As you will hear in today's precast, my first forray into Ferrari ownership brought me face-to-face with the studied indifference that is England's erstwhile service culture. Not only did the dealership treat me with all the contempt of a deranged six-year-old frying worms with a magnifying glass, but they charged me huge, towering heaps of money for the privilege. And gave me a FIAT Panda loaner car. Frequently. In fact, Maranello's mean machine was a constant source of mechanical malfunction and bodywork gone bad (including rust on the flying butresses)– to the point where I started calling myself a Ferrari "visitor" rather than a Ferrari "owner." The moral of the story? Be careful what you wish for. Or is that "the engine mapping program is not the territory"?
6 Comments on “Precast: Hydrogen Hype (Still), Panda Laid Bare, I Sing the Auto Electric...”
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It seems to me that the Fiat Panda is aptly named. After all, the male Panda bear is cursed with species-threatening undersized penis and low libido.
You’ve got your airplanes mixed up – it was the Soviets that shot down the KAL 747, and there wasn’t a problem with it being too slow – jetliners move at a pretty good clip.
You’re probably thinking of the plucky British Swordfish torpedo bombers attacking the Bismarck – the German AA tracking wasn’t designed with targets that slow in mind.
The old An-2 transport used by the North Koreans would pose a similar problem – between the low airspeed and the fabric construction, it would be a bear to pick up as a target on modern radar.
I’d like to say I was thinking of those plucky Swordfish, but, um, I wasn’t. It was KAL 007.
As I recall (from secondhand accounts), the first Russian fighter sent to shadow the errant pre-Mulally Boeing (or was it?) “overflew” the jet and lost it.
Amazing tale that, including the fact that Larry McDonald, America’s most rabid anti-communist legislator (“conservative to a psychopathic degree” according to the none-too-liberal Flagpole Magazine) was on board. Talk about vindication…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_007
that should help. I think.
For anyone interested in the Panda 4×4
http://www.7digital.com/stores/productDetail.aspx?shop=54&sid=218620.0
http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/car-reviews/car-and-driving/fiat-panda-4×4-1004484.html
It actually held its own in that quarry battle with the Range Rover
I liked your done on time-ed-ness. Nicely done!