Cars used to be made to get you somewhere. Now they cost 4 times as much and are full of government-mandated surveillance equipment and random gadgets that are expensive to fix when they break. And they’re twice as heavy.
The only thing that’s gotten better is safety.
I miss when cars were cars
Honesty the best era for cars is around 2003-2016 depending on the manufacturer. The older ones from around 2008 or so are especially good.
What government mandated surveillance equipment are you referring to?
From 7 July, all new cars and vans sold in the EU must pack a fresh batch of safety features, including infrared cameras that watch the driver’s face.
Exactly what I was referring to. Along with GPS tracking that alerts you if you’re going over the speed limit. Totally won’t be used for anything else, right?
The government mandates all telecommunications to be intercepted and and monitored. Car manufacturers willingly installed celluar modems in their cars for OTA updates and their own data tracking reasons… therefore, the government has surveillance equipment in your car.
Also the EU mandated driver monitoring so you can’t even drive tired anymore (yay for repression), at least let me drive home from work.
Thats mandated in the US aswell, suppose to be implemented by 2030.
Maybe not govt mandated, but used by the governments. New cars have infotainment with GPS trackers, cameras etc. Toyota and Teslas were the worse from a year or two ago for selling your data to companies, especially insurance companies.
A week ago alstate data came out that they paid millions to many apps for your phone to track you like life360, gasbuddy and so on.
Don’t get me started on TVs. Watch gamers nexus on LG TVs. They store 4gb of data including audio, screenshots - even if it’s not connected to the internet. Doctor’s offices, companies or other places that rely on hipa or trade secrets have these TVs sitting around.
Your wifi routers uses beam forming to track you around your house and can be accurate enough to make out complex shapes like faces.
Anyways, I came here to say I have the same generation a4 avant with the 3.2l, I think b7. Just the right loudness exhaust from factory when you floor it and at right rpms it reverberates like a super car because of the vvt.
Now they cost 4 times as much
Pricing on cars with similar features and performance have been going up slower than general inflation, but as you mention they keep increasing the features/performance of the base models.
When I was really getting into cars in the 90’s, it seemed like the base models of economy brands were pretty barebones. But over time what previously was optional became standard: air conditioning, automatic transmission, power locks/windows, floor mats, a decent car stereo, cruise control, etc.
And the things that used to differentiate luxury brands/models just became standard over time: traction control, good acceleration/handling, clear coat over the paint, rust resistance. In the 90’s, it was still possible to buy a vehicle that took more than 10 seconds to accelerate to 60mph (~100km/h).
And of course, a bunch of safety stuff became standard in large part because of regulation: airbags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, backup cameras. And fuel efficiency has gotten much better on the engineering side, for any given level of performance and vehicle weight. Emissions have similarly improved by regulation.
So cars have gotten so much better, while basically getting more expensive slightly slower than general inflation. So it’s hard to compare apples to apples between decades.
“we ought to be driving flying cars by now” :D
20 year old video game in my head:
20 year old video game in reality:
Mass effect is 19 years old.
No it isn’t. Can’t be more than 5 years old.
My nephew was telling me about how he dusted off his old console and laughed at how bad the games looked. He was of course talking about his PS3.
One of these days I need to sit him down and subject him to some early 3d games like Battle Arena Toshinden or FFVIII to give him some real pizza-face perspective.
The PS3 is of that era where there was huge hype at the time about how realistic the graphics were (deservedly, to be fair) but when you look at it historically the shortcomings are all too clear, and it’s almost comical.
Games on older consoles couldn’t gun for realism the same way, and so they ironically look better now in retrospect because they just come across as having a particular style of their own.
Even on consoles like the ps1 the games that chased “cutting edge” graphics look so much worse than games that had distinct art styles.
True. There’s always that subset and it kinda looks good, but only for a moment in time.
Some of them did go for realism.
Persian Gulf Inferno was almost banned for being too realistic…
This shit was on the index in Germany for “inciting violence in players” 😅
The first 3D game I ever played looked like this:
3d monster maze calling in.
Such a good game and in 16k of RAM
I will say that with a handful of exceptions the PS3 generally looks worse than the 360, for example Infamous and MGS4 still hold up well enough but Red Dead Redemption does look a good bit rougher on the PS3.
I vote you include sonic 3-d. That game makes me throw up with how they made the 3d effect.
early 3d
Show him Jumping Flash! and see if he can even make sense of it.
I expected to see Zelda Ocarina of Time in the second picture 💀
Been playing Twilight Princess on Dusklight android and it’s amazing. Can’t believe it’s 20 years old.
Though retro is so popular that lots of modern games still look like the 90s…
I submit as the most wince-worthy example of 20 year old console game graphics:
Fuck
In 20 more years old cars will look like the first picture, because of planned obsolescence.
That audi is around 2008-2011 (15-18yrs), but one gen before that, yes 20 years old.
And cars don’t really age that terribly anymore (at least the 1.9 TDI era). My 2002 golf is (if we ignore the reliability and the swimming pools) way better than the newer 1.6 TDIs I’ve sat in, and it will probably outlast them.
The swimming pools…? Did I miss a scandal or something?
Water in my boot door. Great.
It actually leaks trough the adhesive between the glass and metal. Not really enjoyable. It sounds like a swimming pool on every road except the highways. Will have to add some silicone (or putty) to hopefully stop it (since glass reattachments are expensive.
Also: it’s the car of the Dieselgate era. Those are (in my opinion) the strongest and most reliable diesels ever made. Maybe VW was onto something when cheating the emission tests (well probably they could just add better filters, which would make them less money), but that doesn’t make the cars bad.
I have seen Honda motors that will continue kicking well into 400,000 miles
I think car manufacturers are mildly screwed as the old cars are way overbuilt
Wow, I heard of Hondas. In the EU, the VW 1.9 TDIs are known for lasting into the similar teritories. But mine is under 200.000Kms and will probably rot away before reaching high mileage. But if I can, I’ll keep it good as long as I can.
I love the styling cars had circa 2000. This whole “let’s make cars look like futuristic tanks” thing lately is not it
I blame ford pickup trucks for that. Did you keep getting bigger and the front end keeps getting flatter. Eventually they’re going to be so high up you’ll be able to run over small trees without noticing.
you’ll be able to run over small
treeschildren without noticing.
Back when they cared about aerodynamics.
A6 C5 is a timeless design. Even Škodas used it somewhere early 2010s. Just an unbeatable form.
That is an A4
I know. And this is b7. Kinda like discounted c6.
But C5 is just unbeatable. Perfection in its own. Interestingly, b5 is also quite a nice design but unfortunately only from outside. Interior was bit late and had to catch up. C5’s interior was ahead of its time.
It’s strange to live in a time where things change so much on the scale of a decade or two. Most of human existence was much more consistent. Multiple generations could come and go without much changing but the seasons.
Yeah, it’s wild. If you were going about your day around 1400ish, you were practically doing it the same way as your folks did it around 1100ish, or even 800ish.
Essentially, for the majority of human existence we were hunter gatherers. So no massive cultural or technological changes on the scale of decades or years.
The wild thing is to go on Google Street view, which feels like a relatively new feature but it was actually been around for a very long time, use the historical images function and go back and look at how old, and small, the cars seem.
I remember when they publicly released that and people were freaking out there were pictures of their house and backyard online.
I still consider electric windows to be futuristic show-off fluffery, despite not having actually seen manual winders in a few years.
It would be interesting to see a timeline of when certain features became standard. For example, pushing a button to start a car instead of turning a key. That still seems new to me, even though I’ve driven some cars with that feature that were old enough to be falling apart.
I used some the other day and it felt so much better.
I’m reading this while sitting in a rather new electric Renault Zoë where the windows in the back are manual!
It’s hilarious to me how many people are shitting their beds over the Slate pickup coming with crank windows.
All my homies hate repairing window regulators
I’ve never once had to repair power windows in the 20 some years I’ve owned cars.
lucky so and so. every fuckin car, from fuckers bouncing off the car while it’s parked.
i’m a car wreck magnet. of the 20ish car “accidents” i’ve been in, i was in the passenger seat eating lunch for like 15 of them (you lose track after like number seven) i’m not the best data point
Done it on a '04 Subaru, absolute pain in the ass that needs two people. Meanwhile the cranks on my '95 Mazda continue to function completely fine.
We have manual winders. (We down graded our car on purpose for cheaper repairs)
I prefer winders for the front. No need for key in accessory position, and fine control.
Back is tricky
Electric windows go really poorly with that other pair of modern features, turney-offey-when-you-stoppey-engine (that’s the technical name) and button-make-engine-go-not-turney-key.
I was in a car recently where I forgot to close the sunroof, and there didn’t seem to be a way to close the sunroof without re-starting the engine.
my daily driver is a 2015 wrangler with crank windows. 158k. automatic transmission. only “big” fixes were oil cleaned housing and the latest was last month, radiator broke its seal on bottom. simple swap.
Fact: every year of the 90s was exactly 10 years ago and always will be.
I’m not quite sure that’s how it works
I’m telling you, it is!
Wanna feel old? The moon landing was in 1969, that’s 57 years ago from 2026, the halfway year is 1997…
Crap, the time between when the moon landing happened and when I was born (late 80s), is smaller than the gap between 9/11 and today.
And it always will be, by an ever-widening margin.
… I think I gotta lie down
For me anything with 19’ in it is a long time ago. It was the time I was a kid, still growing up, and that’s seems so long ago.
That audi design aged like wine
Boxy cars looked the best.
Lancia Delta
Citroën AX
Honda CRX
Ford Escort
Postman Pat’s Van
VW Golf gen 1-3
80s cavalier z24?
Third-gen Camaro while we’re at it. And the equivalent Firebird.
I learned to drive stick in an e30 BMW. I have a real soft spot for boxy 80s cars.
I love my manual 2015 Fit. Over 212k miles and still going strong. I bought it a few months ago. 1 owner before me. Had to put a little work into it but it was all general maintenance stuff (brakes and a bad fuel injector). Not quite 20 years old but still.
Just did a road trip in the same generation jazz, because my 25 year old car shit the bed on the day of departure. Great little car, that is deceptively spacious. Although that 1.3L engine with 3 of us in the car really struggled sometimes, especially on mountain passes.
The fit is gaining a lot of popularity as of late
Is it any good in the snow? I think it might be dangerous in the winter due to it being lightweight
lightweight cars are fine in the winter. just get snow tires and drive well
source: drove a Tercel in the winter for years, did it later on with a Yaris as well
I dislike heavier cars because they have so much more momentum. hard to change direction with little traction and you run into things with more energy. little cars you can just spin the wheels, find some traction, and go where you’re pointing.
I drove a Tercel through many Canadian winters. It’s lightweight but it’s a 65/35 split, 65% of the weight over the front wheels so it really helps with traction. It did well in the snow.
Yeah, I had a Honda Civic and I think it was similar. Front wheel drive in a lightweight car with the weight over the front wheels makes it easy to drive in slippery conditions. But, it probably also helped that it had manual transmission.
Agree to the other guy next to me. Light cars are no bad in snow. Just wear winter tires. No all season crap.
And actually lighter cars sometimes are even better in the snow. They usually have thinner tires as for example a heavy suv. More pressure on thinner area. More space for snow and walter to flee towards.
Also because of the heavy weight of suvs and such such heavy cars are more likely to slidder. Just imagine a wet floor in a shop. Now imagine yourself as a kid sliding over it and how far you would go. Now imagine the same as an full grown adult - but with the same speed. You will go further. Wayy further.
Also if you have suuuper much snow under your tires - lets say you slided and went off the road into a field that has tons of snow.
Your small car wont weigh down in the snow that much. Making it not sink that much. Wich makes the chance higher that you will be able to recover/drive back to the road by yourself higher.
All around lighter car? Better for winter.
Yellow hatchback club 💛
I bought a 2014 Swift Sport but the CVT had too much distance and was clearly a time bomb. Moved it on but loved driving a non-monochrome car so much, I ended up with a slightly newer model with a normal torque converter (ZC33S) and still in yellow at 1/6th the distance.
manual 2006 yellow ford focus hatchback, here
I’ve always heard CVTs were a bit of a gamble. The manual was a challenge to find, but the upside was that most people were looking for automatics anyway, so the few manuals I found weren’t getting a ton of clicks. I was originally looking to get a Civic hatchback, but they were too old and there were too many half-baked project cars.
Those Swift hatchbacks are killer! I love Suzukis. My friend in high school had one of those little 90s Vitaras. We would ride to the beach in it to go surfing. So much fun to whip around town in.
My wife and I are both all in on the anti-monochrome club. Our other vehicle is a 2021 Kia Sorento turbo AWD in sapphire blue. The colors compliment each other nicely in the driveway 😂
I understand now, when my dad said, “I don’t know, they all look alike to me.”
