Aston One-77: I Know a Cat Named Way Out Willie
I thought that “hand built cars are better” thing disappeared on March 5, 1908. That’s when Cadillac won the Dewar Trophy, awarded by the Britain’s Royal Automobile Club for progress in automobile engineering and racing. Cadillac scrambled parts from three cars (720 × 3), reassembled them and drove the vehicles straight into the history books. (Who knew you could park a car in a book?) But the idea of hand-crafted supremacy survives—thrives even—at the top of the market. Rolls Royce, Maybach and Aston Martin all play heavily on the fact that the vehicles are hand-crafted. I know there’s no way to mass produce parts for a car that’s made in Fabergé egg quantities. I’ve seen (and commissioned) the world’s best automotive artisans. But there’s something ridiculously antiquated about celebrating price-no-object one-off-mobiles. Surely modern mass production is the greater, unsung triumph, where hundreds of thousands of people work together to create a vehicle that’s safe, somewhat stylish, reliable, comfortable and, above all, affordable. Should it ever come to fruition, the Tata Nano will bring bring prosperity to millions of Indians. The Nano will be a greater accomplishment than this fantastic work of art. Just sayin’.
More by Robert Farago
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With apologies to The Johnny Otis Show (or Eric Clapton)...
That we're seeing this with predominantly British makers doesn't surprise me. In a culture where classism is the lingering toxin of its feudal past, there's still a sizable amount of people who get off on the whole bespoke thing, the Nano being its polar opposite: a work purely of and for the (unwashed!) masses. How interesting that the most theoretically profound challenge comes from Britain's own former colony who itself struggles with class (caste) to this day. How the Maybach plays into that is beyond me. It's a car I utterly ignore.
Panel Beaters and an English Wheel. . . only in Old Blighty. Next you need a Penny Pinching boss wearing a bowler, two guys in a Coventry Shed creating some world-beating engine, runaway sales in the USA, runaway Unions, leading to Nationalisation schemes, British-Leyland, and collapse. Wait a minute, we've seen this movie before! --chuck
If I recall a recent post about GM management only driving, and signing off, on "ringers" at Mesa, AZ PG, and then read RF's comment about Caddy winning the Dewar Trophy, something comes into my head that never occurred to me before regarding that Dewar win of long ago. Is it possible the cars in the trophy competition were "triple ringers"... and this may have been "ground zero" for this long-lived GM practice??