So, I've been driving this gold Chevrolet Cavalier since mid 2004. That's 11 years and about 100,000 miles (161,000km roughly). Unfortunately, someone wasn't paying attention and rear-ended me at near-highway speeds on March 23rd. I wasn't injured beyond some whiplash, but my car was totaled.
My old ride
As a result, I had to go buy a new car. Unlike much of Europe, public transportation isn't very useful in Dallas unless you happen to live and work in specific convenient locations. I suppose I could've bought another inexpensive used car, but that's not a lot of fun. Besides, I'm a professional now. I've been thinking about buying a car for years.
So I made a short list of cars I found interesting and spent most of Saturday doing test drives. By Monday I knew which one I wanted, hit a couple dealerships, and signed the contracts by the late evening. They kept the car until Tuesday to install some anti-theft stuff and window tint and I picked it up that evening. So this is my first full day with my new car.
At any rate, I got a 2015 Chevrolet SS.
It's considered a 'sports sedan'. It's basically a fairly large, 4 door car with a 415hp V8 in it. It's the same engine as in a standard Corvette. It goes 0-60mph in 4.7 seconds (about 0-96kmh), with a top speed of 165mph (about 265km/h). The trade off is that it gets terrible gas mileage, which is 16.8L/100km. Is that how you guys measure fuel economy, in liters per 100km? Weird.
I'll post some actual pics of my real car once I get them, instead of stock pics. I just though I'd let you guys know. Now I'm in debt for a few years.
I'm still learning all the little neat tricks and stuff, but let's just say it's probably the nicest car I've ever driven.In case there's any curiosity, the other cars I test drove before deciding on the SS were the BMW 335i, BMW 328i, Scion FR-S, and Nissan 370z. The BMWs were probably more luxurious, and certainly had way better gas mileage, but they were much smaller and didn't have the power. The Scion isn't bad for its price bracket, but its internal niceties are of a much cheaper variety. It also had some stupid over-sized exhaust to make it appeal to the crowd that likes those things, but it's a huge turn-off for me. The 370z is really nice... whereas the SS is a effectively a modern 70s American muscle car, the 370z NISMO is a pure sports car. It's fast, handles really well, and is pretty damn sexy. It also has no back seat at all and a trunk so small it's practically useless. It'd be a fun second car, but doesn't make sense as a main vehicle, in my opinion.
. I test drove a jaguar xf about 2-3 years ago, fantastically quiet, awesome diesel engine and absolutely fucking useless in snow. Got stuck in snow about 300m from the dealership.
And man, I've been experiencing a mid-life crises for the last 10 years or so.
I'm guessing gas mileage isn't really a priority in the US either, what with the relatively cheap gas prices? Not that the mileage is terrible or anything.
