Ruptured Spleen in 2016!!!

"Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig" (AndySheehan-StreetsideStig) 12/31/2015 at 10:37 • Filed to: None

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Browsing the front page, I’m struck with how little enjoyment I can glean from 2016’s automotive prospects.

A senior editor of Jalopnik, once the internet’s greatest refuge for fans of cars both attractive and impractical, has !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and championed the cause of the crossover.

The world’s most spectacular automotive adventure is now about !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

A neat little !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is ruined by a huge, hideous grille and a painted silver windshield surround like it’s a death-era Pontiac.

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! because cars are now about everything but driving.

In fact, the only FP posts I find stirring are the still copious !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! past .

At 31, I no longer consider myself a young man. I try not to be an automotive xenophobe, and I appreciate innovation. But when I look at the awesome old race cars and ridiculous ads currently on the front page, I can’t help but think that we’ve bent to the mainstream. We’ve made concessions for the sake of the business case and the cosseting convenience, and in doing so, we’ve lost something.

Enthusiasm for anything takes effort. Effort defines enthusiasm. If you’re enthusiastic about your car, you’ll take care of it. You’ll learn to work on it. You’ll spend money to make it better, to race it. We know this.

I see that enthusiasm dwindling in newer cars. We don’t want to make the effort to bend down and pull out the car seat, so we’re willing to accept tall crossovers, even though they’re heavy and ugly. We don’t want to shovel out our vehicles, so we need AWD, even though it ads a ton of weight and virtually no performance.

How about autonomous cars? “Well,” we defend, “I would drive manually most of the time. I would just use the robots for the daily traffic jams.” But we’re never willing to put the effort into finding alternate routes or changing schedules so we’re not stuck in the traffic jams in the first place. (I’ve done this. It’s awesome.)

Designers are slaves to government mandates. It must be this efficient. The sides must be this tall to protect you in a crash. And though we live in a free market, there’s nothing we can do about it. If there’s a decline in enthusiasm for newer cars, perhaps it’s because they’ve gotten so fat and ugly.

(I’m serious about this. With a few notable exceptions, I find it hard to get excited about the looks of any new car lately. Just look at a Veloster or a Cherokee and ask yourself, in your heart of hearts, Does this actually look good? )

I’m not going to suggest that cars haven’t improved. They’re faster, more efficient for their weight, and safer than they’ve ever been. I just think there’s not enough effort. Not enough enthusiasm.

This only applies to new cars. General car enthusiasm, as we know, is thriving, even among the young and poor. Maybe we have Paul Walker to thank, or the internet, which eases everything from buying to education to meet organization. But the enthusiast community has never been stronger.

I think, however, there’s a general detection among the public, an automotive zeitgeist, that cars as we know them are going away. The general population wants this. They don’t like to drive. They don’t want to deal with it. Their commutes are shorter or they work from home, and driving is a bother.

Automakers have picked up on this, and they’re trying to cater to it with softer, more ignorable cars, more distracting infotainment, and most notably, cars that drive themselves.

Yet they cannot alienate that strong enthusiast community. They have to appear to cater to us, as well. So they make some truly fantastic enthusiast cars. Even if they’re priced far beyond our ability to buy. (That new Ford GT looks pretty cool, huh?) Even if they’re a bit ugly. (I’ll never believe that the Fiesta ST wouldn’t look better as a 3-door.) Even if they’ve made unfortunate budgetary concessions in building them. (“But automatics are faster now!” As if we ever loved manuals because they were faster.)

Maybe it was always like this. Maybe I’m just depressed about a new year. Maybe I’m just complaining and I tricked you into reading it all. I just wish things were going differently with new cars. I wish there was a little more effort from everyone.

wafflesnfalafel > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 10:50

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old man -

(Honestly, I’m right there with you...I don’t want a new “infotainment” system, thank you.)

DoYouEvenShift > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 11:06

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Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > DoYouEvenShift 12/31/2015 at 11:08

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Again, no effort.

Future next gen S2000 owner > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 11:19

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Sounds a whole lot like get off my lawn.

I’m going to rant a bit. I started in one direction and wandered. Feel free to ignore the rest and go about your day. Happy New Year!

Yeah, people are driving a ton of crossovers and mundane beige daily commuters but this is the way it has always been. The vast majority of cars ever sold, haven’t been aimed at enthusiasts. All older cars lacked the enthusiasm you are looking for, you just don’t want to admit it. We cherry pick the best examples from the past and pretend that beige didn’t exist. Do you remember the 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera? No, of course not, no one does.

That ‘64 Impala everyone loves? That was the Camry of its day. For every 427 Galaxie there were countless more 390’s and 6 cylinders.

Sure some crossovers are ugly - I’m looking at you Cherokee - but that crossover will run circles around most enthusiast cars. I would be willing to bet the new Cherokee will run 0-60 faster than a stock mid 90’s Nissan 240.

We romanticize the past but the past wasn’t all that great. The “golden” days of the muscle car, 1960’s, most of them will get whipped in a drag race by a V6 Camry. Also, I like to breathe and prefer not to have lead in my gas.

To only concentrate on crossovers and beige appliances is to miss the bigger picture. The Miata exists, the FRZ twins, Mustangs and Camaros have never been better.

You can get a 275hp rear drive manual Caddy. You can go big and get a 400+hp in that same car.

700hp four door sedans.

A base new Corvette will outperform 95% of the driving capability of its owners.

Yeah, maybe more infotainment is an inevitability. If that is what it takes to make enough cash to keep the BRS twins alive, then so be it. We, as enthusiasts, have never been catered to as a market. We exist in world where we idolize and lust after halo models that have never made a great business case. The beloved hemi from the 60’s and 70’s was there to draw people into the showroom. We have to learn to accept the fact that we lust for the 5% of cars that are fun to drive, that are powerful, that make you want to actually drive.

Let’s face reality, as a whole, we are all talk. We want someone else to buy the performance car. We want to force the manufacturer to only build what we want so that we can pick it up second hand. The amount of people willing to put their own money down for the track pack with a manual, or the 1LE package on the Camaro, or even a new FRZ twin is laughable. We beg for the cool cars and then we bitch and find reasons not to buy one. That is why manuals are dying.

Right now is the golden age for muscle/performance cars. Soon autonomous cars will be everywhere. There isn’t anything we can do to stop that. 95% of people just want to get where they are going and don’t care about the appliance taking them there. That is just a way of life.

Yeah, we’ve been bent to the mainstream. We always have been. It is still better than its every been.

DoYouEvenShift > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 11:22

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Im in your age bracket give or take a few. So Ill bite.

Autonomous cars. Im all for them. If people are too busy texting, taking selfies, updating Facebook, and watching movies on tablets to actually drive. Let them be driven around. I feel safer knowing those people are no longer in control. The rest of us can continue to drive outselfs.

Infotainment systems. Im not for or against them. For the most part theyve done a good job of intergrating them into the car. Also they dont add any more weight really, so no biggie.

Let see, what else. The ratio of bland vs enthusiast cars is great. From neat front drive sporty cars, small rear wheel drive sports cars, to big V8 beasts, theres something for everyone.

Modern automatics are doing amazing things, shifting faster with more gears. Im all for them as long as their is a manual option. Something for everyone.

Personally, I think car enthusiasm is at an all time high and keeps getting better, we have the internet, an amazing aftermarket and depriciation to thank for it.

My 2 cents.

Party-vi > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 11:31

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I see most of these issues as being the product of very good marketing. Get AWD because it’s more safe and luxurious than plebeian FWD or RWD transportation. Buy a CUV so you get car comfort with SUV seating positions. Half of the new Chevy commercials I see don’t even talk about the car, all they taut is WiFi. Why the fuck is Chevy marketing cars based on one feature that has no tangible influence on gas mileage or rear seat legroom or any other reason to buy one car over another? Because people with money to spend are very stupid and marketers are very good at what they do.

Come sit on my porch with me so we can yell at kids to get off the grass.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > Future next gen S2000 owner 12/31/2015 at 11:32

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You make some good points, and I agree with most of them.

But why are we celebrating the boring cars? Why do I look at the front page of Jalopnik and see a buyers guide for the Lincoln MKC? Does anyone want that turd? Any of us?

And no, we don’t buy new enthusiast cars. You know why? Because they’re freakin’ expensive. If automakers worked as hard to keep prices on enthusiast cars low as they do to push their lame crossovers at low rates, they’d sell more of them. But they know it’s not worth the effort. A few will buy their limited-run enthusiast cars, and this will justify the effort and keep the image alive.

Nor is that only their fault, though. It’s mostly ours. When it comes time for a new car, no one is willing to imagine putting their kids in a Legacy GT. We’d better go with the Outback, honey. It’s taller. We buy new cars all the time. Just not the performance variants.

whoarder is tellurium > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 11:38

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As long as we still have Mazda making relatively straightforward, fairly priced and fun to drive cars, I will hold out for the auto industry until their demise.

As for the rest: take the bus. Stop meddling in the auto world.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > DoYouEvenShift 12/31/2015 at 11:42

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-I support autonomous cars for the same reason, but they’re eventually going to villify the manually-driven car, I think.

-Infotainment systems just add more cost to the car and divert development money away from more exciting options. We need a phone mount, and aux jack, and a volume control. Done.

-Yes, there are plenty of enthusiast cars, but most of them are not very accessible.

-Yes, automatics are fine, but they’re not the same, and it’s hard for me to get excited about many new cars because they lack manuals or DCTs.

-And like I said, car enthusiasm is roaring. But it’s seldom that I go to a Cars and Coffee and see a proliferation of new cars. Most of them are older, either restored or customized and modified.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > whoarder is tellurium 12/31/2015 at 11:45

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I agree. Mazda is the Great Hero. Somehow they’ve designed around the safety standards to make gorgeous cars, and they’re not hard to find with manuals. And the Miata. The blessed, glorious Miata. If I had the money to buy a new car today, that would be it. I saw an ND on the road the other day and fell in love all over again.

Future next gen S2000 owner > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 11:47

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I don’t think seeing an ad as celebrating a boring car. Something has to pay the bills. Part of the enthusiast culture is accepting the fact that we will have to wade through the beige, boring and uninspired to get to the good stuff.

If automakers worked as hard to keep prices on enthusiast cars low as they do to push their lame crossovers at low rates, they’d sell more of them. But they know it’s not worth the effort. A few will buy their limited-run enthusiast cars, and this will justify the effort and keep the image alive.

This is true. But it also make the most sense from a business case perspective. That is the one key fact most of us forget or neglect. Bankrupt automakers aren’t going to help us get more enthusiast based cars on the road.

We buy new cars all the time. Just not the performance variants.

Everyone has to compromise. True, some compromises probably don’t have to be made but life demands supersede wants. That is just part of it. It is why for 99 beige appliance crossovers there is only 1 Corvette sold. I also think this is why sub performance variants are very popular. People need/want a new Cherokee and quite a few will pony up for the Trailhawk trim level. People know they probably won’t ever use it but they want just a little bit of cool in their everyday car. Same reason a V6 exists in a Camry. No one needs it but they want it because they want just a little bit of fun. They know they have to compromise but they are holding onto just that little bit of them that really wants the Supra but has to fit two car seats in the back seat. This is why BMW is so popular, they made cars that would satisfy both decision makers. Who wouldn’t want a sedan they can occasionally track/autocross? That is the ultimate win win. Be decently successful as a weekend warrior and take the kids to hockey practice after school.

whoarder is tellurium > DoYouEvenShift 12/31/2015 at 11:54

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“Autonomous cars. Im all for them. If people are too busy texting, taking selfies, updating Facebook, and watching movies on tablets to actually drive. Let them be driven around.”

Those people need a personal autonomous car? They’d be better off taking public transportation.

DoYouEvenShift > whoarder is tellurium 12/31/2015 at 12:08

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Ideally, but we know thats not gonna happen.

Its like a telling a smoker to just stop lol

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > Future next gen S2000 owner 12/31/2015 at 12:09

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All of this is precisely my point. We compromise too much. We give so much and get so little in return. And that culture of business cases and practicality has gutted our pull with the auto industry.

jariten1781 > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 12:23

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I’m with you in spirit and often find my way thinking down the same thought train...but it’s not really true.

Enthusiasts have always been a niche market. The past looks so much better because the enthusiasts have kept the good examples alive while the vast vast majority were shit like base model Pintos, Chevettes, Cavaliers and K-cars and the like. They were junk and were scrapped decades ago just like the random ass current Honda Pilots will be 20 years from now.

Being a niche market always makes things expensive. That’s just a fact of life we have to deal with. I’m pleasantly surprised that stuff like the BRZFRS/FiST/Miata exist in their price brackets...it’s a sign that there’s still a large volume of enthusiasts continuing to hum along in the background despite the proclamations of the death of car culture.

I also think the public’s desire for autonomous cars is way over played and that them hitting the market en masse is more of a 30 yearish horizon than just around the corner. We get blinded because we constantly keep up with the industry and it’s abuzz with that stuff (plus tech industry is in on it that well). Go talk to some random manicurist or preacher or something and they’ll have no clue people are even working on it. I constantly see the comment ‘People don’t care about driving so they want autonomous cars’. I think it’s more ‘People don’t care about driving so they don’t really give a shit either way about autonomous cars’. That's kind of the definition of 'don't care'. If they’re cheap, sure people will pick them up, but they won’t be for a long long time...decades upon decades...if ever. Only thing that would drastically swing that is mandates, but that's really unlikely to occur this generation or the next.

DoYouEvenShift > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 12:23

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See, Mazda is the last place Id look for enthusiast cars. The Miata? Meh, neat sporty car I guess. But some people like them, so good for them. Just my opinion.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > DoYouEvenShift 12/31/2015 at 12:28

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It’s also cheap. Simple, manual, RWD, lightweight, huge aftermarket? I can’t come up with a better formula for an enthusiast car.

DoYouEvenShift > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 12:33

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I know, you would think its perfect. But everytime Ive driven one, Im left feeling like Im missing something.

To me its the HP/TQ, and engine sounds. But Im more of a Camaro/Mustang/Corvette type. So take my opinion based on that.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > jariten1781 12/31/2015 at 12:42

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I agree mostly. I guess I’m more upset that we’re expected as enthusiasts to find crossovers and beige cattle interesting. I know boring cars are the industry’s bread and butter, but I came here to get away from all that. Why am I seeing a buyers guide for the Lincoln MKC on the front page of Jalopnik? This isn’t us.

As for autonomous cars, my non-car friends can’t shut up about them. I hear about them all the time. Just the other night, I was watching a tech blogger’s “year in review” video on youtube, and when he got to the “cars,” category, he literally said, “There are really only two categories of car I’m interested in: electric cars, and autonomous cars.” And he talked about Tesla for a moment before moving on.

I don’t think robocars are right around the corner, but neither do I think they’re 30 years out. I think in 10 years they’ll be extremely popular. And I’m not even against autonomous cars. I think they’ll be a good solution for many of the drivers on the road. I just don’t think they’re going to be the messiah most people expect. And I think they’ll create some problems for human-controlled holdouts down the road.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > DoYouEvenShift 12/31/2015 at 12:45

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Muscle cars are also great enthusiast cars.

DoYouEvenShift > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 12:48

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Yes sir.

However Camaro and Mustang are now honest to goodness sports cars. And the Corvette, well, Corvette.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > DoYouEvenShift 12/31/2015 at 12:50

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Agreed. The latest gens have rather redefined the muscle car, I think.

jariten1781 > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 12/31/2015 at 14:27

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Why am I seeing a buyers guide for the Lincoln MKC on the front page of Jalopnik?

That’s another ‘the more things change the more they stay the same’ thing to me. Think of it this way...remember how Car and Driver or Road and Track would have some awesome spy shots for a few pages, some 10+ page comparo of the Neon ACR vs Civic Si vs Cavalier RS or whatever, and the consistent letters to the editor...they’d still have some random ass review of the Ford Windstar for like half a page near the back of the pub. Not everyone who’s into cars has a life that can accept the compromises the car they want to read about would provide. Getting the ‘enthusiast’ perspective on something they’d actually buy has value to them. I certainly DGAF about an MKC...in fact I don’t know that I’ve read any of the ‘buyers guide’ posts (and if I have they weren’t memorable), but I see the point.

As for autonomous cars, my non-car friends can’t shut up about them. I hear about them all the time. Just the other night, I was watching a tech blogger’s “year in review” video on youtube, and when he got to the “cars,” category, he literally said, “There are really only two categories of car I’m interested in: electric cars, and autonomous cars.” And he talked about Tesla for a moment before moving on.

Yeah, that’s why I kind of excluded tech folks. They’re getting into the conversation from a different direction. You can say the same for the greenies and urban idealists. That’s more people talking about it, but it’s still far away from most.

I don’t think robocars are right around the corner, but neither do I think they’re 30 years out. I think in 10 years they’ll be extremely popular.

I’m a Senior Systems Engineer. While I’m no longer in the tech industry (worked there for a while but said see ya following the dot-com bust) and have never worked in autos, I do have a lot of experience with...um...other types of vehicles.

Here’s my, granted from outside, view of autonomous cars. Right now they’re approaching the 85% solution for clear weather autonomy on well marked roads. 85%, while not trivial, is relatively easy to achieve. In the tech world 85% is good for a rollout since you can iterate once you’ve deployed. They’ll be there in 3-5 years. 85% is not sufficient for a manned platform without overrides and fail safes. Those safeties will be manual and still require an operator which will still necessitate the training and licensing for a non-automated car. No danger to manually driven vehicles.

The next 14%, that shit is hard and costs more than the first 85% did. I would guess a decade plus of data gathering and iteration after initial deployment before we get there. That’ll be the car where, more often than not, you can type an address in and get where you’re going. Still, you’re going to run into a couple trips a month where the system will bork and a licensed alert operator will need to take control. 99% is still just not good enough for a manned platform, so we’re still safe in our human driven vehicle world.

Anything beyond 99% is crazy hard and mega expensive. I give it another decade and a half before that is done...now we’re looking at the beginning of the end. The first ‘you don’t need a license’ for a car that can go anywhere in any weather is going to be stupid expensive. I can’t really say how long it’ll be before certified systems trickle down to the point they’re affordable for the bottom 30% of owners, but manual control will be safe until then plus a good decade after while the old cars are aged out and the manual driven car dies a natural death.

There’re exceptions that can throw all this...cities may likely implement larger restrictions earlier and in general you could have aggressive legislation at various levels pushed by ideologues that could force the change over sooner than the natural changes with significant added pain (literally and figuratively) to a good portion of the population. There also could be straight up novel solutions that throw the standard process out the window, but those are totally unpredictable. I wouldn’t be blown-out-of-my-mind shocked if they come in a bit earlier than my ‘order of magnitude’ quality timeline, but I would be fairly surprised.

Note: I’m also not opposed to autonomous cars...I just don’t think we’ll get there as quickly as the futurists dream.

Now, if the connected/fleet-owned (ie personal car ownership all together is banned) model that is pushed by the urban planner types gains traction everything is up in the air. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime...Restrictions on the freedom that personally owned travel provide (and that we’ve enjoyed for more than a century) are so large and chilling I just don’t see the public will switching that way...though it could...That, I am opposed to. That would make the world a worse place.