Work by Ron Cobb
I feel like a more accurate (though much less catchy) name for this community would be !fuckcarcentricsociety. Cars are awesome! They’re fun to drive, feats of engineering, and in the right conditions like a rollercoaster without tracks. They just fucking suck when they’re practically required to live. I’m as big a proponent for public transit, you shouldn’t need a car to get to your job or grocery store, but you can’t look at something like F1 and say that’s not exhilarating.
Something that NotJustBikes brings up in one of their videos is that the Netherlands’ incredibly bike- and public transit-oriented infrastructure makes driving a car (for those who want or need it) much more pleasant as well.
but you can’t look at something like F1 and say that’s not exhilarating.
strong disagree. perhaps in the 60s and 70s - before we understood that ICE was spewing carbon dioxide and ruining the ecosystem sure.
Today? F1 is a fucking travesty - rich assholes burning crazy amounts of fuel to speed around in circles taking more from future generations every fucking lap.
If it were all electric powered by renewable resources harvested nearby I’d have less of an issue, but anything combusting is a giant middle finger to your own children. “Sorry skippy, even we knew, we still didn’t give a fuck to stop the silly games.”
Today? F1 is a fucking travesty - rich assholes burning crazy amounts of fuel to speed around in circles taking more from future generations every fucking lap.
While I don’t disagree that spectating races is boring, the amount of CO2 those put out pale in comparison to commutator traffic or the container ships running bunker fuel. We could have EV races and if each manufacturer entered their base models, could help with adoption. We could also make the ICE races run biogas(methane from antibiotic digesters) or biodiesel(tractor pulls could easily adopt that with only a small lowering of performance that all the tractors would share).
but anything combusting is a giant middle finger to your own children.
All consumption is.
I agree the environmental impacts are certainly an issue, but the emissions from the sport alone aren’t that bad, the worst is from all the travel done on private jets between locations. They’ve also done some work towards being more eco-friendly. The cars run hybrid V6s instead of V10s and by 2026 will use fully renewable biofuel. There’s also Formula E, which is an entirely electric motorsport.
There’s just some things an ICU can do that an electric motor can’t. It’s simply impossible to get the same amount of power as an F1 car from purely electric propulsion at the same weight.
so you know it’s a problem, you know the sport’s total footprint is the cause, you even point out THEY know it’s wretched and are making half hearted efforts to someday maybe do something.
but you give them your attention.
There’s just some things an ICU can do that an electric motor can’t.
but it’s entertainment, not some mission critical life saving thing, it’s to watch cars go fast driving in circles.
fuck me, our civilization deserves to collapse.
we deserve to collapse because we like to be entertained?
i wonder if what you used to type and send this comment onto the internet uses any sort of battery
we deserve to collapse because we like to be entertained?
when the specific entertainment is dicking around the ONLY FUCKIN’ ATMOSPHERE WE HAVE yeah I think so.
you like the taste of smog? or is it simping for petroleum companies?
Or is the attraction fracking?
Watching the poles melt in real time?
Come on man, which is the part that gives you the entertainment?
1969 and it is still relevant.
I love the groceries in the front seat because there’s no room anywhere else.
Even though some sort of trunk or storage could totally fit without increasing the vehicle volume.
That’s what I tell people. The reality of driving sucks. You might be in love with your fantasy of a 500 HP beast, but
meanwhile on an open mountain road on a Sunday afternoon
“Woooooo!!!”
Where you’re driving is as important as what. You’d love to drive a Civic Type R.
In a hospital? Maybe not.
Nah, FL5 Type 5 has hill assist, rev match, anti stall, and brake lock. With really comfy bucket seats. At speed you got Honda’s bitchin adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist. It’s as comfortable as a manual car can be for commuting and traffic. 10/10 would recommend as daily driver.
The fact that it needs to be open means 99% of people can’t be there, which includes 98% of 500 HP car owners.
I’ve always wanted to do this in video form - have a montage of heroic car ads that just crossfade together with tons of shots of those gas guzzlers sitting at red lights and in traffic.
How I felt last week in my busted up 350k miles shitbox when there was a Lamborghini and Ferrari beside me crawling through traffic. Even once we were out of gridlock their average speed was probably the exact same as mine. My car costs probably 500 dollars and there’s cost literally a 1000 times more than that. Made me feel good. Also made me feel like ramming them just because
As it turns out, road speed is limited by laws, safety and traffic, not the HP of your car engine.
Which perhaps makes the purchase more justifiable in Germany when you live within reach of the Autobahn…
As someone who has a big guilty pleasure for sports/performance cars and racing in general, this comic actually explains really well how I’m able to reconcile that with my dislike of car-centric infrastructure and wishing for better public transportation: without other means for getting around cities for people who don’t care much about cars (i.e. most people), everyone will be forced to use cars for basic transport, meaning really clogged highways and traffic jams that directly affect you and your fancy sports car’s enjoyment.
Conversely, if infrastructure was more accommodating for bikes, trains and buses to make them more viable, most people would use them, leaving the streets and highways freer for you to have fun driving your sports car the way it was meant to, instead of being stuck in traffic jams most of the time.
I just wish most people who are into cars realized this, instead of raving about how “they want to take away our cars!” and fellating Andrew Tate and other shitheads.
Why aren’t sport cars rented instead of sold? Only place you can really use them is the race track.
Lots of racetracks sell packages like this, pay $$ to take out a certain car or groups of cars. But for lots of people it’s just as much about the tuning/improving of their own car as it is about the driving.
Ok, good point.
Au contraire, my Fuck Cars fellow. A sports car’s agile handling and peppy acceleration are enjoyable even at street legal speeds. They are of course most enjoyable when driven nearer to the limits at a track, but most stock “sports cars” require some modifications to be reliably driven under such intense conditions.
think, for a moment, about the world you’re leaving to the future.
is it really worth peppy acceleration when you KNOW that is wasteful and literally costing your children? Because that’s who’s gonna pay that bill. Not you or me. Our kids and grandkids.
cars for fun made sense before we understood the actual costs.
these days it just seems gross, you got yours, fuck everyone else.
I’m happy to spend my carbon budget on an occasional Sunday cruise with the top down on a sunny afternoon, rather than overseas holidays, excessive consumption, etc. I don’t commute by car, I ride my bike as much as possible, and I advocate for improved public transit infrastructure in my community, which all have a far greater impact than my ~460 kg/year of CO2 from my joyrides.
Isn’t the more significant problem that the 98% of motorists who don’t give a rat’s ass about the driving experience, are effectively forced to drive when they could be taking alternative transport, if the infrastructure supported it?
Please, for the love of God, quadruple the carbon tax and invest it all in public transit, so that cars are treated like the luxury they should be.
You can do both!
Buy and rent?
No, seriously. Guzzle more gas, prone to dangerous driving. Thus my idea to only rent them at race tracks.
You have both options.
One of the big draws to things like muscle/sports cars is customization, and upgrading. You can’t do that with a rental, so one of the biggest portions of that market will be left out.
The groceries in the passenger seat are a nice touch, because of course there’s gonna be no trunk space.
Instead of a macho man forging their destiny, it is a woman, given that it is the 70s, likely a housewife, coming home from grocery shopping.
How do you know she’s not a macho man forging his destiny as a housewife?
Because it is the 70s, and I am going with the common themes of the time
And doing groceries or work-related is why most people drive.
While I can afford it, I intentionally have the smallest, most efficient vehicle I can possibly get away with owning while still meeting my mandatory social requirement of having a vehicle.
Due to a lack of public transportation, it is required. There’s no other practical means I can use to do the 45 minute commute to work, short of perhaps buying a motorcycle which puts me at risk due to the predominance of huge SUVs. I’ve considered an E bike, but we don’t even have sidewalks on this route.
I just can’t swallow investing in something that either sits outside or sits in traffic. I don’t use half of what that little four banger is capable of.
I always wondered that. Like why have 400 hpwr if there is no opportunity to use it.
Fast cars are fun to drive (if you are blissfully ignorant of how dangerous speeding is), but knowing what I know now, it is scary how easy it is to drive a fast car recklessly. I don’t have a source at hand, but I’d bet money that high HP cars kill children and pedestrians at higher rates than small eco cars do.
They are fun to drive! However, you really need to have room for it IMHO like some open or back roads to drive on. If you don’t live near many of those then that’s definitely something to consider. Getting to the bumper of the car in front of me faster is less interesting.
And trucks are just fast cars with worse handling and braking, and worse outcomes for bystanders in accidents.
People don’t buy these cars and worry about the fact that it’s parked in the driveway or that it’s stuck in traffic during the week.
It’s bought because it’s something they want and they enjoy owning, and because they can fully utilize the power in the evenings or weekends.
Just enjoy your life, buy what you want. Stop worrying about how much it gets used.
First two sentences sound very much like an advertisement.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Spend your money where it makes you happy. I’d feel more sympathetic if I didn’t feel compelled to own one when it’s not something that brings me joy.
I kind of think of it like owning a high-end smartphone. Practically speaking maybe it doesn’t make as much difference as a more cost-effective option, but if it makes you happy, by all means. Life is short. But I can still just manage to get by without a smart phone these days if I wanted to do that. I can’t say the same for a vehicle.
i thought they bought these cars to compensate for erectile dysfunction 🤷
Lmao, no.
People do enjoy fast vehicles. It’s fun.
Still, the culture surrounding spending so much of your money on a depreciating asset just to have fun or maintain appearances is crazy.
Americans are spending $1000/month for 6+ years to drive a car that mostly sits in driveways, parking lots, and traffic.
That’s why I keep advising people to buy used, and to be able to pay for any expensive toy fully in cash. It saves so much depreciation money, and causes you to not go into debt over an expensive toy.
Most of enjoyment in life is spent around depreciating items that you’ll get no return on: food, entertainment, travel. If you don’t spend your money on enjoyment and focus only on return, what have you done with your life?
Made trillions.
Kidding aside, if the item wasn’t such a significant chunk of one’s earnings and also wasn’t on the never ending purchase cycle perpetuated by advertising and culture I’d feel differently.
Buy a nice car that fits your budget and provides satisfaction. Keep it for long enough that it doesn’t impact your family’s financial stability.
You also are under the assumption that the people who constantly buy new cars can’t afford it. For me, it brings enjoyment (something that is not tangible). I also can afford to buy a new car every few years. I view it as something I take pleasure in similar to eating or traveling.
The other perk about me doing that, is since I eat the depreciation, when I turn it in, someone can buy it for cheaper and drive it until the wheels fall off if they want.
And yet people get so bent out of shape when I point out that most cars are nothing more than expensive toys for adults.
Nothing inherently wrong with expensive toys for adults. Not my cup of tea, but still.
nothing wrong?
what planet do you live on, where pollution isn’t a problem, where they have a clean ocean that’s not so acidic shellfish can’t form their fucking shells?
please, tell me there’s nothing wrong with stealing your enjoyment from the mouths of future generations?
pfft
Agreed, nothing inherently wrong with expensive toys for adults. For instance, I have a sailboat. I just don’t insist that everybody structure their lives and build their world around it.
Not inherently, but the way people drive? Some people definitely treat driving like a literal toy or a video game, and have no respect for how easily you can kill someone. I can’t help but feel like this is a result of american car culture (speaking from an obv american perspective , since the world obv revolves around us /s)
But they don’t race them on a track like someone who actually loves speed. They use them as status symbols to flex on the poors.
I thought that was the coal rolling mega trucks the US has? At least I can see past a sea of mustangs or any other sports/muscle car.
As someone whose only car is a Honda S2000… yeah kinda.
Do honda s2000s get that bad of gas milage? They’re pretty small, lightweight cars
The engine is pretty high strung so you’re lucky to get 20-24 mpg. If you drive it hard (and it wants to be driven hard) it’s going to be less. That’s still probably better than the kind of huge muscle car in the picture, though.
The other thing is it’s just not a pleasant car to drive in traffic. It’s a manual transmission car (only ever made in manual) and it’s really easy to stall, among other things, so it’s not fun to drive through rush hour.
…i’m surprised to read that; my elise and MX-5s all get around thirty miles per gallon on the street, it’s only on tracks where fuel economy drops precipitously…
The S2k is just in a weird spot due to the engine being so crazy. The 2005 EPA rating was 17/23 for example. It’s a combination of high revving engine (you seriously drive in the 3-5k rev range in normal traffic), short gear ratios, and more weight than either an MX-5 or Elise. The thing is a legend but it’s far from perfect! Or perhaps, it’s a legend because of the imperfections the engineers gave it.
…the elise’s 2ZZ-GE is nearly as highly-strung as the F20 (splits the difference from the F20C at 8500 RPM) but it’s also 10% less displacement, which may make the most difference in fuel economy compared to pushing 40% more weight in the S2000…
…i wish my mazdas revved so high!..
Ahh, gotcha. Thats a shame, my dream car is a miata which I’ve always wanted to daily drive, and I tend to think of the s2000 similarly since they’re a lot alike in many respects
Miatas are pretty similar, but modern ones have some nice advantages! It’s rated for 25/35 mpg, for example, and unlike a lot of car makers Mazda’s fuel economy numbers are pretty realistic. A Miata isn’t going to be as painful to drive in traffic, either. Not unless you modify it or something.
My dream car is an NA, so a bit less practical lol, but I still desperately want one
Also the clutch doesn’t require much force to engage, and 1st gear seems pretty forgiving, at least on the NDs. I can’t say I enjoy driving in traffic, but it’s not too bad
It’s a shame the MR2 isn’t made anymore.
This is why people have a commuting car and a track car. Your track car is often not your commuting car
Murica
Y’all pretend roads outside the city and weekends don’t exist. My commute is a joy.
Most people live in a city, and are therefore subject to traffic like this.
Wrong. Individually Urban neighborhoods were about 100M. See what you have done is combined urban and suburban populations like it’s a political map. But the suburban population of the US is 175M with rural adding 46M.
So no, most of the US, does not experience this nor do they live in a city. They probably live near a city.
Suburbs are a part of a city.
Look even expanding your scope here, only 40% of them live in early suburbs vs late and exurb. And only the early suburbs from the top 6 metropolis. The vast majority of small metropolis early suburbs look nothing like this.
https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/built-environment/us-cities-factsheet
It is estimated that 83% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950
https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-majority-of-people-in-the-world-now-live-in-cities
cities with more than 50,000 people have become the most popular living areas worldwide, as shown in the chart.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270860/urbanization-by-continent/
North America as well as Latin America and the Caribbean were the regions with the highest level of urbanization, with over four fifths of the population residing in urban areas.
Looking at counties instead of actual cities is your problem.
Exactly, the comic is showing an urban driver’s problem. Fortunately the USA is massive and we have many more uncrowded roads across its vast and beautiful landscape that drivers can travel freely upon. Traffic jams are rare in my area, but occasionally I visit Atlanta or some similarly large city and marvel at how much it sucks to drive in their traffic.
True freedom includes having room to breathe and roam. For those who haven’t experienced it, my condolences.
Something tells me you drink and drive
Not at all. They are assholes.
You’ve invented such an angry fact about me 😑.
Is the “Fire Storm” Emblem on the front of the car on the billboard making the whole thing look AI generated, or am I getting paranoid? Or maybe both?
AI with a copyright and signature?
http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2014/05/on-strips-ron-cobb.html?m=1
I think they’re playing off the vanity of the car makers and owners wanting everyone to know exactly what car it is.
I think they mean how the F on the billboard melted
Oh. I think that’s just throwaway newspaper comic quality plus jpeg.
Whole set of panels from the author here. These are very old stuff (take a look at the Politics section, it is filled with references to 60s and 70s era US; therefore I guess this too was made much before).
Ron MF Cobb!
One of the greats of concept art, and a true inspiration.
RIP
