<gloom>

Having found the second article........ (yes I was a tad confused for a bit.....).

I'm not sure what you're not sure about! Though having a 3x4x4, especially 2 V8's, family representing "us" is not necesserily good PR, nothing personal, I'm just thinking what the anti's will make of it.

Personaly, I belive you can't win with the anti(anything)'s - I used to go to Galstonbury every year in the good old pre-commercialsed days (couldn't give a toss about CND - just out for a good time), and there where any number of anti-anything-you-can-think-of's, but they all had one thing in common, they were essentially opposed to anyone enjoying the fruits of their own labour, since they were not about to get off their butts and earn the "privilages" themselves. The lengths they would go to fool themeselves, never mind the public, was trully inspiring.

One or two *did* realy care, but they mostly seemed to come from *very* pirivilaged backgrounds, and are now probably running their own companies, company cars and all - most likely PR firms.

Flame proof suit donned.

Richard

They were only after V8's....nothing else. Odd huh? I bet they cut the bit where I say it's the same engine as the BMW 7 series....

In all honesty I don't think that 75% percentage is anywhere near true now :(

I think the clinching argument for the Landy is that figure I saw bandied about that 80% of all the Landys ever made are still going. Now the "embodied energy" in a new vehicle is enormous, huge amouunts of plastic, steel, aluminium etc. etc. Has anyone got the numbers ? I reckon, that taken over the proper product lifecycle for the Landy, they are far and away more efficient than many modern eurovagen.

Steve

On Mon, 6 Feb 2006 15:30:21 +0000 (UTC), "Neil Brownlee" scribbled the following nonsense:

"During a heated debate Vicky asks Neil, "don't you care about your children - they're going to inherit the planet".

"Neil retorts, "They're going to inherit a 4 x 4!" "

is a cracker, would have loved to have seen her face!

I doubt that's true of the Range Rover, Discovery and Freelander given that they're aimed at a softer market who are more sensitive to scratched plastic and peeling paint than the Series and Defender market.

Personally I think that the antis are right about the posh 4x4s, they are a total waste of time and space, e.g. newer range rovers, BMWs, mercs etc.

I too have to congratulate you on this line!

Mark

I'll bet - pointing out that many saloon cars use far more fuel doesn't fit in with the politics of evny.

Richard

I wouldn't push that one - of the first million Series motors how many are still on/off the road? LR got a slap from the ASA over that campaign.

Doubtless there are many more LR "survivours" on the road than any other make (except possibly VW camper vans), but 80%? - Nothing like I fear. An awful lot of, particularly 109, Series motors died when 90/110's dropped to affordable prices around 4/5 years ago - I went from actaully managing to sell s/h Series bits to chucking the lot in a skip in just

Richard

I have to agree with you. The site of a Rangie on low profile tyres makes me puke. Steve

...and Steve Taylor spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

Unfortunately, no - I wish I could find the source, as it forms a cast-iron answer to the "scrap all polluting old cars" brigade. I have read (and I am happy to be corrected if anyone knows the real figures) that about 80% of the lifetime energy and pollution cost of a vehicle is in its manufacture. In other words, my old Land Rover has done almost all of the polluting it's ever going to do, smokey exhausts, high fuel consumption and oil leaks included. Whereas if I scrap it and order a tiny Eurobox or small diesel that does a million miles to the gallon, I am setting in train a sequence of events which will cause catastrophically large amounts of energy to be spent and pollution to be caused in my name. Try that argument on an anti - they don't like it. Series Landies, V-Dubs and Morris Minors - the cars of the future!

If the Govt were serious about pollution, they would stop allowing the motor industry to expand, and instead encourage the redeployment of the workforce into small teams of engineers devoted to keeping the existing vehicles (most of whose pollution has already happened) on the road. But then, if they were serious about pollution, they would not be slapping punitive taxes on biodiesel, or allowing the unrestricted expansion of cheap air travel. It's all down to revenue, not clean air. Hypocrites.

Prolly not good to mention I'm a member of Greenpeace, then... :-)

The 'issue', for me at least, is about balance. I feel it's all to convenient to focus upon 'the 4x4' and acts to divide opinion which could be far better placed - collectively - elsewhere. Equally as inappropriate as the 4x4 is the 'MPV', or the shitty chav-hatch with booming bass (noise polution), or the collection of scruffy white vans that seem to be excluded from emission tests, or high performance sports cars, or...

And... while I'm sort of touching the subject of noise polution - WTF is the point of having an alarm system that 'cheeps' every time another car - or person passes? Does the owner immediately rush to the window to check their chavette is still there? No, course they fecking don't - they don't even hear it over the noise of their surround sound hi-fi chav-tv...

Was she pretty?

...and Mother"

She's got a goateee..... ?

Mother"

Indeed, it's worth clarifying my dig at the road-going 4x4s by adding that the bit I agree with the antis about is that there's no real point in them. I don't think they add anything significant to pollution compared to the large number of non-4x4s, in the same way that green-laning doesn't add anything to the destruction of the countryside compared to farming, housing, supermarkets etc.

A convenient target that the antis can focus on instead of their own activities, as per the massed ranks of ramblers tramping down the countryside compared to the small number of 4x4 users.

Methinks Vicky should try driving out in the Gambia

Well 80% of my landie is still going, as for the other 20% I wonder :)