On Tue, 07 Feb 2006 13:58:47 -0600, City Father wrote:

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 16:24:22 -0800, Ron Wanttaja
wrote:

I don't think Nader went after the Thing...that was about ten years after his
heyday. The Thing tanked because it was a piece of crap. It had all the
drawbacks of the standard Beetle (low power, poor heater, floorboard rust-out,
fairly poor mileage) and none of the good aspects, and zero quality. And
next-to-no occupant protection.

I owned one for ~20 years, I should know....

How many USA cars have you owned for 20 years, Ron?

*Owned* the "Thing" for almost 20 years, only drove it for about eight. Was a
third/fourth car for much of the time I owned it, quietly rusting away in the
garage. It was a spare car when I was single (bought in ~1978), then my wife's
daily commuter 1981-1984 until we bought her a Nissan pickup. After that, just
took it out on warm, sunny, Seattle evenings to drive around with the top down.

Had 88K miles when I sold it, basically because I was tired of it cluttering up
the garage. We've owned the pickup for the past 22 years, same thing....been
sitting nearly idle since '93. Think I've put about 4,000 miles on it in that
time. Don't object so much to it, since there are times you absolutely *need* a
pickup truck. It now sits in my hangar, so the garage isn't cluttered.

The Thing's only advantage is that you could carry a full sheet of plywood in
it. Not *totally* in it, mind, but it would sit flat.

But if I were offered the choice of being in an accident in the Thing or in my
22-year-old pickup, I'd be in that Nissan *real* fast. The Thing had big
storage pockets in the doors...pretty convenient, until you realized that the
outside of the storage pocket was the inside face of the exterior sheet metal.
Absolutely nothing to resist a side impact but flat 0.060 steel. If you slammed
the doors, the whole side of the car would shake back and forth. Didn't make
much difference to a dashing 24-year-old Lieutenant, but as you get older, that
sort of thing does give you pause.

Have driven several US-made cars for longer periods, including more miles. Have
owned two US cars older than 20 years old ('46 and '51 Willys Jeeps, back in the
'70s), still wish I had them.

Ron Wanttaja