The tedium of self-isolation reached depraved new depths this past weekend, as your author, finding himself all alone with nothing to do, took advantage of the government-imposed privacy to indulge in a shameful solo act. An occurrence that was sadly all too common in his teenage years.

That’s right — with the lights turned low and blinds drawn, yours truly engaged in something he’s not too proud of, and wouldn’t normally divulge to any other living soul. He watched a truly terrible movie… and didn’t turn it off.

No, not “so bad it was good,” nothing like that. This thing was a complete stinker — a colossal turdfest that only kept this writer’s interest because, among other things, it happened to be a commercial for General Motors. (Read More…)

If you’re someone who enjoys thinking back to your high school days, you were either exceedingly popular at the time (jerk!) OR achieved absolutely nothing in later life. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Four touchdowns in a single game at Polk High — that kind of thing.

Others only think back out of distaste for the present and nostalgia for that long-ago era; the simplicity of life, the fashions, the relaxed social and regulatory norms… and the cars populating the student lot. It’s more than a little jarring to see near-mundane rides that could have been had for a few grand in my senior year now fetching eye-popping prices on Bring a Trailer.

Thinking back, should you have invested in an airtight car bubble upon graduation? (Read More…)

Emotional response. That’s the end goal of marketing — well, the second-to-end goal, and words and images are what a savvy marketing pro uses to plant that seed in the human brain. Rapidly germinating, the seed quickly grows into a desire to consume. To own. To bolster one’s identity with a product that says something about them, and which makes them feel good in a strange, hard-to-define way.

We’ve all been lured in by slick advertising, product placements, and the like, but products don’t always need a third-party ad agency to boost their image. The manufacturer gets first crack at that.

Which is where naming come in. (Read More…)

Last Wednesday we pondered the best exterior styling found on SUVs and CUVs of the 2010s. This week, flip the question and consider the visually challenged rides of the past decade instead.

If I recall those distant 2010s correctly, there are plenty of designs upon which one might spill some Haterade.

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Each one of us, minus the psychopaths, lives by a personal code, and that set of deeply held beliefs and attitudes dictates how we treat others. How we interact in society. It makes us whole.

Given that there’s a hell of a lot of variation in what drives a person, there’s been no shortage of diverging takes on the latest Cannonball Run “trophy” holder — the crew of a white, 2019 Audi A8 that rocketed from New York City to Los Angeles in 26 hours and 38 minutes earlier this month, using lightly trafficked highways borne of the coronavirus pandemic to their advantage. Average speed? Roughly 105 mph.

Is this feat worthy of a slap on the back, or a punch in the face? (Read More…)

If you’re as paranoid as this writer, chances are your formerly daily driver has long since sailed past its last regularly scheduled fill-up date. The last time any fresh gasoline hit the innards of your author’s high-end motorcar was three and a half weeks ago. The needle’s now resting just north of a quarter tank.

*Gulp*

Frankly, it’s cause for concern, as adding useless miles to the odometer has typically served as a mental tonic for yours truly. At the same time, who wants to encounter people or things they’ve touched? That friendly neighborhood gas pump is no longer the welcoming monument it once was (with Doritos, no less). Wouldn’t it be great to drive past it without a care? (Read More…)

We return to the 2010s today to conduct more design evaluations. Previously in this series we covered the best and worst standard car designs, then did the same for upscale cars. Today we consider the 10-year span when the SUV and other SUV-like things strengthened their grasp on consumer sales, then choked out nearly everything that wasn’t a pickup truck.

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There’s no shortage of people choosing to signal their offbeat, nonconformist nature via their daily driver. As build configurations shrink and niche products dry up, this is becoming increasingly hard; still, it’s a thing, and if it means reaching into the past for a defunct nameplate, many are up for the challenge.

A buddy of mine did it with a certain low-volume Isuzu. Car Twitter is littered with childless Millennials who advocate the purchase of impractical, less-loved models as their preferred transportation choice. More power to them; just don’t react with confused horror when people with a mortgage and growing brood opt for a GMC Acadia or Toyota Highlander as their main driveway denizen.

With oddball vehicles now more numerous in our past then our present, which unlikely model do you harbor a secret desire for? (Read More…)

At the risk of sounding like any number of insufferable site fully staffed with dough heads who spend way too much time extolling the virtues of kale (is kale still a thing?), our question today is about driving and car-related apps.

While backing up his phone this weekend (I can’t bear to lose those all important notes about used cars that have been long sold, don’tcha know), your author was struck by the amount of space on his phone being consumed by items relating to cars.

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Hey all. Big plans this weekend? Lots of stuff going on?

Yours truly plans to finally swap his car’s cheap winter rubber for equally cheap, corner-carving summer slicks (55 series — OH YEAH) in order to drive…. nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. Then, if there’s time, maybe I’ll take a nighttime run in the only place where physical distancing isn’t likely to be an issue: the spooky graveyard on top of the hill. If there’s time, mind you.

Yes, with warmer weather upon us, the list of carefree pursuits knows no bounds! But tell us, what strictly automotive things are you doing this weekend to mentally distance yourself from, you know, issues? (Read More…)

Maybe self-isolation is getting to me. Maybe the lack of balcony, deck, backyard, or sprawling property rife with plant life and woodland critters is having an impact, forcing this urban writer with his small carbon footprint into wild daydreams of wide open spaces and the road less traveled. Maybe there’s not enough booze kicking around.

Come to think of it, that could be the problem.

Anyway, as we continue enjoying a springtime of fear, uncertainty, and vastly reduced travel options, let’s turn our minds to a less-talked-about aspect of personal vehicles. (Read More…)

Try as we might, there’s just no way to know everything about the contemporary offerings of all car manufacturers, even if consideration is limited in scope to North America. Invariably, our mental encyclopedia is missing a few pages. That means sometimes, we should consider the unknowns of our automotive knowledge.

Allow me to explain.

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“If you’re one of us, you’ll take a bite.”

If that quote soars over your head, I don’t want to know you. The infamous Seinfeld incident in which an eager-to-impress George reveals to his colleagues that he’s not a team player (at the same time sparing himself from becoming violently ill), riffs on the homogeneity of upper office environments. The forced social collectivization of a corporate in-group.

Climb the ladder high enough and you’ll wear the same brands, enjoy the same timepieces, drink the same booze, and golf the same courses. Or so the perhaps dated view of these things goes. Now, what about cars? (Read More…)

Events of the last month (and the foreseeable future) will surely cause more than a few auto manufacturers to reevaluate their portfolios. Numbers for Q1, scheduled to be released this week but potentially delayed for understandable reasons, will surely be quite dismal.

Leaving one’s own personal views about the current economic shutdowns aside, do you think car companies might be forced (or choose to take the opportunity) to scrub a few underperforming models — or even entire brands?

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I don’t profess to be a filmmaker, but were I to one day find myself behind the camera, I’m pretty confident I’d come up with something better than 75 percent of the mediocrity I see on Netflix. And you can bet there’d be a car component. No fast cutting during the action sequences, either.

As I sit here watching the detective in The Valhalla Murders pilot her grey Tiguan across the bleak and snowy Icelandic landscape, I think about the on- and off-road duels that haven’t yet made it to the big screen… and wonder which matchup I’d prefer to see first. (Read More…)