Advanced Driving Hub

Imsensible wrote:Too many modern cars feel sterile. Competent, but they don't induce any real emotion.

If you expect emotion to come from outside, maybe you're approaching life wrong - standing to one side, looking on, instead of getting involved, being fully absorbed by what you're doing.

Silk wrote:

Imsensible wrote:Where you get the idea of tracksuit and trainers eludes me. It's just another case of you going from one extreme to another. There are many mainstream cars that look more interesting than a Skoda Octavia. Skoda and VW designers seem to have the most boring and Sombre ideas in the car industry. I don't wear tracksuits. I do wear trainers... probably a bit too modern for you.

I remember back in the day on "uk.rec.driving" we had a poster who would constantly have a dig at everyone else's choice of car but, when asked what he drove, he went all Boris Johnson. The name escapes me, but I have a feeling you may know who it is.

Well I don't think it was me. I've never felt I knew enough about the various car models to criticise the choices others might make.

Imsensible wrote:I have to agree with you on this. Too many modern cars feel sterile. Competent, but they don't induce any real emotion. I drove a couple of Seat Ibiza's, one with 140hp, and they both felt heavy and numb. Not good for a small car. Same with the VX Corsa and other cars I've tried. The last Mazda 2 or current Suzuki Swift feel far more 'alive' and responsive. Many modern cars seem to have the same problem. Too much weight, too many gadgets etc, etc.

I think you'll find the problem is more to do with focus groups employed by the motor manufacturers, e.g. people want light steering for parking - let's remove nearly all feel from it rather than recognising manoeuvring speeds and lightening it for that particular manoeuvre.

It's not in the least bit difficult to add response to car behaviour. Although in the case of my car, I think they went a little too far. It's like the 1990s have asked for its hatchback back.

TripleS wrote:

Silk wrote:

Imsensible wrote:Where you get the idea of tracksuit and trainers eludes me. It's just another case of you going from one extreme to another. There are many mainstream cars that look more interesting than a Skoda Octavia. Skoda and VW designers seem to have the most boring and Sombre ideas in the car industry. I don't wear tracksuits. I do wear trainers... probably a bit too modern for you.

I remember back in the day on "uk.rec.driving" we had a poster who would constantly have a dig at everyone else's choice of car but, when asked what he drove, he went all Boris Johnson. The name escapes me, but I have a feeling you may know who it is.

Well I don't think it was me. I've never felt I knew enough about the various car models to criticise the choices others might make.

No, it wasn't you. You may remember who it was though. I know there are one or two escapees from uk.rec.driving on here, even if they won't admit to it.

StressedDave wrote:

Imsensible wrote:I have to agree with you on this. Too many modern cars feel sterile. Competent, but they don't induce any real emotion. I drove a couple of Seat Ibiza's, one with 140hp, and they both felt heavy and numb. Not good for a small car. Same with the VX Corsa and other cars I've tried. The last Mazda 2 or current Suzuki Swift feel far more 'alive' and responsive. Many modern cars seem to have the same problem. Too much weight, too many gadgets etc, etc.

I think you'll find the problem is more to do with focus groups employed by the motor manufacturers.

I'm sure focus groups are involved in some way. I don't see why it's necessarily a problem though. I believe that the vast majority of drivers favour quiet and smooth over pretty much any other consideration after cost and performance. There seems to have been a trend over the last few decades of making cars firmer and "sportier" and, thank goodness, the pendulum seems to be swinging back in the direction of comfort.

IMO, the only people who seem to want a "sportier" car are "enthusiasts" and motoring journalists (who also tend to be enthusiasts). Thanks goodness the manufacturers are starting to listen to the majority of buyers who couldn't give a flying fig about "handling" and "feedback".

I'm well aware that I'm an edge case here...

But even amongst the 'sportier' car manufacturers, there's been a huge move towards 'easy' over the last 20 years with a concurrent rise in 'over competent'.

Drive a 1989 911 back-to-back with the latest 991 model version and it's obvious.

This may be where my hatred of Boxsters (at least in terms of their effect on other drivers' development) comes from...

StressedDave wrote:I'm well aware that I'm an edge case here...

But even amongst the 'sportier' car manufacturers, there's been a huge move towards 'easy' over the last 20 years with a concurrent rise in 'over competent'.

Drive a 1989 911 back-to-back with the latest 991 model version and it's obvious.

This may be where my hatred of Boxsters (at least in terms of their effect on other drivers' development) comes from...

Do you mean over confidence on the part of the driver, or over competent on the manufacturers side?

ps I've just read a test on the 991 models (I can't be the only person who gets confused by Porsche model numbering) and take what you wrote to be over competence on the part of the car.
I think they have to these day otherwise they'd spend half their time in various courts defending themselves...

http://content.time.com/time/specials/2 ... 33,00.html

I drove a Corvair from time to time when I visited the U.S. back then and liked the car. I never investigated the limits of its handling though

Silk wrote:IMO, the only people who seem to want a "sportier" car are "enthusiasts" and motoring journalists (who also tend to be enthusiasts). Thanks goodness the manufacturers are starting to listen to the majority of buyers who couldn't give a flying fig about "handling" and "feedback".

They may not believe they give a flying fig about them, but they actually sell a lot of cars on the result. The original Ford Focus was a huge gamble from Ford - they hoped the customer would like a responsive car and that the extra sales generated would offset the development and manufacturing costs of the multi-link rear suspension. Surprisingly the customers preferred that level of response and bought them in bigger droves than expected.

As a trial, they did the same to the Ka (not so much the manufacturing but the tuning) and sold lots of that model. Took them a long time to kill it off...

sussex2 wrote:

StressedDave wrote:I'm well aware that I'm an edge case here...

But even amongst the 'sportier' car manufacturers, there's been a huge move towards 'easy' over the last 20 years with a concurrent rise in 'over competent'.

Drive a 1989 911 back-to-back with the latest 991 model version and it's obvious.

This may be where my hatred of Boxsters (at least in terms of their effect on other drivers' development) comes from...

Do you mean over confidence on the part of the driver, or over competent on the manufacturers side?

The latter - basically the car will cash any (sane) cheque the driver cares to write...