I'm Burnt Out on Cars

Kinja'd!!! by "Wobbles the Mind" (wobblesthemind)
Published 01/09/2017 at 21:24

Tags: Sabbatical
STARS: 6


Cars are better than ever and strangely I’m not in love with anything coming out. Whether it be 700 hp Bentleys, angry Alfas, or even Kia (my third favorite brand) building a grand touring car (my absolute favorite kind of car), I’m just not feeling anything and I’m really disappointed.

Maybe I’m just getting too much information so I’m going to stop watching reviews, stop reading numbers, and stop going into speculations. I definitely love supporting all of the authors and everyone that posts their interviews, reviews, and thoughts on Jalopnik and Oppo...but damn my brain is chicken-fried like a steak. I just need to experience these cars for myself as they come instead of trying to experience them through others.

I’m not quitting Oppo or anything like that! I’m just going on an information sabbatical.


Replies (23)

Kinja'd!!! "My X-type is too a real Jaguar" (TomSlick)
01/09/2017 at 21:30, STARS: 1

Here’s the solution, read Volkswagen Repair for the Compleat Idiot. Then start searching Craigslist for a Beetle based kit car.

Kinja'd!!! "Land_Yacht_225" (nadenator)
01/09/2017 at 21:33, STARS: 0

The only cars I genuinely want or like right now were made in 2003 and 2004. We’ll see if Jeep can do this Grand Wagoneer up properly, but there isn’t anything new knocking my socks off either.

Kinja'd!!! "Captain of the Enterprise" (justanotherdayinparadise)
01/09/2017 at 21:34, STARS: 0

I’m with you unfortunately

Kinja'd!!! "V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me!" (v8demon)
01/09/2017 at 21:41, STARS: 1

For a very long time I had my old Cougar and was slowly modifying it into what I wanted. Nothing new was exciting to me at all. Then in late 2004 I saw it. My first S197 Mustang..... Within a month I had ordered one of my very own and over the years have kept that and the Cougar, both evolving as I see fit......

Don’t hunt for the car; the one for you will find you....You’ll know it when it happens.

Kinja'd!!! "That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms" (thatbastardkurtis5)
01/09/2017 at 21:44, STARS: 3

I actually agree with you. There isn’t a single new car being built that I give a shit about. Really I don’t generally care about cars like anytime there’s a post about an F40 burning to the ground or somebody crashing a McLaren, I just wonder why in the world I should care. There’s so much information out there, it makes stuff like that seem decidedly less special and interesting to me. I don’t follow the automotive world nearly as closely as I used to.

Kinja'd!!! "FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com" (alphaass)
01/09/2017 at 22:05, STARS: 0

Kinja'd!!!

?

Kinja'd!!! "DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time" (dc3ls-)
01/09/2017 at 22:22, STARS: 0

The same thing happened to me. Now, like all other oppos, I just surf CL for cars I know and could potentially buy if I had the time and money.

In other words. You’ve been initiated!

Kinja'd!!! "nlzmo400r" (robevans916)
01/09/2017 at 22:25, STARS: 0

I feel the same way only because I’m beyond the age of lusting after Scion FR-S, and the cars I really want cost $75k. Sadly, I don’t have $75k so it’s all just pipe dreams that I know won’t ever happen. I’ll say though, my motorcycle lust is alive and kicking!

Kinja'd!!! "Chuckles" (chucklesw37)
01/09/2017 at 22:26, STARS: 0

Get behind the wheel and go find a new favorite road. Go on a 500 mile road trip. Turn off the GPS. Sleep in your car. Find something to remind you why you love cars in the first place.

Kinja'd!!! "wiffleballtony" (wiffleballtony)
01/09/2017 at 22:28, STARS: 0

New cars don’t excite me because I know I’m not going to get one for a looooooong time.

Kinja'd!!! "gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
01/09/2017 at 22:45, STARS: 1

I did the same thing. I used to read stupid amounts of info on basically every car coming out, and I don’t even know why. I could tell you which offering I thought was best in each segment and why, but I didn’t get anything out of it. I’ve mostly stopped reading the fp, and sticking to Oppo, Petrolicious, and a couple others. I’m finding I vastly prefer seeing what people are doing with their cars and other random projects than learning about new cars that are becoming increasingly uninteresting or even offensive to me (I’m looking at you, 2018 Camry)

Kinja'd!!! "CaptainSlower" (captainslower)
01/09/2017 at 22:50, STARS: 0

“It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.” - Tony Soprano.

I get where you’re coming from. I feel like we really hit peak car around the turn of the century and it’s all kinda been downhill from there. Sure horsepower and mpg are going up, but the cars themselves get uglier, heavier, harder to see out of, and more and more packed to the gills with nannies and pointless electronica.

Even stuff like the Hellcat and the new Panamera just feel like we’re raging against the dying of the light before the autonomous electrics take over.

That and I’m super broke, which makes those craigslist pipedreams extra pipedreamy.

Kinja'd!!!

Kinja'd!!! "Frank Grimes" (FrankGrimes)
01/09/2017 at 23:41, STARS: 0

I am the same. modern cars seem lame. I want all old simple cars like.
-1968 mustang fastback

-1990 VW GTI

-1965 Buick Riviera

the car I am most interested in buying as if I had money is a big green 4door

Kinja'd!!!

Kinja'd!!! "Amoore100" (amoore100)
01/09/2017 at 23:59, STARS: 1

I feel the same. Increasing circle jerks over Chinese electric vaporware, endless skeptics who think autonomy is the only solution (and not better drivers’ ed in the meantime), and awful, awful car design. I must be the oldest 17 year old on the Earth. I think my next car should be a GSA estate; the time I spend fixing it will distract me from, uh, the government as well.

Kinja'd!!!

Kinja'd!!! "V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me!" (v8demon)
01/10/2017 at 05:50, STARS: 1

I wanna put a fuel injected V8 in this. Is that wrong?

Kinja'd!!! "Tazio, Count Fouroff" (tazio0625)
01/10/2017 at 10:17, STARS: 0

“I must be the oldest 17 year old on the Earth.”

This, or one of the small percentage of humans with what Hemingway referred to as a “built-in, shock-proof crap detector.”

Sensing a bright (if emotionally tiring on occasion lol) future in this one :D

Kinja'd!!! "Tazio, Count Fouroff" (tazio0625)
01/10/2017 at 10:28, STARS: 1

“I’m just not feeling anything and I’m really disappointed.”

They have supplements now that can bring back the thrill

Haha jk

Personally — tbh — right there with you, most probably.

What you said, plus, with nano-nannies, cost rationalization (looking straight at you, electric power steering), and over-engineering in the wrong areas, new cars I’ve driven may accelerate like stink and have mad grip, but they just don’t give a driver that hooked-up feel anymore. Kinda like wearing 3 condoms, or socks in the shower, you know?

OMG, way too young to be talking like a “get off my lawn!” person :P Rant over!

Kinja'd!!! "Amoore100" (amoore100)
01/11/2017 at 19:08, STARS: 0

Yes.

Kinja'd!!!

Air cooled flat-four FTW! It’s basically a wagon 924 at this point.

Kinja'd!!! "V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me!" (v8demon)
01/11/2017 at 21:30, STARS: 1

That makes me wanna put a V8 in it even more so....

Kinja'd!!! "Amoore100" (amoore100)
01/11/2017 at 21:36, STARS: 0

But this soundtrack is 100% more interesting.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Also, French metal would probably twist itself into a croissant with anything approaching LS amounts of torque, and I doubt the V8 will leave enough room to keep the hydropneumatics.

Kinja'd!!!

Kinja'd!!! "V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me!" (v8demon)
01/11/2017 at 21:40, STARS: 1

Pushrod motors aren’t nearly as large as a similar displacement OHC/DOHC equivalent. A good exhaust system makes for a good soundtrack ;)

Kinja'd!!! "Amoore100" (amoore100)
01/11/2017 at 21:46, STARS: 0

Yeah but it’ll sound just like any other V8, not a freaking flat, air-cooled Gallic four! Besides, where do you propose we put the spare tire, then?

Kinja'd!!!

Kinja'd!!! "Amoore100" (amoore100)
01/13/2017 at 19:02, STARS: 1

Thanks, I think I must have inherited it from my father.

Still, I honestly don’t see what’s so difficult about catering to me, a car-loving millennial who cares about the environment, wants to keep petrol engines alive forever (biofuels ftw!), isn’t terribly fond of modern materialism (why can’t smartphones be built like old Volvos?), is a mild fiscal conservative (healthcare is great, fighting useless wars in the Middle East, not so much), and a staunch defender of social liberalism (because a socially conservative homosexual makes about as much sense as a diesel Tesla).