Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles/Archive 11

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How do I join this Wikiproject

Hello. How can I become a member of this Wikiproject? (Please post your response on my talk page.) -- 224jeff6 (talk) 17:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Help with Haynes International Motor Museum

Hi, I've just started a stub for Haynes International Motor Museum for Wikipedia:WikiProject Somerset but I know very little about car makes, model numbers etc - would anyone be willing/able to take a look & make sure the links etc point at the right makers/car (& maybe add some pics) - further info is available from the museums web site at Haynes Museum Web site. Thanks— Rod talk 19:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:License plates

Would this Project consider standardization in naming of these articles in this category? They should be all similarly named, in both the noun and adjective used. Chris 05:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Should it really be standardised? Isn't part of the problem (the noun part), differences between British English, American English, Australian English et cetera? --Boivie 14:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Precisely. For example, as a Brit I have a driver's license. My cars have number plates (which are more formally known here as registration plates). The only thing I have which is called a license plate is a souvenir car license plate from Churchill, Canada, in the shape of a polar bear. ;) – Kieran T (talk) 17:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Glut of images in Cadillac Deville

Can we do something about all of the images in the Cadillac Deville article? The page is so heavy with redundant images that I can't even read it. This is actually a problem on several of the Cadillac articles, but is most noticeable here.

Also, people keep adding lists of video games and rap videos to the Cadillac articles, particularly Cadillac Escalade and Cadillac XLR. I've done my best to remove them, but PLEASE keep a sharp eye on the Cadillac pages! Jagvar 00:30, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've gone ahead and removed the photo galleries that were interspersed throughout the page. I think we only need ONE photo of each generation in the infoboxes. Does everyone else agree? Jagvar 00:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, in my opinion, the lack of content in that article is the bigger problem. I still can't find a source that would give any useful information. I didn't mind the galleries too much (at least there was something there) but they really didn't add much value to the article. --Sable232 02:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


Jaguar XH: Real, or are we being had?

I just noticed that the "Jaguar XH" is listed as the Jaguar X-TYPE's successor on the X-TYPE page. Also, in the Jaguar template at the bottom of the page, the "XH" has been added to the Jaguar infobox, slated for production in 2009. However, I've never heard of this supposed X-TYPE successor. I'm well aware that the Jaguar XF is coming next year, and I thought that the XF would effectively replace both the S-TYPE and the X-TYPE. I searched for "Jaguar XH" on Google, and all that came up was the X-TYPE article on Wikipedia and its mirror sites. Nowhere in Jaguar's own press releases or in the automotive press could I find any mention of anything called the Jaguar XH.

Could someone please look into this? Jagvar 21:42, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, it definitely was vandalism added by a repeat offender with the ISP address 96.232.101.21. I deleted it. Please watch for edits that this vandal makes. Jagvar 21:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Further to the POV editing of GM minivan articles... here's more...

...on Holden and Buick-related articles. I've currently had to clean up Holden Camira from POV and advertising material that keeps being inserted (see the talk page for more details).

If anyone wants to help me with this, let me know. Also, what GM minivan articles were hit by this POV vandal (Oldsmobile Silhouette - was that hit??)

Thanks, --Solumeiras talk 17:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Timeline templates

Just wondering what should be done with timeline templates when some vehicles have their 2009 models announced, but the rest have barely been announced for MY2008 (mainly referring to the Toyota car timeline, since the 2009 Corolla and Matrix were just announced, while no other MY2009 vehicles have been announced, and, WP:Crystal Ball could come into play). Butterfly0fdoom 06:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we get sensible about this and ignore the so-called "model year" and refer to the year in which the car actually goes on sale. MY seems to be an almost exclusively North American feature, which is used very little in the rest of the world. Paul Fisher 08:21, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, when the template refers to a company's North American line-up, model years are perfectly appropriate. And your statement doesn't quite offer a solution to the future prediction question, either. Butterfly0fdoom 09:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
There are two options: one is to add five or ten years to all "modern" templates; but these may get cramped. Another option is to add ten years to the modern templates and move ten years back from all templates... that will be slow and chaotic, but then most templates will have three decades. -- NaBUru38 14:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
.....huh? I didn't quite understand that...Butterfly0fdoom (talk) 06:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Plymouth Valiant popular culture

I am currently in an edit war over the Plymouth Valiant page as I have added the trivia tag and the user user:69.231.5.43, (also user:69.226.46.17, user:Mastermesh) accused me of taking a dislike of American cars because of that useless section, so shall we keep it or purge it off considering its less than usefulness on the page. Willirennen 00:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Dump it. Even as a prose section it still offers almost no information. I think Millikan quote is using the Valiant as an example that could be replaced by any car and thus doesn't have anything to do with Valiants. --Daniel J. Leivick 00:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for reminding, done it, now be prepared for the edit war by that lameass! Willirennen 00:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
"lameass"? You are aware of the assume good faith policy are you not? I would strongly suggest before you engage in any sort of "edit war", you either discuss things calmly with 69.226.46.17 as it seems he has attempted with you before, or kick your dispute up to arbitration. That said, cars are cultural artifacts that reflect the cultures that created them. Some information regarding their impact on popular culture and the impact popular culture had/has on them is definitely needed. -Brother Dave Thompson 04:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I certainly agree, Iwill assume good faith with all parties involved. However, the pop culture section in the valiant article does not discuss its impact. All it does is list a couple of film appearences and a very dubious philosophy reference. Millikan was not saying the the Valiant persists longer than any other vehicle, he was just using it as an example of a physical object, thus he wasn't saying anything about Valiants in particular so I don't feel it adds any thing and is in fact confusing if one doesn't understand the context. As for the films, unless the Valiant is a very imporant part of a film like the General Lee or some such, it does not really illustrate cultural importance to list film appearences. Should we list everytime some one uses a ball point pen in a movie on the ball point pen page? If someone can source some info on the cultural importance of the Valiant than by all means it should be added, but listing movie appearence is really just a waste of space. --Daniel J. Leivick 04:28, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
OK, I apologise for losing my temper as I was getting angry and frustrated in this edit war over this pointless trivia section, but one thing I am not apologise to and that is this sockpuppet who appeared to written to my talkpage and that article within an hour. That bit about Kurt Cobain will have to go as there is nothing significant about him owning it and nothing remarkable about his car to be kept on the page. Willirennen 02:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Automobile awards succession boxes

Recently, User:Falcadore edited the Holden Commodore article and five of its sub-articles (VB, VN, VR, VT and VE) to include Wheels car of the Year succession boxes. Quite personally, I consider these pointless and messy, as it only repeats what has alreday been mentioned in the articles. Would anyone here consider a policy that would effectively ban the use of such templates in automobile articles? OSX (talk • contributions) 22:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I noticed from the Ford Focus (International) article that there was a precedent for other such awards to be given succession boxes that appear in other articles from sporting achievement to heads of government to reality TV winners. If there is a wish that these be deleted then perhaps all such awards be deleted from Automobile articles. There certainly should not be any claim against the notability of the Wheels Car of the Year, one of the worlds oldest such awards and perhaps the most stringently tested. --Falcadore 23:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
What's the point of discussion if you just delete it anyway? I don't mind if they are to be deleted, but don't start a discussion and then not listen to it. It's not worth an edit war, but there is a respect considerations. And finish the job too, you need to look at Honda Civic, Toyota Avensis, Renault Laguna, Mazda 6, Opel Corsa and Toyota Vitz. Maybe there are others too. --Falcadore 03:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
No I planned to delete them from the beginning, but I wanted you to know about it so my edits would not get reverted. I've seen these boxes in other articles before and have never liked them, but because I had virtually nothing to do with the articles in question I left them as be. When the problem started to affect the article I edit, the story changed. By the way, I am not going to remove those boxes from every article, gosh, now that is a big ask. OSX (talk • contributions) 03:45, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Just suggesting the vehicular ones, for consistency. It's probably not as many as you think, don't think there's many, if any, beyond those seven. Don't get too caught up in ownership of articles (and smack me sideways if that sounded patronising, the insult is more often in the receiving than the giving). --Falcadore 07:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I've fixed up those examples listed above, and if I see any more I'll be sure to remove them. Cheers OSX (talk • contributions) 08:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

While I'd disagree with any kind of specific project recommendation (we shouldn't be inventing rules for all articles based only on one occasion), in this case I see problems. Specifically, why single out this one award? It might be the most important in its homeland, but its significance diminishes rapidly the further you get from Australia. So, to put all major awards on an equal footing, you'll need templates for each. To use an extreme example, the Mazda MX-5 is then going to end up with templates for Wheels Car of the Year (1989 & 2005), JCOTY (2005–06), and Car and Driver Ten Best (eight times). That's a lot of navigation templates.

Think of it this way. Why would anyone want to navigate from Holden Commodore to Mazda MX-5? The only obvious link between the two is the award itself, and if that's what the reader is thinking of, surely they'd be better at the Wheels Car of the Year article, where all the winners are listed? I'd say we should only be putting such templates in when a sizeable proportion of the readership are at the page because of the subject matter of the template (i.e. how many people are at Holden Commodore because it won the award). Navigation templates provide a collection of the likeliest navigation links to assist the reader, but we can end up being too helpful, overwhelming the article with so many unlikely links that the most useful ones get smothered. So I think mention of the award(s) in the main text is probably sufficient. --DeLarge 10:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. The Wheels COTY carries a lot of industry cred because a lot of awards consist of significant people being polled, where as the Wheels COTY thoroughly tests the contenders against each other of three days. If it didn't have the cred the manufacturers wouldn't give them the cars to test. But that only address the Australia diminishing point. My efforts with the Wheels COTY were not the first award so I felt the precedent was broken, and perhaps assumed that this discussion had already taken place. Especially since the... Semperit? award mentioned previously was particularly un-notable as an award, a tyre cross promotion or something. Perhaps I was hoping to qualify some of the awards according to their creditbility as well. This is getting like a forum post, delete if you like. --Falcadore 11:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Category:GETRAG transmissions

I found Category:GETRAG transmissions in the list of unactegorised countries, and the best place I could find to parent it was in Category:Automotive transmission makers, which doesn't seem adequate. Maybe someone more familiar with the categories in this area can find better parent category/categories for it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I've added Category:Automobile transmissions to it. that is where the rest of them are. -- Malcolma (talk) 16:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Sigh... needs further tidying, although User:OSX didn't get anywhere earlier this month when he tried to sort things. There's a user who doesn't seem to get the whole WP:MOSTM guidelines, and has been capitalizing "Getrag" everywhere. There's already a Category:Getrag transmissions which has existed since 2006. -- DeLarge (talk) 20:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
User:Nslsmith is claiming GETRAG is an acronym in which case it is correct to capitalize. I can't tell if it is an acronym is from the article. It looks like the name came from Getriebe- und Zahnradfabrik Hermann Hagenmeyer AG in which case it is an acronym. I can't verify that's where the name came from, but it seems likely.~ Dusk Knight 05:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The corporate name is in all capital letters: the GETRAG Corporate Group. See the firm's web pages: The Company (retrieved on November 17 2007). — CZmarlin (talk) 06:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Alright then, I guess I was wrong to make those changes but those copy and paste moves should be fixed. OSX (talk • contributions) 06:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

No, you were right. WP guidelines are pretty clear on this, specifically mentioning in WP:MOSTM "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner encourages special treatment" (bold text mine). There are numerous companies who shout their own trademark in capitals on their own websites, and we don't follow their lead. Further, the acronym of Getriebe- und Zahnradfabrik Hermann Hagenmeyer AG would be the camelcase GetrAG, not GETRAG, as the original "Getr" isn't capitalized. You'd only capitalize it if it were the acronym GZHH. Since no-one writes GetrAG, Getrag should be our article location. --DeLarge (talk) 13:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll also point out a couple of other things:

  1. Looking at reliable sources... Google News coverage of Getrag seems to use the uncapitalized form far more; the same is true doing specific site searches of the NY Times, the BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc.
  2. Despite the magazine's insistence on capitalizing its own trademark, our article is at Time (magazine). I'm not a great one for citing "other stuff", but the issue was discussed there. Same is also true for Byte (magazine), Lego, and so on. --DeLarge (talk) 17:33, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
I welcome any fixes that can be done - I apologize for bad form in moving pages over to the capitalized name. By not recognizing GETRAG as an acronym, we would effectively be Americanizing the name, which would not best serve Wikipedia's research community. Although not a conventional acronym, GETRAG is indeed an acronym, and should not be be in camelcase, other examples of this are SYSCO which is a capitalized acronym for Systems and Services Company, and SAAB for Svenska aeroplanaktiebolaget.
GETRAG is in common usage in technical manuals and catalogs, as well as in publications and releases by the company itself. I'd like to note that a search on Google is not a reliable source of information -- it is not appropriate or reliable to cite a Google search which changes with search behavior.
Regardless of all of this - this is an acronym and does not fall under WP:MOSTM. WP:MOSTM covers trademarks, but not trademarked acronyms. Because it has been established that GETRAG is an acronym, and because WP:MOSTM does not address acronyms, GETRAG should remain capitalized. Nicholas SL Smith (talk) 03:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • "By not recognizing GETRAG as an acronym, we would effectively be Americanizing the name, which would not best serve Wikipedia's research community." Nothing to do with Americanizing it. I'm British, User:OSX is Australian. Even the German article is at Getrag, as per "de:Wikipedia:Namenskonventionen#Markennamen".
  • SAAB redirects to Saab, as it should, even though it has a stronger case than Getrag. The SYSCO page seems to have been moved without discussion. Based on coverage in Forbes, CNN, the NY Times, the BBC, etc, I'd say it was moved incorrectly.
  • "GETRAG is in common usage in technical manuals and catalogs, as well as in publications and releases by the company itself." We do not follow primary sources. Companies routinely capitalize their own name in press releases and on their websites. Perhaps the closest parallel example is Nismo (i.e. not NISMO or NisMo), which is short for Nissan Motorsport and which is capitalized in many primary sources, but not here.
  • The search only covered Google News, not the web as a whole, so the sources were some of the most reliable availabe (NY Times, BBC, Reuters, etc). The vast majority of reliable independent sources do not capitalize.

I'm going to get the copy/paste moves tidied, and then I'll take it to WP:Requested moves, where the WP community at large can discuss it. --DeLarge (talk) 13:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help with the copy/paste edits.
I'd like to point out that it is uncontested that GETRAG is a trademarked acronym. WP:MOSTM does not address acronyms or partial acronyms, so WP:MOSTM does not apply. We are making a side decision, and I think we ought to move this discussion to the Manual of Style (trademarks) discussion area. If we can bring the manual of style to encompass this issue, we'd alleviate disagreements around this issue.
Furthermore, the impression I get from editors who quote WP:MOSTM in dealing with this issue is that they believe the line which states that we ought not to use a company's preference as authority means that when a company encourages capitalization, we ought to resist it. I see the intention as no where near this interpretation. We are simply to resist the temptation to use a company's advertising as authority for the factual portrayal of a company. We ought to take into account how this word is used, how it is used in press releases, and how it is actually trademarked (as opposed to how it is shown in advertisements). If you believe we ought not to capitalize this because it is not a strict acronym, we ought to modify the manual of style; because, as it stands now, acronyms are to be capitalized. If you intend to argue that GETRAG is not an acronym, please bring that argument to the table. Nicholas SL Smith (talk) 03:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

GETRAG has now been taken to WP:Requested moves, as the MOS-TM conversation mentioned above hasn't generated evidence that "GETRAG" is used by independent sources the majority of the time. --DeLarge (talk) 14:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

No More Grand Am For Me

As of November 15, 2007, I will no longer be photographing any Pontiac Grand Am automobile for me. This was due to IFCAR having the G6 (the Grand Am's successor) as his most-wanted Pontiac vehicle in photographs. IFCAR will handle the rest of my Grand Am job. -- Bull-Doser (talk) 15:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

How about you just go away and stop throwing hissy fits (which is what you seem to be doing in the unintelligible paragraph above). --Sable232 (talk) 00:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Holden Gemini merge issues

As a result of the Holden Gemini page stating It was almost an exact duplicate of the Isuzu Gemini (Japan) which was one of the many cars based on the GM T-car platform, this is the reason why I proposed a merger for both the Isuzu and Holden pages but that tag has been removed twice without any edit summary. So for this case, do you think that the Holden article should be merged into the Isuzu especially what it stated. Willirennen (talk) 04:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favour of merging the two articles. Perhaps if the Holden Gemini was sufficiently different from the Isuzu Gemini, for example, like the Ford Laser was different from the Mazda Familia it was based on, but the changes were relatively minor. A lengthy Gemini in Australia paragraph on the Isuzu Gemini page could perhaps be most appropriate. Certainly the content lends itself towards expanding the 1974 section of Isuzu Gemini which is quite thin. What is sufficient grounds for the article's independance is to explain how the car was different to the Isuzu, which has not really been done. The diesel engine might be the best defence as I do not believe that was offered in the Isuzu. --Falcadore (talk) 07:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
We don't need a lenghty paragraph. We can cover the Holden Gemini with a sentence or two in each generation's section describing anything notable about Australian sales/marketing/other whereabouts (if any). Otherwise, "aka=Holden Gemini" would suffice IMHO.
Anybody up for merging? I did my part today :D PrinceGloria (talk) 13:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Carl G. Fisher FAR

Carl G. Fisher has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Epbr123 (talk) 14:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

No More Car Pictures For Me This Year

Hi, this is Bull-Doser, and due to the heavy snowfall this week in Montreal (where I live), I will put car pictures on hiatus until the 2008 Montreal Auto Show in January. For outdoor car pictures, they are scheduled to resume this March. Right now, I will be uploading car pictures from the last day of car pictures for '07 -- November 18. -- Bull-Doser (talk) 15:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I hate to sound harsh, but frankly, nobody cares. If you have pictures to upload, great! If not, well, then, whatever. It is not like we all sit on pins and needles going "Oh, when will Bull-Doser upload his next batch of images?!" because I hate to burst your bubble, but you are not that important. Karrmann (talk) 16:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
And while we're at it, maybe Bull-Doser and IFCAR can ask for new digital cameras for their holiday gift. I think everyone would find their images much less objectionable overall if they had high quality cameras.--Analogue Kid (talk) 16:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who finds a photo "objectionable" is more than welcome to create their own higher-quality equivalent. IFCAR (talk) 17:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the EXIF data, better technique might help as much as better equipment. Using Image:08 Subaru Outback.jpg as an example, if you'd used AV (or manual) mode you could set the camera to f/2.8 (a full stop faster than what was actually used), and shot from further back zooming in at 23.2mm, instead of as wide as possible at 5.8mm. Both those things will reduce the apparent depth of field and increase the background blur. There's enough distraction in parking lot photos as it is without using settings which keep everything in focus. However, there's only so much a P'n'S can do. --DeLarge (talk) 19:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
And while we're at it, Analogue Kid, let's not wave our dicks around and slap people over the head with it needlessly, hokay? I don't see anything objectionable in IFCAR's pictures at least. They don't look like publicity shots or whatever, but unless you feel like buying him some Hasselblad gear you shouldn't expect it. Also, analogue > digital for great justice! Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 20:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Wanna see my car pictures I took in Vermont last Thursday? Head to this link. I started uploading them since Sunday. Anyways, there was no snow in Vermont, and I'm back from Vermont since Sunday. -- Bull-Doser (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Automotive aerodynamics

I noticed that this article and almost all articles related to aerodynamic components are either covered by the Physics and/or Motorsport Wikiprojects. I believe aerodynamic components qualify as both automotive parts and automotive technology. Do they fall under the scope of this project?Mustang6172 (talk) 04:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

New article?

Hi. I'm new to Wikipedia and I would like to post an article about my parents' company Berrien Buggy, Inc., similar to the existing Meyers Manx article, because I feel that it is relevant to record the historical signifigance of the contribution that this company has made to the world of Volkswagen based off-road and street legal vehicles over the last 39 years of operation. I understand that since my parents own the company some may feel that I have a conflict of interest but my plan is to write a neutral history of the company with citations of articles that have been published by magazines and newspapers that cover the off-road industry. The purpose of this article is not to serve as an advertisment for the company but to record the facts of how the company was started and the history of its growth and contributions over the years. I believe that I can write this article without over emphasizing the company's importance or products and welcome additions to the article by others who are knowledgeable about the company and its products.

I am posting here for the advice of the editors to see if they feel this is something that is relevant to Wikipedia and, if so, what categories it is acceptable to link to. I am unsure whether such an article belongs as part of this Automobile project or some other area. There are many existing Wikipedia articles that are related and could be linked to an article about this company such as off-road vehicles, sandrails, Meyers Manx buggies, dune buggies, off-road racing, etc. I look forward to your advice regarding how to proceed with this article.

Thanks.

Jezebeliii (talk) 21:06, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all, you need to establish notability. Myers Manx are famous. Virtually anyone in Australia who knows anything about beach buggies knows their name (even if Australia is not mentioned in the article). To be honest, I can't say the same of Berrien Buggy, and I've dealt with a lot of beach buggies over the years. For this reason, I would suggest that the most critical thing to start with would be establishing notability, ie proving that they really are notable enough to justify a wikipedia article using reliable sources.
I'd also suggest that, to help avoid conflict of interest issues, you start by creating the article in a subpage under your user page. For example, you might create User:Jezebeliii/Sandbox or User:Jezebeliii/Berrien Buggy and edit the article there until you have something that you believe is complete enough including being adequately referenced. Then you could come back to this page and request that it be reviewed. Provided that an independant person considers the article to be of acceptable quality, then they can move it to article space.
Once it goes to article space, I'd suggest that you should only directly edit the article to do minor corrections such as grammar and typos. For substantive changes, you should discuss them on the talk page that will be created to go with the article, and let other editors make the decision on whether or not they be added to the article. --Athol Mullen (talk) 22:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
To which I say, "WTF!", "TL;DR", "ignore the advice above" and leave you with a healthy "DON'T PANIC". As long as you keep your article neutral, Jezebeliii, and cite your sources, nobody's gonna bother you, and nor should they. In short, go for it. Be sure to stop by here if you want a second opinion on the article. :) Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 11:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

DELETE NISSAN VG30DET?

This entry needs deleting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VG30DET

It's contents need moving to section 10 on the NISSAN VG engine page. Where it already has an entry as part of Nissan VG engine family. If this is permitted to remain then there will soon be separate pages for every version of every Nissan engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nissan_VG_engine 80.176.86.205 (talk) 18:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

If you believe that's the case, you could merge the information yourself and stick a proposed deletion tag on the page; if no-one's interested enough to remove it within a week it will get deleted. Mark Grant (talk) 18:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
What he said. Better yet: Stick a message on the talk page. If nobody responds, do a clean, merge and redirect yourself. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 18:29, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
True, a redirect would be better. 19:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark Grant (talk • contribs)

Supercar or sportscar/GT? (another eternal supercar debate episode: Nissan GT-R)

I think I am heading for another tedious episode of which car is a supercar or not, otherwise another pointless edit war as this is the case with the Nissan GT-R, as Dusk Knight tried to pointed out according to sources, without reading the supercar article saying he don't have time to read it all.

In my opinion, the class sports/grand tourer is more suitable. Plus to back my claim up, the Japanese wikipage refer the car as that (written as スポーツカー･GT, translated as sportscar/GT), plus listing its market competitor kills the claim off that it is a supercar.

Also, another issue with this article is the one about the "Media Appearances" section which that user don't not want to see it being killed off even if that section do not contribute to the article. I would love to say more, but that won't be a good idea.

For this case would Sports/GT be more suitable, considering the "similar to" bit listing its market competitors who are not supercars and should the "Media Appearances" section be purged off. Willirennen (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Original discussion is here: Talk:Nissan GT-R#Car classification. Just wanted to point that out since a few of my comments were misread, and, as a result, have been misrepresented here.~ Dusk Knight 20:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Its a meaningless debate. In terms of these descriptive nouns, the whole concept of car classification is entirely subjective. There is simply no right or wrong answer. You might as well argue the difference between a fast car and a very fast car. Mighty Antar (talk) 19:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I think this is heading to another edit war, just check the discussion bit, also the Dodge Viper article is becoming deadlocked since one user believes the Dodge Viper and the Lamborghini Gallardo is a supercar. Willirennen 02:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Not to mention that user:Wikiarrangementeditor has now violated the 3 revert rule and do need seriously reporting to WP:AN3. Willirennen 04:18, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Just a note - the Pontiac Grand Am article lists the early 1973-1975 models as "originally a supercar". I'm tempted to delete it outright, but I'll give a chance for comments first. Duncan1800 (talk) 11:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Major revisions to Dodge page

Let me know what you think; it's my first major edit. (Since there was basically nothing to work with from the start, it's been built up pretty much from scratch.) First thought after the fact is that Dodge Trucks could probably be split into a separate page on its own and cut the size down a little, since the article now desperately needs some more photos to break up all that text. Also, there's a new page for Dodge concepts that I split out of the original. Most of the cars I added to that list need a page written for them, so if someone besides me wants a project... Duncan1800 (talk) 15:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Photos added as of yesterday morning, which makes the thing look much better if I say so myself. Is there any way the article can be upgraded from Start-class? I think that entire evening/morning's worth of work is at least B-class now. Duncan1800 (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
It is, I think, though I'll wait for someone else to agree with me before upgrading it. It needs moar inline citations, though. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 13:59, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I actually agree about the inlines, but I had already spent the entire evening on getting the thing reasonably complete and cleaned up. Feel free to tag anything you think needs a specific citation and I'll look into it. I was more concerned at the time with having the article complete, so I made a point not to have anything too loose in there. Duncan1800 13:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to slap {{fact}}s all over the article, because that looks ugly and I don't see anything dubious in there. I don't particularly want to mess up what is now a quality article (and excellent work on it, btw). I don't think it's urgent to add them; the main reasons, as I see them, are reader confidence and to stop unsourced cruft being piled on by people who aren't you, because this would mislead people into thinking your sources were consulted. Do it in your own time; I think the <ref>Some guy 1999, p. 32.</ref> followed by the list of sources consulted format would look better there; it also has the benefit of being easier to add, but whatever. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 13:49, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Fratzog

Ok, you Mopar buffs, gonna need a hand to expand and improve Fratzog. Yeah, I know what it is, but I'm having a hard time flushing out the notability and references for it. Thanks — MrDolomite • Talk 18:16, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there really much to be said about it? Might it be better merged into the Dodge article? Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 11:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I concur with LC. If you're struggling for references, it may be because there just aren't any out there. I've seen plenty more logos in my time which are far more recognizable, which don't have their own pages. A previous AfD was cancelled, but if it hadn't I'm sure it would have ended up merged into Dodge. --DeLarge (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Merge. Malcolma (talk) 12:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Chrysler

I am considering creating this portal, and since we already have a Portal:Microsoft - why not one about Chrysler and its cars?? We could do the same for Ford, General Motors and VAG (Volkswagen-Audi Group).

It wouldn't be redundant to Portal:Cars, if anyone thinks that. Feedback is appreciated. --Solumeiras talk 11:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea, but you'd have to make sure enough articles are tagged properly for Chrysler LLC (especially since the recent "de-merger"). Also, are there enough articles on the people of Chrysler's history (chairmen, chief engineers, stylists, etc.) out there? I haven't checked, to be honest, but I believe WP is still light on automotive biographies in general. Duncan1800 13:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it's a bad idea. This portal (and associated project) already has too little effort, too few featured articles, too little interest in coming up with featured photos', Did You Know and On This Day entries. The most recent "in the news" item is 10 months old! The idea that we could take away some of the few people we have and somehow magically have enough effort to support both this AND another portal is crazy! Right now, there are only two articles about Chrysler cars that have reached 'featured' status - are you planning on running them on alternate days? It's a terrible idea - sorry. SteveBaker (talk) 16:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Notable?

This is interesting, but does it belong on Wikipedia? Totnesmartin 19:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added a note to the Rolls-Royce 10 H.P. article and corrected the number of surviving cars taking the info from the notes on Bonhams website. I am also wondering why the article is titled 10 H.P. when every other reference to the car, including the Rolls-Royce website calls it the 10 hp. It was changed (correctly in my view) to 10 hp back in March 2006 but promptly changed back. Does someone have more info on this? Malcolma 22:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be the prevailing Wikipedia style to have full stops in initials; for instance most football clubs will be suffixed F.C. rather than FC. (eg Liverpool F.C.) Why this is so, when the rest of the world does otherwise, is beyond me. Totnesmartin 22:23, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
From the Manual of Style:
Periods and spaces
"Acronyms and initialisms are generally not separated by full stops (periods) or blank spaces (GNP, NORAD, OBE, GmbH); many periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage (PhD is preferred over Ph.D. and Ph. D.)." I will put something on the discussion page and if no-one comes up with a good reason then it will be going back to 10hp. Malcolma 09:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Tesla Roadster

Just to bring this one up I am having issues with this article concerned, I have removed the trivia and notable owners section but these have been reverted on 2 occasions as the editors disagree with how irrelevant it is, stating people other than you find this information non trivial. Just want to know what to do if it comes back, as I am within my 3 revert limit. Willirennen 03:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

handbrake systems

why is the handbrake in a car a pulling action and in a tram system it is a pushing action to apply the hand brake? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.29.19 (talk) 21:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Vehicle weight

Someone has requested that editors of automobile content consider including the weight of vehicles in articles. Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Automobile Weight. Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 04:23, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with this, as weight is a primary performance indicator besides the engine itself. I find that a lot of articles lack the weight, I don't know why they don't include it. --Leedeth 10:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Import scene

I found this page while on WP:CLEANUP duty. I had a stab at it, but I thought I'd send it over here to see if anyone in this Wikiproject has a better idea of how to approach it. Manning (talk) 12:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Minor edits

I don't know if this is widespread throughout Wikipedia, but because I primarily edit auto articles, I've noticed it increasingly here: significant edits, such as reverts and major content changes, marked as minor.

For reference, for careless WikiProject Autos editors:

"A check to a minor edit box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the current and previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, et cetera. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute.

By contrast, a major edit is a version that should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is not minor, even if the edit is a single word.

The distinction between major and minor edits is significant because editors may choose to ignore minor edits when reviewing recent changes; logged-in users might even set their preferences to not display them. If you think there is any chance that another editor might dispute your change, please, do not mark it as minor.

Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette, especially if the change involves the deletion of some text.

Reverting a page is not likely to be considered minor under most circumstances. When the status of a page is disputed, and particularly if an 'edit war' is brewing, then it is better not to mark any edit as minor." From: Minor Edit

IFCAR (talk) 03:29, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Easiest way to avoid any complications, so far as I've noticed, is to at least use the notation box (under the main editing window) and describe what you changed. For me, anything beyond bug-fixing, spell-check or mild grammar issues counts as a major edit - but even when it's not, I make a note of what I fixed. And remember, it's always easy to do a history check... Duncan1800 (talk) 07:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Ditto the above. Edits without a proper summary are far, far more annoying than edits flagged as minor which aren't. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 16:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Saturn Astra merge proposal

There is a discussion in progress on merging Saturn Astra into Opel Astra. Right now the consensus is nearly evenly split between merge and no merge. Additional discussion is welcome. --Vossanova o< 16:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Done - it's merged. SteveBaker (talk) 01:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

General Motors official images now licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Just here to let you all know that General Motors has licensed all their images from the website [1] as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported. I have uploaded demonstration file to use as guide for those who do not know how to correctly license images here. OSX (talk • contributions) 07:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

This reference on the page for the sample image says that it is "for the purpose of editorial comment only. The use of these images for advertising, marketing, or any other commercial purposes is prohibited." Does wikipedia use count as editorial comment? I would guess not but I'm not sure. --Athol Mullen (talk) 13:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure wikipedia is not in the business of advertising, marketing, or making a profit, so we should be good to use them. We are just editorializing (in a NPOV way of course) about the vehicles in question. Download away!--Analogue Kid (talk) 15:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Steer clear. GM seem very very confused as to what rights a CC-BY license grants. A CC-BY license doesn't allow setting extra conditions such as "for the purpose of editorial comment only" and "but may not be altered in any other way". Either they're "for the purpose of editorial comment only", or they're CC-BY. They cannot be both.
As it stands, if we go by their understanding of how they are licensing their images, which is that we're not allowed to modify them and are only usable for editorial commentary, we only have a fair use claim on it. Given that nearly all promotional images are replaceable (and hence, using them under a fair use claim violates our copyright policy), don't upload any images from this site for now until things are clarified. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 16:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Addendum: You can join the first related deletion discussion here. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 03:51, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
(Copied from my post on the RfD) It is clearly not GM's intention to license these images in a manner that Wikipedia can accept. They may indeed have made an error in stating their license terms - but I don't think it's ethical to exploit that error. You'd have to be VERY sure that their caveats to CC were invalidated by CC itself and that's a finer legal point than any of us here are likely to be qualified to determine. If it turned out that their caveats override the words in the CC license itself, they could indeed set their lawyers on us - and itty-bitty-Wikipedia would likely be squashed like a bug. "The Right Thing" is to tell them of their mistake and let them deal with it. We can tell them that in our opinion, their caveats are meaningless - and if they agree, they'll remove them. Just because they are a large, faceless organisation doesn't give us the right to act unethically. SteveBaker (talk) 17:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Is the Ford Model T really the Car of the Century ?

The selection method chosen for voting for the car of the century was by an elimination process with an internet vote, open to the public. I question the veracity of this selection; the use of the term open to the public is misleading as not everyone had the ease to access a computer, let alone to be connected to the internet. (Economic factors which still persist to date all around the world.) Not everyone had the knowledge to use a computer or the software - fact that still persists today in many countries and especially amongst the older generations. Taking into account these factors and taking into account the year which it occurred, makes one think that the "public" which partook in the voting were from rich countries, and were well informed and or the media were more active divulging the election.

Taking into account all these factors makes one question which car was really the car of the century. Other means of election could have been a more accurate "measure" for the selection namely: The car that had the highest number of sales, one way to measure "popularity / choice of selection / a vote". Another could have been the car that was in continuous production for the longest time. Yet another could have been the number of clubs of each car and the number of members, all of these once again could have been considered as a "vote" by the "public" (at least more comprehensive means of election) which in most cases didn’t know about the election or didn’t have the means or the knowledge to be able to cast their vote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.203.246 (talk) 04:40, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I presume you're referring to the last sentence in the lead of Ford Model T. Debating whether or not the vote was "fair" is beyond the scope of a tertiary source like Wikipedia. We only need to demonstrate that the car did indeed win. It was a notable award, and verifiable, and therefore is included. Whether or not you (or anyone else) agrees with the result is irrelevent; we only report information, we don't pass judgement on it. --DeLarge (talk) 13:48, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
It depends on who you talk to. According to Autocar magazine, the Mini was "Car of the Century" (Autocar magazine 1995). The Global Automotive Elections Foundation worldwide internet poll (which I think is the one you are thinking of) picked the Model T as number one Car of the Century with the Mini in second place. "Number One Classic Car of All Time" (Classic & Sports Car magazine 1996) was also the Mini...so it was a "Classic" four years before production stopped! The problem is, which criteria to use.
Using volume of sales would result in some really banal, non-innovative car winning just because it was well marketted - that would say very little about whether it was the best ever car - only that it had the best ever marketting campaign. Also, the volume of sales criteria would strongly bias the survey towards modern cars because the car-buying market was much smaller in the days of the Model T than it is now. Back in the hayday of the Model T, about one car in three that you'd actually see on the streets of America was a Model T...yet over 20 years in production, it sold less than many modern cars sell in a single year! Both the total sales and the duration of manufacturing leads to ikky problems of whether a major design revision 'counts' or not - which would result in even more debate and acrimony.
In the end, the vote was simply one of public opinion - the best car is the one that the most people thought was best. The result seems pretty fair to me:
  • The Model T was an insanely popular car (both by sales and by how much people loved them) - it was innovative and it changed the world by providing the first car that the man in the street could afford. It certainly deserves 1st place.
  • The Mini set the standard for small cars and it's certainly one of the most well loved (except in the US where it was banned after only a year of sales due to some ridiculous bumper height restriction law - so it never caught on and the VW bug filled that niche instead).
  • The Citroen DS (which came third) had more innovative features than you can shake a stick at - and it was a superb rally car (until the Mini beat the crap out of it).
  • The Volkswagen Beetle (fourth) - undeniably insanely popular and definitely "well loved".
  • The Porsche 911 (fifth) - again, a classic.
The problem is that you can make any car you like out as the winner if you pick the right criteria. How about the car that was distributed in the most countries - or the car with the biggest engine - or the car that most people wanted to buy (even if it was ridiculously overpriced) - the fastest car - the car that did least damage to the ecosystem? In the end, the broadest criteria is "The car people most think was the car of the century" - and an internet poll is as good a way as any you'll find to measure that. It's hard to dispute the results either. SteveBaker (talk) 17:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
As with any arbitrary award (a poll is about as arbitrary as you can get, were they also polled on their favourite sweet?) the source needs to be sourced (which has been done), the nominating body explained (which has not) and the justification for the awards authoritative position needs to be explained (which has only partly been done). I'm all for deleting the line as the referencing article actually appears to be a critique of the award as much as anything and does not sufficiently explain why this award should be considered more noteworthy than any other group of people's nomination for a car of the year. There claims to be an orgnaisation, and a panel of judges but none of which are named, the awards noteworthiness is far from established. --Falcadore (talk) 02:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The result was covered by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and both Reuters and AAP News circulated speculation on the result in advance (where the Tin Lizzie was the hot favourite). Plenty of further verification in the Google News archives showing how widely it was covered. It also has its own WP article, although that needs cleaned up. I'll maybe do that today if I have time... --DeLarge (talk) 09:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
As a postscript, I'm not sure what you object to about the current citation (here) which seems to be one of the most comprehensive news references the editor could have used; it's more thorough than all the articles I cited above. The Detroit News is a reputable source, and it does explain the nominating body ("Four years ago, a group of more than 100 automotive experts --journalists, museum curators, historians and "observers" -- decided to sort through all the thousands of nameplates that have existed to determine which single motor vehicle was the most significant, the most influential, the most memorable: The Car of the Century....A network of respected individuals and organizations from within the automotive industry was established. One hundred and thirty-five automotive journalists representing 32 countries formed a professional jury"). That also goes a long way to justifying the award's noteworthiness. --DeLarge (talk) 09:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree - the methodology they used in creating the award was impeccable - we have it referenced above and beyond Wikipedia requirements and there is no doubt that the fact is notable given the number of significant news sources who reported it. The results were not at all unreasonable - the process undoubtedly came up with the best answer (at least for the first half dozen places) - there is nothing here to complain about. Yes - we absolutely should mention it in the articles about cars who made it into the top dozen or so places. The Mini article mentions that the Mini came second - and that article is an FA - so you know that mentioning the award is NOT detrimental to the article. SteveBaker (talk) 16:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Mercedes-Benz R170 stub proposed revision

Mercedes-Benz R170 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Mercedes-Benz R170

Manufacturer Mercedes-Benz Parent company DaimlerChrysler (1998-2007) Daimler-Benz (1997-98) Production 1997-2004 Successor Mercedes-Benz R171 Class Sports car Body style(s) 2-door retractable hardtop The Mercedes-Benz R170 was an automobile platform for sports cars produced since 1997. R170 models were originally sold as the SLK-Class and was based on the W202 C-Class. It was replaced by a new SLK-Class platform - the R171 - for 2005. R170 and R171 chassis production is handled by Karmann of Germany.

Vehicles:

1997-2004 Mercedes-Benz SLK-Class 2004-Present Chrysler Crossfire 1996 SLK 200 R170.435 engine: M111.946

1996 SLK 200K R170.445 engine: M111.943

1998 SLK 230K R170.447 engine: M111.973

2000 SLK 200K R170.444 engine: M111.958

2000 SLK 230 R170.465 engine: M112.947

==> The last line should read 2000 SLK 320 R170.465 engine: M112.947 M112 is the 3.2L V6 engine, not 2.3L L4 engine, I believe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.132.37.54 (talk • contribs) 03:28, December 24, 2007

Fixed! OSX (talk • contributions) 10:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Additional opinions needed

There is currently a debate regarding the classification of the Nissan GT-R. I feel that this debate has potential to effect other pages in the Wikiproject Automobiles domain. More or less it boils down to when the "supercar" label should be applied. As it stands we could really use more opinions. There is a long discussion but I wrote a summary of my postion today and would like to see whether others agree or disagree. The input of some of the members of this project would be appriciated. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 04:14, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:FAC - Featured article candidates 2008

OK, so we kick off a new year in a few days time. What articles would anyone like to get to featured status in January?? If you can help me with one or two, I'll help you with any you're working on.

For me, these cars should really be featured articles....

what ones do you want to get as featured article candidates?? As it is, it's a tough job but someone's got to do it...

It would be good to get the more obscure vehicles to WP:FA status! --Solumeiras talk 15:44, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Chevrolet Blazer is a dab page. --DeLarge (talk) 15:59, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I have been trying to get Ford Taurus to featured status, but it always kept falling short. I am working on a major revision that may finally give it the final push. Karrmann (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
When someone actually nominates a car article for FAC (or even GAC), it would be nice to note it here on the Automobiles discussion page. This will allow experienced car article editors to check out the article and weigh in on the discussions. SteveBaker (talk) 17:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Category:Vehicles with boxer engines

I notice the recent creation of Category:Vehicles with boxer engines which purports to contain vehicles where "...the horizontal piston layout classifies them as boxer, horizontal or flat engines.". If the category is intended to include all flat engines, then is "Vehicles with boxer engines" a suitable name for it? Aren't there some flat engines which aren't boxers? Note that I'm not an expert in this area, so I'm happy to be corrected. DH85868993 (talk) 23:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

180 degree V12 is maybe better say flat-12...so that article name could be with flat engines--— Typ932T | C  00:25, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I was under the impression that flat and boxer engines were one and the same, but it looks like there's a small technical distinction. I'm not convinced that this category would survive the scrutiny of the WP:OCAT people, since I don't know how many of those cars use the engine configuration as a significant feature. Is there a category for V- W- or inline-engined vehicles? Even ignoring that, it should certainly follow the parent page's naming convention. I'd take this to WP:CfD and get it renamed to Category:Vehicles with flat engines. --DeLarge (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I created this category because the flat engine is not a widely used platform, which is currently being used actively by only three companies: Subaru, Porsche for cars and BMW for motorcycles. European countries usually refer to the flat engine as "boxer" and there exists a photo of the Subaru flat-6 using both words, "boxer" and "H", refering to the term Horizontal on the engine cover. Is it my opinion that creating a category for engines using the "V" and inline or straight engine is unnecessary because they are widely used and a large percentage of the general public is familiar with those engine configurations. Currently, only Volkswagen AG uses the "W" configuration, which can also be regarded as a twin "V", so a category for the "W" isn't necessary because only one company uses and created it.

After creating this category, obscure vehicles, such as defunct manufacturers like Jowett, Golaith, Panhard, and Namco (a Greek manufacturer) were lost in obscurity until they were brought to light by having a flat engine. I think the purpose of Wikipedia is to educate about subjects that are rarely mentioned and now readers can learn about unknown facts, and may even encourage others to add to these obscure manufacturers.

I welcome any comments anyone might have on this subject. (Dddike (talk) 20:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC))

Car Classifications

Having discussed the application of the supercar label at great length the on the Nissan GT-R page, is it time we tried to achieve some sort of consensus here on the best way to apply and use car classifications in automotive articles? The problem with terms such as Sports Car, compact car, small family car etc. is that they are all subjective and the debate we've just had at Nissan could be entered into with each and every car article that appears on Wikipedia.

I think the point we've reached on the Nissen page is a good compromise e.g.

"The Macho FZZ is a high performance automobile created by Macho, and has been labeled a supercar by Macho (cite source) and several automotive magazines (insert more citations here).

or

"The Muppet 320 is an automobile created by Muppet, and has been labelled a city car by Muppet and several automotive magazines

It describes what the thing is (automobile) and whatever its manufacturer classes it as, and provides an independant source which supports that description.

I'm not suggesting we find a consensus on which car is what class, just that we attempt to find a consensus on how we use apply that information in Automobile layout to lead the drive for improvements in automotive articles. I think personally class should be removed from the Template:Infobox Automobile. Mighty Antar (talk) 15:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The one thing I'd comment about Nissan GT-R, and the suggestion above, is that it elevates the car classification disproportionately. Putting it (and virtually nothing else) in the lead is indicative of an editing community that hasn't got its priorities straight. I've always treated the lead as a standalone summary of the whole article, as the Guide to Layout recommends. Once the article's eventually unprotected, I'd recommend putting that sentence somewhere a little more appropriate and rewriting the lead paragraph. --DeLarge (talk) 16:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
How does it elevate it? See Automobile layout and you'll see the classification above is actually further along the first sentence than we currently have it. I wasn't suggesting for one moment that this should be the entire lead. Mighty Antar (talk) 23:02, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the solution above is best for all articles, with one minor addition. Car classification in info boxes, and even the articles themselves, should be extremely broad, i.e. road car, racing car, prototype, concept car, etc. —Mr. Grim Reaper at 02:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
It's easy and clear to say "NHTSA classifies it as a compact car" or "it is labelled by EuroNCAP as a small 4x4". Official organizations' terms are indisputable, although they don't always go together with the "real" classification. However, the latter is quite impossible to quote (or even achieve). I've seen motoring websites calling the Punto a compact car, the Smart a city car... so my view is that those kind of sources can't be used. Perhaps European-market models could be referred to by European segments (A-F), to avoid confusion between words like "mini", "small", "compact" and "large". That is what the Spanish-language es:Wikiproyecto:Automóviles has done (primarily since there aren't stock classification words). -- NaBUru38 (talk) 22:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I would prefer to keep class at least in the body of the article (it helps better understand what's at issue if you can say it's a "small car", "intermediate estate car", "large sedan", "SUV" etc.), though I believe we should go established institutions when it comes to controversial cases (EuroNCAP for Europe, for example). I'd say for a vast majority of cases it's pretty uncontroversial - for cases where mutiple terms could be applied, I'd formally make names specific to markets preferred (i.e. "full-size car" only applicable to North American cars, "supermini" over "subcompact" to European cars -> since this is English Wikipedia, I'd go by UK English terms for Europe, esp. since those are adopted by EuroNCAP). Also, when a car wandered accross classes, I would not mention it all in the first sentence / main infobox, but discuss in the body, with references to classes in generational infoboxes (if we keep the field).
When it comes to where it all started -> I don't think supercar is a valid "class" here, the phenomenon is too vague. The GT-R is definitely a sports car to me, though. PrinceGloria (talk) 23:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree - the term "Supercar" is vague beyond all belief. No two enthusiasts can agree on what it means - or what cars are or are not 'super'. We've had WAY too many revert wars over this term. Let's stick with sports car or whatever the thing actually is. SteveBaker (talk) 01:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Forgetting supercars for the moment, are the car classifications in the USA universally applied and understood? They most certainly are not as far as the UK market goes. The EuroNCAP classes are not definitions, they are simple groupings to allow prospective purchasers to make rough comparisons between different vehicles that are currently on the market - the test process is the same for a Mini, a Range Rover or a Bugatti Veyron. We could adopt their classifications for cars that have done the test as a cited ref, but they're useless for classifying cars that predate the tests or for other reasons haven't been tested. Mighty Antar (talk) 02:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
We really need to seriously attack Car classification and Truck classification - these are really at the top of the tree of car articles (after Automobile) and it's shameful that they aren't better maintained. I've been doing some cleanup today - but we need more effort on this one. The first step (IMHO) is to merge in (and then delete) Vehicle size class - which has some useful info in it - but which belongs in the other two articles. I've started the ball rolling on that one. We need to describe in detail what the various formal classification schemes are and then fit the not-formally-defined class names into that rock-solid basis. Then we need to explain that these informal ideas of 'car class' are (at best) rather fuzzy definitions that the car manufacturers love to toss around ("The RustMeister150GT has the best warranty and payload capacity in it's class."...yeah, thanks!). There are two sets of examples in Car classification - one set in the table at the top and another set in the description of each class. We could streamline that and somewhat reduce the tendency to accumulate cruft by putting the three examples of each type into the table rather than the one that's there right now - and then remove the examples from the sections below. The problem of classifying cars from the past is that these standards drift. My stock example of the Mini ought these days to be a Kai Car or a City car - but it is the historical basis for the class of Supermini's - which is TWO sizes larger than that! SteveBaker (talk) 17:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The following is copied from Talk:Nissan GT-R#Discussion for further discussion here because of the nature of the discussion:

Discussion

Perhaps this would make a nice amend that would satisfy both camps. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 16:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

That works for me. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 17:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
And me. Mighty Antar (talk) 01:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps this description would also avoid the problems with editors who violate the 3RR rule. — CZmarlin (talk) 04:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps now that TopGear have declared the GT-R Supercar of the year (See above) you will all finally accept it.--Zerosignal84 (talk) 10:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Please understand that this is not an issue of sources. Top Gear calling it a supercar has no impact at all on the discussion at hand (at least not until Top Gear provides a objective definition of the term "supercar" that becomes adopted as the standard definition in the English language). Hugzz (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I generally support that suggestion; however, at the risk of beating a metaphorical dead horse, I wonder if "high performance" is a little too subjective in itself? Who's to say what is "high performance" and what is not? Does a high performance car have to be fast, or must it just have high horse power? Is an incredibly fuel efficient car "high performance" due to its ability to extract a comparatively large amount of power out of a small engine? I like where we're going with this "issue", but I wonder if there may be even more objective ways to describe the car? (but i'm starting to be pedantic) Hugzz (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be best just to describe the specifics of the car, in terms of engine size, and let the reader determine the category that the car falls in. Or to state, "the car has a 3.7-L output blah blah and it is considered XX by XXY and YY by YYX." Seicer (talk) (contribs) 05:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I think I might actually agree. There isn't really a reason to call any car "high performance" here, readers can look at the specs and decide for themselves. What was high performance 20 years ago is average or bellow today. I think the most percise label is probably "sports coupe" or something along those lines. I doubt we can have the unprotect the article though, I have a feeling the SPA edit warring will continue. The question at this point is, should we remove the supercar label from other perhaps more obvious vehicles like the Enzo? --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 05:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I tend to agree. It's far more useful to have an article which starts with something like "The Nissan GT-R is a 473hp AWD coupe capable of 0-60mph in x seconds". That would make it so much easier to compare cars in different articles.
In the current setup you could open the Nissan GTR article and the Ferrari enzo article and the lotus elise article and receive the following information:
"The ferrari enzo is a supercar"
"The nissan gt-r is a supercar"
"The lotus elise is a supercar"
Not very useful for comparison, huh?
It'd be far more useful if they all said:
"The ferrari enzo is a 660hp RWD mid engined coupe capable of 0-60 in 3 seconds"
"The nissan gt-r is a 480hp AWD coupe capable of 0-60 in 3.2 seconds"
"The lotus elise is a 200HP mid engined RWD coupe capable of 0-60 in 4.5 seconds".
See, much more useful? With that information you can do an immediate comparison of the three cars (note: all the above stats are made up on the spot. also note that "hp" and "0-60" may not be the best info for the intro.. its just an example). So yes, I do even support removing the term "supercar" from "clear cut" situations such as the enzo. Hugzz (talk) 06:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well if that is the case I would fully expect that all references to 'Supercar' be removed from Wikipedia, the whole issue simply comes down to that some people do not think this car deserves the title. Be it the badge it wears I don't know, I wonder what would happen if it wore a Porsche badged and was priced at $300k.

The facts are this car: - Is called a supercar be numerous people the automotive press; - It has a never before seen rear mounted transaxle; - Perhaps the most advanced and inteligent AWD system; - Wikipedia will look stupid and wrong with all the press calling this a Supercar and it not. --202.44.184.153 (talk) 05:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your comment! You are indeed correct that this WOULD apply to the whole of wikipedia. See, although this discussion is taking place on the Nissan GT-R article talk page, the discussion has nothing to do with the Nissan GT-R itself; rather, this discussion is PURELY limited to the ability to apply a potentially subjective word like "supercar" to wikipedia. If we are able to achieve a consensus here, then we would all work to apply that consensus to the rest of wikipedia.
Purely because the debate began on this article, it must be finished on this article's talk page before we can attempt to apply the policy to the rest of wikipedia. But please understand that those of us arguing against the term "supercar" dont have anything against the Nissan GT-R; we just dont think the word "supercar" is encyclopedic . The Nissan GT-R is great! If I was writing a magazine article on it i'd call it a "supercar", but if i was writing an encyclopedia article on it I wouldn't. Hugzz (talk) 05:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • It all boils down to the use of "Boastful Superlatives" and this problem will continue as other automakers will soon introduce successive innovations that will make this car and its "intelligent design" systems obsolete. The "high-performance supercar" of a just decade ago now has a hard time keep up with the newest models. We have an age old problem of a moving target as technology improves. Wikipedia is not the forum for original research, but perhaps the automotive press will come up with new and improved superlatives such as "ultracar" that will describe the ever faster, more economical, and better performing vehicles -- similarly as the marketers of laundry detergents or computers promote their new and improved products. As I observe this discussion, it does seem that some enthusiasts get inordinately possessive regarding the labeling of their favorite cars! What is the "hottest" model they boast about today will very likely be ignored in the future and an encyclopedia article simply needs to state the facts about the subject, not hyperbole. — CZmarlin (talk) 06:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't this be considered a neologism? It may have been coined years ago to describe a powerful car, but operational definitions change and as you stated, in twenty years, will the GT-R be considered a 'supercar'? It also seems that the word supercar is used primarily within the automotive forum and with certain magazines (not all magazines and reviews use the term supercar). Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. In 50 years time a great many people would not agree with the statement "The Nissan GT-R (or ferrari f430, or lamborghini diablo, etc) is a supercar". They'd laugh at that idea, since their idea of a supercar would be very different. However, even in 50 years time no one could deny the statement "The nissan GTR is an AWD coupe with 473HP, capable of doing 0-60mph in x seconds, and capable of lapping the 'ring in xmins", because that is true and will always be true. Hugzz (talk) 06:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
If we did implement the solution that disallows the use of both terms as potential neologisms or terms that would be frequently outdated, this article could serve as a model for other pages. I see nothing mentioning a "supercar" or other potential neologisms or the like at these featured and good articles: Holden VE Commodore De Lorean DMC-12 Maserati MC12 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 Autobianchi Primula Lancia Flaminia. This article mentions the term, but I see nothing of the mention at Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 16:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to point out where it says 'if the Ferrari Enzo is a supercar, then the Nissan GT-R is a supercar, then although I never consider it to be, will this mean because a Ford RS200 has been considered to be a supercar by a TV show I have been watching recently, this will mean that it is officially a supercar. That is why I would never be that supportive about the GT-R having the claim being one, plus Nissan would want to call their car that just to sell them, otherwise if they don't they might not be able to find their customers who won't be suckered into believing that they are buying a budget "supercar". Willirennen (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I like the direction this is going, however I have a couple of concerns that need to be worked out. First supercar is used in a lot of manufacturers templates. These templates seem to use gut feeling to class the vehicles more than anything else. Secondly category: supercar exists right now, although currently it seems to include only obvious examples. There is also category sportscar which I have never cared for. It seems to include just about any halfway sporty car. Finally this discussion should be taken to WP:CAR to make sure consensus exists for the changes we are discussing. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 23:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Can I join with Daniel and invite everyone interested to continue to discuss these issues at a centralised discussion on the WikiProject Automobiles page here. I think the terms we are looking at are well enough established to be considered as jargon rather than neologisms. Mighty Antar (talk) 01:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
No problem. I might be on later to add comments, but feel free to copy/paste this entire discussion or link to it. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is a potential issue with using neologisms. A comment made at talk:Nissan GT-R revolved around the supercar's price range. "...supercars are not cheap [...] you do not get supercar performance with the Nissan GT-R [...] Top Gear (magazine) would agree with me." Since there is no strict operational defination of supercar, with various magazines coining different terms -- e.g. supercar, high performance coupe, etc. -- I believe it would be more advantageous and informational to the reader that the engine displacement and other operational characteristics of the automobile be stated in the lead. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 04:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't regard the word 'supercar' as a neologism - it's just a really poorly defined 'fuzzy' term. It's not all about performance - we have cars like the Ariel Atom - which have all of the performance of a pretty respectable supercar - but because it doesn't cost much - some people refuse to give it the title. That's hardly an objective reason. Since we have no solid definition for the term, we should not say "X is a supercar" because that is not a statement that carries any meaning...not even when you have a verifiable source. If Car & Driver magazine (for example) says that "X is a supercar" and we can provide the magazine edition, page number and author - then we still don't have any more information about 'X' than before we started. Sure, this is a verifiable statement - but it fails the notability guideline. A statement that carries zero information is not notable...so we shouldn't write about it. So what do we do? Well, we list the attributes of the car (top speed, accelleration, looks, pricetag...whatever) - and we let the reader decide what they want to call it.
The only places that I think we should be using the term 'supercar' is:
  1. In an article that is discussing the kinds of thing that a reviewer is talking about. The statement "Y said that X is a supercar" - is perhaps an interesting statement about 'Y'. The fact that they said this may be a verifiable fact about Y - and as such, it might belong in an article about 'Y'. But it still tells us nothing that's in any way notable about 'X'.
  2. In the article 'Supercar' - which needs to say that the term is vague.
If we don't act to expunge this term, people are going to continue to argue about whether their favorite sports car is or isn't a supercar. This will result in inconsistent articles (eg if in one article the "X is a supercar" people won the argument and in some other article they lost). It's also inviting a lot of revert warring, upset and anguish. People are almost always arguing from a position of being a fan of the car rather than being objective editors of an encyclopedia. That's an NPOV matter and is no way to proceed - so let's just dump the word and not go there at all.
SteveBaker (talk) 07:30, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
If you all are serious about removing this term for Wikipedia then why is it still located on several car wikis? Zerosignal84 (talk) 09:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Effort! It takes time to fix up a large number of articles. Particularly if we have to repeat the same acrimonious debate each time. SteveBaker (talk) 15:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
There was a rash of "opponents" to any change in the article over potential neologisms, etc., which were all IP socks of CompScientist (talk · contribs) who has been blocked for that, and for edit warring and false AIV reporting. The rash of sock edits, combined with CompScientist's edit warring, is the reason why both articles are protected from editing. A request has been made to unlock the lift based upon a consensus achieved at talk:Nissan GT-R that should satisfy both camps. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 15:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Because we have to reach an agreement on one article before we can go edit all other articles. The Nissan GT-R article appears to be quickly reaching a consensus, so if we can come to an agreement there (and here) that the term "supercar" doesn't belong on an encyclopedia, then we'll do a slow sweep over wikipedia are removing it. There's no point in removing it before we reach an agreement over the issue, because if the tide goes the other way we'd have to revert all our own edits. Also, see WP:POINT; I'd like to edit all of wikipedia to remove references to "supercar" because I beleive this to be the correct course of action, but to do this before consensus would violate the above policy. --Hugzz (talk) 01:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

cfd for category:supercars

I just thought, some of you would like to know, that Category:Supercars is on categories for deletion.--79.212.240.20 (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Car club notability issues

As I have nominated these AFD these articles

there should be a guideline for car clubs and how notable are they as I believe none of these are notable enough to have an article here, trouble is there isn't any thats why I come here to tell you all to draw one up. Moosato Cowabata (talk) 16:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Any reason not to just judge by the quality and quantity of independent sources, as we'd do with any other topic? I hate to see subject-specific guidelines being worked on when the general guideline will do the job. Friday (talk) 16:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
The guidelines in WP:ORG sets a pretty clear standard - is there any reason to suppose that car clubs are some kind of special case? I don't thinks so. Hence: (as I noted in the AfD's) The Club Peugeot UK article is worthy of a keep because it's a national organisation that's supported by Peugeot as their 'official' club. As for the others...yep, delete the suckers per WP:ORG. The general rule is that national and international clubs with some sort of formal recognition that they are indeed the national organising body...are definitely notable. Local clubs are not notable unless you can come up with a boatload of references showing that they are really significant in some other way. Local clubs are notable enough to be mentioned within an article of larger scope, however. So if you wanted to write an article about Isuzu clubs in general, then mentioning the Midwest Isuzu club as a part of a general discussion of such organisations would be entirely appropriate. (Incidentally: Moosato Cowabata doesn't appear to have created an actual AfD for Alfa Romeo Model Register (or if there is one, it's not correctly linked from the article itself) - that one is just a junk article - it's not even about a specific club and it contains zero information.) SteveBaker (talk) 16:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
As I had bee thinking if this to be kept, will this entitle me to create an article for my car club. I think there should be a criteria as there are now too many car clubs with many of these old "traditional" clubs are dying out in favour of the newer internet clubs who are simply nothing but an internet forum. My criteria is to allow for only long established (eg Club Triumph, established in 1954) and those who organise a national racing series (eg AMOC and FOC), that is one fo the few I can currently think of so far. Holding a show is not a good reason for inclusion nor is having a stand in a major car show as these are simply advertising the club. Willirennen (talk) 16:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
There are already guidelines covering that, e.g. WP:ORG PrinceGloria (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Model year vs production year started

We're having a dispute about model year vs production year over in the motorcycling project. I know we've had this discussion here several times before and would love to hear some of your thoughts over at that discussion. Thanks. Roguegeek (talk) 19:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Production year and model year are often identical. They can be definatively established by the 10th digit of the VIN number as per ISO standards. HTH - -- Teutonic Tamer 21:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Not in the US. My MINI Cooper was manufactured in early September 2005, delivered in mid-October 2005, is an '05 according to the VIN number - but the equipment it has is most definitely only available in the 2006 model year. The owners' manual, paperwork, insurance forms and everything else say "2006 MINI Cooper". It's the old story that people want to buy a car in 2005, drive it for two years and then sell it in 2007 - but since it's a 2006 model year, dumb buyers think that it's only 1 year old - when actually it may be more than two years old. In the absence of regulations preventing them from doing so, this means that there is pressure to release model-year N cars in the latter part of year (N-1). It's stupid - but it happens everywhere in the US. SteveBaker (talk) 07:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this was decided here that automobile template says production time? and the template document says "production: year range when the car was produced" still there is lots of articles with model years put on production year range. I think the model years could be written in the main text. Produced and sold model years arent same thing..--— Typ932T | C  21:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
It's not hard to add the phrase (model years) after the year range in the infobox, and make a note in the text as well if warranted. For North American cars, the prevailing method is the model year. I agree that it's stupid, but it's not going to change as far as I can tell - especially when the federal government (via EPA and NHTSA) makes regulations based on model year classifications. Also, it could make some articles a lot more confusing in some cases. For instance:
*"The Plymouth Prowler was introduced in March 1997 as a 1997 model. It was not produced as a 1998 model, but did reappear during calendar 1998 in the spring as a 1999 model and continued into calendar 2000 before switching to the Chrysler brand during the 2000 model year." OR, you could say this:
*"The Plymouth Prowler was introduced for 1997, was not produced for 1998, and returned for 1999 and 2000 before switching to the Chrysler brand. (All years noted above are model years.)"
Duncan1800 (talk) 11:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

serious vandalism problem with quattro (all wheel drive system)

I'm experiencing some very serious vandalism problems with quattro (all wheel drive system).

There is one particular editor - User:Zello555 - who clearly has no understanding of how Audi quattro systems actually work. He is repeatedly changing factual information for wholly incorrect hearsay, and has basically deleted any encyclopedic value from the page.

He claims to know what he is doing, and is actually accusing me of vandalism (Talk:Quattro_(all_wheel_drive_system)#let.27s_talk_about_quattro_only, Talk:Quattro_(all_wheel_drive_system)#undoing_quattro_IV_and_V_off-road_behaviour), and User_talk:Teutonic_Tamer#Haldex_all_wheel_drive_torque_transfer. Can this user be blocked from editing as a matter of urgency, or place a restricted lock to prevent unauthorised editing - otherwise it will turn into laughable drivel.

Discuss as a matter of urgency please - -- Teutonic Tamer 19:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Neither of you are engaging in vandalism; follow the link to see the WP definition. Edit warring over contrary points of view does not count as a deliberate attempt to undermine the encyclopedia, so no-one's going to get blocked. However, this is part and parcel of WP; neither of you own the article, and if you want to improve it you're going to have to work together.
The debate would be alleviated somewhat if one of you started citing reliable sources (i.e. enthusiast websites like AudiWorld generally don't count, as they're not peer-reviewed). In the last month there's been 7k of new material added with not a single citation to support any of it. At the moment the page is mostly original research, and I'd recommend pruning the whole thing back considerably. --DeLarge (talk) 20:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
So, someone who has been advised that they are continously submitting factually incorrect information, even though they have already admitted it was incorrect - is not vandalism?? This isn't edit warring over contrary points of view - this is deliberate editing by deleting factually correct info, and replacing it with hearsay. Being a relatively new Wiki editor, I havn't worked out the intricancies of citing correctly, but I have already quoted a reliable source on my own user talk page ("Hillier's Fundamentals of Motor Vehicle Technology" (5th Ed, Book1) ISBN 0-7487-8082-3 (an academic text book)).
I agree there needs to be some pruning, and I did make a start by removing the redirects from the 4motion page, where some of the quattro stuff would be better placed. However, having to constantly "fire-fight" with incorrect edits from Zello has somewhat distracted me. Furthermore, I absolutely agree 100% that sources such as internet forums, particularly AudiWorld and YouTube should never be used for trying to cite facts.
As it stands, the quattro page has way too much contradiction and hearsay, and Zello blatantly sums this POV by stating "(EDL) (Difflock imitation, detects wheelspin via ABS sensors" - what you may ask is wrong with that? Fact1 - EDL was never created or implemented as a "difflock imitiation" - EDL uses completely different engineering techniques and principles compared to a convention mechanical diff lock. Fact2 - there is no such thing as "ABS sensors" - the correct terminology is "wheel speed sensor" - to use the term "ABS sensors" is just a pure misnomer.
Perhaps you can understand my frustration in someone vandalising a subject which I have considerable professional expertise in! - -- Teutonic Tamer 21:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
It's not vandalism if it's done in good faith - which this appears to be. It doesn't really matter how much expertise you have in the subject because if you rely on that then you are utilising "Original Research" - which is not allowed here. So your standing and that of the other editor are equal...yes, that's tough - but them's the rules. In most editing, you can get away with an occasional unsourced fact (yeah - we're supposed to have sources for everything - but in reality that's never going to happen). When providing sources for your edits become CRITICAL is in these kinds of edit wars. You have to be able to come up with a reference to a book or a really authoritative website (preferably Audi's own site) for every single disputed fact. You have to use the guidelines in WP:V to ensure that your sources are acceptable (car enthusiast forums, for example, are NOT). Then, if there is still a dispute, you have to challenge the other editor to come up with sources of his/her own. In theory, if you have your facts right and you have solid sources - then they won't be able to challenge you. Hopefully at that point the warring stops. If not, you may have to call in the admins. But waving around your own personal credentials is not likely to carry any weight (it might in practice carry some weight - but in theory, it does not). SteveBaker (talk) 07:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell the consensus is to not use the phrase.. "such and such is a supercar." If no one objects lets start to change these to "such and such is a mid engined sports coupe" or whatever is appropriate. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 00:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

American and European classes merged... what a kerfuffle!

Oh no. No no no. Somebody merged the articles on American and European car classes apparently (e.g. compact car is now merged with small family car). This is soooo wrong. The articles existed to explain where the classifications came from, how they evolved, how they are applied in their specific markets. For all intents and purposes, while nowadays many vehicles termed "compact" in America, be it by EPA or the general "public", can be classified as "small family cars" in UK/Europe, the classes are wholly different, and for the most part of their history so far, have not been overlapping (Ford Falcon a small family car?). Sometimes Wikipedia can get so depressing... Will somebody please take care of that and de-merge? PrinceGloria (talk) 13:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I couldn't take it anymore and de-merged subcompact from supermini car. I have also created a disambig for supermini and moved the content pertaining to superminicomputer to its own article, awaiting thunder and lighting from WikiProjects involved with the latter subject matter. While I have trimmed down subcompact to what might be a borderline encyclopedic article, the article on superminis is full of sh!t, to put it mildly (and I am absolutely using the most delicate term I could think of). I am now pondering whether to remove the... manure myself, or ask for a more consensual approach and team effort. PrinceGloria (talk) 14:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
PS. Please also look into the Holden Gemini issue far above, as otherwise I am afraid it will end up forgotten...
Hello? Please see Holden Gemini above too! PrinceGloria (talk) 11:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Bump! PrinceGloria (talk) 18:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Precedent for dealing with vehicle twins

It seems that for the most part on WP, mechanically-identical cars have their own articles. I was hoping to see most of the remaining combined-twin articles split up as well, but I just wanted to make sure there was some consensus before going through each one. All the examples I can think of right now are GM trucks, but I expect there are more. And before everyone says it, there are some exceptions that I've actually seen discussion of. (Ford Freestar, for example, and Chevrolet Astro.) I'm not alone on this, am I? IFCAR (talk) 14:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the previous consensus was to merge rather than split to avoid unnecessary content multiplication. It wasn't applied too consistenty though... The rule of a thumb is that when the vehicle can be described in a common article with reasonable amounts of content (like in the case of "was also sold as GMC Whatever" or "in this generation, the Mercury version had extra door handles for four-handed aliens and insectoids"), there is little need for a split. A split might be warranted when the nameplates only share a part of history, like in the case of Vauxhall Astra, which had a history of its own before the Opel (though is sufficiently covered in the Opel article MkIII onwards). PrinceGloria (talk) 15:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
PS. Somebody was kind enough to dump almost the entire section of the Opel article to Vauxhall Astra under MkIII, but I guess you can see my point.
I brought it up because many of the combined articles are increasingly jumbled with explanation, illustration, dimensions, and so forth, or content focused on only one of the vehicles. I don't think the sentences here and there trying to cover an entire vehicle work well, and that most articles are set up that way for precisely that reason. IFCAR (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I am not really sure what you mean, but if an article speaks of a Ford mentioning there was a Mercury variant, I don't think it is necessary to mention that the Mercury followed suit with every sentence. In essence, the subject is one and the same. The eurovans article covers four nameplates (well, actually seven) and I don't think anybody got hurt. PrinceGloria (talk) 17:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

There has been a user thatt has went around merging articles of badge engineered clones with each other, many which I have reverted. Examples were that they merged Plymouth Laser and Eagle Talon into Mitsubishi Eclipse. I reverted, though, because These cars have different histories, and I feel that they deserve their own articles. Karrmann (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

She also merged Geo Storm into Isuzu Impulse. Karrmann (talk) 17:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
He or she did the right thing, even if performed wrongly. The cars are for the most part identical and there isn't much to be said of one that cannot be of the other, except for content of questionable encyclopedicity. PrinceGloria (talk) 17:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
PS. Encyclopedic article are not something anybody or anything "deserves". They are not means of recognition.
Pam1855 (talk · contribs) also redirected with merging Maruti 1000 and Suzuki Cultus into Suzuki Swift, which I reverted. I do agree with merging to some degree, but the history of the Cultus/Swift nameplates is a bit more complicated than simple rebadging exercises and there is information in some of these articles that was different from the others and was not incorporated with the "merge". --Pc13 (talk) 18:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, Suzukis are a different matter altogether, we need to tackle them sooner or later (any takers? I'll gladly discuss that...), but this is not about whether Pam is a cool gal or not, but what to do. I'd say - separate articles only when content is overflowing and describing both vehicles unwieldy. Example of content that is often overflowing but unencyclopedic:
  • prices...
  • detailed description of trim levels
  • lorra lorra technical data (those are mostly the same for rebadges models anyway)
  • write-ups on reviews, "critical reception", Jeremy Clarkson's opinion, Top Gear participation, and (horror!) trying to actually review a car on Wikipedia
  • how many vehicles are still on the road
  • the "Bajabong Pundong in the UK" editorials some guy is putting into articles, and the like
  • etc.
Once you get rid of those, the articles suddenly become trim and fit, and merging becomes an obvious choice whenever they got de-merged :D Cheers, PrinceGloria (talk) 20:58, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm absolutely in favor of merging 'twin' car articles. I just recently merged Saturn Astra into Opel Astra for precisely this reason...and I can see no reason not to merge Vauxhall Astra into that same article. However, we do have to be careful not to be over-zealous! For example, in this case the Holden Astra started out as a badge engineered Nissan Pulse/Cherry - and only later became a badge-engineered Opel Astra. This is a case where merging the Holden Astra article into either Opel Astra OR Nissan Pulsar would make for a nightmareish set of intertwined articles! In this case, I think it would be better to strip Holden Astra of almost all of it's content and replace it with a short stub that says something like: "For First and Second generation Holden Astra's before 1996: See 'Nissan Pulse' - for third and fourth generation Holden Astras (1996 to present) see 'Opel Astra'". This is more like a disambiguation page - we have two distinct cars - but with the same name - so we dab them. I think it adds a lot to an article about (say) the Opel Astra to see what small tweaks and changes were made for different national markets - putting that information into one place is much clearer than having to scour related pages to find it. SteveBaker (talk) 22:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Steve, do note that the Vauxhall Astra nameplate has a bit longer history than Opel Astra (much like Holden), hence the separate article. That said, dumping content from Opel to Vauxhall or adding meaningless details (all trim levels, though how do we know the list is complete and verified?) is not a good idea for adding gravitas to the Vauxhall... PrinceGloria (talk) 23:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes - you're somewhat right...but if you look into this more carefully it's even more messy in the case of the Vauxhall Astra's. Early Vauxhall Astras were rebadged Opel Kadettes - later ones were rebadged Opel Astras. But notice that the first generation of the Opel Astra was really just the next generation Kadette. Opel changed the name from Kadette to Astra to match the Vauxhall name. They even carried on the letter series - the last Opel Kadette was the "Kadette E" - and the first Opel Astra was the "Astra F"...which speaks volumes for how Opel considered the Astra F as "really" being the Kadette F. So if we had chosen the "Vauxhall Astra" as the 'one true article' to merge the other Astra articles into instead of choosing the Opel article - then we'd be saying that BOTH Opel Kadette and Opel Astra should be merged into Vauxhall Astra since the Opel Kadette was "really" just a Vauxhall Astra. Looked at that way, we'd surely want to merge Opel Astra into Vauxhall Astra along with Saturn Astra. The Holden case is more clear-cut though - the early Holden Astra's were Nissan cars with no discernable common heritage with the other Astra's. Sometimes, you'd just like to STRANGLE those annoying automotive marketting guys! SteveBaker (talk) 03:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Trim levels appears to be the defence being used at Talk:Isuzu Gemini for not merging the Holden Gemini into Isuzu Gemini. --Falcadore (talk) 07:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Hillman Avenger/VW 1800, separate articles should exist. I would say it's a case of on an article-by-article basis, not a blanket "let's-merge-the-duplicate-car" article. --Solumeiras talk 13:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Wikipedia ALREADY has a means to deal with this situation. That's why we have redirects (when one article needs two names) and disambiguation pages (when one name refers to two or more different objects).
  • If the same car (perhaps with small variations such as options and trim level) has two or more different names - then there should be just one article about the car which lists all of the names it has been marketted under and describes in whatever detail seems appropriate, the differences between the national variations.
  • When (as is the case with Holden Astra) one name has been used to describe a variety of different cars (eg, the Holden Astra was once a badge-engineered Nissan Pulsar and later a badge-engineered Opel Astra) - then we should treat the article as a disambiguation page. Just as Steve Baker can refer to a hockey player, a film actor and a motorcycle racer - so can Holden Astra refer to the (1984–1989) Holden Astra (link to Nissan Pulsar) or the (1990-present) Holden Astra (link to Opel Astra). So I think the Holden Astra page should look exactly like this:
Holden Astra (disambiguation)
_________________________________________________________________
(Redirected from Holden Astra)
The name Holden Astra can refer to:
Then I'd make redirects from Holden Astra (1984-1989) to Nissan Pulsar and from Holden Astra (1990-present) to Opel Astra.
If there ever was a Holden Astra that was a uniquely made car then you'd call the article about that version Holden Astra (1948-1961) or something - and add a link to it from that same disambiguation page.
I don't see ANY cases where splitting up the information about what is (essentially) a single type of car into multiple articles is EVER justified - and it certainly doesn't make sense to put a bunch of Nissan Pulsar information into an article with a bunch of Opel Astra information just because some marketting guy decided to try to keep brand recognition by keeping the old name for the newer cars. I understand that enthusiasts for particular cars are upset when they "lose their article" - but this is an encyclopedia and we're here to classify things by what they ARE not by what they are CALLED (that would be the job of a dictionary).
The only tricky part of this is when we consider two cars to be 'sufficiently different' to warrant two articles - and to my mind that takes a lot more than the difference between the 1990 Holden Astra and the Opel Astra. So, to take my favorite two Featured Articles: I made separate articles for the Mini and the Mini Moke because they look entirely different and have totally different body styles and were intended for completely different applications (one is an offroader/beach buggy - the other is a family saloon car) - despite the fact that they have identical engine, gearbox and suspension, were designed by the same guy and rolled off the same production line. But I didn't make a different article for the Australian Mini and the UK version - despite the fact that they had different engines, one had wind-down windows, the other didn't, one had hydroelastic suspension when the other didn't, they had different wheels, different trim and different bumpers and at various times in their histories, different names and different engines. No matter all of that - they were definitely the same car. Now if the Aussies had happened to call their version of the Mini "The Holden Mini" instead of "The Austin Mini" - would that automatically trigger a new article? Hell no!
There is no problem here - we have Wikipedia guidelines about this stuff - and the disambiguation and redirect mechanisms were both put in place for PRECISELY this kind of reason.
SteveBaker (talk) 15:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Another Vandal on the Loose

Remember the 217 Ip guy who kept adding blatant POV to the GM Minivan articles? Well, he is now creating accounts and is using them to vandalise them as well as many editors userpages with a long, prewritten attack. I don't know how many accounts he has, but I am asking that you guys watch these pages so we can contain this guy. Just don't give him any special attention, because if we do, that will just provoke him to keep doing this longer. Karrmann (talk) 03:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

New infobox

I propose a new infobox to be used for automobile engines. I have seen that some engine articles use the automobile infobox, but they should have their own. I was thinking namein git Template:Infobox Automobile Engine with the following parameters:

  • name/title
  • image
  • manufacturer
  • location manufactured
  • production [years]
  • aspiration
  • displacment
  • horsepower
  • torque
  • weight

I wanted some added input on the naming of it before I did it. —Mr. Grim Reaper at 20:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we need a separate infobox - but before we get too excited and just dive in - let's take our time to get it right. The trouble with infoboxes is that it's very hard to make a change after a hundred articles are using it - so it's vital to get it right pretty much first time!
Do we need to limit the function of this box to just automobile engines? (Bearing in mind that a truck is not an automobile, neither is a racecar, neither is motorbike nor an agricultural tractor. Secondly - what about electric cars? What about weird machines like that new French/Indian light truck that's powered by compressed air?
Therefore, I feel that this infobox should be called something like "Infobox Internal Combustion Engine" in order that we can avoid the complication of bending it to fit electric motors and strange hybrids - yet still be able to include trucks, motorbikes, etc which could certainly use the same template if only we don't overly-constrain it's name.
Additionally we'll definitely need:
  • Number of Cylinders and their configuration (eg V, flat, straight...what else?)
  • Number of valves per cylinder
  • 2-stroke versus 4-stroke versus Wankel engines
  • Fuel - Diesel or Petrol
  • Cooling - Air-cooled or water-cooled
I have some other concerns:
  • Is there a case for including a list of vehicles that used this engine? Perhaps just space for a single example of a vehicle that used it to avoid listcruft?
  • Is it likely that we'll be able to find out the weight of most engines? I think not - this is a field that probably will go un-filled for 90% of engines - so whilst it's interesting, I don't think we should include it.
  • For 'torque' it would be nice to know at what RPM that torque is achieved (eg: xx foot pounds at yy RPM). We'll have to be VERY careful here to be sure we're talking about torque at the crank - and not torque at the wheels (which will vary depending on the transmission used). I think a lot of engine articles are going to wind up listing the wrong one.
  • I don't think we should include the "aspiration" tag - many (if not most) engines have a normally aspirated version AND a turbo/supercharged version. Can we reasonably require two separate infoboxes in one article under those circumstances?
  • Many engines come in a range of displacements - so we need to be able to list several displacements along with several corresponding horsepower/torque variations - and potentially list them with both normal aspiration and turbo/supercharged versions.
SteveBaker (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

We have already Template:Infobox Automobile engine --— Typ932T | C  21:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm - so we do! Sadly it sucks. Way too complicated in some areas - but absent key information like how many cylinders it has! A classic example of what happens if you draw up something like that with too little dicussion beforehand! SteveBaker (talk) 22:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Typ932, care to show us?
He did! Click on the link. The only difference between that existing template and the name proposed before is that the 'E' in engine is (correctly) not capitalised in the version that actually exists already. SteveBaker (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
SteveBaker, I don't feel that one infobox for all internal combustion engines might be best, unless it is made dynamic to fit all of these seamlessly. Displacement and aspiration could be listed with multiples, such as the Infobox Automobile's engine data. he only parameters I woudl see not fit are horsepower and torque, as they can be adjusted, and usually are, per application. For now, here' everything that could be listed for all types of internal combustion chamber engines:
  • name/title
  • image
  • manufacturer
  • location manufactured
  • production [years]
  • type
    • stroke [2,4,6]
    • Wankel
    • electric
    • hydrogen
    • compressed air
    • misc
  • cylinder configuration
    • inline (I)
    • opposed/boxer (H)
    • V
    • W
  • cooling method
    • air
    • liquid
  • fuel type
  • aspiration
    • natural
    • turbocharged
    • supercharged
  • displacment
  • weight

Also, wouldn't jet engines be considered internal combustion engines? And electric and compressed air are not internal combustion chamber engines. Maybe Template:Infobox Motor Vehicle Engine woudl be better? —Mr. Grim Reaper at 22:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it - I think that strictly speaking, electric motors are not engines anyway - from Engine: An engine whose purpose is to produce kinetic energy output from a fuel source is called a prime mover; alternatively, a motor is a device which produces kinetic energy from a preprocessed "fuel" (such as electricity, a flow of hydraulic fluid or compressed air)....but I did want to EXCLUDE those kinds of things from the template because it makes it messy. Almost all of the fields that are useful for piston engines are hopelessly useless for electric motors and such...and vice-versa. So it would be better to make alternative templates for those kinds of things. At any rate, I agree that we need to exclude jet engines for similar reasons. How about "Template Piston Engine" then? SteveBaker (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Then the name technically excludes Wankel engines. —Mr. Grim Reaper at 23:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
That was intentional - you can't compare capacities and things like valves and cylinders don't mean anything for Wankel engines so direct comparisons wouldn't work anyway. SteveBaker (talk) 15:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
We're trying to cover most things rather than everything, right? Perhaps we need to draw the line at piston engines. They're very common and will be for some time. The others are just too different for a single template to be useful across the board. Friday (talk) 15:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
We seem to have somewhat lost sight of the face that we already have Template:Infobox Automobile engine - which is already used in over 130 articles. So if we're going to change the name - someone has to go through and fixup 134 pages. SteveBaker (talk) 15:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Supercar eradication

We seem to have gained a moderate degree of agreement that the term 'Supercar' is too vague to be useful in the context of an encyclopedia. This should go a long way to reducing edit warring over whether a particular car should or should not get that label. However, we still have Category:Supercars - which really seems like it ought to be removed now. If List of Supercars was a problem - then so is this category - and for the exact same reasons. Since getting rid of it is a major editing effort - and is sure to stir up some controversy in the articles I remove it from, I'm loath to do it if it doesn't have reasonable backing. My view is that "supercar" is a term with about the same degree of solidity as "powerful" or "fast". It would be dubious to describe a car as "fast" - because it's a vague term and it's meaning changes over time. Same deal with "supercar". So just as Category:Fast Cars would be a bad idea - so is this.

Thoughts? SteveBaker (talk) 16:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I noted it above in an earlier discussion and at talk:Nissan GT-R, but I believe that the term supercar is a neologism. There are differing opinions on what a minimum standard is for supercar or a high performance coupe, although several magazines use the term liberally.
I believe that it would best be served by offering a general statistic regarding the vehicle, in terms of engine displacement, if it is a coupe, sedan, etc. (making no preference if it is "high performance" or not), and offering citations for statements like,
"...is a {blah blah car engine's stats here} that has been referred to as a supercar by {blah blah} and a high performance coupe by {blah blah}."
With references, of course. But it would also be fair to say that both of those terms could be removed, with text focused solely on the car's characteristics. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 17:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:NEO says Neologisms are words and terms that have recently been coined, generally do not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities....The term 'supercar' has been in regular use for the last 45 years - and has it's origins in the 1920's. The Collins English dictionary has a definition for it (albeit a useless one): A very expensive fast or powerful car with a centrally located engine. So 'supercar' isn't a neologism by Wikipedia standards. If it were, we wouldn't have this problem.
But that definition (and all others that I've been able to find) only really pin down the definition to "fast" and "powerful". The "mid-engine" thing doesn't work because our Supercar article shows clearly that the term was used in by a reputable source to describe a Range Rover for chrissakes! I don't think anyone would deny the use of the term 'supercar' to the Ford Shelby GR-1 - which has it's engine at the front.
So we're really left with "fast" and "powerful" - but you can find magazines that say things like "Wow! The Whizzomatic-3000GT is really fast and has plenty of power." when they are talking about a town car with a top speed of 110mph and 0-60 of 10 seconds. Those are relative terms..."fast, when compared to other, similar cars"..."powerful enough for whatever you're likely to be doing with it". Should we also make Category:Fast cars and Category:Powerful cars? Just because someone who is considered a reliable expert says something - and you can find a source to prove it - doesn't mean it's an encyclopeadic statement.
If we had a government regulation somewhere that said "Cars are categorized as supercars for tax purposes if they have a 0-60 time under 4 seconds and a top speed of 200mph or more."...then there would be good grounds to apply that standard to all of our car articles. But just because SOME people say it's a supercar - that's not enough.
Worse still - the "standard" that we apply changes over time. Our article Supercar says that the term was used with the current meaning in the 1960's for the Lamborghini Miura. That car had a top speed around 145 mph (it may have gone faster in theory - but was dangerously unstable above that speed) and a 0-60 time around 5.4 seconds...but here in 2008 you can walk into a dealership and buy a MINI Cooper'S JCW for about $30k that'll do 150mph and 5.4s 0-60. Clearly, the Miura doesn't count as a supercar anymore. Can we live with a standard that changes year-by-year?
So - back to the original question - should we get serious about this and dump Category:Supercars ?
SteveBaker (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I support getting rid of Category:Supercars. It is a subjective class who's definition has changed over time no reason to use it as a category. I feel that we should only be saying things like "Car and Driver magazine as well as others have called the Such and Such 500 a supercar". --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 23:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe the category should be renamed "Exotic" instead of Supercar, because most of these vehicles are expensive, rare, powerful and usually faster than most. Some have engines mounted in front of the car while others have them right behind the driver, or mid-engined. Maybe exotic should be used because they all have one thing in common: they are not as common as a Camry or Accord, if you see a group of them, it's usually at a car show or a valet parking lot in Beverly Hills. Using the exotic terminology can also be used for older vehicles like older Lamborghinis, Bugattis, Ferraris, DeTomaso's and so on, due to the fact that when they were new, they were the envy of the world. (Dddike (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC))
I think "exotic" is just as subjective as supercar. What is exotic in one place is normal in another. The Pontiac Aztek would turn heads on the streets of Moscow and a Alfa Romeo 159 would do the same on the streets of San Francisco. We could have a category for cars that have been called "supercars" by reliable sources but it should be clear that it is a subjective term. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 00:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree - if anything, 'exotic' is even more vague. Lots of US parts outlets classified my MINI as 'exotic' until it had been on sale in the US for a couple of years. I don't see why we can't just call this things what they are "mid-engine sportscar" - then use the rest of the article to list performance, price, rareity, etc. SteveBaker (talk) 00:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
And at the end of the day, why do we even need a category for "supercars" or "exotic cars"? --Hugzz (talk) 04:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Just my two cents: this is a really fucking stupid discussion. If reliable sources (which trumps the opinion of Wikipedia editors) call them "supercars", then we should call them "supercars". Thank you. Lewis Collard! (it's cold out there, but i'm telling you, i'm lonely) 06:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Please be more civil in your comments. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 06:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(indent reset) First issue: the category. I can absolutely guarantee that it won't survive a deletion discussion. The supercar article flat out states that it's a subjective term, and without a clearly defined criteria for including articles it's going to get hosed. See Category:Classic vehicles for a similar deletion debate last September.

Second issue: classification. Lots of people may call the Nissan GT-R (or any other car) a supercar, but that's a different thing entirely from it being classified as such. To give a parallel example (from a discussion I had last year), many reliable sources refer to the Acura RL as a fullsize car, apparently on the basis of its long wheelbase. However, US car classes are now defined by their combined passenger and cargo volumes, and the EPA classifies the RL as midsize. "Supercar" isn't a classification anywhere that I know of, so shouldn't be appearing anywhere near the GT-R's infobox (which it thankfully no longer is).

I'm not actually wanting to see "supercar" expunged entirely from WP. There's a fairly decent history behind the word, which refers to some of the most glamorous and well known cars of the last forty years. Sufficient sources exist that I think the supercar page could be brought to good article quality if anyone was willing to make the effort, although it'd always be a magnet for fanbois to start an "Examples" section with an endless bulleted list of their personal favourites. Finally, it's absolutely not a neologism; at the absolute latest, the modern usage of the word started with LJK Setright's contemporary review of the Lamborghini Miura in 1967. --DeLarge (talk) 12:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit: I just had a closer look through what everyone else is saying, and I appear to have merely parroted earlier stuff. Ho-hum. Serves me right for posting so carelessly, I suppose. --DeLarge (talk) 12:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and removed "supercar" from the Lamborghini, Lamborghini Countach and Lamborghini Diablo pages as a pilot program to gauge reaction. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
...and the SSC Aero page... Wouldn't the time spent arguing over questionably definable labels be better spent fixing broken articles, or expanding stubs, or fixing uncited articles? TNC (talk) 01:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Nissan March Superturbo redirected. If you want Volkswagen Polo to cited sources more frequently you're probably going to have to add the {{unreferenced}} template to the page, to attract the attention of editors who can help. Alternatively you could be bold and fix it yourself. --DeLarge (talk) 16:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Racing homlogation and performance models on List of Bathurst 1000 vehicles

I am having some editing issues on the List of Bathurst 1000 vehicles list as after looking at the list, as I originally attempted to do add racing homlogation models as User:Falcadore intially allowed 2 race homlogation models (BMW M3, Volvo 240 Turbo) and another one I added on (Nissan Skyline GT-R) but not the others such as the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 and separate Toyota Celica Supra from the standalone Supra listing despite , stating that the former was never sold in Australia and what was known there despite some of them never being sold there such as the Sierras. Also every models of the Falcons, Commodores, Corollas under as a single line, when the 3 series BMW are listed separately. As I am heading to a massive debate over what car can be listed, should homlogation and performance models be listed separately, should this be done to an Australian view or to a worldwide view, how should this list be presented, and anything else, feel free to say what you think on the talk section here. Willirennen (talk) 04:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Ford claims it's copyright infringement to photograph their cars.

Looks like we should remove all photos of Fords from Wikipedia (as a protest if nothing else!): 

  http://www.adrants.com/2008/01/ford-slaps-brand-enthusiasts-returns.php

SteveBaker (talk) 23:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should jump to that conclusion. They must have been planning to sell the calendar as I can't imagine a way you can copyright all non commercial images that contain your product. Unless Ford specifically asks Wikipedia to remove the images I see no reason to take any kind of action. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 23:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Here is a link to one car club who took the time to get the details of Ford's policy: http://www.ricehatersclub.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=25901 - it does kinda looks like Ford is only going after people who are making a profit from selling photos...but what they actually say doesn't limit it to that. It's really getting silly when you can't take a photo of your own car! I agree though - I wasn't being entirely serious when I said that we should remove them all. SteveBaker (talk) 23:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I read somewhere that Ford was suing a old Jaguar car club that was creating a callendar of club members vehicles manufactured in the 60's, before Ford bought Jaguar, claiming the same thing. Ford and their Detroit brothers GM and Chrysler are starved for cash, and it seems like their lawyers have been given marching order to "go get the money however they can". How can they now claim copyright infringement when people have been taking photos of their purchased vehicles since the very beginning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dddike (talk • contribs) 00:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Further reading suggests that it's TRADEMARK infringement they are complaining about - not copyright. In that case, we're probably OK here on Wikipedia because we aren't using the images to sell anything. I can't imagine they are doing this for the cash - they are issuing cease and desist - car clubs are desisting (nobody wants to fight Ford!) - so they aren't going to make a penny out of it, in fact, it's costing them money to have overpaid lawyers write letters. SteveBaker (talk) 04:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Ford Mustang images

Comments are requested at Ford Mustang regarding this image. I feel it is not up to quality standards especially for a info box when other images are available, but others disagree. Page is currently protected so I would like to resolve this soon. --Daniel J. Leivick (talk) 04:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems extremely obvious to me. Aftermarket headlights, wheels seem aftermarket, not the best angle, distracting black background, and unnatural lighting. Many better images exist. IFCAR (talk) 14:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I also agree that this image is not very flattering to the Mustang. There must be better examples available. The vehicle seems to have an unpleasant "rice" appearance and the aftermarket items don't do this vehicle any favors. Using this image as the infobox example is hysterical. The image of the red Mustang is much better but still isn't the best. There must be an example in Wikicommons that shows the vehicles profile better than the images being used. The dark background implies that there is something to hide and that this vehicle looks terrible in better lighting. Eeewwwhh. Cut the sucker.(Dddike (talk) 16:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC))
That is what we have been trying to do, but an IP and an account (who we believe to be the same account) kept trying to force the image into the article, so now the page is protected so we can't get rid of it. Karrmann (talk) 11:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I can try and get a better image of a Ford Mustang. It'll be hard because it's here in North West England, but it can be done successfully if you know how... which I'll try and do! --Solumeiras talk 12:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
There already are better pictures. The current problem is an edit war in which a user keeps removing them. IFCAR (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
So send a message to the admin who protected the article. Calmly and carefully explain why this image violates the WikiProject:Automobile guidelines on car photos ("No after-market equipment allowed" is your best approach since the other reasons are primarily aesthetic and therefore open to debate) and is misleading to our readership. Have him/her (a) change the photo per this guideline, (b) admonish the miscreant/sockpuppeteer to stop doing this and apply a block if necessary and (c) unprotect the page. SteveBaker (talk) 16:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Needed: Advanced (Trucker) info missing from Manual Transmission article

Hi all! Greetings from Mexico : )

Wikipedia being "the Oracle", I looked up Manual Transmission when I got curious as to what the gear shift pattern would look like in a tractor-trailer, say an 18 speed one. Or on a bus.

Which leads me to a second question: How exactly does that pop-up / pop-down gizzmo taped below the knob of the shifter work?

Having blown my trucker cover, I'd love it if someone who knows would add a section and a few schematics to the Manual Trany article, or link to a new dedicated one. It seems if there is one mission critical application for manual transmissions, it would be load hauling.

Thanks guys! Manuel Uribe Mexico D.F. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manuelcuribe (talk • contribs) 03:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a useful addition to the article - but this is the "Automobiles" WikiProject and we don't cover trucks, busses and other gigantic vehicles! SteveBaker (talk) 12:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Consider me notified : ) Still, geaheads are gearheads, and I'm hoping one of the participants in this forum might have the tech noodle to fill in that blank for us. I would greatly appriciate it, if there is a more appropriate forum, if you could point me at it so I can repeat this post there... Thanks Steve : )
Wikipedia:WikiProject buses and Wikipedia:WikiProject Trucks would be where that good stuff happens. Sadly, neither project is as active as this one - but I'm fairly sure someone there will be able to help you. SteveBaker (talk) 09:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

American/British spelling/terms

Who's spelling/terms should be used in general articles? I'm not sure what terms are known in both the states and Europe but that is what should be used. I'm American and before I started watching Top Gear (awesome show) I had no idea what a saloon car was (sedan in the US) or many of the other British terms. Are the American terms known in Europe? BJTalk 10:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There is some help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Automobiles/Conventions, I dont know English people, but this part of Europe most people know ( I think) the sedan,saloon,estate,station wagon term,hood,bonnet,trunk etc terms...

--— Typ932T | C  10:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This may be a case of American isolationism or me being stupid but I didn't know them. If it is case that the terms are not in widespread usage in the states and that most europeans know the US terms I think it might be better to use ours. But I don't want to get ran over by the angry euros in saloon cars with big tyres. :)BJTalk 11:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually I know the all terms but dont always remember which one is UK and which one US term, Ill mix those often...and then we use sedan word here often when we have own Finnish term to that body style...I think there is no problem to use any of those terms to Europeans outside GB. Usually there is rules if article is originally written eg. US style then all text have to be same spelling, and it is not "allowed" to change it, but read the automobile convention part that is generally used in car articles .--— Typ932T | C  11:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes - it is isolation and/or stupidity! :-P But seriously...the "British English" terms are used all over the place, not just in Europe. Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa - some British English terms and spellings are used in Canada too. Worldwide, I think American English is actually in the minority of speakers - but it's hard to tell because there are so many other dialects that are neither one nor the other.
However, none of that matters because we have a handy Wikipedia policy on this. It boils down to two possibilities:
  1. In an article that is predominantly US in nature (Ford Mustang for example), you should use American English. In an article that is predominantly British in nature (Mini for example), you should use British English. In an article that's predominantly Australian in nature, (Ute muster perhaps), you use Australian English...and so on.
  2. For articles about subjects that do not closely relate to a particular part of the English-speaking world (so rule (1) does not apply), you should continue to use whichever dialect of English the article was originally written in. This is specifically in order to avoid unproductive edit-warring over the spelling of tyre/tire and colour/color or the usage of bonnet/hood and hood/convertible-roof. So Formula One tyres uses British English because (evidently) the person who started the article was British...but Tire uses US English because it happened to be started by an American.
These are pragmatic answers to a problem without a solution. However, arguments of the form "Europeans understand the US-English terms but Americans are too stupid to know the British English terms - so we should all use American English" will provoke outrage and quite possibly rioting on BOTH sides of the Atlantic...and you'll be in a whole world of hurt if the Aussies ever hear you say that!
So we'll stick by the Wikipedia rules - and if you need help with translating UK/US car terms, I have a partial list here: http://www.sjbaker.org/telamom/language.html
SteveBaker (talk) 11:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't claiming it was American stupidity but more of a culture thing. As an example we export our TV shows all over the world where Europeans would hear our terms, no British shows are imported here. So using the more understood terms would be better. I think spelling/terms for general articles would be best decided on wikiproject level and standardized over every article. I looked over the list you linked and for many, both terms are in use in the US and I'm sure that applies to the non-Americans. It could easily be solved by making a table of the terms and if they are in use on the different sides of the pond. If one term is in use in both places use it over the other. But I'm sure that makes too much sense and would end in revert warring like everything on Wikipedia does. /me grumbles off and goes back to taking over Wikipedia with bots. BJTalk 12:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
No British shows or movies are imported into the US? Which rock are you hiding under? You assume that US english terms are "more understood" - that's a VERY parochial view! I'm British and I live in the USA - my wife is French and I spent much of my youth in East Africa - I can absolutely assure you that American English is nowhere near as widely understood as you think. Anyway - we have a Wikipedia policy - and we're going to stick by it. SteveBaker (talk) 12:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Movies, yes (Hot Fuzz) but I can't think of a single British (The Office doesn't count) show on broadcast TV in the US. I didn't say the US terms are more understood, I said the more understood terms should be used whatever they are. I was just presenting a hypothesis for the US terms being more understood, but the generalization that Europeans are more cultured that Americans could be totally wrong. I The list you linked had "roundabout" as a British term, which is in widespread use in the states, same goes for 17 other terms. If use US term understood worldwide and the commonwealth term isn't understood in the states why not use the US term? Same applies the other way around if Americans understand the commonwealth term and the US term isn't in as wide use the commonwealth term should be used. But I might be grossly overestimating the overlap between the two sets of terms. For example station wagon seems to be in more use that estate car according to the article but I don't know if a British person would understand the term. BJTalk 13:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Our local 'KERA' public TV station shows British shows exclusively on one or sometimes two nights a week (check out Sat & Sun schedules here:[2]. On cable and satellite TV you get "BBC in America" which is 100% British shows 24:7. The Discovery, Science and History channels also have significant British input (I read somewhere that it was close to 30% of their output - although some shows were re-narrated with US presenters).
As for the overlap in vocabulary - sure, by all means use 'overlap' words where you can. There are some terms that are GENUINELY difficult though. The word 'hood' for example. In US english, it means the cover over the engine - in British english it refers to the cloth roof of a convertible. So when I talk about "driving with the hood up"...there is some actual, real confusion that might come about. It follows that 'bonnet' is a better term for the cover over the engine because it's unambiguous - and it's also the term for the cover over the engine on a diesel locomotive both in US and UK english. One the other hand, 'boot' (which is the cover over the back end of the vehicle in British English) could concievably be confused with the US term for a flexible rubber cover as in the phrase "CV boot". So, logically, 'trunk' would be a better word for the rear of the car. However, we aren't going to go through the encyclopedia replacing every occurrance of 'hood' with 'bonnet' and 'boot' with 'trunk' because that would upset a lot of people and leave us with articles that were a horrible mix of dialects. So the logical thing isn't always the right thing.
There is also a lot of confusion amongst Americans about what is and what is not US English. My son (who is British) goes to school in Texas. When he spelled the word 'color' with a 'u' ("colour"), his teacher marked him down. I pointed out that the standard by which US English is judged (Websters) allows either spelling - but the standard for UK English (The Oxford English dictionary) only permits 'colour'. Hence spelling the word with a 'u' is technically correct in either dialect where spelling it without the 'u' is only correct in one of them - so using a 'u' everywhere would theoretically make more sense. However, most Americans (Webster's not withstanding) would not agree.
However, fun though this is, there is absolutely no basis for debate - the matter was long ago decided: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English is a well-established guideline and there is no reason whatever why automotive topics should not adhere firmly to it. So UK terms in UK articles, US terms in US articles - and where there is no obvious reason why one or the other should be chosen, whichever way the article was started originally is the way it stays in perpetuity. It's a simple enough rule and it does the best that can be done with a difficult problem. Please don't try to get creative here!
SteveBaker (talk) 14:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm conjecturing here, but I think a) It has everything to do with geography and b) it doesn't matter. What I mean by a) is, for instance, in Latin America (where I'm at) we tend to use the US spelling. In Africa and Asia where the Empire made ripples, people tend to spell British.

With respects to b) When I studied in Singapore I spelt in US English, even though everyone there considered "tomatoe" and "colour" proper spelling. No one gave me any grief over it. The way I see it, write your comfort. All it does is clue one into the fact you're in one "camp" or the other. It doesn't wrankle. It doesn't mislead. Only inexperienced readers percieve it as an error, and that goes away. So I repeat my b) Q: Why would anyone make a major deal?

Manuel in México D.F.

P.S. Just as an aside. Something I've told myriad people. In Spanish, we do in fact have one central aurority on language. The Royal Spanish Academy <www.rae.es>. No such thing exists in English. If Websters reproduces the American Herritage def, intelectual property lawsuits ensue. Hence no Dictionary in English is the same as they all dance around that. But hey, it has its charm : ) It's the reason Buffy the Vampire Slayer is even more beloved (if that is possible : ) in Australia than the States... pardon the e.g. : ) But that's a show with absolutly brilliant writing (antecessor to many posers) which pokes fun at both : )

Oh, just to forestall: I don't have an English spell-checker. I'm statistically certain I screwed up somewhere above : þ

I'd like to point out that this discussion can often be avoided. When talking about trunks and boots, I just say "cargo compartment". Everyone can figure out what that is. --Analogue Kid (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I can't resist asking (Manuel): is it really true that in Singapore they use the spelling "tomatoe", or was that a typo? It's certainly not British English. (Although of course the plural uses the "e", i.e. "tomatoes".) – Kieran T (talk) 14:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I hadn't till now realised this discussion was still live, but since it is, maybe it helps to categorise wiki users between (1) those who write it and (2) those who read it. If you're reading this, you probably feature under both headings, but presumably if we want to make a success of the wiki project it does no harm to try and identify and contemplate wiki customers. OK, wiki readers.
US manufactured cars tend not to be exported in large numbers to other anglophone countries. Most readers aware of and interested in US manufactured cars will have American English as their mother tongue. That's maybe tough on those who have Canadian English as their mother tongue, but (alas fr them?) there are fewer of these.
Aussie manufactured cars tend not to be exported in large numbers outside Australia. Same considerations apply. Most contributors will favour Australian English: most readers will recognise that as their mother tongue. Not all, but most.
UK, French and mainstream Italian cars have not, over the years, sold in huge numbers in the US. Most people contributing to and reading articles on these cars will have British English as their mother tongue or, where they are European residents who learned English as a second language, they will (except, sometimes, in areas of concentrated US military or industrial involvement) be more familiar with British English than with American English.
Japanese, German, Korean and Swedish cars are widely sold in countries where they use both versions of English. That's a problem.
But if satisfying the wiki-customer (ok wiki-reader) is your objective, then presumably you should use the language that will be the mother tongue (or, failing that, the more familiar language) for the largest proportion of readers for the article in question. Write about American cars in American English. Write about European cars than never made it to the US in British English. And worry about the German and Japanese cars on a case by case basis.
Obvously I'm not wishing to suggest anything that cuts across established wiki policies and guidelines. But as far as I can follow this discussion, the world of cars / automobiles throws up a particularly large number of instances when the guideline cannot be unambiguously applied. In those circumstance, courtesy to the reader of the article in question seems a good underlying principal to bear in mind when arbitrating between the languages we love. Regards Charles01 (talk) 21:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


Holden Astra article

I'd appreciate help off fellow members here.... I'm having trouble with trying to find sources for this article, other than car-price guides.

Whilst the self-published sources from Holden are for the current car, finding sources on the old Nissan Pulsar-based one is a nightmare... any editors able to help with this??

If you can get any good pictures of some I'll give you a barnstar for this!

All help appreciated. Thanks, Solumeiras 12:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I would (and did, earlier) argue that Holden Astra should be nothing more than a disambiguation page linking to the Nissan Pulsar and Opel Astra articles. However, since the Nissan Pulsar article has not one single reference either, that's not going to help your problem. (Strictly speaking, Nissan Pulsar has three links in it's "references" section - but since all three of them link to enthusiast forums in direct contravention of WP:V - it effectively has zero references). SteveBaker (talk) 15:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I would try getting your local library to order "Nissan Datsun, a history of Nissan" by John B. Rae. I'd also try to borrow a copy of the Haynes or Chilton shop manual for the Pulsar or the Holden version of it. ("Nissan Pulsar & Holden Astra Automotive Repair Manual (Haynes Repair Manuals)" - for example). Often they have a couple of pages of history at the front that can help you out with referencing the most basic information. SteveBaker (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Being UK-based, it would be hard to obtain info on such a car. I've only ever seen two in the UK, and even then, sources are hard to find. --Solumeiras talk 18:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
It shouldn't be that hard - the pre-1990 Holden Astra was a Nissan Pulsar which was a Nissan Cherry which (in the UK) spent most of it's life being called a Datsun 310 - and that car was common - my sister had one, I think my father had one too. But there is a good library system in the UK - stop off and order those two books and if there is a copy anywhere in the UK library system you'll have them on inter-library loan within a week or so. SteveBaker (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree about the disambig - there is much reason in keeping this article as a brief roundup of what was going on in Oz with the nameplate. I emphasize brief. As concerns sources - the Internet usually holds more than we'd expect, I'll see what I can dig out over the weekend, if I am afforded with one this week :/ Cheerio, PrinceGloria (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with the Internet and cars is that only the highest profile super-popular/collectable cars seem to have decent web sites. For cars like the Pulsar which were more or less reliable workhorses - but which were never really loved on the scale of (say) a Ford Mustang or a Mini Cooper - you'll find a couple of forums (which are not allowed as references or even "External links" in Wikipedia) and a couple of parts shops and the manufacturers web site (which in both cases typically have zero historical information about cars no longer in production). Added to that is the fact that nobody buys books about 'bleah' cars to admire the pictures, the only books you find are repair manuals. This makes Wikipedia articles (even if utterly unsourced) just about the most useful reference ANYWHERE for a lot of these cars. It's rather sad really because an unsourced Wikipedia article is really just the collective memories of a bunch of people...which is guaranteed to be faulty to some degree.
The best sources I've found are back-issues of motoring magazines. If you can find the precise month that a car was launched in a particular market - then figure out which car magazines were around at that time - then sometimes you can find back-editions of them on eBay or at car 'swap-meets' and that'll get you some really detailed information. But it's not cheap. I paid $30 for the April 1959 issue of "The Autocar" and another $28 for the August '59 edition (those are the ones with the first announcement and first road test/review of the Mini) - but there is no way I would have spent $58 just to get a reference into a Wikipedia article! So you're back to finding someone who is a collector or a fanatic of some kind - and for a car like the poor Nissan Pulsar, you're going to have a hard time finding anyone!
The most hopeful thing for Wikipedia car articles in general - is that if someone like me DOES own the August 1959 issue of Autocar, to go through the magazine that was bought for the Mini articles - looking to see what information could be pulled out for OTHER cars. If everyone here owned just a handful of back-issues, and spent a couple of evenings going through them - we could add referencing (and a bunch of really good new information) to a huge number of relatively 'unloved' articles.
SteveBaker (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Heh, I've been using an October 1998 issue of Motor Trend as a source for the Chrysler Cirrus article - which isn't really getting many edits at the moment anyway. It is a relatively 'unloved' article as it is, and could do with a bit more work! --Solumeiras talk 10:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

We need a reorganization of this project...

Reading a comment above about this project, I feel it needs a reorganization. We should try and see if we can achieve the following objectives:

  • Expand stub articles
  • Get more articles to featured status - the last one was a Holden Commodore VT (am I right??)
  • Resolve any edit warring/disputes

I'm not criticizing the project, I'm just trying to get enthusiasm for it back... all comments welcomed! --Solumeiras talk 10:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure we're lacking enthusiasm - it's more that we're having trouble pointing it in useful directions. Getting articles to featured status is TOUGH - and it's RISKY. The FAC process is frankly rather random - if you catch the crowd in a good mood - you'll sail through, if you don't, you're doomed to useless comments like "The quality of the language is not good enough" - for which you have no defense and (in all likelyhood) no way to fix it.
IMHO, we should aim for a broader - but lower peak.
I'd prefer a goal to get (say) 100 car articles to "Good Article" status than to get 10 up to "Featured Article". For our typical readership, it's MUCH more useful to have a hundred pretty decent articles than to have 10 amazing ones. It's also a much more achievable goal.
PHASE I -- A first goal should be to get 100% of Wikipedia car articles graded under the Wikiproject Automobiles system and placed correctly into Category:Automobile. We would have at least ensure that each and every car article in Wikipedia had been read by one of us to ensure that we have it graded reasonably well. That would give us a much clearer view of where we are. I find articles that are ungraded and/or not in the right Cat all the time - which means that we don't have a real idea of how many car articles there are - or what state they are in.
PHASE II -- A secondary goal could be to get (say) 100 'Good Articles' passed in the next 100 days. We probably have 100 articles that already reach the desired standard but simply have not yet been nominated. We could reasonably have a dozen people checking articles and pushing them up to a standard where they could be submitted to GAC. Unfortunately, the GAC process is badly bottlenecked - but they are currently asking everyone who submits an article to GAC to also review one. If we followed their lead - we'd have that same dozen people charged with the task of becoming Good Article reviewers - specialising in cars. With a dozen people and a goal to pass one article per day - then each person would have 12 days to work on one article, submit it to GAC and review a different article for GAC. If we're careful to only do this with articles that are already pretty close to GAC status (which we'll know from phase I of this process) then close to all of them should pass.
The Good Article process allows any individual who has not worked on that article to pass or fail it providing it meets the basic standards. We can set up a group of reviewers from Wikiproject Automobiles who would undertake to fairly review articles under the WP:GAC process AND to apply our own standards to that process.
Having 100 Good Articles is a great way to start - and perhaps, once we have the ball rolling, it wouldn't stop at 100 Good Articles.
Once we have a broad base of good articles - I think we could then examine them to see which ones might make it into FA status - and try to push some of them forwards. But proceeding on a wide front to find articles that are already close to the required standard would be a good way to do that.
SteveBaker (talk) 13:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with your points made above, and I feel Chrysler Cirrus should be a good article, however, there's not many active editors who seem to edit Chrysler/Dodge-related articles. I'll try and see what I can do. --Solumeiras • Talk 13:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I fully agree with all that Steve suggests as well, I'd add that if we can evolve the front end of this project along similar lines to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft, highlighting shortcuts, tips and infoboxes, keeping the huge range of automotive articles pointing in one direction should prove easier. Mighty Antar (talk) 14:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
    Let's not go too far in praising the Aircraft folks. They certainly do a good job - but to be fair, they have 250 members to our 160. There are an amazing 20,000 articles in their assessment system(!) - we have a mere 5,000. But look carefully and you see that nearly half of their articles are about airfields and airports and plane crashes - not about the actual planes themselves. Of the remaining 10,000 or so, half are "Military Aviation" - and lot of those articles seem to be about air bases, squadrons, famous pilots, battles and other things that aren't really about the aircraft themselves. So the number of articles that are actually about Aircraft and Aircraft companies is probably comparable to the number of articles we have about Automobiles and Automobile companies. They claim to have 14 FA's (we have just 11 FA's) - but only two of their FA's are about planes - the rest are about things like battles in which aircraft were involved - of our 11 FA's, six are actually about cars. So we're not doing so badly. Where we differ is that they have 44 GA's and we only have 15 - but again, only about 13 of their GA's are about planes and 13 of our GA's are about cars. Things would look very different if we added all of the articles about roads, gas stations, bus stations, incidents involving cars. We've simply focussed more tightly - and (statistically) are doing pretty well. SteveBaker (talk) 16:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
    It's the clarity and organisation of their project page that puts ours to shame, not the work rate. Mighty Antar (talk) 18:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
    Certainly it is rather pretty - but this is an encyclopedia - the general public who come here to read about cars and aircraft will never see that page. What matters (Why We Are All Here) is the breadth of scope and quality of the articles. Their pretty project page doesn't seem to be helping them produce objective results any faster than our does - so why worry? SteveBaker (talk) 20:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
    As you said yourself in your opening comment "I'm not sure we're lacking enthusiasm - it's more that we're having trouble pointing it in useful directions." Good articles should attract more people who are more likely to follow guidance on the project page than bother to read this talk page. It doesn't have to look pretty, it just has to work - according to our main page our newest article was produced in August 2007 and there are just three articles needing attention! Mighty Antar (talk) 23:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The requirements to pass GA are as follows:

  1. It is well written. The prose is clear and the grammar is correct; and it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable. It provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout; and at minimum, provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons; and contains no original research.
  3. It is broad in its coverage. It addresses the major aspects of the topic; and stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary details.
  4. It is neutral; that is, it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.
  5. It is stable; that is, it does not change significantly from day to day and is not the subject of an ongoing edit war. Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, and improvements based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply.
  6. It is illustrated, where possible and appropriate, by images. In this respect: all images used are tagged with their copyright status, and fair use rationales are provided for any non-free content; and the images are appropriate to the topic, and have suitable captions.

This is actually not that hard. The toughest part is to have proper verification of facts. Once we have a good list of all car articles (Expanding out all of the articles tagged with categories under Category:Vehicles by brand is a good start) we ought to be able to zip through them tossing out the ones without decent references. It should be easy to check for articles with photos - but not 'fair use' or untagged images (which we agree are not generally allowed in car articles at all - and certainly wouldn't pass GAC). It's hard for car articles not to be 'neutral'. Stability is an easy thing to check for (just look at the article history). That should boil down the numbers to something reasonable - then we can simply read them and decide which ones are well written, broad in coverage and not overly detailed. I don't think it will be hard to find 100 good ones.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we'd find it hard to get 100 GA's. I just grabbed all of the car articles in Category:Vehicles by brand for manufacturers listed under the letter 'A' (that's about 250 car articles) - a cursory glance through all 250 rejecting the "no hope" articles suggests that if the "A's" are statistically typical then maybe 1/3rd of our car articles are reasonably referenced and reasonably comprehensive and have nice photos - the A's are very roughly 10% of the articles - so I'd guess that we probably have 2500 articles - and maybe 800 of them are are worth looking at more carefully. If that's true then I don't think we'd have any trouble at all finding 100 articles that would pass GAC without any work whatever. From the 250 I glanced at - it's very apparent that some car brands have been lovingly attended to while others have just been slapped together any old how. The Alpha Romeo articles (for example) are mostly just gorgeous, well referenced, nice photos, well written. But on the other hand, the Acura articles are junk - over the seven Acura articles there are a grand total of THREE referenced facts - two of which I'd say were dubious sources! SteveBaker (talk) 15:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, I don't have time to read all the above now. That said, first and foremost, we need standards, esp. on what to include and what not to (see disc. above and articles with lenghty technical data, prices, equipment details, recalls and all), as well as things like how to use the infobox (summary or lenghty stories such as "in Europe but not in ZuluGula land where it was called the Diggiloo Thrush"), to eliminate the "class" field and all. After that, work on articles should get easy, but without that I wouldn't join any drive.
If you are energetic and dispose of enough time, Solumeiras, to ingite the discussion and push it through ebbs and flows, it would be delightful and salvatory for the project, I believe. I will do my best to support you fully in my limited Wikipedia time. Kind regards, PrinceGloria (talk) 20:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I have joined WP as an editor almost solely because of my view that most auto-related articles here are in desperate need of help. Don't get me wrong - there is a strong contingent of very good articles as well - but it's the little things that get lost.
Obviously, thousands of people have the time, desire and easy sourcing to contribute to articles on cars like the Mustang or the GT-R. What's lacking, to my completist mind, is the same sort of love for cars like the Kia Rio or (the oft-mentioned) Holden Astra.
If nothing else, talk pages for car articles need to be filled with requests for information-checking from people with access to sources. Steve Baker made a good point earlier in mentioning that almost every car is covered somewhere in a magazine article or book - it's the seldom-seen act of letting people know that such sources are needed that's the problem. Otherwise, every article will perpetually sit in the "unsourced" category.
I do have a good-sized collection of American automotive magazines (and a fair chunk of the UK-based CAR Magazine) from the last fifteen years or so; feel free to let me know what you're looking for and I'll do my best to help out. Hopefully, others can do the same.
I'd like to see the Auto project get as detailed as the Aircraft guys have been able to get - we need more biographies, more coverage of technology and terminology, more cross-linking to pertinent articles outside our sphere, and more of...well, lots of stuff! I don't a full-scale reorganization is in order; simply a redeployment and patrol effort from the troops we already have. Duncan1800 (talk) 12:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
All of those things would be good - but it's NOT just the obscure articles that are suffering. You mentioned the Mustang - well, even the Ford Mustang article isn't really adequately referenced. It's all very well to glance at the bottom of the article and see 15 references - but scan through the article with a critical eye. I counted 41 paragraphs - and many entire sections - that have not one single reference between them! It's scandalous that a car with such a following and reputation (and with such a L-O-N-G article) is still so inadequately sourced. There is no way that the authors of that article wrote all of that from memory - they obviously HAD the books and/or magazines with the information within them - they were just too lazy to type them in.
It's not the number of references that counts - it's the number of facts within the article that are attributed to specific references that matters...and on that basis, even the Mustang article falls far behind the standard set by WP:V. Nissan GT-R is MUCH better - in fact you could even argue that it's OVER-referenced - often with three references backing up a single fact!
SteveBaker (talk) 16:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that we need to co-operate to get the B rated articles to GA, we need to put those articles under peer review to get idea what to improve, first thing is to have all pages tagged and rated under wikiproject automobiles. --— Typ932T | C  18:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been tagging and rating quite a few articles over the last week and I notice, so have others. Trouble is we have no agreed criteria as to what rating applies to an article. Often it is obvious, if the article is a stub it gets a Stub rating. If there are no references it cannot be a B grade but a lot fall into no easily defined bucket. It's the same with importance. History of the Automobile is obviously Top importance as are the world's largest manufacturers such as Ford. Internal Combustion Engine should probably be there as well, but is not even tagged as "one of ours" at the moment. Lesser manufacturers are more of a problem with well known but smaller makers such as Lotus rated High but where do the important but long gone makers pre WWII and even pre WWI go? (there are a lot of these starting with A probably indicating a lot of editors starting off enthusastically working through a reference book) At the moment they are mainly unnassessed or scattered between Mid and Low. Individual models are even harder with, for example, the AMC Pacer currently High for reasons I don't understand. I have put things like magazines and accesories into Low but is this correct?

Any ideas?

Malcolma (talk) 18:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I have been taggin lots of articles, I use stub for short articles I think its not comparable with normal stub article but can have more text on it. I think all big/long history/current manufacturers (or parent companies) should be in TOP classed and the most important old ceased companies aswell. There are lot B rated articles which I found too bad for that, It needs to be quite good to B near GA status. --— Typ932T | C  18:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Too many generals, not enough foot soldiers

"I'm not criticizing the project, I'm just trying to get enthusiasm for it back... all comments welcomed! --Solumeiras talk 10:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC) "

"I'm not sure we're lacking enthusiasm - it's more that we're having trouble pointing it in useful directions."

There are too many generals and not enough foot soldiers. There are too many participants who can/want/will only provide criticism and wants, and not enough people to actually respond to the, often unwarranted demands, or to actually provide what is needed.

There is little cooperation or teamwork. Cooperation seems to be a big buzzword here, but it's just a word. When it comes time to actually share the workload, divide tasks, cooperate with each other, dig the latrines, the generals all head over to the officers' hall for a cool one so they can come by later to piss on the work of the lowly grunts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.222.9 (talk) 18:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

There are too many leaders milling around behind the scenes, over the hill, away from the nitty gritty action.

JMO

Signed: Raokman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.222.9 (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Raokman, you may have some good points, but it's difficult to lend you much credence given your own uncooperative, uncivil behaviour and unwillingness to properly sign your comments on talk pages ("signed raokman" does not constitute signing your comments). Coöperation works when everyone coöperates. Complaining about the lack of coöperation is dicey if he who complains is not coöperating. Self-critique can be difficult, but please take a few moments to think very carefully about your own contributions. Improvement starts at the individual level, and spreads throughout the community. You say there's not enough coöperation. You may be right. Do you think there are ways you could be coöperating more effectively? --Scheinwerfermann (talk) 18:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Why do you keep editing my comments on discussion pages? Especially when you edit them badly? Signed: Raokman...by the way, if I sign my name, and Wikipedia provides the IP address, date and time automatically, what exactly is wrong with that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.222.9 (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Repairing hierarchy is not considered editing the comments themselves. Sinebot doesn't always automatically sign comments, and Wikipedia protocol is for each commenter to sign his own comments. This has been explained to you numerous times...can you tell us what your objection is to hitting the tilde key four times at the end of your comments? --Scheinwerfermann (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Engine torque units: ft•lbf vs. lb•ft

I've always perceived a problem with Template:Auto ft.lbf, for it generates a unit notation that is not only incorrect for the application, but also not appropriately formatted. As described in Foot-pound force, ft•lbf is the formal notation for "foot-pound force", the unit of energy, while lb•ft is used for "pound-feet" to denote torque. In practice, lb•ft and ft•lb are used interchangeably to denote torque — though many physics professors over the years taught me that lb•ft is to be preferred — but ft•lbf is not used to denote the torque output of an engine or motor except on Wikipedia, as it seems. Is this the right place to propose that the unit label produced by this widely-used template be corrected? Thanks. --Scheinwerfermann (talk) 17:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Although not being an expert in these kind of things, I would agree; I´ve never come across the ft•lbf unit, and I do own hundreds of US/english-language car sales brochures that all seem to use lb•ft. My two cents only. --328cia (talk) 18:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
The sticklers for propriety insist on ft•lbf even though it is not common usage. Personally, I have never seen that outside of WP. It seems that somehow there would be confusion, even though we're referring to the output of an engine so it shold be clear. In prose I avoid the issue by saying "xxx lb•ft of torque. --Sable232 (talk) 01:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
This is not the first time I've read there was at one time a band of sticklers baselessly insisting on the incorrect unit (ft•lbf) some time ago. It seems for the moment they are in retreat, perhaps making trouble elsewhere. I don't especially like your proposed solution; there is no good reason to introduce spurious redundancy by saying "215 lb•ft of torque" any more than there is to say "145 hp of power" or "15 km of distance" or "60 hr of time" or "305 in³ of volume". All the templates currently output the correct unit (lb•ft). If somebody cares to challenge the use of the correct units, s/he can discuss it on the talk page and obtain consensus. If it becomes necessary to bring in arbiter assistance, there are provisions for that, too. For the moment, "all quiet on the Western front" — perhaps it'll stay that way and we can focus on more important things. --Scheinwerfermann (talk) 02:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Reminder of the Philip Greenspun Illustration project

Hi. You may be familiar with the Philip Greenspun Illustration Project. $20,000 has been donated to pay for the creation of high quality diagrams for Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Requests are currently being taken at m:Philip Greenspun illustration project/Requests and input from members of this project would be very welcome. If you can think of any diagrams (not photos or maps) that would be useful then I encourage you to suggest them at this page. If there is any free content material that would assist in drawing the diagram then it would be great if you could list that, too.

If there are any related (or unrelated) WikiProjects you think might have some suggestions then please pass this request over. Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 16:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Dodge Durango image concern

An IP user is insisting on versions of the Dodge Durango article that put two images in one infobox and a poor image in the head infobox. I think I already violated 3RR on this without thinking about it, so if someone else could settle this I'd appreciate it. IFCAR (talk) 02:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

IFCAR has misrepresented my concern. See the talk page for a discussion and this diff in particular [3] Also, the headbox image was not my proposal, but another user's [4] I look forward to cooperating and collaborating with all of you!-72.93.80.5 (talk) 02:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


Data sheet in auto articles

For experimental reasons, I added a data sheet containing the most important vehicle data to VW Citi Golf. (I´ve added several dozens of these in the last months on de.wikipedia, all based on the usually very reliable Automobil Revue catalog editions.)

Before this magnificent community, I would like to pose the following questions:

  • 1. Would more data sheets of this kind be appreciated?
  • 2. If so, would a knowledgeable member of said community (maybe Mr Brendel) please cast an eye on it if it fails any measurements or other conventions (it surely does), to which I am not exceedingly accustomed?

Any comments are welcome; please let me know.

Thank you!

--328cia (talk) 23:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, but I think that it should be somehow smaller, if there is a car with lots of different engines the table would be even more bigger --— Typ932T | C  11:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! So far, I´ve found no way to keep the chart smaller, except maybe for fiddling with the font size. On the other hand, this might be a problem only when dealing with lots of variants, as you state, and then mainly for folks with smaller computer screens and/or for printing. We had a discussion on this concerning VW Käfer, where I finally split the oversize chart up into three smaller ones. --- Thank you, too, for your corrections and additions. Very much appreciated. --328cia (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
This would be good for such cars with a few variants, the table ca n be made smaller with font size and table with, lets seee what others think.. --— Typ932T | C  11:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think I like it too. Trouble is, there will be a temptation to apply a one size fits all approach here. Where we don't have too much access to information, and / or where the car did not change much, you can probably put all the info you need in the text and / or info box. An example where a longer table would be 'overkill' (though one where none of us yet managed an info box) might be SEAT 1200 Sport. At the other extreme are articles where there are plenty of pictures, there's plenty in a nicely set out table, but there's hardly any text. One of these I noticed yesterday was Hillman Minx. A good compromise between (1) the amount of info in the text and (2) the amount of info in the info box and (3) a more informative table, as a sort of appendix to the entry appears at de:Opel Rekord D. The German wiki seems to use more of these tables for the more detailed car articles, and to use them a little more consistently, than the English wiki: I guess that's down to the different ways we learn to communicate information in different countries.

But as a general guideline, and as you'll know if you ever engaged in teaching or lecturing or indeed almost anything involving communication, different people like to receive information in different ways. Among those who like to receive information online, (1) some concentrate on the pictures, (2) some on the info box, (3) some on the prose, and (4) some on the tabulated information in the nice way you set it out at VW Citi Golf. Or rather, we each of us concentrate on a different balance between those four depending on mood, time of day, what we're looking for etc. But in a perfect world, I guess each wiki entry would provide sufficient good quality information for each of these four prefered 'presentation formats' - and maybe in a fifth that I didn't yet think of. How you combine them all in an informative and inviting page that works with all our screen configurations is another set of worm cans, of course.

Regards Charles01 (talk) 11:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello again, mon ami, and thank you for your comments. The reason why I personally now prefer rather short infoboxes plus this kind of data sheet is simply that this way you can convey a lot more technical information on any given car; I wouldn´t even oppose such a table for the SEAT Coupe you mentioned - after all, if the chart is hidden, it doesn´t intrude too much; it´s just an invitation to anyone interested to look it up. (BTW, most tables of this kind you´ll find on de.wikipedia were created by your humble scribe in the last two months. I used to stuff all information into the infoboxes, until a special friend of mine began deleting the painfully sought information on the grounds that these overblown infoboxes looked plain ugly, a notion that has some truth to it. A short infobox plus this kind of hidden table represents, I think, an elegant approach.) Regards, Michael --328cia (talk) 12:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
No, I wouldn't oppose such a table for the Seat 1200 coupe either, if we had from somewhere enough data to justify it. I just sense that other car entries may be higher up the priority list because we already have easy access to more info on their subjects: but of course I do not know which sources you can readily access. Your German Beitraege give a good idea of what you have in mind for the English wiki, and I agree it works very well (also agreeing with Kieran T's thoughtful reactions below).
Would have done a chart on the Seat 1200/1430 Coupe in a whiffy, but my AR catalog(ue)s covering the mid-70s and early 80s are buried in boxes under a hundred Revell kits and other stuff and currently unaccessible...--328cia (talk) 18:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I love these tables. Because: firstly they can be placed at the end of an article, along with things like time-line templates. This means they don't get in the way of the text and pictures. And secondly because they take the heat off the infoboxes which have been getting very long and which become confusing when not aligned with the relevant sections, in the case of cars with "generations", in addition to precluding the use of well-placed thumbnails in the text. Following the rules / guidelines about left-aligned images alongside infoboxes leads to lots of trailing thumbnails below the infobox and unweildy articles. I suggested I'd prefer horizontal infoboxes a while ago. There are strong arguments against that though, so these data sheets seem to me to be an excellent compromise. – Kieran T (talk) 14:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I oppose data sheets in all. I think all technical information, past infoboxes, should be in paragraph-written format rather than a large table or "sheet." —Mr. Grim Reaper at 22:41, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I would support this proposal, but only under one condition. They would all have to sport a common design approach like the timeline and infoboxes do. Maybe someone with a technically-minded nature could put together an easy-to-use template as a starting point? OSX (talk • contributions) 22:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


What if you have different power levels for the same displacement? Like the old iterations of the SBC offered with different cams/carbs/exhausts?

What about purely electric vehicles, which are coming? How would they get listed? Would you list the size of the battery pack? What about passenger capacity? Interior volumes? Outside dimensions bumper to bumper, overall height? Who/what is the final arbiter of top-speed numbers? Other performance numbers? Why are they needed at all? Top speed of a Chevy Silverado pickup truck is what? How about a carbon effect number for each vehicle? These timeline boxes at the bottoms of some articles...who is responsible and who do you talk to about fixing them? Is this going to just be another wanker box that ordinary users can't correct? Signed: Raokman

To address your somewhat strangely aggressive list of questions: The whole thing is just a proposal based on my recent acitivities on my home WP, where obviously there´s a consensus that these tables are useful (or else I wouldn´t insert them; and may I say that I´m tactful enough not to add them if the vital specs are already there in some form or other). Then, this is not a template, but a flexible platform for useful data whose content is open to discussion and may be modified by anyone; in some cases for instance I have included wheels and tire sizes, in other cases the price of the vehicles when new. All figures I have used stem from the annually published Swiss Automobil Revue catalog (the most respected work in the field over here) that uses figures given by the respective companies; as for top speed, acceleration and fuel consumption, they use estimates if the companies don´t provide figures. Trucks are not included in the catalog, nor are CO2 emissions or interior volume (a purely US/EPA specialty). If you look closely, you´ll see that all exterior dimensions are included in the table. As for the timeline charts, they are as free to be modified as anything here on WP. Wankers, though, should stay away. --328cia (talk) 15:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I see how to edit your table, not really a templete, or is it the template that creates the table? But how do you modify a template, the list of VW vehicles at the end for example? Or a timeline?
Sorry I missed the LWH measurements. Will you be adding columns for final ratios as well? For cars/trucks that had optional rear gears, the difference in top speeds between a 3.25:1 and a 4.30:1 final gear would be substantial. I think you need to at least add a "range" box...the maximum distance that can be traveled on one "fill-up", be it gas, diesel or electric charge. This can be a crucial measurement. The Tango for example can do 0-60 in 4 seconds, but can only travel 70 miles before needing to be recharged. What would be other acceptable sources for the data, if the vehicle in question doesn't appear in the Swiss Automobil Revue catalog, which I've never heard of over here. Signed: Raokman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.223.28 (talk) 15:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Search for "Category:Automotive timeline templates", choose the one you want to work on, open it and use the "edit"-button on top of the page; the text appears and may be modified. But please be careful not to insert wrong data. --- Adding a range and/or a fuel tank size box is, of course, feasible and certainly crucial for EVs, as you state. As for petrol/diesel-driven cars, you´ll have the problem of what the range figure should be based on - city cycle consumption or highway mileage consumption? --- Also, I agree that axle ratios available are of importance to US cars, less so in Europe where the buyer usually doesn´t have a choice of different ratios (except with some historical sports cars). --- Automobil Revue is the leading Swiss automotive magazine since I-don´t-know-when and started publishing annual special issues covering all available car models worldwide in 1951; nowadays the books amount to something like 550 pages. The catalog section consists solely of a few lines of introduction to each single model, a picture and of technical data (in German and French). If my scanner works, I´ll upload a sample page for all to see. Also, there´s the German "Auto Katalog" featuring more text and pictures and less data. As for the USA, I do not know of similar catalogs; there a good source might be respected magazines like C/D and R&T plus books and factory sales brochures; also, I remember having owned some US Car Buyer`s Guide in pocketbook format featuring a whole lot of data and prices some 20 years ago. Regards, --328cia (talk) 17:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems they don't use tables; probably because, with their experience in dealing with the data since you-don-t-know-when, they've discovered that one-size-suits-all tables just don't work.
How would a hybrid drivetrain be listed in your table? One column for the diesel/gas ICE and another for the electric(s)? In designing tables, I always add in 4 or 5 extra text fields, and some additional numeric fields for future and unforseen needs. I think you need to do the same with this template. It's much easier to add fields now than later. Any plans on being able to query/link all these tables across articles for one summary table? Signed: Raokman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.220.111 (talk) 18:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Look, I started this discussion in order to test if there might be a consensus for using this (or a similar) data sheet on en:WP, not to discuss trifles.

Apart from that, I have not done a table on any hybrid vehicle so far, as I have concentrated on older cars, and in any single instance did copy-and-paste work adapting the table as needed. Also, I see no need, working with these tables the way I do, to generally include extra fields, as these can be added at any time, if needed. If I need a six-column table, I copy a corresponding table and so on. --- Your first sentence I do not understand at all; the random page is taken from the 1973 edition, which is pre-computer age when books were type-set by hand; and since I-don´t-know-when in this case means since 1906.

This being said, I still invite comments on the general acceptability of such data tables, especially from the known honchos of Project Automobile.

@ Mr. Grim Reaper: Yours is a noble approach, and I do agree that such a table is but one way to present such data; on the other hand, it is a concise and practical way. After all, if there were no need for a table, mankind wouldn´t have invented it.

--328cia (talk) 18:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I was actually going to propose something like that - keeping excessive tech data in the infobox makes it unweildy, and listing tech data in prose is simply counterproductive, as it is hard to read and excruciatingly boring in many cases.
OTOH, we might consider if we need to carry such detailed info with Wikipedia. I would also consider setting the limit of how much info we really need in a "general purpose" encyclopedia and relegate the other to external sources. PrinceGloria (talk) 19:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
How about an agreed upon template for the VEHICLE, with links to the available engines? Would be an incentive to create articles for each engine/engine-family, and eliminate a lot of the variables that would need to be addressed by a one-size-for-all table? I don't see the need for performance, or mileage information really. Just dimensions, weight should be enough if you're just writing about a vehicle. For additional performance data, see the engine article(s). Or the NHRA article. Afterall, it's not the vehicle that's responsible for the performance, it's the engine/powerplant.
Personally, I think you should look forward, and what will need to be listed in future articles, not so much on trying to parse out and reformat the Swiss digest, without paying them royalties for the use of their information. Signed: Raokman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.220.43 (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


I think the data needed is dimensions, performance, engine data (ccs, power torque) and nowadays we should consider also consumption,C02 levels to new cars, safety data is also good for new cars. But I dont like too big tables in short articles, what we dont need is eg. gear ratios, front/rear tracks.... --— Typ932T | C  19:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd actually much rather have front/rear tracks than CO2 levels, electric range and such examples of currentism. Given the variety of opinion, I'd rather agree on the minimum of info that has to be included and for the rest only if notable (i.e. notable safety, like the first vehicle to get 5 stars @ NCAP, or fuel consumption for models designed to be very frugal, like hybrids (for the time being, at least, when they become commonplace we might not want to delve into such details)) - of course, such notable facts would be mentioned in the article's body, not a table or infobox. PrinceGloria (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
c02 levels are coming more and more important, some countries are basing car taxes on them, thats why I was thinking those. I think we should made somekind of guidelines what is "must" have and what is just extra. One thing considering performance data, I would always like to see official data not magazine test values (because its easy to find all kind of data), magazine values should be below official values --— Typ932T | C  20:41, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

IMHO the value of providing ANY technical date @ Wikipedia is to give a better overview of the car, hence basic dimensions and engine data, such as displacement and power rating, are very welcome. Anything more (than the basics, which are more than I have just mentioned, just to make sure) is superfluous in a "general knowledge" encyclopedia IMHO, unless it is a notable subject in itself.
I believe the raison d'etre of a Wikipedia article on a car model is to provide the general public with an idea of the car, and also some background information that often gets lost by more format-oriented or narrow-scope sources (such as information on the development process and other interesting facts that do not fit the usual "catalog table" format). I also do believe, though, that Wikipedia should not go farther and try to cover EVERYTHING about the car, including entire technical specifications, colour lists and codes, safety/reliability/pricing/sales stats data and so forth. There are specialized sources which do a much better job concerning that and there is no point copying them all into Wikipedia - rather linking to them to direct the reader to more in-depth, yet narrower-focused info. PrinceGloria (talk) 23:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I think Prince Gloria's thoughts speak to a hitherto unspoken difference in underlying assumptions. Wikipedia has more contributors and more data storage space than ANY old fashioned work of reference. So it COULD aspire to incorporate more knowledge than the Encyclopaedia Britannica and all the worthwhile specialist sources we ever heard of. And then some. But should it? If you aspire to place all the useful information any reasonable person might want to find in this single database, you will fail. But I think you still need to hold to that aspiration. If you aspire to make the US, the UK or even Switzerland - even Wikipedia - the perfect democracy, you will also fail. But without keeping that aspiration in mind, you increase the risk of a rapid retreat into post-democracy. If we don't continue trying to make Wikipeduia more informative about - in this case - passenger cars and allied topics, then you hasten the day when the thing will run out of energy. And as far as I can see, when a project runs out of energy, it does not merely stagnate: it starts to roll backwards. So I think we should still be keen to add more information for as long as we can do it without compromising the quality of the information, and as long as we can do it without making the information look muddled. Information Tables can be a good way to communicate certain types of information in a clear manner. They are also for many of us easier to proof read / check than paras of prose. (Given the scope for increasing the amount of information that they offer, that's probably just as well.)
There's something else. Once you start saying some pieces of information deserve to be included but others don't, you run up against differences of opinion. If ten of the best informed contributors to wiki car articles each list the ten pieces of information they wish to know about a car, you will get plenty of overlap. But you will get differences too. That's not because I am right and you are wrong, nor vice versa. Our priorities are created according to the way our thought processes have developed over many years. In England we pay something like seven bucks for a (US) gallon of gasoline: thanks to our fuel tax levels, we're probably more interested in fuel economy than folks who've never lived anywhere but Texas. In parts of Germany, especially where they used to burn large amounts of lignite in the power stations, folks have watched the much loved green forests (Gruen bedeutet Hoffnung: green represents hope) surrounding their towns turned grey and then dead (not, now I think of it, necessarily in that order) by acid pollutants in the air, and Los Angeles has had a bit of an issue with smog for as long as many of us can remember. So Carbon emissions have been part of the mainstream political dialogue for many decades in California and in Germany. Maybe if you live in West Virginia or England, all this obsessive interest in automobile emissions looks like more of a passing fad. But if anglophone Wikipedia is to be valued equally in California AND in Texas, in Germany AND in England - even in Zuerich and in Delhi, I guess we all have to recognise that other folks' views on what really matters about a car CAN be as valid as our own even where they are different. Of course, you can take that argument too far, and use it to justify filling entries with garbage: that is NOT where we should want to go. All this relativism can eventually become very silly indeed. BUT recognition that disparate priorities as to what really matters about a car can be valid, is nonetheless an argument in favour of more information rather than of less information.
I wonder if I should have run these paras through a spell checker.
Regards Charles01 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 18:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Spellchecking aside, I live in Europe, but I am quite often talking automotive subjects over the wire with guys over the pond and it seems to me that fuel consumption is of concern to both the Old and the New World, but this is pretty irrelevant. If you want to check out which car has the lowest fuel consumption or otherwise suits your needs, go to Consumer Reports, WhatCar or whatever else consumer advisory source there is relevant to you. By the same token, you don't go checking airline ticket prices, comparative living costs, opinion poll results and a million other FACTUAL and VERIFIABLE stuff up on Wikipedia. By definition, an encyclopedia is not for EVERYTHING, it is just a portal to general knowledge.
Wikipedia does away with many limitations of a traditional, "paper" encyclopedia and allows much more freedom in topic selection as well as the depth of information presented, but it is not an indiscriminate collection of information. When we say we include everything even remotely possible, we will have huge disparities between articles or even sections. I believe we should agree on the minimum information required from an encyclopedic point of view and consider an article complete once those are provided. For the rest, I believe we should direct the readers to some Auto Wiki or other source of info better suited for gathering this sort of info. PrinceGloria (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is made up of individual articles, written and updated by individuals. Many articles are the works of single writers, or primarily individuals with some additions by a few others.
I agree that there should be some 'minimum' content, but, depending on your individual writer, the sky's the limit on any and all information that s/he wants to incorporate into the article. I'm getting a little ticked off by 'editors' who go around actually DELETING information that is valid, was important to at least one person and so, is probably important to those readers who can't be bothered by contributing to the project. I know there is some threshold where information becomes trivia, but I feel that the minimum should be set firmly and the maximum should float very high above that level. Short of pure trivia, too much information is just enough. I don't think we should be putting articles on diets that take away all the interesting bits leaving nothing but a skeleton. Signed: Raokman —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.73.221.82 (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Raokman, for God's sake, if you want to treat us and Wikipedia seriously (and expect the same in return), do register and log in. It takes a second and costs you nothing.
Re: what you said - Wikipedia is about collecting verifiable and notable information, which in a way makes it a very boring source of information - after all, encyclopedias are meant to be informative, not exciting. Make no mistake - most Wikipedia articles on cars will be far less "interesting" than magazine articles, books, online writeups et al. on the subject. And yes, as long as the content is unencyclopedic, we should be putting articles on a diet.
We also need standards precisely because of the fact that individual articles are being written by individual members. To avoid the result of this becoming a mess, we need standards, so that readers will know what to expect from a Wikipedia article on a car model (and also get what one might except from an encyclopedic article on a car), and not just have to try their luck and either find a sensible article or a dreadful mess.
IMHO, listing extensive tech data (usually only provided for specific versions, one generation or otherwise restricted), sales numbers for some geographically limited area, equipment level specifications for a random moment in time and such for equally random vehicles does not really enhance Wikipedia's encyclopedic qualities, just makes some of the editors happy. PrinceGloria (talk) 22:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
Come on, now, really. What you deny to be of encyclopedic value (i.e. a set of technical data, sales figures and the like) is just what I, for one, and apparently many others am looking for in wp car articles, among other things, of course. (And strangely, on de:wp there has been not a single voice opposing the tables.) Equipment levels are too much, agreed, but some vital specs?? --- I`m already sorry I brought this topic up. But do as you please to keep wp clean and pure; although I do see articles galore that are a mess. And as for your much-cited randomness - Rome wasn´t built on just one day. --328cia (talk) 23:49, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I already said data sheets are pure goodness and bliss, I am just saying we need to draw the line somewhere, otherwise randomness and shito mix will prevail. I'd much rather have "vital specs" in a table than stuffed into the article body as prose or into **shudder** the infobox. Given the number of dimensions, though (markets, generations/facelifts, versions available etc.), we need to devise a very good way of including those (or make sure our "vital set" is immune to that).
As concers looking for the wrong kind of data in Wikipedia articles - well, I love to read plot synopses of series and films I don't have time to watch on WP, as well as game walkthroughs, Pokemon bios and such, but still I believe Wikipedia should not host those. They are fun, but wrong. PrinceGloria (talk) 00:01, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Then I must have got you wrong, pardon me and blame my being tired. So maybe some day there will be some sort of consensus. Maybe it would be useful, then, to set a date for a ballot sometime in the foreseeable future in order to come to some kind of conclusion. (As an aside, building these tables is boring, I can assure you, so it might be along your lines after all... And I started table-izing de:wp not the least to create some kind of formal uniformity among all those articles, although one man alone would probably need years to cover all entries.) --328cia (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
To ease your pain - most of the engine data may surely rest in respective engine articles, I'd stick with just displacement and power rating somewhere in the article and/or infobox, and perhaps a reference to the engine article. Data such as unibody / body-on-frame or rack-and-pinion vs. recirculating-ball can safely be dealt with in the body without making the articles unweildy, but I'd say in many articles it is obvious enough not to be mentioned. I'd also say due to the existence of many incompatible standards, fuel consumption data is pretty much redundant. I would say the same of top speed and 0-100 times - the first is measured in a rather unreliable way usually (there is hardly a "scientific" standard for that, basically automakers can state whatever they want, within reasonable limits, the other is of little value except for the teenager-like infatuation). I see some value in keeping dimensions and suspension as well as brake setups.
I am not in big favor of a "vote" given the spotty turnout of various people in this page and the general rule that "voting is evil". I'd much rather like to convince the regular members here of the merits of keeping to the encyclopedicity of the articles rather than "fun", even if it might seem to be a Sisyphean challenge.
I'd say - let's agree on moving certain data to the collapsible data format and work on honing them so that we can better include them in articles (perhaps even as parts of infoboxes - can we have "horizontally collapsible" tables to fit the width of the infobox when "collapsed"?), and work further on defining what should and what should not be included in a Wikipedia article on car, basing on general Wikipedia rules (so that we wouldn't have to dispute that in each individual case).
I am going to sleep now - good week to you all! PrinceGloria (talk) 00:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
I cannot say if the table´s width is adaptable. Sleep well, my Prince, my BLSI.:-)) --328cia (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Automobile links on Energy crisis

The following car and engines articles had links to energy crisis. I'm not sure if there is important material in the list, so if there is anyone who knows more than me about engines, car history and fuel efficiency who could transclude at the least the basic innovations and technical points from these articles to the energy crisis page, it would significantly add to the article and be appreciated.

Mazda Wankel engine, Mazda Rotary Pickup, Internal combustion engine ,Stirling engine, Chrysler L platform, Chrysler Cordoba, Leyland P76, Pontiac GTO, Chevrolet Impala, Dodge Monaco, Bristol Type 603 - Shiftchange (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I kinda fail to see how, except on the most basic level (in that those cars generally are regarded as having poor fuel economy), any of those articles relate directly to the energy crisis. By that reasoning, you could add about 75 percent of Detroit's output in 1973-74, a good number of other Aussie cars of the same period, and a wide range of similarly-timed European exotica. In short, I don't suspect there's much in those articles that will help the energy crisis article. As for Stirling engine, it certainly qualifies as a more efficient design for a powerplant, but it doesn't relate much to cars and isn't that widely used anywhere else (so far as I've been aware). I'd be more in favor of removing the tag from those articles, actually, since it's very subjective. Duncan1800 (talk) 09:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

New conversion templates available

There is now couple of new templates to conversions, some examples:

    • {{convert|140|kW|PS|abbr=on}} results in 140 kW (190 PS)
    • {{convert|140|kW|PS bhp|0|abbr=on}} results in 140 kW (190 PS; 188 bhp)
    • {{convert|188|bhp|kW PS|0|abbr=on}} results in 188 bhp (140 kW; 191 PS)
    • {{convert|190|PS|kW bhp|0|abbr=on}} results in 190 PS (140 kW; 187 bhp)
  • Torque
    • {{convert|190|ftlbf|Nm|0|abbr=on}} results in 190 ft⋅lbf (257.6 N⋅m)
    • {{convert|22.4|kgm|Nm ftlbf|abbr=on}} results in 22.4 kg⋅m ([convert: unknown unit])

I think we could swap Auto templates to general convert template in auto articles (in most cases)? only difference is that we have convention (Wikipedia:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions) that says we dont use commas eg. in millimetres...the convention page should also be rewrite to give clear instructions... what do you think?

--— Typ932T | C  12:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Gulf Oil GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page since the article falls under its scope and so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. I'm specifically going over all of the "World History-Americas" articles. I have reviewed Gulf Oil and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix. I left messages for the main contributors to the article so that the workload can be shared. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 04:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Stude62

This former user is getting all his automotive-related images tagged for deletion. I just started to save some of them. I suggest that others on this board continue to do so. ----DanTD (talk) 20:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Eyes on General Motors

General Motors is going through a lot of back and forth editing over how 2007 results are affecting its world status...is this a good place to ask for more eyes to look at the various sources and discussions over what should be included in the intro paragraph? Here's a discussion I started on the talk page: Talk:General Motors#Editing warring over 2007 results. Thanks. Flowanda | Talk 03:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review - Max Mosley

Max Mosley, head of the FIA, is currently on peer review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Max Mosley. One weakness that I am conscious of in the article is Mosley's role outside motorsport. The FIA supposedly represents motorists and motoring organisations worldwide. If anyone would care to comment on or add to the article, that would be great. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 23:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

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