I’ve been desperately trying to do these Would You Rathers every Friday, and I think I missed the past two weeks, so you can see just how well that’s worked out. But I’m trying! Not well, but still. So, with my pure idiot’s optimism, let’s leap into this week’s exciting edition of Automotive Would You Rather, and this time I promise to make it less scatalogical, because some commenters complained a bit. I spent all that money getting a master’s degree in Scatology, but whatever, the reader is always right, or something. Anyway, off we go!
SCENARIO ONE: The Combination Platter
You’re on a road trip, and getting a bit hungry, when you see a Red Lobster by the side of the road. Enthralled, you yank the handbrake and cross three lanes of traffic sideways, skittering over the median like a skipped stone, and come to rest, noisily, in the Red Lobster parking lot, diagonally across two spots and one tipped-over motorcycle. You exit the car and sprint into the restaurant, where your attention is immediately grabbed by one of the lobsters in the lobster tank, which is very clearly looking right at you.
You drop to your knees and press your face against the glass as the lobster meets you on the other side. Into your mind you hear his command: FREE ME, AND BE REWARDED. Knowing a good deal when you hear it, you grab the lobster and bolt from the restaurant, knocking over tables and chairs and at least one child on a high chair.
Once in your car, speeding away from the restaurant, the lobster speaks to you again:
YOU HAVE FULFILLED YOUR PART OF THE BARGAIN, FRIEND, you hear, broadcast into your mind’s ear.
I AM THE LOBSTER EMPEROR, GRANTED INCREDIBLE POWERS BY THE ONE AND ONLY LOBSTERIAN LORD, AND YOUR ACT OF BRAVERY HAS GIVEN ME THE FREEDOM TO ONCE AGAIN LEAD THE LOBSTER COMMUNITY TO GREATNESS.
TAKE ME TO A NEARBY CREEK OR RAVINE AND RECEIVE YOUR REWARD.
You speed to the nearest ravine, using your handy RavineFindr app, and screech to a halt. Carefully, you carry the lobster to the edge and place him down. Suddenly, a large silver platter materializes between you.
THIS IS THE MAGIC COMBINATION PLATTER. YOU CAN PARK ANY TWO CARS OVER IT, AND THOSE CARS WILL BE COMBINED INTO ONE THAT POSSESSES THE ABSOLUTE BEST QUALITIES OF BOTH.
Your mind reels upon hearing this – a Porsche 911 and a Prius could mean a fast, exciting car that gets 50 MPG! A Ford F-150 and an original Fiat 500 could mean a truck that’s tiny on the outside but can somehow haul huge loads! Think of the possibilities! A Citroën DS and a Unimog! A Bugatti Chiron and a Tata Nano! The mind reels!
THERE IS A CATCH, the lobster says. Of course there is.
IN ADDITION TO THE IDEAL COMBINATION CAR, ANOTHER CAR, REPRESENTING THE WORST QUALITIES OF THE TWO CARS WILL BE YOURS AS WELL. BOTH MUST BE DRIVEN EQUALLY FOR BOTH TO EXIST!
The lobster, satisfied, waves his claws at you and plops into the water, leaving you with the platter and a lot of strange ideas in your head.
SCENARIO TWO: The Solution To Both The Fuel And Omelette Crisis
You love your cars, you love driving, and you show this over your social media accounts in witty, informative, and visually stunning ways. You soon become something of an influencer, gathering a huge and dedicated following. Eventually, you start to get noticed by various brands, offering to sponsor some of your car adventures, but you find that you’re still getting killed paying for all that gas.
Then, an opportunity presents itself: the American Egg Council reaches out to you with a proposal. They want to pay for all of your fuel needs, no limit whatsoever, but on one condition: for every gallon of free gas you use, you must eat two eggs.
So, if you’re filling up an average car, you’ll have to consume between 20 and 30 eggs. That’s a lot of eggs. And they’ll be checking your stools (dammit, I couldn’t get through this without any scatology, sorry) to confirm that the eggs-to-fuel ratio is what it should be.
So, what’s it going to be? Combining cars to make ideal and miserable versions, or two-eggs-per-gallon?
The Egg scenario is very tempting because these days, it’s the only way for a non-wealthy person to afford retirement in an RV these days, unless you want to spend months at a time in each RV park. I could easily modify my diet a bit to travel every three days or so, and in doing so, see everything interesting this hemisphere has to offer. Until I get kidnapped and force-fed eggs by fuel starved bandits somewhere deep in the wilderness.
The lobster scenario is even more appealing. I never wanted my commuter car to do much more than simply get me there and back, and having an absurdly capable and economical GT for long trips and/or track use is even more appealing because I usually prefer hotels to RVs, and could pull a microlite or pop-up RV and be satisfied with that.
I’m taking the lobster. I’m not sure what two vehicles get combined, but one has tow 3500-5000 lbs without difficulty while getting decent gas mileage, and the other has to be balls-out crazy fun.
A Toyota Highlander Hybrid or Sienna Hybrid is the best commoner that contributes economy, utility and towing ability. The other would be a reasonably efficient and reliable sports car like a 911, C8 Corvette or even a Koenigsegg Gemera.
I love eggs but hate cooking breakfast. If someone is cooking the eggs for me I would take that in a heartbeat. Hell, I should offer the gallon of gas per egg deal to my wife so I can get more eggs. Yeah little spendy but I pay for most of her gas already and now I get some free eggs out of it. And I love eggs.
Provided I had access to the vehicles in the first place I’d just slap together a CTS-V wagon and and RS6 Avant. I’d have one ridiculously good wagon and one still pretty good wagon
I take the lobster deal. I chose two grey Camrys. The universe attempts to divide by zero, as both cars are entirely neutral. I am left with lifelong all you can eat lobster bisque.
The Lobsterian Lord laughs at your puny human attempts to understand the crustaceanosity of the universe. You get one Camry with 3 bumper dents that constantly smells like a combination of feet and Grandma’s house and has at least one idiot light that will never go away. The other Camry is a Camry. *click*click*click*click* (that’s how lobsters laugh, I think, by clicking their claws together)
You’re giving me an idea for a different devil’s bargain: you get an amazing car, and traffic will always be good wherever you need to go, but you’ll instantly forget the drive once you arrive.
WFH, so I don’t drive much, and currently doing keto. Maybe 14 gallons every couple of weeks; I could eat 28 eggs in that time easy. Hell, I already do. Weirdest thing about keto is despite that, my cholesterol is way down. Can I get them pasture-raised?
I have one problem with your scenario 1 story. It seems unrealistic that any hungry person would go full berserker in a Red Lobster and run out without hauling wicker bowls of Cheddar Bay biscuits with them.
So I guess I’ll go with the egg gas scenario.
Now I’ve just gotta set up an ant farm.
Some species queens, like the African driver ant (Dorylus Wilverthi) can lay broods with up to 3-4 million eggs every 25 days.
Hell every time I hit a gas station I’ll fill everyone’s ride.
Ever eat a lobster that turned out to have that red coral-looking stuff in the tail, possibly even extending way up into the body cavity? That’s roe, aka eggs—up to 100,000 of them, but at *least* several thousand per lobster. In my experience, you get roe in about half of boiled lobsters.
How the tables have turned, Lobster Emperor.
I’ll take two of those hand made Rolls Royce boat deck cars worth 25 mil apiece. Nothing says I have to drive them at all, right. So I sell them. Then take my 50 mil and go have a nice lobster dinner.
I like eggs, I really do, but I gotta take the Lobster deal. I know the shitty thing to do would be to merge like two good cars so there’s not much trade off but I think I’d have to go with like a Pacifica and a Trackhawk Jeep.. now I’ve got a very functional family hauler with 700hp and an economical Jeep that still looks nice.
Hmm, what to combine
Unimog and Muria?
Lotus Seven and Andy Warhol’s Phantom
III station wagon ?
I know!
Bugatti Veyron and an Amphicar.
Hmm, the worst of that pair would be pretty stunningly awful.
I’d have to take the lobster up on his platter. The trick is to get two cars that are actually altogether well-rounded vehicles. Thus, the ‘worst combo of the two’ will still be a rather attractive package.
Such as a Volvo C30 and a Mitsubishi Evo IX wagon. Mmmmm, yessss….
i see some holes in the lobsters logic. he didnt expressly forbid parking 2 identical cars, so thats what im doing. I’ll do 2 Volvo 240 wagons because im unimaginative and also have to deal with one shitty one, it might as be a shitty one thats easy to work on.
Gasoline eggs would also work for me, since i hardly drive during the week anyways. but those eggs have to come from my chickens, because my chickens lay some damn good eggs. they didnt say i had to exclusively use free gas…. so for me itll be 7 gallons of free gas every week… which is more than i use now. and i dont mind paying for gas occasionally.
can i have both?
You just described my situation. I don’t eat a lot of eggs, but thanks to the ‘leccycycle, I also don’t use much gasoline. We have 7 hens so we’re always scrounging for egg cartons so we can give away our cackleberries.
Also, Ovlov 240 for the win. I’d go for an Amazon, but you can’t beat a wagon that’s big enough for a concert harp.
RadBarchetta’s brilliant solution notwithstanding, i elect to pay homage to Homarus, Lobsterian Lord.
oh the possibilities!
Lobster. And if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it big.
Panhard CD Peugeot 66C longtail streamliner, combined with a Tesla Roadster II.
This way, the “best” car ends up being a sexy streamliner of about 1700 lbs that has well over 7,000 lb-ft of torque and AWD on tap, and over 1,000 electric horsepower. Fitting the massive battery 200 kWh pack in the car would likely result in a range of more than 2,000 miles on a charge driven sanely at highway speeds due to the very low drag and mass, but could probably get 300-400 miles range racing around LeMans, and somehow the batteries wouldn’t weigh much given the absurd fantasy scenario. Top speed would be insanity with this sort of powertrain, well over 300 mph, because the drag coefficient would be around 0.13, and 0-60 mph around 1.9 seconds due to low mass and AWD, 0-120 would still be around 4.5 seconds, and 0-300 mph would be around 12 seconds. It would also somehow be able to seat 4.
The “worst” car would end up taking the worst traits of each, and end up not being too objectively terrible. It would be a relatively heavy 3,200 lb mid-engined rear-drive lardass powered by an anemic 1,149cc engine making 108 horsepower, and seating capacity would drop to two people. While not shoddily built, finding replacement parts would be next to impossible, with the caveat that things won’t break too often. 0-60 mph would be in the neighborhood of 11 seconds with a top speed of 120 mph, assuming it has the Roadster II’s higher drag coefficient. Even with the higher drag and mass of the Roadster II, it would still corner well, and with the small displacement engine, probably still exceed 30 mpg.
Can’t really go wrong with that combo. I’d get two interesting sports cars out of it, one relatively modest, and the other batshit crazy.
Since you’re combining a gasoline car with an electric one, it would have a charge time equal to the time it would take to fill the Peugeot’s presumably tiny fuel tank.
I love eggs, and I could easily eat a half dozen eggs daily, and I love fuel efficient cars and low displacement motorcycles/scooters.
I’m also lazy, so Gasoline eggs win out.
Lobster.
What he’s proposing is my existing fleet, so that scenario is just another day in my life.
Lobster for sure… I feel like even a shitty combo is going to have some character, and I’ll happily drive a POS with some character.
The egg thing is way too easy.
3 egg breakfast burrito every morning.
Incidental egg content of bread for lunch sandwich, add a fried egg to said sandwich
Baked goods contain eggs
Ice cream contains eggs
Breading on fried foods uses eggs as a binder
I’m sure without changing a thing, I get at least a half dozen eggs a day. Doubling that wouldn’t be very hard.
I’m going with the free gas + eggs. One spoonful of caviar and I’m good for a couple months.
(no one said they had to be chicken eggs…)
Caviar is far too delicious to have only every couple of months!
Hmmm. OK. I’ll take the combination platter, and start a weird car museum in which none of the cars get driven at all (that’s equal, right?) except maybe on special occasions for exhibition purposes. People will pay to come look at them, I can hire a staff to run the place and retire to Tahiti. Job done.
If that’s off the table for some reason, I’ll take the egg option and just pay for my gas after I’ve gotten as many eggs as I need for the week. It’s not as lucrative as the Combination Platter, but hey I still get free eggs and some free gas. A win is a win.
I’d trade all of those choices away and rather pay good money to watch a vid of you making DT smoke some of whatever kind buds you have going on these days.
This article wins “Munchies Of The Year While Waiting For The Oven To Pre-Heat” award by a long shot (in the short history of The Asylum).
Well done!
Sounds like I was really “Haulin’ the Wicker” in that first scenario. Current cholesterol levels dictate a trip to the magic platter ravine. Plus, how could any negative qualities exist in a DS/Mog combo?
I can combine an original Sable wagon and an FD RX7 to get my wacky 80s wagon with turbo 2 rotor RWD power but I get a beautiful Japanese coupe with a FWD 140hp V6? Sounds like a worthwhile tradeoff. My only concern is that the sequential turbo reliability moves to the V6, at least the parts are much easier to find because Ford made a million of those engines. Although I would end up with the first reliable compound turbo 2 rotor lol
I went with the free eggs and fuel, since it takes the blueberry a while to drain its eleven-gallon tank, and I’ll save a buck wherever I can… but the idea of a reliable twin-rotor RWD early Sable wagon (lightbar!) with an unreliable but “beautiful Japanese coupe with a FWD 140hp V6” (read: a base-model 3000GT?) beside it is quite the concept. If I could keep more than one car, combo platter it’d be.
The eggs are a pretty valid option, if I had an efficient car(I get less than 30 MPG highway) I would definitely just eat 2 eggs in the morning and keep it filled up assuming I can accumulate eaten eggs like reward points so I don’t have to eat 34 eggs each time I fill up my 17 gallon tank. Actually I might change my answer if I can get an egg rewards card hahaha
Don’t forget the rotary is now as reliable as the Buick 3800 and the V6 is now as reliable as a 13B.
Since you’re combining the best with the best and the worst with the worst, you’d end up with a Mazda RX-7 with keypad locks and a Mercury Sable Wagon with regular locks.
You’re a weird man, Torch.
He’s a national treasure. Don’t ever change Torch.
In the post-apocalyptic Mad Max future, deal #2 will be a convenient source of fuel AND protein. I don’t care if you have to pay in blood, Egg Council, bust a deal face the wheel!
It would make sense to have a vehicle like the bicycle/microcar in my profile then, except that instead of an electric motor, maybe 49cc gasoline engine. Both the eggs and the gasoline would literally fuel it, and you’d get literally thousands of MPG if it was sufficiently streamlined. With a CdA value of about 0.06 m^2, you’d do close to 120 mph on only 6 horsepower!
I would be fine with the eggs deal, but the possibilities of the platter age just too intriguing. Even an awful car can be fun in its own way, if carefully chosen.
Lobster for sure, since you could make some truly wacky car combinations.
And besides, ‘nobody can eat fifty eggs!’
I was really hoping for a Cool Hand Luke reference somehwere in here. Thank you!
As for me, I’ll take the combo platter. I only really like eggs as a baking ingredient.
Depends how many miles you’re actually doing a day. Now I’m no social influencer, but most people aren’t filling their tank every day. Slam down a tasty omelette every morning and combine a few eggs mixed in to whatever else you eat, and you could keep that tank topped up nicely.
I’ll take the lobster, sure. As long as the combination is the least bit drivable, you can always lend it to someone in need and be done with it.
Scenario 2 looks like something that could actually happen. Did Big Egg contacted you with such a deal, Torch?