"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
03/31/2018 at 20:44 • Filed to: safety
6
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"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish)
03/31/2018 at 20:44 • Filed to: safety | 6
| 9 |
The best looking car in the Honda area
Alternate titles:
Old Man Yells at Cloud.
Some rambling complaints about things that I know the reasons for, but I’m complaining about anyways.
Something something they don’t build them like they used to.
I don’t like new cars very much, but I like to go to the autoshow to see what few cars feel solid enough, and have good enough visibility that I’d actually consider them, in some hypothetical world where I’d be buying a new car.
I was excited to see the Volvos, but disappointed at how small their area was. There was an XC60, a V90 Cross Country, an XC90, and an XC40. The V90 is gorgeous, comfortable, almost everything about it is lovely, but it feels like a tank on the inside. It felt impossibly wide and long, and despite how much I like it, I couldn’t get over how hard it is to see out of.
I hardly took any photos, so here’s one from the internet
Likewise with the XC40. It was nice on the inside, but once I saw how hard to was to see out the back, I pretty rapidly lost interest. Seriously, the pillars in the back are comically massive, the blind spots are crazy.
That trend of feeling like a tank continued with most things I sat in. A Mazda3 hatch, nice materials, not a bad looking car, but high sills and small windows, especially in the back, make it seem bigger than it is. Same with the Civic. Not a super big car, also not a good looking car, but it feels huge from the drivers seat.
The Elantra GT, I think, had the best visibility of compact things I sat in, but still not good. Just not as bad as the Mazda3 or the Civic. I really wasn’t a fan of the pedal placement, and the seating position I needed in order to comfortably use the clutch.
I sat in an 86 again, and still don’t love it. I’ve never driven one, but it also felt like a tank, and it feels like the dash is bizarrely tall and upright.
My favourite sedan I sat in was the Jag XE. Again, not good visibility, feels bigger than it is, but it was quite comfortable and didn’t feel as cheap on the inside as the BMWs, Mercs, and especially the Alfas. The Audis felt about as nice, but I like how the Jags look better.
I also poked around a Lexus LX and a GX, and they felt super solid, and kind of plasticky at the same time. I wanted to see a Land Cruiser to compare to the LX, because I prefer the 4Runner to the GX.
I think I understand why Tacomas sell so well. It’s easier to see out of than the Colorado, feels better screwed together, and looks better in my opinion. The Tacoma was one of my two favourite things there, and I think I want one now. It has better visibility than any of the sedans or hatches, but doesn’t feel any bigger from the inside, it feels like the size that it is. Same with the 4Runner and the GX. Also the Forester, it was one of the only crossovers I sat in, but it had great visibility. Better than the Crosstrek, which resulted in it feeling smaller than the smaller Crosstrek.
Oh yeah and I checked out the JL. I was hoping they’d have a 2 door with a hardtop, but they only had 4 doors with the roofs off, so I couldn’t tell how good the visibility was. I know that lighter doors are a good thing, but they feel super cheap and easy to break, and are generally unsatisfying. The rep also wouldn’t leave me alone, so I didn’t check out as much as I wanted to. Same with Hyundai, I left pretty soon because they kept pestering me to enter a contest to win a Kona, no matter how many times I made it clear that I don’t even slightly want a Kona.
Now onto my other favourite thing there.
There was no regular Miata, but there was an RF, and I liked it a lot. It felt like the right size, the sills were a bit higher than I’d like, and the rear visibility is a bit impeded by the buttresses, but is a lot better than I expected. The clutch travel still wasn’t great, but if I could get used to that, I think I’d really, really enjoy an ND. It’s the only new car I’ve sat in, that isn’t a midsize pickup or SUV, that feels like the size that it is. I love the body colour trim on the inside of the doors, I like how the shifter feels, I like the steering wheel, I like the seat. I like pretty much the whole thing, too bad they’re way out of my price range.
I’m not surprised that sedans are dying, and truck sales are so good. If I’m going to be driving something that feels big, it might as well actually be big, and easy to see out of. Now I know that most of the crossovers have just as terrible visibility as sedans, so that I can’t explain. But pickups and traditional SUVs were pretty much the only things there that I was happy with the visibility of. Those, and the Miata.
TL:DR, went to the autoshow, sat in a bunch of stuff, I only like the Miata RF and the Tacoma. Maybe the 4Runner too.
Oh yeah I took a picture of this
Bonus parking lot Porsche
Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
> gmctavish needs more space
03/31/2018 at 20:54 |
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Did you get to see much of the V60? What did you think?
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gmctavish needs more space
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
03/31/2018 at 20:56 |
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Ah that was a typo. Sadly no V60, I meant XC60.
CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
> gmctavish needs more space
03/31/2018 at 20:56 |
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It was kinda meh overall.
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gmctavish needs more space
> CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
03/31/2018 at 20:59 |
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Yeah. It was nice to see the McLarens and the Koenigsegg, but that whole beginning section was so long and so much stuff I didn’t want to see. Also I wonder how much Lexus paid to have their special showroom that they were trying to herd people into before the main showroom
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CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever
> gmctavish needs more space
03/31/2018 at 21:30 |
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Yeah, the Lexus things were kinda overboard. The NX lounge with the 3 crossovers sitting there was tragic.
I liked Mazda’s display. The Mazda6 pacecar from Mission raceway, the 90's Miata. They also gave you a prize if you could prove you drove a Mazda which I liked. Got a pretty Mazda Cosmo poster.
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Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
> gmctavish needs more space
03/31/2018 at 22:36 |
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Also, am I wrong for thinking the Elantra GT looks pretty alright?
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gmctavish needs more space
> Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
03/31/2018 at 23:28 |
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You’re not wrong, at least I quite like how it looks. I wanted to like it more than I did, and maybe if it’s really fun to drive I’d like it more, but I like my Legacy better. It feels bigger than the Legacy, while being smaller and also had worse visibility, and the interior is a mixture of cheaper feeling plastic and then decent leather. Shifter seemed rubbery, but it’s hard to say without actually driving it. Of all the compacts I took a look at for “vaguely possible Legacy replacement someday”, the Elantra GT is the one I’d look at first. I think.
pip bip - choose Corrour
> gmctavish needs more space
04/01/2018 at 07:12 |
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did you steal that Civic?
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gmctavish needs more space
> pip bip - choose Corrour
04/01/2018 at 13:25 |
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No, it was auto, my want dissipated pretty quickly