Blog Tag: car

7 auto trends that need to go

Have you jumped into a car, or been driving along and questioned what the hell the car makers must have been thinking? 

Here are our picks for the auto trends that absolutely need to go!

Beeps and bongs

Why do car makers think we need to be reminded about everything going on in the car, every second of every journey?

 

A beep to say you’ve unlocked the car, a beep to say you’ve opened the door, a beep to remind you that OH MY GOD YOU’VE STARTED THE CAR AND HAVEN’T PUT YOUR SEAT BELT ON YET, another beep because you’re passenger hasn’t either.

 

What’s worse, is when there’s a beep and bong to tell you about something, when that something is more obvious than the beep!

 

Beep beep beep! You’re door’s open! Oh really! I didn’t notice the breeze and gaping hole in my car where my closed door used to be.

 

Granted, sometimes this is just because the door is only half closed, but we’ve all been there. Ever been rolling along as someone says, “is there a door open?” and 99 times out of 100 there is. This is a sixth sense we develop as drivers. We don’t need a fu**ing BONG!

 

If you really want to assault your ears, go a sit in any late-model Ford, with the door open, the engine started and no seat belt on. They’re one of the worst culprits.

Big grills

Next up and no relation to Bear Grylls, it’s big grills. Remember that trend in the early 2000s where big puffy skate shoes were a thing normal people wore on the regular? Big grills are the automotive equivalent of that.

 

Lexus has turned the gaping knob up to 11, BMWs used to be sexy, but now many of their grills look like the designers used a fun house mirror rather than paper to sketch on, and look at the new Bentley Mulliner, it’s more grill than a car. We get that cars need air, but we have eyes and you’re hurting them.

Lazy design

Whoever said that exhaust tips, real or fake MUST be featured in the rear bumper design? It’s one thing when they are fake surrounds to an actual exhaust, but why bother if the exhaust ends up out of sight inside the bumper?! Even fake rear diffusers are a lesser offender here but either way…get more creative!

 

Then there are engine bays, gone are the days of designers putting some thought into how engine bays look, now apparently it’s fine to just cover up whatever rats nest of hoses and cables they’ve tangled together, wack a plastic engine cover over it and call it a day. So lazy!

 

And look we know with more consumer-focussed cars, these manufacturers need to attract as many customers as possible, hence the lack of risky or polarising designs being produced, but now we’ve ended up with nearly every SUV looking like a slight remix of the previous SUV.

 

Even crazier is when you look at some of the most in demand models, the Jimny, the Wrangler, the 70 Series LandCruiser and the G63, see a trend there car companies, they’re all boxy and robust looking nuggets, you want to sell more SUVs, make them look tough, not conservative.

Touchscreens

Now, this is less about the screens themselves, and more about what operations manufacturers put inside them.

 

Having big screens is a great addition to the car world. They’re awesome for interfacing with things like navigation, telemetry and controlling your smartphone.

 

But we have no idea why car makers have assumed we must want to perform every single possible function through a screen.

 

Actually…we do know why, it’s cheaper! What do you think costs more? Designing a physical switch, that needs a specific spot in the dash, usually accompanied by a cluster of 10 other switches, all with moving parts, all of which have to be designed, engineered, tested and manufactured, Or, writing a simple piece of code, ONCE, then just adding that to the car’s software.

 

Please, please, please! Bring back buttons, no one complained about them in the past, ok yes some cars like Porsches and Volvos drew criticism for having too many, but we didn’t mean to get rid of all of them! At the very least, please let us control the volume and air con with actual physical knobs!!

People buying excessive cars to stroke their ego.

Next up, and this is going to upset many of you, the trend that needs to go, is people buying vehicles with immense capabilities that never ever, EVER come close to using the vehicle for what it was intended to do.

 

You know who you are…You’re the Ford Ranger Raptor driver, who has never seen an incline greater than you’d find in your local shopping centre car park.

 

You’re the Range Rover or AMG G63 owner, where the closest you’ve come to getting the car dirty is your privately-educated 10-year old putting their dirty school bag on the white leather seats.

 

You’re the Porsche GT3 or Ferrari owner that only ever visits one track, and that’s your ongoing track record of executing yet another midlife crisis.

 

These cars are often such enormous compromises and so gratuitously excessive in the real world. They cost more to buy, more to own, more to insure and as is generally the case with many European luxury cars, more to fix.

 

Often the high price tag is due to the millions and millions of dollars being spent on R&D, so the car can do things that most of their owners simply don’t possess the balls or the skills to do.

 

But look, it’s not for us to tell you how to spend your money, or how to express yourself. If you can afford a G63 or Lamborghini Aventador, go you. Just so long as you admit it’s more about posturing and feeding your ego and far less about ever exploring the car’s performance and ability.

Size = too big

This next one kind of ties into our big grills pick, it’s buying cars that are too damn big!

 

We might be able to blame our American friends for this one but when the hell did bigger equal better. And if so, why? New Rav4…bigger. Kia Sportage and Sorento…bigger. Hyundai Santa Fe…bigger.

 

Unless there’s something we’re missing, and there’s a good reason why every single manufacturer seems to be inflating the size of all their models, Whatever happened to good old-fashioned economical motoring, buying the bare minimum of size with just the right amount of performance and ability?

Gloss black plastic interiors

If you watch any of our videos, you’ll see how incessantly I go on about the over-use of gloss black plastic trim carpet-bombed throughout the cabins of cars. Often in high hand traffic areas. Gloss black plastic is proof that no one in the design department must own a car for more than a couple of years.

 

If you’re someone who possesses one or all of the following: Hair, Saliva, normal oil-producing skin, pubic hair, mucus, a dog or fingerprints, you’re going to have an absolutely shit time trying to keep gloss black plastic clean and scratch free.

 

Sure, it looks good in the factory, in magazines, in the dealership, but that’s the ONLY place gloss black plastic looks good. In the real world, gloss black plastic looks good for about 3 secs, after that it looks more scratched than DJ Jazzy Jeffs favourite vinyl and it’ll become a petri dish that is a nightmare to clean.

 

Now, it’s your turn, what current trends need to go, let us know in the comments, see you next time.

8 auto trends that need to make a comeback

You know there’s nothing like the feeling of a brand new car, but, and we’re sure we’re not alone here, there are a bunch of features that some older cars have that simply need to make a comeback in new models, here are our picks.

Small wheels, chunky tyres, white lettering

First up, wheels are getting too big. A big wheel means more unsprung mass, which negatively impacts handling, steering, braking and dynamics in general, plus big wheels mean rubber band thin tyres, which means the suspension has to work overtime to provide ride comfort and hit a pothole, and you risk damaging those huge and often expensive rims.

 

The solution is easy, smaller wheels with chunkier tyres.

 

Go to any track day and look at the cars that take their lap times seriously, often they’ll be wearing wheels that are a size or two smaller in diameter with tyres that have a far more substantial side wall, this is because those wheels are lighter, improving dynamics and it allows the tyres to generate more grip.

 

Plus, on the street, a chunkier tyre soaks up bumps more easily, therefore offering more grip on crap roads and potentially protecting the rim if it cops a big hit.

 

Plus, and many of you will hate this, larger wheels mean slower acceleration. Basically, the car’s engine has to work harder to rotate bigger wheels, making for a slower car with worse fuel economy.

Station wagons

Next up, you know what needs to make a comeback, even though they still exist, just not enough of them exist, it’s station wagons.

 

Everyone is bloody obsessed with SUVs, and look if you NEED an SUV because your back is rooted and you can’t deal with bending over when you’re loading and unloading kids or grandparents all day, fair enough. Or the roads you drive on are in such bad shape you need some extra ground clearance, cool, but other than that, a station wagon is simply better and we need them to make a comeback.

 

Compared to an SUV, a station wagon will have a lower centre of gravity so it should be superior in terms of steering, handling and performance, they’re generally lighter so that means less wear and tear on the mechanicals and consumables and often have better fuel economy. They offer arguably the same levels of practicality and generally look cooler than their SUV counterparts.

 

Station wagons, for the vast majority of SUV buyers, are the smarter option, yet, they’re disappearing.

Good looking engines

Ok, the next old school car trend that needs to make a comeback, even though most owners will never see it, are engines that look good without their plastic covers.

 

Look at that picture, it’s not the engine from some exotic supercar, it’s a 6-cylinder from the Alfa Romeo 147 GTA hatchback, a hatchback! It’s a thing of beauty.

 

But seriously, especially in performance cars or cars that are just more interesting than the run-of-the-mill stuff. Yes, hardly anyone will look at it but it would be nice if the engine were almost like a hidden visual treasure rather than popping the bonnet and reacting with, “oh, plastic”.

Two-tone paint

Next up, let’s bring back two tone paint, not subtle, hardly noticeable two tone paint, but proper retro two-tone paint schemes.

 

A different coloured roof doesn’t count either, we’re talking 60s and 70s Austin Healey or old school Toyota Land Cruiser or Ford Bronco style. Basically two complimentary but contrasting colours down the side of the car.

 

Yes, the Bugatti Chiron and a handful of other ultra premium cars offer the two tone effect as an option but with such bold crease lines appearing on many new cars, let’s see them accentuated with some retro colour palettes.

Genuine metal switchgear

Ok, a current trend many are becoming more and more infuriated with is touchscreens controlling everything, let’s bring back the opposite, and we don’t just mean plastic buttons, we’re talking genuine metal switchgear.

 

Switchgear like you’d find when piloting a World War II spitfire, imagine how satisfying it would be to switch the air conditioning on with a meaty metallic “thock”, or turning the fan speed up with solid and definite click click click tactility, like you’re turning your radio onto allied air command.

 

Feeling like you’re setting in motion some complex synergy of mechanics and electricity, not just smudging your fingers onto yet another screen.

A-pillar opening windows and flexing rear windows

If you were born after 1999, there’s a huge chance you have no idea what we’re talking about here but back in the day, you could ventilate some cars by swivelling the little pane of glass just near the side mirrors or, pop and lock the rear window out using nothing but the glasses flexibility as a hinge.

 

There are very few logical reasons why we want to see these return other than the fact that it’s cool but in a world where we rely on climate control air conditioning so much, surely these are better for the environment.

Pop-up headlights

Another feature that has vanished because of safety, this time for pedestrians, it’s pop up headlights.

 

Coming in a wide range of styles and forms of choreography, pop up headlights first appeared back in 1935 but since then, went on to light the road ahead for automotive design icons like the Lamborghini Muira and Countach, the Toyota Celica and mr2, the Porsche 944, the Honda NSX, the Ferrari Testarossa and of course the iconic Mazda 323.

 

And look, sure, plenty of pedestrians were torn to shreds after being hit by a pop up headlights equipped car but you know what, maybe they should have been more careful because now, because they attempted to ride the bonnet of an innocent passing car, we now can’t have the coolest lights in the business.

Graphics, decals and retro graphics

We’re talking in the style of everything from the funky stripes and shapes as seen on the Toyota 60 Series LandCruiser, first-generation Pajero and 160 and 260 series Nissan Patrol, through to Honda’s iconic VTEC DOHC door decals and Mitsubishis Galant VR-4 listing out pretty much its entire engine and transmission specs on the side of the car.

 

Porsche offers a range of retro-inspired door graphics on everything from base model Boxsters to track-slaying GT and RS models and Suzuki recently announced its Heritage Edition Jimny featuring exactly what we’re talking about so why not everyone else.

 

The Hyundai Ionic 5 is inspired by designs from the past, why not go all out?

Want to make the current RAV4 funkier? Done.

And the Civic Type R finally looks like something you’d be happy to introduce to you parents, but it just needs that final touch to be really cool.

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