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I heartily agree modern cars look horrible. My daily driver looks horrible and it is by many considered to be "great design" (an Alfa Giulietta QV). However,
by bborud 5y ago
I heartily agree modern cars look horrible. My daily driver looks horrible and it is by many considered to be "great design" (an Alfa Giulietta QV).
However, I grew up with SAABs. I hated the things. :-)
When I was a kid it was the only thing that made me car-sick, and when I started driving I couldn't stand the horrible front end feel. It felt like driving an old man's boxer shorts.
I love old cars though. Especially old Alfa Romeos. I currently have a homologation special from 1987 (The 75 Evo) and I've owned several 75s and a GTV from 1982. Yeah, old Alfas aren't reliable. And stuff just stops working for no good reason. In fact the dash of my Evo has a reset button. It is worn. Every time I brake hard the warning lights go into 1970s disco mode. You know what? I don't mind. Because it smells like a car, sounds like it means business, looks like a car, handles like a car, and it doesn't have opinions on how it is supposed to be driven. (Well, the Evo tries to kill you with its crazy 80s turbo boost, explosive horsepower delivery and no toys to rein it in, but hey, it makes you feel alive!)
- UomoNeroNero 5y agoHow do I understand you. I kept a girlfriend for a long time because her father lent us his Alfa 75 Quadrifoglio. I have never driven anything more wonderful. The pleasure of those carburetors. The driving precision. I live in the mountains, every trip was a driving orgasm
- sgt 5y agoYeah...Our family changed from Saabs to BMW at some point (back when BMW was still cool and not something literally everyone owns), and I started getting less carsick. The Saab was pretty cool but they really didn't need to do everything different only to be different. Some things were just plain weird.
- vanviegen 5y agoLiterally everyone owns a BMW? That's quite a bubble you're living in!
- technothrasher 5y agoThey do in certain parts. Here in the greater Boston area, the roads are littered with leased BMW and Audi SUVs.
- brimble 5y ago"The Census ACS 1-year survey reports that the median household income for the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Massachusetts metro area was $94,430 in 2019, the latest figures available. Boston median household income is $8,587 higher than the median Massachusetts household income and $28,718 greater than the US median household income."
- CobaltFire 5y agoWhere I grew up (in the 90s) they were known as “Basic Marin Wheels” so there are places where it’s almost the default.
- ethbr0 5y agoCan confirm there's a lot of cities it's true of. I bought a Hyundai/Genesis simply because I didn't want to be a BMW person.
- onetokeoverthe 5y ago
- nextos 5y agoThe problem is that most cars have lost their distinct personality due to brands consolidating into large conglomerates, and subsequently developing platforms to reduce costs. I love old brands with models that stood out, and it's a shame that originality in engineering has been mostly replaced by assembling components together plus some minor aesthetic tweaks. I guess the situation is fairly similar to programming, where SICP has been replaced by gluing libraries together in Python. Perhaps it's a sign of maturity, but I miss some stuff from the past.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoHow about the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1LxlZ8pTRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1LxlZ8pTRg
- ryandrake 5y agoIt’s sad. Every new car today looks like the same identical “bar of soap with wheels.” They are differentiated visually by small things like grille shape and lighting clusters. Everyone blames it on fuel economy and safety features but I think that simply no manufacturer is willing to be daring anymore, and they have trained their customers to like boring design. Even colors: you rarely see anything but white, black, gray, red, and blue.
- technothrasher 5y ago> it is by many considered to be "great design" (an Alfa Giulietta QV). Is it? Lol, they're about the only new cars selling for under MSRP around here these days. I was drooling over a beautiful white 1967 Duetto spider the other day though. What a pretty old thing that is, and sounds so nice too.
- BobbyJo 5y agoAlfa's are probably selling under MSRP because of reliability, not looks. They are definitely pretty cars, they are just also very Italian.
- yelling_cat 5y agoI like fast sedans and find the Giulia to be one of the few really attractive cars sold these days, so when the high-end Quadrifoglio version came to the States I put my misgivings about Alfas aside long enough to strongly consider one as my last ICE car. I came to my senses after at least two of the prominent reviews at release described going through multiple vehicles as their initial review cars died. Car and Driver's 40,000-Mile Wrap-Up of their experience with the car (https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a23145269/alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio-reliability-update/ https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a23145269/alfa-romeo-gi...) said the QF "broke their heart" and lists a litany of issues, with the car out of commission for 80 days out of the 14 months they spent with it. They did say the car's an absolute blast to drive when it actually works, at least.
- bborud 5y agoModern Alfas are about as reliable as german cars these days, so reliability issues are more myth than fact. That being said, German cars aren't as reliable as Japanese cars. The real problem isn't reliability but shitty dealer networks. Alfa have a knack for finding dealership networks that think it's great fun to have them in the showroom to pull people in, but aren't terribly interested in selling them or doing a good job servicing them. My tip is to never use the dealership for servicing your vehicles (of any brand). Find a garage that has competent people, and who have respect for the work, and then pick whatever cars they are competent to work on. You don't want to spend a lot of money on a car only to have a bunch of underpaid teenagers who can only follow a manual work on your car.
- SahAssar 5y agoI'm not a car guy at all, but to me the Alfa Giulietta QV looks like a veyron mated with a renault and the child got the worst of both.
- bborud 5y agoYou mean the Renault 5 or the Megane? I happen to like both. I've driven the Megane on two of the coolest tracks in the world and the spicy versions are a hoot and a half. However, the Renault 5 Turbo 2, now that is a thing I desire: https://youtu.be/B2HjCrnr-NE https://youtu.be/B2HjCrnr-NE
- xattt 5y ago> When I was a kid it was the only thing that made me car-sick, and when I started driving I couldn't stand the horrible front end feel. I got easily carsick as a child but don't see the same effect in my kids. I am wondering if it is partly the result of more conservative uses of vinyl as an interior material. The smell of that in the summer would make my hair stand on end...
- drcongo 5y agoI once owned a bright orange 1975 Alfa Sud, it was absolutely beautiful to look at but hell to maintain. I got a flat once, jacked it up and the chassis just bent. I've had a few Saab 900s over the years too and loved everything about every one of them.