When I saw the license plate in front of me, I thought; well, someone sure doesn’t like their Matrix. But then when I opened this picture up again, I began to have doubts about my interpretation of it.
Oh right; that red Matrix undoubtedly belongs to the Blood Bank!
The Matrix, and its partner, the Pontiac Vibe, are some of the best cars that no one has ever heard of. Made (or at least assembled) in the US, fantastic build quality, great space utilization, typical Toyota durability and longevity.
…and the performance and handling of a tall overweight Corolla.
I rented one for a week, I didn’t think it compared well to my wife’s Civic at the time.
Once when I was selling cars, we had a Matrix and a similar year Honda Fit for sale, and the Honda seemed to have TWICE as much room in it!
I can think of no finer vessel for transportation.
I had a rental Matrix once and it actually was a POS. Rattly, cheap plastic interior. Its rental status probably didn’t do it any favors, but then again I rented a Kia Soul not long after and it was far nicer inside.
Hahahahahah!!!!!
A POS? Certainly it can’t be the perhaps obvious assumption. I’ve had enough experience with POS cars. I also have a Matrix of this generation. This car is as far away from POS as you can get.
Evan, the Vibe was manufactured here in Fremont, CA, but the Matrix was made in Canada. I thought the two of them came down the same assembly line myself, but they didn’t. I totally agree with you about all the positive attributes of those cars.
Based on the bumper sticker, it looks like a corporate pool car. Smaller economy cars are often used by blood banks to transport medical samples, including blood test kits or even blood transfusions.
Based on that, Paul is thinking “A POS” refers to the Blood type “A positive,” rather than the automotive interpretation of POS, and I agree.
Thanks, Dave. I was trying to think of how phlebotomist would abbreviate to POS. I didn’t see the forest for the trees.
Looks like the other vehicle in the company’s fleet is “B POS.” I guess it’s phlebotomy humor.
I’m sorry. Did you just misspell “lobotomy humor”?
Phlebotomists are the ones who do blood draws.
I’d like one that said AB NEG. Not too many of us (type) around, like .06 % in the USA.
If you are able to donate blood, please try to do that. It takes an hour and the Red Cross has a web based form that speeds up the information prep work. I’ve been donating since the early 1970’s and there’s a nice sense of accomplishment when I am finished. Plus you get some cookies and coffee afterwards.
The Matrix – Debbie’s son had an older Matrix closing in on 200K miles and I worked on it trying to resolve two OBD2 error codes. Fixed one, not savvy enough to fix the other, but in my test drives trying to force the reset codes, I found it to be a nice driving and neatly designed little car. It seemed quite solid even with all those miles. He traded it in on a new 2015 Civic, and that feels like a luxury car to me. (Full disclosure: I drive a 99 Miata, so everything feels like a luxury car to me).
Being A Neg myself I get called all the time. Probably why my first thought was blood type. I’ve been donating since the late 70s but the last few years I’ve had some problems so I’m stalled between 14 and 15 gallons.
Dave, That’s a lot of donated blood.
According the the Red Cross “Although an estimated 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood at any given time, less than 10% of that eligible population actually do each year.”
You’re one of the good guys.
I’d rather have AB NRML
Abbey Normal – ah yes. From the annals of great cinematic moments:
When did language degenerate so that all of us read first a piece of shit, rather than A positive?
The word you are looking for is evolved. Language changes over time. For good, or bad, is a matter of interpretation, like this plate. That’s just how it is.
Why do your comments so predictably degenerate into judgementalism?
Too funny!!
Acronyms are far more prevalent than abbreviations these days, so it’s simply the path of least resistance for the mind to go. In addition, my mind wouldn’t have ever made the blood connection without the bumper sticker, in fact, even if the plate could have said “A POSITIVE” my mind would sooner think of school grades than it would blood type initially, but I see and own a lot of things I call a piece of shit on a regular basis, is it so wrong that’s where the mind may wander? Especially when attached to a tupperware late model car?
Frankly, the use of abbreviations and acronyms is a bigger blight to language than the long used “bad words” in it.
In Arizona, our license plates have nearly burned through three-letter combinations starting with B. At this point, I’m seeing some BWV plates; as a classically-trained musician, I’m always amused, because BWV stands for Bach Werke Verzeichnis, a catalog of every single work by Johann Sebastian Bach. The numbering goes up into the low 1,000s.
All of us? I immediately thought of Point-of-Sale, which is abbreviated the same way (you could look it up) and used by support techs every day.
The flag isn’t moving, the wind isn’t moving, your mind is moving.
I stand corrected. In this case at least, I was mainly judging myself, and rather harshly.
My wife and I both read it as A positive. PoS didn’t even occur to me before reading the alternate interpretation in the caption. My wife said “What do you mean P O S ?” when I snorted.
Sorry didn’t scroll down through all the replies before chiming in.
They could’ve sidestepped that ambiguity by choosing A POZ, but that would’ve created a different and problematic ambiguity.
One of my best friends, who happens to be gay, has a last name like this with one letter added in there. The shit he’s had to deal with…
When faced with a decision, always choose whichever is funnier.
The Matrix /Vibe are cars that don’t lure you in with their charm or style. They win you over slowly with their practicality, reliability and low cost.
Sing along with the Rolling Stones:
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need
Always bugged me to think how much they were making when they wrote that. It’s like they were saying “YOU can’t always get what YOU want…”
I’ve owned two Matrixes. I’d still own the first and not the second had I not ran that red light. Anyway, they are enormously useful machines. And now that my current Matrix has 180,000 miles and is worth very little, I hardly care whether it stays looking good. So here’s what I did with mine this summer.
Jim, That looks like something from a Cheech and Chong movie!
Oh heavens, you wouldn’t want to smoke those!
?And I been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonapah
Driven every kind of Matrix that’s ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me, weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign
I’ll be willin’, to be movin?
Little Feat – Willin’ Lyrics
Since this is basically a Corolla hatch, you basically get everything that could be considered a positive trait for car…or maybe it shares the lacking of the same negative traits? Yet its infinitely more useful and has a bit of sporty style vs the brain dead and sterile appliance look of the Corolla–which rots the appeal of ANY comparable sedan.
How this and other 5-door hatches fail to make their sedan counterparts completely irrelevant is beyond me. Having owned a similar type car (PT Cruiser GT) I can vouch for how these cars continually amaze you with what they can do. and they’re still fun to drive, giving an enthusiast something a CUV usually can’t.
The popularity of such non-enthusiast vehicles tells us what a low proportion of car owners are car enthusiasts.
Dare you calling me a non-enthusiast! —I think you were serious when you wrote this comment.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2005-pontiac-vibe-a-conditional-love/
I have a friend with base trim auto Matrix, no power windows, locks or AC, the rear hatch window can’t even open. I would bother him about all it’s “luxuries” and he would then reply with why my 98 Saturn was a joke, often reminding me about the time it broke down in front of his house. But like true friends we always end up laughing about it.
I’ve got a couple of friends with Matrix..Matrices?…Matrixes…Matrii? Both are in a band and they appreciate the utility of the tall hatch area. I’ve taken a trip in one of them and found it a comfortable enough vehicle to ride in. For the portion I drove, though, I was taken aback by the *very* abrupt takeup in the gas pedal. It’s almost like an on/off switch–took me a while to get used to and I still wasn’t exactly smooth with it after 2 hours of driving. Are they all like that? This one was an older model, I think maybe an ’06?
My ex’s ’00 and ’10 corollas did that- revs snap up to ~2k, right around where the torque peaks and the clutch (or tc or whatever is in there) just GRABS to trick you into thinking “woah, tons of get-up-and-go!”.
My dad and uncle both bought auto Kia Optimas new in ’06 with, as far as they knew, the same options and specs. Uncle Pete’s behaved like a normal slushbox, but Dad’s does the corolla fake-power rev and clutch snap thing. It does make it a heck of a challenge to drive gracefully.
If you drive someone else’s car you never know its state of maintenance. If this was a model with Drive-by-Wire pedal (’05 and later) and the throttle body was not clean it is quite possible that the throttle was a bit sticky and popped loose from the idle position. Also you don’t know if the ECM recall was performed which smoothed out a few kinks in throttle response and automatic shifting. That said: my wife’s 2010 Ford Focus is much smoother in throttle response than my well maintained Vibe. I adjusted by letting the car creep at idle before barely touching the pedal. Driven like that it will gather speed slowly but smoothly. However it took weeks, not hours, to get the hang of it.
I hate aggressive throttle tip-in. We had a Civic like that and our Town & Country is even worse, makes me look like an idiot at times peeling out with a minivan.
hehehehehe
Back in 86 when I drove a 74 Maverick and 74 Pinto wagon a friend of mine put bumper stickers on both that said “My Other Car is a Piece of Shit Too. I actually thought it was funny.