Click here for Home

ROAD WARRIOR

"TECHNICAL LOYALTY"

by Flynch








It is so much more complicated then granting loyalty to a tool based on a great marketing program and while I love the engineering of my FXRP and the advantages of owning a Harley, my loyalties lay in the techical and not because that is what Outlaws rode.

I own a Husquavarna 55 chain saw. It is a superior saw , but not as popular as a Stihl, but 16 years later I just don't care what the ex-high school basketball stars use to cut fire wood with. I can count on my Husky to always start and as long as I use high quality chain lube and 50-1 pre-mix it will work all day and fill the bed of my truck. But if it ever quits running, I will look at Stihls because there are many more places to get parts for them and the same with servicing them. Oh I know not the same...well in some parts of this country it is...I have seen Stihl tattoos.

I own a 2003 Dodge Dually with a 5.9 Cummins. It is the first year with a common rail fuel system and a better computer system. I can haul a 26 foot all steel Horse trailer with a carriage and a 2000 pound Shire at 80 mph uphills...and still get 23mpg...strangers walk up to me at diesel pumps and lust over my truck. The loyalty to the Cummins motor is extremely strong. BUT the loyalty is not based on branding, it os based on great yet simple and user friendly engineering and a strong support system..sound familiar? (There is a strong connection with the Orange and Black..)...but every Cummin's powered Dodge will tell you that if Cummin's came in Ford's, they'd switch in a heartbeat. (There are many shops in America set up to swap Cummin's into Ford Trucks.) The Dodge truck has some problems. Problems that we owners learn to live with, but annoying just the same. Chevrolet has taken a huge chunk of the diesel loyalty away from dodge with the Duramax, which is a great motor, and a superior engineered truck, but the Duramax does not have the low end torque or the warm brown sound of a Cumnmin's accelerating...I have seen Cummin's tattos...but not Duramax's...yet...

I own a 1979 Impala. I love this car. It drives like a big luxury sedan from the seventies. I have always loved big cars. I guess I watched too many seventies cop shows. BUT I don't love the car because it is a Chevrolet. I like Volvo 240'a too...but when I need a new HEI distributor (and I do) I can still get one without ordering one...the turbo 350 ahifts as smooth as the day it was sold to my co-workers grandmother to drive to church on sunday....It could have been a great moment in Chevrolet's fight against Japanese and European luxury sedans...but they cheaped out, figuring that only old people would buy the Impalas and Caprice...no rear sway bar unless you bought the cop car package, and cloth interiors, no tachometer and highway gearing. My Impala handled like A 63 International school bus with retreads...even after bolting a set of 235-65-15 Goodyear eagles on it....but it rode so nice, I didn't want to ruin it with stiff springs. (No modern luxury sedans drive this nice...) I happened on a set of performance sway bars off a later model Bubble Impala SS in a junkyard and I bought a set of tubular rear control arms and WOW...the car handles totally different, no leaning, no rolling, no oversteer, and now it begs for acceleration in the corners...and lower gears...I plan on keeping the Impala, it hauls my family and almost always starts...and is paid for, but if I could afford it, I would possibly drive a Mercades or Volvo or BMW or Pontian G8...It is what Chevrolet engineers were probably aiming torward before the board of directors told Roger Smith to find ways to keep GM in business without investing in expensive and computer driven tooling like Toyota did. (Oh did Michael Moore leave that part out of Rodger and Me?) I know what I want in a daily driver/luxury sedan that I drive my family to town in. the Impala fils the job nicely and affordably. It is simply a tool, (albeit a great looking tool,) but a tool none the less that works in a manner that I need.

I also love small rear wheel drive sedans. I once got to spend some quality time with a Fiat Brava 131 with dual webers...what a great car, powerful for a small four cylinder car that handled like a slot car, (and rode like one,) No modern FWD performance sedan or coupe can compare to small rwd drive cars. Suburu Imprezas are the closest thing, but AWD drive, (though handy in the winter) is not the same. Ford and GM got it all wrong,. The Pinto, the Vega were not even in the same ball park as the Datsun 510's or Fiats..and it was a shame...becaue they had the tooling right under their Noses...Ford had the European Ford escort, a rwd small car with a decent small powerplant, (the closest thing we got was the Capri) but what America got was the cheaply built and heavy Pinto....and GM had the intelligent engineered Opel...and instead of putting money into it, they marketed the Vega instead, much like the Pinto, heavy and extremely under powered. GM and Ford thought that it was a limited audience and only built the cars to appease the governemnt gas mileage regulations...Honda and Toyota knew the American consumer better...Americans were loyal to the tool, not the brand. people didn't buy foreign vehicles because they had some anti-Union agenda or because they were simply treated bad at the dealership, they simply wanted a better tool that worked for their functions. Branding only goes so far when you are handed the wrong wrench for the wrong nut.


Not every rider wants or needs the same function from a motorcycle as other riders. And sometimes the ride has to go looking for the right tool, and if the riders brand doesn't offer that tool I can guarentee you some capitalist will ffer that rider exactly what he needs in a tool. And while that rider may not tattoo his brand on his arm, he or she will still use that tool in the manner they desired.