22/01/17
They don’t make ’em like they used to.
Ain’t that the truth? Maybe I’m becoming a grumpy old
curmudgeon, but it seems to me the cliché actually holds up. Of course, modern
cars are far better than their ancestors in many ways. You only have to race a
fifty year old Jag down a drag strip against a Honda Accord to see the evidence
right before your eyes.
But here are five things about modern motoring where progress
hasn’t necessarily resulted in improvements…
1.
Choice
Despite the fact that there are more makes and models
available to Australian motorists than ever before, most of the vehicles on
offer are boringly similar.
It’s true that modern technology has made the modern car
safer, more reliable and more efficient, but this has also led most modern
vehicles to look and drive as if they have come from the same cookie-cutter.
You could fill a carpark with modern hatches and SUVs and it
becomes impossible to tell them apart without close scrutiny.
Even in cases where the styling sets a car apart from the
competition, all too often the differences are only skin deep, masking a set of
mechanicals that follows a set formula.
Of course, those with deep pockets can still find plenty of
interesting cars at the higher end of the price spectrum, but this lament is
aimed at the ordinary everyday motorist with modest means.
For most of us, the selection available to motorists has been
reduced to the choice between medium or small, hatchback or SUV, and a limited
range of metallic paint colours.
Once upon a time, you could pick out a car, and then still
have a choice of engine. The first car I bought was a TC Cortina, which in
those days was available with a range of different engines starting with a 1.6
litre four all the way up to the huge 4.1 litre straight six.
Of course, I had the big six… which was easily faster than
the V8 Holdens of the day.
These days, if you should decide for some inexplicable reason
that you really like the look of a Hyundai i30, you’re stuck with the engine
the Good Lord provided.
And God help you if you want a cheap rear wheel drive sports
coupe, unless it’s the Toyota 86. Yes it’s a great little sports car, but it’s
the only one (aside from its Subaru twin) that is available in the price range.
The same applies for a cheap rear wheel drive convertible
where the only choice is the Mazda MX5. Once again a great car, but the only
one in the price range.
Once upon a time, there were dozens of variations available,
either two door or four door, with a multitude of engine options, and the
driving wheels at the back.
Today, modern technology means that is no longer the case…
which brings us to Item Two on this list…
2.
FWD
Almost every affordable car available today is Front Wheel
Drive, whether you like it or not.
Now, the reasons for this are pretty straight forward. These
days the technology of front wheel drive has been refined to the point where
drivers can live with the vestiges of torque-steering, and it has become
cheaper and more practical to produce.
Modern cars benefit from the weight savings of not having a
long drive shaft down the middle of the vehicle, and floor space inside the car
can also be improved without that whacking great transmission tunnel.
But while some front wheel drive cars can be rather good, the
fact is that in almost all cases, rear wheel drive provides better handling and
driving dynamics.
This is especially true for larger cars, and of course
performance cars.
Until now, Australian car buyers looking for the good old
fashioned thrills of driving a car with the engine in the front and the driving
wheels in the back, as God intended, always had the choice of a Falcon or a
Commodore.
Sadly that all comes to an end this year with the demise of
local manufacturing. The Falcon has already gone, and the Commodore is about to
follow suit when Holden closes its doors this October.
After this, the only people who will be able to buy a big
sedan with rear wheel drive will be the merchant bankers and lawyers who can
afford the big bucks for a Mercedes Benz or a BMW.
Or perhaps a Jag.
But for the rest of us, forget it...
There is one small glimmer of hope on the horizon. A new rear
wheel drive full size sedan will arrive on the Australian market at the end of
the year, and while pricing has not yet been confirmed, it may go some way
towards filling that gap.
It’s called the Stinger and will come with a choice of four
cylinder or turbo-V6 power. And who do we have to thank for this slim chance of
salvation?
Believe it or not, it’s the Korean manufacturer Kia coming to
the rescue. Aside from that, cars offering rear wheel drive at a reasonable
price will be few and far between.
Thankfully, the light trucks that have largely replaced traditional
utes can still be bought with two wheel drive going to the rear axle, but most
ute buyers these days are opting for the big dual cab four wheel drives.
At least these vehicles are still honest workers that perform
a useful function when called upon to do so… unlike one style of vehicle which
has become inexplicably popular for no rational reason, the SUV.
3.
SUV
And so that brings us to one of the most irritating items on
this list, the so-called Sport Utility Vehicle.
At the risk of suffering an apoplectic fit, let me explain…
These mongrel-bred creations are not in the least bit
“sporty” nor are they in any way a “utility.” I suppose they are in fact a
vehicle of sorts, but the pathetic truth is that they are (for the most part)
thoroughly unsuitable for any practical purpose.
First up, they are straight out ugly. SUVs are a styling
abomination that resulted from the popularity of proper four wheel drive
vehicles among commuters who began using them as urban assault vehicles.
While they had no need for genuine off road ability, these
drivers (and I use the term loosely) suddenly decided that they loved sitting
high above the other road users, enjoying a smug but false sense of safety
because they were wrapped in two and a half tonnes of metal.
And thus was born the modern SUV… a horrifying hybrid
comprising the bulk and physical appearance of a 4WD without the actual 4WD.
Of course genuine off-roaders are usually rough and rugged to
look at, but it can at least be said that they have a utilitarian beauty of
their own because their form follows their function.
And that’s the way things should be.
But the modern SUV would get bogged on a gravel driveway
because the vast bulk of them are (you guessed it) front wheel drive.
They have been designed to look like a four wheel drive
vehicle, yet have none of the practical features of such a vehicle.
The most egregious crime against motoring humanity of all is
of course the front wheel drive Jeep. The very idea is nothing short of
blasphemy.
Even the ride height of these fake 4WDs, necessary for ground
clearance in a genuine off road vehicle, is nothing more than a sop for soccer
mums and daggy dads who think the improved visibility from the Captain’s chair
is a good thing.
What they fail to recognise is that their very selfish choice
of vehicle is in fact a rolling obstacle that blocks the visibility of normal
cars driven by normal people.
Worse than that, an SUV has the driving dynamics of a Styrofoam
brick and all the personality of a torn tissue.
Most of them have limited load space because they are all
styled to have rounded corners or sloping rooflines, so they don’t even have a
decent load space to justify their existence.
In short, SUVs are literally the most useless cars on the
road, and in fact, I wouldn’t even call them cars.
But there is one thing that will make an SUV even worse…
4.
CVT
Driving purists have always insisted that a manual gearbox is
the best choice for both enjoyment and performance. These days, that’s not
always true, with advanced automatic systems offering almost instantaneous gear
changes.
High performance cars are now equipped with paddle-shifting
automatic clutches that can operate faster than any human, and even the good
old fashioned torque-converter transmissions are pretty smooth these days.
But a new option has emerged which is rapidly spreading
across the automotive world like a pandemic… the Constantly Variable
Transmission.
When I first heard of these things sometime last decade, it
struck me as a good idea. Then I actually drove one.
Driving a vehicle with CVT is bit like sitting at the back of
a dinghy and twisting the throttle of your Evinrude as hard as you can,
generating maximum revs while the boat struggles to overcome the viscosity of
the water.
It’s as if the car is being propelled by a wound up rubber
band, and changing your throttle setting also results in a change of the
gearbox ratio so you don’t always get what you expect.
I suppose you could get used to it for just pootling around
town going to the shops. But for driving enjoyment… well, there isn’t any.
I will admit that newer CVTs have been much improved, and are
easier to live with, but they still have no soul.
Interestingly, the latest CVTs are programmed to mimic the
behaviour of a box with set ratios in certain circumstances. To me, that just
prompts the question of why don’t you just have a proper gearbox to start with.
Even if it is an automatic.
5.
Touchscreens
Finally, something not directly related to the driving
experience, but which nonetheless has a big impact on it.
Touchscreens are a modern marvel – a science fiction dream
come true – but they have no place in a car, except perhaps for the satellite
navigation system.
Touchscreens look amazing, and obviously offer the driver all
sorts of ways to interact with the car. But that’s just the problem.
Touchscreens are a glowing light source that can easily be a
visual distraction. Worse than that, they usually offer a range of different
menus to select from, so there is a big risk that you will spend time looking
at the screen searching through menus when you should be looking at the road.
While that is true of any visual display, the phenomenon is
made much worse by the very nature of touchscreens.
Their fatal flaw (and that could be literally true) is that
they can only be operated if you can see where you are touching the screen.
That means you must look at the screen to use it, and that means you are not
looking at the road.
In contrast, good old fashioned knobs and slides can be
operated by touch alone without taking your eyes off the road.
In an older car, if you want to change the volume on the
radio, you simply reach across and turn the knob. You already know where it is
and you don’t have to look for it. It’s just there.
With a touch screen audio system, you might have to first
find the right menu, then find the volume control, and then make the
adjustment.
All the while you are looking at a screen, not the road.
Of course, screens have their uses. There is no dispute that
reverse parking cameras are a very good thing.
But to rely on a touch screen as an operational interface for
controls is asking for trouble.
Now, before you leap to the conclusion that I’m simply a
bone-headed Luddite, I’d like to point out that I have a long history with
touchscreens.
In 1991 I worked at a radio station which had one of the first
ever touchscreen computer systems. Remember, this was in the days when most
people weren’t even on the internet yet, and mobile phones were mostly owned by
doctors and wankers... sorry, lawyers.
And if you did have a mobile phone, good luck trying to fit
it into your pocket.
In that context, you can easily understand that the on-air
studio at this particular radio station was revolutionary. No more turntables,
only CDs and a bank of digital tape decks, all controlled by a pair of cutting
edge touchscreens.
The only trouble was that it was forever failing. The first
problem was a phenomenon where you would touch an icon on the screen only to
have a completely different icon about five centimetres away activate.
We called this fault “screen shift.”
We called the second problem “screenlock,” which I think is
self explanatory. Everything would simply freeze on the screen and nothing
would respond.
One or the other of these two failures was likely to occur at
any time without warning, and did so multiple times each day. The only way to
rectify the problem was to reboot the whole system while you were playing some
music from a CD. It was a nightmare.
Of course, touch screens, and the software that supports
them, have come a very long way since 1991. Nowadays, almost everyone has a
mobile phone (not just the tossers) and almost every one of those phones has a
touchscreen.
But even now, when I’m scrolling through Facebook or looking
up the latest news, there are times when the screen on the phone fails to
respond the way it should.
If the processor is struggling for some reason, it can start
to lag, or even freeze up. And it remains all too easy to touch the wrong icon
inadvertently.
None of these problems are things that you would want to have
happening at 110 kph.
There is no acceptable substitute for physical switchgear.
So there you have it: everything wrong with modern cars.
Well, maybe not everything, but let’s fix these first.
