4 - Friday, May 10, 1991 - North Shore News

Gas-guzzler has case against ‘hunchbacks’

THE YOUNGSTERS crowding around Uncle Trev’s feet
will scarcely believe this, but once upon a time our cars —
almost every last one — were big and comfortable.

‘*Our’’ meaning: Canadians
and Americans.

There were very, very few small
imports: I remember what was
called here the “Baby Austin,”
the pre-war Austin 7, and a great
and humorous curiosity it was.

There must have been the rare
imported two-seater sports car.
But you know, | can’t honestly
remember seeing any of those be-
fore the later 1940s when the MG
TC spidered its way across the
ocean on its 17-inch wheels.

And there were some coupes
with rumble seats — ah, a lost
joy, to ride in a rumble seat —
and the rare opera coupe, favored
by the affluent single business or
professional woman (also some-
thing of a rarity).

Otherwise, every car on the
toad was...

Big.

Big enough to carry six adults
easily. Or two adults and five, six,
seven children.

Tall enough that the adults
could easily get in and out without
knocking off thzir hats. Which
most of them wore. And legroom
— legroom galore.

Thanks to the amazing advances
of automobile design, the wonder-
ful science of ergonomics —
which drew its inspiration from
the close study of the relationship
of sardines with their cans — and
especially the relenttess Social
Uplift and ecological puritanism
of governments, all this has
changed.

The big six-passenger sedan,
with its vast front bench seat, has

three. Some, clearly, are
uninhabitable for anything but
young children.

This is what progress and gov-
ernment has brought us.

The hunchback.

A couple of years ago I rode
from my beautiful home town of
Hamilton, Ontario, on a day’s
drive to Oberlin, Ohio, in the
back seat of an expensive im-
ported hunchback. Alone. Two
women, one of them my former
wife, rode in front.

How miserable was it? Every
crack in the road was a blow. My
former wife and I] haven't spoken
to each other since — a serious
loss, especially for her, since she
has been deprived of my witty
conversation.

And this dreadful little im-
poried hunchback would list today
at around $23,000.

The source of this baleful
change is, of course, government.
been replaced by the hunchback. Determined to give the appear-

No, no. Not the hatchback. The ance of saving the atmosphere
hunchback. from awful gases and fumes, gov-

Just about every fast one of ernments — especially in
these damned little imports and Washington and Ottawa — have
their copycat domestic parallels is | demanded lower and lower fuel

a hunchback. And makes you _ ery

one.
EH

Trevor
Lautens

GARDEN OF BIASES

Just go through the annual auto
issue of Consumer Reports, as
T’ve done very carefully for a
quarter of a century or more, and
you’ll find few current cars that
are anything but hunchbacks.

Almost all cars are now five-
seaters.

And CR rates most of them,
and especially the pervasive smalt

consumption fram gar makers,

To meet increasingly stringent
standards, the makers have
shrunk, downsized, lightened their
cars,

True, a lower coefficient of
drag and all that technical stuff is
good for the environment. But in
their bureaucratic and ethical zeal,
they no longer care that only a
few cars are fit for actual, full-
sized human beings.

And the New Democratic gov-
ernment in Ontario knows how to
treat such supposed pariahs.

Bob Rae’s puritans have impos-
ed a so-called gas-guzzier tax on
cars, on a sliding scale ranging
from $200 to $4,400 (on the
Rolls-Royce).

Some car makers are furious.
General Motors complains that its
Buick Regal, rated at getting 32
miles per gallon, runs afoul of the
tax.

Ford says that the tax will cost
Ontario much-needed jobs —
wouldn’t you know it, one of the
tast of the wonderful biggies, the
Ford Crown Victoria/Mercury
Grand Marquis, of which a new
design has just been unveiled (to

cl

cy

strong praise in the April 28 New
York Times), is assembled ex-
clusively in St. Thomas, Ontario,
and is aciually exported to the
United States.

Never mind that the car in-
surance figures show that, gener-
ally, bigger is safer.

Governments can demonstrate
their virtue by pointing to their
ever-harsher fuel consumption
standards, They look the other
way when the figures show that
the politically correct gas-misers
don’t protect their occupants
nearly as well in serious accidents.

The tax also takes no account
of actual miles/kilometres driven.
The virtuous hunchback driven
24,000 miles a year at 30 mpg
pollutes the air twice as much as
the ‘‘gas-guzzler’’ driven 6,000
miles a year at 15 mpg.

Which is why I’m socially un-
troubled by my four oid cars
(average age, 15 years) —— three
big V8s and a “‘little’’ V6 of only
3.8 litres. All North American and
proud of it, thank you. And giv-
ing jobs where they're needed —-
at home.

and medium-sized imports, as
having back seats that are just
marginally comfortable for two,
often very uncomfortable for

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give a little,

On Saturday May 11th between 12 & 3
p.m. come into North Van Esso & meet
some BC. Lions players & cheerleaders.
The players will sign some autographs,
the cheerleaders will be handing out car-
nations for donations to the Lions Crippl-
ed Children’s Fund.

t,

“7 People

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Did you know B.C's Children’s Hospital is a medical research centre
dedicated to eliminating childhood disease by ail,

developing better techniques for diagnosing, _srsrcampes SZONT .
treating and preventing illness? Children's Hospital

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