engine RPM and gas consumption

"Thomas Schäfer" > wrote in message
...
> Why forcing the customers to take a big engine, even the smallest
> is good enough for 168kph!?

Horsepower becomes a bullet-point that can be used in advertisements.
American cars rarely have anything else going for them besides the
horsepower. Good taste/style (Chrysler 300, Dodge Magnum? yuck)handling,
and fuel economy are not high on the list.

Also, American drivers just suck. They need the horsepower to race each
other to the next stoplight, and most also speed. Alot of them don't have
the "left lane passing only" thing down, that's part of the problem. Left
lane becomse the fast lane, and the right lane becomes the other passing
lane.

>
> > the early VW Beetles had 25 horsepower,
>
> Really? We have the modell "Beetle" in Germany too, but it is a quite new
> one
> with much more hp. Or do you mean its archetype "Käfer" from 1946?

The "early" Beetle being the circa WWII compact designed by Ferdinand
Porsche that had the rear air-cooled gasoline/petrol engine.

I would have liked to have bought a new Beetle with the TDI engine, but
those are even harder to find. It's not the most practical car but it
looks fun (a local dealer has a 2001 TDI model with automatic transmission
for $12,000- but it's yellow). Here in the US they have a reputaton for
being "chick cars"- driven mostly by women, or cars that women find cute
(the Chrysler PT Cruiser is another one). But of course almost all of them
are gasoline powered.

It seems the Bug in the US has more nostalgia than in Europe. Maybe a
factor is because the original Beetle was commissioned by Adolf Hitler,
wanting to imitate the success of Henry Ford's Model T. Legend has it, he
gave it it's distinctive front end (original called the "Kraft durch Freude
Wagen", which morphed into the KDF-Wagen, the German equivalent of the US
Jeep). It comes from a time period that alot of Europeans have worked hard
to overcome. In the US, the Beetle is assosciated with 60's hippies,
frugality in the 70's, and inexpensive fun, there's no Fascist overtones (my
aunt used to drive a VW Bug- and it was incredibly cramped in the back,
that's all I remember).