The Beast Turns 200,000 and Keeps on Rollin'

Another milestone passed, the LandCruiser turned 200,000 miles.

I know that sounds like a lot, but the fact is that the Cruiser has a lot of miles left in it despite the slanderous lies propagated by the spin-masters over at Witness to Insanity.

From their account, the LandCruiser is a ticking time-bomb violently sucking money from the kind people of the Balboa household and dumping it into the gas tank with reckless abandon.  These are half truths!  Well they are like 29/32nds truths.

Let's be honest, 12mpg is not that bad.  lots of vehicles get that kind of mileage, and I am not being asked to sell any of those.

For instance, a Bugatti Veyron gets 8 mpg, wow, that is really low. The Lamborghini Murcielago gets 9, and the Hummer H2 gets 10.   
Even worse, I could be driving an M1 Abrams Tank that gets 3 Gallons per Mile, and that is not a TYPO.   A typical everyday non-nuclear Ford Class aircraft carrier gets 263 Gallons per Mile, so I think that I am doing pretty well in comparison to a lot of transportation methods that I have to choose from out there.  

So I could do much worse than 12mpg.

When talking about safety, sure, minivans are pretty safe, I guess.  Anti-rollover stabilization is a pretty cool feature, and airbags are nice.

You know what else is a pretty cool safety feature? A squadron of F-18 Super Hornets and 3 Navy Seal teams.  

But a 5 year loan on an aircraft carrier would cost me about $235,000,000 a month,  and that is at the extremely low 3.4% interest rate that I got from my Credit Union this morning.  

I think we all agree that safety is important, but sometimes we have to compromise.

Despite my irrational love for the LandCruiser, it has a lot of upsides.  It can uncomfortably carry a family of 5 with 2 dogs on moderately long drives.  It can drive over a mountain.  It is paid for.  And last but not least, IT IS PAID FOR (did I already mention that?).