Unpopular Opinions- Cars in General

  • Thread starter Turbo
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Turbo
True, but the new Elise is 420kg lighter than the 3.0CSL, yet it is safer.
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Why is it lighter? Why is it safer?

If BMW made the 3.0CSL today, to the best of their ability given safety and emission regulations, and made it available to a public unaware of a past 3.0CSL--to even the score, as it were (no throwback appeal)--would it be less popular or more popular than an Elise? If more, could that popularity be attributed to practicality?

An Elise--or a 4C for that matter--is a nonstarter for scores of buyers, not because they have less power, but because they are wildly impractical.
 
TexRex
If BMW made the 3.0CSL today, to the best of their ability given safety and emission regulations, and made it available to a public unaware of a past 3.0CSL--to even the score, as it were (no throwback appeal)--would it be less popular or more popular than an Elise?
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Well BMW operating to the best of their ability in 2018 would make the 3.0CSL as a FWD crossover, so it would probably be dramatically more popular than the Elise.
 
Marketing any new car as a "First Edition", does not automatically make them more valuable or more lucrative than the cars that will come after them.
 
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Considering that I've just checked the just plain ugly thread on the opinions of the car in the last image, it seems to be divisive, but I'd imagine it could qualify for this thread.

I've looked at pictures of a C6 recently.
And looking at it...
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Corvette-C6-Coupe.jpg


...Made me remember exactly why I dislike the C7.
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The C6 beat the C7 in terms of looks, but the interior of the C6 is absolutely horrid. Typical cheap, dull, plasticky, GM interior.



The C7 was a pretty big jump ahead.

 
CSMDuty11
Considering that I've just checked the just plain ugly thread on the opinions of the car in the last image, it seems to be divisive, but I'd imagine it could qualify for this thread.

I've looked at pictures of a C6 recently.
And looking at it...
015f4e9384b85a8492d7c40658d21f27.jpg

Corvette-C6-Coupe.jpg


...Made me remember exactly why I dislike the C7.
q67dYky.jpg
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The first time i saw that car i said "what kind of Ferrari is that" and that's just plains wrong to say if a Corvette.
 
My unpopular opinion? GM is the vanilla of the car world. From the 80s until this damn model year they have made the most basic looking blandmobiles possible. Nothing about them even hinted at cutting edge, or pushing ideals or styles, just fleet vehicles en mass with occasional hidious atrocities (*cough* aztek***cough*)
 
Now, I apparently happen to be in a minority that visually likes the look of the Project One Merc, that I can go along with fairly enough.

The boiling point however is when you call this better looking.

  • The splitter on the front looks like melting bucked teeth
  • While the headlights are better molded onto the body than the Valkyrie, where they just seem like an afterthought, the position of the headlights doesn't allow for much room for the badge where it looks like it fits, atleast from a head-on angle instead of up-above
  • Whereas the room between the front windshield and the hood is vented on the Project One and purely smooth on the Valkyrie, on the CO1 it seems like having a crease for the sake of having a crease, especially since it's ambiguous as to if it actually connects to the front splitter aside from the coloring, and is an odd curvature if it does
  • It may or may not be good for aerodynamics but the rear generally just seems... jarring, but the thing is that the Valkyrie atleast attempts to hide the fact it'd look odd with aero bits on the side and the diffuser, the CO1 on the other hand, doesn't really bother in hiding it so you feel like you're seeing the skeleton of the car through the gaping hole in the rear, all the while thinking of how the body of the car itself looks like without the chassis or so
  • The badge clip at the rear is absolutely pointless and would possibly even hinder the aerodynamics a small bit, you might as well have just placed the badge on the crease right below it in the rear shot if it was that important, but that's without mentioning that you already have a badge next to the engine cover
  • Both the CO1 and the Project One we can probably agree are quite big departures from what Mercedes' usual design language is at this moment, but whereas the Project One more or less seems like its own thing, the CO1 would undeniably be thought of as a Valkyrie clone should it have been an actual Mercedes car

    The problem with the Project One, on the other hand, is that it looks like a 1800 kg vehicle regardless of estimated weight
 
Rallywagon
My unpopular opinion? GM is the vanilla of the car world. From the 80s until this damn model year they have made the most basic looking blandmobiles possible. Nothing about them even hinted at cutting edge, or pushing ideals or styles, just fleet vehicles en mass with occasional hidious atrocities (*cough* aztek***cough*)
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You just engaged my counter attack mode. GM wasn’t “bland” always. In the 80’s and 90’s, GM put out some designs that have exceptional appearance. Sure, they weren’t always internally great in terms of what drivetrain it had, but a lot of designs IMO are just over exaggerated in terms of how bad they were. It’s totally considered popular to hate on a product by this corporation, but is it popular to love something such as these?

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These are exceptional looking cars, in my honest opinion.

Granted, GM of Europe exists. And well, there are designs that are designs to be had, and designs we’d rather forget, for sure. Australia too, has some nice ones as well.
 
Razor440
You just engaged my counter attack mode. GM wasn’t “bland” always. In the 80’s and 90’s, GM put out some designs that have exceptional appearance. Sure, they weren’t always internally great in terms of what drivetrain it had, but a lot of designs IMO are just over exaggerated in terms of how bad they were. It’s totally considered popular to hate on a product by this corporation, but is it popular to love something such as these?

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View attachment 730522 View attachment 730523 View attachment 730524 View attachment 730525

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These are exceptional looking cars, in my honest opinion.

Granted, GM of Europe exists. And well, there are designs that are designs to be had, and designs we’d rather forget, for sure. Australia too, has some nice ones as well.
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I dont think those pictures make the same statement you may think it does....
 
Rallywagon
I dont think those pictures make the same statement you may think it does....
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It’s an unpopular opinion. Those lights on those FWD Grand Prix’s look mean, for one thing. They’re anything, but bland. Neither is the abnormal amounts of chrome on that Buick wagon.
 
Razor440
It’s an unpopular opinion. Those lights on those FWD Grand Prix’s look mean, for one thing. They’re anything, but bland. Neither is the abnormal amounts of chrome on that Buick wagon.
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Chrome is as gaudy as it gets on a car. The headlights look like my blind cousin trying to read a comic book. Looking at the new corvette, its quite clear they have thrown in the towel and are starting to copy other companies styles. Ffs, how can you even defend a company that brought us the Aztek, any year cavalier, and the chevette! :yuck:
Edit: and i was nice enough to leave out the 80s on impalas and maliblows.
 
Rallywagon
Chrome is as gaudy as it gets on a car. The headlights look like my blind cousin trying to read a comic book. Looking at the new corvette, its quite clear they have thrown in the towel and are starting to copy other companies styles. Ffs, how can you even defend a company that brought us the Aztek, any year cavalier, and the chevette! :yuck:
Edit: and i was nice enough to leave out the 80s on impalas and maliblows.
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You can say chrome is gaudy, but so is entirely blacking out your car to the point where even your tailights and such are blackened out. I do admit that chrome o modern cars is gaudy, but only in places where they no longer “require” it (mirrors, door handles, door protectors, etc.)

The new Corvette, I do agree partly that they have done some styling choices that are trying to mimic others...but there are a lot of cars that have and still do that to this day.

The Aztek is dreadful, I’ll admit. But really, every company has their ugly cars. Dodge Caliber. Chrysler Aspen. Nissan Juke.

The Cavalier was always supposed to be a disposable sports compact...if you can call it one. The Chevette wasn’t even that entirely OUR design, by the way...Blame GM and Daewoo or Isuzu for it. In the 70’s, Japan was dominating us by a long mile and we really couldn’t keep up at all. But in terms of looks I honestly like them. I wouldn’t take the axe to a Chevette, I appreciate a machine for what it is.

I never said post 2000’s GM was good. I hate Chevrolet’s globalization strategy of “let’s rebadge every Daewoo and Suzuki that’ll make every depressed every time you see one.”
 
Rallywagon
Ffs, how can you even defend a company that brought us the Aztek, any year cavalier, and the chevette! :yuck:
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But you were talking about styling, right? The Aztek was pretty awful across the board (though somewhat prescient at least), but the Cavalier's awfulness was entirely unrelated to the styling therein and the Chevette's biggest sin was being available long past it's sell-by date.

GM is not the styling leader that it was before the Rybicki era began, and certainly not now post-bankruptcy when half of their model ranges consist of cars pulled from random foreign markets to pad lineups that themselves are copies of whatever the German makes did 5 years prior, but the thirty years between those two dates was not devoid of of any expression beyond what was necessary for an Avis car lot; the six year period Chuck Jordan had before being given the gold watch treatment in particular but also the cars that were designed well away from Rybicki's influence before then (Reatta, C4, Omega A, Fiero).

Rallywagon
Edit: and i was nice enough to leave out the 80s on impalas and maliblows.
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It would certainly be incongruous with how the market responded to it to call the 1977 B-Body "bland."
 
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Razor440
It’s an unpopular opinion. Those lights on those FWD Grand Prix’s look mean, for one thing. They’re anything, but bland. Neither is the abnormal amounts of chrome on that Buick wagon.
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That whole thing is basically like The87Dodge's delusions of grandeur about the Aries. You're giving the GP qualities that it doesn't have. Reality is, it's just as much as a faux sports car as a Spirit R/T.

Also, that's not "abnormal amounts of chrome". And a heavy use of chrome is not something to brag about.
 
Turbo
That whole thing is basically like The87Dodge's delusions of grandeur about the Aries.
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That's quite an ivory tower for you to stand on. Have you met my good friend, Mr. Kettle?


Turbo
You're giving the GP qualities that it doesn't have.
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Except it was a well-regarded car when it was new and was by far the best received of the first generation W bodies. That's admittedly damning with faint praise since the W-Body is probably the main reason GM nearly went bankrupt soon after, but that still did include its styling.

Turbo
Reality is, it's just as much as a faux sports car as a Spirit R/T.
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No it wasn't.

The Spirit R/T was a car on a chassis that was originally designed in the late 1970s for engines with less than a hundred horsepower when the Spirit R/T had over double that. The quick Grand Prixs that began dropping in 1989 were on a platform that debuted a year before and was designed from the start for engines as powerful as the Quad-4, 3400 Twin Cam, 3800 V6, Turbo 3.1, etc. The transmissions weren't, but that's another story.
 
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Part of me doesn't like how far automotive technology has come and how readily available its become (also just technology in general, but we'll focus on cars here). Its definitely cool to see just how far we've been able to push, but its the lack of appreciation--both for what we have now and what we've had in the past--that makes me wish we could go backwards almost.
 
As much as I like the Mustang, I'm okay with Ford using the Mach 1 name for an electric SUV.
 

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