Is it just me or are cars getting worse by the day?

[Daniel]

I think I'm going to get some flack for this but here goes :p

Is it just me or are cars in just about every class getting worse in more ways than one. If it's not terrible to drive, overpriced, badly built or just plain ugly it's naff.

Take this Mini for instance. By all accounts new Mini's are terrific cars and are a hoot to drive. But where's the style in driving something that was good back in the 50's/60's and then someone thought it would be good to revive the name so they put the car on a weight gaining diet and ended up with something that looks like a pudgey version of the old car. When Sir Alec Issigonis was designing the original Mini he didn't look at 40 something year old designs and build something retro. No..... he built something that was thoroughly modern and broke boundaries and made something that stayed in peoples hearts for years and years. Why is it so hard for current manufacturers to think of something new and build it? Are people simply too lazy? Or do we live in an age where the only car designers are talentless morons capable of nothing more than smoothing out an old design and passing it off as a new one.

Now isn't this car just ridiculous? The original mini was about 60cm shorter than the current one and weighed about half of what the new one does and didn't have a stupid spoiler and the rest.

http://www.autoclub.com.au/uploaded_images/mini-cooper-s-works-gp-784119.jpg

Don't get me started on how naff and pointless modern stupidcars like the Verywrong which requires 370 odd horsepower just to go a mere 13mph quicker than the McLaren F1 which did 240 with only "627". To put that into perspective the Verywrong has over 1.5 times the power of the F1 but only goes about 5% faster. I know people (like Jeremy Clarkson) will go on about it being faster but 13 mph is nothing on a 200+mph car unless you're playing top trumps. Ok so it's a triumph of engineering but Americans have been putting stupidly powerful engines in bad chassis' and have been making fast cars for ages and the Europeans have laughed at them for the last 50 years because of it. Not sure what makes the Verywrong any better than a Corvette. Then there's the weight problem which all modern cars seem to have. The McLaren weighed in at 1138 and the Verywrong weighs in at 1888 which to me shows that rather than engineering a car that's better than all others in every way they simply got lazy and gave it more power and then found out they needed 4wd then and that they needed more power to lug the 4wd system around and then bigger brakes to stop it and so on. Maybe it's just me but a car that's built purely to be faster than any car before it is just a bit pointless :mark:

Is there anything you want to get off your chest about modern car design? :p

[Rollo]

KE=1/2mv^2
to go 2mph faster requires 4 times the power than to go 1mph faster.

1. Cars these days are sculpted by the wind tunnel and so they'll all slowly progess to teardrops of to reduce the cD even futher.
2. There are more lardbucket drivers than there were 60 years ago. Cars need to be wider, taller and bigger seats in.
3. Safety standards and design regs increasingly require side intrusion bars, airbags and seatbelts. These things also take up space and couple with point 2 take up more space than if they'd been introduce 60 years ago.
4. To justify the increases in price, cars need extra stuff in them like CD players, sunroofs, cupholders, rear shades. Also apply point two.

One day these will all be negated by two big facts:
1. no petrol
2. we'll all be lardbuckets and won't be able to move off the couch and therefore won't need a car

Or else you could blame it all on communism, thatcherism or terrorism - they've all worked in the past :D

[Daniel]

KE=1/2mv^2
to go 2mph faster requires 4 times the power than to go 1mph faster.

I understand this law of physics to a certain extent ;)

I just think that Bugatti should have given themselves a budget of 800bhp at most and then tried to get the car to 250mph if that was their goal.

I've always seen top speed as a fairly pointless thing. It's great if you drive to work on the nardo speedbowl I guess but it's nothing more than a number once you start getting about 180mph really innit?

[Powered by Cosworth]

The Veyron Can go faster, but it's limited because at a certain speed the tyres shred thus causing an accident at 260mph.

And it's not all about top speed, the Veyron (apparantly) Handles extremely well. Plus its acceleration is crazy fast.

[janneppi]

I think I'm going to get some flack for this but here goes :p

Is it just me or are cars in just about every class getting worse in more ways than one. If it's not terrible to drive, overpriced, badly built or just plain ugly it's naff.

Take this Mini for instance. By all accounts new Mini's are terrific cars and are a hoot to drive. But where's the style in driving something that was good back in the 50's/60's and then someone thought it would be good to revive the name so they put the car on a weight gaining diet and ended up with something that looks like a pudgey version of the old car. When Sir Alec Issigonis was designing the original Mini he didn't look at 40 something year old designs and build something retro. No..... he built something that was thoroughly modern and broke boundaries and made something that stayed in peoples hearts for years and years. Why is it so hard for current manufacturers to think of something new and build it? Are people simply too lazy? Or do we live in an age where the only car designers are talentless morons capable of nothing more than smoothing out an old design and passing it off as a new one.

Now isn't this car just ridiculous? The original mini was about 60cm shorter than the current one and weighed about half of what the new one does and didn't have a stupid spoiler and the rest.

Aren't you the guy who was dancing around that awful prototype Stratos like it was a pole in a strip club few months ago?
Consistency man, consistency! :p :

[Daniel]

True :p

[jim mcglinchey]

[quote="Rollo"]KE=1/2mv^2
to
2. There are more lardbucket drivers than there were 60 years ago. Cars need to be wider, taller and bigger seats in.

2. we'll all be lardbuckets and won't be able to move off the couch and therefore won't need a car

Good point. I noticed when I was at a transport museum how narrow the staircases and seats in the old vehicles were compared to modern day trams, buses etc. Alot of it would be down to the travelling publics comfort expectations, but alot of it would also be down to the general increase in girth of the masses. Just shows you.

[LotusElise]

All the more reason for the "obesity epidemic" to be tackled?

[Daniel]

And it's not all about top speed, the Veyron (apparantly) Handles extremely well. Plus its acceleration is crazy fast.

Yes but that's my point. Once you go past a certain top speed and acceleration it's pointless. Unless there's another Verywrong next to you and your penis is too small to take being beaten or for the blonde in the passenger to get in the other guys car because yours is slower.

For me the problem is a fundemental lack of style. Look at the Miura, 288 GTO and such other great supercars. They're simply beautiful regardless of the badge they wear. Now it seems that cars become gorgeous because of the badge they wear or because of their performance figures.

http://ferrari.bg2.org/img/288_GTO_1.jpg

[LotusElise]

Veeerrry nice!
Is that picture from the Classic Car Show at the NEC this year?

[Daniel]

Not sure. Just came from google :)

[janneppi]

I don't think Veyron should be put into the supercar category, it's not really designed as such. It's more of showcase what you can achieve with modern technology, and nowadays you can make a 1000hp/1000N car that you auntie Hilda could drive to the shops. That wasn't possible 20 years ago.

If it were 1986, we'd have Daniel complaining how the new Fefe 288 looks rubbish compared to the older models. ;)

[Daniel]

No :p I'd have been going ga ga ga goo goo goo :p I was only 3 at the time! :p

[luvracin]

Is it just me or are cars in just about every class getting worse in more ways than one. If it's not terrible to drive, overpriced, badly built or just plain ugly it's naff.


It's just you. :p

How about joining the rest of us incompetant automotive engineers in the auto industry and doing something about it then??

[Rollo]

For me the problem is a fundemental lack of style. Look at the Miura, 288 GTO and such other great supercars. They're simply beautiful regardless of the badge they wear. Now it seems that cars become gorgeous because of the badge they wear or because of their performance figures.

I refer to my first post in this thread.



1. Cars these days are sculpted by the wind tunnel and so they'll all slowly progess to teardrops of to reduce the cD even futher.

I bet that the 2006 Honda Civic presents less drag that the 288 GTO. Does it make it any more stylish? Probably not.

Ferrari have had some bloody ugly cars as well like th Superamerica, the 246 Dino and that god awful 412 sedan thing of the late 70s.

Styling is a fairly hit and miss affair that's governed by a lot of rules, and those rules get more complex as cartain factors (see above) also get more complex.

I very much doubt that a BMC Mini if designed in 2006 would pass many deisng standards. If it did you'd probablt see such a beat in Japan as a Keicar and then you'd complain that it was all too small anyway.

[Zico]

Quite right Daniel, Another thing that I can never make sense of is when a manufacturer brings out a newer model they make sure it has the largest boot capacity in its class etc, etc, after several succesive newer models it has become so big, heavy and Lardy that they need to design a new small car to fill the void.

The VW Golf is a prime example, look at the size of it now!

[Daniel]

Yes. The GTi started in 1982 with 112 bhp and 840kg and steadily got fatter and more powerful and even though the new one is nearly twice as powerful and weighs about two thirds more. Can you say "What's the point??????"

[bowler]

Is it just me or are cars in just about every class getting worse

It's just you Daniel.

Sadly I have been around for a few more years, and I can vividly recall the garbage dealt to motorists years ago.

In perspective it was then possibly as good as could have been done given the conditions of the time, but compared with today's cars, they are sadly lacking.

A romantic nostalgic view of how things were does not balance up with the reality of the quality of today's cars.

The compliance standards that have to be met today are hugely greater than in the past, and these standards, plus modern demands: CD players, air conditioning, crash standards, seat belts etc etc make cars today a much better experience than those of previous years, on balance.

A hyundai getz (chosen as a car that receives a fair bit of flack albeit unjustified in many ways) is a million miles better than an original mini. Not to take anything away from a mini in it's day as it wasa fundamental leap forward, but it does not rate against today's cars.

We have never had such a good range of cars to choose from. Sadly the ease of driving the modern car has created a world of useless drivers, and that may be a better place to direct your criticism.

I have owned and driven lots of older cars, and have collected a few. Recently I cleared out all the old stuff when I realised it was just too much hard work driving rubbish, no matter how pretty it may look.

[Daniel]

Fair enough :p Just that I would gladly take a rust free example of my 504 GL over most modern cars :)

[Donney]

The thing I don't like about modern cars, apart from styling which I generally find dull, is the excess of electronic aids. We are leading a path where the ultimate goal is the car driving the person instead of the other way around. I think we are relying too much on the machine abilities to sort problems and it is creating a crop of idiotic drivers uncapable of predicting the car and of reacting when something happens.

(Not that I'm a great driver, but anyway)

And another thing, why the green concept cars are all ugly?

[jim mcglinchey]

Personally I would prefer it if all cars were controlled by satellite. Assuming it was a good system of course, then we wouldn't have the carnage on the roads caused by idiot drivers.

[ShiftingGears]

Whered the fun in that be?

[555-04Q2]

Whered the fun in that be?

Getting home alive and in one piece ;)