Best Of

@driver100 said:

My neighbor has a new fancy car every week, usually two cars. I figure he must own or work for a high end leasing company, or he must be a drug dealer. This week he has an 2025 Audi RS Q8 performance model that looks great....they call it gold but it looks like a brighter type of tan color.

This picture doesn't do it justice....they only cost $156000.

But does it have a backup camera?

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Probably not since their HOA put a ban on them.

jmonroe

I have learned to live without a backup camera. It's more fun living on the edge....real men (and to be P.I. real women) don't need backup cameras!

I kept watching to see what @driver100 did with his 2014 w/o backup camera. I hoped to do the same to my Cruze 2015 with no camera.

As to living on the edge..., life with no backup camera reminds me of some of the elderly drivers I've seem parallel parking and doing other parking lot maneuvers through the decades. Go until you hear something hit. Then go forward until you hit... That's life without a backup cam for ME in tight spaces. The 3 mirrors still leave me uncomfortable.

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Look at it on the bright side…at least you haven’t whacked the mirrors.

jmonroe

@driver100 said:

My neighbor has a new fancy car every week, usually two cars. I figure he must own or work for a high end leasing company, or he must be a drug dealer. This week he has an 2025 Audi RS Q8 performance model that looks great....they call it gold but it looks like a brighter type of tan color.

This picture doesn't do it justice....they only cost $156000.

But does it have a backup camera?

————————————————
Probably not since their HOA put a ban on them.

jmonroe

I have learned to live without a backup camera. It's more fun living on the edge....real men (and to be P.I. real women) don't need backup cameras!

I kept watching to see what @driver100 did with his 2014 w/o backup camera. I hoped to do the same to my Cruze 2015 with no camera.

As to living on the edge..., life with no backup camera reminds me of some of the elderly drivers I've seem parallel parking and doing other parking lot maneuvers through the decades. Go until you hear something hit. Then go forward until you hit... That's life without a backup cam for ME in tight spaces. The 3 mirrors still leave me uncomfortable.

@driver100 said:

My neighbor has a new fancy car every week, usually two cars. I figure he must own or work for a high end leasing company, or he must be a drug dealer. This week he has an 2025 Audi RS Q8 performance model that looks great....they call it gold but it looks like a brighter type of tan color.

This picture doesn't do it justice....they only cost $156000.

But does it have a backup camera?

————————————————
Probably not since their HOA put a ban on them.

jmonroe

I have learned to live without a backup camera. It's more fun living on the edge....real men (and to be P.I. real women) don't need backup cameras!

Speaking of thin metal, I remember that about my dad's Datsun 610 project car, which he bought for something like $80 around Y2K. I remember going 55 mph in that car and thinking we'd be vaporized in a crash - whereas the fintail feels like it is made from surplus Panzer metal.

Yes, those early '70s Japanese imports seemed to use thinner sheetmetal than what the market here was used to. Certainly it rusted through very quickly in the salt belt although that may have been due to lack of surface treatment also.

Funny memory: in '74 my parents wanted a car to replace our '68 Volvo which had been a good and faithful servant but was starting to be troublesome. They looked at the '74 Maverick LDO they ended up getting, but before they decided on it for certain, I suggested they visit the Mercury dealer near us that always treated my car-crazy self well by letting me load up on brochures and wander around their showroom. They didn't have any identical Comet LDOs, but the salesman showed them one with the deluxe interior which looked OK. When they mentioned they had looked at a Maverick, he said words to the effect that Mercurys were built from thicker sheetmetal than Fords, which I found strange. But oddly enough, when we were looking at the Maverick, for some reason I discovered that there was a lower fender extension just behind the front bumper that would flex quite noticeably if you pressed on it. I tried that with the Comet, and no flex. Odd. FWIW, the Maverick they bought rusted as badly as any Japanese import.