At 08:29 PM 12/11/98 -0600, you wrote:
>The reason that there was no Dodge reps. is that Dodge hasn't put out a
>significantly new truck (no new engines, suspension, or cosmetics). I
>actually haven't seen the issue yet, but they always get responses like
>yours and print them in the "letters" department. It is kind of a weird
>idea, because just because a truck is better than the other all-new
>trucks doesn't mean that something older isn't better than it. But you
>also have to understand that it would be hard to get every truck made
>this year into a competition. That and they are afraid of a 3-peat:), it
>would probably make ford and chevy mad.:)
>
Yep, I hate those contests; the premise is fundamentally flawed.
Hypothetically, lets say that Dodge managed to create the best sport
truck ever. Lets ay that there is no way any other manufacturer could ever
touch this truck. (Maybe because of some new patented technology that only
Dodge had... Who knows, maybe it allows it to morph into a Viper...) ;-)
Now, lets pretend Dodge left this truck the same for 10 years and all
of the other manufacturers came out with nothing but crap. After the
first year, one of the other manufacturers would win the "Best Sport Truck
of the Year", when obviously, their piece of junk *wasn't* the best sport
truck on the market that year. Its stupid! If they're gonna do that, the
least they could do is to rename the thing "Best NEW Sport Truck of the Year";
its actually quite misleading... (And in the end, quite useless; its just
another way to fill up empty magazine pages.) Its like not allowing Mohammad
Ali to contend for the Heavyweight championship his 2nd year in the sport.
Its
like only allowing John Force to compete in NHRA drag racing for 1 year. Its
absolute, complete, utter mind-boggling nonsense, and it'll be a glorious day
when the auto and truck rags realize this!
What I want to know is what happens during a year when none of the
manufacturers come out with new trucks? Or lets say only Chevy came out
with any significant changes... That would be a pretty boring contest. :-)
"Duhhhh.... This year our lineup for Sport Truck of the Year is the Chevy
S-10. And the winner is, uhhh.... uhhh... duhhh... The Chevy S-10!!!
Finally, conclusive proof that Chevy has the best sport truck on the market"
(And you can bet that's exactly what the Chebby brochures would proclaim!)
I say, test every truck currently being sold on the market. As a consumer,
I don't care one iota wether the vehicle is "new" or not. If I can buy it,
its a contender, so put it in the friggin' contest!!! (Actually, I steer
clear of brand new vehicles until the bugs are worked out, so its the existing
vehicles that I'm more concerned about!)
Also, how about a "Used Sport Truck of the Year" contest? Not everyone
can afford to buy new. I guess that one would be hard to get advertisers
to finance... :-)
Ok, I guess I've released enough steam to keep from exploding for the
next few hours; look for more mindless drivel from me then... :-)
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------------------------------.
| Affiliations: DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA. RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.58@93.55), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`----------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:11:24 EDT