Guess What I’m Driving Today: Cold Start

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Okay so today’s Cold Start is going to be rushed because I have to get on a train in 15 minutes (and I really need to poop before that) so we can get into Manhattan where I will get to drive a car whose presence in America I sort of inspired. Really! Remember when we wrote about Wink, the company importing little Changli-like vehicles into America? Well I’m going to get to drive one and see what it’s like, today.

It’s not the one at the top, I don’t think, but I really like the funny, expressive Jeep-like face on that one. It looks a little pensive and unsure, and I want to give it a snack and tell it everything’s going to be fine, just fine. Something about the indicators making it look like it has an uncertain look in the eyes. I think instead I’m driving the one that resembles a shrunken Mini. This one:

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This should be fun! But I need to go! In both contexts!

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Mercedes Streeter

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57 thoughts on “Guess What I’m Driving Today: Cold Start”

    1. A shrunken Mini. Is it called the Oxymoron?

      No. I once went to a Mini convention (by accident) and there were many examples of shortened original Minis there. Imagine a Mini with the back seat space chopped out.

  5. “ Something about the indicators making it look like it has an uncertain look in the eyes”

    But the eyes are the windscreen Jason. A big single eye with a wiper jammed in it, nothing more obviously anthropomophic than that.

    Don’t make me report you to Disney again.

  6. Having to poop at a train or bus station is IMO one of the worst places to have to do it. But still better than on the train or bus. Although one of the key advantages of the latter two are that you never have to worry about causing a clog.

    1. Budgeting one’s time on a bus- how close am I to my destination? How far would I have to walk to a public facility that’s open if I take the next stop? All of this is more math than I ever thought I would have to use as an adult.

      1. I once made that calculus and held out for the bus station. The one on the back of the bus was thoroughly filthy and not suitable for a sitdown job. So I make it into the crowded Mens’ room at the bus station while doing the awkward crab shuffle with the turtle’s head trying to have a peek at the back of my underwear, only to discover that there were no doors on the cubicles.

        Awkward barely begins to describe that ordeal. It’s not as if I had any better options by that time.

    2. As a traveling sales rep with IBS, I used to have a very good handle on where all the good, clean, semi-secluded public bathrooms were in my territory, but the early days of COVID were a nightmare when everything was closed off, and then the government goes and bans loperamide in easy to use bottles. Now, my territory’s so damn big, I have no idea, all I can say is the one at back of Walmarts used to be pretty reliable, but now those are all as universally disgusting as the ones at the front

      1. Lots of people live in Walmart parking lots these days. Couple that with reductions in staff as cost cutting measures, and that is a recipe for what you are describing. To me, public restrooms are about the only thing Walmart is good for, because I am not giving them my money if I can avoid it, and I’d rather cost them money in some small way if at all possible.

          1. I hope you’re joking because they are probably the furthest thing from Commies. They are hard core Capitalists that would kill their own family for a 0.1% profit increase.

        1. I’m surprised no one thought of that.

          While I don’t have IBS, I do eat like a horse and have a fast metabolism, and thus have endured no shortage of awkward emergency situations regarding this subject. I’m always on the lookout for a public restroom in the vicinity, because I know the need will arise multiple times per day.

      4. I never thought this would be a thing, with IBS I can see it being helpful. Flush Toilet Finder is the quickest, simplest way of finding a public bathroom or restroom. Simply open the app and it will display the nearest toilets to you. It’s free, no in-app purchases and has over 200,000 bathrooms in its database!

        1. Count this among the apps I wish existed about 10 years ago. No real details, but let’s just say you don’t want to have IBS, and be in Paris after 6pm on a holiday.

      5. Loperamide (aka Imodium) only being available in those impossible to open blister packs is such a shitty (ha!) symptom of the way our country approaches drug policy. If you take enough of them, apparently it can…not exactly get you high, but sort of take the edge off of opiate withdrawal. So rather than a safe and sane opiate policy, we make it really hard for anyone without strong, nimble hands to control their diarrhea.

        Thank you for coming to my TEDBrown talk.

      6. Big box home improvement stores became my go-to during Covid. Or grocery stores. Both seemed to be less used than WM and typically a lot cleaner.

    3. Having just returned from a train-and-bus trek from Chicago to the Catskills, train bathrooms are fine, but bus bathrooms should be avoided at all costs.

    3. MINI Metro? Or, MINI Cooper Metro? (since all their models sold in North America have to have Cooper in their name, Olds Cutlass-style)

  8. I have to get on a train in 15 minutes (and I really need to poop before that)

    So is this the Cold Start or the Morning Dump because I’m confused.

    1. It was a missed opportunity to be both in the same article. It would have been glorious. Especially if written during the performance of Jason’s Morning Glory.

    2. Don’t you mean Marvin the perpetually depressed robot? or am I mis-cross referencing?
      Anyway, Nobody messes wit me boy Douglass Adams!!

  11. Something tells me that someone played a big con on Torch, and he’s traveling all that way to drive a hot pink barbie corvette power wheels.

  15. That little Jeep-like thing really needs the ability to rotate the indicator/headlight units. Like, if you stomp on the accelerator, they should rotate so it looks like angry eyebrows.

    Cruising? Flat.

    Braking hard? The apologetic look shown to indicate “Oh crap!”

    Enjoying a brisk drive on a curvy road? Flip ’em 180 so it looks happy!

    Any other suggestions?

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