Home brew car snobs

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Orange Cola
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Home brew car snobs

Post by Orange Cola »

In this instance a surprisingly large number of American car owners in the U.K. I decided to have a look at some American car owners sites, groups and clubs. The one make one model places seem to be a genuinely friendly bunch of people just trying to enjoy their cars. The mixed groups where they "welcome" all American cars seem to be full of people who make snide, venomous remarks about people who don't meet their "criteria", some going as far as trying to get car shows to ban whole groups of vehicles which they choose not to like.

Some examples of what I mean are them choosing to slate a particular owner because their car isn't "American" in their eyes, for example a Jeep - an I'm just picking on this as the first car that comes to mind - that is in the U.K. Is not an "American" car to these people "because it's right hand drive". Doesn't matter that it's been designed and built in the States then imported by Jeep U.K., it makes the owner cannon fodder for these people who take great delight in dishing out some abuse when all they did was say hello or ask for some advice. Ironically a left hand drive version of the very same car that's been imported and then converted to right hand drive by someone other than the manufacturer does count, even if they use the manufacturers RHD parts.

It goes on, even when it's pointed out that some of the muscle cars and pick up trucks these folk idolise aren't actually built in the US and that a RHD Jeep is more American than the car owned by the person throwing the abuse they put the blinkers on.

One very strong ideal that is flawed is that any American car imported to the U.K. by the manufacturer - even if it's designed and built in the US - doesn't count as an American car. For example the Ford Edge or the Mustang, yet the Camaro which is also imported into the U.K. by the manufacturer and sold on, just like the Fords, does count as American. Take the Ford GT, if you bought it from Ford UK in the first place, doesn't count as an American car. If you bought it from the states and imported it yourself, it does count. What's the fucking difference?

When browsing through I found Mustang owners receive a special kind of abuse. The level of hatred is beyond the usual RWD/RWD, ricer/muscle car levels of tosh and in to serious insult swinging. They hate that the car has been such a success staying in continuous production for 50 years and selling a large volume, because it's been a genuinely good enough car to keep renewing, unlike the direct competitors. One particular post was "Time to ban all RHD Mustangs from American car shows because they're still in production, available in RHD and not actually an American car. Classic Mustangs should also be banned because they're common place in Asda car park and nothing actually special", from someone who owned a catfish Camaro. Staggering.

Worse still this level of shite is openly spouted at some of the American car shows where they also hope to trade their cars and "get new people to join the scene". As a (what appears to be debateable) American car owner I t would embarrass me if some poor joe bloggs had been on the receiving end of this shit because he happened to say he liked or owned a car they disapproved of and they felt I'd give them the same treatment.



TL:DR; mixed make American car owners clubs/forums are on a completely different level of shittiness compared to the classic one make forum folk.
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NotoriousREV
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by NotoriousREV »

Unfortunately the American car scene in the UK is full of people who are bitter that they didn’t get the opportunity to vote for Trump ie inbred wannabe-redneck morons.
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Mito Man
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Re: Home brew car snobs

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Firstly most Jeeps are just rebodied Fiats :lol:

I first noticed the odd American aficionados at American Speed Fest. Lots of talk about proper American cars despite all the cars there being American. Lots of current gen bog standard LHD Mustangs (not even special US only editions) presumably imported at great expense just so they’re LHD and have the correct VIN. Oddly the LHD cars had quite large crowds round them compared to their RHD counterparts.

Oddly enough I encountered this again last week, the guy who did the work on my car is an American car nut and has a Hellcat, so on collection of my car I told my dad to bring his Camaro - he was really excited that it was American and not European.
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Orange Cola
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by Orange Cola »

NotoriousREV wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 4:29 pm Unfortunately the American car scene in the UK is full of people who are bitter that they didn’t get the opportunity to vote for Trump ie inbred wannabe-redneck morons.
I think I'm yet to realise this. The JDM die hard lot don't have insults or hatred anywhere near what this lot do for a car they disapprove of and I can only conclude they such a miserable bunch of fucks.

The Mustang owners lot seem to take the crowd jokes in their stride, love talking about cars and helping each other out and also enjoy seeing any other interesting car on the road as much as anyone else. I can only conclude those who don't have a popular American car are just bitter and jealous.
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Orange Cola
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by Orange Cola »

Mito Man wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 4:48 pm Firstly most Jeeps are just rebodied Fiats :lol:

I first noticed the odd American aficionados at American Speed Fest. Lots of talk about proper American cars despite all the cars there being American. Lots of current gen bog standard LHD Mustangs (not even special US only editions) presumably imported at great expense just so they’re LHD and have the correct VIN. Oddly the LHD cars had quite large crowds round them compared to their RHD counterparts.

Oddly enough I encountered this again last week, the guy who did the work on my car is an American car nut and has a Hellcat, so on collection of my car I told my dad to bring his Camaro - he was really excited that it was American and not European.
The RHD and LHD Mustangs are designed in the States, built down the same line in the same plant in Michigan, yet one is "not American" and the other supposedly is. You are right though, it costs about the same to import a LHD without a warranty as it does to buy a RHD version with a 3 year warrant (funny that, innit...) but because the RHD version is available over here for the same price the values of LHD cars have tanked really hard. The RHD values have stayed reasonably high too, Mustangs were one of the slowest depreciating cars when they first came out over here. Maybe they're just bitter that they were stupid enough to import a LHD car and lost, on average, about £15k/car when they come to sell it twelve months on?
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Mito Man
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Re: Home brew car snobs

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Will probably cost a bit more to import now with the current exchange rates! I haven’t been looking at prices but funny if they’ve fallen as I remember them going on about LHD depreciating less.

There’s other problems too with LHD, with the F150 and Camaro neither have DAB radio as it doesn’t seem to be a thing in America, or at least not offered on those cars, they have satellite radio instead which doesn’t work here. If we want software updates or satnav updates we have to send the actual computer off to this firm in Sweden or Germany which takes 2 weeks. Ford U.K. and Chevrolet won’t touch it despite the former selling cars with Sync 3 and the latter selling the Camaro. The collision safety systems aside from lane departure warning don’t work as they’re set up for big American roads and LHD traffic so they’re disabled. The 4G won’t work and thus there’s no in car WiFi or satnav with active traffic updates and the car apps don’t work - but at least they have Apple CarPlay as a back up!

Speaking of the firm in Sweden they were sent the computer for the Camaro by the importer but accidentally wiped the Performance Data Recorder from it and now don’t know how to fix it. Bit of a headache :lol:
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Orange Cola
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by Orange Cola »

Is that a current shape Camaro you've got or an older one?

There's a V8 LHD Mustang that's been for sale for about 2 years now, not sure if it's still up. That was reduced to £19k. The same mileage RHD cars were £35k+. Even the highest mileage examples of the same spec but in RHD were £27k.

Some people have imported the V6 which is LHD only, those things never seem to sell at £23k-ish, the ones I've seen have been around on Autotrader/eBay for a few years.

Edit to add: S197's (the previous shape Mustang, only available in LHD, discontinued in 2014) still command respectable prices depending on the spec, some of them are valued higher than the current shape Mustangs which are LHD. Bonkers.
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Mito Man
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Re: Home brew car snobs

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Yep current shape, so same ICE as the Camaro currently sold in the UK.

It’s a shame they never put the ecoboost V6 in the current Mustang, they put the old V6 so people couldn’t mod it into a baby Ford GT. Easy to get 600+bhp with new turbos, intercooler and remap on the ecoboost.
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JLv3.0
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Re: Home brew car snobs

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Maybe choose a different website to look at? There are ones of ladies doing sex, for example.
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by Nathan »

LOL at the idea of import cars being more authentic.

Something very naff about them with their awkward numberplates and bumper reflectors.
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Orange Cola
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by Orange Cola »

Mito Man wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 11:05 pm Yep current shape, so same ICE as the Camaro currently sold in the UK.

It’s a shame they never put the ecoboost V6 in the current Mustang, they put the old V6 so people couldn’t mod it into a baby Ford GT. Easy to get 600+bhp with new turbos, intercooler and remap on the ecoboost.
It would have worked if they sold it as an NA unit, the V8 is good for up to 900bhp with a turbo set up before you need to change internals.
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Orange Cola
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by Orange Cola »

Nathan wrote: Sun Aug 12, 2018 10:23 am LOL at the idea of import cars being more authentic.

Something very naff about them with their awkward numberplates and bumper reflectors.
Not to mention the dodgy wiring because Bill DIY's all his imports to go through the single type approval.
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by John »

People are strange unfortunately and forums seem to bring out the worst of them. The 45 year old virgins living at home with their dear old mum seem to be the worst offenders :)
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Re: Home brew car snobs

Post by ZedLeg »

NotoriousREV wrote: Sat Aug 11, 2018 4:29 pm Unfortunately the American car scene in the UK is full of people who are bitter that they didn’t get the opportunity to vote for Trump ie inbred wannabe-redneck morons.
Aye, pretty much. For every decent person, there's a rock a billy who actually wants to live in 1950's era America.
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