jeremyweber.com

October 1st, 2007 @ 9.42 pm

Recently we’ve been shopping for a new (ie, slightly used) car for Beverly to replace her Beretta. While shopping, we’ve been trying to find a car that is fun and different… or at least not another tan Camry or grey Accord. Tonight we drove down to Annapolis, and during the whole drive I was watching the oncoming traffic for fun vehicles. The part that disgusted me is that there were two yellow cars, one metallic orange Eclipse, about fifty red cars (mostly dark, boring reds too), and countless tan, grey, black, white, or somewhere in between colored cars. And the “blues” and “greens” count in those bland colors - all of them are nearly indistinguishable from grey and black anyway. My question is, why does every car have to be so bland in color?

If the (lack of) color in todays cars weren’t enough, where has the concept of good design gone? Every time I see a “new” version of a car, it’s blander and more hideous than the model it replaced. Also, the engines in cars are leaving me snoring. They rev up to 7000 rpm’s, whine away, quickly transport you from point A to point B, and protect you with hundreds of electronics to “save” you from “danger,” such as fifteen airbags, ABS, traction control, stability control, oil level sensors, maintenance alarms, etc., etc. It disgusts me. Is this what everyone wants? When I think of a car, I think of an excursion, and excitement of the journey. I want to feel the road. I want to hear my engine roar. I want to tell the vehicle when and how hard to shift from first to second. I want to let the vehicle tell me that I’m at the limits of traction in a corner, and wait for me to know how to adjust the throttle and steering to make it through. That is driving. With all the electronic crap on cars today, you have no idea where the vehicles limits are because sensors automatically “fix” your driving so you will never be able to power slide through a turn, or do donuts in the school parking lot. Today I drive my truck to get from point A to point B, but the excitement I get from driving my old, unreliable, small VW will never match anything that can be experienced in todays cars. They really don’t make them like they used to, and I honestly think what we have today is worse off than what we had forty years ago (emissions and longevity being excluded from this rant).

But back to a new car for Beverly. We’ve been thinking about a Mazda3, because it at least has some character (read as not much, but more than a civic), and a Mini Cooper. The Mini’s are wonderful to look at, I’ve read they put a smile on any driver’s face, but their reliability is a bit in question, and they’re a bit pricier than we’d like to spend. Is it so much to ask for an exciting, reliable car in a non-bland color?