If you had £70k to spend on a car, which would you choose? Much more than a car!

If you had £70k to spend on a car, which would you choose?

1️⃣ Porsche Cayman GT4
2️⃣ Renault Megane RS Trophy-R
3️⃣ A second-hand Lamborghini Gallardo

This Sunday, #TopGear tackles the £70k Renault-shaped elephant in the room with a good ol' shootout at the TG track pic.twitter.com/46ThMytfSR

— Top Gear (@BBC_TopGear) February 15, 2020

£70k?  Yikes, that's $121,026 Canadian!  If I can opt out of the dick swinging options above, here's how I'd spend my hundred-and-twenty-K on things with four wheels, and two:

Mazda 2019 MX-5 RF GT
$44,870 CAD
That's a GT model with bells and whistles.  Put me on a twisty mountain road in this and your typical knuckle dragger in one of Top Gear's choices and I bet I'm the first one to the end... and I won't be sending it in for service and repairs every five minutes - and it looks spectacular!


RAM ProMaster Van
$44,625 + $15,375 upfit = $60,000
If you've read this blog before you know I've got a Guy Martin/van obsession that often coincides with a mid-Canadian-winter psychotic episode (I'm getting close now) involving escaping south with a bike in the back for a chance to get on two wheels again.  The Ram's a funky van.  I'd keep back another $15,000 to upfit it into a long distance camper/bike hauler/multi-use vehicle.


That puts me at about $105,000 Canadian with two new, very different vehicles.  What to do with the other sixteen thousand?

Suzuki DR650SE
$6000 (!)
They're on sale at the moment and a rock solid piece of off the tarmac ready kit.  It'll keep up with traffic on the road (unlike the KLX250 didn't) and take me anywhere - including expanding the short Canadian riding season by tackling the odd bit of snow.  I might look into some enduro competition with it too.  It's be a rough and ready option in situations where I'd be worried about a more road ready bike.


I've still got ten grand to play with and I've already had more fun than any of the try-hard Top Gear choices.  Time for something really frivolous that'll be as fast or faster than any of Porsche/Renault/Lamborghini nonsense that kicked this off.

'08 Suzuki Hayabusa
$7000
The first thing I stumble across on Kijiji is a $7000 '08 Suzuki Hayabusa.  Odd that Suzuki is the only Japanese manufacturer I've never owned and I've got two on the list this afternoon.

I've got a thing for orange bikes, and this one looks a peach - older rider, low mileage for the year and well looked after.

I'd hold back the other three grand just to make sure this is faster than anything on Top Gear's list because I like to be Tom... Petty.


If I had £70k to spend on a car?  I'd buy a nice car, a useful van and two awesome and very different motorcycles!  Why be dull?

Triumph Tiger History

First gen Tiger from the late '30s

I've been finding out the history of Triumph Tigers from various places on the interwebs. The first Tigers were born just before World War 2 and were quickly put on hold when the war started. With rigid rear frames and girder front suspensions, these were 1930s bikes in every sense.

Tigers followed the steady evolution in motorbike technology throughout the Twentieth Century, and also followed some rather silly styling trends, like shrouding the mechanicals in 1950s aero inspired nonsense.

'69 Tiger made in the UK the same
year I was!  Nice high pipes!

Pam Anderson riding
a Tiger!

Things get interesting again in the 1960s, with late '60s Tigers, along with the British motorcycle industry in general reaching a zenith before being crushed by their own weight and a lithe, hungry wave of Japanese imports.

Through the long, dark tea time of the soul in the '70s and '80s (and while my parents and thousands of others fled the country) Triumph went down in flames along with much of British manufacturing.  In '83 John Bloor, a building contractor who was looking into the purchase of the derelict Triumph factory to build more homes ended up buying the brand.  After sitting on it for a while he rebooted it and built a new factory.  

It's one of the best examples of British manufacturing rising out of the ashes of old money and old ideas and embracing a more effective approach to manufacturing.  Without the conservative  establishments of aristocratic ownership and unionized labour Bloor was able to reignite British engineering and give it chance to shine again.  You might think that it isn't properly British if it isn't mired in limited social mobility and the kind of Kafka-esque bureaucracy that makes building something well next to impossible, but that was only a moment in Twentieth Century British history and doesn't speak to the engineering prowess of our little island.

After Triumph rebooted in the early '90s, the Tiger reappeared in '93 during the second wave of model introductions.  An early example of what came to be known as adventure bikes, the Tiger was a tall, long suspension, multi-purpose machine running a three cylinder engine.  

Having tapped into this trend while it was still only popular in continental Europe, Triumph's Tiger line has been a key part of their brand for the past twenty plus years.  If asked what bike I'd want to take around the world tomorrow, the Tiger Explorer is at the top of the list.

Tigers have been around, in one form or another, since before World War Two.  I'm looking forward to getting to know the one I found this month.


TigerLinks:
http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2013/march/mar1113-triumph-tifer-timeline/
http://www.classic-british-motorcycles.com/1969-triumph-tr6.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_TR6_Trophy
http://www.triumphworld.co.uk/pages/triumph-enthusiasts/all-things-triumph/tiger-history.htm
http://www.rat-pack.com/TriumphHistory.php
http://www.gregwilliams.ca/?p=1693
http://www.ianchadwick.com/motorcycles/triumph/time03.html

It's an Appliance

It's an appliance, you know, like a fridge...

I'm back at school this week and getting to know my new students.  In our grade nine introduction to computers class they're putting together tech-resumes so I can see what their background in tech is.  One of the nines has a prezi covered in pictures of Ferraris.  I asked him what that was all about and he said, "I love cars!"

I was surprised by my response, "they're appliances dude!"

Some of them even look like fridges!  Guess what the most
popular car colours are... just like appliances!

I've been a car-guy for a long time (since I got one when I was seventeen because my parents ponied up the difference between a car and the motorcycle I was going to get).  On the list of things I thought I'd never say, calling cars appliances is near the top, yet out it came.

Appliances are used to make domestic chores easier, things like commuting, or going shopping.  They keep you dry when it's wet, keep you cool when it's hot, and warm when it's cold, and they get you where you need to go.  They're so easy to operate that most people who use them have no idea how they work and don't care.  The vast majority of people on the road last focused on how to drive when they were getting their license, once they have it they simply operate their vehicles on habit for decades.  Cars are a necessary appliance for modern life, and that's how people use them.


Fetishizing cars is where I found an odd resonance.  As engineering and design efforts, I can still appreciate the mechanical and design elements some cars display (one of the reasons I still look forward to watching Top Gear who focus on those things), but when I see someone driving down the street in a pimped out Pontiac Sunfire I have to wonder what is wrong with them.  It's like putting a wing on an oven.

What kind of license do you need to drive a car?  In Ontario it's a G-general license, good for cars and light trucks.  Two-thirds of Canadians have a driver's license.  Older drivers who probably shouldn't be on the road keep general licenses active, we hand out automotive licenses to children before we allow them to vote.  Driving a car offers access to an appliance that the majority of people feel they need.

When I have to take a car to work it's for appliance like reasons (I need to pick up equipment or move stuff around), it's never an enjoyable experience in and of itself.  I want the car to work, to be efficient, and to last a long time... like any other appliance. 

I drive very well.  I've spent time and money improving my ability to handle a four wheeled vehicle in advanced driving schools and on the track and I've driven on both sides of the road on opposite sides of the world, but the thought of hauling tons of seats and dashboard around a track seems absurd to me now.  I'll make an exception for racing vehicles stripped to the essentials, but my interest there is mainly in the engineering rather than the driving.  The complex, raw interaction between rider and machine on two wheels is much more interesting to me now.

I have been drifting away from driving as a ecologically irresponsible means of recreation for a while, though the years I've spent getting familiar with internal combustion engines has made me a fan of their engineering.  The brutal minimalism and efficiency of a motorcycle allows me to keep that connection alive knowing that I'm burning as little gas as possible to carry the least amount of weight in the most entertaining fashion.

I'll leave the appliances to the masses.  They can get into their refrigerator white or silver vehicles and putter about in a distracted, isolated way, using way more of a diminishing natural resource and producing more waste to support a wasteful, simplistic, accessible means of transport that the majority of people can manage (poorly).  I think I'm at peace with what came out of my mouth in class, though it surprised me at the time.

appliance

[uh-plahy-uh ns]

1. an instrument, apparatus, or device for a particular purpose or use.

2. a piece of equipment, usually operated electrically, especially for use in the home or for performance of domestic chores, as a refrigerator, washing machine, or toaster.