What trends are you noticing with cars? (auto, race car, pickup)

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by stan4

it's kinda boring to see the same old colors on the road.

Agreed. Grey, silver, white, black ... *yawn* I get all excited when I see an orange car on the road, and I hate orange cars. I like to see blue, green, yellow, purple ...

*snif* I miss my teal '93 Honda Civic. *snif*

[PDD]

I don't know if it was mentioned but the trend is definitely leaning towards more HP.
300HP V-6's are pretty common these days along with 400+ Hp V-8's.(anybody remember the 70's with 200HP 427 CI smog motors)
I think the days of push-rod engines is coming to an end. I know GM still makes a great push rod engine but most everybody is making big HP numbers with OHC engines with less cubes.

[Narfcake]

Originally Posted by PDD

I think the days of push-rod engines is coming to an end. I know GM still makes a great push rod engine but most everybody is making big HP numbers with OHC engines with less cubes.

OHC = fewer moving parts and easier to design multi-valve heads. On the other hand, OHV is more compact and can be made lighter. OHV favors low-end torque over high-end HP too ... it's a trade-off.

[Chango]

Originally Posted by RandyWatson13

Cars are bigger
Emblems and badges are huge

This bothers me. The "T" on the hood of my Camry is flipping huge and rearded looking. I would take it off, but because of the way it's recessed into the grill it would look even stupider if I removed it.

[fastninja500]

More dealer-friendly features - expensive-to-repair features. Probably to encourage car owners to go to the dealer for service and repairs, rather than independent mechanics.

What's with the dual mufflers? Even on smaller cars? Used to be, only 8 cylinder cars had dual mufflers. Even 6 cylinder cars of a few years ago only had one catalytic converter and muffler. Now, I see a lot of new cars with 2 mufllers. Even 4 cylinder cars. When they rust out, then you have 2 mufflers to repair/replace. There are even some with 2 catalytic converters.

Another thing I've noticed are there are more cars with feminine design. Which makes marketing sense, since a lot more women drive. My wife and I are partial to the BMW 5 series (E28, E34 and E39) and were looking at the next one: E60. But she said "No, it's too gay. Look at the lines. the headlights. the trunk."....

Originally Posted by Chango

...... kind of like gun designs; the M-4 rifle issued today is fundamentally the same gun as the M-16 A1's that went to Vietnam 40 years ago. It just can't be usefully improved beyond what it already is.

Probably because it works great. Like the 1911. Just improve on it. Like gas piston vs. direct impingment.

I'm currently shopping for an AR-15 type rifle and I see a lot of features and improvements. Of course, they're almost twice the price. There's been a huge increase in interest in AR-15 type firearms. Probably because of B.O. and the gun control crowd in the White House.

[Merc63]

Originally Posted by summer22

NEGATIVES #1:

Cars aren't as fun and personalized as they used to be. They're not as youthful.

You used to be able to get two door cars, and you could get a wide variety of colors.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs311.snc4/40886_477662986873_673541873_6722232_3297240_n.jpg (broken link)

[summer22]

Originally Posted by Merc63

I like those colors. Now if everybody would just buy those! (Or if I could afford one...)

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by summer22

I like those colors. Now if everybody would just buy those! (Or if I could afford one...)

I know. It seems that 90% of the late-model cars I see are one of four colors: white (a lot of white cars out there), black, silver and gray.

[12GO]

Originally Posted by superseiyan

For me three stand out:

1. A clear difference between econoboxes, and the midsize tier cars. Corolla and Camry or Jetta and Passat didn't used to be that different. Now seems the economy cars have been stripped down (not necessarily in price though).

2. Mid-size cars are pretty large.
2011 Toyota Camry

3. Brands are looking different again. For a while cars were indistinguishable. Now there's more character. If you look at a Nissan Maxima, a Mazda 6, or Hyundai Sonata or a Honda Accord, I wouldn't say they look the same.

4. (Via Merc63) Technology is proliferating down to the midsized. Dimming rearview mirrors, GPS, quality interiors, silent interiors, etc is stuff that's now not for Mercedes or Lexus owners exclusively.

5. Related to #1, there seems to be a new category of car--super econoboxes. That's mostly hatcbacks. Ford fiesta, Mazda 2, Honda Fit et. al. Are these their own category? Are they replacing starter/economy cars?

Trends i see are because of government over reaching requirements. The result is the cars are smaller, most have the same ugly semi-bubble designs, none of them have a trunk, and anytime a subcompact/maybe as much as a compact is called a mid sized car like the accord, the size ratings are so screwed up it's completely fraud on the buyer.
The camery when parked next to a real midsized car is nowhere near a midsize ride. It too is a compact at the largest!
Park it next to say a 68 Satelite, LeMans, Chevelle, and you will see the fraud of companies and the government calling these compacts mis sized.
And I see too many are allowed to have huge tv/gps screens in the front of the passenger/driver area. Thes distractions should be banned in my opinion. Oh please don't tell me you are too stupid to read a map. And don't even believe a gps will get you there. About 40 percent of the time, gps is wrong.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by 12GO

Trends i see are because of government over reaching requirements. The result is the cars are smaller, most have the same ugly semi-bubble designs, none of them have a trunk, and anytime a subcompact/maybe as much as a compact is called a mid sized car like the accord, the size ratings are so screwed up it's completely fraud on the buyer.
The camery when parked next to a real midsized car is nowhere near a midsize ride. It too is a compact at the largest!
Park it next to say a 68 Satelite, LeMans, Chevelle, and you will see the fraud of companies and the government calling these compacts mis sized.
And I see too many are allowed to have huge tv/gps screens in the front of the passenger/driver area. Thes distractions should be banned in my opinion. Oh please don't tell me you are too stupid to read a map. And don't even believe a gps will get you there. About 40 percent of the time, gps is wrong.

I have no idea what kind of lousy-ass GPS system you use that it's wrong anywhere near 40% of the time. Maybe you haven't updated the map database in about a decade? And you wanna talk about distractions, one would have to imagine reading a map is far, far more distracting than having a GPS guide you to your destination.

And "fraud?" You think the consumer can't see for themselves how large or small a car is? Standards change. this isn't 1968 any more.