Similarly, the back seats are designed for adults, when > 50% of the time it’s children in the back seat.  So we end up with booster seats to get close to the level of safety a properly designed seat would provide – except that’s only if they’re properly installed, which they very often aren’t.

If the back seats were just designed to accomodate children in the first place (mostly just giving the seatbelts a sufficient amount of adjustment range), then kids could be safer on the whole than they are now, and wihout all the fussing with booster seats (if you’re catching a cab later you have to decide whether to haul one around all day, give a few adults a ride home and you have to stow it in the trunk – no wonder they’re often hastily and improperly installed)

(About 51% of all Japanese are women. Fewer than 2% of all women are Japanese.)

Most custom shops just do the build, and source the parts. The lack of lateral infrastructure, means you’re paying overhead for each component, if your having it done by a third party custom shop.

So they’re not really risking a failed car, so much as they’re risking limited custom parts. Which would be easy enough to sell off (for profit), at the end of their run, so long as the market isn’t saturated. This normal practice with all car options. If generally customers aren’t willing to pay, they wont customize as many at the factory. Then keeping the market free from over-saturation, they can maintain their profit margin, just over a longer period of time.

You make this point better than me. I haven’t lived in Japan like you, but I’ve been exposed to Japanese culture  and house-mates - not tons but enuf –  to find this obvious.  

Needless to say, the ‘la Femme’, stock, is far, far, more butch than the crap pouring from the arse of the U.S. and European auto manfufacs nowadays. ‘Aggressive Styling’ is fcuking ugly and already dated. Yes, they have a lot of horsepower, BFD, it’s easy now – nothing inspired.  

My WWII veteran friend and I visited a new auto-dealership, Martin said ’That’s no Charger’…

…Actually, Martin didn’t exactly say that, he was more verbose, and after the test drive, fairly technical. But, having been an owner of a bonefide Charger back in the day,  this was his point.

Martin eventually bought a Lexus, I forget which one, it was a sedan. I also test drove the Charger, and the Lexus — and myself having owned a 60′s era Charger for, like three minutes as a teen, the brand new Charger didn’t do it for me, especially for the price, and the douchy feeling when driving it. The Lexus was great, drove like a Mercedes. (I am a pre-1994/95 Mercedes enthusiast, they’re my yardstick. Plus I know how to fix them for cheap which is a big deal to me now.) 

This Honda car for women? I’m not sure, but I know it is only for the domestic Japanese market. This car makes sense to me in the campy, light-hearted, Japanese, cosplay sort of way. 

I like this Honda car, if I was flush with disposable income and it was available in the US, maybe I would buy it. If I was a woman, I probably wouldn’t, but maybe I would. I just don’t know ’cause I’m not a woman. 

If this car was done up in camouflage and marketed to men, with a free gun and gun-rack, I don’t know, I think I’d want it. Either way, the idea of this Neuterey Honda Fit being fitted with female or male drag really is a hoot.

Because it is such a hoot, I believe Honda would sell even more of these if they present the pretty-in-pink Fit and the puppy-dog-tails camouflage Fit as some sort of his and hers deal. This might really work. 

Not calling owners of the revived Charger douches! I am so not.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2006/07/princesskitty1.jpg

Oh, for the love of pink! Will the women of the world never have this terrible yoke removed from their necks?!

No seriously, is it just me or are there no good colors for new cars? My options are gray, gray, gray, beige, another beige, white, black, boring blue, and sedate red. The best options were for the Mini-Cooper line, but the color I wanted only came on the convertible, despite the mini being modular so why don’t they all get the same colors…?

Another sleaze-trick is having to go to the office for approval of every price negotiation. In reality, they go to the office and trade jokes, read a magazine, or check the latest sports score.

I did not buy a Camaro.

Both options would be very appealing – spoken as a 6’4″ male with wide shoulders.  Many car seats expect me to tilt my head forward, then crane my neck upwards.  Alternately, I find the width of many seats leaves the center of my back unsupported as I am basically leaning back against the forward side edges of the seat.