Progress?

Steens oldsmobile
Originally uploaded by Peter Hesseldahl.

A Friend of ours just bought this mint condition Oldmobile 1959. It's an amazing artifact, getting inside feels like entering a time machine. The whole car oozes a completely different logic, a way different world view. It's BIG, it's got tail fins, massive use of chrome, everything is vast and heavy, including the enormous engine. The whole thing weighs in at 2400 kg.
Well, guess what: This happens to be exactly what the Porsche Cayenne SUV or the exceedingly popular VW Touareg weighs. But this is 2005 and our climate has gone haywire in the meantime! It's even worse here in Denmark, where the dealers have found a way of adding a few hundred extra kilos in order to make the Porsche get sufficiently heavy to be taxed like a truck (which happens to have a top speed of 266 km/h).
Sorry to spoil the party, but to me this is one of those totally perverted examples of absolute mindless consumption. A way of sending a very exact signal to everyone else on the road: I don't give a damn.