Electric Power Steering, The Entente Cordial, Communism, Sub-inflationary Interest Rates, and Mexico are things that whilst seemingly good ideas at first end up nearly bringing civilization to an end. Ok, Mexico hasn’t completely ruined North America, yet, and Canada is there anyway, but Electric Power Steering has ruined the automobile, as we know it. The only two halfway decent 4-door cars currently available, Audi’s revised A4 and the new BMW 3-series, have abandoned nearly perfect hydraulically-assisted power steering for EPS. Some might call this motoring for the PlayStation Generation, but they’re wrong. The Nissan GT-R is the object of gamers wet dreams, and it still has proper steering. Clearly, something is rotten in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
That stench, which arises from the country just below the Kingdom of Denmark, is actually the burning of dirty, low-grade lignite due to the zany demands of the ‘Green Movement’. Let me explain; due to the shortsighted phasing out of well-regulated and much safer nuclear power plants, the Germans generate the majority of their energy from brown coal. This same sort of idiotic Teutonic thinking has caused both Bavarian automakers to make their ever larger and heavier staple products get ever-higher fuel economy scores by making them a bit shit. Judging off this stupid line of thinking and all of German history, it’s almost as if the smart people from that country might have all left in, say, the Fifth Century… The answer is so simple, yet seemingly beyond their grasp. Once again the Germans are losing their credibility in one of their areas of expertise, excellent handling cars, because they’re just trying way too hard to be clever.
This is so sad, because the once great ‘small’ Bimmer was nearly the only thing that could redeem Germany for, how does one put this delicately… the 20th Century. Actually that’s not true; Hamburg is fine in by book due to the Reeperbahn, St Pauli FC, and influencing the Beatles to greatness. Munich, however, has quite a bit of baggage, and it’s the home of BMW. You see, Munich, despite being an outwardly lovely place, just might be the actual gateway to Hell. Being the birthplace of the Neville Chamberlain’s continued political career, International Terrorism, Milli Vanilli, wheat beer, Franz Beckenbauer, and you know… the baddies; it seems quite evident that this is probably the case. Couple this with the utter turds BMW has been producing of late, one begins to understand exactly how important it is that the 3-series be the best car in the world, and for quite a while it was. In 2001 BMW lightened the steering of the nearly perfect E46, but this was quickly rectified. The 5-series sized E90 introduced iDrive, run-flats, electronic dipsticks, and all of the quality control lessons learned by BMW’s foray into the West Midlands, yet it was still top of the class. The new generation F30 is, like all modern Bimmers, fucking shit. It, like all of the F-generation BMW’s, is too big, too complicated, and more disconnected from reality than Katie Price at a polo match. They might as well paint it white and slap on a Miele badge. No, sorry it’s more Siemens than Miele, since I’m fairly sure Miele appliances tend to work. Clearly the Germans need to enact a ‘BMW Purity Law’ or something.
Despite the best efforts of Stalin, we’re stuck with the Germans, so they might as well start learning. Engineers of Germany: if you want a car to suck less, then you might want to listen to the late Colin Chapman of Lotus fame: “simplify, then add lightness.” It’s just not that hard. Maybe if you start with this sort of easy lesson, your country might actually control the territory spelled out in your national anthem. Oops, shouldn’t have put in that joke; this is meant for the Germans. They might not have a sense of humour, but they do have a word for take pleasure at the misfortune of others! I’m almost hoping that’s all this EPS BS is, but I doubt it. Of course, you can’t really blame the Germans, all the clever people left in the 5th Century for England.
