Ooooo - my own hate mail!

So, I had the Fiat Abarth 500c recently. Really fun little car, if not perfect. Sounds great. Anyway, some stoplight moron in a jacked up Chevy commented that my car was "gay", and I decided to write about it – much to the disgust of the regular commentariat on that site.

http://www.autos.ca/car-test-drives/2013-fiat-500-abarth-cabrio/

Apparently the car deserves some "decent" press, and "stuff like this" belongs in "alternative publications".

Good article Lesley.

People Suck, that's all I have to say.

Sometimes you have to wish you could reach through the computer screen and slap people upside the head. Reading comprehension may not be their strong suit.

hehe - I liked it. Some people just don't like... anything.

Not really seeing the hate. You may need a thicker skin because that is some pretty benign commentary.

Bah, not bad Lesley, not bad.......but how will the french-canadians read that?

Yah, probably. The one guy hates on everything I do: was appalled by the mention of my RAF pilot father in a german car story, hated my piece on Le Mans, since the race has gone downhill since the 70s and the cars are all ugly now...

Oh my god, you are so gay.

I think the guys in the truck have some orientation issues and are just covering.

Besides Lesley, if you were gay you'd be driving a Subie.

Holy crap my eyes are watering from laughter after reading that. Getting the drag queens was brilliance. This is JUST the kind of attitude that needs to be injected into the current automotive review world. I read the comments and holy smokes do some people take this stuff too seriously. It is an article about a car folks, not a medical journal.

Bravo Lesley, bravo.

Your biggest "fan" is probably a disgruntled accountant armchair F1 driver who hates that someone else gets paid to drive fun cars while he has to go over the McManus tax receipts again.

You mean you don't get at least one hate mail for each thing you write in a magazine? With so many nutballs out there ready to hate things, you're easily beating the odds.

Thank you so much! That's exactly what I was trying to do. You guys would like "Madge", who has the purple beehive. When not dressed as a drag queen, he wrenches on his original Taurus SHO, and his brother owns a team that races at Daytona:

http://www.speedwayphoto.ca/galleries/daytona-international-speedway-qualifying-w-andrew-gresel-wes-gonder-racing-3/

So much for stereotypes...

Lesley wrote: Yah, probably. The one guy hates on everything I do: was appalled by the mention of my RAF pilot father in a german car story, hated my piece on Le Mans, since the race has gone downhill since the 70s and the cars are all ugly now...

I've learned that news, articles, and Youtube commentators are the lowest of the low. I don't know why, but I don't have to. They tend to come across as the worst examples of humanity, and should be treated accordingly (IGNORED). Don't take it personally, there could be a news story with nothing but a picture of a sleeping puppy and a caption, "Aw, isn't it cute?" and they would find a way to tie it to politics, religion, or some other issue and start spewing hateful nonsense. Possibly it's the format of lots of commentators and no back and forth with the writer or person in the know, vs. a forum where you can actually get a pretty good dialogue, but I've gotten to the point where I've disabled comments on most of those sites, because it adds absolutely nothing to the experience and can ruin an otherwise nice day.

GameboyRMH wrote: You mean you don't get at least one hate mail for each thing you write in a magazine? With so many nutballs out there ready to hate things, you're easily beating the odds.

No kidding. It seems that car guys used to find things to like about cars, now the enthusiast community actively looks for things to hate about cars. And the dipE36 M3 general public...

GameboyRMH wrote: You mean you don't get at least one hate mail for each thing you write in a magazine? With so many nutballs out there ready to hate things, you're easily beating the odds.

I stopped including my email at the end of columns, because I got sick of the ones that started out with asking questions about specs and handling... and ended with "P.S., I really like your hair".

Chris_V wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote: You mean you don't get at least one hate mail for each thing you write in a magazine? With so many nutballs out there ready to hate things, you're easily beating the odds.

No kidding. It seems that car guys used to find things to like about cars, now the enthusiast community actively looks for things to hate about cars. And the dipE36 M3 general public...

Agreed. I hate the prevailing snark which seems to be much like a clamoring bunch of high school smart-asses, each trying to out-shout the other to prove how smart and ironic they are.

I just posted the article to my work Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/classicsbrian

"Lesley Wimbush is an awesome automotive journalist. She writes for Autos.ca and recently had an encounter with a Bro-Dozer while test driving a Fiat 500 Abarth Cabrio. I won't spoil the story, but drag queens are involved. "

I'm a member of the Greater Atlanta Automotive Media Association and some of them will get a kick out of it for sure.

Thanks a lot, I appreciate that!

I'm glad there are people who get what I was trying to do, it gives me hope.

Lesley wrote: You guys would like "Madge", who has the purple beehive. When not dressed as a drag queen, he wrenches on his original Taurus SHO

I have an odd feeling that I know this person from the sho community.......

He's really cool - graphic designer and fitness instructor whose quick wit leaves me in the dust...

Awesome piece . . . I gotta kick out of reading it.

Douches will be douches.

'Bellowing like a calving heifer'.

I think it was very well written and entertaining, I didn't see anything that would have teed the average person off. But there's always the few idiots... on the LeMons forum a while back, a team hired a driving coach. When he discovered what they were training for, he told them that he should not have taken the job because he felt LeMons and ChumpCar 'degraded' road racing. Oh, well.

OBTW: Love your hair.

i think a good response to the commenter re. MX5 throwing back to MGA days would be "yeah, there was only one MGA in my hometown, and the guy who drove it was a total pillow-biter."

This reminds me of a time I was driving my e30 cabrio through Amarillo with CA plates. Two rednecks in a pickup beeped and waved to get my attention and then made the "smoke a joint" gesture. So evidently rednecks in TX think that everyone in CA smokes weed. I just yelled out, "yeah? You got some?"

I figured the best way to take the wind out of their sails was to confirm their suspicion thereby making it no longer a joke.

One of them just told me to "keep my stereotypes to myself".