Monday 21 September 2020

i40

 I received this lovely message last week from a friend of mine. "Welcome to the joyless but effective world of South Korean motoring".

My old Citroen Nemo was written off following an accident and the insurance company took it away. My only other car is a loud and uncomfortable open top sports car, so shopping for a replacement was somewhat trying. I wanted to try an estate car, and ended up choosing a Hyundai i40. It's 8 years old, but even so, it's so low spec that it's laughable:

  • 16" wheels.
  • AM/FM Radio with CD player.
  • Leather gear knob.
  • Electric windows.
  • Adjustable wing mirrors.
  • Heated rear window.



That said, everything works (except the lock on the fuel door), it's smooth, quiet and easy to drive. It's also exceptionally boring.

Richard "Joyless but effective" B


1 comment:

  1. I was very confused as to the relevance or why you even mention your other car in the same sentence as shopping for a new one until some time later the penny dropped and I realized I'd fallen victim to the American habit of "verbing the noun".
    Since the collapse of bricks and mortar retail establishments and the rise of Amazon the word "shop" is now a verb and means to compare products of different brands and similar specifications to get the best value or find the one that best fits your needs e.g. "I'm shopping new lap tops, the Dell is a bit cheaper but the HP has more RAM". As opposed to the old (redundant) meaning of physically going to a shop (noun), as in "I'm popping down to the Spar for a bottle of Fanta and a packet of Hobnobs, can I get you anything?....."
    So you could see my confusion considering the pointless exercise of comparing 2 totally different things with wildly different functionality one of which you already owned:

    Roof - no, yes
    Saturn 5 acceleration - yes, no
    Fuel economy - no, 35mpg
    Luggage capacity - no, 58 liters

    When really what happened was you actually got in your car and drove around to different places looking at new cars

    Doug (Cornetto) B

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