On the ground in Iceland: Street-level differences, Part 3

pThroughout my stay in Iceland I’d discover that the people are extremely sweet, generous and smart, but not really big on punctuality. I wonder if that’s due to Iceland’s complete lack of trains. If I remember my product design history correctly, worldwide sales of watches and clocks didn’t really take off until the advent of trains and their schedules, because prior to that there was nowhere you really needed to be at exactly 11:47./p

pIn any case, yeah, there are no trains in Iceland, even though there’s a lot of ground to cover. Everyone here has a car, it’s like a colder version of L.A. And for every little European econo-box like this,/p

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/03/0reyk312.jpg” width=”468″ height=”351″ alt=”0reyk312.jpg”//div

pyou also see a four-wheel-drive vehicle modified with extra clearance and tires, like this:/p

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/03/0reyk317.jpg” width=”468″ height=”272″ alt=”0reyk317.jpg”//div

pI asked a local about them, and he explained that if you’re going out into the hinterlands, which is most of the country, the most rugged factory-model suspension and tires will not cut the mustard. Hence Icelanders have a tendency to mod their rides with some seriously heavy-duty, made-for-Iceland aftermarket stuff. But another local I met opined that the hopped-up kits were mostly aspirational, like Nikes, purchased by people who’d never actually put them to the test./p

pWhatever the case, you see these modded trucks all over Reykjavik.br /
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