Government homogenizes
everything it touches. It makes things uniform, drains the color, randomness
and difference out of life.
Government is the reason why
cars increasingly look . . . homogenized. The basic shape is becoming uniform –
the inevitable end result of having to comply with government edicts specifying
that a car must successfully withstand being hit from the side, behind and at
various angles; this has imposed a design template on all cars, regardless of
brand or model. It is why all brands and models increasingly look the same
except for increasingly bizarre grille and headlight shapes – which are a kind
of desperate last salvo of expression still possible only because the
government hasn’t yet got around to decreeing how grilles and headlights should
be shaped.
Which will probably happen when
it occurs to a government bureaucrat that certain grille shapes threaten to
poke pedestrians – and we can’t have that.
The same homogeneity is found
inside new cars – in all cars made since the late ‘90s, when the government
decreed that all cars must have air bags stuffed into their steering wheels. It
is why all steering wheels now look the same. Before the government decreed
that all new cars must have air bags, steering wheel designs varied – often
wildly. They were the centerpiece of interior design and even defined the car.
Today, they are just steering
wheels.
The same blob in the center –
where the air bag is. The different shapes of the past are no longer feasible
and so there is one shape – generic, homogenous. With a different badge in the
center.
It is no wonder that most kids
no longer car about cars. It is like trying to summon interest in milk jugs.
“Safety” itself was once a
different selling point – rather than the same selling point, as it has become
today. Some cars sold on the basis of other attributes, such as their
flamboyant styling – or because they offered features which appealed to
people but which have since been outlawed by regulatory fatwa such as swiveling
or rear (or sideways) facing seats – or roofs with removable glass panels
(T-tops).
Those pre-fatwa cars weren’t
“unsafe,” either. The presence or absence of air bags or swivel seats or T-tops
does not increase or decrease the odds of a crash happening.
A 1970 VW Beetle is perfectly
safe to drive.
What is meant by “safety in the
regulatory fatwa sense is a vehicle’s ability to withstand impact forces if
there is a crash. It is a distinction with an important difference. If no crash
happens, a 1970 Beetle is just as safe to drive as a 2018 Beetle – only
the old Beetle has more character because it is different. The new Beetle
merely looks vaguely like the old one but underneath its skin, it’s not much
different from any other front-drive, front-engined compact economy car.
Everything that made the old
Beetle a Beetle is absent from the new Beetle.
And the new, homogenous Beetle
is probably still not as “safe” – as defined by how well it protects occupants
from impact forces in the event of a crash – as a full-sized, pre-safety fatwa
American sedan of the early ‘70s, which was inherently safer by dint of being
full-sized. And because it had heavy steel bumpers instead of plasticized front
ends with paper-thin metal for the fenders and hoods.
But full-sized sedans have been
fatwa’d out of existence (via fuel efficiency fatwas) except as very expensive
(and very low production) cars for the very rich. The only ones that qualify as
full-size today – by yesterday’s pre-fatwa standards of length and weight – are
models like the S-Class Mercedes and BMW 7 Series, both of them $100,000 cars.
Mass-market sedans are all small
by the standards of the pre-fatwa era. A full-size sedan in 1970 meant a car
like the Buick Electra 225. The number denoted its length. Two hundred and
twenty-five inches – almost 19 feet from bumper to bumper (not rubberized
“fascias” to fascia,” as today). The largest car GM sells today that isn’t an
ultra-luxury car is the Chevy Impala.
It is 201.3 inches long overall
– some two feet shorter than a 225 Buick.
It also does not seat six, as
the Buick did – nor does it have a trunk that can accommodate three (as the
Buick did). Even an S-Class Mercedes is modestly sized by pre-fatwa standards.
It is only 206.5 inches long – and its trunk just 16.3 cubic feet.
Today’s sedans may be “safer” as
per compliance with federal fatwas – but they are too small for today’s
families – even the “full-sized” ones.
And that is why crossovers have
become the homogenous vehicle of choice nowadays.
A crossover is a mutation of design
resulting from all the unnatural incentives imposed on car design (and car
buyers) by the government. The government outlawed (not directly, but
effectively – via the regulatory fatwas) big sedans with lots of space but
people wanted them anyhow and so they bought SUVs, which were the same things
as big sedans except jacked-up and with 4WD and an even heartier appetite for
fuel – because they were even heavier and much less aerodynamic than the
extincted-by-fatwa large sedans which they replaced.
But that created a new problem
for the car companies. Truck-based SUVs had previously been relatively
low-production specialty vehicles generally bought by people who needed the
rugged 4×4 (and towing) capability they offered. But when they became mass-market
replacements (end-runs, really) for the large sedans which used to be
mass-market, their MPG numbers (low) dragged down the manufacturer’s
Corporate Average Fuel Economy numbers – and that triggered fines for not being
sufficiently efficient.
Enter the crossover – a
jacked-up car that looks like an SUV but slightly less heavy and somewhat (in
theory) more “efficient” but not that much in fact. They are also arguably –
demonstrably – less saaaaaaaaaaaaaafe than the big sedans most families used to
have parked in their garages in the pre-fatwa days because of usually terrible
visibility plus a tendency toward top-heaviness on account of a high center of
gravity. This is compensated for by elaborate electronic countermeasures and –
of course – a profusion of air bags.
And they all look just the same
. . .
. . .
Got a question about cars – or
anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!
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