On-the-mark commentary from C&D

[unixronin]

Car & Driver had the following comment on the Volvo YCC concept car:

"Here is a car -- the letters stand for Your Concept Car -- designed and developed by an all-female team to cater to women.  The starting point is a neat coupe.  Gullwing doors are obviously not the most practical of ideas, even if they are a good way of showcasing the car's features.  Those include such things as a system to help the gals with parallel parking, a fixed hood with the windshield-washer filler on the outside, a storage compartment for a handbag, washable seat cushions with an embroidered floral design, and headrests that are scooped out to more readily accept a ponytail.  You don't think anyone would find these features patronizing had a man designed the car, do you?"

(Emphasis on the last sentence mine.  And actually, I expect the Berserkeley radfems, should the YCC come to their attention, to excoriate the designers as gleefully as they'd excoriate men who'd designed the same car, if not more so.  After all, not only are they patronizing women and "promulgating derogatory stereotypes about women" by coming up with such design features, but by having the effrontery to dare design a car, they're acting like those hated men, and by designing those features for themselves, they're "buying into the misogynistic male-oriented power imbalance that oppresses women and treats them as inferiors," yadda, yadda, yadda.)

In other news from the same Chicago Auto Show, Fabrizio Guigiaro has designed a concept sports car for Toyota using the gasoline-electric powertrain and four-wheel drive from the Lexus RX Hybrid.  The carbon-fiber car, named the Alessandro Volta after the inventor of the battery, has three-abreast seating with drive-by-wire controls which can be positioned for a left, right or center driver, and is estimated to do 0-60 in under four seconds and reach 155mph, while averaging 33mpg.  Sounds good to me.

And to end up with the weird category, Rinspeed of Switzerland showed off a 120mph amphibious roadster powered by a turbocharged 750cc Polaris snowmobile engine, running on natural gas to develop 140hp.  But wait, there's more!  Get it into four feet or more of water and it becomes a hydrofoil!  ("I swear I'm not making this up." -- Dave Barry)

Comments

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

After all [...] yadda, yadda, yadda.

Damn, dude. You do that way too well.

Either of those two last cars, I'd drive.

Actually, if someone gave me one of the Volvo Chick Cars, I'd drive one of those, too. But I'd have to Mad Max it, and use the nastiest method possible for opening the hood up. Chainsaw, maybe.

"It's got cut outs for my ponytail, and a spot for my Prada handbag! Tee hee!"

-Ogre

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Actually, I do think some of the "features" in the Volvo concept car are dumb, regardless of whether it was designed by men or women, for men or women. Hood you can't open, indeed, *grump* (even if the user doesn't want access, how are the repair folks supposed to get at the engine when something goes wrong? Or is this meant to be a disposable car?). On the other hand, washable seat covers are a good idea, in my opinion.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

When they say the hood doesn't open, they mean for the users. You're supposed to take it in for service, not worry about breaking your nails on that scary engine thing. Tee hee!

Yuck.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And frankly, I've known women I'd trust more to wrench on a car than many men -- because the men already know it all, but the women take the time to RTFM first.

[Sudden humorous thought: Buy one to drive it into service stations and ask the attendant to check the oil. And I do think gull-wing doors are way cool, especially when it's raining.]

'Course, I knew a guy with a GM X-car (I forget which one, I think it was a Citation with a V6) who virtually never opened the hood. The engine bay on those goddamn things was so tight, his preferred engine maintenance technique was "1. Unbolt body from powertrain. 2. Jack up body. 3. Perform engine maintenance. 4. Reinstall body."
And you know what? I could see his point. My kid sister had a Skylark Limited for a few years[1], and my dad and I never once managed to clean and gap the plugs on that thing without breaking at least one plug.

[1] Until some drunk came flying off I-90 with no brakes doing, coincidentally, about 90 and ripped the front end off her car a foot in front of her ... took the sonofabitch two blocks to stop AFTER he hit her.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I have a pickup mentality, I admit. I prefer engines that I can not only work on, but fix with baling wire, if necessary. These fancy engines are too fancy! (I'm driving a Ford pickup again, and yes, I went over the under-hood features with the salesman before even test-driving it. Wow, monster battery--love it! Yes, you can buy the computer program to hook up to a laptop, too, btw.) I got my pickup based on factors like 4WD and "you can hose out the interior."

But guys with ponytails might like ponytail-friendly seats, too, and who wouldn't like washable seat covers? (See "hose out the interior" above.) Most of these features are not gender-directed, but lifestyle/attitude directed.

The "unbolt body from power train" reminds me of the Austin Marina my girlfriend in college had and I helped work on. It took two of us to replace spark plugs, because it really was similar in construction. (My Fiesta was simply a chinese puzzle, requiring carefully-sequenced parts removal/replacement. Don't ask about replacing fan belts!)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

No argument on either of those points. I think C&D's point is, if this was a car designed with these features by MEN for women, the howls of outrage would be measured on the Richter scale. But because it was designed by a team of women for women, the exact same features are OK.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and let it be said that whatever Car & Driver may think of them, I personally like gullwing doors. Especially in the rain. OK, granted, it makes it tough getting into the car if some jerk snuggles his Ford Brontosaurus lovingly up hext to you, but fuck, let's face it ... I have trouble getting into the car in that situation with regular doors.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

This woman doesn't think they're OK. Grrr.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

(even if the user doesn't want access, how are the repair folks supposed to get at the engine when something goes wrong? Or is this meant to be a disposable car?)

The garage has the means to open the hood. The car is supposed to go for 100,000 miles (If I remember rightly) before it needs its first tune-up/maintenance. It is also supposed to call the garage and schedule the appointment for you....

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I think the YCC is patronising for the reason that _you can't open the bonnet and get at the engine_. Adjustable foot pedals "to accommodate Prada boots" are fine (for all that the reason given is silly) because I'm a shortarse and will want to adjust them anyway, but if I can't change my own oil and put water in without going to a mechanic, well, what's the point?

While I do think the women who designed the car did come up with some stereotypical stuff, I have to admit they're probably closer to the stereotype than I am, or ever will be.

YCC

[felinecanine.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the team of women engineers designed the car with feature
that they themselves would want, or if they just put in features that
they think would appeal to the typical women buyer. Then you have to
wonder if the team of women engineers really has more insight than a
team that is gender agnostic.

It's pretty clearly a marketing gimmick anyways.

Re: YCC

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

fiik. and I don't think Volvo's telling.

No argument about the marketing gimmick, though.