You raise an excellent point in mentioning that there are numerous exceptions, as this is definitely more of an observed trend than a hard-and-fast rule. I think some of those prominent exceptions make it a lot harder to see the trend that I’m talking about.

Absolutely. Colin Chapman had many interesting, throught-provoking quotes and philosophies.

As an engineer by trade, I prefer to think that all of these terribly complex, unnecessary systems that we see in modern vehicles are born from the terrible reality of focus-group led design.

I am shocked, amused, bewildered, and even a little scared, by the rage that these people feel simply by seeing someone else’s car.

Like with anything, the best result is not one extreme or the other; it’s a complex, arduous combination of the two, found through years of trial-and-error, good judgement, and experience.

I don’t want to be rude, but what could you possibly mean by this?!

Really? I was actually unaware of this.

I will always pride myself on being that guy that will be able to identify such seemingly anonymous vehicles, despite having no emotional attachment to them. I wish there was a way that this impressive, bewildering skill-set could actually be put to use, but alas, I will just keep using it to play some perverse…

What?!

Yupp. As a curmudgeon, who prefers to drive vehicles that were produced before 2005, I find the “soft-lane-change-flash” feature that is found on newer BMWs (as well as many, many other brands) to be quite annoying.

Believe it or not, this is not something that is government mandated. It is a natural phenomenon that just so happens to also provides a functional benefit.  The current sent to the bulbs when the turn signal is activated remains constant, but when one of the bulbs no longer provides the necessary resistance that it…

Your post actually got me thinking about how I only remember really noticing it in vehicles equipped with a manual transmission. So I asked Jason if I’m imagining this correlation, but unfortunately I received no reply. I would hypothesize that (if such a correlation does exist) the general absence of the noise in…

Jason, thanks for the excellent article! I enjoyed reading it, and seeing the Imp in the headline image jogged my memory of how much I like them (which then resulted in me spending an hour Goggle Image-Searching the several different variants of them).

Alright, I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but that seems like an absurd thing to proclaim. What makes you think most people associate this noise with Honda/Acura?

And of course, it happened in Texas.

Oh, cool. I was kind of preparing my flame-suit, as I assumed it would be an unpopular opinion.

That’s funny. I absolutely worship Porsches that have been “reimagined” by Singer; but one of the few things that I have never liked about them is the exposed fuel filler. I find it to be an eyesore, to be honest. I feel it distracts the eye from one of the most beautiful features of a 911, where the hood gradually…

This is a very serious problem, and it persists even on the newest cars being sold today. Even the vast majority of higher-end models lack any form of automatic illumination on the rear of the vehicle.

Nah, you’re right. I meant to say “replica” rather than “kit car” and I do understand that there is a difference. So what I was trying to say is “No replica of a Porsche or Ferrari is going to drive anywhere near as well as its inspiration.” but even that isn’t exactly accurate, because as you pointed out, someone…

What? No kit car of a Porsche or Ferrari is going to drive anywhere near “as well as its inspiration.” That is an insult to what those manufacturers do.