RoAb #138 - The Rossman Returneth

Jefferson Ross is back in da house with a new baby and a brand-NEW job!  Is America as car crazy as everyone thinks?  Find out next, and we answer the tough questions, like what car from the year you were born would you most like to own? Does that make any sense?  I’m not sure . . .

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Play RoundAbout Episode 138

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Featuring: Jeffrey Ross, Eric Trytko, Craig Cole and Ben Sanders

With additional research and assistance from: Mark Malonzo

RoundAbout records LIVE on Fridays at 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT. Visit RoundAboutShow.com and click Watch Live to watch our webcast and look in on all the antics.

Show Notes

What Car from the Year You Were Born do you Want?

41 places so rad you have to stop driving and get out of the car
Bucket lists have been all the rage in the last decade and this travel website has come up with 41 “EPIC” roads you have to drive.  For some it’s because of the road it self, others because of the view.  I’d like to add to the list Route 108 & Route 10 on St. John U.S.V.I

IIHS introduces new crash test
You can never be too safe . . . or can you?  The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, IIHS for short just introduced another type of crash test, its first new one since 1995.  Imagine that!  Just as automakers start to figure out how to ace the organization’s offset exam they throw them another curve ball.  The so-called small-overlap crash test raises the safety bar even higher.  Cars are smashed into a rigid, five-foot-tall barrier at 40 miles an hour, but there’s a catch.  The obstruction is offset to cover just 25 percent of a vehicle’s front end, a glancing blow, if you will.  This may sound like a piece of buttercream-frosted chocolate cake but that is NOT the case.  Of 11 midsize luxury cars tested only two rolled away with a “Good” rating, the organization’s highest score.  If you’re curious, they’re the Acura TL and the Volvo S60.  Among other cars tested the Lexus IS, Audi A4 and Lexus ES350 were all rated “Poor.”  You know, this gets my dander up and here’s why.  Safety is great and all.  It’s a feature you hope to NEVER use but where does it end?  Cars are safer than they’ve ever been . . . EVER!  Driving and cars are already grossly over regulated and this trend shows no sign of stopping.  In 20 years we’ll all be dressed in sponge rubber and chauffeured around in cast-iron tanks!  Where’s the fun in that?  To all the safety advocates, helicopter parents and people that are perpetually afraid, guess what?  Life’s dangerous, nobody gets out alive . . .

Donut goes epicly bad

Creating Never-Built Cadillacs Using Drawings from 1934
Most people know that in the 1920’s, 30’s and early 40’s you could order your Cadillac with a custom coachwork body.  There were catalogs that you could order from if you wanted something different, but just weren’t sure what was possible.  It turns out that there were two models from the catalog that were never built.  

Is America’s automotive obsession a farce?
America and the automobile are as inseparable as salt and pepper, Laurel and Hardy or pizza and pepperoni.  The United States has LITERALLY been shaped by motorcars.  Henry Ford, fast food restaurants, Interstate Highways, drag racing -- they’re all as American as bald eagles and Old Glory.  And when you add them up it’s clear: We are a nation addicted to autos.  But are we as obsessed as we think?  According to an article on TheAtlantic.com more than a few countries have us beat.  What’s the metric?  Well, our per-capita car ownership is shockingly one of the lowest in the modern world.  We actually rank 25th!  This revelation comes courtesy of a paper released by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  Sounds like a bunch of hippies, I know  . . . Anyway, what does that mean?  Well, there are 439 autos for every 1,000 ‘Mericans.  But against the odds just about every Western European country tops us -- Italy, Iceland, the UK, Czech Republic, even Japan.  The question you’re probably asking yourself is “why”?  Researchers claim car ownership is closely tied to the size of a nation’s middle class, something that is VERY difficult to compare.  A rich person in one country could be impoverished in another.  Does this mean America’s middle class is weak or weakening?  Could be.

CARTEGORIES

And now, because RoundAbout just can’t stop giving back to you, our lovable listeners, we have ANOTHER brand-new game!

This one’s called “Cartegories.” Get it? CAR-tegories, pretty clever if Ben does think so himself. Anyway here’s how it works: each of us will take a turn and draw a virtual card at random, but we won’t reveal the contents. Instead, we’ll start naming items that describe or fit into that Cartegory.

For instance, if I were to draw a card that said “Cars Ben Once Owned” I would name the Chevy S10, Pontiac G8 and Olds Ninety-Eight and Eric and Jeff would try to guess what my card said. If I drew a card that named the “Toyota Camry” I would start listing words that describe that vehicle: bland, beige, popular, etc. Each round lasts one minute and both the guesser and the guessee get a point for the correct answer, so everyone’s challenged to do their best. Got it?

Let’s get started with the first round, the order of which we chose at random before the show.

Pick your Cartegory at roundaboutshow.com/cartegory

RoundAbout Episode 138