-When the weather is nice it's always an uneventful drive, but when it start snowing it can be real bad. Especially if you are driving at night on an interstate highway used mostly by truck drivers and there is a blizzard. With the combination of asshole truck drivers and hellish road condition it was almost the end for me...by about 2 inches.
-The city of Philadelphia is very weird to me as it one of the largest metropolitan in the U.S., but I am just not used to the grid set up with the tiny narrow roads with cars parked on both sides and people riding bicycles on it. I was waiting all night for us to hit someone or some car parked on the street.
-A night in Philadelphia China town, one of the oldest China towns in North America. However half the people on the street were not Asian but Blacks. Overall it was a good night fun that involved clubs, spicy squid and Ox penis soup...hmmm maybe that was club "Woody" at the Gayborhood, not really sure.
-Now for the real random thoughts of the day. I keep on seeing the what can Toyota's innovation do for you commercials and it made me think, who are some of the LEAST innovative car makers in recent memories?
1. Honda/Acura
Honda and Toyota used to be like flavor of ice creams, whoever you pick is the same at the core. But last 10 years Toyota has really differentiated itself from Honda as it really made a huge push for their luxury brand Lexus, a huge push for technology and all these has helped Toyota become one of the largest car maker in the world, leaving Honda in the dust. Buy a Honda today you will realize a few things, they either really believe the motto if it aint break don't fix it or they are just that conservative. Did you know that my 2008 highest trim Civc doesn't even have any kind of stability control? Neither did I, and you will not believe it either when I tell you Honda is about to make an Insight w/o cruise control. Honda is really starting to wear thin that reputation for reliability and the once mystical V-tech engine. But Honda wasn't always this way, here is a list that will shock you.
-Honda is one of the first to develop the stability control system in the early 90s, yet it is one of the last to adopt it on all of its car line ups.
-Honda is the first to differentiate their brand by inventing Acura for the North American market. Shocking because you will never know it if I ask you which one is more well known, Lexus or Acura.
-While Lexus used to be re-badged Toyota cars, it is no longer the case as Lexus is making more and more luxurious cars with very high techs. Acura on the other hand still plays the same hand since the introduction in early 80s. The Acura TSX is still a re-badged Honda Accord, in fact it's the Honda Accord in the rest of the world and in every sense of the car too. For example it still doesn't have keyless start/stop while Ford Fiesta has it.
2. BMW.
-Speaking of wearing that reputation very very thin. BMW used to represent the pinnacle of automotive engineering, from that mystical 50/50 weight distribution to the world renowned straight 6 engine. Every part of each BMW makes the ultimate driving machine come alive, and then it decided to join the luxury market and battle it out with Mercedes. It's all good but race cars are usually light and nimble, while luxury cars are big and lazy, so something has to give. Well unfortunately for all the car enthusiasts out there the cars are getting bigger and heavier, and to make up for the weight gains, the engines are getting bigger too. So now that unique bimmer experience is almost no more than a big muscle car.
-Another problem with BMW is using their their reputation to sell cars. They charge a hefty premium on their cars because they know people want that advanced German engineering and the luxury branding. But did you know BMW still live in 1990 when it comes to the definition of luxury? Here is a list of things that are not standard on the best selling BMW 3 series that starts at $34000, be warned this could be so shocking it could cause potential blindness.
a. Leather is not standard. This is truly a WTF moment, seeing as you can get leather standard on a 20000 dollar VW Jetta. I have no idea why it's not on a Bimmer.
b. Fake plastic wood. If I wanted those I could get them on a 18000 dollar Toyota Corolla and not a 3 series that can cost as much as 52000 dollars and not have real wood trims.
c. other seemingly minor things that are not standard on a BMW 3 series. Moonroof, Xenon headlights, heated seats, keyless entry, keyless start, the list just goes on and on. Now you may say not having these are not as bad but when you realize that these are standard on a Hyundai Sonata then it doesn't look particularly good for BMW when the cheapest 3 series is about 15000 dollars more than said Sonata and with all these options equipped, you could easily add another 10000 dollars to that price tag. What's more to this embarrassment is the lack of power in the 3 series, because the said Sonata also has way more power and speed than the world renowned 3 liter straight six engine, the ultimate driving machine indeed.
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