Which Era is Peak Automobile? — The Carmudgeon Show w/ Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep 212
The Carmudgeon Show
Which Era is Peak Automobile? — The Carmudgeon Show w/ Jason Cammisa & Derek Tam-Scott — Ep 212
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66:47
Car
Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback
The Volkswagen Squareback is a classic car that looks like a small station wagon. It was made by Volkswagen and is known for its distinctive shape and design.
Company
Battery Tender
Battery Tender is a company that makes devices to help keep car batteries charged. They have been around for a long time and are known for their reliable products.
Term
drivable
Drivable means that a car is still in good enough shape to be driven, even if it has some problems. Here, it means the Rover could still be used after the accident.
Term
engine
The engine is what makes a car go. It's the part that turns fuel into movement. The Rover can't be driven right now because it doesn't have an engine.
Term
burnout
A burnout is when a car's tires spin while the car is not moving, making smoke and showing off the car's power. It's often done for fun or to impress others.
Part
limited-slip differential
A limited-slip differential helps your car's wheels turn at different speeds when going around corners, but it also helps keep them from spinning too much if one wheel loses grip. This makes driving safer and improves handling.
Term
Euro conversion
Euro conversion means changing parts of a car to match the style or rules used in Europe. This can include things like different headlights or bumpers to make the car look more European.
Car
Vitesse SD1
The Rover SD1 is a car made by the British company Rover. It was popular in the late 1970s and 1980s and is known for its unique design and luxury features.
Car
BMW E90
Car
BMW E64
The BMW E64 is a model of the 6 Series, specifically the two-door coupe version made between 2004 and 2010. It's designed to be stylish and sporty.
Car
BMW E32
Car
Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG
The C63 AMG is a fast and sporty version of the regular Mercedes-Benz C-Class. It has a strong V8 engine, making it fun to drive and popular among car enthusiasts.
Car
BMW M3
The BMW M3 is a sportier version of the regular BMW 3 Series. The E90 is the sedan model made between 2007 and 2013, and it has a powerful engine that makes it fun to drive.
Term
high revving
High revving means that an engine can spin very fast, which usually helps it make more power. Cars with high revving engines can be more exciting to drive but might wear out faster.
Term
naturally aspirated
A naturally aspirated engine gets its air from the atmosphere without any help from turbochargers or superchargers. This can make the engine feel more responsive and powerful at high speeds.
Term
cross-plane crank V8
A cross-plane crank V8 is a type of engine where the crankshaft is set up to help the engine run smoothly and sound good. It's a popular design for many powerful cars.
Car
Audi RS4
The Audi RS4 is a fast and powerful car based on the regular Audi A4. The 2007 version has a strong V8 engine that makes it very fun to drive.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and more powerful the car can be.
Term
PS
PS is a measurement used to show how powerful an engine is, similar to horsepower. It's often used in Europe to describe car engines.
Car
C63
The C63 is a sporty version of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class. It's known for having a strong engine and being fun to drive, while still offering luxury features.
Car
Cadillac Ct4V
The Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing is a high-performance version of the Cadillac CT4. It's built for speed and great handling, making it fun to drive.
Car
Volkswagen GTI
The Volkswagen GTI is a popular small car that is fun to drive and has a sporty design. It's known for being both practical and exciting, making it a favorite among car lovers.
Car
Volkswagen Golf
Car
Alfa Romeo Julia
Term
carburetor
A carburetor helps engines get the right mix of air and fuel to run. It's mostly found in older cars because newer ones use a different system called fuel injection.
Term
crank position sensor
The crank position sensor helps the car's computer know where the engine's crankshaft is, which is important for making the engine run smoothly.
Term
cam position sensor
The cam position sensor tells the car's computer where the camshaft is, helping it manage when the engine's valves open and close for better performance.
Term
carbureted car
A carbureted car is one that uses a carburetor to mix fuel and air for the engine. This older technology is simpler and doesn't rely on electronics, which some people think makes it more reliable.
Car
Toyota Prius
Term
CAN bus
The CAN bus is like a communication system in cars that helps different parts talk to each other. It makes sure everything works together smoothly without needing a central computer.
Term
bricking
Bricking means that a car stops working completely, almost like a brick that can't do anything. This usually happens because of problems with the car's computer systems.
Term
miles per gallon
Miles per gallon tells you how far a car can go on a gallon of gas. The more miles you get, the less gas you need to buy, which saves you money.
Brand
Lotus
Lotus is a car brand from the UK that makes sports cars. They are famous for making cars that are light and fast, focusing on how well they handle on the road.
Term
turbo cars
Turbo cars have special devices called turbochargers that help the engine use fuel more efficiently. This means they can go faster while using less gas.
Car
Ford F150S
Car
Porsche Cayman
Car
Honda Element
Car
Saab 900
Car
Acura Legend
Car
Scion Xb
Car
Alfa 164S
Car
Nissan Pulsar
Car
Mazda 626
Car
Mazda Mx6
Car
Mazda Mx3
Car
BMW Z4
Car
Fiat 500e
Car
Mazda 3
Car
Honda Civic
Car
Cadillac V16S
Car
Volkswagen Egolf
Car
Lexus Ls
Car
Porsche Panamera
LIVE
Oh, God, another one.
Another what?
Another episode of the Corimagine show.
Congratulations.
Happy Monday if you are consuming on Monday.
Unhappy Monday if you're not.
I think that's a little rude, don't you?
I wish you a poor Monday.
I wish you a happy whatever day of the week it is.
Why am I the one ray of fucking sunshine this episode?
You know, Jason, the ray of sunshine, obviously.
Welcome to the Hagerty driven podcast of the Corimagine show
presented by Jason Camisa and Derek Tam, Hyphen Scott.
I composed that.
It was an original composition that I made on the spot,
if you couldn't tell.
This episode is about, what is it about?
It's about choosing when peak car was.
When was peak automobile?
Or, I'm not that way.
If we can pick.
We do, and then we don't, then we do,
and then we don't.
There's a lot of actual authentically objective thinking
in this episode, which hurts my brain a lot.
It certainly hurts the brain.
But well, for thought.
So, Derek, we'll clap and we're gonna get right into it.
All right.
That's two weeks in a row.
Yeah. Congratulations.
Thank you.
We've got another one, there we go.
Actually, we're gonna have to add a full clap track to this.
So, audience, applaud.
Thank you.
So, they're still going.
Thank you.
1965.
What happened in 1965?
You turned 40?
Yeah, with my big bonus that you're,
I bought a Volkswagen square back.
I thought you were gonna say
you bought a battery tender, battery maintainer.
Oh yes.
Since battery tender has been around since 1965.
And they're the sponsor of this episode
of the Carmanjin Show.
And they're the innovators in this space
having made a advice that can be used to both charge your car
and start it and compress air
such that you might put it in your tires.
You could probably also blow up a beach ball.
You could, yeah, or a basketball.
And they made this bobble head and gave it to us,
which I find endlessly amusing.
Don't forget, you can get 20%
off your battery tender purchase at batterytender.com
by using the code Hagerty20.
Which brings us to the other sponsor of this episode,
which is Hagerty.
Not technically not the sponsor, the owner.
Not the owner.
Patron saint.
Patron saint?
I don't know.
Patron saint driver.
Because Carmanjin Show is driven by Hagerty.
Speaking of things that Hagerty is driving,
no one has driven my Rover in quite some time.
Because as you remember, I crashed it
to the back of a pickup truck,
thus starting this whole JasonSemi.com thing
to go get quotes on insurance.
It was drivable to be clear after the crash.
It was drivable.
That's not why no one is driving it.
No one's driving it because it has no engine in it.
So the body, I don't know how much we've talked about,
I don't remember.
This has been going on for many months,
but the car went over to Hagerty's garage
in Driver City and I flew over there
and I pulled the engine out with David
who does our red line rebuild, engine rebuilds.
We are now two episodes public on that?
I possibly three by the time this one goes live.
But more importantly, at some point around the time
that this episode goes live,
I will be back in Traverse City and most likely
you should cross be putting the engine back in
and starting it for the first time.
That's quite exciting.
Yeah, we're on a bit of a time crunch.
So unfortunately it can't.
It'll be snowy potentially.
If it's not, it'll be smoky
because we're gonna do a burnout.
I have been told.
In either case, visibility does not look good
in Traverse City.
Exactly, I've been told it might have
a limited slip differential in it now.
It might, you'll find out, I guess.
I'll find out.
Well, I did one hell of a fucking burnout.
When was it?
It was, yes, it was very, very much one.
Just one burning.
You gotta rotate your tires.
One tire of fire.
So yeah, no, I'm super excited about that.
Which are?
Fredestine Sprint Classics.
Were.
Now they're there.
Now they're dust.
Fredestine Sprint Dust.
Yeah, I can't wait.
I can't wait to drive this car.
I'm very excited about it.
I'm interested to see it again.
Yeah, I'm interested to see it post crash repair
because it is, it's going to look very different
with very totally different front end.
Euro conversion.
Full Euro conversion, which means.
The world's finest SD1 just keeps getting finer.
I did see actually a really beautiful,
like Pristine Vitesse SD1 when I was in England.
So maybe it's the second world's finest.
I don't really know if my car is.
America's finest SD1.
I'm sure somebody has a Concord level one
without a crack dash, but I don't know.
All I know is now this is as,
at least as the designers intended
because the front end has a small early chrome bumper
with the correct series one headlights
with the correct series one grill
and front cross member.
And then rear bumper, I also did.
So can't wait, can't wait.
The world's finest sports sedan at your disposal.
Well, that leads me to the question.
Is that peak sports sedan?
What kind of question is that?
It's a question to bring us
around to the topic of this episode.
All right, next question.
Is that one was?
Is that?
No, that's not a sedan.
Exactly.
However, it does share some underpinnings
with a car that some might say is the peak sports sedan.
It's not a sedan.
It shares some of its underpinnings
with the thing that someone might say
could possibly be the world's best sports sedan.
Such underpinnings.
What is that technically?
That's an E-90 underneath?
Is that an E-90 underneath?
Or is that an E-64 underneath?
It's got a fucking S-64 in the hood.
Yeah, so that's now a sedan.
That's a coupe.
It's a sedan.
The S-54.
It's a two-door sedan.
This is like the Beetle sedan
when they called the Volkswagen Beetle a sedan.
Hey, the E-32 door was considered a sedan also.
By whom?
By the DMV.
It's a two-door, I see it.
I'm trying here.
Okay, listen.
All right, so this week, this past week,
depending on when you see this most likely
this done past week had done,
there's a new show that debuted
on the Hagger to YouTube channel that I did.
It's called Retrospective.
Mentioned this a couple of weeks ago
in the roasting episode.
But we loved, Anthony Esposito and I
were brainstorming things,
loved the idea that we should go back
and look at rivalries from the past
and see if the magazine sort of got it wrong
or if time has gotten it wrong, right?
Or revisiting some of these comparison tests.
Because you guys enjoy torturing yourselves
by requiring you to get more than one car
into the studio,
because one car isn't hard enough.
So now you have to do two, three.
Studio is relatively easy on a racetrack
allowing us to do with those cars what we please.
So at the same time, we were talking about
to the guys over, guys and girls are over
at Haggerty Marketplace and Haggerty Marketplace
is Haggerty's sort of online auction.
So, you know, Haggerty has broad arrow,
which is the sort of in-person auctions.
And then Haggerty Marketplace, which is online auctions.
And we were talking about them and they said,
hey, can you help us out and give us some coverage?
We're relatively new.
And I'm like, yeah, sure,
but I don't know anything about you.
Can you do me a favor and go find 32,008?
Sports sedans.
Sports sedans.
And just listen for auction when we're done with them.
And to my absolute surprise, everyone involved
is like, yeah, that's really cool.
So we found they, someone,
someone found three 2008 cars.
So 2008 was the one magical year
where you had your choice of three German compact sports
sedans with a V8 engine and a manual.
Sorry, not a manual.
We talked about that last week, should be manual swapped.
But isn't yet.
The annoying thing is after a week after this,
I drove a C63 AMG giving them,
giving that away with a manual swap.
And the results of that episode
could have been a little bit different
if I had one of the manual swap theirs.
But we sort of postulate that 2000,
that era of sports sedan was peak.
So you had the E90 BMW M3,
which has the-
With the high revving four liter V8.
Magnificence.
The S65.
Still the highest revving,
naturally aspirated cross-plane crank V8 ever made.
At 8,000.
8,250, I think it was, 83.
And the, isn't the RS for?
50 RPM below.
50 RPM.
So it all depends on how you-
50,50.
It's 50, I think it is.
Yeah, so 80,250 versus 80,300.
I think something like that or 80.
So I have numbers bouncing around my head
because different places have talked about red line
versus fuel cut.
And fuel cut.
In either case, I believe the BMW wins by 50 or 100 RPM.
But the Audi RS4,
which did come a year earlier that came in 2007
was the highest specific output and the highest revving.
And then the BMW beat it in both measures.
Because it got similar horsepower.
Same German horsepower, right?
It's a European-
420PS.
420PS from four liters versus four two in the Audi.
And it's one just slightly higher.
And then of course, Mercedes came in same year, 2008
with a absolute hammer and it's like 4.2 liters.
4.0 liters, fuck you.
He has 6.2 and just to shove it in further
called it a 6.3.
So that is the Magnificent M156 engine.
So in the Audi RS4.
And they have a C63.
So we have, she's Christ.
We should have had lunch.
We should have had lunch before this.
We're experiencing hypoxia or whatever it happens
when you don't eat enough.
That's a lot of oxygen.
That's a lot of oxygen.
Hyphoodia, hypolysis.
Hypoglycemia?
No, that's not enough sugar.
Which is what do you get when you eat?
Sugar, depends on what you eat.
Yeah, chocolate isn't it?
Anyway, more importantly.
It's a bunch of letters and numbers.
A bunch of letters and numbers.
Because they're all German cars.
And we, my question is what then happens.
So let's revisit and this comparison test
and then let's pitch it against,
pitch these three cars up against,
put them up against, not pitch,
pitch them up against today's best driving sports sedan.
Which is not the BMW M3.
The BMWs could be, I could argue either way,
but I could argue that the M3 is currently
the best sports sedan on the market.
That's gas powered.
But I would argue that the overall is an overall package
that the Cadillac CT4V Blackwing
is the best driving sports sedan at the moment.
And so my question was,
how does, does do any of these three cars
have a snowball's chance in hell against today's best?
And if so, why and how?
And so we examined all that.
Next week, there is a second episode
with those three cars.
That's maybe about a drag race
to see if anything's gotten faster than them.
But that's a different story.
So that's this coming Thursday, I think.
Scheduling is not my job.
But it was a really, really interesting question.
So my question to you and go watch the video
because we had a lot of talk.
I will do so.
Maybe I'll give you a sneak preview after this
because it would have been very helpful
for you to have seen it before.
Sorry.
My question is, when was peak car?
Who is asking and what do they care about?
You fucking idiot, what the fuck?
No, I mean, is that not obvious?
Was that harsh calling you fucking?
No, but the point I was trying to make
was that it's a subjective question
and that everyone has,
the era that someone prefers resonates differently
for every person.
You know, you and I care about things
that not every person who likes cars will care about.
And there's, I'm sure after us,
an entire generation of people for whom E-Pass
is perfectly sufficient and not objectionable.
That's because they're fools.
Yeah.
The world is composed of fools.
We know this.
This is one of the fundamental premises
of the Carmudgeon show.
It's our belief that everyone else is an idiot.
We're excited.
Well, like people who aren't into cars,
you know, are idiots obviously
and there's lots of wrong ways to be into cars.
But it's all subjective, right?
What do you care about?
If you, so.
Well, I'm glad you said that
because actually I just brought my handy notepad out
that's actually just a scrap of paper
with nothing written on it yet
with a little clicky pen.
Let's try to make this objective
and let's think about actually what would make peak car
or peak sports sedan.
Because I think obviously, like if you look at my collection
of cars, the model years of cars that I own, 75, 80, 85, 87,
88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 96.
A little bit of a pattern there, right?
Nothing from the 60s, nothing from the 40s,
nothing from the 2010s, except my Peter E. Golf.
Which I would say is a better car than most
but it's electric and so that's a completely
different story.
Your owner, the cars you own, 1863, 1865, 1901.
Civil war was really a peak moment for me.
Yeah, let's see, 1957, 1969, 1972.
I don't have them all in order by year.
1982, 1990, I think I have two from 99, 94, 95,
294s, 195, N and 08.
The GTI.
Oh, forgot about that.
Yeah, so we both have, both of our most modern vehicles
is a Volkswagen Golf.
Very different functions.
Yours is a track rat and mine is a grocery getter.
I, yeah, hold on, I'm gonna write down
another episode concept that I just remembered.
So you're, so my time, the dawn of time for me
is actually, and I would own older cars.
I purposely prevent myself from buying older cars
than even the 1950s because I know that they are
completely illiquid and will only depreciate
but left to my own devices, I would have older cars
even in 1957.
I tend to not have cars that old
because they don't drive the way I want them to.
So let's set aside, but our preferences,
I think it's really fascinating that you own cars
that are, that spend 51 years.
And if I did that math or whatever, 50 something years,
that's really cool.
But when we're talking about the engineering of a car
and the purpose of it, which is transporting
and you add in build quality and reliability and joy.
So let's talk about the things that make a good car.
I think first of all, it's ability to transport, right?
To, well, that's what a car does, right?
At the end of the day, it's there.
This is transportation device by definition.
Automobile, it moves itself.
If a car fails to proceed, it's a bad car by that measure.
No, you don't think?
There's a lot of cool shit that may,
that'll fail to proceed.
Like?
Like a Mira.
That makes it a terrible car.
Yeah.
See, that's my point.
So what are the standards by which we are measuring
where our car is good, are flawed in my opinion then.
I think there's a minimum.
Is an Alfa Romeo, Julia Super, therefore out of contention?
Yeah.
As a car?
Okay, hold on.
Let's speak.
What is the question we're answering?
The greatest sports sedan?
When did the car peak?
I think it's-
When did the car peak?
The sports sedan, look, I've-
But what is the car doing?
This is the question I first asked.
What is it?
Who's judging everything?
It's the combined, the sum total of all of its abilities.
Right, so you have all of these curves
and when did the aggregate of all of those things peak?
So one of them is going to be its ability to move.
Okay, so then it has to be fuel injected.
I would agree with that.
I would agree with that, because carburetors,
which I love all the hate that you got
on that Instagram reel.
Did I?
Oh my God.
So we, the Haggerty's social media guy does these clips,
they reels and it takes clips of our,
of the Carman Giro puts them on Instagram
and some of them get a lot of views and comments.
And one was, we were talking about,
I don't remember which episode it was,
but you said something like, you take,
like you're washing machine or something.
And if people who were buying,
we were talking about EVs, obviously,
and you were saying, if you subjected to someone today
to all of the fuckery that you had to deal with
and dealing with a carburetor,
people would say, absolutely not, no way.
And they just wouldn't be willing to put up
with all of that shit.
And there were people who were commenting like,
this fucking guy is the reason why everything
is an appliance these days.
And I'm like, do you understand the shit piles
that he drives?
Like that was taken totally at a context
for someone who doesn't know you
and know that you're total petrolhead
and everything you like best as carburetors.
I thought that was so hilarious.
I'm like, let the hate come in, go right ahead.
Like learn who you're listening to here.
You are clearly not a fan of.
But I was also talking about the average consumer.
That you literally said those words.
Okay, well then they're, like we said,
what are we returning to the premise of foolishness.
Fools, yes, exactly.
But yeah, a car's ability to function as a car.
Okay, so you're leading the class to the answer,
which is that it has to be fuel injected.
What else is-
You came to that conclusion,
but I would agree to that.
Well, if you're treating the ability of the car
to function reliably as an important metric.
It's okay.
So when did a car's ability to start run
and not give you any shit peak in terms of reliability?
It's-
In terms of not necessarily reliability, but-
It's EFI.
It's just sort of the, it's not too complex,
but it's EFI, early EFI.
I don't think early EFI.
No, no, no, not 70s.
Like 80s, 80s, 90s EFI, like Bosch Petronic.
I'd say even later,
because you had self-diagnostic capability and redundancy
and they hadn't quite figured that out.
So once you get to the era of EFI,
where the computer will say,
oh, crank position sensor went out,
I'll just use the cam position sensor,
lock the cam timing, throw a light on
and continue to run and get you home,
is really, is a step change over any one of this-
This is also subjective though.
I just, it's how do you do,
like what is your weight you place on this versus that?
Like the weight that you place on getting home
is higher than some other person
might declare the weight on getting home.
Like you could also say that, oh,
a carbureted car is actually more reliable
because there's no electronic parts in there to break
and then you can sort of fix it on the side of the road
with a bag of sand and a shoe or whatever it is that,
you know, you need to fix a car.
Like you could say, okay, well,
then you should be driving a carbureted 1960s car
and then the Julia Super is actually the ideal answer
to that.
Okay, I understand where you're coming from,
which is a slight defensive standpoint
because you like your carburetors,
but I think if we looked objectively
at reliability data, percent uptime,
how many times out of a hundred does someone,
Sally, cue, save, driver, get out-
But the person who is deciding
that that's important in a car to them,
like how do they-
We're gonna have plenty of other categories.
This is just, it's a car's ability,
I can't believe you're fighting me on this,
I love this, a car's ability to start and run
and get you to your destination.
Have you been on the side of the road?
First of all, you probably actually aren't old enough
to really remember pre-sale phone days.
Breaking down is a stressful event,
especially for people who don't know what's going on,
for whom a car is a black box of scariness.
It threw a light and it turned off
and it made the sound and I don't know what's going on
and now I'm gonna be bankrupt
and I'm gonna have to walk to work
and I'm never gonna make it to work
and I'm gonna lose my house.
Yeah, but this is like an average consumer
and not an enthusiast.
Like why are you judging what the ideal enthusiast car
is like when it's for the audience
is an enthusiast.
When did car peak?
I answered the question.
It's impossible to answer the question
is what I'm trying to say.
I'm gonna say, I answered the question of whether,
if 2008 was peak sports sedan
or we're actually better off today,
I answered that in the video,
you didn't get to watch the video
so maybe you're at a disadvantage here.
I have my beliefs that's not relevant here.
I'm asking when did car peak
and I think reliability peaked.
So who's the consumer?
Is it an enthusiast?
Are they twisted like us?
No, they are.
It's an average just person who doesn't wanna walk.
Let's give it, if we are a 10 on the autism scale of
auto-motions and enthusiasm.
And a zero is a Prius slash super driver
who just needs basic transportation.
Let's give them a four, five.
Middle of the bell curve.
Maybe 70th percentile of the bell curve.
Give him a six.
Okay.
Person needs to get to work.
A car has to get to somewhere.
If it doesn't move, it's not a car.
Or something.
It's not an automobile.
It's a yard art, like that shit.
Volkswagen, then I have my front yard rotting.
So in that case, we're just really looking at
reliability is maybe the wrong word here.
It's ability to just get you where you need to go,
which is a function of reliability.
I have my thoughts about where they peaked.
But do you and you have experience
with modern cars too
and you hear stories about people
having modern cars explode,
lights going on, whatever.
Where do you think?
It's the 10 year period between 95 and 05, I think.
Yeah.
I would say I'm gonna push to the later part of that
because once when computers took over,
I think there was a little bit of over reliance on them
and cars started to get less reliable there
because that one sensor could pull the whole thing down
or one can bus failure could pull the whole thing down
and they got a little bit better.
So I'm gonna say somewhere between 2000 and 2010.
So we're sort of in the same era.
So we're 2000s effectively, say 2000 somewhere on.
I think that's important, right?
I think we took a step down in complexity.
You didn't have cars having turbo issues
when they didn't have turbos on them
and you didn't have hybrid system faults.
Although Toyota has really ruined that argument
because Toyota makes incredibly reliable hybrids
but some other car companies don't.
And so now you have these cars that just brick themselves
and don't start.
And I think we've definitely taken a step back in that.
Now, some of them will get you home
but a lot of them brick and they just didn't do that
10 years ago.
Next objective criteria of automotive engineering
in a car is has to be safety.
Do you die in the thing that gets you to work?
Okay.
Where do you feel on that?
Isn't it just the more modern it is, the safer it is?
Has there been any retrenching?
Have we given up anything in safety ever?
So ideally, no.
But if you've started to think about the disparity
of mass on the roads in the last couple of years
with where you have 7,000, 8,000 pound
electric pickup trucks and five, six, 7,000 pound
cars going up against smaller, I think the spread
of in the market of masses of cars and bumper heights
and sort of all these other factors in safety
are contributing to a differential in death rates
in real world death rates.
And then when you factor in the distraction numbers
from all of that.
But that has nothing to do with cars.
Oh, you mean stuff in the car.
Of infotainment, pillar thickness.
So we're actually seeing rise in death rates in cars.
Huge rise in pedestrian death rates in cars,
which is also part of it,
but also even death rates from people
from distracted distraction techniques, right?
Or distraction factors like infotainment systems
in the car, all these fucking idiots driving
with no lights on.
That was not a problem 15 years ago.
It's a real problem now.
I don't know if it's resulting in deaths,
but I can't imagine it's not.
So I do think we peaked in terms of automotive safety,
even though the cars are likely better
in a crash. Survivable.
Right.
Now I can't see what's coming to my left
when I'm at a stop sign crossing a street
because I have this massive pillar there
that will help me in a rollover,
but now caused me to pull out in front of a tractor trailer
doing 70 miles an hour and I die.
So I think we did peak.
I mean, objectively, I don't hold me to the years,
but probably 2010 is when the tide started shifting
on real world.
I mean, the data would be the most definitive way
to answer that.
That's a question.
I don't even have my phone here.
I would ask the GPT of Chattness,
but we should probably do our homework before we do.
So those are the sort of, I think two of the big factors.
I think economy is another factor, right?
Did from a consumer oriented perspective,
if your car gets nine miles per gallon on your commute
versus one that performs the same way
and gets 20 miles per gallon,
I think one is a better product.
Is that a fair factor?
Yes, you could also call it efficiency
and then it has less of a negative connotation
in the eyes of a car enthusiast.
Okay.
We like efficiency.
Lotus is all about efficiency.
Yes, correct.
I don't, I think we've now peaked
because my feeling on this is the current government's
sort of knee capping of CAFE standards,
it means we're going to take a step back in efficiency.
I'm not sure that's necessarily the case
for most consumer products.
I think it's going to just allow
a lot more enthusiast products,
big burbly V8s and shit like that.
I'm also not convinced that a lot of these downsized
turbo cars are really actually delivering much better
real world economy.
Yes, this is like that top gear thing
that they did where they ran at Prius flat out
around a race track versus a M3
that was going the same speed.
And Prius used more gas.
I mean, they, I'm sure engineered that outcome
because Jeremy Clarkson,
but the point he was trying to make
is that if you adjusted for pace,
the M3 is not wildly inefficient.
It's just capable of doing more things or more.
Many years ago when the EcoBoost F-150s first came out,
there was a company called, they're gone now,
I believe, Automatic.
And it was a $19 OBD2 reader that was Bluetooth in.
If I, I think this was automatic,
but there was a company that did this.
And essentially their business on,
from the consumer standpoint was you plug this thing in
and it monitors all your shit
and just talks to your phone, whatever.
In the background, what was really happening
was all of that real world data
was being fed into a database.
And so they were starting to capture
actual real world data on all of these different cars.
And so they can see everything that was available
from the OBD2 plug.
And someone who worked there told me
that they were seeing that the two,
the three and a half liter EcoBoost F-150s,
which were invented basically to match,
to make better for better EPA numbers,
were using vastly more gas in the real world
than the V8s were.
And so they were, they wanted to be this repository
of real world actual data.
Did the cars do better or trucks do better in the EPA tests?
The EcoBoost did way better, right?
And you saw this sometimes with like, you know,
some manufacturers was downsized
in turbocharged cars like Porsche.
Porsche, when the, when the Cayman went to the 718
and went from a naturally aspirated six to a turbo four,
in every single trim level on EPA tests,
the four cylinder did worse than the six had done.
Oh, but that's EPA verified.
That was EPA verified.
And in the real world, you can absolutely believe
that the four cylinders would do way worse.
In the case of the EcoBoost, the F-150s,
the V6s were done to bring down their CAFE
and their average fuel economy
because they did far better bring down the CAFE penalties,
bring up their MPGs, right?
They did better in testing, turbocharged,
small engines do really well in testing
because in testing, you're using light throttle,
low boost, but once you go to heavy boost,
you need enrichment, which means you're running fat,
which means you're wasting fuel.
And in fact, in most cases, in most load scenarios,
a heavy load scenarios, a naturally aspirated engine
will do better than a turbo or a boosted engine.
And so I would love to know
if anyone's looking at actual real world efficiency,
but I suspect as the fleet moves more and more automatic
where car companies can play tricks
on the NEPA testing to achieve that.
And as the computers in the cars have more levers to pull
with more sensors and more variability,
very variable file timing stuff,
that the differential between real world fuel economy
and NEPA rating is growing.
So I think we've also peaked there.
Now, once you go electric, you're talking about
a sea change, you're talking 120 miles per gallon
equivalent in the real world versus 20 or 30.
And so that changes.
But I think once, when you're talking about combustion cars,
I think we also peaked probably somewhere in the late teens.
Experience with this stuff?
I mean, you are crafting an argument right now
to frame the goodness of a car in the terms
that an enthusiast may not care about.
Oh, we haven't gotten to the enthusiast yet.
Okay.
I just think in order of the mass market, right?
Sure.
People are, if you look at what people,
the consumer of the automobile looks at,
Steering Hill's not going to be one of them.
Yes.
We're going to add that back in.
We're going to, so, but I,
that's why I've got little handy dandy piece of paper
because I think there are a lot of categories that we should.
Yes, for the average person who's looking to get
from A to B efficiency matters, certainly.
All right, so let's, we'll go a little bit,
a little bit down the road of enthusiasm,
diversity of offering.
I think that's a really interesting thing to look at.
So can I, as a consumer of cars,
go buy something that's different,
or that's unique, or that speaks to my personality,
like in the way that someone would go buy a Honda Element
instead of a CR-V,
or a Saab 900 instead of an Acura Legend, right?
Or I mean, you know, if you think on the surface,
something like a Scion XB that's just, you know,
a Scion XA with a cool box shape on it.
But on the other hand, a Saab is a perfect example.
This is a car that shares,
no, you're talking about the original, not classic,
that shares nothing.
It's just fucking batshit.
The engine's backwards upside down,
you know, wrapped around the rear bumper
and belt driven by Satan or something.
Chain, but yeah.
Isn't it chain?
Chain driven underneath the transmission,
not wrapped around the back bumper.
But the exhaust is wrapped around the battery, basically.
Goes forward and then back.
Like a Bentley Turbo R.
Right, you know, I'll let you talk on this one
because you brought up the Saab, diversity of offering.
Yeah, but does the average consumer, you know,
like I think that there was certainly a lot of that,
if you like, I'm struck by this when I read old magazines
from the 1990s about, you know,
there were certainly wacky Saabs and Stirlings
and Alfa Romeo 164s,
even in the sort of pedestrian car form factor,
there was more variety back then, you know,
was that good?
Did consumers benefit from that?
In the near term, at time of buying, sure,
but like the experience of owning an orphaned car
after a Pujo, Alfa Romeo, Stirling
or whomever else left the United States market,
like is that an improvement?
Or is like the convergence on sameness that we have now
where at least all the manufacturers around
and we have 10 year warranties and all that stuff,
is that better for the consumer?
Like what is that consumer choice?
Well, what is the difference story then?
Yeah, but the cars that are warrantyable
for that long, like are the,
is the consumer of the early 90s
who has an orphaned Pujo 405 or Stirling 827,
like are they truly better off than they were 10 or 15
or 20 years later when they have a Hyundai
with a 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty?
Okay, valid question.
Although what I would say is in the consumer
in the late 80s had a choice of a Nissan Pulsar
with three different removable rear sections on it.
I can have a Pulsar with a hatchback,
I can have a Pulsar with a fastback,
I can have a Pulsar with a notchback, right?
That's what I'm talking about.
Oh, okay, I want a Mazda 626 in coupe form
so I can have an MX6.
Yeah, or a hatchback, five door hatchback, 626, that was a thing.
That's true, I forgot about that.
Wow, I think you said it, right?
Converge this on sameness that we have now.
But if you really think about the offerings that we had,
so right now people would say,
oh, Mercedes lineup is bigger than ever.
Just because they make a GLC coupe and a GLC SUV,
which are the same thing,
one of which is just stupid looking
and the other one's just ugly.
Is that really giving the consumer choice?
Because they all have the same engines,
they all have the same drivelines.
In fact, I mean, so does your Pulsar.
Okay, but the Mazda MX3 had a 1.8 liter V6
and nothing today does.
Yes, I will grant that.
I think we are at an absolute low point
in consumer choice.
Or not both, in body style,
in drivetrain configuration,
in transmission offerings,
in unique styling, in size, in shape, in color.
You can't get a fucking car with a color.
That weirdo looking Z4 coupe behind us
is bronze for fuck's sake.
That's, I don't even, it's bronze.
It's a pang.
It's a pang.
It's fucking awesome.
Find me something that's on sale to this day
in a cool color, with a cool engine,
with a cool transmission, with a cool hatchback shape.
There just exists nothing.
It's all same.
Yeah, but if you went back to that era,
I think that was the only car that fit that description also
at that time, which is why people like them.
Yeah.
Fair point, fair point.
I mean, I guess today you could have a GRD6,
would be the closest thing to that.
Yeah, but certainly doesn't-
I'm afraid a great inline six with rod bearing problems
for a also lubrication challenge flat four, like.
I think we had far more diversity of choice there,
but yes, I would, the only thing equivalent today
would be that, Bersie, and I would have one of those cars
if I wanted a shape.
But hold on, now you want a sport coupe shape today.
Yeah, yes.
This was the other thing that I was about to say
that the death of the sport coupe all together
is very lamentable and that's a real and inarguable.
How about a hatchback?
How about a hot hatch?
Yes.
I mean, what's left?
You have a Fiat 500E that's not hot at all.
It's gorgeous.
Great.
You can have a GTI that's-
Mazda 3.
No manual, Mazda 3, which is-
Mini.
Not hot, Mini, which is not a good car.
You can have, oh, well technically-
Is this the evolution of consumer preference?
This is chicken or egg.
Was the consumer preference shaped by manufacturers
not offering compelling hatchbacks
or did consumers just decide that hatchbacks were uncool?
Other markets have hatchbacks.
And are they cool?
Yeah, look at some of the French shit,
some of the, I mean, even the German shit
is still kind of cool, I don't have a one series over.
That's always been a question though,
is that hot hatches generally are like appealing
and consumers gravitate towards them
in non-U.S. markets in a way that they never did in the U.S.
even when there was peak U.S. hatchbackery.
That's I think just a function of geography, right?
In the U.S., most of the U.S.
It's like consumer preferences
or like philosophy of Americans, right?
We had like this unique genre of land yacht
which was very American
and hatchback was diametrically opposed to that.
And so there was something like vaguely non-American
or communist about hatchbacks in the American psyche
in the 70s and 80s.
Or I see you're very poor
and you've bought a foreign economy car
of poor and anti-American.
So you've bought an economy car, you know, a Honda Civic.
Or poor and stupid and bought a Chevy Chevette.
Yes, yes.
Which was a vastly inferior product, right?
Yeah, but American made.
But American.
No, I think you're right.
I honestly, I think that the land yacht
versus hatchback thing is far more a function of geography
because try to park a land yacht in downtown Paris.
Yes, but by its nature
then it becomes distinctly American
and it sort of underlines that point
that you are doing something that is specific
to the place that you are from
and that is a fundamental part if we are.
Yep.
And of course you're gonna have the counterculture of people
like me who's like, I want a hatchback
even when I live in Michigan.
Yes.
And so there is space for you to make a statement.
And that's all gone, right?
I understand why hatchbacks
don't sell in large numbers in the US
unless they're in SUV form.
So what is a person, what is a,
not an enthusiast but a consumer
who wishes to make a statement.
The way that say a 900,
because I would almost argue that a sob 900
if you go back to 1989 or whenever they were most prevalent
was not an enthusiast choice.
It was an individualist choice
but not because you were a car enthusiast
but because you wanted to wear, you know.
Tweed.
Yeah, spectacles with thick horn rims
instead of sort of benign regular old person glasses.
Not because you were an eyewear enthusiast
but because it was a part of your outfit
that you wanted to be different.
Didn't want to blend in, right?
You wanted something different.
Okay, so what does that,
is there such a thing now to buy that does that?
I mean, I know that you're,
the argument you're building currently right now
is that no such thing exists.
So you're probably the wrong person to ask.
I'm, well, I'm trying to think about this.
Like it parts of the country.
The Mazda 3 is sort of that car a little bit.
Mazda products generally
because you would normally choose a Honda or Toyota
or maybe a GM crossover.
But is the Mazda thing the different counterculture choice
because it's mechanically and functionally different
or is just because it's done
because it's the same shit?
It's executed at a different level
and it's aesthetically different
but it's the same ingredients but done differently.
So it's, that's just a vignette
or sorry, a veneer of.
Yes, veneer of difference that's not really.
That doesn't backed up by the wacky shit
under the skin.
Now if it still had a rotary
then it would be a true, yeah.
I think all sort of counter,
like you could say maybe in parts of the country, Teslas
in the Bay Area, Tesla is the obvious choice, right?
Parts of the country, anything electric
that could be sort of counterculture.
Having a Cadillac in the Bay Area
would be sort of counterculture, right?
You have a CT 5V blackwing manual.
So you have a big supercharged V8 with a stick shift.
It says that you're somewhere else.
Altogether different from everyone else.
How ironic is it that a General Magans,
yeah, that a GM product would be
the counterculture in America, right?
That's kind of.
Well, we're in a particular part of America
that is the least patriotic probably,
one of the least patriotic parts of America.
But I think Cadillac is one of the most counterculture,
one of the blackwing, there's a sporty Cadillacs
would be one of the most counterculture things
you could buy in this country, anywhere.
Like what the hell is different?
There's kind of nothing.
Oh, I'm gonna have a dodge.
Well, it's almost anachronistic.
It's a dinosaur.
It's not like different for being different.
It's just old, conceptually,
like the concept is an old concept
that has been retired by most people, but not Cadillac.
I think diversity of choice peaked in early 90s.
Okay, here's the punchline.
Okay, early 90s.
What would you say?
Just before the departure of Pujo and Alfa Romeo and.
Well, when you still had some cars.
But after the arrival of all the Japanese upstarts.
Yeah, you had cylinder count choice,
you had displacement choice, you had high revving,
like variable valve timing, 16-4 valve stuff coming in,
forced induction stuff coming in,
then you had pushrod American stuff coming in.
You had this, you could go buy a car
with a 4,000 RPM redline or an 8,700 RPM redline
and every choice, you had every choice
of suspension geometry, it's a suspension type.
You had every choice of steering,
thing worm and roller recirculating ball.
You had every shape, every size.
Sports coupes still existed.
But that wasn't intentional.
It wasn't intentional, it was the result of the fact
that there was a transition occurring
and it's a snapshot of a moment
where the transition has occurred for some,
but not for others.
I think the car industry was still progressing
and I think they were progressing at different speeds.
And so you had some that were left in the past
and some that weren't
and I don't think we have that anymore.
Okay, you have pushrod hemiv8s from Chrysler
who just tried to retire it in favor of another 500 CC,
right, 500 CC, direct injection turbocharged, blah, blah,
blah, blah, sure it's 500 CC per cylinder, per cylinder.
What did I say?
You just didn't finish
because you moved on to the next thought.
Oops.
Yeah, for sure, I think we've now converged on sameness
to the disadvantage of the car.
I agree with that.
All right, when did it peak for you?
I mean, yeah, I buy your 90s argument.
There's also, you know, like this is a different phase
in the maturing of the automobile industry
but you can also point to like the early days
when it didn't take much, there weren't many barriers
to becoming a new manufacturer.
There was a huge like prevalence
and I wish I had these numbers handy
but I recall reading somewhere that, you know, in 1920 X
there were like 200 different German car manufacturers
and then they all consolidated
because the standard of the products
and the amount of capital investment necessary
to participate and sort of acquisitions
and sort of, you know, this is where GM emerges from
like the number of marks that was in there
that all ended up getting combined into GM
and consolidated into, you know,
what the number was, maybe it was 10
and at some point before Oldsmobile and Pontiac
and all that went away and now it's like six or seven
or something like that.
But like at some point there were hundreds
of different manufacturers of cars.
And so you say, well, is that a time
when consumers had more choice?
Like, sure.
So you came to, came, you stumbled early
on the follow-up question that I was gonna ask
is are we being incredibly myopic
by only looking at like 1960s to today?
So I think, yeah, there was a far more diversity
of choice.
I mean, you could get steam cars and electric cars
and like, you know, there were people
who were like making four valves per cylinder
and dual overhead camshafts in the 1920s,
very small number of people, but like Bugatti and Bentley
and straight Aids, V8s, V16s, four cylinders.
No V6s.
No V6s, hadn't been invented.
V6s hadn't been invented, wasn't invented
until the, I think Lancia invented it
doing the engineering work in the 40s.
Technically a VR4.
No, it was a VR4 and a V6, real V6, yeah.
Yeah, I think you had diversity of manufacturer for sure.
I mean, I would think about all the brands that are gone.
Yes.
Hupmobile.
I mean, Hudson.
Packard, Franklin.
Yeah.
Stubaker.
Pierce Arrow.
We, these are all American companies too, yeah.
I don't even know anything about them
and I know they exist.
What's the one with the really cool front wheel drive cars?
Cord.
Cord, Tucker.
I mean, yeah, I think there have been definite waves of that
but I think the last wave of diversity for consumers
was probably late 80s, early 90s, the 90s maybe.
I mean, you had a five cylinder, accurate figure.
There was some really great stuff.
Okay.
Okay, 90s.
Sure, I will accept that as one of the possible answers.
Service ability.
By whom?
By,
And frequency of service or just access for service?
I was thinking access of service
because I think frequency of service
probably falls back into the sort of first category
of does it work?
You look at, you look at a car from the 40s and 50s
and you're like, I could stand in the engine compartment
next to the engine and work on it
and that's not true of a car from the 90s
or something like that.
So, that service ability was superior
but reliability and like the fact that you needed
to regular service, do tune ups
and regular service your ignition system
to adjust the points and all that and that was inferior
but you certainly had better access
to get in the engine compartment
because of all the space around.
So I think the fact that you had to adjust points
every five or 10,000 miles and plugs
every 15,000 miles and oil changes every two feet
and whatever else falls into the ability
to mobilize itself first category
which is how much of the, how much uptime, right?
And if the car's got to go in for a major service
and chassis lube and all this other crap every three weeks
then it's really, it doesn't matter how easy it is.
I'm thinking ease of service ability
and that is, is there room to do this?
Yeah, but if you have to do it all the time
possibly not.
What I'm, the reason I ask that is
anyone with a screwdriver can fix a carbureted car.
I mean, you know, you don't need specialized equipment.
You get to- Anyone with a screwdriver?
Okay.
You don't need- A person who has only a screwdriver.
And nothing else and no brain.
You don't need a brain or fingers.
No, but I think we definitely, at the advent of EFI
I think actually worse, the advent of mechanical
fuel injection shit took a really wrong turn, right?
Yeah, you look at the plumbing and all the hoses
and all that in like a Jaguar XJ12 engine
or like a new apartment or like your Rover.
Honda's PGMFI, I mean that was,
that was abbreviation alphabet soup for spaghetti
with those, I've never seen so many vacuum lines
in my life or you know, even Bosch simple CIS
not serviceable, pain in the ass nightmare.
Mechanics don't want to touch them now.
They didn't then they couldn't figure them out.
It was black magic.
I think that took a big step up with OBD2
self-diagnostic capability and I hate to congratulate
anything mandated by the government
because that was a government thing.
But at the end of the day,
self-diagnostic capability with the ability
and the mandate from a government to say anyone
with a scanner can get a standardized code
and be told what's wrong with their engine
was a stroke of genius for surface ability.
And I think that ramped up
and then now has taken a complete nosedive once again
when car companies have proprietary computer systems
where you can't access half of the things
you need to access.
And the fact that cars now when you start to look
at mechanics who work on cars
when they're dealing with problems,
it's often not mechanical issues, it's networking issues.
It's this can dropped out, this network dropped out,
this thing isn't communicating.
I can't get a signal from this.
I can't get diagnostic stuff from that.
That is really the last 15 years has become a nightmare.
Every tech I know is a network administrator
as much as they are a tech.
And so fuck that.
The day that my e-golf breaks
and then doesn't know why it's broken and can't tell me,
oh, because it has no network connection, you're fucked.
You're just fucked.
And I think like, even-
You think that this is a permanent problem
or is this one of these transitional things
where we're going to solve it
and then it'll be okay?
Like in the infotainment comment that you made,
like eventually we figured out how to engineer around that
or when the ECUs first appeared in cars
and people were like,
you're putting computers into cars now.
How are people gonna fix those things in 30 years?
And you were like, well, you open the ECU
and then you like redo all the solders
or like look for burned out capacitors
and then like, oh look, the problem is easily solved.
You mail the thing to a guy for 500 bucks
or you figure out how to do it yourself
and he rebuilt the ECU like we figured it out.
It's not that hard.
It's one of the things
that I think about stereo systems in the 1980s, right?
I mean, you had 16 different components on a rack.
You had an amplifier and then a tuner
or together they were a receiver
and then you had a CD player and a two tape deck solution
and then a VCR that was plumbed into that.
For example, they didn't speak to each other
and then you had to daisy chain it all together.
And now you have a phone
that just Bluetooth to something else.
The world comes and figures out how to fix these things.
Computers were nightmares.
I don't know if you remember, like I built,
I was so excited.
I built a 486 DX266 when that processor came out.
And so I built a computer around it
and just trying to get the graphics card
to work with whatever IO interrupt error bullshit came out
and it was just a nightmare.
It was an absolute nightmare.
That's been figured out.
Plug and play stuff just sort of works now.
And so I hope that we are in a world
where that's will get better.
The phase of transition, yeah.
And I think Tesla and Lucid and Rivian
that sort of startups have shown that like guys,
it doesn't have to be these individual modules.
One module control the whole thing.
So that will be solved, right?
And especially once we go to EVs
because there's far fewer sensors and shit.
So, but I think ease of service ability did peak
and we're in a trough
and it will probably come back up again.
But I don't want to work on 20 teens cars.
I don't.
I would work on an early 2000s car
and that's sort of the end of like
until someone figures out what you said
the guy or the diagnostic tools or something else.
I think that's a trough.
Yeah.
So we're thinking, was that really though 1970s?
Ease of service ability or 80s, maybe?
Well, I think that when you have like
mechanical fuel injection,
I think automatically disqualifies.
Too many vacuum lines also disqualifies.
I think metronic is like that level of complexity
is kind of ideal, right?
There's like, secondary air injection.
Yeah, but you can talk to it, right?
I think it's OBD-2.
Once you're an OBD-2 then.
Early OBD-2, so you're just gonna call it
the second half of the 90s.
Early 2000s probably,
because of course I had even more diagnostic capability
and the computers weren't so,
you get into it like an E90
and I only know this because I knew people worked on them.
E90s were fully can based.
So, you know, that three series generation,
that whole generation of BMWs.
And there was a K can,
which is K is K-Rosseri in German,
which is chassis.
And so that was the chassis,
the body network basically.
And if anything pulled the body network down,
none of the modules could talk to each other.
And they go into what the texts refer to as K-Can failure.
And K-Can failure mode is hilarious on that car.
So it's all of a sudden the computer saying,
I no longer can communicate between devices.
Therefore, I don't know what's going on
and that poses a safety risk.
So everything on the K-Can will revert to a setting
that is most likely to be helpful in an emergency.
So the windows roll down slightly,
the flashers turn on, the wipers turn on,
the heat goes, the HVAC goes to defrost plus AC plus hot.
And so defrost is where the air goes and whatever.
The doors unlock and there's like,
the car is fucking possessed.
And so, you know, I saw one car that a customer
of a friend who was mechanic had
that every time they had a pothole,
it would just go into K-Can failure.
And so you're driving along, boom, wipers lights,
all the lights are on.
Like what the fucking windows are down?
Like this thing is possessed by Satan.
I'm sorry.
It took that particular car was sitting
in the BMW dealership.
They let it time out for 21 days
so the consumer got the,
they bought the car back and gave them another one.
And then it sat in their service center for 90 days
and they couldn't figure it out
and then gave it to an independent shop here
with for help, just please figure this out.
And it was a fucking wire that was under one
of the four seats, seat mounts.
And so the wire was pinched between the seat
and the floorboard.
And every time, if, and only if there was a passenger
between a certain amount of weight would,
they'd hit a bump that would short that out,
pull the can down and shut the car off,
shut, put the car in that mode.
No, if your car has the capability
of doing that, the network engineers are idiots.
Right? That's just should,
I understand that, you know,
the sort of K can't fail your motive
like most safety lights on, whatever else.
The answer to that is no, you've failed number one,
which is just the car needs to just work.
I mean, it does until it doesn't.
It does, yeah.
So I'd say early 2000s.
Okay.
Now let's get into the fun stuff.
Speed.
The later you go, the faster they get.
100%.
No, of course there's so much faster today
than they've ever been.
Enjoyability, enjoyableness,
enjoyability of driving, pleasure of driving.
That is entirely subjective.
Shit.
It is.
It is, yeah, it is.
Right, some person might be like,
oh man, I really fricking love double clutching,
unsynchronized gearboxes.
And some people might be like,
I love going zero to 60 in 2.4
and just putting a pedal down
and not having to do anything else.
It's entirely subjective.
Is there no way to quantify any of this?
I mean, you could quantify handling,
you could quantify steering feel.
Yeah, but that's not like enjoyment.
Just because it's more G doesn't mean it's more enjoyment.
No, I mean behavior, not grip.
Because grip, listen, braking distances, all times low.
Acceleration rates, all time high.
Top speeds, probably all time high.
Handling G, all time high.
Across the board in every performance category,
cars are better than ever, without question.
Do you have a metric or a rubric in mind
for quantifying and automotive enjoyability?
It would have to be handling behavior,
steering, response and feel, braking feel.
Oh, I forgot one.
All right, there's another.
There's a whole NVH and sort of-
Refinement.
Comfort and refinement category.
Let's leave out the enjoyment for a second
because I think that's where it ends.
I don't think you can really be objective about that.
I agree.
Okay, I'll cross it out and just say refinement.
So we're going back to the mainstream consumer
and away from the enthusiast.
For a second.
Okay.
Doesn't everything just get more and more insular?
Drive an S-Class now and drive your 140
that was here last week.
Which one rides better?
I haven't driven a modern S-Class.
I will say the 221.
The 221 and the 140 both ride very beautifully actually.
I don't know that there's a...
The 221 feels more structurally rigid
and that gives an impression of bitterness
as in terms of ride, I guess.
This one's a top.
It's more responsive also, which is less luxurious,
less insular.
It's better in some ways and not as good in other ways.
It's again a little bit subjective.
Yeah, but I don't think we...
So in terms of chassis structure
and actual noise, vibration, harshness,
I think engineers would say we haven't peaked
or just we continue to get better.
I think that when some cases
you see cost cutting happening over time.
So you have some generations of Mercedes
where they definitely took a step back in terms of...
Yes, I would certainly say that between 140 and 220.
Yep, 210.
E-Class I don't think was better in a lot of ways
than 211, I also don't think was all that much better.
So 203 for the 190.
So Mercedes had a definite era of getting worse.
BMW certainly did with that F30, that three series.
That was a massive step backwards.
So it does happen, but I think overall the march...
But it's not about...
Yeah, okay.
So it's not about the capability.
It's about the external factors
that get baked into the product.
Yeah, somebody cost cut something to death
and said we're not gonna do the right thing
because to save a penny.
But ride quality is the one where I don't know
if we've gotten much better.
I think we did peak a while back
when wheels were a bit smaller
and sidewalls were a little taller.
What about Lucid?
I mean, it rides really well.
Is it...
Does it ride as well as like a Lexus LS460L
from five years ago, 10 years ago?
I doubt it.
The other thing I would bring up
to add further complexity is sports cars
because there's been this entire new generation
of holy shit sports cars that are incredibly capable
and have really good body control
but also ride far better than anything
that had that kind of body control historically did.
And that is one of the modern things
that mind blows me all the time.
The bumpy road mode in modern Ferraris,
the modern GT3 touring
I had the ride quality was certainly better
than a RS product from the 90s,
Porsche RS product from the 90s.
So there's been this ability to,
I don't know, is it for structures
that therefore allows you to do more with the suspension?
I don't know what it is
that it's been that magnetorealogical dampers obviously
are important, but not all the cars
that we've lawed have those, I think.
So like, I don't know,
but there's definitely been an incredible ability
to improve ride quality and body control
in recent years in sporting cars
that has really impressed me.
And not necessarily just in sporting cars.
So I just was served a video on social media
with the old Bose system
that they'd put in that Lexus LS.
And I was watching with a friend
and his question was, why didn't they do this?
And it was just, it was way too power intensive
and way too expensive and way too heavy.
Did it take up all the entire trunk?
Yeah, and it weighed like four billion pounds
and you know, whatever it was, obviously.
But it was kind of a dead end technology
until the current Panamera,
which is also the Bentley Conti.
That Panamera rides like nothing I've ever been in ever
and then handles like a GT3 in terms of body control.
But that has a, I think it's a 48,
I think it uses the 48 volt,
it might use an even higher,
no, it might use the hybrid like the 400,
don't quote me to it.
Very high voltage,
electro-hydraulic actuators in the shocks
and that actually can lift the car.
So it's active suspension, mind boggling.
So we have not peaked in ride quality yet.
We've just begun the next chapter
and when cars start to have that,
that is a holy shit moment
that just shits on a 140 or a Rolls Royce or anything
and nothing comes close to that.
Because it does it, like you said with the sports cars,
does it with a commensurate increase
in its cornering ability and body control
and those circumstances too.
So I don't think we've really peaked yet
in refinement overall.
I think we'll keep getting there,
but we took a step back with big wheels
and now we're going around.
And to return to the question that you asked
when we were briefly talking about enthusiasts,
like is that good, is refinement good?
Is that something that enthusiasts desire?
Well, I think all of these,
I think because we've covered sort of seven main groups,
now go back to enjoyment,
which is then the fully subjective side
and which do we all personally enjoy?
Some people enjoy speed.
And if you enjoy speed,
you buy an electric car and you're done.
You've never been the fastest.
Some people enjoy the ability
to mobilize yourself and get to work every day.
And that's all they care about for the car.
Some people, if they're doing work
on the cars themselves
or don't want to pay big repair bills,
really value ease of service ability.
Some people want an identity difference
and so they'll see diversity
but some people care about efficiency.
And so I think there's no way to say the automobile has peaked.
Yes, because it's too many things with too many people.
Yep.
Well, that was satisfying.
Yeah.
I mean, it comes down to your personal preferences
and you deciding what answers the questions
that matter to you the most on these axes.
I think there's no way
when you have eight billion people on a planet,
you can't, you can't.
So the logical question is what is the answer for you?
Well, the answer, I answered that
on the case of how that narrow definition
of a sports sedan was on that retrospective episode.
For me, I think that all the curves
sort of come together in the 90s probably.
Talking given the ages of the cars that you own.
My cars are all older, right?
But I don't want the good cars.
Remember that part of my sort of philosophy
is that good cars make shitty collectibles.
Not shitty, but the best collectibles are the worst cars.
I don't want them to be so great
but maybe something from the 90s would,
or the early 2000s would hit.
The type of badness that you crave
is not the same type of badness
that other people crave.
Exactly, right.
I just don't want the cars to,
I could go tomorrow and buy one car
that does everything better than every other car I own
and I wouldn't be satisfied.
So I sort of purposefully don't have,
do I, if I could have a manual swapped
Maserati Quartre Porte 5,
kind of would do everything better
than every car that I own.
It would sound better, it would look better,
it would be faster,
it would be certainly more unreliable.
Wouldn't dance over the road maybe in the same way.
It's a little heavy.
Sure, sure, but ultimately we'd probably be able
to maintain a bigger pace than any of the cars
that I own or a higher pace.
I don't know, I know it's a really difficult choice.
I mean, your spectrum is 50 years.
Where do you put the sort of center point?
It changes over time based on my mood.
Even day to day, some days,
like if it's a rainy day,
I really enjoy getting into my Mercedes-Benz 140
that is currently not here.
It's a very secure feeling car that's sort of insular
and it's a cozy place to be, you feel safe
and it has good ventilation and wipers
and it just, there's a sense of wellbeing
that comes with that.
This is why, I think, well,
this is why I have so many cars
and why they're so disparate or schizophrenic.
On the other hand, other times,
it's a 1950s or 60s Italian
or British carbureted car.
It really is variable,
just depending on the sort of day and the mood
and the mission and the place you're going
and that's why I think I have so much variety
in automobile type.
I mean, I have a Ferrari with a manual
and eight throat, four twin throat carburetors
that leaks huge amount of oil
and then I have the E-Golf
and if it's raining and dark
and I'm gonna be in traffic,
there's no question, I'm taking the E-Golf, right?
First of all, it has, to your point,
ventilation is really important, right?
It keeps the windows clear,
but it also has AEB, autonomous braking
and it will warn me if someone's gonna hit me
from the side and all these other safety features
and if I do get hit, I'm far more likely
to walk away in that thing
than I'm from something else.
Plus it has stability control,
plus, plus, plus, plus, plus all this other shit
and a great stereo.
So if I'm gonna be sitting in traffic,
that's the one I'm choosing
and so how could I then say,
cars peaked in 1999, for example, or 2000
and then I choose that?
Because, and then I also love the efficiency of it
and how cheap it is to operate.
Funny thing is that my 1999 C43
did most of the things that I needed it to do.
I didn't feel like it was wanting
for any of the things that I asked a car to do
as daily and I use that car as a daily for two years
and I really enjoyed it.
Having previously dailyed a 2019 GTI.
That's kind of why I tend to wanna say
for me those cars peaked there, right?
I mean, my C4, I had a C43 also
and it did everything I wanted
and nothing I didn't other than it had an automatic.
Really, overall just across the board,
reliable, serviceable, no variable valve timing,
single camper bank, easy to work on.
Computers could shut down on the car
which still function as a car
and it was safe enough
and it had stability control
and it had heated seats and rain sensing wipers
and xenon lights and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So as usual, we've ended up in a Soco-era Mercedes.
Oh, shit.
You're welcome, everyone.
All right, spoiler alert.
The automotive automobile has peaked
at the 1998 through 2000 Mercedes C43 AMG
with a manual swap.
All right, great, big surprise.
Thank you for joining us for this week.
I'm done, I can't do this one.
About this episode
A lively debate unfolds as Jason Cammisa and Derek Tam-Scott explore the concept of 'peak automobile.' They dive into various eras, discussing the merits of 2000s sports sedans like the BMW M3 and Audi RS4, while also reflecting on the evolution of reliability, safety, and driving enjoyment. The hosts challenge each other's views on what makes a car great, considering factors like serviceability, efficiency, and consumer choice. With humor and passion, they navigate the complexities of automotive history and personal preferences, leaving listeners to ponder their own definitions of peak car.
Battery Tender
bricking
burnouts
cam position sensor
CAN bus
carbureted car
carburetor
crank position sensor
cross-plane crank V8
drivable
Acura Legend
Audi RS4
BMW 3 Series
BMW 6 Series
BMW 7 Series
BMW M3
BMW Z4
Cadillac CT4
Cadillac V16
Fiat 500e
Ford F-150
Honda Civic
Honda Element
Lexus LS
Mazda 3 / Axela
Mazda 626
Mazda MX-3
Mazda MX-6
Mercedes-Benz C 63 T-Modell (S204)
Mercedes-Benz E-Class
Mercedes-Benz GLC
Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Nissan Pulsar
Porsche Cayman
Porsche Panamera
Saab 900
Scion xB
Toyota Prius
Volkswagen e-Golf
Volkswagen Golf
Volkswagen Type 3
Original notes
On today's episode, Derek and Jason discuss a very important important question -- which era was peak car? Or is the best era yet to come?
We promise you this - the answer is much more complicated than you think.
===
This episode is sponsored by Battery Tender.
Visit https://www.batterytender.com/ and use code HAGERTY20 for 20% off.
===
Fresh off the release of Retrospective, a new Hagerty show that explores old magazine comparison tests and how they stack up in the modern era, Jason begins to wonder which era is peak car. Having discussed what is "peak sports sedan" between BMW E90 M3, Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, and Audi B7 RS4, Jason and Derek break down the criteria of what makes a car era great as a whole - from serviceability and intended purpose, to speed, value, styling, and other intrinsic characteristics. More importantly, is the true value of a car established by the opinions of enthusiasts or non--enthusiasts?
All this and more on this episode of The Carmudgeon Show.
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The Carmudgeon Show
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