Gas is cheap here. We also are not taxed as function of engine size or horse power as some over there are. We like big engines and only give a passing nod to gas mileage.

Over here the mindset of many of the younger tends to drag racing and numerous mods of one sort or another. They like to personalize their cars and make them quick between stop lights. Everyday on the way to work I pass by many of these tweaked cars. Some of them nicely done but most, obviously, a work in progress. Within easy driving distance of where I live there are 4 or 5 drag strips. To my knowledge there is not a single purpose built drag strip in all of Europe. Most Europeans do not "get" drag racing but this fact is apparently lost on our young. The cars that the kids played with in high school were fairly easy to mod. Of course none of these cars were Mercedes based. If they had been, the kids would have known that speed and Mercedes only come together when big bucks are applied and not much can be easily done in the home garage. So now some kids not only find themselves with a car that does not meet their personal requirements but one that can not easily and cheaply be made to do so. This is the squawk. Since nothing is ever their fault it must be someone elses. If not them, then it must be the car, or the idiots that built it, or the nimrods that designed it, or that bastard that sold it to them but certainly not them.