From an email:
My take on how different nationalities engineer cars. In all cases, let’s assume we have two parts that rub together.
1) Americans – Make one part out of very good (and expensive) steel, the other out of lesser (and cheaper) steel. Make cheaper part easy to replace, so every 25K miles you have a couple-hundred dollar repair, but more expensive part never wears out.
2) Japanese – Make both parts out of good steel. They last 100K miles, but then you have a $3,000 repair.
3) German – Same function done with 17 parts made of steel, plastic, aluminum, and unobtainium. None of which are available separately. The unobtainium part is back-ordered.
4) Italian – Paint it red and put a beautiful woman in the driver’s seat.
5) English – Doesn’t matter, car won’t start when it’s raining, and it’s ALWAYS raining. So parts never wear out, keep them oiled so they don’t rust.
Spot on. I have owned American, Japanese and Italian cars. I will not buy a German (although they are a lot of fun) or English if it has any parts from the Prince of Darkness (Joseph Lucas).
Lucas is the reason that Brits drink warm beer - they also make refrigerators. When an electrical component fails, it frequently emits a bit of smoke. Lucas has a smoke replacement kit to repair their components
