Look above there; that’s a Family 10 model that features a luggage space that is “quite unique” in that you can’t access it from outside the car, because there is no trunk lid. Of course, this is something that you most likely have chosen, because, as the brochure tells you, it is “completely dust- and water-proof,” finally freeing you from the tyranny of damp, dusty luggage. That’s why you wouldn’t be caught dead driving a car with something as crass as a trunk that opened from the, ugh, outside, a place full of dust and water.
Of course, the brochure does grudgingly acknowledge “those who prefer to have their luggage accessible from outside the car,” a group I can only assume is populated exclusively by titled royalty used to such ostentatious decadence, but the brochure helps keep everything grounded with a detailed description of the tin round taillights (incorporating the self-cancelling direction indicator lights, just like a Rolls-Royce) and the “neat bumper bar.” Swanky! Our ’22 Rav4 Hybrid and a deer had a time/space continuum disagreement and the front left corner of it got smashed. Not enough to set off those explody things, but front bumper, headlight, etc. We are awaiting the vehicle getting out of the calibration shop and then detailed. Yes, there are apparently specialty shops for recalibrating those sensor gizmos after such a relatively minor crunch. Fortunately all of this is covered through our insurance (less reasonable deductible), but just the recalibration is $1400. The entire repair bill is close to $9000. Some, I’m sure, but not all. For most of us, myself included, it’s actually kind of a complicated tension between choice and necessity. Like, part of the reason we like “interesting” old cars is that it makes driving an old car a choice, whereas if it was something old and boring it would just be because we were poor. Not all of us all of the time to be sure, but that’s part of it. We justify the cheap, old, used cars that we drive because of whatever we think makes them special—pop-up headlights, an old-school mechanical transfer case, ease of DIY maintenance, a body style that’s out of fashion nowadays, whatever. When manufacturers make cheap new cars, they can use this to their advantage. The car featured here does it in a lazy and transparent way, but take a look at something like the new Maverick, with its fun, unapologetically plastic interior full of built-in mounting points for custom accessories. That’s a legitimately great way of making something cheap feel unique and characterful! Or even the Kia Soul, with its funky styling and excellent cargo space—it’s small and easy to handle, yet it can hold everything you need! Great work there, Kia. These are cars that are inexpensive, yet genuinely have some Unique Selling Propositions that will help a potential customer rationalize why this car is a choice and not a necessity. Done right, the customer doesn’t have to feel like they’re getting something second-rate because they can point to something good about their cheap car that other, more expensive cars don’t have. It makes people actually feel good about buying at the bottom of the market. I will happily admit that I am susceptible to this line of thinking myself—when I’m driving my Miata and see more expensive sports cars, some little part of me thinks, “Yeah, but they don’t have popup headlights/a convertible roof/a usable trunk/a manual transmission/whatever.” If I’d had more money, might I not be driving an S2000, or an F-type Jag, or a 911? Maybe. I don’t think about it that much though, because I love my little car, I love its character and spirit, and it’s mine. I have no trouble believing that it’s the right car for me, and if and when I come into more money I will probably just put it into making the Miata better rather than replacing it with something fancier. Anyway, I’m not sure if I really had a point there. It’s an interesting psychological phenomenon though, and if manufacturers serve it up right then even absolute anti-marketing curmudgeons like myself will eat it right up and ask for seconds. But it’s probably not a coincidence that I got this mentality right as I was starting to save money for a big life/career move. And every time someone ribs me for what essentially looks like a habit of collecting beat-up things, it stings just a little. Not because the commentary is wrong, or malicious, but because it lays bare the financial underpinnings of my decisions. Torch often laments the loss of “cheap and cheerful” as a design and marketing philosophy, and I agree with him. But I think you’ve gotten to the crux of why it has disappeared. We know we’re buying decontented items because we can’t afford anything nicer. We just don’t need the world reminding us of that. We have no trouble believing GM is mostly producing committee-designed vehicles homologated to a focus group. Like those horrendous ads from the last decade that actually strongly implied this and even that the focus group was actually stupider than we imagined. But we imagine Mazda as being run by a bunch of ex endurance racers, or recall that Ford sells quite successfully in Europe. So maybe it’s easier to talk ourselves into their lower-content models. All a man could ever aspire to. I can say first-hand that we disabled some of the ADAS features on my wife’s Mazda CX-5 (e.g., lane-keeping assist) because they were intrusive and disconcerting. But overall, I agree with your general sentiment that there are some cases where we may dislike certain features more as a air of “I don’t have a car with it, so it is useless.” My previous car did not have heated seats, and living in Texas, I thought it was a useless addition of cost and weight. My current car has them and I would miss it the feature if it isn’t in my next car (although, the way this year is going, there may not be many opportunities to use them). Even worse than this is “We survived without [feature X] for decades and turned out fine”, as if that is virtuous. It’s OK for things to get better over time! I wouldn’t trade the cars we have now for any other period of history. I am still far from convinced that we have mastered this technology to the point that it does not generate arguments between car and driver. Nobody wins those. I’m still at the point of eschewing automatic chokes for carburetors because I actually dislike them, so ADAS isn’t even in the picture. I rule out ADAS because it’s expensive to fix. I have no fucking interest or desire in replacing a daily driver every 3-4 years. Which means it’s going to break. I absolutely goddamn hate lane-keeping and lane-departure warning systems, but I can turn the obnoxious things off. (Motherfucker, I am merging. I HAVE to depart the goddamn lane.) It’s also buggy as fuck. Software. Is. Hard. Car software is even harder. And they get it wrong more than they get it right. And once it’s shipped? Fuck you. It’s shipped. And in a collision? I like being able to see at night. Headlight laws in the US are a total joke and make us far less safe. They also make the new LED shit both ineffective and horrifyingly expensive. My Porsche has PDLS with Xenon. Each headlight assembly is $2k. That’s less than a Volvo S60 ‘Hammer of Thor’ headlight. $2600 for blingy LEDs that thanks to the NHTSA are ineffective as hell. Oh wait, the control unit’s not included, that’s another $400. You also have to replace the headlight leveling sensors, $135 each. And then you have to reprogram them and it can only be done at the dealer. So that’s $3635. Per headlight. And of course, all your ADAS shit is up front too. $150 for your bumper harness, $400 in accelerometers, $300 in foglights, $300 in park assist sensors, $400 front camera, and the list goes on. Over $8k before you do paint. For a collision that deployed no airbags, caused no structural damage, just crushed the front bumper foam and cracked the headlights. That’s not sustainable. I KNOW what I want on a current vehicle. (Current to mean new.): I dont want safety driver bs. I want a paint color (not shit black, rental white or primer). I dont want a 5g innanet service. I dont want electric steering / brakes or drive by wire. I want Hydraulic steering and brakes! My wifes EGG.. is a perfect example of what I dont want. No auto headlights No screen of any kind No sat bs. No spying, tracking of any sort. I dont want a subscription service to my car. I want my car.. to do as I tell it. If I want to speed.. than I will do so. If I want to go into 3rd.. I will move the Clutch currectly. EVEN If I had half of the DOUGH in the world… I wouldnt buy a new car. Why? —– What do you get in a new car.. that you dont have now? Question is… why would someone want a new vehicle. Answer… Cause they dont give a damn. They just want a new car. Shit, I dont want. Shit, I dont need. Shit, I cant stand. Shit, that can go fuck itself Shit, I hate Shit, that does what the fuck it wants…. Is all shit… I dont need. And that’s before we even get into ridiculous things like piped in engine noise. Who wants that? Who needs that? Who the hell even asked for that? If it’s you, kindly punch yourself in the face for me. Ive also noticed.. my car is slower than Mollasses in Winter. If I am the fastest off the line.. it means everyone else is having their head down. P.S Even the Rentals I had as my car was in the shop… were poor. Ive driven / owned nothing but Hondas.. and the most recent spade.. is poor. It makes me mad as a person. It made me sad and feel pathetic as a human being. It reduces my abilities as a DRIVER in a new car from someone who is capable down to a wet sock. And even though I had 2 rentals.. one was a HRV, other was a base Silverado 4dr, I still hate the Honda. I just hate the Silverado more, even with the meaty burnout I did (and the ruined driveshaft I picked it up with — have pictures.) In short… New cars SUCK more cock than a new Hooker! Also no wing mirrors as the crazy Brits would say. But by some Sol Hobromowitzensteinberg IMPORTER dude?@! Are you trying to tell me.. the same thing goes for his STRAIGHT from the Nose-Candy White Factory Testarossa? OH GOD DAMN! A Speedo, eh thats buillshit. All ya really need is a TACH to figure out what rpms the motor is spinning at (then again, ya could just roll down the window and listen to the motor). Then again, I like to know what temperature the motor is at. Same goes for coolant, battery.. ya know basic stuff. Edward (Chief engineer): “My team can design exterior access to the boot. No problem” Alfred (Chief accountant): “Yeah, but that pair of boot lifts and hinges cost us 2 quid a pop last time” Earnest (Boss): “That settles it. No rear access. William you’ve got some work to do to sell this baby” William (Chief Advertising Executive): “Blood ‘ell. I guess I’ll tell ’em to go with “completely dust- and water-proof” again (as he makes Air-quotes with hands) Lots of raucous laughter ensues. Boss: “Good meeting boys, lets open the good Sherry this time” Ford’s since gone to “S” which sounds so much more sexy, and the average person to whom you’re talking might not even figure out you have the base model. But “I have a Taurus GL” wouldn’t fool anyone, ever. My favorite though in terms of trying to pretend that a given trim level isn’t the base (or that a car isn’t a watered-down version of a more expensive model in the lineup) is “Sport.” What the hell is sporty about a base-model Wrangler or a squared-off Escape? Who buys a Range Rover Sport for any reason other than that they couldn’t afford the full-beef Range Rover? It’s been going on for long enough that I feel like there must be some kind of history there. I’d love to know how that got started, because it makes no sense at all. So I think that a lot of manufacturers still think of “sports cars” as being stripped out for fun, and therefore call the base models the “Sport”. I’d buy it if they offered fun stuff on the Sport, like cool colors or something, but it defeats the purpose of being cheap. (case in point was the last couple of years of NC Miata, which had three trim levels, sport, club, and GT, and the sportiest one is the Club! All the sports equipment without the weight of leather and electronic gubbins) Those were also 2-door fastbacks. It seems Standard was alone in doing this postwar with full 3-box notchback styling, which could only be done on a 4-door car seen here. The notch made folding the seat mandatory – no access from above while kneeling on the back seat – but at least made for more direct one-person access to the trunk. But it does leave the question, why didn’t Standard do what everyone else was doing and offer 2 or 4 doors, both with external trunk lids? Once you’ve factored for the folding rear seat and external spare-tire access, the cost to build couldn’t have been much of a difference. “Because work-life balance is important, this position does not come with any vacation days.” “Your health is important, so anything beyond the legal minimum number of sick days is a complete nonstarter.” “Because we care about your financial future, we will be contributing fuck-all to your 401(k).” Place was run like shit and the rules changed often. Employer before that.. I used to crap 3x a day without eating ANYTHING. If my job performance was unsatisfactory to my boss’.. it would drive me to shit. (Then again, that was a commission position.) List of features reminds me of the sales pitch for the Carnivale TV – premolded hand grips, two-prong wall plug, durable outer casing to prevent fall-apart
