Unpopular Opinions- Cars in General

[-Fred-]

I guess this kind of belongs here...

I don't understand the concept of buying a car that's dear to you and then not drive it.

Case in point: An older gentlemen I work with (in his late 60s) needed help with moving stuff out of his garage over the weekend, so I went over and gave him a hand earlier on today. He had a car hidden under a cover that kind of looked like a Corvette, so obviously I inquired about what it was. It was indeed a Corvette, a 66 Stingray, a car he lusted over since he was a teenager, that he drove exactly twice since he purchased it 20 years ago. Not because it's in need of repairs or restoration (thing's literally mint!) but because he doesn't want to put miles on it and destroy the value... and I just don't get it. Why would you buy your dream car and then just let it collect dust in a corner?

I sort of understand why you wouldn't drive it every weekend when it's something extremely exotic and rare like a McLaren F1 or something really old and rare like a 1920s Duesenberg, but then the people that can afford those things are in another world altogether.

 

[MedigoFlame]

I guess this kind of belongs here...

I don't understand the concept of buying a car that's dear to you and then not drive it.

Case in point: An older gentlemen I work with (in his late 60s) needed help with moving stuff out of his garage over the weekend, so I went over and gave him a hand earlier on today. He had a car hidden under a cover that kind of looked like a Corvette, so obviously I inquired about what it was. It was indeed a Corvette, a 66 Stingray, a car he lusted over since he was a teenager, that he drove exactly twice since he purchased it 20 years ago. Not because it's in need of repairs or restoration (thing's literally mint!) but because he doesn't want to put miles on it and destroy the value... and I just don't get it. Why would you buy your dream car and then just let it collect dust in a corner?

I sort of understand why you wouldn't drive it every weekend when it's something extremely exotic and rare like a McLaren F1 or something really old and rare like a 1920s Duesenberg, but then the people that can afford those things are in another world altogether.

In some ways I can sort of understand the fear these owners can have over their prized classic. Of course everyone worries about value or wearable items that could be replaced. Personally, I'd be worried about driving it on public roads dealing with the modern society's growing lack of care. From impatient drivers running lights/stop signs to distracted drivers. Still not a big excuse to stow away a car worth enjoying on the road, but it's something I worry about with how bad driving has gotten. There's always the quiet backroads to at least enjoy.

Not disagreeing with your opinion, but just wanted to add a little.




Not sure if this is unpopular or not. But opening your hood/bonnet at a car show is rather annoying. As a photographer who enjoys car shows, it just looks stupid having rows of cars with their hoods/bonnets up to show...a stock engine or a few modifications. Unless there's a interesting engine swap or beautiful engine work, it ruins photos. Gave up photographing most car shows/meets due to it. Although most car shows/meets locations aren't exactly photogenic. Good example of a great one to photograph is Luftgekult where it's curated and cars are placed separately in interesting locations.

 

[MisterWaffles]

I was giving it some thought but I think this is how I feel completely. Lotus as a brand is dead to me after the Emira.

Lotus is known for incredibly lightweight, no-frills driving experiences and it now seems like they are headed in the complete opposite direction as their original philosophy. Switching to heavy battery-powered electric cars is going to kill the one thing that Lotus cars are known for.

Anywho, when it comes to CO2 emissions, low-volume car makers aren’t the problem at the moment. It’s just kind of sad seeing some of them trying to commit to full electrification even before any of the big conglomerates are planning.

 

[Northstar]

It’s just kind of sad seeing some of them trying to commit to full electrification even before any of the big conglomerates are planning.

They're still for-profit companies at the end of the day, if you wait for the big guns to jump into the race there won't be much room left for you. Getting into the market now at least gives them a fighting chance to gain some market share and hopefully keep some of it once the major companies start ramping up their EV production.

 

[TexRex]

Low volume manufacturers have a bit of an advantage when it comes to a fully electric commitment than the majors as well.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Not sure if this is unpopular or not. But opening your hood/bonnet at a car show is rather annoying. As a photographer who enjoys car shows, it just looks stupid having rows of cars with their hoods/bonnets up to show...a stock engine or a few modifications. Unless there's a interesting engine swap or beautiful engine work, it ruins photos.

Yes to this! I get aggrevated whenever someone opens their hood at a car event, I want to look at their body work most of the time, but that gets ruined when the hood is opened. Which makes it nice and satisfying when an owner notices me taking a picture and briefly puts the hood down. I.E. One Dodge Viper GTS owner did that for me at a show a couple weeks back, we had a nice conversation about his car and random things about Vipers.

----
Which reminds me of another opinion I want to share, I genuinely find it annoying when people blast loud music out of their speakers at car shows and meets. I feel this is an unpopular opinion since a lot of people seem to like doing this. It's disrupting and most of the time ruins my enjoyment of spectating peoples cars. Especially when they're demonstrating how they sound. The only loud noises I want to hear at car shows are the sound of engines, not someone's stupid music.

 

[CyborgGT]

Here's mine

The MK4 Supra is pretty bad at It's job, to be grand tourer.

My unpopular opinion on the Mk4: the "cockpit" interior that everyone loves looks awful. There was practically no styling put into the flat face of plastic that wraps around the wheel, and it made for a lot of dead space in cheap plastic.

I think the current Supra is a better successor than the current NSX.

My unpopular opinion: the current NSX is a proper successor and everything an NSX should be (and hey, they didn't outsource the work, haha). To me, the old NSX seemed to be all about taking the best 'supercar tech' available at the time (mid-engined, VTEC, titanium conrods, aluminum body, double wishbones... basically enough overall performance to properly rival the current Ferrari when it launched, which it did) and putting it in a more reliable, driver-friendly package. The old car's only problem is that it didn't increase performance as it aged and the NSX got left behind. By the time it went out of production, it wasn't much quicker in a straight line than a top-trim Accord and really shouldn't have cost more than about $50-60k in today's money.

With the new model, again they benchmarked Ferrari (the 458 that was out during end of the NSX's production) and stuffed the car with tech found in even higher-end supercars/hypercars, all wrapped in a car you could drive every day. It seemed to hold its own on a track pretty well. And considering what's found under the skin of cars like the 458 and Porsche 918, I don't actually feel the NSX was priced too poorly, either. But of course these days performance is multiplying exponentially compared to the '90s, so it's harder to say.

 

[Doog]

I hate this color. I've been seeing more and more manufacturers add their own version of Audi's Nardo Gray to their color palette over the past few years, and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. I don't get it. It's so boring, and yet people love it. But then again, people seem to really like egg-shaped crossovers lately, so I guess taste isn't in right now. I like to derisively refer to it as primer with clear coat.

 

[UltimateYosh]

I agree. Its such a dull colour, and I'd much rather prefer even a metallic silver.

 

[TheCracker]

I don't mind Audi's Nardo grey. Most of Audi/BMW/Merc's cars you see on the road now are black, white, silver and all the shades in between. I know flat grey is just another neutral shade, but being flat just makes it actually stand out whilst still retaining that neutrality that owners/dealers think will help it retain more used value. There's not so many on the roads that it has become too common, but enough so you know that it's not just a car that's midway through a respray.

 

[MIE1992]

I'm admittedly still unsure what to make of MG's situation. Aren't they MG in name only? I mean, I'm glad they're still in motorsports and creating neat concepts, but Chinese ownership makes me a bit uneasy. Then again, it could be the Sinophobic propaganda - plus, I hear Geely has been treating Volvo and Lotus quite well, in addition to making some neat cars themselves. I got to keep in mind that the South Koreans were making rip-offs of Mercedes-Benz models and whatnot about two decades ago, and their auto industry turned out damn great, really giving Japan a run for its money. So maybe Chinese cars could end up the same way, eventually moving away from rip-offs and really finding their groove.

 

[TheCracker]

I'm admittedly still unsure what to make of MG's situation. Aren't they MG in name only? I mean, I'm glad they're still in motorsports and creating neat concepts, but Chinese ownership makes me a bit uneasy. Then again, it could be the Sinophobic propaganda - plus, I hear Geely has been treating Volvo and Lotus quite well, in addition to making some neat cars themselves. I got to keep in mind that the South Koreans were making rip-offs of Mercedes-Benz models and whatnot about two decades ago, and their auto industry turned out damn great, really giving Japan a run for its money. So maybe Chinese cars could end up the same way, eventually moving away from rip-offs and really finding their groove.

Aside from the MG F and the short lived MG RV8, they've been MG in name only since 1980. They were little more than a sports specification for warmed-over hatchbacks before finally dying and then resurrected by the Chinese. Whether or not Nanjing and the Chinese auto industry in general can reach the same heights as the Koreans, only time will tell.

 

[Tornado]

I can't see anything that the Chinese can do at this point to the name that's any worse than when BMW bought Rover and ran it into the ground before stripmining everything of value from it and dumping it onto some poor saps to foot the coming bill.

 

[ScottPuss20]

Aside from the MG F and the short lived MG RV8, they've been MG in name only since 1980. They were little more than a sports specification for warmed-over hatchbacks before finally dying and then resurrected by the Chinese. Whether or not Nanjing and the Chinese auto industry in general can reach the same heights as the Koreans, only time will tell.

Haha Morris Garages died years ago. I don't really care that a Chinese company has "revived" the name because it's a totally new company with it's own objectives. It doesn't dilute the legacy of the original company IMO.

 

[Clark]

The GR Yaris does nothing for me.

 

[TexRex]

MG RV8

I tend to forget about these, which is unfortunate because I find them very appealing. They've got a sexy ass.

 

[Sage Ages]

This is the only car you will ever need and that anything more is nothing but a fashion statement.

 

[Clark]

You could argue that the Mazda 2 is more than needed then as there’s cheaper and simpler cars than that.

 

[TonyJZX]

you dont even need a mazda 2

that mazda is effectively a $22,500 car here. such luxury.

the MG Core is around $16,500? And it does the job as a 'car'. Like the way I am I never have more tha 3 adults and a kid in a car so I dont need an suv.

as much as i like ice and performance cars i think better people wean themselves off that onto ev the better it will be.

also western society loves the car but what about the costs to buy maintain register insure the car?

there should be a better way

 

[Sage Ages]

You could argue that the Mazda 2 is more than needed then as there’s cheaper and simpler cars than that.

Yes, but they kinda suck.

 

[Wolfe]

I'm a bit unclear on whether my '06 is more because it does more, less because it's older and has fewer features/options, or comparable. 🐺 I make use of everything it does and has.

 

[MedigoFlame]

I hate this color. I've been seeing more and more manufacturers add their own version of Audi's Nardo Gray to their color palette over the past few years, and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. I don't get it. It's so boring, and yet people love it. But then again, people seem to really like egg-shaped crossovers lately, so I guess taste isn't in right now. I like to derisively refer to it as primer with clear coat.

Not only is that color crazy popular (feels like the replacement for the "murdered out" look years back) and dull, but I can't help but feel a bit bothered by some manufacturers charging more for what seems to be "less" color.


People have a soft spot for the Plymouth/Chrysler Prowler, but I feel like a lot of people don't like the "mustache" safety bumpers on the Prowler. I like it with the bumpers (at least when stock) for some odd reason.

Don't know why but it looks a bit..."naked" without the mustache bumpers to me.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Here's a bit of an unpopular opinion, but why does the future of electric cars want to sway towards the plug it into the wall variety?

I think hydrogen cars have all the benefits of gasoline powered cars, mainly refueling stations. But they also have all the benefits of an electric car with a charging cable too, that being no emissions.

I get the storage of hydrogen is difficult and energy-consuming but I think we should be looking into getting every gasoline filling station changed with hydrogen filling stations instead of having a bajillion plugs everywhere all taxing the energy grid across the world like crazy.

Like yeah you need to burn a metric crap-ton of fossil fuels in order to produce enough energy to meet that kind of hydrogen demand currently, but you also need to do the same in order to charge the millions of potential plug-in electric cars on the world's power grid anyways. People always say hydrogen cars aren't clean because of that, but the same is true about regular electric cars.

I dunno maybe I'm a bit of a layman here and don't know what I'm talking about, but I think hydrogen cars look far more promising than plug-in electric cars.

 

[Centroid]

There is a double downside to Hydrogen as a fuel.

If you electrolyse water in order to make it and then you use a fuel cell to power your car, it uses twice the amount of electricity of going the battery route.

Alternatively if you create it by cracking hydrocarbons, you create CO2.

So they're not as clean as battery cars either way.

 

[Adamgp]

Agreed. Much better idea than battery plug-ins.

 

[Tornado]

I'm not sure what could be done to make the bumpers on the Prowler look better. Body color I'm not sure would do it, and chrome definitely wouldn't; but for sure it definitely looks better with something there than it does when people remove them and attach tacky aftermarket Harley parts to the front for turn signals.





Making it so the bumpers didn't tilt downwards towards the sides probably would have gone a long way.

 

[TexRex]

It's interesting to see Prowlers popping up here and elsewhere.

I've always wanted to see chromed tubular nerf bars on the front and back of one.

Ideally they would mimic the original bumpers somewhat, symmetrical but leaving the center section either exposed entirely or with less adornment, but also be stylized.

 

[Joey D]

I think hydrogen cars have all the benefits of gasoline powered cars, mainly refueling stations. But they also have all the benefits of an electric car with a charging cable too, that being no emissions.

Here's the sciency answer why:

Hydrogen cars won’t overtake electric vehicles because they’re hampered by the laws of science

Everyone loves the idea of H2 cars, but they come with a huge disadvantage.

theconversation.com

In short, hydrogen fuels cells are less efficient when it comes to energy transfer.

What needs to happen is battery technology needs to continue to get better and we need to figure out things like biobatteries so we're not reliant on digging stuff out of the ground to make ways to store energy. We also need to move away from fossil fuels for generating power and instead use nuclear for large-scale energy production and offset it with wind and solar in areas where you can't build a nuclear power plant.

EVs could also benefit from hot-swapped batteries where you'd pull into a station and your batteries would be removed and replaced with fresh ones. This is kind of involved though and would present logistical challenges, but could work for things like long haul trucking where the company owns all the batteries. There are also flow batteries where you can drain the depleted chemicals and replace them with new charged chemicals. This is probably a better option for long-range EVs since you'd essentially pull into a station, have the battery tank drained, then refilled with a charged fluid and set off.

We are still a long way off from this, but it's doable. In the meantime, the standard EV that you plug into the wall is a decent enough stop-gap while we figure out other things. EVs can go upwards of 300 miles now on a single charge and that's more than enough to satisfy a vast majority of drivers. Range extenders could be something you see in the near future where there's a very small onboard generator that gives you additional miles. With the right setup, there's no reason you couldn't get 500-600 miles in between charges and fill ups.

 

[Tornado]

It's interesting to see Prowlers popping up here and elsewhere.

I've always wanted to see chromed tubular nerf bars on the front and back of one.

Ideally they would mimic the original bumpers somewhat, symmetrical but leaving the center section either exposed entirely or with less adornment, but also be stylized.

That's what the AIV did and I don't think it looks that great there, since otherwise the car is completely devoid of chrome (as is the Prowler other than wheels).

 

[TexRex]

That's what the AIV did and I don't think it looks that great there, since otherwise the car is completely devoid of chrome (as is the Prowler other than wheels).

The AIV's treatment is a bit more Cobra, particularly with those beefy upright bumperettes, and I think that even if nerf bars on a Prowler didn't flank the nose, the chrome wheels are enough to make the chrome tubing not stick out like a sore thumb.

Edit: I honestly think chrome wheels even benefit the former in such a way. But they have to be the right wheels.

I'm not super sure those Roush pieces are the right wheels, but they're more likely to be than not. Maybe a slightly chunkier, curvier spoke. Sort of like a Torq-Thrust but absolutely not a Torq-Thrust.