Hall of Fame #3: Toyota Century

Today I welcome the first non-US contribution to the Hall of Fame. You may have noticed that I prefer to tout American accomplishments, but far be it from me to marginalize any great nation, and Japan is truly one of the greatest. The story today is a heartwarming one. Toyota, the automotive equivalent of Ebenezer Scrooge or unseasoned lentils, the company that killed off every fun car that it had during the 1990s, shows us that it has a heart buried deep within. Because there are actually two Toyotas, not just one.

Two Toyotas

In the year 2007, Toyota broke a 77-year winning streak when they overtook General Motors as the world's largest automaker. The recall issues and certain quality concerns, not to mention the loss of production associated with the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, have proved enormous hurdles. And yet, Toyota broke a winning streak so long that the only longer one you'll find is in the virtually non-competitive America's Cup of yachting, and as of 2012 Toyota is still on top of the world.

But the cars that made Toyota #1 are not the cars that I want to buy. The Camry and Corolla are offensively bland and thoroughly uninspired to drive, look at, and think about. They have added comfort and quietness where previous small cars were rattly and skateboard-like. In so doing, they have made Americans in particular snobby dullards. Just when we were making some progress in the 70s and 80s in small cars, Toyota comes along and allows Americans to enjoy couches on wheels just like they did before the oil crisis, albeit with nonexistent styling, and high fuel economy and reliability to keep them top sellers. Soulless appliances all, I promise you that not one person, in Japan or America or elsewhere, has ever dreamed a daring thought or done anything exciting or noteworthy while in the process of designing or assembling a Toyota Camry. They sacrificed everything noteworthy about it so that it could sell globally, and give nothing offensive or exciting to buyers of any country.

And that's all well and good if you think of a car as an expensive device that is a practical necessity. Notwithstanding the 10 million cars that they recently recalled, Toyota will still assemble you a perfectly suitable A-to-B machine that should prove reliable and economical. This is the Toyota with which you are familiar. If the name didn't sound Japanese, and it was more generic (like Quality Motors Ltd), you might think it was Korean, or Chinese, or Russian, or even American. There are no culturally identifying cues.

What about the good old days? What if you want a Japanese car that is thoroughly Japanese, something Japanese enough that the Emperor would be chauffeured in one? Something that is not the product of ruthless accounting, a global market philosophy, and California stylists? Something that is not a hybrid of cultures, but goes back to the days when a Japanese car was made for Japan's tastes and these alone? Something of this sort could skirt the precipice of boring appliance and turn into an interesting cultural study as well as a machine that is classy, elegant, and understated. There is a second Toyota, not a globalist cash machine, but one that is interested in serving the enthusiasts of Old World luxury.

There are two Toyotas. The second of these continues to cater to the needs of Japan's traditional luxury car buyers. This part of Toyota makes the only Toyota I would ever consider owning: the Century.

The Toyota Century entered production in 1967 and at the time of its launch, it was not unique as a large Japanese luxury car. The Mitsubishi Debonair in 1964 had started the ball rolling, and the 1965 Nissan President was even better. Nissan, furthermore, was given the tremendous privilege of building the cars for the Royal Household in 1966-1967. The Nissan Prince Royals (six total) were replaced only in 1997, and by this time the Toyota Century was the obvious choice.

However, both the President and the Debonair were available with many engine options, spanning from 2.0L four-pots all the way through inline-6s and a V8 at Nissan. These cars were conservatively styled and pushed all the same buttons, but except for top-line V8 Presidents, they don't have the class as the Century. If the Century was in production at the time that the Royal Family needed to replace their creaky old Rolls-Royce and prewar Mercs, I think it would have gotten the nod.

Let's look at the production history. The Debonair was killed off in 1998, the year after the Century got a refresh that it retains to this day. The President lasted all the way to 2010, but with a measly 4.5 L V8 compared to the Century's absolutely bespoke 5.0 L V12, it's a two-pair against a straight flush. 

Right off the bat, it was exclusive; the Century was V8-only from 1967 until 1997. There was only one engine offered at a time. After a 30-year production run with virtually no changes, they overhauled the design and relaunched it with a V12 engine. Let me cite the superlatives: The first and only V12 from Toyota. The first and only V12 from any Japanese manufacturer. The only V12 still in production for smoothness only, sacrificing power and fuel economy at the same time.

Why is the Century so good?

• It's not made like any other Japanese car

I know, it says Toyota on the badge, but it's not made by Toyota's factories. As productive and innovative as Toyota has been over the years, and as much respect as is warranted to them, something more special is required for a true luxury car.

1967 Toyota Century

Toyota also owns a subsidiary Kanto Auto Works, Ltd. In Japanese style of the time, it was an independent contractor but did all of its work producing Toyotas (the Japanese did not yet practice vertical integration in the automotive field). As of 2012, Kanto is wholly owned by Toyota and was merged with two other contractors, losing its name in the process. Still, the Yokosuka plant which makes the Century is not the same as other Toyotas are built upon.

The cars are largely hand-made at the plant in Yokosuka. The metal for the bodywork is polished before paint even goes onto it. They use substantially more mass of paint; it's comparable to old-school Mercedes-Benz back in the days when those were made like tanks. Kanto Auto Works build every Century to order, so it will be personally yours. At this price point, it's pretty uncommon to see that.

1997 Toyota Century

It's also been utterly unchanged in appearance from 1967 to the present day. Don't believe me? Just try and spot the difference. 1997 was the year of the last redesign. You are looking at a car that you can still buy new today.

Let me give you an analog of developments in Europe, which may be more familiar to American readers. Mercedes-Benz was once, many years ago, merely a specialist luxury car company which sold cars in the hundreds. It fully reinvented itself starting in the 1960s to become a mainstream brand that was known and respected throughout the world, with sales in the millions. On the other hand, Bentley and Rolls-Royce did not modernize and expand in the same way. The Rolls-Royce Phantom is mostly handmade in England by craftsmen who spend 150 hours of labor per vehicle; even if demand were to suddenly skyrocket, they could not ramp up production to meet it. The R-Rs are also substantially more expensive than Mercedes-Benz cars, except the most expensive from that brand. If you'll permit the comparison, Lexus is the Mercedes-Benz of Japan, while the Toyota Century is that country's Rolls-Royce.

• Its name is both sensible and honorable

Sakichi Toyoda (1867-1930)

Century has always used English lettering on the trunk

In America, a multi-brand strategy was essential for the Japanese to conquer new markets. But in Japan it wasn't this way; Toyota is perfectly elastic and it runs the gamut from the tiniest econoboxes to large barges like this. In Japan, Lexus does not exist, and there are merely upscale Toyotas to fill the void. Excellent, I say! Why invent a new brand for your luxury car? Sakichi Toyoda is far from as much of a celebrity as Henry Ford or Soichiro Honda, but he was an influential industrialist in Japanese history nonetheless. This model is called the "Century" because it began production in 1967, exactly one hundred years after the birth of the founder. That is sensible; it brings to mind the prewar designation of Japanese military equipment by the number of years that the current Emperor had been reigning. 

Century is a venerable name for cars. Before Buick ruined the name on a dull FWD midsize, the prewar 1936 Buick Century was quite a special car, using the big Buick straight-8 in a smaller sedan body to give it a top speed of 100 mph (hence the name "century" for 100). That was very fast for a luxury car in the 1930s. Buicks of the time were very well-built cars and Buick engineers were among the most fiercely independent of all the GM staff. The 1950s Century, when it returned, repeated the formula of Buick's most powerful V8 engine in a lighter body, making it an extremely good performer.

• It is as conservative as a 2600-year-old monarchy

There is no shortage of choice for full-size executive cars. In this field already, its similarly-priced competitors include the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7-Series, Jaguar XJ, Audi A8, Lexus LS, and I suppose we'll throw in the Volvo S80 and Cadillac XTS for completeness.

The Century has every single one of these vehicles beat when it comes to care and quality of assembly. The aforementioned vehicles are made on largely conventional production lines and cannot be said to be basically hand-made, which can be said about the Century. If you want comparable production methods, you would have to go a few rungs up the ladder and compare it to a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Bentley Mulsanne, or Maybach 62 (no longer in production). Those cars are all above $300,000, so the Toyota Century, under half that price, possesses a certain amount of value. It is a traditionally craftsman-made car with no embellishment over its name and heritage, and for a fair price.

A total of four Century Royals were produced for the Imperial Household Agency. The changes included stretching the wheelbase, adding granite entry steps to the rear passenger compartment, and including Japanese rice paper headlining for the passengers. It is assumed that some additional armor and security measures are in place, but as for US Presidential vehicles, the details have been kept secret.

Toyota Century Royal for the Imperial Household

The target market for the Century, apart from its obvious appeal to the Royal Family and Japanese dignitaries because its inimitable Japanese-ness, is for hardworking executives who have worked for the greatest part of their lives towards honest prosperity. The literature surrounding the car states that "the Century is acquired through persistent work, the sort that is done in a plain but formal suit."

The Toyota Century is usually ordered in exactly the way that preserves this modesty intact. It is typically equipped with lace curtains instead of tinted windows for the backseat passengers. The curtains provide privacy more thoroughly than tinted windows, and are believed to generate less attention. Leather usually means luxury to an American, but to a Japanese buyer the soft creak of the leather seating surface breaks the complete silence that might otherwise be enjoyed, and the smell of leather is not usually considered pleasant to Japanese tastes. The seats in a Century are consequently usually ordered in wool cloth. Colors are theoretically unlimited, because the factory will make any color the buyer requests, but in practice the buyer never intentionally defiles his or her Century with a gaudy paint job, and sticks to conservative black or gray on the outside, with royal blue, black, burgundy, or dark brown interior colors.

There are modern luxury touches, of course. It has massage seats, it has reclining rear seats, and the designers have shown a certain amount of obsessiveness in making the door handles electric, so that the opening of the door has no vulgar mechanical clunk. Thereafter, the doors can be pushed gently to ajar, and the electric motors in the doors will pull them the rest of the way silently.

It's the sort of car so dignified that the chauffeur would avert his eyes when opening the car for the passenger. The Japanese used to believe that their Emperor was God incarnate. If there is a car that is fit for a representative of God on Earth, from a Japanese perspective, the Toyota Century is the obvious choice.

• It has a V12 just for the sake of it

Toyota's sales forecast for the Century never exceeds 200 units per month. Bentley sells more than that! It is almost never exported outside Japan except for their embassies and ambassadors abroad. Their introduction of a V12 engine as a Century exclusive is absolutely jarring. It is unheard of for a mainstream manufacturer to put such lavish investment in a small-selling halo car except for short periods, but Toyota seems committed to indefinite production of the Century as a matter of honor.

1GZ-FE mounted in a Toyota Century

The engine's technical name is 1GZ-FE. It's a 4996cc 48-valve DOHC V12. It was given two ECUs which can each operate on one bank independently, so even if there is a complete failure of one of the banks, the engine can still operate as a straight-6. At the time of the 1997 introduction of this engine, there was an ongoing gentlemen's agreement among all Japanese manufacturers not to quote any of their engines as having more than 276 hp, regardless of what its actual output is. The Century followed in this tradition and was quoted at 276 hp, although for export they revised it to 300 hp, which is considered closer to the "true" value, most likely about 310 hp. It is blessed with ample torque, 481 Nm at peak, with over 400 Nm available at idle. That's the good kind of torque, the effortless and instantly available kind. A well-designed V12 has inherent primary and secondary engine balance that cannot be achieved with a V8. Compared to bigger Mercedes-Benz V12s, the Toyota engine is not very powerful, but that's not why you'd buy this car. You're just going for buttery smoothness, and the big Century delivers.

If you would like to know more technical details about the engine, may I direct you to an excellent article by Philip Bradshaw from New Zealand.

There is a certain old Lexus LS commercial that shows a large stack of champagne glasses on the hood of a Lexus as it accelerates on a dynamometer. The engine is so smooth and the gear changes so unnoticeable that the glasses are not perturbed at all. I would very much like to see how a Century V12 would fare. In fact, you could stack them directly on top of the engine and I bet it would do just as well. But this is an academic question, since Century buyers probably do not care to see such silly, vulgar stunts.

Toyota shows it has a soul deep down. They must have known they would never break even on the development costs of the V12 unless it was amortized among more car lines. They must have done a cost analysis and figured out that it didn't make good business sense unless the car was priced in the Rolls-Royce realm, making it a largely unreachable aspiration for the honest, persistent businessmen in plain but formal suits. And yet it was not made more expensive. It is not so stratospherically expensive that few could aspire to own one. To buy one in dollars would cost approximately $110,000. It is somewhat more expensive than a Lexus LS600h, and less expensive than many Mercedes-Benzes.

Toyota developed a lovely, smooth, docile, unique V12 just for this vehicle so as to retain its pride as Japan's most coveted state vehicle. And while it's expensive, they did not price it into the realm of fantasy. It's downright patriotic.

• It is the anti-Lexus... from the folks who brought you Lexus

Japan's automakers started off with cheap offerings in the US, but as they gained acceptance, they sought to turn their compact owners into buyers who would be happy to grow into Japanese luxury car buyers.

The problem is that luxury cars are very rare in Japanese history. There was very little motorization in Japan before WWII and it was broadly agreed that cars were not a necessity for civilians. The American oversight of Japan's recovery in the period 1946-1955 reversed this trend completely, and Japan started motorization from the bottom upwards. They did not start, as in Europe and the United States, with a handful of craftsmen producing very expensive cars for the wealthy of their country and across the world. They had basically a fresh start after WWII. Japan started the 1950s with a large demand for cheap, efficient personal transportation. It was originally met with motorbikes, but as the prosperity grew, the Japanese people started to demand cars at all levels of income. But at the top, the wealthy had few choices of true luxury vehicles unless they imported something from outside Japan.

If we ignore the Century and its ilk (and for now we will) the Japanese did not mount a mainstream offensive in the export luxury market until the 1980s. They realized that a multi-brand approach, as had been pioneered by GM and others, was superior to having all models under one brand. But they also did not want to push Japanese culture in their cars, and they thought that the President and Century would simply not sell in the US. So with that in mind, Honda launched Acura and Toyota launched Lexus. Nissan followed suit with Infiniti. The smaller brands like Mazda could not afford to create an entirely new division, but it did try to match the large car segment with its ill-fated 929. With the game changed, and Americans and the rest of the world ready to buy Japanese cars at all levels of the market, Mazda and other single-brand stalwarts like Suzuki and Subaru fell behind their diversified Japanese competitors as the US and larger world market for Japanese cars grew in the 1990s and beyond. 

Speaking nothing about the engineering excellence of these luxury brands, I take issue with the very names they have. Acura means nothing; it is an invented word and the criteria they used to invent it were shady marketing tricks. Likewise, Lexus was a meaningless name created simply because it sounds prosperous and slick to an upper-middle class American businessman. The innate luxury of a Lexus springs from technology only, and its heritage is as fake and cynical as a hooker's smile. You pay for something that really wants you to like it and be satisfied, but you are not a part of anything greater. No piece of history was ever written by a Lexus. It was a car planned by greedy businessmen using a Powerpoint presentation, with huge dollops of fake enthusiasm, and it was worked into production by indifferent assemblers who had no particular attachment to the Lexus brand. The existence of Lexus is a wound to car fanatics who like to think that our particular field of interest is unsullied by such crass examples of soulless consumerism. I laud Lexus for its impressive engineering, but as a brand I could never warm up to it.

If you buy a Century in preference to a Lexus, you are not trying to show off your wealth, but you are enjoying it nevertheless. A Century will get you noticed, but from a smaller section of the population, and mainly by those who appreciate quality and value. I mean value in a traditional sense implying that spending as much as one can afford to get the finest work of an expert craftsman is superior to skimping and buying a subpar product. I don't mean value in the vulgar sense of simply being cheap compared to competitors. In that field, a Lexus is somewhat better value, and really a full-spec Toyota Camry should be best. But neither of those are special, and the Century is.

Hall of Fame inclusion criteria

It is uncommon that I want to give a shout-out to vehicles or other pieces of technology that are still in current production. But, if you've been following, the Hall of Fame main criterion is that this must be under-appreciated, and the Century definitely is. You may not want to import one, you might say it's ridiculous that anyone would. You can say it's ugly if you don't have an eye for old classics, you can say it's outdated and the dash looks like a 1985 Mercury Grand Marquis. You can say all that stuff, but this is a special vehicle that is out of the ordinary and it deserves your respect. For how much effort goes into building it, is worth every yen. It's a reminder that Japan wasn't always so obsessed with tech that they forgot the philosophical experience of car ownership. When this thing goes out of production, it will be a very sad day for the state of the world's motor industry, even if it is not reported by news agencies outside Japan.

Silly Misconceptions, Part 1

This list is a non-exhaustive singling-out of misconceptions whose enduring presence in common knowledge, both by dim-witted and bright individuals, is irritating or frightening to me.

When I have more ideas in mind, more parts will be posted. Comment if you have a suggestion.

• Lincoln Town Car was not named because Americans think it's a suitable city car. This misconception is prevalent in Europe. This car was not named as a "town car" as a synonym for "city car," popular though it is to mention this nameplate as evidence that American vehicles are oversize and excessive. It comes from the historical term "town car," which described certain prewar cars with a halfway-closed cabin for the rear passengers only. We know that the full-size Lincoln is a big car; it's clearly not a "city car" as Europeans understand it.
• Corvette leaf springs are not hand-me-downs from trucks. This misconception is also prevalent in Europe. The Corvette's suspension does not use longitudinal leafs like a truck. It uses transverse leafs made of composite, which provide simple, tough, and communicative suspension which also functions as an anti-roll bar. It's not in place to save money or use off-shelf parts. It's bespoke for the car, and it's an effective solution.
• Vertigo is not the same as "fear of heights." The proper term for that condition is "acrophobia," while vertigo is actually a type of dizziness. Perhaps the Hitchcock film Vertigo plays a role, where the main character suffers from acrophobia, causes this misconception. Although the film itself is named Vertigo, the dialogue correctly identifies the sufferer's condition as acrophobia.
• Ulysses S. Grant was not a drunkard or corrupt as President. This oft-repeated accusation is bogus and it stems from attempts to smear his personality. To be fair, this was at a time in which his administration was filled with corrupt scoundrels and the old general was too naive to notice. Grant can be described as a very decent and honest man, brilliant as a single-minded wartime strategist, who was over his head in the nuances of national politics, but tried his very best nonetheless. He is also one of the most accomplished presidential authors, with his exciting posthumous memoir selling millions.
• Higher clock speeds do not equal a faster computer. This is also known as the "megahertz myth", which was tacitly approved in marketing of x86 processor-equipped machines (which usually had the highest clock speed) from the 1980s all the way to about 2004. In truth, clock speed is not a good indicator of the speed to complete tasks unless comparing different-clocked versions of the same architecture. Far more important indicators are how many clock cycles are needed for each instruction, and how long it takes to complete a given task. The death knell for this scheme came when Intel was unable to keep increasing the speed of its Pentium 4, hitting a practical barrier of 3.7 GHz before effective air cooling became impossible. In the same vein...
• ...multicore processors don't multiply the speed by how many cores are in the CPU. Even if the executed code is completely parallel, there will still be some overhead on scheduling tasks for each core. And in fact, most code is not parallel, since it is hard to manually achieve this, and we are not yet at a level of development where compilers can do it automatically. Of course, multicore processors do improve throughput substantially, but it is not a simple scaling factor.
• Driving a truck with tailgate down is not better for fuel economy; it's verifiably worse. The Mythbusters attacked this problem with solid science. In theory, the tailgate allows the bed to be enclosed on four sides and lets a pocket of slowly-swirling air to exist, and so the faster-moving air around the cab and the rest of the bodywork do not interfere and cause more wind resistance. In practice, the manufacturer's tailgate is always better up than down (or else they would do EPA tests with tailgate down, duh!), but the best solution is actually one of the very common mesh aftermarket tailgates, perhaps due to keeping some of the same aerodynamic effects, but lacking the weight of a heavy metal tailgate. In any event, manufacturers wouldn't self-install mesh tailgates since they assume you want that piece of steel in the back for holding loads in place, and relaxing and having fun atop it.
• Higher octane gas won't make your car run better unless it's needed in the first place. The only meaning of the octane rating is its resistance to "knock" (pre-detonation of fuel). If you put 95 in an 89-rated vehicle, it won't run any smoother or last any longer. Ask any chemical engineer. If your car requires premium gasoline, use it. If it doesn't require it, you're being a fool and wasting your money. In fact, most modern vehicles which require premium fuel will even run fine on regular, but with reduced power because the ECU has to retard ignition whenever detonation is detected. I have an ex with a turbocharged Volvo that clearly specified premium only, and it is still doing fine at 220,000 miles and has never once seen better than 89 octane gasoline in it. But I wouldn't recommend this. There have been cases of exotic turbocharged engines suffering damage without sufficiently high-octane fuel.
• Driving in Formula One may be more glamorous, but NASCAR is not any easier. Just ask Juan Pablo Montoya. He had seven F1 wins in six seasons (2001-2005, partial 2006, all during the Schumacher reign). But when he moved to NASCAR in 2006, where he has been ever since, competing in seven seasons has netted him just two wins. If you think oval tracks are easy, then I challenge you to drive it at 190 mph in a car with no driver aids whatsoever (not even a fuel gauge) and a carburetted V8 pushing out nearly 900 hp. At least two Americans who earlier did stock car racing went on to win races in Formula 1 (Dan Gurney and Mario Andretti, who also won the 1978 world championship), but the only emigrant from F1 to win at NASCAR is Montoya.
• High explosive doesn't mean something is "very explosive". It's a specific type of explosive whose speed of blast varies from 3-9 km/s. Yes, there is such a thing as "low explosive", as it refers to something which explodes more slowly, such as gunpowder.
• Inflammable does not mean "not flammable". These words have the same meaning, but due to linguistic differences both terms occasionally remain. If you see something marked either "flammable" or "inflammable," that means it can burn easily.
• George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. Author Parson Weems invented this story for his 1800 biography The Life of Washington.
• The nuclear weapon was not a massive game-changer when it was deployed against Japan. General Curtis LeMay masterminded the strategic air campaign against Japan in 1945, and oversaw the near-destruction of 64 Japanese cities purely from large waves of low-altitude B-29s carrying incendiary munitions. In Tokyo, the firebombing of March 9-10 was the deadliest bombing of the entire war, worse than the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. In modern combat, nukes would clearly be superior, but during WWII the US achieved such aerial dominance over the skies of Japan that they could afford to sortie with hundreds of bombers at once, making the firebombing campaign just as effective. Actually, the use of the nuclear weapon in August 1945 was more effective than anything else at taming Stalin's potential aggression into Western Europe, as he was impressed by the power of the bomb. If the Soviets had decided to use their vast strength in 1945 against the Western allies, then the only way they would have been defeated is if the United States could quickly mass produce and deliver nuclear weapons at the tactical level.
• There is no handgun that does not appear on a metal detector. Don't believe Die Hard (or whatever movie it was). Even the so-called "plastic pistol" Glocks are mostly metal, with just a composite shell on the outside. You cannot really make a functional, reliable gun entirely out of plastic at our current technology. Actually, for those not keeping track, all-steel guns are getting rarer, and composite handguns have become the norm in the 21st century because they are cheaper and lighter. Still, in the year 2012, there is no security system except for a defective one that would fail to screen handguns either on a person's body or in baggage.
• The Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty were made of iron, not steel. The vast majority of all skycrapers and large towers ever built have used steel, but when the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower were constructed in 1886 and 1889, puddle iron was still a cost-effective alternative to steel before the Bessemer process came to be dominant. In the next decade, and certainly by the turn of the 20th century, steel became cheap enough that structural wrought iron was almost never called for. When iron was what was needed, it was still cheaper to convert Bessemer steel into iron using the Ashton process than to use the older puddling process.

Joke of the Day #20

Human: Robochef, make me a sandwich.
Robochef: Of what variety?
Human: PB&J.
Robochef: 5 minutes please.
(5 minutes later)
Human: This sandwich weighs a ton and it tastes of feathers and metal?
Robochef: That is accurate. You requested a Pb and jay sandwich.

Joke of the Day #19

Kim: Protozoa are unicellular organisms which don't have organ systems, like the digestive system.
Tim: I know that. One of my friends is a protozoan, and I think it's nostalgic for the old days.
Kim: Why do you say that?
Tim: Because its favorite movie is The Land Before Chyme.

Basic: American customary units

In most of the world, the standards of measurement are chiefly SI (System International), which is also referred to as "metric". In the United States, these units are used in a scientific context, but in popular use they are not applied by common people.

The units used in the United States are an evolution of the earlier British "Imperial" or "Avoirdupois" standard. British units are still used in the UK, but because of that country's much greater proximity with Europe, it has adopted SI units for some facets of daily life. In the USA, these measurements are usually called "standard," while the international system is referred to as "metric" or "SI." SI units are almost never used casually in the United States, except for liters in some cases.

In a scientific sense, the American or old British standard units can be lumped into the FPS (Foot-pound-second) system, to correspond to the MKS (Meter-kilogram-second) system that is overwhelmingly used in the rest of the world.

The intent of this article is to provide an introduction to the differences between them. I am looking towards my foreign readers in intending to inform them how completely outside the mainstream SI is in the United States, so they do not get confused when Americans fail to understand kilograms or Celsius or kilometers or liters.

Mass versus weight

In SI, the unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). The SI system chooses to axiomatically define mass as the most important, pre-existing inertial quantity. They derive gravitational force from mass; hence force is a derived unit. The SI unit of force is the newton (N). 1 N is equal to 1 kg being accelerated at a rate of 1 meter per second per second.

This is scientifically sound, because in the modern era we know that mass is an inherent, unvarying property of matter anywhere in the universe. However, historically weight and mass were conflated. And in the real world, they often still are, because it's convenient to think that way. Earth's gravity, as it was in the olden days, is nearly homogeneous over the surface of the Earth.

Europeans and Africans and Asians and South Americans describe the masses of various objects in kilograms, and they are correct as far as that goes. But it is far more common to test for weight than mass; an object's mass is usually found on a scale or balance, and this is reliant on the Earth's gravity. If we attempted to find mass in kg by electronic scale on Mars, it would return an incorrect value of mass because this measurement depends on the force of gravity. Actually, one could get around this problem by using a triple-beam balance with known mass values for comparison.

In the FPS system, the pound (lb) is the basic unit of mass... and of force. Say what?

North Americans describe an object's mass in terms of pounds, which is also correct if it is rigorously used just to describe mass. But it's an even more confusing conflation because pound refers to both a mass and a weight. A pound-mass is actually a quantity of mass. It is no longer defined in terms of earthly or astronomical constants, and it is actually defined as 0.45359237 kg. This is exact; it is a defined and not measured quantity, so there is no rounding error. However, the US standard system also uses pounds as a force. The expression "lb" could refer to pound-mass or pound-force depending on the context.

Happily, for those of us who want to stick with standard units, there is an alternative. An invented unit called the "slug" exists, which is a unit of mass derived from the pound. A pound can be thought of as one slug of mass accelerated at one foot per second per second. If you want to hold onto lb for mass, 1 slug is about equal to 32 lb, because the constant of Earth's gravity (32 ft/s) is already taken out of the pound-mass figure. This alleviates ambiguity and puts the pound in the realm of force only.

Notice the philosophical difference in units. In the FPS system, the force is a fundamental unit and mass is derived from it. In the MKS system, mass is a fundamental unit and force is derived from it. There's nothing wrong with either approach. If the Imperial/US standards seem arbitrary, remember also that the kilogram is based off a single platinum-iridium bob that's held in a secure facility in France.

Decimals versus fractions

The decimal approach, which is the very basis of SI, is the best when used in a laboratory setting in conjunction with conscientious evaluation of significant figures. I have blessed scientific notation and the easy scalability of decimal numbers when you are taking precise measurements that might end up in an academic paper. However, it doesn't lend itself as well to rough-and-tumble estimation.

The first gripe I have with decimals is the ease with which proper significant figures can be ignored and abused. Let us presume we are high school students measuring the length of an object with a digital caliper. We have access to so many digits of precision that the urge is compelling to use them all even if they are meaningless. The caliper can be loosely placed around a pencap to get a value of 2.22 cm or pressed harder to get 2.18 cm. The real value shouldn't falsely claim itself to be 2.22 cm or 2.18 cm, but you will see this mistake made all over lab textbook pages. Realistically there is enough variation that you should truncate it to 2.2 cm and be happy with that; only two significant figures are valid. Realistically, if the speed of a Corvette ZR-1 as it crosses the mile mark on the Bonneville Salt Flat is 176.549 mph, best to just leave it off at 176.5 mph with practical tolerances of the equipment in mind.

To conclude this example, let me frankly say that most people who measure things are far too trusting of their equipment, and the notion of significant figures is not widespread enough. Too many experimenters just simply trust the data given at face value. A fractional system is not applicable for all situations, but when it can be used, it requires no background knowledge of significant figures; the smallest fractional value is simply the quantum of measurement, and can be set at whatever the practical requirements of the moment are.

In fractional-based mathematics, the real world is always "breathing down your neck," so to speak. If you are a carpenter in your home trying to build a bookcase, attempting to measure something more precisely than 1/32 inch is meaningless because your saw cannot cut any more precisely than that. Dividing a length of measurement into equally spaced parts inherently yields a fractional system. It is only when the gaps are specifically placed so as to have nine smaller markings between each larger marking, that a decimal system works. 

In the real world, measuring to the nearest 1/16" and leaving off there is actually faster than estimating how many millimeters are between the neighboring centimeter marks of a measurement. When it comes time to actually measure something, I instinctively prefer a fractional way for quick and suitably precise measurements.

Distance

If a distance is given in meters, we Americans can sort of figure it out by realizing that a meter is similar in magnitude to a yard (which is 3 feet). But talking of kilometers requires an estimation that can't be done mentally on the fly (1.6 km = 1 mile). 

I have heard foreigners speak with disdain about the confusing nature of American distance units. They are absolutely entitled to that opinion. But I think the charming variety of names in the old standard system ensure that they are likely to stay around for a while in this country. Every American child knows it's 12 inches (12") to the foot, 3 feet (3') to the yard, and 1760 yards ( 1760 yd) to the mile, or (more directly) 5280 feet in the mile. They do require memorization, but if you memorize it, you will simply never forget. Apart from that, miles are sometimes mentioned fractionally (as in the quarter-mile dragstrip), but more often as decimals (37.4 miles to destination).

Temperature

The SI unit of temperature is Kelvin (not degrees Kelvin, the unit itself is just called Kelvin, abbreviated K) but in common usage, degrees Celsius are instead used. The magnitude of a Celsius degree is the same as a Kelvin, but 0 K is set at absolute zero so that there can be no negative temperatures in Kelvin, while Celsius is offset by +273.15 so that 0 C is set at the freezing point of water at sea level.  Celsius degrees were made of such a magnitude that the boiling point of water at sea level is 100 C.

Scientifically speaking, the Kelvin/Celsius scale is faultless and easy to use. It makes sense even for American students. We are already happy with it in academic circles because of its solid reliance on absolute zero and the easy way to remember the boiling point and freezing point of water.

By comparison, the Fahrenheit system used in North America doesn't set 0 F at any particular value of interest. The freezing point of water is +32 F, and the boiling point of water is +212 F. These values are known by all young children in North America, but they do not make intuitive sense to SI users.

You are not incorrect if you state that 0 and 100 are easily remembered. But in the real world, if you find it extremely difficult to memorize 32 and 212, you aren't really trying at all. I'm positive I haven't forgot either a single time since very early childhood.

If we discount the fact that 0 F is not scientifically meaningful (which is a sign that the normalization of this temperature scale is somewhat arbitrary), then Fahrenheit is actually fantastic for human casual use, because it is more precise than Celsius without resorting to decimals. A Fahrenheit degree is rather close to the threshold of temperature detection by a human being; that is, a change in temperature of +1 F or -1 F can be noticed by a human, whereas Celsius degrees are larger and consequently more precise measurements of temperature often include a decimal point, which is irritating to me.

For human experience, the 0 and 100 points in Fahrenheit do not seem so arbitrary to me. If we aggregate the climates of the world, I think we can broadly say that 0 F is a very cold winter day, and 100 F is a very hot summer day. 50 F is a midpoint that might correspond to a cool day in spring or autumn. Whereas in Celsius, 0 C merely corresponds to a somewhat cold day, meaning winters often need to handle negative numbers, while there is no convenient threshold value where something becomes "hot" in Celsius.

That is, of course, just a personal opinion.

Volume

In a certain sense, liters have totally overtaken cubic inches in regard to engine displacement. There are now only a very few American vehicles (the newest Hemi 392 Challenger and a special-edition Corvette 427) which even provide their displacement in cubic inches, and of course their brochures will also list the size in liters.

On the other hand, liters do not retain familiarity for dry volume at all in America. You will never see calls for metric-based quantities in recipes.

I worked in a brake shop and I can tell you, at least as far as steering, braking, and suspension are concerned, that you have to go very far in the past (20+ years) to find wide use of non-metric bolts and fasteners. The only exception  I encountered is some lug nuts, typically on Dodge full-size trucks, which are 7/8", which is not really an exact fit with any metric socket. Apart from that, I never reached for an inch-sized wrench or socket. The US automakers never operated in a vacuum and keeping tooling in two different standards for different region was a costly luxury. Since we could hardly expect the rest of the world to go to inches, we went to millimeters as far as tools were concerned. There is no metrication needed in the auto shops of America: every decent mechanic has a full set of metric tools, and probably uses them far more often than inch-sized tools.

But in the kitchen, prepare to be bewildered by the variety of measurements in North America. Talking of dry volume measurements, we usually start at the teaspoon (tsp), three of which form a tablespoon (T or Tbsp). Liquid measurement starts at the ounce (oz), eight of which form a cup (c), two of which form a pint (pt), two of which form a quart (qt), four of which form a gallon (gal). Two dry gallons form a peck (pk) but this is rarely used. If you're a farmer or a restaurant manager, you'll also retain familiarity with the bushel (bu), which is equal to eight gallons of dry volume.

For some real world interpolation for the benefit of my foreign readers, let me start by saying that a teaspoon is 5 mL. Bottled beer typically comes in 12 oz portions, of course pint glasses contain 1 pt, individual servings of soda may range from 12-20 oz., and milk is usually sold in half-gallon or gallon containers. Petrol, which is always called gasoline or gas in the US and Canada, is sold by the gallon, which is roughly 3.79 L.