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?
I’ll go with the 2 eggs per gallon. That will save me money and I like eggs. And I’ll likely just keep driving a relatively fuel efficient car so I won’t need to eat THAT many eggs.
I typically eat a couple of eggs a day anyway, so it would be an easy call for me.
Jumpin Jesus on a pogo stick. I am just seeing this on a Monday morning and it is to much to process right now.
So what if the worst qualities of the two other cars were that they were always in the shop? Would this negate the need to drive both equally or would you have a car that could never be driven and a car that was always in the shop?
As someone who hates eggs in the trifecta of food (taste, smell, texture), there is only the lobster. Also, being from Massachusetts, I am duty-bound to obey whatever a magical lobster tells me to do.
Lobster easily, let’s combine a Citroen SM with an E63 AMG. On the one hand, you have the most beautiful and best-riding luxury sedan ever with all the modern Mercedes luxury and safety goodies (magically retaining the original Citroen interior style) and AMG power, on the other you get a slow, carbureted, front wheel drive E-class with AM radio. Drive the shitty one to work, save up miles on the nice one for road trips and date nights
Having to park cars on the platter sounds like I need access to those cars. But free gas is free gas. I’ll eat the eggs. Seemed like it worked out well for that Gaston fellow. At least before the incident, but I don’t think the eggs drove him to that.
Seeing that I dont eat Lobster or Shellfish…. (and I am NOT awake enough to put this scenerio together)..
Im going to go with the Eggs. I can eat a bunch of hardboiled eggs for fun…
Actually the combination platter would work out great for me. In my case a full size 4×4 truck and mid-sized AWD crossover would combine to create:
1) A full frame mid-size crossover that can tow AND comfortably haul the family AND have decent off road capability.
2) A unibody truck that gets decent mileage commuting and makes home depot runs when needed.
I call that a WIN-WIN
Easy, go with the lobster.
The cars?
Car 1: 1961 Ferrari 250 California Spyder
Car 2: janky hand and foot cranked pedal car
Good car: Classic Ferrari awesomeness with perfect reliability, no fuel costs and yields it’s driver the uber fit body of an ultra iron man athlete.
Bad car: Driver has to do all the sisyphean work of pedaling the unreliable, smelly POS for someone elses benefit.
I keep the good car and rent it out among the 0.001% for top dollar (the mere 0.01% can’t afford it) and ship the POS off to some backwater shithole where it’s in constant use by the unwashed masses as the slightly more attractive option to walking.
Buaahhhaaaaa!!!!
There is no fuel crisis and gas isn’t actually all that expensive, so the only option is the lobster’s platter. Which is fantastic because I’ll end up with one wonderful car and one weird quirky horrible thing. Sounds like a win.
Is nobody going to point out that lobsters are salt water crustaceans? If you put it in a river, it’d die instantly.
THAT’s the part of the story that doesn’t make sense to me.
“I AM THE LOBSTER EMPEROR, GRANTED INCREDIBLE POWERS BY THE ONE AND ONLY LOBSTERIAN LORD,”
I suspect one of those powers is the ability to survive in waters normally inhospitable to mere mortal lobsters.
Also possible: the Lobster Emperor has seen too much and is ready for the sweet embrace of oblivion.
Lobster 100%. There are so many options and possibilities, I think I would choose a Smart Fortwo and a Lucid Air. One of the cars is small and cute with great electric range, while the other is an unsafe land yacht that requires you to give 100k to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Man that lobster was tasty. What were you saying?
When Torch was a lad he ate four dozen eggs
Every morning to fill up his tank
But now that he’s here on the Autopian
His driveway’s still covered in jank!
No-one, writes like Jason
Loves taillights like Jason
And whose Changli is dead out of spite like Jason
“I used Tracy for all of my DE-cor-A-ting!”
Say it again!
Who’s a Torch among men?
And who plays the fool?
And whose brain is aircooled?
With his Beetle that came back from theft?
There’s just one Autopian
Who’s got all of it down
And his name’s J-A-S –
uh
T-O-R – C –
er
– Y?
aw
JASONNNNNNNNN
Sorry Torch, these are just dumb. I can’t even finish reading them……
You must be new here.
Hard no to the egg offer, hate eggs, don’t eat eggs, have never bought eggs. Now for the Crustaceans deal, the key is finding two cars whose worst qualities are either a non factor to you or are still okay. For example the Worst quality imo of the 911 is its a pita for mx the Prius is… well everything else so I guess car two would be a Prius that you just can’t wrench on at all. I think we could have an entire thread on these combo cars, maybe even a running series… 😉