Every new beginning is another beginning’s end, right? If that’s the case then the end of this golden age of cars is probably the beginning of a new golden age of cars. It’ll be different, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be worse.
This Morning Dump is devoted to change and we’ll start with the news that the trio behind the modern Corvette is no longer employed by General Motors, with longtime Corvette marketing and product guy Harlan Charles being assigned an early retirement. It’s ok, they’re going out with a bang.
Oh, hey, what a coincidence, the Blazer EV SS will be the pace car for the Daytona 500. That’s new! Perhaps this is a new era of cars where technology and electrification are more important. That might be fun.
Where does Tesla line up in that new world? You think it would be at the top, but more and more sales reports are coming in and it’s showing that Tesla is currently experiencing weakness. The one place where Tesla and others see new profits is in advanced driver systems, so the news that BYD is going to be giving out its system for free was unwelcome news to some.
From C5 To C8, Corvette Has Had A Great Run
If you love this era of cars, which I think can be thought of as from the C5 Corvette to the C8 Corvette, then it’s a great time to have enough money to afford something fun. I’ve probably said it before, but I don’t think there’s been a better time in my life to be a car enthusiast.
The peak of cars, at least in feel, was probably 2002-2004, with the E46 BMW M3, E39 M5, 997, C5 Z06, et cetera. In terms of performance, though, it’s definitely now, although the C6 ZR1 was its own kind of revelation.
This doesn’t mean that cars won’t get faster, because they always get faster. It doesn’t mean they won’t get better. In many ways, they probably will! It’s just that the things that defined this era of cars are no longer what’s most important.
What defines this era? It’s debatable, but I’d say the democratization of high horsepower, the wide accessibility of forced induction, the slow phase-out of manual transmissions (which I’m not saying is a good thing, but it is a characteristic of this era), the ability of car companies to build niche variants, advancements in suspension tech, and the introduction of electric performance cars.
I think the 2001 Corvette Z06, with its 385 horsepower and manual transmission, is around the start. I’d also entertain the 997.1 Porsche 911 or, keeping it GM, the 40th Anniversary C5 with the introduction of magnetorheological dampers to a sports car. The mere existence of a manual CTS-V Wagon is notable.
The passing of the torch can be tied to the banishing of the Hellcat V8 (though it may return) if you’re feeling glum, the departure of three key Corvette employees if you’re feeling nostalgic, or the electrification of the Corvette if you’re feeling more positive.
No single person is responsible for the modern Corvette, of course, but the departure of engineer Tadge Juechter, and the shuffling off of designer Kirk Bennion and marketing manager Harlan Charles, is a reminder of how important all three were to the company. Road & Track has a good interview with Charles who, based on social media posts, seemed surprised to get hit with early retirement.
“It’s tough,” Charles told R&T. “It’s like a life-changing experience, you know? It’s been like my identity and now that it’s kinda done.”
“But everyone has made me feel so wonderful. I mean, who gets that?” he said. “I can’t believe the outpouring that the fans — the Corvette friends and family, really, I should call them, have given me. It’s been so awesome. It makes me feel so good.”
Well, let us at Road & Track add to that chorus: thank you, Harlan Charles, for your decades of contributions to America’s Sports Car. The last four generations of Corvette have revolutionized the nameplate’s position in the enthusiast market. That’s going to be a tough run for the next team to follow.
Today we got news of the next generation of what is to follow and, I gotta say, it doesn’t look too bad.
Meet Your New Daytona 500 Pace… Crossover
As the site’s resident NASCAR fan I am, of course, excited for the Daytona 500. Not like Penske needs to win anything else, but I do want lovable weirdo Austin Cindric to get a championship in Cup. If not, maybe SVG.
You don’t need to wait to know who will be out front this year for the start of the race, because it’ll be a Chevy Blazer EV SS. It’s the quickest full EV that GM makes, for the moment, and it’ll mark the first time an EV has paced the field. Given the mixed EV sentiment of the new administration, this is an interesting move, though GM was quick to point out that “Our Chevrolet V8 engines continue to be an important part of NASCAR” in case you were worried.
Also on hand will be the Blazer EV.R NASCAR prototype that’ll sit alongside the one Ford already revealed. If you don’t want an EV out front, you’ll still see a Corvette Stingray for the Xfinity Series race and a Silverado RST for the Craftsman Truck race. Also, our occasional contributor Parker Kligerman will be racing in the Truck race and then calling the Xfinity race, which will be cool
Tesla Is Not Doing Well, But Maybe That Doesn’t Matter
Elon Musk appears to have some amount of control over various arms of the federal government. He still, also, has a car company. I’ve said this many times before, but Elon Musk doesn’t see his company as a car company. Here’s where I’ll tap in our pal Patrick George over at InsideEVs, who wrote “Tesla Sales Are Tanking Globally.”
Is this because people are mad at Elon Musk? Is it just declining EV subsidies or new competition? Is it just factory upgrades and production issues? Probably, yes, although it’s maybe not just those:
But one factor feels inescapable at this point: the backlash to Elon Musk’s increased involvement in politics. In the U.S., the Tesla CEO spent the past week—illegally, according to many lawyers and constitutional scholars—breaching the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment systems as part of President Trump’s effort to unilaterally defund various government agencies. In Germany, Musk’s vocal support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been widely cited as a turn-off for EV buyers, and the same has been said of his politics in the UK.
Though it’s hard to gauge empirically, Musk’s far-right political turn does seem to be having an effect on Tesla sales—especially among the more affluent, urban progressive-to-centrist buyers traditionally more inclined to buy EVs in many places. A recent report from the nonpartisan EV Politics Project indicates that Tesla and Musk are losing support among EV intenders and Democratic-leaning buyers faster than they’re gaining support from people on the other side of the political spectrum, who tend to be less interested in EVs. In other words, Musk is losing Tesla sales ground with the traditional EV base, and not making it up with any of his new supporters.
Again, I don’t think Musk prefers this, but he’s made it clear that cars are just cars, and what he does is more about robots and artificial driving. He sees the company as being enormously valuable in a way a car company might not be able to achieve by just selling cars:
I see a path. I’m not saying it’s an easy path but I see a path of Tesla being the most valuable company in the world by far. Not even close, like maybe several times more than — I mean, there is a path where Tesla is worth more than the next top five companies combined. There’s a path to that.
I mean, I think it’s like…a difficult path but it is an achievable path. And that is overwhelmingly due to autonomous vehicles and autonomous humanoid robots. So, our focus is actually building toward that. And then that’s where we’re laying the ground.
Historically, he’s been right about a lot of these predictions, eventually.
BYD Seeks To ‘DeepSeek’ ADAS
The value proposition of artificial intelligence is that it’ll do a lot more than just write lyrics to a song about why David misses his Jeeps in the style of Tom Waits. The idea of value is predicated on the notion that you’ll need enormous processing power (and actual, generated power) to accomplish tasks we can barely conceive.
This idea was challenged recently with the introduction of China’s DeepSeek, which was allegedly inexpensive to train and less processor-intensive to run. Or maybe it wasn’t as cheap to train as everyone thought. Even if DeepSeek itself isn’t quite as great as everyone initially feared, it was the mere idea that it could be done that scared everyone.
So, the question has to be asked: Could the same be done to smart driving? That’s an issue for Xpeng and Geely shares today after BYD announced it would offer ADAS features, for free, on most of its cars.
From Reuters via Yahoo!:
BYD on Monday put on sale 21 models equipped with its “God’s Eye” advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) similar to that offered by rival Tesla, for no additional cost. The cheapest model the Chinese electric vehicle giant is offering is the Seagull, priced at $9,555.
BYD’s move far undercuts rivals, and analysts said it could start a new price war in an already hyper-competitive market, comparing it to how Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek recently roiled the global AI sector with its low-price offering.
God’s Eye is such a terrible product name. It sounds like something a villain would create in a Die Hard movie you’ll never watch.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
This is the third time I’ve done Mitski on TMD, I think, and I was afraid I did “My Love Mine All Mine” off “The Land Is Hospitable And So Are We.” I did “Bug Like An Angel.” I lose track of these so easily. Does someone want to make a Spotify playlist or an Apple Music (ideally) TMD playlist? I’ll send you something fun.
The Big Question
What defines this era of cars? What’s going to define the next one?
Horsepower became meaningless when EVs started running low 2 second 0-60 times. Can you even tell the difference between 2.1 and 2.2 seconds? I doubt it. And the instances where you can safely use that much power are few and far between.
The Hellcat didn’t sell because it made 707 HP, it sold because it was a supercharged V8 that made 707 HP. The experience has been more important than the raw numbers for quite a while now.
Matt, not sure if this would work right for someone not on my account, but I’ll give you the link to one of my playlists from YT. No Apply or paid music accounts for me 🙂
Anyway, I guess we will see if this works…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP5MzaHYMyI&list=PLtiAQ3av9nBq0YtjUAGvopurKHarvnyBC&index=354
What defines this era of cars?
All things touchscreen
What’s going to define the next one?
Hopefully: Physical buttons/knobs/switches/sliders. Hopefully not: Paper maps.
I was a part of a discussion in the comments a couple months ago (probably on another TMD) talking about Elon’s antics and how they might affect Tesla’s sales. I largely said the same that Patrick did, though he undoubtedly has done so with more eloquence.
Starting to see the bumper stickers show up that say “I bought this car before Elon went nuts!” is telling. Tesla’s brand cache was built on environmentalism, and just like the 2nd gen Prius before, owning a Tesla was a virtue signal for a chunk of buyers. What happens to a brand when, as an owner of the product, one starts to signal the wrong types of virtues?
Tesla ought to be an interesting case study in a decade or two. Depends on how the next 4 or so years go.
If the US government were a Ford Pinto – which, let’s be honest, it sort of is at this point – lately it seems like everyone is mad at the people who spilled the beans about how overly aggressive cost cutting led to Pintos blowing up, and not at Ford for selling Pintos that blow up.
Willem Dafoe as Guy Looking At Government as Ford Pinto Asking:
“Why’d ye spill yer beans? Why’d ye spill yer beans??”
So much of this depends on what a person wants to get out of their car.
If it is just reliable transportation for a set monthly budget, the peak was likely in the early 2000s. The mechanical systems were based on well-tested items with just enough computing power to keep things working efficiently. Think 2002 Camry and second-gen Prius.
If you care most about driving engagement, it is likely the 90s with the glorious release of the Miata, the E36 M3, E4 & E38 M5, FD RX-7.
If you want to wrench and build, then it would be the pre-emissions era before you needed to track miles of vacuum hoses and only needed a single rolling took cabinet to fix any make or model.
Spreadsheet performance has always been the focus of marketing but rarely the thing that provides any joy. Car makers are designed to separate money from consumers, and cars are just the pathway. As corporations gain more and more data, they have better and better control over consumer behavior.
FWIW, other than simply promoting his vile ideology, Musk just wants to be able to sell FSD without any restrictions or liability for Tesla and Tesla alone. His path forward is to get consumers who don’t really care (the vast majority) to believe they can just buy a Tesla, tell it where to go, and then spend the journey looking at Facepage. The rest is immaterial.
Three guys leave GM (GM!) and that triggers the end of an era of driver’s cars?
I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
The “golden age” for me ended when all the cool 90’s cars went from being dirt cheap to being suddenly more expensive than newer better cars. From 2000 to 2012ish you could buy an RX7, S13, R32 Skyline, E30, E34, 635i, Starion, mk3 Supra for a few grand, or even a few hundred quid. I loved those old 90’s cars, but for the same money I’d rather have a GT86 than another S13.
Sticking to just new cars there is still the GR86, GR Yaris, Supra, Emira, M2, Alpine A110 and Cayman for me to choose from, once depreciation has done it’s job. Do any of them feel like someone built a car just for me, like the FD RX7? No, but they are all pretty good, despite the styling of the Supra and the Alpine gearbox.
I feel like we are rapidly approaching:
Big horsepower is definitely in and here tk stay. I remember the Supra and the 2jz achieved legendary status by being one of the 1st engines you could achieve 1000hp in for a relatively small amount of work. Today it doesn’t take too much to reach high 3 digit or low 4 digit power numbers on many different platforms, 2jz, ls, k series, ect… I’m not sure the golden age is over but peak car often seems to be about 15-20 years before whatever current year it is, then they made them too complicated, or some such reasoning. The reality is that seems to just be how long the current tech seems to take to get fully figured out by the aftermarket and your average YouTube certified mechanic. That would mean the golden age now would be the mid to late 2000s which seems about right for what many are working on. Taking it back to GM stuff you’re looking at the Gen 4 small block and c6 Corvette with Ls3.
I remember when I was a teenager in the mid 90’s, the LT1’s and then a few years later the 4.6 Ford came out, everyone was complaining how these were too complicated to mod and lamented for the “good old days” of Holley double pumpers. Then the LS1 came out and destroyed everyone, and a few years later the Ford Terminator. That seemed something of a golden age. I know living through it was exciting, especially when the LS was hitting 400hp from the factory, that was a big milestone.
I remember when Fast Fords & Mustangs mag dipped into the 12’s in the quarter while testing a bone stock Z28 LS1, people lost their minds.
Can’t believe the mighty C4 didn’t make the cut to be included in the “great era”. Wah.
Well, I dunno about cars, but the years you describe were absolutely the peak years for pickups. I can make a good argument that the GMT800 series was peak truck, the best trucks for doing trucky things, before luxury and technology ruined pickup trucks.
The idea that a truck with a comfy seat and good stereo somehow “ruined” trucks or made them less capable of work is probably the weirdest and most widespread idea around here.
I’ll wave the next time I’m pulling my trailer past you in my King Ranch F350.
People used to get bent out of shape because I kept my F150 spotless on the exterior.
“Why not use it as a truck?” I did. Check out how beat up the bed liner is. I just fail to see how intentionally damaging a 50k vehicle proves I use it properly.
Towing is one thing, and modern trucks are absolutely amazing at that. But doing actual “truck” things in the bed of the truck *sucks* in modern trucks. They are absolutely ridiculously tall for no good reason at all. I borrowed my neighbors fancy new Silverado a couple weeks ago to move a washer and dryer, and trying to get them up into a bed that is navel high on me was just stupid – and I am a tall dude. To the point that it finally stirred me to get a trailer hitch for my BMW. Which can tow more than enough for my needs, with a load height on the trailer of about a foot. In hindsight, I just should have loaded the washer and dryer into the back of my Mercedes and made two trips.
Then there is the minor detail of an $85K 1/2 ton truck. I shudder to think what bumping that super fancy tailgate or breaking a sensor filled taillight will cost when trying to do actual truck things with it. And it still drives and rides like a truck, not an $85K luxury car. Nor are the seats all that good. I don’t get it. If I can’t hose the damned thing out and beat it like a rented mule, it’s not a truck.
I’ve had 2 yards of dirt in the bed of mine *shrugs*.
I haven’t damaged a tailgate or broken a light on either cheap or expensive truck doing “work” either. Maybe others just don’t take care of their stuff?
I don’t need a truck to ride like a luxury car to appreciate having a heated and cooled seat, a better stereo, blind spot monitoring for my trailer and so on.
Shit happens when you are actually using a truck bed for truck bed things. And if you aren’t doing that all the time, why bother to have a pickup truck? And having had use of “well used” trucks much of my life, it’s nice to not HAVE to particularly care.
I couldn’t stand to drive a truck enough for those things to matter. If I am going any distance, I am driving a car. Heat, A/C, and a radio are all I really require in a work vehicle.
Bed length is my biggest problem with new trucks.
That too for sure. I have no use at all for a back seat in a truck, but an 8′ bed is useful. 6.5′ is “OK” – at least you have 8′ with the tailgate down to support sheet goods.
I had a great time traveling in the 1990s and sleeping in the bed of my truck with a topper (cap) with curtains over the windows and that is just really a thing anymore. Not that many trucks with long beds anymore. Yes, they are technically for sale but they are not in the newer used market or on the lots.
Seems like you either have to go single-cab work truck, or F-250 and up HD Trucks to get the long bed. The 1/2 ton 4drs are all short or medium bed.
But let’s face it, most 1/2 tons aren’t trucks anymore, they are sedans without a trunk lid.
yes, actually, they have trunk lids because they all have those retractable tonneau covers on them. I don’t think I’ve seen a non-work truck in years without a cover over the bed. so they really are just big trunks.
There’s a guy in my neighborhood who has a 70’s bumpside F100 longbed. It is much bigger than a Ranger, full-size trucks were always wide, that’s not a new thing, but what surprises me about it is how low the bed is. Both to the ground, and the depth bedsides. To be fair this is a 2wd, the 4wds of this vintage sat up pretty high. What really surprises me is just how shallow the bed is. I think the bed on a modern Tacoma is deeper. He uses this as a work truck and I can see why, it looks very easy to load stuff in and out of the bed, and to access it from the sides.
I’m 6′ 2″ tall with loong arms. I cannot reach over the side of a modern truck and pick something up in the bed. That is just stupid. It’s one thing to have the “off road” trim be jacked up high – that makes sense. But for the “luxury sedan with a porch” typical 4dr pickup like my neighbors, it’s just stupid. They are in their late 70s and have a hard time climbing up into the thing.
Most every year I rent a Silverado from U-Haul to make a dump run. It costs $40 for four hours, and that experience reminds me how I never want to drive a pickup truck again, or load one. It’s money well spent.
Exactly! Heck, if you need to do it a little more often, a trailer hitch and a small folding utility trailer only costs a grand or so. With the added benefit that a trailer is a heck of a lot easier to load and unload. And utility trailers from U-Haul are only $20 for 24hrs if you are going to rent one instead of buying one.
My biggest complaints are the short beds and high prices. I want a 6-8 ft box on my trucks. Doing truck things with a 4ft box is just harder.
Have an 8 foot box on my King Ranch.
Good, glad that is still available.
Did it come with it’s own zip code?
I should apply for one
At least with an F-350 you can tow a tug boat to help swing the bow around when you need to. 🙂
Whatever, although what percentage of the time are you towing?
I however want one of these for carrying stuff around.
https://youtu.be/PLjmBMYQDPY
You know what’s awesome about having a truck bed? All that dirty, nasty, messy truck stuff stays in the bed while I’m cruise down the road with cooled leather seats.
The GMT400s have already climbed in value and the GMT800s are showing every sign of following the same path and for many of the same reasons.
Look for a GMT800 regular cab shortbed, the prices are shocking for what was arguably the least useful configuration.
Any Ford with the 300/4.9 I6 is peak truck.
What defines this era of cars? The death of coupes and sedans and the rise of SUVs. What is coming? The death of drivers in self-driving appliances.
COTD.
“What defines this era of cars?”
I’d say it defines what is going on. So I think the current era we are in is likely to be called the “EV/Electrification transition” era” or “The last hurrah for ICE” era.
“What’s going to define the next one?”
It really depends on what happens. But my guess is that it will be something like “Full EV adoption Era”
I think the current golden era is far from over. If you’re primarily interested in V8s, then sure, maybe it is, but for those of us with broader tastes, it’s great. The Japanese are really in the middle of an enthusiast car renaissance right now, Hyundai is doing some great things, and it’s probably the best time to be into offroad stuff since the 70’s.
I hope I am wrong about this: Last of the hardware defined automobiles. Software defined automobiles.
Nostalgia will always be an incredibly addictive drug. Things come and go, people lamented the loss of workhorses a hundred years ago. We will be able to keep some cars running and not others. Maybe when automotive transportation becomes public transportation and we get to have our fun cars for a hobby instead of mass transportation it’ll get better again.
Funny you should think so, as God’s Eye was in fact the name of a dangerous piece of tech used in the movie Furious 7.
And speaking of the end of an era, I’d also say that Furious 7 was the very last Fast and Furious movie that I gave a crap about. I mean, they were already pretty far off track by this point, but the Paul Walker tribute did a lot to give Furious 7 a heart to it. Just my opinion.
I’m too young for the most part to have experienced cars in the 90’s or early 2000’s so I missed the boat on “cars are just too darn complicated to work on anymore,” and I felt like a golden age started in 2010 when we had all three pony cars back (Mustang, Camaro, Challenger) and really came into it’s own when the Hellcat motor became a thing in 2015. Things started to feel like they were going the wrong way around the time the C8 Corvette came out with no manual transmission option in 2020. And now with the passing of the Camaro and Challenger just a year ago or so, it really feels like the end of the era to me.
Hahahaha, I completely forgot about that! I enjoy all the films, but it got a little to spy movie for me in the last few. I wanna get back to the heists!
Was gonna say this…
It might also be a reference to ‘The Mote in God’s Eye’, a science-fiction novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It’s something of a classic, published in 1974.
I’m not sure I see a link between AI driver aids and a alien-first-contact sci-fi novel.
I do like Niven’s stuff though.
There doesn’t need to be an actual link: people don’t always make sense, especially when naming things. At least it wasn’t called Eye of Sauron. 🙂
Palantir probably already has the copyright for Eye of Sauron :’(
I really liked “Bordered in Black” by Larry Niven. Gave me the warm ‘n fuzzies. 🙂
I’m an engineer by trade, we are relatively affluent as a family. We own a sensibly large house built in the late ’70s. I have NEVER owned a new car. The newest in my current fleet is now 11 years old. The oldest, our SUV is 20. I see so many more important things to spend the money on, or just save some. We have been to Europe twice without eyewatering debt and take long weekends or longer trips to the Atlantic Coast a few times a year.
Same. Not an engineer, but we do pretty well for ourselves, I’ve got a good house in an amazing neighborhood down the street from a beach, and my wife’s car is now 12 years old. With my car being nearly 30. I hear about these $1000/month car payments and want to throw up. I like having no car loans thank you very much!
Bingo – I say who in their right mind is paying this for a car? I want to buy me a toy (Miata or such) but probably missed my shot when prices on used ones started spiking a few years ago. Life is a balance.
Oh I have fun cars still, they just aren’t new or overly expensive.
If no one paid a lot for a car your Member Ride articles would be a lot less interesting.
Yes and no, the Sunbird one got more interaction than any other I’ve done. The unusual draw attention, not necessarily the expensive. Plus, I have had fun cars that weren’t exactly cheap, I just pay cash for them.
It’s all about how you set priorities for yourself. I really enjoy having a new-ish car (the last several have been CPO to save but all had payments).
I also have a semi-large house built in the late 70’s in a great neighborhood. Love it.
But, I have very little interest in travel. Sure, we take the occasional trip every other year or so but mostly we just enjoy being home and we spend our “travel budget” on nicer cars and making our house more of a “every-day vacation home” rather than spend on travel.
So, it all comes down to what you prioritize in life to make you happy. I agree on the $1000+/mo payments. I could afford it but as much as I like a nice car I can’t go that far. But I can see how some people can.
I find it somewhat funny that auto enthusiasm has so many people bragging about how *little* they spent on their hobby, vs most passions that are the compete opposite.
-“Yeah, instead of going to Tahiti this year, we decided to take a long weekend in Cleveland”
-“You wouldn’t believe the coupons I got for Applebee’s yesterday, totally cancelling my downtown steakhouse reservations!”
-“I couldn’t fathom spending $500 on playoff tickets even though I could easily afford them, I’ll just go to a random Wednesday afternoon game instead. #1 Fan for Life!!!!”
-“I love golfing every weekend, but what I really love is searching for used clubs at garage sales!”
I’m not here to tell anyone how to be an enthusiast or how to spend their own money, but the attitude that “cheap is virtuous” needs to die IMO. It’s no more or less valid than someone leasing a new car every 3 years.
Thanks, I LOL’d at the long weekend in Cleveland.
It is part of the culture here I think when you look at where it comes from and how it came to be, with David professing to be a world class cheapskate and Mercedes revealing in all the cheap and terrible cars in her fleet.
I get it, you want to be a part of it if you can’t afford the nicest car and doubling down on it is just part of the badge of honor. I think it is also related to the wrenching side of things since cheap cars usually require a lot of repairs and if you’re the type that can fix it yourself there is a lot to crow about there.
I can only fix the most simple, basic stuff and the things I can do, I don’t wanna do. I like my fun, expensive car even if I wish the maintenance was so very much less. I just don’t wish for it enough to do it myself.
I’m with you, I would like the tone to be less taking down the new and nice cars and more just talking up how unique and interesting your old beater can be. But this is the internet! That’s how it rolls.
I want to be careful to emphasize that I am sympathetic to the people who simply don’t have the money to buy something nice and want no part of my rants to feel as though I’m attacking them.
I’m very aware that I personally am more fortunate than many others and don’t want to come across badly like I’m talking down to someone.
The genre of posts I don’t really like (several examples in this very thread) is “I make all this money, but don’t want to spend any of it on cars”. OK, that is obviously fine as a life choice, but then I do question why you are posting on an enthusiast site? I’m a car enthusiast because I spend money and time on cars. That’s what the hobby means to me.
If I went into a travel group and bragged about spending that proverbial weekend in Cleveland despite having millions in the bank, I’d likely be laughed at, and rightly so.
Again, live the junker lifestyle if you want to, but don’t come in here posting about how buying new cars is a waste, that you easily could, but just don’t, and expect me to take you as seriously.
No, I get it and I took the comment to mean you were targeting the denigration of new/expensive cars as the odd behavior from enthusiasts.
And I was pointing out the history of the site encourages the love of the cheap but also the stated mission is to be inclusive. There is a pervasive attitude in the comments often that if you’re not holding your rust bucket together with zip ties and duct tape while driving that you’re not a true enthusiast.
And while I agree it is odd from that perspective, it also fits with the tone of the content here if not the stated mission.
Some of us appreciate those that buy the new cars and maintain them well, so, later they can trickle down to the rest of us with lower budgets. 🙂
Hear! Hear!
I very much agree with you here. I was once young and poor and yet possessed champagne taste in cars on a soda budget. My solution was to buy WELL used (and oddball – I bought used VWs and Volvos, then Peugeots and Saabs because they were LOTS cheaper than the used BMWs and Mercedes that I really wanted) and learned to fix them myself. But I still never bought the sort of complete junk that David and Mercedes seem to be into – but I also never got paid to write about them… I wouldn’t kick that GMC pickup David just bought out of my garage though. My kind of truck.
But time went on, career advanced, my wallet got much, much, much fatter and I very much enjoyed buying a whole bunch of interesting new cars until the automakers stopped making a damned thing I want to buy. So I guess I am still posting that I could but I don’t – but I WANT to buy new cars, I LOVED buying new cars, which I guess is the difference.
That day looks like it may be coming for me someday as well, and when it does, I may change my tune a bit, but I promise I will not turn into a “beater lifestyle” guy.
There is just no reason to buy beaters. They are inevitably more work and pain than the savings are worth. Unless it’s literally ALL you can afford, there is just no point. Buy something decent or don’t bother. You can never make a poor example nice for what a nice one costs in the first place.
When I bought my ’11 1-series Convertible five years ago, I literally bought the second most expensive one for sale in the country at the time. I missed buying the MOST expensive one by five minutes (lucky miss, I am sure that 135i would not have been as bulletproof as my 128i has been, but it was some sexy). Money well spent vs. a $4-5K cheaper average one.
I’d buy a new car if someone actually made something I wanted, and which was attainable. I’m not rich, merely well off. I could spend upwards of $50k if I really wanted to. Not a single thing on the new car market appeals to me outside of a small number of exotics(eg. Murray T.50, which is well beyond my budget).
Now if the right Alfa Romeo 4C, TVR, or Lotus Elise came along and I had a place to keep it…
I’m very much with you there. Cars have jumped the shark for me. But my tastes are simpler, I just want modestly powered cars that drive properly. So my pair of 2011 BMWs, one of which I did buy new, and 2014 Mercedes wagon suit me perfectly, along with my two olde Englishe toys. And I slightly wish I had not bought the 2014 Mercedes – I should have spent the same money on a minty w123 or w124 wagon instead.
What would REALLY get me excited is if someone made an affordable, lightweight, aerodynamically slippery, de-teched(no GPS, no infotainment or touch screens, no nag devices, no proprietary BS locking access to repairs), two-seater sports car coupe of an EV with at least Tesla Model 3 Performance levels of acceleration. Something that weighed under 2,500 lbs, and had sexy curves with styling cues harkening back to the small sports cars of the 1950s and 1960s(think Matra Djet, Ferrari 250GTO, Jaguar D-Type, Lotus Elite, ect.). It needs to be a raw and visceral experience to drive, yet also an EV. Either single speed, or manual transmission with a clutch is fine.
They wouldn’t be able to take my money fast enough.
I’d be perfectly happy with a Miata if I fit in them. I had a Fiata for a couple years, but it was literally painful. I have no need of going faster than that, but I am with you on the lack of tech. That’s a feature, not a bug. Put the mandatory backup camera screen in the rearview mirror like GM used to do.
Hey, dude, lay off on Cleveland, lol. It’s a fun town in its own right and has a pretty fantastic blues scene. Plus, it’s got Cedar Pointe/Put-In-Bay right there. The boating culture is pretty hard core, and damn punk 🙂
If all of us decided buying new cars was a waste there wouldn’t be any more cool cars to buy. Wait…that’s kind of already happening 🙁
It is a response to the ludicrous, widely held belief that spending more money makes you more of an enthusiast. A belief that is far more prevalent than the inverse.
Conspicuous consumption on a car or a vacation has nothing to do with any enthusiasm for the thing or activity. It is all virtue signaling and peacocking for attention. No different than expensive jewelry or designer labels.
I had a boss who traveled the world extensively (2-3 months a year) and constantly posted everything on Instagram and in the firm’s quarterly newsletter. It was the only thing he ever talked about when in client meetings. After working for him for 15 years, it was clear he didn’t care about any of the places he went; he was only doing it so he could tell others he had done it.
The difference is that a genuine enthusiast do the thing because of the attention they get. They do it for the thing itself.
You must not spend much time around here, huh?
If Autopian bucks the trend, it is much better for it. But everything I stated holds true for society at large. Most people in the U.S. are conspicuous consumption enthusiasts, and the objects they consume are secondary at best. For a true enthusiast of a subject, such as cars or travel, simply spending more is truly the antithesis of enthusiasm for good reason. Any poser with a checkbook can pay to look like an enthusiast. Using fewer resources to get the same joy is one of the trademarks of somebody truly in love with the topic. It means they spend more time on their hobby and less earning money just to look like they care about it. Dismissing people who are all about brand, badge, and $ is a good way to filter out the posers.
We are just going to agree to disagree I guess.
Godspeed.
So, that means you view the ability to spend money equates to enthusiasm for a topic. Noted.
Not the ability but the willingness.
So, if somebody buys a Miata over a C8 or M3 even if they could afford them, they aren’t enthusiasts. Maybe they realize that being a driving enthusiast means having a car that is fun to drive in the environment in which they drive rather than spreadsheet performance on a track.
Your argument continues to be nonsense. The willingness to spend money has almost zero relationship with enthusiasm. It is only important to consumption enthusiasts.
If someone takes pride in bragging about how little they spend on their so called “enthusiasm”, then I question said “enthusiasm”.
Buy what you want, spend what you want, enjoy what you want, but don’t pretend you’re better than me or anyone else with your “built not bought” sticker on your shit box.
That’s all, be well.
They aren’t pretending. The guy who rebuilds a classic Alfa GTV by hand is 100% more of an Alfa enthusiast (and would be far more interesting to spend time with) than the guy who bought one on BAT.
Money can’t buy enthusiasm, never has, never will.
The Old Man lines up closely with this type of thinking. “MOPAR or No Car! I really want a Charger Hellcat, and I’m a millionaire who could easily pay cash for it, but check out this killer deal I got on a leftover Dodge Journey instead!”
I may have paraphrased that just a bit, but it’s been the gist of conversations about money and new cars with him for some time.
The base for the idea is very simple. It takes skill to keep a beater running awesome. It doesn’t take enthusiast skills to buy a new car.
So the flex is the possession of the skills and the evidence to back it up. The thought, though inaccurate, is that anyone with money can buy expensive cars, but only an enthusiast with skills will keep that shitbox going on the daily.
And there is truth to both sides, but not complete truth. There are many many wealthy people who buy enthusiast cars and are not in any way car enthusiasts, there are also many well to do people who are full on car enthusiasts. But there are also many people keeping shitboxes afloat only because they can’t afford anything else.
I guess where I dispute this logic is the idea that knowing how to turn a wrench or even desiring to do so is the primary determinant of whether one is a car enthusiast.
I have three young kids. I buy newer cars instead of wrenching on shitboxes so that I have more time for them, more time to drive with them, etc.
Oh I agree, there are plenty of arguments for or against. My point wasn’t to seek anyone changing their mind, only discussing the foundation of the argument.
I don’t define “car enthusiast” by wrench or money. However, I do define MY car enthusiasm by my wrenches. I feel very little enthusiasm for things I can buy. All my enthusiasm is wrapped in what I can build. Owning the car isn’t even the main goal. The journey, the build, the challenge, that is the part I thrive most on. Driving it when its done is just gravy.
I wouldn’t get what I love from buying a turn key awesome car. So spending money on a new car doesn’t make any sense for me and my family. Instead, I play with cheap shitboxes, revel in how much I can do with small funding, and love it, and my wife gets to own horses and an nicer truck to pull them with. But I agree, that doesn’t make me more or less of a car enthusiast, just a different focus.
I get your exaggeration to make a point, but I think you’re missing a little bit of why “cheap is virtuous” can work so well. The point of the exercise is to get all the value for a fraction of the price. You don’t replace the Tahiti trip with a weekend in Cleveland. But, for my trip to France later this year we aren’t staying a pricy hotels, we’re staying at a very nice house that costs far less than a hotel and that will be more enjoyable. We will also be able to save by cooking some of our meals instead of always eating out. That allows us to spend the saved money on a couple of extra special high-end dinners and more on wine. Similarly, you don’t give up the steakhouse for Applebee’s; you find the restaurants with great food that don’t break the bank, or you learn to buy and cook better steaks yourself.
Many of us in the “cheap is virtuous” crowd are really trying to leverage additional and deeper knowledge in the subject to maximize pleasure while minimizing expenditures. Do the homework, reap the benefits. Unfortunately, at times we can come across as conceited and sometimes we can get a bit envious and judgmental of people who don’t share the same mindset.
Or bank account.
This is a thoughtful post, thanks. I agree with a lot of it. My vacations involve a lot more Cleveland than Tahiti.
I think what bothers me is the “I could buy anything I want, but choose not to” bluster.
There’s basically no way to take that other than the worst way.
That is a good description of why spending doesn’t equate to enthusiasm, but I would argue that it can go further. Spending money is often a tool to insulate people from the intimate details that separate those interested in a topic from those who want to use the topic as a fashion device.
Travel is a great example. Staying in expensive hotels and eating in the best places can be a blast but those types of experiences are basically the same everyplace around the world. That is counter to the entire idea of being enthusiastic about travel.
Meanwhile, spending lavishly on something is a very poor indicator of a person’s interest in any particular topic—especially something like cars that are so burned with the perception of status. The vast majority of expensive cars are purchased primarily as status symbols and will never find their performance tapped or their engineering excellence (or idiocy) understood while breaking fingernails trying to install replacement door seals. They are purchased as a symbol of enthusiasm that doesn’t exist. It is the true definition of the poser. A person who wants to buy their way into a subculture so they can strip mine it of its value while adding nothing.
In total, it just means that for people truly interested in a topic, you have a much higher percentage chance of finding a like-minded person if you avoid the money-first, high-bling crowd and look for people who love the thing and the thing alone. Those who can love a Dodge or an Alfa with equal passion. They may be wealthy with huge collections or dirt poor and wrenching on a ’96 Civic, but they all know money is the least important part of the equation.
Meh, I too am an engineer, own summer and winter homes with zero debt, am building a custom new one with a huge garage, and have been to Europe plenty of times. I also, while I could still buy cars I wanted, bought a new car every other year for a dozen years. The two BMWs I bought European Delivery and drove all over the Olde Countries being the high point of that. If there was a new car I wanted, I wouldn’t think twice about a $1000/mo+ car payment, it would make less than zero difference to my financial situation – but there aren’t any anymore.
The secret is skip the kids. Cars are lots cheaper. Not ever buying new cars is not the flex you think it is.
I missed that memo about 20 years ago. Would not trade the daughter for any car in the world though. I still love cars and the enthusiasm around them, it’s just not my entire life anymore.
the average age for cars in america is 12 years old. people are holding on to older cars longer because they can’t afford new cars anymore. I started seeing autozone gift cards for sale in drug stores recently. “happy birthday timmy here’s a gift card to help with your down payment on a water pump”
My family’s fleet of four doubles that average age.
They are also holding onto them simply because cars last a LOT longer today with minimal issues. And in some cases, new cars hold no appeal anymore (my own case).
The first car I actually bought with my own money was a 1976 Volvo 242. In 1988. So it was 12yrs old, and a car from a brand renowned for longevity. but reality is that at 12yo it was a pretty used up heap at only 130K miles. Rust holes in the floor, faded paint, the sunroof crank was broken, it needed rear wheel bearings, on and on. The engine siezed up at 160K miles. Not at all unusual for a 12yo car back then. Today, my two BMWs are 14 and 15 years old, and look, drive, and feel like new cars. Some of that is down to how well they have been cared for, but mostly it’s just that cars are so much BETTER today than they were 50 years ago. Back, then the average car didn’t come close to making it to 12 years old.
“And in some cases, new cars hold no appeal anymore (my own case).”
So true. Walking around a Buick dealership last week while my car was in for service was deeply depressing. Just ugly CUVs – not a single sedan offered for sale.
I don’t like sedans either. Where are the normal-hieght hatches, coupes, convertibles, and wagons? A few coupes and convertibles from non-premium brands, but not many left at all.
I hate CUVs, but gun to my head I would buy one before I bought a sedan. Sedans are useless.
The Dubya Era is definitely the peak of the automotive form. Just enough technology to make them run right, keep you alive in a crash, and last forever.
But before all the unnecessary complexity came along. Expensive parts you don’t need stuffed into vulnerable parts of the body. Stuff that speaks to the “lowest common denominator” driver.
The best cars were always made 20 years ago.
Funny, we didn’t think that in 1995.
Really? I remember everyone getting super thirsty over muscle cars in the 90s. There was an exceedingly boomer TV show called Nash Bridges that starred a 1970s Cuda Convertable and a retiree.
No one in 1995 was wanting a wheezebag 1975 model.
Well, the ‘wheel of nostalgia’ isn’t the ‘needle of nostalgia’. When I say ‘twenty years’ I wasn’t meaning to infer exactly, precisely, two hundred and fourty months – in the same way someone ‘in their twenties’ doesn’t stop being ‘in their twenties’ at the age of twenty-one and start being ‘in their twenty-ones’.
Yes. 1975 cars were bad!
Actual 20 years ago or the “20 years ago in my mind” kind of 20 years?
The time period between cars being stone-age, impractical, primitive garage queens and being so complicated you need a PhD to work on them.
My “20 years ago” car is now 42! Mind years and real years don’t math well!
And the best car of all time is the one that was on your bedroom wall when you were 12.
Or you are like me, in a GM family, where no car was allowed in the driveway that wasn’t GM. I didn’t have posters on the wall, I had talks with the family car salesman about which one will be most practical the next time I need one, and was allowed to rip a Corvette around for half an hour while the oil was getting changed on my Malibu. lol
My impression of the Dubya Era was the auto industry was slacking off and was putting zero effort into any real progress and was using the false promise of hydrogen vehicles as an excuse to get out of doing anything on any real scale.
The electric car was deliberately sabotaged and delayed in that era.
I think this era is the last for enthusiasts mainly because of costs. I simply can’t fathom the cost of everything now. Yes, objectively the cars of today are getting better and better but at an increasing cost. Not just the vehicle but the insurance, maintenance, service parts, etc. And then to top it off, after a few years they just feel old.
New cars will always improve but now they’re making revolutionary changes instead of evolutionary changes. So that top of the line enthusiast car today will feel slow and dated in 10 years, especially with new tech that ages like fine milk.
I think late 90s to 00s were peak. High performance with minimal “tech” and still serviceable components.
the tech angle (Torch had a great article on this the other day) is definitely valid. Lusting after a C6 is still common 20ish years later… most C8s may not retain the same halo.
Corvettes after the C1 are much too bloated for my liking, but even I would consider a C6. That’s peak Corvette, IMO. It was the most aerodynamically-efficient Corvette GM ever made, and gets 30 mpg at a steady 70 mph on the highway with a big, thirsty LS3 V8 under the hood. After the C6, they kept getting progressively heavier and less streamlined.
As an EV conversion, the base C6 would be significantly more efficient than a Nissan Leaf.
The C8 is such a massive step backwards, probably the least efficient Corvette ever made from the perspective of road loading, and it is very power-hungry as a result to get any top speed.
I haven’t ridden/driven them, but I have sat in a few and I was kind of appalled at how “daily driving unfriendly” they’ve gotten over the past two generations. I always thought the core brand of Corvette was to be a “DD-able Grand Touring Car,” but I guess Bowling Green had other ideas. I’m not a fan of the ergonomics…if I’ve going to be cooped up like that, I’ll take a Miata.
100% agree on C6. IIRC, they didn’t even resort to cylinder deactivation for those highway economy numbers, just a really tall 6th gear and excellent aero.
Late ’90s through 2010 or so is peak reliability. The computer systems were mature, OBDII works. Most engines were still naturally aspirated and understressed, auto transmissions didn’t have 10 speeds. Infotainment was not yet fully integrated into everything. Buttons, we had buttons. And knobs.
This! I think it starts in ’95 with OBDII. It changed everything.
Conveniently, my two old cars (which have both been pretty reliable) are from smack dab in that timeframe, and the unreliable heap I just got rid of was from post-2010. And it seems like every company selling cars these days has some huge quality problem about every six months.
I remember doing bolt-ons on my first car in 2013, a 2013 Ford Focus, and having people complain about how complicated modern cars had become and that they were impossible to work on. I didn’t think that my Focus was hard to work on at all, and I think a lot of people didn’t really know how much worse it would get. My Focus with it’s 5 speed manual, naturally aspirated 4 cylinder, no cellular connection, no screens, etc. would be considered a much simpler car to work on today.
Only partially related, but I think the C6 was peak Corvette design. It still looks SO good.
Agreed.
Were it built to 5/6 scale and lost about 700 lbs, retaining the same engine, it would be sooooo good.
This is a good take and you should feel good
Does anyone actually want a Nazi robot in their house?
I think I see a problem in Tesla’s new revenue stream.
Let’s just hope we’re allowed to refuse one.
It might be unpopular to say, but Nissan/Infiniti deserves a lot of credit in the demcratization of horsepower. No other mainstream brands in the early 2000s led almost every ad campaign by stating the horsepower as a major selling point.
So props to the ubiquitous VQ engines for making HP affordable. While Dodge gets a lot of attention for the resurgence of “HEMI in everything”, Nissan really beat them to it by several years…albeit with a V6. The days of needing a sports car to beat a sedan in a drag race ended with the Maxima and Altima, IMO.
As the former owner of a 2004 Maxima manual 6-speed, I can confirm. That car beat a lot of cars it had no business beating, including Mustang GTs, LT-1 Corvettes, and an E63. I blame the 4.38:1 final drive ratio.
Of course, when I tried on a couple of STIs, they put me in my place. Damned AWD launches!
Memories, my old ’94 SHO was similarly punching above it’s weight.
The only issue with the SHO was it was priced high for what you got and was high relative to the competition.
I put the beginning of this era of performance at the introduction of the LS1 in 1997, followed by the 996 being released and then Mercedes taking AMG in-house in 1999.
Arguably you could say it didn’t truly start until later with either:
-Chrysler Hemi introduction in 2003
-Japanese companies abandoning the 276 hp “limit” in 2004
I do not think it’s quite over yet though. There’s still enough (albeit fewer each year) non-electrified performance cars out there that the definitive bookend has not yet been reached.
It could be said it was even earlier with the LT1 in the Firebird/Camaro vs. the 5.0 Mustang. That period of the early 90’s also had the Mitsubishi Eclipse 2.0 turbo, the Celica Alltrac, the MR-2 3SGTE, Acura Integra GS-R, Toyota Supra, Nissan 240SX, Nissan 300zx, Nissan Sentra SE-R, etc. etc.
The LT1 and 5.0 were revisions of decades-old engines.
The LS1 was a clean-sheet reimagining of an icon that became iconic in its own right.
True, but the top end of those engines was very different from the past. The advent of port fuel injection replacing TBI and how much power they could make with basic bolt-ons while maintaining emission compliance was what made the LT1 and 5.0 different.
I think that the ability of the average enthusiast to easily modify their cars for ‘more’ would also be a factor.
I say 90s-2000s, maybe early 2010s, as peak.
There are some phenomenal new cars now, but out of reach for average enthusiast, even as 2nd/3rd hand.
A lot of people really turned away after Ford went to the Mod engine (4.6L) which is why I think the 5.0 remained so popular for so long. In the early 2000’s I saw more Mustang 5.0’s at the drag strip than any contemporary Mustang. They were also still competitive against the 97+ GM products pushing the LS1. Mustang’s sticking with the solid rear axle as long as they did also probably helped as the LS1 could quite quickly exceed the capacity of the rear end on a factory Firebird/Camaro.
Praised be the LS, God’s own engine
Yeah, the LS1 is Genesis of the modern performance era. Then in 2008/9 PDK became the New Testament. Performance EV’s are the Mega Church Wealth Testament
I think you’re right about it not being over but I’m closely watching certain brands and models to see what happens in the near future.
What does Porsche do with the 911 and will they go back on the gas-powered Boxster/Cayman?
How well is the new Honda Prelude received and what is its performance like?
Does Ford stick to its statement about the Mustang and manual transmission? Will there be EV variants and how are they received?
Ditto for the new Challenger?
What do these electric versions feel like to drive?
Other than the Porsche Tacan we haven’t seen much in the way of a sports car oriented EV. Can they actually dial in a good driving experience? If so will it be enough to pull people away from ICE variants?
There are so many questions right now and to your point about not being at the end, I think we have to look at all of it from a global POV (how do EU regs affect availability of performance vehicles?) as well as what the domestics are going to offer locally.
One thing I do hope for is that the automakers are recognizing that we as a population are starting to branch out and desire different options for our preferred vehicle. For this reason I hope for more choice out there. Give me different, niche vehicles. Maybe even a wagon! I won’t hold my breath there just yet though.
I think it would start in ’95 when OBDII was mandated. That really made a huge difference in our lives. When it ends…. I’d say when “the system” collectively said “no” to sedans. So…. 201X?