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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   2762 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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(1) Buy an ordinary fuel-efficient hatchback

(2) Have a body shop cut out the back half of the passenger compartment and weld the rest of the car back together

(3) Get a super-fuel-efficient two-seat car

Real-life example (pre-modification fuel-economy comparison)

Would you do it?

Why not just buy this little guy instead? Same price, low miles, only ten years old, intentionally designed to be that size, and it's even kinda cute. Come to think of it, I ought to buy my wife one of these.

The two-seat ForTwo gets worse fuel economy than the five-seat Mirage, and requires premium gasoline to boot.

I'm not arguing that a ForTwo is a particularly good vehicle, I'm saying that getting a 30 year-old chopped up Geo Metro to simulate a ForTwo is a stupid idea.

With regard to a ForTwo relative to a Mirage, it is simply inconceivable that you're going to save enough money on gas to make up for the initial price difference. If someone wants a cheap, economical two-seater, a $4K used ForTwo is a legitimate option, a new Mirage isn't a competitor to that in any meaningful sense.

I used the Metro only to show that the idea was realistically possible to execute (e. g., on a new Mirage). I wasn't suggesting that the Metro was comparable to a new Mirage.

OK, then my answer is that I would not pay an extra $15K to get a chopped-up Mirage instead of just buying a used ForTwo.

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