When I traveled before 2020, the “full-size car” row at Enterprise often yielded Chevy Impalas. This was one of those cars I disliked simply because it did everything merely OK and the manufacturer seemed content with that – even with a gas gauge that stayed stuck on “F” forever like GM cars in the seventies.
Here’s one to jog your memory just in case the name “Impala” pulls up any version of the long-lived Chevy nameplate but a tenth-gen, which would be understandable:
Spacer
Those Impalas reminded me of the Toyota Avalon, but without the promise of longevity and reliability. Still, the Chevy had a downright outstanding feature in the so-called “dashboard safe.” There it is behind the slide-up infotainment screen:
Ten years ago, companies tended to blend the infotainment screen into the dash instead of the typical Dell-monitor-on-a-strut crap we get today in cars. The big Chevy fit their screen nicely into the dash, and the designers likely noticed that this non-CRT monitor had a heaping hunk of space behind it. Instead of just leaving the void, they let you access it by having the screen raise electrically.
Since most people didn’t know about it, you could pretty safely leave your phone or other items in there outside of view of curious eyes. It’s brilliant!
Here’s another feature I like in a car I don’t love. I don’t hate the big 1995-99 final Buick Riveira, but unless I turn into an 83-year-old woman that needs to get to a coffee klatsch canasta club, I have no interest in purchasing a giant two-door luxury coupe. Ah, but like the Impala, this barge holds a few tricks up its sleeve that I wish had caught on with other makes and models.
Do you hate hunting for the “passenger temperature” buttons on a confusing center stack of a car when you ride shotgun? The big Riv had the passenger temp control mounted on the passenger’s door panel where it was easy to see and use. No confusion.
Oh, but this rather catfish-faced two-door had another fabulous feature. Do you enjoy spraying PB Blaster on your rusty license plate bolts and having that corrosive shit ruin your paint in order to remove your damn license plate? I don’t like it either, but you’ll never do that in a Buick. Look, the license plate just slides into a slot that’s only visible when the trunk lid is open.
What about you? What are some desirable features you can think of on otherwise undesirable-to-you cars? Are there some equivalents to the Pontiac Aztek cooler/console or the license plate light logo and super-night-sun-bright backup lamps on a Sunfire rental car that you wish your cool enthusiast car had? Let us know!
I might be the only one who likes the screen stuck on dash, at least if it’s done properly. My CX-5 has hard controls for the important bits, the faux iDrive and voice control works well for the rest, and it looks pretty clean and keeps the beltline relatively low.
-Stow & Go, though it means the spare tire is under the passenger front seat area instead of in the back, which can make retrieving it a pain, ESPECIALLY if the passenger front tire is flat (AMHIK).
-Genesis’ big front and side amber turn signals. Mmmmmmmm…
-Pixel LED headlamps from European brands, and even the “laser” headlamps. I like seeing where I’m going without blinding other drivers.
-Grid-style front windshield defroster/warmer, first (?) seen on Land Rover. Other brands have them now but JLR’s seem to be the best-implemented I’ve yet seen.
-Windshield washer fluid heater, which I believe is on various Kia/Hyundai models, mostly the Sportage if memory serves.
-Bumper-to-roof tail lights from the current Escalade. Yes. Why don’t more companies do this?! Volvo does it to a point but I’ll give respect for caddy for how well it’s integrated and how it works – and with amber rear turn signals! – such that it’s an increasingly-common mod for chevy and gmc owners with the equivalent model to swap in escalade tails after removing the black blocking panel on the D-pillar.
-Mercedes CLS stop/start engine button on the gear selector. So simple and clever since you have to use the gear selector anyway to drive, why put it anywhere else?! It even has a cover on it IIRC to prevent accidentally turning the engine off while using it. Brilliant! Especially when we’re seeing stop/start buttons going all over the cabin nowadays (just pick 1 spot, OEMs!), it just makes sense.
The 2011-2020 Dodge Grand Caravan front doors have a little cubby hole above the main map pocket but below the window switches that is the perfect spot to stow my iPhone while I’m driving; and because I keep my phone in an Otterbox Defender with a holster, it’s big enough to where it doesn’t rattle at all.
I have a 2016 Mazda 3. The car is fine. But it has this nice detail: the door cards have molded-in pockets that are exactly the right size to accommodate a Nalgene bottle. Or a champagne bottle.
I love my 2022, but to add to this: the little cubby above the hood release. It’s the perfect place to put your key so it’s not rattling around in the cabin somewhere. I find I never can get mine back in my pocket after tapping it to the start button.
My ex-wife’s Mini had a mesh screen you could pull out under the sunroof while it was open so you could have some airflow along with a degree of sun protection. I think it’s a BMW thing. My ’13 Mercedes E350 wagon has the sunroof and front/rear screens for the panoramic glass rooftop, but you can only use the screens with the sunroof closed. I wish they were available with the roof open.
VW does this as well. My 2016 GTI has one.
Any Ford with the entry keypad! Ford puts it on trucks, which are fine for truck stuff but not what I need to own. Maybe Taurus could have it, and surviving Crown Vics?
Pretty much all (that I know of) Ford/Lincoln products can have the key pad. They also don’t have to be right by the door handle, as many are actually a battery-powered wireless transmitter that can be placed in any number of places on the outside if the vehicle.
For me, I think the recessed trunk in the Honda Ridgeline (and I guess the Cyberdumpster) is really cool. But the vehicle is almost aggressively uninteresting in every other way.
More sedans should have dual windshield wipers on the outside and inside of the rear window like the 1950s and 1960s Lancia Flaminia Berlina.
My 71 Pinto had a emergency brake cover over part of the handle.
It flipped forward towards the dash.
It also held an ounce of weed perfectly.
Not a fan of full-size trucks, but the under-seat storage that some have is pretty cool.
The original Taurus had dual sun visors for both front passengers, so you could block sun glare coming from the front and side without having to constantly move the visor. This was such a brilliant idea, and yet I haven’t seen it on any other vehicle since.
My ’15 Mini Cooper has this. It is very convenient, especially on the windy roads on my commute.
My mom’s 96 Blazer had a similar feature. It was so nice to have!
4th Gen (and maybe other iterations of) Toyota 4Runners have those dual sun visors.
Subaru does this, or used to in the early 2000s. I commuted into the sun in a ’02 WRX and loved the dual visors. Ditto for my current Benz E350 DD, tho I don’t commute anymore.
Also, I just recalled that the WRX also had a slider on the driver’s visor that could extend to block the gap behind the rear view mirror for when the sun is in exactly the wrong spot. It was a thoughtful feature IMO.
Sun visors are such dumb places to cheap out. They all should have either (or both) slider functions (or extenders) or multiple that can block that whole top corner of the windshield, because roads aren’t straight, the galaxy is constantly in motion, and a little blockage is sometimes all you need.
I look forward to the advancement of electroluminescent glass, the type that can darken or lighten with a change to the charge, and to where the vehicle can track where the sun (and other bright light sources, like headlights and such) is in relation to the driver and block out just that area, like pixels. If we’re going to have tech in our vehicles THAT is the type of tech I want.
Yes and yes!
Saab 9-5 has this. Not sure if the next gen 9-3 ss has it but the convertible does not and I don’t think the visors pivot (because convertible)
Really? I have always heard the opposite. The big Chevy sedans are some of the most robust cars out there. I don’t know a lot about that generation, but the others are damn near bullet proof for at least 200k and beyond.
The old W-bodies could take some abuse, but probably more from sheer determination and/or apathy from their owners rather than being some feat of engineering.
The final impalas are fairly fragile, and their engines are underwhelming at best. To understand just how dumb they are, in order to change a rear brake light – yes, the rear, and on a commonly-failing consumable part – the ENTIRE rear bumper cover has to come off, as the brake light assemblies are part of the bumper cover. IT’S SO DUMB. Maybe not from a manufacturing perspective, but holy cow, you’d think gm would have learned from all the feedback they got about the malibu needing the front bumper cover removed to do headlamp bulbs.
I will admit that the final impalas actually do look kinda neat on the outside, but they’re clearly fleet/rental darlings, not really made for wide consumer adoption.
This isn’t a knock against the vehicle itself (esp here!), I’m just not a truck guy…but the Maverick’s configurable bed area is really cool.
Why can’t other vehicles have cargo areas/trunks that likewise allow you to section them off, with even your own dividers?
Our SRX had a neat divider that fit into floor rails and you could slide it around or angle it to divide the cargo area.
That’s really cool, and probably really useful I bet. I don’t drive around with a ton of stuff in my Mustang’s trunk, so what is in there – not small, baggable stuff – tends to shift and slide around. I’d even buy OEM Ford dividers if the space had just come with slots/connectors for them!
It was great for groceries, and the underside of the lid to the underfloor storage had molded in clips for it so you could store it out of the way.
My 2022 car has a really good truck set-up. There are hooks on the sides and at the back so you can install a horizontal cargo net. Put the net over the bags and it keeps the groceries et al from sliding around. Also keeps a watermelon from going on a rolling rampage. On the right side of the trunk there is a “bottle well” that holds two wine bottles vertically. High up on the left side there is a small net that perfectly holds a dozen-egg box; safely isolated from the other bags etc. Finally, there is a little “plastic bag hook” high on the side.
Finally this car has my favorite “stupid car trick” ever. Not only can you open the trunk with a swing of your foot, you can close it afterwards the same way. It is the most convenient thing ever.
So things ARE moving in the right direction! That’s exactly what all vehicles should have. My stuff is a little older, so my trunks are just big open spaces.
That wine bottle holder is particular genius.
Many do, but not to the degree that pickups do. There’s a neat system (I think called CarGo, ha!) that uses hook-and-loop (Velcro-type) fastener material on the bottom of the L-shaped plastic pieces that can be placed anywhere on the carpeted floor of the vehicle (or anywhere else, really). Not that expensive, and the L-shaped pieces are tall enough to hold grocery bags, coolers, storage bins, etc.
Had that system in my MK7 GTI. Was really useful, even with its small cargo area.
According to JD Power (ugh, I know) the Impala’s reliability and quality are nearly identical to the Avalon (88 and 89 out of 100, respectively), but no Autopian article is complete until there’s a senseless comparison to Toyota.
You don’t like a swoopy supercharged 3800 powered buick coupe???? The fuck… I guess to answer the question, my mom has a previous gen Highlander Hybrid (with the v6) that is a really good car, but absolutely not my thing. BUT, the pull down rear window shades, the air conditioned seats, the weirdly large amount of power the thing puts out all improve its image in my eyes. The funny thing is, they refuse to drive in ECO (they think they are going to break it?), resulting in the car only returning about 25 mpg.
OH! Another one I just thought of, which ironically will contradict part of my previous comment. I’m not a real big fan of the Lincoln Mark VIII, but only because I’m allergic to 90’s Ford styling (except my grand marquis of course) But, they have one feature that I adore, if only for the novelty. The center stoplight is a NEON strip! How cool is that?
My Buick LeSabre also has the passenger seat heat and general HVAC controls on the door. And I would totally rock a last-gen Riv in good condition.
I used to love how the outside mirrors on the Riv would rotate down to show you the curb/next to the car when in reverse. I thought that was the coolest.
I think my dad’s old Cordoba did that too.
my 2014 Mini Countryman did that, as does my 2007 BMW E93. Power mirror switch must be set to the correct side, though, and I always leave it in the middle so an accidental bump won’t reposition a mirror.
That was most if not all GM cars for a few years. I love that feature too. It just makes so much sense! I never even thought of its application for seeing a curb, I always just thought of it as a safety thing to make sure I’m not running over small
kids or their toys.
The first gen Nissan Titan had a cool storage pocket on the often wasted space behind the rear wheels on some models. Clever!
All of the Easter Eggs on the Jeep Renegade are neat.
Ambient lighting on many new Mercedes.
Party speakers and glovebox cooler on the Dodge Caliber.
On a work trip some years back, we rented a Suburban that had the hidden compartment behind the screen. One of my coworkers put a baggie of pills, an unwrapped/unrolled condom, and a lighter in there when nobody was looking only for it to be discovered later in the trip. Good times.
The ball vents that cars used to have but got rid of due to knee crash protection.
RIP Ball coolers.
I swear there is something wrong with my ball vents on my 95 K2500. I get VERY little airflow out of it, regardless of the position setting.
Did the line running to them get vasectomied?
Heh. But as far as I can tell, no, its still all hooked up. I really should crawl up under the dash and check for a clog, or see if it’s split somewhere I can’t see.
Perhaps the crotch cooling vent is the culprit here.
I dislike Altima’s, but I do like that they seem to naturally disintegrate over short periods of ownership.
ba-dum-tishhhhh
The taillights on the ’02 (which still had ambers) were kind of cool and that’s the only nice thing I have to say about that car. I guess it was spacious, the seats were comfortable and had a nice shape, but that’s it. Other cars do those things, too, and don’t grenade their own engines. The rest of it? Garbaaaaage.
Even the cupholders were so big that you had to get a 326-oz Blorch Gulp for a cup to stick up far enough to be reachable, and I’m just not American enough for that, I guess. It feels like it’s made for those big dumb giant Stanleys full of glorified hummingbird feed, except it predated the Stanley thing by two decades.
My 69 Galaxy 500 had the radio controls to the LEFT of the driver. Full control of the AM dial!
A lot of older cars put the HVAC controls to the left of the driver. Cadillacs especially.
Yup my 77 Cherokee has it over there. I quite like it. Very easy to reach, and a nice compact way to do it.
I don’t really need a 150 hp 7.5L V8 powering a car the size of my truck, but I do wish the super cushy velour bench seats from ’70s Cadillacs and Lincolns were available in modern vehicles.
Modern seat materials suuuuuuuuuuck
The cushions, too. Seat bottoms don’t need bolsters in 99.99% of vehicles and the cushion material should be like a cushion, not turn to stone in 2 hours. My early ’80s Subarus had seats with pretty thin cushions (and soft springs?) and weighed less than a damn shot put, yet were still good for about 8 hours.
Back in the 80’s I was good for hours too.
My wife (then girlfriend) and I took our first road trip in the summer of 98. Rented a Malibu, that I’m pretty sure was marketed strictly as a rental/fleet car…and no one in their right mind would buy one. Still, it had a sliding cup holder for the driver alone by your left leg. Suprisingly it worked really well, freed up some center console space, and there was never any confusion as which drink belonged to you (my wife is a Diet Coke girl, whereas I prefer my sodas full octane).
I like the available middle-aged women that seemingly come with all Corvettes.
The first Lincoln Navigator had climate controls ON THE STEERING WHEEL. Why no manufacturer offers this currently is crazy.
Also, does any manufacturer have a heated 3rd row seats?
My LeSabre has a “temp” up/down switch on the steering wheel. On the way home from purchase, the Automatic HVAC kept ramping up to 90, even after turning it down. I removed the switch from the wheel, unplugged it, and put it back. Problem solved.
Volvo XC-90 does. I am guessing other luxury brands do that as well.
Heated 3rd row? yeah, I can see the Swedes being that clever. I just look at the $100k GMC Yukon my job has on the lot and it doesn’t have a heated 3rd row lol
H/K have even started to, or at least Hyundai as upper Palisade trims have it while it doesn’t look like the Telluride, or EV9 do. All offer ventilated 2nd rows though.
According to what the Lincoln reps told me at the unveiling of the “all (mostly) new” Navigator, the third row in the top-tier trim has heated seats.
My 2012 Prius v lets me adjust fan speed and temperature, and also turn air recirculation on or off, all from the wheel. Not all the controls but it’s a chunk of them.