4 Reasons for the Death of America’s Car Culture
Automobiles are everywhere, so it might come as a shock to some that the culture surrounding their creation and appreciation is dying. America has a long, rich history with the automobile — to the extent that you could call it a love story. Many a man and woman have been bewitched by the thundering horses under the hood, the smell of rich leather, the pulsing power felt underfoot, and the consequential adrenaline rush from a short spin around the block. The automobile is an essential piece of the cultural fabric of America. We helped to invent it, fine-tune it, unleash it… and, in the end, we fell in love with it. Owning a car became a source of pride, as well as a symbol of success and freedom. What’s more American than the image of a green, 1940s Chevy pick-up driving down a stretch of Route 66, a tan arm resting on the rolled-down window, fingers feeling the wind? It makes you want to yell, “America!” and go drink a Coke on the 4th of July.
Unfortunately, I’m not so sure this vision is a reality anymore. The vibrant love between car and man that inspired an entire culture of auto devotees now seems to be dwindling. The gear-head enthusiasts will always motor on, I am sure, but what happened to the average American? Simple respect and appreciation for the metal beast has shifted to sheer disinterest in cars. The following is the sad, draft-obituary of America’s car culture…
1. The Infiltration of Technology Has Killed the Act of “Driving.”
Americans have evolved from “car people” to “computer-in-the-car people.” The car has become an extension of the computer and, subsequently, has lost some of the characteristics that made it an automobile.
Before computers, drivers had to be in tune with the car, understand its quirk and know how to compensate for them when driving. One had to be aware of tire pressure, oil levels, and any minute differences in handling that might indicate a problem; you also actually had to drive the car. Today, your car notifies you about everything that could possibly go wrong in the engine bay and cabin, and even compensates for you in bad weather or uneven terrain. The driver is merely a warm body sitting in one of its seats. The driver could hardly be called “master and commander” in his own car; the car’s computer knows more about what is going on in and around the vehicle than the driver. Americans enjoy the car beeping in cascading metallic tones, giving light shows on the dashboard, and automatically turning on systems and switching some off, while the driver sits on the hand-stitched-leather perch. The thrill of driving isn’t the draw to cars any longer (technology can now drive for you!); it’s the cool features you can get in the car and the ease of allowing the computer to do everything. Technology is planning a coup d’état against the human driver.
2. No More Turning Wrenches In the Garage — Cars are Inaccessible to Mr. Fix-Its.
Technology has made most cars into motorized computer-bots that are self-sufficient and inaccessible to everyday-tinkerers. Not only do its features practically require an IT degree to understand and fix, but also, the engine isn’t even available for tinkering. It was part of “Automotive Americana” to spend the afternoon in the garage, “workin’ on the car;” changing the oil, patching leaks, and making adjustments. Physical access to the car’s engine and underbody is almost impossible on most new vehicles. A few years ago, I took a 2009 Infiniti M35 to the local automotive service center to get the oil changed. What should have been a 15-minute stop turned into a 45-minute affair. The under-body of the car had an armor-like plastic cover that had to be removed to drain the oil. Removing the undertray took two men and 15 minutes. Of course, this tray could be removed if a self-assured, hobbyist mechanic really wanted to fiddle with the undercarriage, but, honestly, many would take one look at that undertray and give up due to the hassle. I do not blame them.
The engine bays are not much better. I very well know that the 2012 Ford Focus has a plastic engine cover reminiscent of a chastity belt. Good luck plucking up the courage to remove it.
True, there are some advantages to not fiddling with your car (in order to preserve the warranty or simply because one isn’t mechanically inclined), but even if you wanted to do something yourself, you are immediately faced with obstacles. These automotive “body guards” dampen the adventurous spirits that want to use their own hands to fix up their own car — and take pride in their job well done. The “do-it-yourself” attitude is almost irrelevant when it comes to modern automobiles… they just aren’t accessible to the “modern man” anymore.
3. Cars and Their Owners: Now a Menace.
Obtaining a driver’s license and owning a car used to be milestones that could almost rival the importance of graduating high school. To have this piece of paper and a set of keys meant you were unstoppable — you had the liberty to go anywhere you wanted, whenever you wanted. Car ownership was revered — it made one proud.
Funny how things have changed. The opinions of automobiles have changed from “reverence” to “annoyance.” What was once a badge of success and a piece of the American Dream is now being hailed a dirty menace that must be contained.
Metropolitan areas have started to crack down on motorists — primarily by making it harder for them to use their cars. For example, take Washington, D.C., the “epicenter of freedom.” The nation’s capital is already unfriendly towards cars; especially out-of-state drivers. Even if you work in D.C., you cannot park your Virginia- or Maryland-plated car on the streets for more than two hours; which means you have to re-park your car every 120 minutes or risk a ridiculous ticket. The Parking Enforcement cars prowl the streets like wolves, looking to ruin the day of unsuspecting tourists from Kansas. Giving out slips of paper has become a major source of revenue for Washington, D.C. — they love to hate cars.
Further exacerbating the frustrating parking situation, the Washington Post ran an article a few weeks ago announcing that D.C. is going to eliminate street parking in some residential areas and replace the parking with bike lanes. Not only is this city punishing out-of-state visitors, but also their own residents! As a result, the same number of residents will have to fight for a smaller number of parking spaces — spaces that aren’t even in their neighborhood.
What was achieved? Making drivers despise having a car because they can hardly operate it in their own city? Signaling to car owners that their cars are unwanted and will be harder to accommodate as time goes on? Hinting that it’s public transit or nothing? All of the above. D.C. intends to squeeze car owners until they are so fed up they don’t dare drive a car into the district and are forced to use public transportation. Unfortunately, that means no more “go where you want, when you want”; the subway and bus system have hours. Bye, bye freedom.
4. Cookie-Cutter Copy-Cat Cars: Un-American and the Antithesis of Innovation.
Styling and design are in big trouble here in America. Take a close look at the nearest parking lot and you will see what I mean. Do the examples of “automotive ingenuity” parked there inspire you? No, probably not—mostly because you can’t even tell the difference between the cars you are looking at. About 95% of the cars there look like the same vehicle, merely in a different color, sporting a different badge. These are the results of the automotive industry’s current trajectory for design and innovation: an industry-wide, adult version of “copy-cat.”
The automotive industry, as a group, is guilty of copy-cat practices—just about everyone could be indicted in my court of auto-design justice. Mid-market brands are fashioning their exteriors to look like models from the luxury brand portfolios and the luxury brands are copying the designs from successful competitors. A few car magazines have pointed out the similarities between the Honda Accord’s new body styling and the BMW 3-series. Coincidence? Probably not. The front end and grille of the new Ford Fusion looks like a cousin of the Jaguar XF or the Aston Martin DBS. Purposeful? You betcha.
Even more pitiful are the brand-specific stylistic details that are appearing in other makes — and are being hailed as “innovative.” When the Toyota Prius arrived, its, now iconic, wedge shape was different and its functional hybrid technology was dynamic. It set the bar for future hybrids. Since its appearance, Honda, Cadillac, and Ford have not only replicated the shape of the Prius, but even chose to market their “new” models as hybrids. (Compare the Toyota Prius to the Honda Insight, the Cadillac ELR Plug-in, and the Ford C-max.) This isn’t innovation — it’s cloning success and trying to remarket it as something new! The list of examples has no end. Granted, there are only so many ways steel and aluminum can be shaped to make a hood or trunk, but I don’t think we’ve completely run out of ideas by 2013.
Car designs today are a far cry from the raw Shelby Cobra, venomous Dodge Viper, and classic Chevy Corvette — all dynamic designs of their day. We are stuck in a sad cycle of design incest and it needs to stop. The fact that designers are becoming serial cheaters is pathetic and un-American. Ingenuity is an American virtue! How can a culture sustain itself if nothing fresh replaces the old, tired designs and nobody is held accountable for cheating? Twenty years from now, what will we deem to be a “classic car” of this era or the car “ahead of its time” if the majority of the cars are cookie-cutter replicas of each other? Designers need to seek NEW, creative solutions that shake up the design field and diversify the highway. We are Americans; we’re good at shaking things up.
The End
Three-time Formula One champion Aryton Senna is a driving legend in racing circles. Senna was the embodiment of pure, driving talent but he also came under some criticism for his almost reckless maneuvers during races. Regardless of the viewpoints on Senna’s racing style, he won races and he pushed himself and his car to the limit. He was ruthless because he knew that in order to be a good racing driver, a winner, he had to take risks to win:
Where there is a gap, you either commit yourself as a professional racing driver that is designed to win races, or you come second or you come third or you come fifth… if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.
If one loses their edge and no longer takes the risks to do their job well, then they can no longer be considered part of that profession. Historically, America has been a proud car-nation. Applying “Senna logic,” an America that loses its edge to innovate and loses its appreciation for the automobile cannot be considered a nation supportive of car culture… it will cease to be what is has been in the past. Sadly, we’re almost there.
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More on cars at PJ Lifestyle:
I agree with No. 2 wholeheartedly.
It’s almost impossible to do any work on a modern vehicle much beyond simple maintenance – and as always there are federal laws regarding what you can and cannot do to your own vehicle that have nothing to do with fuel efficiency or safety and everything to do with maintaining some element of control and actively discouraging you from tinkering under the hood.
As for design elements, I partially blame the car press types.
Years ago I heard a story of how a manager at either GM or Ford got tired of the car reviewers lambasting the plastic used for knobs in their vehicles and claiming it was not up to the quality of what the Japanese were using.
He finally took some plastic knobs out of a Japanese car and installed them in a test vehicle that the car press were then given access to review.
True to form, they complained about the plastic knobs not being up to Japanese standards….
I used to love doing work on my own car (1956 Chevy Bel Aire). I used to change my own oil, change the plugs and points, set the timing, balance the wheels, etc. If you look under the hood of a modern car, it looks like two octopuses having sex. You need a degree from Star Fleet Academy to figure everything out. Cars were a statement as much as they were a means of transportation. I really miss those days.
While I agree that most cars have been over-teched and are no longer a joy to drive, there are still cars and people out there that do not conform.
I bought a Subaru BRZ because I like to drive. Its a joy after other cars.
Good article, and sadly it’s all true. The last car that caught my eye was the Corvette that came out a few years ago. It was beautiful, tough looking and reminiscent of muscle cars.
No More Turning Wrenches In the Garage — Cars are Inaccessible to Mr. Fix-Its.
Not only have the cars been made inaccessible, but the tools to work on them are specialized as well & many are not available to the general public. I’ve done many a brake job in my life (it’s not that complicated for most DIYers, and my favorite was a ’71 Pontiac T-37 – and I made the mistake of selling it) but the Nissan I own now requires a special tool – a mechanic friend of mine was kind enough to do it & he had to rent the tool. Cars are being engineered so that dealerships will have a monopoly on repairing them.
We’re not stupid, Detroit – we’re onto you!
Yeah, one my friends who is a car genius bitched about how he needed to a special tool to work on a Dodge Neon. That’s right, a Dodge Neon. The Nissan is perfectly understable if a special tool is needed but a Dodge Neon should be able to be fixed with a bunch of spare socket wrenches and a screwdriver.
I agree with the author’s comments about the homogeneity of designs. However, I do like the reliability of modern vehicles in comparison to the models I grew up with in the 1960′s and 1970′s. Sure, a Morris Minor or VW is easy to fix. You had to fix them (and these where the best of the bunch) too much! Biggest advance? Electronic ignition. No more “dwell”.
There is no doubt that meeting regulatory and statutory compliance for standards of safety and air emissions are now a major component channeling innovation in car design. Unfortunately for Congress, the laws of physics do not change. This National Review article by a former legal counsel for a auto manufacturer is worth reading.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337110/our-cars-weight-problem-robert-e-norton
This is the world we get when we let the government design it. NHTSA concerns for pedestrian safety will mandate higher bumpers and front ends. They have already eliminated what we used to call the “hard top,” a lovely design that had no metal pillar between the front and rear side windows. Commenters more knowledgeable than I can certainly supply additonal examples of designs mandated by fiat. EPA concerns regarding gas mileage are mandating designs with low drag coefficients; physics reduces all designs to one, “most efficient” shape.
Like B.B. sings, “The thrill is gone.”
Regarding styling, in part that is due to fuel efficiency requirements. You in part get to better fuel efficiency by designing the best aerodynamic shape. And there’s one bestest shape, with a few brand identifying tweaks.
This was pretty much what I was going to say. The overall best aerodynamic shape for a vehicle like a car has been found and is used because it works. I do see a lot of differences looking more carefully at any car. Believe me, you can tell the difference at a glance between a Fusion and a Taurus even though the overall shape is similar. It gets easier looking at the competing American sports cars. If you can’t tell the modern Camaro, Mustang, and Challenger from each other, even removing the branding, you’re blind.
Time marches on. People don’t change out bad tubes in their TV sets anymore either.
What amazes me is that many younger folks do not want to drive.
Back in “the old days” we couldn’t wait to get our license. It was the path to freedom. Perhaps the new “freedom” is dependence upon public transport.
A certain number of Americans have always had the urge to drive. However, a certain number have always been indifferent, or even opposed to the bother. Within living memory, there was a time when the latter group of people *could* get along perfectly fine without a car, so everyone was pretty much free to suit himself.
However, owning and regularly driving a car has become pretty much a precondition of American life (outside of the very oldest and biggest cities). It’s not shocking that for the non-trivial number of people with no Fahrvergnügen in the blood, their expensive, variably reliable, yet obligatory automobiles may tend to feel more like balls & chains than avenues to freedom.
When I was young, you could get a fairly reliable used car for $400. (And a brand new one for $8,000. Which people regarded as highway robbery.)
Insurance was less than $100 a month for a young driver.
And gas was less than a buck a gallon.
With a part-time minimum-wage job, we could own a car, drive it as much as we wanted, and have money left over for beer and cassette tapes.
That’s no longer the case. It’s sad, but it’s the reality we live in that our children do not have the same options open to them.
“What amazes me is that many younger folks do not want to drive.”
Most likely because getting to the DMV and getting the license is such an annoying thing to do. First pass the knowledge test, then months later you go back for the road test. In New Jersey, passing the road test doesn’t mean you can just drive like that again. There’s a rules and regulation and you were given a “probationary license” in which you have to hold on for a year. And that’s just getting the license. There’s still the ridiculously low speed limits and many other issues when driving issues when driving on the road. Given all the hassle, is it any wonder that many younger people sees driving as taking a chance with the legal system?
Young people don’t care about driving because they cannot show off their mechanical skill in making cars faster, and even if they could, radar technology and congestion prevents street racing. Fifty years ago teenagers couldn’t even neck unless they had access to a car, now they can have sex in their own homes while their mothers are at work.
Getting a licence was indeed a path to freedom. As much for being able to drink as to drive.
Other reasons:
Young people are turning into clinging little weenies. An increasing number of them aren’t even learning how to drive. They can be partially excused if they live in large urban areas with good public transportation, but the underlying issue is one of lack of personal discipline and an unwillingness to take risks. These “kids” (young adulthood is pushed back further each new generation) aren’t just forced to live with Mom and Dad due to economic constraints, they often choose to do so. Some have “Helicopter Parents,” and aren’t even embarassed about it. Government policy encourages this trend by allowing “kids” to be on their parents health insurance until 26, or even 28 for SCHIP participants, whose parents don’t even have to be actually poor. These pathetic dweebs are our future “middle class.”
My son told me he’s the only one of his friends that knows how to drive a standard. He’s proud of it, actually. And, my clutch survived!
I understand that’s the single best anti-theft device on the market right now…
Yes, I believe it. Plus he can get a job as a valet!
Regarding healthcare, the reason why people need coverage until 26 is because most employers either can’t afford or don’t want to provide benefits to entry level workers.
It says little about the current generation, more about the way the job market has been for quite some time. Career track businesses don’t want to take on headcount and utilize internships and temp to perm in lieu of hiring full time staff.
Lower level entry employers in retail, food service or clerical generally play around with the part/full time to minimize benefits costs or just hire off the books.
I don’t think extending the age is the best solution, but the days in which grads would get an entry level job with benefits are over unless you’re union or public sector. The default behavior for most young people is to simply go without healthcare which gets passed on to the rest of us at the emergency room.
So instead of passing the costs on via the ER, they get passed onto to us through higher insurance and/or higher taxes. And people under 26 tend to have fewer visits to the ER. And they used to have the ability to get catastrophic riders. Thanks to obamacare, they can’t. The reason for doing this was to suck larger numbers of young, healthier people into the ranks of payees. That way, the free abortion game gets to play out a while longer.
You unwittingly noticed the difference between businesses that actually have to conduct themselves responsibly and publice sector jobs where inflated damands and promises go hand in hand. They can afford to continue such plans because they’re not the ones paying for them. Even that comes to an end eventually, as at least three cities in California have discovered.
Hmm, I can’t ever remember an era where an entry-level job came with health benefits.
Why should an employer be providing benefits anyway? Everyone has latched on to this stupid idea that an employer should be responsible for my health insurance. Nonsense! If my employer wants to offer it as an incentive, a benefit, if you will, that is their business. Being forced to offer health benefits (or extend them to 26 year old non-dependents) is ridiculous on its face. What we really is to remove the HUGE breaks that only businesses can get for health insurance, so that individuals can purchase it themselves at a reasonable cost.
For me the biggest negative is the cookie cutter designs followed closely by the excessive (to me anyway) computer controls of the driving experience. There are no new cars that I can afford that interest me at all. The first thing I do everytime I start my car is shut the traction control off. I find it to be a hinderance in driving in bad weather with this particular car and honestly it takes the fun out of driving in dry weather too. There are absolutely improvements that have come from technology like computer engine controls, electronic ignition and fuel injection. I have to admit I am deeply involved in the vintage car hobby and work in the technical side of the auto industry so I am less intimidated by the technology, but it is 1000X harder to work on or modify newer cars. Not that I don’t try.
Now growing up in a car guy/industry household has definitely given my children a different perspective. They had to get their permits on the first day they were eligible and their licenses on the day they turned 16. The eldest insisted on a rear drive V-8 manual transmission car, which he bought for himself at 15.5. He has been a very responsible driver with a powerful car and has done his own repairs and improvement with a little guidance. They are really more children of the past.
I am somewhat of a car and driver snob. Things like traction control allow you to drive your car closer to the edge. When you tell me that you turn them off so you can “drive” the car you are telling me that you think driving is cruising along in a soft sprung car at 80 MPH on a Interstate 80.
Or that it’s more fun to goose the throttle to kick the rear end out in a turn once in a while and not have the onboard-nhtsa safety nanny say, “no, that’s not Pelosi-approved style of driving.”
The electronic stability program allows you to goose the throttle, go into a high speed turn without kicking out the rear end so you can maintian control and execute the turn at a higher speed. I’d rather take the turn smoothly at 45 then look “cool” at 30.
John Bono would be right. I’m enjoy driving to the car’s limits and finding them for myself, being able to kick the tail out at will without having the throttle nanny lift every time the tires break loose.
My car is a older V8, 5 speed RWD and has a pretty simple traction control, not stability control. I imagine stability control would allow you to drive closer to the limit but I wonder if you will knowing where you are relative to car’s true limit.
Subaru still respects the car culture amongst the tuner crowd. They left a bunch of controls in the engine management as open source code. No expensive proprietary connectors or software you have to buy to hook a laptop up to the car and see what the computer is doing. I can change fuel ratios, engine timings, and even the percent of throttle in relation to the pedal position. And the car is pretty easy to work on. I changed the plugs on my 2005 Impreza a week ago and just had to remove the washer bottle with two screws on the drivers side and the air filter box on the other side with just two bolts; was done in all about 30 minutes. I replaced the exhaust with aftermarket tubular headers and it was a cinch. Put the car up on jack stands and 6 bolts later the stock exhaust dropped down and then new one right back up in there. And the new exhaust deletes the catalytic convertor which of course throws a trouble code but with the engine management I just went in there and turned off the check engine light. See working on cars can still be fun.
One end result of all this progress is, by the way, also that it’s getting harder to get and keep a car if you are poor. Since you can’t fix the newer ones yourself you need the money to go to a garage, gas is getting more expensive all the time, there seems to be a drive to get all the old, still working clunkers which might be in reach for lower income people off the streets. So, no car, and if one happens to live in a place where there is no good public transport, or the work hours don’t fit with the schedules of what there is, it may mean some jobs are off the table for you, making it harder to make an independent living and more likely that you have no choice but to apply for government money even if you’d prefer not to.
And to clarify – yes, we are not there yet, still lots of older clunkers around, but unless somebody starts to make easy to fix yourself, stripped down ‘poor people’ cars at some point I think there is a good possibility cars may, in the future, become something mostly only well off people will own.
I agree with Item #4 – cookie cutter sameness. There are a few exceptions, though. There’s the PT Cruiser, and the Chrysler 300 Series, which look like cartoon gangster cars, or something out of Roger Rabbit.
Yep, most of my son’s friends don’t know either. I see that as a feature, keeps them from driving it and wrecking it. I just taught my 14 year old daughter to launch and stop a manual transmission car tonight without killing it all but once. She did very well and she has laid claim to my car when she gets her license. There is zero chance any of her friends will ever know how.
Everything mentioned in the post is true, but cars are far better than they were 20-30 years ago. Anti-lock brakes, fuel injection, crumple zones, long service intervals, all-season tires, traction control, etc. have made cars far more reliable and safer to drive. While it’s certainly true that the average DIYer cannot do anything much under the hood, the fact is the average DIYer doesn’t NEED to do anything under the hood. Set choke, pump gas pedal 1.5 times, wait 4 seconds, turn key and hope for the car starts? Forget it.
The reliability of a well maintained car is much better today than 30 years ago. Back then, I carried some tools, a quart of oil and a spare fan belt among other things every time I took my car on a road trip. That wasn’t for a beater, either. I don’t bother to do that any more, in part because the cars are more reliable and also because they’re very difficult to repair without special tools.
Nice article. (Note to PJMedia – more like this).
One thing that has always struck me is how ruggedly designed older cars were – a fender bender several decades ago would equate to a totaled car today. The cookie-cutter approach to car design is, I believe, a reflection of our society as a whole; i.e., quantity over quality. Though, I might add an economic element; like the film industry, why take chances on something original when an imitation is guaranteed to attract buyers?
Sadly enough, with a word change here and there, this article could equally apply to the aviation industry. I’m a Ford and Boeing guy – to me, staples of Americana as embedded as Coca Cola – but it does hurt to see our nation’s creativity whither (if it isn’t already dead).
When some poor Prius or Smart Car dares to collide with my 1978 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham, I will have to pay my niece $20 to scape it off my fender.
“One thing that has always struck me is how ruggedly designed older cars were – a fender bender several decades ago would equate to a totaled car today. The cookie-cutter approach to car design is, I believe, a reflection of our society as a whole; i.e., quantity over quality.”
Part of that is a safety feature. Cars crumple like paper to absorb the impact of the crash. In the older heavy steel cars, the cars barely got dented but the drivers took the impact.
I’ve had all the complaints.
#1 drives me nuts. I’ve walked out of dealerships and bought different brands when they can’t find me the car I want with a manual transmission.
The final blow–which the author did not mention–is going to be self-driving cars.
Google is hard at work developing a self-driving car. It will use navigation data to drive itself to your destination, dealing with everything from sharp curves to traffic lights along the way. The human “driver” will just sit in the driver’s seat and do nothing unless an emergency occurs.
“Google representatives said that today they plan to take the car, a Lexus hybrid, for a spin on Austin-area roads, including infamously congested Interstate 35. Lawmakers and selected other state officials will be offered demonstration rides in the car as part of Google’s effort to get the public sector more comfortable with an automobile that needs no driver….
“Typically, a person sits in the driver’s seat, but the car does its own acceleration, braking and steering and can even change lanes. It “sees” the road using laser technology, and has a maximum speed of about 85 mph, although Google officials assured onlookers Monday that the vehicle wouldn’t be pushed to its limits during the Texas demos. A member of the Google team will sit in the driver’s seat during demonstrations, although that person won’t operate the car controls unless there’s an emergency, one company official said.”
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02/18/4628380/googles-self-driving-car-is-the.html#storylink=cpy
http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/02/18/4628380/googles-self-driving-car-is-the.html
The final blow–which the author did not mention–is going to be self-driving cars.
This is an exciting thing, not a bad thing.
There are millions of commuters on the road by 6 am driving 30-50 minutes to their jobs, most of whom aren’t exactly thinking of driving sexiness just trying to get to work at that time of day. Half of them are groggy and inattentive trying to down a cup of coffee, putting on makeup, etc. anyway.
While it might be nice to have an old MG one can scream around the back country with on weekends, ponderous weekday reality is where the accidents etc are.
#9 Bozo has nailed it. The Obama generation is a fixed in place, urbanized, metrosexual culture. They may fly point to point to visit other urbanized locations but they are largely disinterested in knowing anything beyond their immediate friends and local environment. Every place they want to go is accessible on foot, bike or public transportation. They delude themselves by imagining that they are uber-sophisticates living the good life in a congested urban area. They lack the self-awareness to understand that they really are just a bunch of provincial rubes.
Also don’t discount the effect of student loans on the demise of the car culture. Too many college graduates leave school owning a Mercedes E Class worth of debt that must be serviced often on Starbucks wages. They cannot afford the acquisition cost and ownership of even a decent used automobile. This lack of mobility limits employment options, awareness of the richness of America’s culture and history, and will have a major negative impact on their future earning potential.
New York City has discouraged driving there for years now. It’s almost impossible to drive a car in Manhattan unless you have a specific garage to park in. And if you’re not willing to take out a second mortgage to PAY for that garage, then you’re stuck with mass transit. Good luck with that. Smelly, noisy, dirty, and dangerous subways or buses that sit in traffic gridlock for hours. Some choice. Or you could take a yellow cab that gets stuck in traffic and have a cab driver who just a few days ago was fighting with al Qaeda in Mali. I swear, the Statue of Liberty in New York has an inscription that says, “Bring us your tired, your lonely, your huddled masses, and we will make them a cab driver in New York City.”
The only thing this does is discourage people from going into New York City. These people will prefer to stay in the suburbs rather than have to deal with a city that has a psychotic hatred for automobiles. The cities will simply suffer because of this policy in terms of lost revenues from tourists and shoppers. Sounds like a “win/win” for urban dwellers!
You write that last paragraph like it is a bad thing. So people stop visiting NYC, or DC? This is not the end of the world. Those cities aren’t part of free America anyway.
Meh. So what? I used to work on my cars but I’d be lying if I said I miss the frustration, grease and the skinned knuckles. I love my new Camry. It looks like other vehicles? Yeah like three times as much car for the same money. The future comes whether you like it or not. Move on or go to a boneyard and buy something funky. Then again you could move to Cuba. Other than that get over it.
Agreed.
Here in the frozen north the electronics etc help keep teenage drivers on the road in conditions that would cause mayhem up to injury and death just 20 years ago. FWD camry with automatic tranny and traction control etc may not be sex on wheels but having your kid make it home in one piece late at night after an away game in a raging storm is the reason this stuff exists. We aren’t all Mario Andretti.
And yes laugh at the camry which is finally getting near the point where the engine is broken in correctly at about 150k miles. Seems to me most of the so called muscle cars of the 70′s could make it what, 50k if you were lucky before you had major work to do?
As I see it, TODAY is far more of a vehicular golden age. Reliable cars mean that I can wake up tomorrow and decide on a whim to drive to San Diego and my biggest worry is remembering to pack my toiletries.
I was waiting for someone to comment on the universal, hunched, self-effacing shape, the don’t-mind-me look of modern cars. Not to mention the clay brown and gray color schemes. Can such a shape really save enough gas to justify driving the auto equivalent of haircloth and ashes? If this country reissued something from the Sixties, it’d sell like hotcakes. Only Chrysler (!) seems to believe in styling.
Have a friend who indulged himself with a Maserati. The battery kept going dead. Turns out the electronics are so extensive that there’s a drain even when the car is parked and shut down. The manufacturer actually has a plug in built in so that you can keep the car battery charged. He is driving a nonelectric car that to be plugged in at night to be driveable.
I think the state of American auto enthusiasts is as strong as ever. Take a look at the plethora of websites out there and you will see a very broad spectrum of car culture that embraces both new and used vehicles.
There are quite a few aftermarket ECU upgrades that are available. A generation that overclocks processors and installs water-coolers to eek out every bit of performance on their computer is not intimidated with a simple chip replacement.
Their are legions of gearheads out there, from people like Bill Caswell an amateur rally driver who competed with and beat pro teams with a $500 BWM he got on Craigslist to the Pizza delivery kid who shoved a V-8 engine in an RX7 rust bucket.
There is still a place where those into cars and doing their own maintenance can do so to their hearts desire. Check out row52.com it’s a new site where you can browse self-service recycling yard vehicles and locate the parts you need to repair/restore your vehicle.
This article is interesting, but a bit one sided. The author comes across as having a phobia for change and the general advancement of human capability… maybe though that is the very definition of being a conservative. You could have written the same article in the horse drawn carriage era… or the steam operated engine era. What is the author nostalgic for? Carbureted, iron V8s housed in massive sheet metal and all the accouterments of no safety, poor braking and handling? Humans have, and always will, make transportation better. A true conservative would realize it is the will of the free market… cars have only advance as he describes because people are wanting, and willing, to buy those features. If you want what he is pining for, I know a place… Cuba… you can drive those cars of the 60′s and 70′s to your hearts desire, but of course that would mean you’ve got a deep seeded desire for a government controlled state.
Agreed: those “scary” plastic covers are just Part #1 and Part #2 that have to come off to go to work as a DIYer. Once they are off the car is nearly like any other to work on. The internal combustion engine has barely changed since its introduction: fuel, air, spark. The only thing that had changed is how tightly the fuel, air, and spark are controlled.
2 things I love about working on more modern vehicles:
1) all the hoses are shaped to fit right where they fit. Hardly a need to label anything you disconnect or take off anymore, they will each only reach one place. Electrical connectors are all keyed to only plug in one place. They were designed to be assembled by idiots, so having a fully functional brain means I can take it apart and put it together in my sleep…as long as I don’t mix up the nuts and bolts between parts.
2) I have a love/hate relationship with Trouble Codes; its AWESOME that the car will tell you what it thinks is broken. But it SUCKS that the stupidest, most useless code lights up the same light on the dash as an actually important code. There really needs to be a Trouble Code light and an Annoyance Code light. Any Annoyance Code should turn itself off after 10 minutes.
I still lag behind some, my vehicles are 1980, 1995, 2000, and 2001. But I’ve had each of the 2000 and the 2001 torn right down to the long block and back together in a 2-day weekend.
It all comes down to gas mileage imo. It made the engines much more complicated, added the electronics to run them, made aerodynamics king…
Add safety and overweight, expensive cars result. Don’t get me wrong, ABS airbags and crush design are awesome.
I still work on my cars, cover or no, but occasionally get stymied by sensor/computer issues.
Classic cars will soon be dead too. Say in 25 years you’d like to roll a ’12 Caddy on the weekends. How on earth are you going to change the 50 miles of wiring and rebuild 18 computer modules?
I’m the guy driving that 1946 Chevy pickup down the road. Don’t even change the oil in the Mercedes, but I can handle most of the maintenance on the truck. It’s actually rather easy and much cheaper than a newer car. Water pump costs about $125 and I can have the old one off and in my hand 25 minutes after I start the job. Change the plugs? Costs about $15 bucks and can be done, start-to-finish, in about 15 minutes. New motor mount for the truck cost $12 and took about 2 hours of work. Same thing on the Mercedes? Over $500. True, I don’t have cruise control, A/C or even a radio for that matter, but is it ever fun to drive! Oh, one other thing, don’t even think about cutting it around the block unless you can double clutch!
2 reasons- lack of Detroits creativity and the government. It used to be you could easily identify what year a car was because the model design changed each year. So a 55 caddy had big fins, or the 68 chevy had round tail lights. And then you ask the question, 6 or v8? Now the cars are cookie cutter and it is hard to tell one form the other plus the models last 4-5 years with little change.
And then the government has so restricted the cars mostly with the pollution devices, that the performance is difficult to get, and the fun is gone. It is just transportation. The government restrictions force companies to build a low performance, fuel sipping, coocon just like every other car maker. So the requirements for a car come down to how much does it cost, how many does it fit, and what is the gas mileage. No flair, no joy. Just transportation. Flair is too expensive.
The car culture is very much alive, so long as you ignore new cars. Like many, many retirees, I collect classic cars. At any moment I can go online and buy a superb classic American or German car for around $10,000. These are solid metal cars built to last and fun to drive. There is an inexhaustible supply of such cars (at any one time there are about ~5000 classics for sale on websites like eBay and Hemmings). In my youth in the sixties, I hungered for the latest Detroit models which were real cars with big engines and beautiful bodies. They don’t make them anymore. Now they make what I call DPVs–disposable plastic vehicles. Obama’s new CAFE standards will mean that in future new cars will look and drive like today’s Smart Cars, tiny little plastic death traps. But it doesn’t bother me because I have a barnful of huge gas guzzlers that they can’t (yet) confiscate. My attitude is, the lower the mileage and the more carbon emissions the better. I have to compensate for all those Priuses and Volts and cyclists.
There are exceptions, which some of the Subaru owners have mentioned. Volkswagens are another, or at least some models. With upgraded injectors, a bigger turbo, upgraded engine control software, EGR deleted, bigger exhaust down pipe, and a few other tricks, my Golf TDI has more than 50% more power than stock. I could also install Audi TT suspension parts, but I haven’t, though I do have better shocks and struts and an excellent rear anti-sway bar. I have a stronger clutch than stock, because the OE one couldn’t handle the extra power. And my Golf is not that old, and has most of the creature comforts that anyone might want.
Many posts have mentioned computer software, but in many if not most modern cars it is possible to upgrade that software to produce considerably more power at a reasonable cost.
I think two things not mentioned by the article are the cost of gas and traffic congestion. When sitting in bumper to bumper traffic there is little to love. Many Americans experience their time in a car as a stressful hassle where other drivers are idiots, discourteous, or down right dangerous. They drive to and from work, to and from their kids activities, and on errands. They never get out and just “go for a drive”.
I used to do that before gas went over $3 per gallon. Take a road just to see where it goes and what’s along its path. When I bought my new commuter car in 2007 it cost less than $20 to fill up, now it costs $40-45 to fill up the same Elantra. With things costing more, pay being less (I thought ObamaCare was supposed to make health insurance cheaper), and fuel costs taking a larger chunk of my check I just don’t do it anymore.
One reason why kids may not be learning to drive these days might be the rise of ADD/ADHD. I have a nephew who has been so diagnosed. He’s almost 30 years old and to my knowledge still hasn’t learned to drive. Yeah, he still lives with my brother and his wife.
Why?
Ralph Nader, gas prices, and CAFE.
The article in fact minimizes the malign influence of government. There is no mention of CAFE, the Federal law mandated progressive increase in Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency which over tome will push us all into microcars. Nor is there mention of anti-car municipalities like Portland OR, which over two decades have done everything possible to force people into mass transit.
Pure and simple, the Ruling Class hates cars precisely because they enhance individual freedom.
55 chevy 454 doug nash 5 speed, ford f-100 straight axel, ford 9 inch with a detroit locker. built the gasser frame in my driveway. 1984 c-10 with a cummins 4bt mrs2 5 speed trans. car culture alive and well
You misunderestimate hackers. Car computers can be hacked, too.
Why would anyone want to emulate the shape of the Prius? Without a doubt, it is one of the top five ugliest cars ever made. I don’t think the AMC Pacer has anything on the Prius in the ugly category. Couple that with the self-satisfied smugness of the owners who are doing their part to save the world. And throw on top of that, the crappy slow-assed driving of the typical Prius owner who either a) can’t go faster because of the limitations of the car itself, or b) drives road-rage inducingly slow so that they can get that 45 mpg that makes the purchase all worthwhile. I don’t know how the car drives personally because I wouldn’t want get behind the wheel.
If you really wanted to save the planet, you’d buy a Chevy Aveo. Steel, plastic, and no exotic composites or batteries. And they get 35 mpg too. Not that I’d want to own one of those either. But at least the owners know they have a sh##ty car and aren’t deluding themselves, like the Prius owners.
#Free us from the Prius.
I have owned serial beaters for many years, usually Chrysler products because I was tech at a Chrysler dealer and have the special tools I need to repair about anything from K-cars to ’06 minivans. My current ride is an ’88 GMC P/U w/321K miles on it. I keep them going until they just won’t go anymore.
For that “entusiast” urge, I ride motorcycles. Easily customizable and I can still do basic maintenace on them. Plus you HAVE to drive them.
call me an old caveman, but I miss the sound of a ’72 Duster with a 340, runnin’ a Crane Fireball Cam, aluminum Edelbrock intake with a Holley 650, pushing exhaust through a pair of Hooker Headers and Cherry Bombs. . . . used to love that idle. . . and working on it was part of the fun.
All four points are horribly true, but there’s more.
5. With almost no exceptions, vehicles made after 1975 are disposable, ridiculously overpriced junk. Anything beyond basic repairs is a waste of money. Most new cars I’ve seen aren’t even worth the scrap price of the metal and plastic of which they’re made. This is primarily due to government interfering in the free market.
6. The days of inexpensive fuel (and anything else) are gone. In a few more years, unless something drastic happens, most people won’t be able to afford personal transportation beyond a bicycle.
Number 6 leads me to an obvious question. If literally everything, even basic things such as transportation, housing, and even basic rights such as access to legal redress (I’ve seen too many private solicitations for donations to cover attorney and court fees lately), has been priced out of the reach of the average man, how can we expect to maintain a civilization, much less a ‘car culture’?
i taught my boys how to be men, they are veterans too.