My Mazerati Does 185, I Lost My License And Now I Don't Drive

I hope everyone had a good Christmas holiday! This was one of my better ones. I got a Ferrari LaFerrari and a McLaren P1.

That's a bit misleading. They're built out of Legos. But still! They're neat little models, for minifig-scale supercars. Lego has a new theme called Speed Champions (which the Ferrari and McLaren belong to) that's actually pretty nice. All the cars are real, and very good likenesses for the size and using preexisting Lego pieces. I learned about it by stopping into a Toys 'R Us with my sister's friends one day; they had the Ford Mustang GT, and I liked the look of it enough to say hell with it and pick it up. I've built the LaFerrari already and it was a pretty clever build.

But while building it, I noticed something interesting on the back of the second (yes, there's enough steps involded that the LaFerrari needs two booklets) manual. Look at the lineup of the three cars - middle row, right side.

Ha ha! All the engine blocks are the same size! Get it? GET IT!?

They are, from left to right, the Lego versions of the Porsche 918, the McLaren P1, and the Ferrari LaFerrari. Hmmm... Where have I seen such a lineup before?

Oh. Right. 

Yes, Clarkson, May, and Hammond were working on an epic shootout between these three incredible cars on the Top Gear track, but as Ferrari and McLaren were coming around to the idea, Clarkson was booted and May and Hammond elected to follow. As they have a new show of their own on Amazon TV called The Grand Tour, I'm told they managed to organize the competition in their first episode. Still haven't seen it, or have any idea which car won. Even so... 

Rig's A Little Old, But That Don't Mean She's Slow

Coolsprings Power Museum, Coolsprings, Pennsylvania, July 18, 2015.

Sunlight On Chrome, The Blur Of The Landscape

Of all places to find a friggin' Ferrari, Upper Burrell would not be high on my list!

But I Guess Until I Get MY Car Back This Will Do

Self-driving cars suck.

No, I mean it. I guess I'm officially some kind of luddite for this, but a future of Google-type self-driving cars sounds like the most sterile and soulless thing I've ever heard short of Communism. Either that, or it sounds like the revenge of the Parry People Mover. (Note to self: great movie idea right there.)

And yes, I can see some advantages to self-driving cars. People who need to get around, but have a disability that prevents them from operating a conventional vehicle, or an elderly person who may have to give up their license could benefit from such a technological advance. But you will never see me pop into one of these things. I object to the idea from beginning to end. 

For starters, just look at this thing. 

It looks terrible. It looks absolutely derpy. This is the Nerdmobile 9001, even more so than Rick Moranis' solar powered van from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. Google has other prototypes based on the Toyota Prius, and Audi and Lexus vehicles as well, but I'm still not impressed. Principally because the goofy thing you see above is supposed to be the production model. The modified vehicles have, so far, been used as system testbeds, rather than representing any self-driving version of their manufacturer's product. Of course, one would wonder why Google hasn't decided to try modding a Tesla electric sports car, or dare to automate a '68 Dodge Charger. 

And this brings me to my more important point: there are some of us that just enjoy driving. The Telsa roadster and the '68 Dodge are fun to drive, to operate by hand, to actually control with two hands on the wheel. It's that feeling of control that is going to trip Google up, I think. Sure, there are some people who just view driving as a chore, and would probably be perfectly open to traveling by autonomous vehicle. Maybe they will, in fact, be a majority. But there will always be those of us who prefer to drive ourselves. 

Besides, it just might make it harder to take a trip without much of a plan. It certainly seems like the interface is all about plugging in your destination and away you go, end of story. I can't imagine going railfanning in one of these, where the idea is in fact to stop at places along the tracks to watch and take pictures. That's far easier to do manually. A Sunday drive with an impulsive stop at a yard sale or two? Can you just hit a big red button and stop the car? I have my doubts. Try taking a road trip - again, the destination is vague and the itinerary is flexible in the extreme - can the Googmobile handle that? What if Junior has to use the facilities on a longer trip? That's going to be a real problem in more ways than one. The freedom and control of the automobile as we know it even today is a plus, and I worry that autonomous cars will take a big chunk of that away. 

Maybe, though, we're safe for the time being. The Atlantic has a story that details the technology and its vast scope, pointing out that it's not yet possible to plop one of these cars down in, say, Pittsburgh, and have it start driving. And when they come to Pittsburgh, I want to watch one of these things try to tackle Penn Hills, or the South Side on a Friday night. Meanwhile, Slate takes a more pessimistic view; hell, their subtitle even says it 'may never actually happen'. 

I don't know about you, but I'm perfectly happy to sit behind the wheel for the next fifty years. I guess we'll see if they're still making actual cars then. 

From Wikipedia

Sure, why not.