August 11, 2011, - 3:00 pm
DUMB: US Big Govt vs. Million $ Italian Sports Car
Why does a two-door fast sports car designed for studly (or desperately wannabe-studly) men have to have child-safe air bags? Ask the Obama administration, which is keeping the Pagani Huayra out of the U.S. for exactly that extremely stupid reason.
The Huayra is a very cool sports car with a million dollar price tag. Most of us couldn’t afford it. But it’s a great example of how big government makes doing business nearly impossible, and for especially stupid reasons and irrelevant safety regulations. Look at the photo of the Huayra. Do you think anyone who can afford the million dollars to buy it and the countless necessary guzzled gallons of gas is buying it for the purpose of driving a baby in it? PUH-LEEZE.
Italian automaker Pagani was to begin selling its $1 million, 700 horsepower Huayra supercar in the U.S. later this year but federal safety regulators have said “Not so fast.”
Pagani had applied for an exemption from federal auto safety rules requiring child-safe “advanced” airbags, arguing that complying with the rule would have caused “substantial economic hardship,” according to documents from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
NHTSA denied the request, essentially blocking the car from sale in the U.S., because Pagani failed to show that installing the airbags on the twin-turbocharged 12-cylinder carbon-titanium car would cause the company undue financial strain. Also, the Italian carmaker didn’t show that serious efforts had been made to comply, the agency said.
The auto safety agency sometimes grants temporary exemptions from specific safety rules, especially for automakers that plan to sell only a small number of cars.
Pagani created the Huayra as part of the automaker’s plan to break into the U.S. market. The car was engineered and crash tested to meet safety standards in both the U.S. and Europe. . . .
Advanced airbags are designed to sense when children or small adults are in the vehicle and adjust the force with which they deploy accordingly. Early airbags were found to injure — and even kill — small children.
Yeah, ‘cuz there are gonna be a lotta kids ridin’ in a million dollar sports car. Most people who buy one of these either don’t have kids or have several other cars they use when they plan to drive with kids. These are cars men buy to drive fast and in which to pick up chicks. They are cars that broadcast mid-life crises or inadequate junk in the trunk. They aren’t cars that ever involve babies, toddlers, or young kids. Anyone who thinks otherwise just isn’t living in the real world and doesn’t have any common sense. . . .
With it’s seven figure price tag the Huayra would have competed in the rarified pricing sphere of cars like the Bugatti Veyron which is finishing its sales run just as just the Huayra was preparing to enter the market, or the quickly sold out Lamborghini Reventon.
With a total of only 60 employees, Pagani’s small factory can only produce so many of the largely hand-built cars, so initial sales in the U.S. were to be limited to about five cars a year during 2012, the automaker said in February. After that, a planned factory expansion would allow for sales of as many as 10 cars a year here.
The Huayra, pronounced “why-rah,” is named after the ancient Andean wind god Aymara Huayra Tata.
Absurd. This car needs child-safe air bags as much as an F-16 plane does. They simply don’t go together.
Men buy a muscle car to have fun and to feel macho. The Pagani Huayra isn’t a car women would buy. Even with that price tag, its geared for a niche market. Not many guys would take a baby or a child for a spin in one.
Big government keeps getting to be ridiculous!
NormanF on August 11, 2011 at 3:04 pm