year in Portugal.

This is of course a worse case scenario but you never know.

cheers

ken
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Isnt this the same BS they fed us when unlead & cat converters first came in the 70's ?, then the airbag scare, remember how that was the end of the automotive world and would not save lives but add thousands to the costs? As we now know technology has advanced to the point that we are indeed in the golden age.

Now that they have closed the loopholes on the SUV's in cafe watch how fast the MPG comes up. Chevys new trucks now get 20 mpg, when last years were lucky to get 12.amazing how fast they saw the light.

As long as the public demands it, we will still have our cake & be able to drive it to.

 

For most owners of high end cars, the cost of fuel is close to irrelevant.

Heck, what good is being rich if you can't lord it over the common masses?

There will always be Ferraris, and people lining up to buy them.

Plus, keep in mind the minimal amount of use most of them get: if gas is ten bucks a gallon, a garage queen is still cheap (not) to drive.

 

One 8-71 blower would suffice!!!

 

This is all simply an elaborate movement to justify making more money off oil products, particularly gasoline.

Petrol powered cars and oil will continue to exist, as well as supercars run on it, but the costs of running them may simply go up. They may impose some kind of taxation of traditional gasoline-powered cars because there are too many of them in existence, from the most basic forms of cheap transportation up to exotics. Most people are not going to suddenly run out and buy electric or biofueled cars. They can't and won't.

I feel this issue is like anything else, eg, global warming, supervolcanoes, asteroids hitting the earth, tabloid doomsday, the hysteria is highly overblown. Gasoline isn't going anywhere. Nor is oil.

 

+1 My sentiments exactly. We came back after the early '70's
oil crunch, we'll do it again. All this global warming, electric cars etc..
just another way for politicians to stir up certain voters, and companies
to make money. Years ago the world was freezing, now it's heating up.
What's next ? Just right? Finally leading scientists are coming out debunking
Al Gores fairy tale. Do we have to take care of the environment? Absolutely.
But not with doom and gloom legislation.Let us drill offshore to rely less on the
mideast and venezuela,build nuclear reactors(clean energy), even France understands this.

 

Its all about patronage. Government will require permission to do anything (produce carbon). So civil society will become like Mexico. Everything requires a bribe, the more profitable the business the larger the bribe. No capital markets no capitalism.

Pull and cronyism rules all. Hope you enjoy it. It is coming your way.

 

The above article has been flashing on MSN all day. It's stuff like this that is used as a trial balloon to prepare us for more government influence/restrictions. Get ready for more carbon taxes etc. More for the government and less for us.

News like this: Washington may charge $40-240 yearly 'greenhouse gas' global warming tax

Vehicle licensing fees in Washington State could spike dramatically, all in the name of global warming. Six Seattle Democrats in the state Senate are trying to push through a bill that would require the Department of Licensing to collect a greenhouse gas tax.

http://www.kxly.com/Global/story.asp?s=7844233

 

Right.

Even though human-influenced CO2 is laughably miniscule, they're foisting upon the public this impending disaster scenario to justify jacking you up the a$$ with taxation. Like the pied piper leading mice around. It's all propagandist bullsh!t to pilfer more and more from the general tax-paying populace.

here is a great documentary explaining very well how politicized and unscientific the whole Al Gore-ism of society is. It's enough to make you laugh, cry, and throw up all at the same time.

Enjoy:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3309910462407994295&q=4499562022478442170



articles:
the greatest scam in history
http://www.uncommondescent.com/off-topic/father-of-climatology-calls-manmade-global-warming-absurd/
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=927b9303-802a-23ad-494b-dccb00b51a12

 

here's another good one:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6026880749850611241

 

Fortunately I live in the past. Owning a 308 and being happy with it is a nice shield to the future. It keeps me living in 1984 forever...

 

It is precisely the same BS. The automotive world was supposed to end in the mid-'70s. How much does anyone here really miss leaded gasoline? Are today's cars much slower due to cats?

My hunch is that ultimately hydrogen/fuel-cell sports cars will exceed the performance of the internal combustion-engined cars and we'll just buy those because they're better.

The only thing that does concern me is all the pedestrian/safety regs that limit what designers can do with sports cars. I.e., no more 308s or Boxers because the bonnet is too low, windscreen too raked, etc. And airbags did pretty much ruin the aesthetics of the steering wheel.

Yep, I don't think cars got much more fun to drive after the '80s. I plan to always have an older car around.

 

You can recycle energy to help meet the new MPG regulations and turbo is the way to go. Audi has a new R8 model with the Turbo Deisel 12 cyl from their Lemans car. Gobs of torque (700 something ft/lb). Small turbos spool fast so very little lag. I doubt that this car gets the stipulated MPG but this is the future - turbo diesel. You will see more and more high perfomance cars running turbos, diesel and biofuel.

 

All true but it will be different. I very much doubt there will ever be a car like The Veryon or The Enzo built again. I think these are the last of the Monsters. There will be new faster Supercars but they won't have the same je ne sais quoi...

 

absolutely, I think the Lotus Elise is pointing to the future

with enough $ & engineering talent F could make a full CF car w 500 hp + & still make 35 mpg, it might be a hybrid or diesel or both but it can be done

Cafe standards only regulate efficiency, not max hp, so as long as you make hp efficiently and have a low vehicle weight it can be done

 

Just make one with a gas turbine engine and run it on corn oil. Lightweight with instant torque and very little maintenance.

 

I just want to know where the hatred of cars and people who enjoy cars came from?

That's puzzled me more than anything.

 

Did you know that since the dawn of mankind digging oil out of the ground, we have used about 12% of all of the oil in the areas that we have dug into. Theat leaves 88% plus there are many areas that remain untouched. Furthermore, there is a 35 mile square area in Alsaka that has a vast quantity of oil in the ground.
Of course many feel that there would be a great danger to the ecology if we dig there. The same thing was said about the building of the Alaska pipeline, but alas there have been zero problems to the ecology because of the pipeline. Finally, because of geo thermal conditions, some sicentists now believe that the creation of oil may be an ongoing process. My point is that oil is and will continue to be an extremely cheap form of energy, and there is an abundance of it. I feel that it is important to find a way to burn it with fewer emmissions, but I also feel that it is here to stay.

 

Agree.

Even if the planet decided right now to switch from an oil-economy to.... whatever else... the changeover would require decades of gradual overhaul and investment. That will not happen fully within any of our lifetimes.

We have a greater chance of being hit by a comet than doing away wholesale with oil.

 

Sure they will, I bet they will be even better.

I collect old car magazines & I love to check out all those hot cars of the sixties, that a new honda minivan will TROUNCE in every performance catagory including top speed. The older we get the faster it was, not that the honda has the same soul, but a lot of todays cars have lots of that.

I was at the year one muscle car shoot out last summer in my new company car, everyone was laughing & calling me gandpa in my chrysler srt8 , until I ripped off 13.1@108 quarter mile times lap after lap in 100 degree weather, spanking big block corvettes, trans ams & roadrunners that were modded & running slicks , with my sedan on all seasons goodyears no less. Never mind what its 170 mph top speed & giant brembos would do to them on a road course. Impossible dream just a few years earlier, never mind a decade earlier, & allready surpassed by a number of medium priced sedans.


Take the porsche carrera gt, 600 hp & its a ULEV! or the honda s2000 another ulev with one of the highest hp per liter anywhere, & they are old news. The tech is there , the incentive to do it hasnt been.

Remember, the 35 mpg cafe standard was REPEALED in 1982, there were allready cars rated @ 40 plus then, when they lowered the bar, the manufacturers. just dropped the ball. Also at that time we gave the oil companies 9 billion in tax breaks to explore alternative energy! wonder where that went? The sky is falling!!! ha.

 

Bingo. And just tell the politicos that they have to ride in Hybrids not Suburbans. And pity the cops about to give chase who have to bail out becuae they ran out of veggies juice or the battery is flat. With that said there are some electric vehicles producing phenomenol 0-60 times of around 3.5 secs who batteries are flat in a 1/4 mile. But economics is the real mother of invention and that too will change but probably not before we see $10 a gallon gas (in US terms) or EU 20 a gallon in the less well endowed arenas.

Another reason to have loits of cars too - you can only drive one at a time so the gas cost is the same but the fun quotient is higher. Who needs an education when all that HP is going begging!