Reviewed: junk
How are you getting on with your dial-up modem these days?
I hesitate to say this on forum like DriveTribe. This isn’t, I suspect, going to be a very popular view, although that isn’t a problem because the point of DriveTribe is to start a fight. And being unpopular isn’t the same as being wrong.
We’re going to have to accept that old cars are rubbish, even the E-Type Jag. Sorry about this, but few subjects occupy such a lofty position in the bollocksphere as cars, and largely because so many people think they were better in the olden days.
They weren’t, and we can arrive at this conclusion through simple and unassailable logic, without the hindrance of emotion or any subjective nonsense. Allow me.
Back in the 90s, my dad complained that cars were better in the 70s. But now I meet people, often on here, who think cars were better in the 90s, which comes as a bit of a surprise, because I thought they were supposed to be boring and all looked the same.
So at any point in time there is a disturbingly large number of people who believe cars were better 20 or 30 years ago. But that would mean cars have been in decline ever since Bertha Benz complained that this new Model T isn’t half as good as her old man’s Motorwagen was. It can’t possibly be true.
It’s a bit like the argument that the world is going to the dogs. Every generation says it, but if it were true we’d have arrived at the dogs many centuries ago. We haven’t.
'Most importantly, they're better to drive.'
New cars are obviously better made and better equipped. They are also safer, cleaner, and more dependable. They are more affordable to more people in real terms. They are a better expression of the state of new technology than they’ve ever been. Most importantly – and this is the bit that will annoy everyone – they’re better to drive.
They just are. I recently drove a basic MkI Golf, and what a dismal Soviet-spec experience that was, with its pig-iron suspension, biscuit-tin build, and single banal instrument mocking me from the facia for the feeble ambition of its age. If you honestly think this is better then you must think a twin-tub top-loading washing machine is better than one that allows you to simply throw your pants through the door and then go to the pub. Do you?
Look, I get it. Old cars are fascinating, and nothing reveals the conceits of nations and individual people quite like the history of the car. I’ve made two series on the subject for TV. It’s gripping stuff, but the cars themselves are no longer any good.
I’d like to sign off, before you’ve finished building the gallows, by saying that I’m glad other people are interested in old cars and drive around in them. I’ve always maintained that the best car museum in the world is the one out on the road, because it’s all very well going to stare at car history at Beaulieu but not half as exciting as coming across something interesting out on the street. It’s why car spotting is one of the most popular things on this site.
I mean, a few weeks ago, driving through town in my thoroughly modern BMW, I saw a man parking up a mint 70s Cadillac Seville, a car I remember reading about when I was a lad. It looked amazing, and very, very cool.
I bet it was shit, though.
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Comments (525)
Old muscle cars look cool and are simple to work on and for the money can still beat alot of modern cars in the 1/4 mile. That's fun to me. A new plastic toyota Camry is a souless disposable appliance. James go sell every motorbike you own that isn't made in 2019. Classic bikes and cars are stylish and easier to work on. Yes they are not technically better. But they have more magic. Sometimes a thing that does everything perfect is boring.
With enough power
I avoid perfection like the plague . I'm more interested in the unusual mould that grows on old university radiator heaters.
I’m certain cars have benefited from the distillation of historical mash, leaving behind a crisp liquor of ‘what works’. The concern is, what have we have left behind? What entity of the past have we forgotten amidst the concerns of the day?
I’m concerned about the buttons.
A button is a wondrous thing; a special interface between our humanity and the mechanical reflection of our thought. A button should display a degree of appropriacy, repelling our motor intent with solid, honest resistance. It should be strong and definite, and welcome our calloused fingers with the decorum of a Grand Dame near a zinc bar in the 8th arrondissement fog.
Unfortunately buttons have become cold and plasticky. They have lost their directness and become indecisive, shunting us to multiple option displays in the dark annexes of our intent. We have become awkwardly arrhythmic. The calm decency is lost, as the last handkerchief lifts with the winter leaves...down the Boulevard Haussmanns of our souls.
I’m with you on button and switch satisfaction. There was an oscilloscope at our tech college that could put me in a haptics coma.
Ratcheting nirvana.
You’re off your rocker. Of course this statement is based on connotation.
My Father brought home a brand new 1982 Mercury Grand Marquis in the startling brightness of what was the summer of 1981. It was beige, with a slightly beige-er landau roof, and had thick-pillow velour electric seats with heavy metal buttons and a stereo with a built-in amplifier booster activated by pulling out the stainless steel light control. Power came from a 302 V-8. I remember exclaiming with glee, “It has a 302”.
I’ll never forget when the old man let me drive it. Having driven a 1975 Pacer without a floorboard and a washing machine 258 straight 6, I was in a hormonal state of fizzing nirvana. Then I drove it and found, much to my dismay, that it was shit. The 302 had been strangled to a meager 130 hp, it wallowed on the road like an Alaskan Sea back-trawler in November, and it got a manual-labor-fed-wallet-sucking 16 mpg.
There was one thing about it though....
It was 1981. I was 17 and knew a beautiful girl named Paula. The image of her in her yellow dress, smiling at me with lips that transcended the word ‘red’ is indelibly engraved in a hallowed courtyard of my memory. I remember how she looked, and how I felt as we boated down the highway, the fragrance of her rose perfume mixing stoichiometrically with 1981 Mercury new car smell.
No. New cars will never be as good again.
Well, my 1967 Vitesse was the best car I ever owned, but that was after installing someone called Louise.
Emotion seems to be the basis of dream and memory.
I am only willing to agree with you if you accept that there is one thing old cars had that newer cars tend not to- personality
Amen
Sorry, I simply don’t believe that old cars have any more character or ‘personality’ than modern ones. It’s an illusion brought on by yearning for an imagined better age, I reckon.
people tend to be addicted to self created false ideals that dwell in nostalgia, instead of owning their full self and being truly present, living in the now. Sure, appreciation is one thing and indeed great. However, humans tend to let their ego run the show, and make them believe that past things were better, and if not that, then maybe future things will be better, instead of owning the f out of right here and now, and loving every second of it. Which is also an option. But maybe they didn't get the memo. Regardless, <3 <3 <3 joy is where it's at. :)
Word.
#Legit.