Cars used to be made to get you somewhere. Now they cost 4 times as much and are full of government-mandated surveillance equipment and random gadgets that are expensive to fix when they break. And they're twice as heavy.
Exactly what I was referring to. Along with GPS tracking that alerts you if you're going over the speed limit. Totally won't be used for anything else, right?
The government mandates all telecommunications to be intercepted and and monitored. Car manufacturers willingly installed celluar modems in their cars for OTA updates and their own data tracking reasons... therefore, the government has surveillance equipment in your car.
Maybe not govt mandated, but used by the governments. New cars have infotainment with GPS trackers, cameras etc. Toyota and Teslas were the worse from a year or two ago for selling your data to companies, especially insurance companies.
A week ago alstate data came out that they paid millions to many apps for your phone to track you like life360, gasbuddy and so on.
Don't get me started on TVs. Watch gamers nexus on LG TVs. They store 4gb of data including audio, screenshots - even if it's not connected to the internet. Doctor's offices, companies or other places that rely on hipa or trade secrets have these TVs sitting around.
Your wifi routers uses beam forming to track you around your house and can be accurate enough to make out complex shapes like faces.
Anyways, I came here to say I have the same generation a4 avant with the 3.2l, I think b7. Just the right loudness exhaust from factory when you floor it and at right rpms it reverberates like a super car because of the vvt.
Pricing on cars with similar features and performance have been going up slower than general inflation, but as you mention they keep increasing the features/performance of the base models.
When I was really getting into cars in the 90's, it seemed like the base models of economy brands were pretty barebones. But over time what previously was optional became standard: air conditioning, automatic transmission, power locks/windows, floor mats, a decent car stereo, cruise control, etc.
And the things that used to differentiate luxury brands/models just became standard over time: traction control, good acceleration/handling, clear coat over the paint, rust resistance. In the 90's, it was still possible to buy a vehicle that took more than 10 seconds to accelerate to 60mph (~100km/h).
And of course, a bunch of safety stuff became standard in large part because of regulation: airbags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, backup cameras. And fuel efficiency has gotten much better on the engineering side, for any given level of performance and vehicle weight. Emissions have similarly improved by regulation.
So cars have gotten so much better, while basically getting more expensive slightly slower than general inflation. So it's hard to compare apples to apples between decades.
My nephew was telling me about how he dusted off his old console and laughed at how bad the games looked. He was of course talking about his PS3.
One of these days I need to sit him down and subject him to some early 3d games like Battle Arena Toshinden or FFVIII to give him some real pizza-face perspective.
The PS3 is of that era where there was huge hype at the time about how realistic the graphics were (deservedly, to be fair) but when you look at it historically the shortcomings are all too clear, and it's almost comical.
Games on older consoles couldn't gun for realism the same way, and so they ironically look better now in retrospect because they just come across as having a particular style of their own.
I will say that with a handful of exceptions the PS3 generally looks worse than the 360, for example Infamous and MGS4 still hold up well enough but Red Dead Redemption does look a good bit rougher on the PS3.
I blame ford pickup trucks for that. Did you keep getting bigger and the front end keeps getting flatter. Eventually they're going to be so high up you'll be able to run over small trees without noticing.
That audi is around 2008-2011 (15-18yrs), but one gen before that, yes 20 years old.
And cars don't really age that terribly anymore (at least the 1.9 TDI era). My 2002 golf is (if we ignore the reliability and the swimming pools) way better than the newer 1.6 TDIs I've sat in, and it will probably outlast them.
It actually leaks trough the adhesive between the glass and metal. Not really enjoyable. It sounds like a swimming pool on every road except the highways. Will have to add some silicone (or putty) to hopefully stop it (since glass reattachments are expensive.
Also: it's the car of the Dieselgate era. Those are (in my opinion) the strongest and most reliable diesels ever made. Maybe VW was onto something when cheating the emission tests (well probably they could just add better filters, which would make them less money), but that doesn't make the cars bad.
Wow, I heard of Hondas. In the EU, the VW 1.9 TDIs are known for lasting into the similar teritories. But mine is under 200.000Kms and will probably rot away before reaching high mileage. But if I can, I'll keep it good as long as I can.
But C5 is just unbeatable. Perfection in its own. Interestingly, b5 is also quite a nice design but unfortunately only from outside. Interior was bit late and had to catch up. C5's interior was ahead of its time.
It would be interesting to see a timeline of when certain features became standard. For example, pushing a button to start a car instead of turning a key. That still seems new to me, even though I've driven some cars with that feature that were old enough to be falling apart.
lucky so and so. every fuckin car, from fuckers bouncing off the car while it's parked.
i'm a car wreck magnet. of the 20ish car "accidents" i've been in, i was in the passenger seat eating lunch for like 15 of them (you lose track after like number seven) i'm not the best data point
Electric windows go really poorly with that other pair of modern features, turney-offey-when-you-stoppey-engine (that's the technical name) and button-make-engine-go-not-turney-key.
I was in a car recently where I forgot to close the sunroof, and there didn't seem to be a way to close the sunroof without re-starting the engine.
my daily driver is a 2015 wrangler with crank windows. 158k. automatic transmission. only “big” fixes were oil cleaned housing and the latest was last month, radiator broke its seal on bottom. simple swap.
It's strange to live in a time where things change so much on the scale of a decade or two. Most of human existence was much more consistent. Multiple generations could come and go without much changing but the seasons.
Yeah, it's wild. If you were going about your day around 1400ish, you were practically doing it the same way as your folks did it around 1100ish, or even 800ish.
The wild thing is to go on Google Street view, which feels like a relatively new feature but it was actually been around for a very long time, use the historical images function and go back and look at how old, and small, the cars seem.
I love my manual 2015 Fit. Over 212k miles and still going strong. I bought it a few months ago. 1 owner before me. Had to put a little work into it but it was all general maintenance stuff (brakes and a bad fuel injector). Not quite 20 years old but still.
Just did a road trip in the same generation jazz, because my 25 year old car shit the bed on the day of departure. Great little car, that is deceptively spacious. Although that 1.3L engine with 3 of us in the car really struggled sometimes, especially on mountain passes.
lightweight cars are fine in the winter. just get snow tires and drive well
source: drove a Tercel in the winter for years, did it later on with a Yaris as well
I dislike heavier cars because they have so much more momentum. hard to change direction with little traction and you run into things with more energy. little cars you can just spin the wheels, find some traction, and go where you're pointing.
I drove a Tercel through many Canadian winters. It's lightweight but it's a 65/35 split, 65% of the weight over the front wheels so it really helps with traction. It did well in the snow.
Yeah, I had a Honda Civic and I think it was similar. Front wheel drive in a lightweight car with the weight over the front wheels makes it easy to drive in slippery conditions. But, it probably also helped that it had manual transmission.
Agree to the other guy next to me. Light cars are no bad in snow.
Just wear winter tires. No all season crap.
And actually lighter cars sometimes are even better in the snow.
They usually have thinner tires as for example a heavy suv.
More pressure on thinner area. More space for snow and walter to flee towards.
Also because of the heavy weight of suvs and such such heavy cars are more likely to slidder.
Just imagine a wet floor in a shop.
Now imagine yourself as a kid sliding over it and how far you would go. Now imagine the same as an full grown adult - but with the same speed. You will go further. Wayy further.
Also if you have suuuper much snow under your tires - lets say you slided and went off the road into a field that has tons of snow.
Your small car wont weigh down in the snow that much. Making it not sink that much. Wich makes the chance higher that you will be able to recover/drive back to the road by yourself higher.
I bought a 2014 Swift Sport but the CVT had too much distance and was clearly a time bomb. Moved it on but loved driving a non-monochrome car so much, I ended up with a slightly newer model with a normal torque converter (ZC33S) and still in yellow at 1/6th the distance.
I’ve always heard CVTs were a bit of a gamble. The manual was a challenge to find, but the upside was that most people were looking for automatics anyway, so the few manuals I found weren’t getting a ton of clicks. I was originally looking to get a Civic hatchback, but they were too old and there were too many half-baked project cars.
Those Swift hatchbacks are killer! I love Suzukis. My friend in high school had one of those little 90s Vitaras. We would ride to the beach in it to go surfing. So much fun to whip around town in.
My wife and I are both all in on the anti-monochrome club. Our other vehicle is a 2021 Kia Sorento turbo AWD in sapphire blue. The colors compliment each other nicely in the driveway 😂
And with the current design trends You can tell, the Audi is 20 years old. I don't know about You, but I don't like the 2000s designs. I much prefer the current ones. Especially the EVs.
I meant the outside. Couldn't agree more on the touchscreen bullshit. I drive a car from 2025 and changing the AC settings is a nightmare. I can only do it while stopping at a red light.
Where i live, you can get an "oldtimer plate" for cars tgat are 30 years or older. I would mainly see VW beetles with these plates, or similar cars. To me, that timeframe bever really moved up. To think that my first car, a honda civic coyld run these plates is kinda funny to me.
awhile back i saw a toyota prius hybrid with 'collector' plates that are used by classic and antique car owners (and cheapskates that want the cheaper plates in exchange for some use limits).
It's a mk2 Golf, if you want a cooler one - there's a Cross Country variant that's a lifted 4x4, or if you're super lucky - get a Rallye version, it's a homologation special
My experience with such old cars, where their age is starting to make full restoration advisable:
mechanically reliable and simple to fix (and critical parts are usually available, quality varies)
everything electrical is shit (and old), you need to go through everything to check the connections, completely rotten through ground wires aren't necessarily visible and will cause endless pain until you find them
the rust-proofing wasn't great but it was there so usually if they're still alive by now they just need the usual spots where those models rust checked before purchase and/or crash damage thoroughly checked
crash safety is nonexistent, ABS and ESP aren't that useful if you learned how to drive without, if you rely on ESP, better learn not to
the fastest affordable cars from the 1980s are slower than family cars from the 2020s, still feels like you're going way faster
if you buy something predating catalytic converters in your country, be prepared for it to smell atrocious
carburettors that haven't been tampered with and aren't leaking don't need to be touched unless they malfunction, if they malfunction they usually only need a good scrubbing with diesel then a wash in petrol, replacement of extremely dead gaskets, and the jets usually need a clean, the tiny drill bits for carburettor jets can be used for cleaning if you use the size just below the marked size. Ultrasonic cleaners aren't necessary, replacing all gaskets usually means it's going to leak more than before.
I can't imagine how awful the electronics / digital stuff on modern cars will be in 20ish years. It's a lot more finicky to begin with and electronics even under the best conditions age poorly; on a vehicle exposed to the elements it's going to be a nightmare.
Get one while you still can, they haven't been going down in price for a long time and may in fact already be going up in price. They're pretty iconic, but not as many on the roads these days.
I daily drive one. I love it to bits but it's been through three engines and gearboxes, four coils, two carburettors, and two distributors in the last 70,000kms and I still have a niggling ignition fault and can't get the mixture quite perfect.
As I've been through all these faults I've slowly been doing more and more of the work myself as I don't trust "specialist" shops to put the time and care into my job to do it right, and as a result the car is a lot better now than when I bought it. But its a lot of work.
In short, buy a 40 year old Japanese car, not a British one!
It looks like mine. But mine a little longer in the back. If it’s my car it’s a VW Fox. But there’s three VW models that all pretty much look like that. Mines an 89. Almost 40.
Is it weird that I kind of appreciate the design language of the Volkswagen in that picture? Moreso than the Audi, at least.
Yeah, that form factor is definitely old people coded at this point, and has always been for as long as I can remember, but I find something quite charming about it. I can't quite explain it. It's not nostalgia, because I never owned a car like that before, but I do remember seeing them on the road 30+ years ago and thinking to myself "that's an old car!".
I wonder if design trends ever loop back around for cars the same way that it does for fashion? Perhaps not, as I'm sure the industry has purposefully moved away from cars that look like that due to improved safety features or enhanced auto regulations, but if I were interested in buying a car for it's unique or appealing shape alone, then I would much rather be driving around an old boxy VW Golf than ever be caught dead in a Cybertruck.
In Hungary, Fidesz supporters used to claim that the cars on the bottom are all brand new, and thus people are now buying new cars and are rich. In reality, Golf Mk.IIIs are no longer new cars, and there are even newer ones.
In Hungary, Fidesz supporters used to claim that the cars on the bottom are all brand new, and thus people are now buying new cars and are rich. In reality, Golf Mk.IIIs are no longer new cars, and there are even newer ones.
I prefer this by a mile over the SUV thing that everyone is doing nowadays... at worst, that 20yo Audi design is boring, older Audi models were way more distinctive.
Especially now that they're turning them into sports cars, like everyone needs a 3 ton speeding death machine that they can't see over the dashboard in.
Looks are unimportant. SUV's, crossovers and minivans are practical and can adapt to a lot of situations. Sedans and trucks are better for specific tasks, but can't really compete overall.
In what world are crossovers (what was likely meant by "the SUV thing", since everyone's making those) practical if wagons have more cargo space for the same amount of euros and feel better to drive?
Get an SUV or a wagon if you're looking at crossovers. SUV if you actually need proper ground clearance, wagon if you need space but drive mostly on roads. Don't get a crossover, they're shit. Minivans obviously are the epitome of practicality IF you need 7+ seats or tons of cargo space, or the option to have either.
Audi in particular is known for making wagons of varying price and performance, including in the age pictured in OP. I'll agree that minus the additional comfort of having an enclosed trunk (less noise) a sedan isn't "better" than an SUV or a wagon though. But a crossover is the worst of both worlds between SUVs and wagons or hatchbacks.
I have one of these, also 20 years old, it'll beat pretty much any bullshit crossover in both off-road performance and on-road comfort. While having cargo capacity up the wazoo and towing capacity of nearly 2 metric tons. Of course there are better ones if you only drive on roads, I like having the freedom to go where most SUV drivers don't dare and most crossover drivers simply can't. It's also got more cargo space than the similarly priced Audi Q5 crossover. Loses to the Q7, but that's a big behemoth with a much bigger price tag, it's largely the extra width and length that give it more space, not just the extra height from being a crossover.
But you could also have this one, actually the same chassis, just won't go as tall as my Allroad's max setting. Has a biturbo V10:
Or if you're shopping crossovers that don't try to pretend they're big SUVs, you could have the A4 Avant, smaller than the A6/RS6 chassis pictured above, but still more trunk space than many crossovers. Can be had with some pretty tiny engines, nearly as small and dinky as your average crossover, with pretty good fuel economy. Or go as big as a 4.2 V8 in older models in the RS4 spec. You've got options.
And of course many other manufacturers still offer wagons too. You don't have to get an expensive (or formerly expensive) one.
And you can even get EV wagons nowadays, no longer are EV buyers stuck with ugly crossovers that have no reason to exist:
TBF crossovers basically replaced compact-ish cars like the later VW Golf generations or Ford Focus. The added SUV shit is obviously counterproductive, but the length is IMO a pretty good compromise between outside dimensions and cargo space/adults actually being able to sit somewhat comfortably in the back seats, especially when roadside parking is the standard in your area.
Other way around IMO, the additional possibilities don't weigh as heavy as the impact on the environment and traffic infrastructure (worse road safety for other traffic participants, especially pedestrians, bicyclists and people in small cars, more spaced used on roads and for parking, higher weight, worse fuel efficiency) and some of those issues affect the SUV drivers, too (worse visibility = more accidents, harder to find parking, more money paid for fuel). Minivans are different IMO because they solve the "I need a big car for all the people and luggage I'm transporting"-issue with much better road safety and space efficiency.
I didn't talk about trucks, but my opinion on them is pretty similar. No one picks an SUV over a lorry truck, and there aren't that many people who genuinely need a pickup truck instead of a (often smaller) van or regular sedan/station wagon types of cars, especially if it's not for their job. IMO, even if a pickup truck is sometimes useful, it rarely makes sense to use it as your day-to-day vehicle instead of buying a sedan and renting a bigger car when you actually need it.
At least it predates the design impulse to make the front grille big enough for the car to drive though with a company badge the size of a toddler’s head.
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Cars used to be made to get you somewhere. Now they cost 4 times as much and are full of government-mandated surveillance equipment and random gadgets that are expensive to fix when they break. And they're twice as heavy.
The only thing that's gotten better is safety.
I miss when cars were cars
Honesty the best era for cars is around 2003-2016 depending on the manufacturer. The older ones from around 2008 or so are especially good.
What government mandated surveillance equipment are you referring to?
From 7 July, all new cars and vans sold in the EU must pack a fresh batch of safety features, including infrared cameras that watch the driver's face.
Exactly what I was referring to. Along with GPS tracking that alerts you if you're going over the speed limit. Totally won't be used for anything else, right?
The government mandates all telecommunications to be intercepted and and monitored. Car manufacturers willingly installed celluar modems in their cars for OTA updates and their own data tracking reasons... therefore, the government has surveillance equipment in your car.
Also the EU mandated driver monitoring so you can't even drive tired anymore (yay for repression), at least let me drive home from work.
Thats mandated in the US aswell, suppose to be implemented by 2030.
Maybe not govt mandated, but used by the governments. New cars have infotainment with GPS trackers, cameras etc. Toyota and Teslas were the worse from a year or two ago for selling your data to companies, especially insurance companies.
A week ago alstate data came out that they paid millions to many apps for your phone to track you like life360, gasbuddy and so on.
Don't get me started on TVs. Watch gamers nexus on LG TVs. They store 4gb of data including audio, screenshots - even if it's not connected to the internet. Doctor's offices, companies or other places that rely on hipa or trade secrets have these TVs sitting around.
Your wifi routers uses beam forming to track you around your house and can be accurate enough to make out complex shapes like faces.
Anyways, I came here to say I have the same generation a4 avant with the 3.2l, I think b7. Just the right loudness exhaust from factory when you floor it and at right rpms it reverberates like a super car because of the vvt.
Pricing on cars with similar features and performance have been going up slower than general inflation, but as you mention they keep increasing the features/performance of the base models.
When I was really getting into cars in the 90's, it seemed like the base models of economy brands were pretty barebones. But over time what previously was optional became standard: air conditioning, automatic transmission, power locks/windows, floor mats, a decent car stereo, cruise control, etc.
And the things that used to differentiate luxury brands/models just became standard over time: traction control, good acceleration/handling, clear coat over the paint, rust resistance. In the 90's, it was still possible to buy a vehicle that took more than 10 seconds to accelerate to 60mph (~100km/h).
And of course, a bunch of safety stuff became standard in large part because of regulation: airbags, anti-lock brakes, crumple zones, backup cameras. And fuel efficiency has gotten much better on the engineering side, for any given level of performance and vehicle weight. Emissions have similarly improved by regulation.
So cars have gotten so much better, while basically getting more expensive slightly slower than general inflation. So it's hard to compare apples to apples between decades.
20 year old video game in my head:
20 year old video game in reality:
Mass effect is 19 years old.
No it isn't. Can't be more than 5 years old.
My nephew was telling me about how he dusted off his old console and laughed at how bad the games looked. He was of course talking about his PS3.
One of these days I need to sit him down and subject him to some early 3d games like Battle Arena Toshinden or FFVIII to give him some real pizza-face perspective.
The PS3 is of that era where there was huge hype at the time about how realistic the graphics were (deservedly, to be fair) but when you look at it historically the shortcomings are all too clear, and it's almost comical.
Games on older consoles couldn't gun for realism the same way, and so they ironically look better now in retrospect because they just come across as having a particular style of their own.
Even on consoles like the ps1 the games that chased "cutting edge" graphics look so much worse than games that had distinct art styles.
True. There's always that subset and it kinda looks good, but only for a moment in time.
Some of them did go for realism.
Persian Gulf Inferno was almost banned for being too realistic..
This shit was on the index in Germany for "inciting violence in players" 😅
The first 3D game I ever played looked like this:
3d monster maze calling in.
Such a good game and in 16k of RAM
I will say that with a handful of exceptions the PS3 generally looks worse than the 360, for example Infamous and MGS4 still hold up well enough but Red Dead Redemption does look a good bit rougher on the PS3.
Show him Jumping Flash! and see if he can even make sense of it.
I vote you include sonic 3-d. That game makes me throw up with how they made the 3d effect.
I expected to see Zelda Ocarina of Time in the second picture 💀
Been playing Twilight Princess on Dusklight android and it's amazing. Can't believe it's 20 years old.
Though retro is so popular that lots of modern games still look like the 90s...
I submit as the most wince-worthy example of 20 year old console game graphics:
Fuck
"we ought to be driving flying cars by now" :D
I love the styling cars had circa 2000. This whole "let's make cars look like futuristic tanks" thing lately is not it
I blame ford pickup trucks for that. Did you keep getting bigger and the front end keeps getting flatter. Eventually they're going to be so high up you'll be able to run over small trees without noticing.
Back when they cared about aerodynamics.
In 20 more years old cars will look like the first picture, because of planned obsolescence.
That audi is around 2008-2011 (15-18yrs), but one gen before that, yes 20 years old.
And cars don't really age that terribly anymore (at least the 1.9 TDI era). My 2002 golf is (if we ignore the reliability and the swimming pools) way better than the newer 1.6 TDIs I've sat in, and it will probably outlast them.
The swimming pools...? Did I miss a scandal or something?
Water in my boot door. Great.
It actually leaks trough the adhesive between the glass and metal. Not really enjoyable. It sounds like a swimming pool on every road except the highways. Will have to add some silicone (or putty) to hopefully stop it (since glass reattachments are expensive.
Also: it's the car of the Dieselgate era. Those are (in my opinion) the strongest and most reliable diesels ever made. Maybe VW was onto something when cheating the emission tests (well probably they could just add better filters, which would make them less money), but that doesn't make the cars bad.
I have seen Honda motors that will continue kicking well into 400,000 miles
I think car manufacturers are mildly screwed as the old cars are way overbuilt
Wow, I heard of Hondas. In the EU, the VW 1.9 TDIs are known for lasting into the similar teritories. But mine is under 200.000Kms and will probably rot away before reaching high mileage. But if I can, I'll keep it good as long as I can.
A6 C5 is a timeless design. Even Škodas used it somewhere early 2010s. Just an unbeatable form.
That is an A4
I know. And this is b7. Kinda like discounted c6.
But C5 is just unbeatable. Perfection in its own. Interestingly, b5 is also quite a nice design but unfortunately only from outside. Interior was bit late and had to catch up. C5's interior was ahead of its time.
The C5 is a timeless design though
I still consider electric windows to be futuristic show-off fluffery, despite not having actually seen manual winders in a few years.
It would be interesting to see a timeline of when certain features became standard. For example, pushing a button to start a car instead of turning a key. That still seems new to me, even though I've driven some cars with that feature that were old enough to be falling apart.
I used some the other day and it felt so much better.
It's hilarious to me how many people are shitting their beds over the Slate pickup coming with crank windows.
All my homies hate repairing window regulators
I've never once had to repair power windows in the 20 some years I've owned cars.
lucky so and so. every fuckin car, from fuckers bouncing off the car while it's parked.
i'm a car wreck magnet. of the 20ish car "accidents" i've been in, i was in the passenger seat eating lunch for like 15 of them (you lose track after like number seven) i'm not the best data point
Done it on a '04 Subaru, absolute pain in the ass that needs two people. Meanwhile the cranks on my '95 Mazda continue to function completely fine.
I'm reading this while sitting in a rather new electric Renault Zoë where the windows in the back are manual!
We have manual winders. (We down graded our car on purpose for cheaper repairs)
I prefer winders for the front. No need for key in accessory position, and fine control.
Back is tricky
Electric windows go really poorly with that other pair of modern features, turney-offey-when-you-stoppey-engine (that's the technical name) and button-make-engine-go-not-turney-key.
I was in a car recently where I forgot to close the sunroof, and there didn't seem to be a way to close the sunroof without re-starting the engine.
my daily driver is a 2015 wrangler with crank windows. 158k. automatic transmission. only “big” fixes were oil cleaned housing and the latest was last month, radiator broke its seal on bottom. simple swap.
Fact: every year of the 90s was exactly 10 years ago and always will be.
I'm not quite sure that's how it works
I'm telling you, it is!
It's strange to live in a time where things change so much on the scale of a decade or two. Most of human existence was much more consistent. Multiple generations could come and go without much changing but the seasons.
Yeah, it's wild. If you were going about your day around 1400ish, you were practically doing it the same way as your folks did it around 1100ish, or even 800ish.
The wild thing is to go on Google Street view, which feels like a relatively new feature but it was actually been around for a very long time, use the historical images function and go back and look at how old, and small, the cars seem.
I remember when they publicly released that and people were freaking out there were pictures of their house and backyard online.
Wanna feel old? The moon landing was in 1969, that’s 57 years ago from 2026, the halfway year is 1997…
Crap, the time between when the moon landing happened and when I was born (late 80s), is smaller than the gap between 9/11 and today.
And it always will be, by an ever-widening margin.
... I think I gotta lie down
For me anything with 19' in it is a long time ago. It was the time I was a kid, still growing up, and that's seems so long ago.
That audi design aged like wine
Boxy cars looked the best.
Lancia Delta
Citroën AX
Honda CRX
Ford Escort
Postman Pat's Van
VW Golf gen 1-3
80s cavalier z24?
Third-gen Camaro while we're at it. And the equivalent Firebird.
I love my manual 2015 Fit. Over 212k miles and still going strong. I bought it a few months ago. 1 owner before me. Had to put a little work into it but it was all general maintenance stuff (brakes and a bad fuel injector). Not quite 20 years old but still.
Just did a road trip in the same generation jazz, because my 25 year old car shit the bed on the day of departure. Great little car, that is deceptively spacious. Although that 1.3L engine with 3 of us in the car really struggled sometimes, especially on mountain passes.
The fit is gaining a lot of popularity as of late
Is it any good in the snow? I think it might be dangerous in the winter due to it being lightweight
lightweight cars are fine in the winter. just get snow tires and drive well
source: drove a Tercel in the winter for years, did it later on with a Yaris as well
I dislike heavier cars because they have so much more momentum. hard to change direction with little traction and you run into things with more energy. little cars you can just spin the wheels, find some traction, and go where you're pointing.
I drove a Tercel through many Canadian winters. It's lightweight but it's a 65/35 split, 65% of the weight over the front wheels so it really helps with traction. It did well in the snow.
Yeah, I had a Honda Civic and I think it was similar. Front wheel drive in a lightweight car with the weight over the front wheels makes it easy to drive in slippery conditions. But, it probably also helped that it had manual transmission.
Agree to the other guy next to me. Light cars are no bad in snow. Just wear winter tires. No all season crap.
And actually lighter cars sometimes are even better in the snow. They usually have thinner tires as for example a heavy suv. More pressure on thinner area. More space for snow and walter to flee towards.
Also because of the heavy weight of suvs and such such heavy cars are more likely to slidder. Just imagine a wet floor in a shop. Now imagine yourself as a kid sliding over it and how far you would go. Now imagine the same as an full grown adult - but with the same speed. You will go further. Wayy further.
Also if you have suuuper much snow under your tires - lets say you slided and went off the road into a field that has tons of snow.
Your small car wont weigh down in the snow that much. Making it not sink that much. Wich makes the chance higher that you will be able to recover/drive back to the road by yourself higher.
All around lighter car? Better for winter.
Yellow hatchback club 💛
I bought a 2014 Swift Sport but the CVT had too much distance and was clearly a time bomb. Moved it on but loved driving a non-monochrome car so much, I ended up with a slightly newer model with a normal torque converter (ZC33S) and still in yellow at 1/6th the distance.
manual 2006 yellow ford focus hatchback, here
I’ve always heard CVTs were a bit of a gamble. The manual was a challenge to find, but the upside was that most people were looking for automatics anyway, so the few manuals I found weren’t getting a ton of clicks. I was originally looking to get a Civic hatchback, but they were too old and there were too many half-baked project cars.
Those Swift hatchbacks are killer! I love Suzukis. My friend in high school had one of those little 90s Vitaras. We would ride to the beach in it to go surfing. So much fun to whip around town in.
My wife and I are both all in on the anti-monochrome club. Our other vehicle is a 2021 Kia Sorento turbo AWD in sapphire blue. The colors compliment each other nicely in the driveway 😂
I understand now, when my dad said, "I don't know, they all look alike to me."
And with the current design trends You can tell, the Audi is 20 years old. I don't know about You, but I don't like the 2000s designs. I much prefer the current ones. Especially the EVs.
Meh, the eyes have evolved to be too squinty as a way to deal with LED overbrightness. I like the classic look
I like the 2000's era designs the most, simple, not crammed with touchscreens and curvy instead of boxy like the newer and older era cars.
The 80's and 90's are also cool (like the Mercedes of the era (when it was actually more reliable and comfortable than the cheaper cars)).
I'd rather have some simple knobs over a touch screen and a car that requires software updates for some reason
I meant the outside. Couldn't agree more on the touchscreen bullshit. I drive a car from 2025 and changing the AC settings is a nightmare. I can only do it while stopping at a red light.
It is crazy how recent some of the events are that we usually consider ancient. The power of time is that you don't realize how fast it passes.
I drive a car from the early 2000's. When I got it I was stoked to finally have a car made in this century. It turns 20 in 2 years 😬
My truck just turned old enough to drink in the states, I feel like that must be some kind of country music initiation
Ha my truck just turned 40!
Lol so did I, decent vintage at least
Where i live, you can get an "oldtimer plate" for cars tgat are 30 years or older. I would mainly see VW beetles with these plates, or similar cars. To me, that timeframe bever really moved up. To think that my first car, a honda civic coyld run these plates is kinda funny to me.
awhile back i saw a toyota prius hybrid with 'collector' plates that are used by classic and antique car owners (and cheapskates that want the cheaper plates in exchange for some use limits).
I drive the 20 year old car in your head. Love it.
I drive its 20 year old grand child. It feels like 5 years old.
I keep thinking that they just stopped making the Pontiac Firebird...
As an owner of a 20 year old car, I approve this message.
I want that 40 year old car so bad
It's a mk2 Golf, if you want a cooler one - there's a Cross Country variant that's a lifted 4x4, or if you're super lucky - get a Rallye version, it's a homologation special
Keep in mind it is a death trap due to the weak frame
My experience with such old cars, where their age is starting to make full restoration advisable:
I can't imagine how awful the electronics / digital stuff on modern cars will be in 20ish years. It's a lot more finicky to begin with and electronics even under the best conditions age poorly; on a vehicle exposed to the elements it's going to be a nightmare.
Luxury cars from 2006 can be a nightmare (Mercedes brake-by-wire systems) or just fine (Lexus).
Same, I just recently had someone offer me a Buick Lasabre for cheap. I was very excited until they said it was a 2003 😑
Reliable sure, but man did the '00 models look gross. Go back 10-20 years from that ugly thing to these beauties and it would have been a deal.
I secretly like the fugly biodesign cars from the 1990s and 2000s. Not that many in Europe.
Get one while you still can, they haven't been going down in price for a long time and may in fact already be going up in price. They're pretty iconic, but not as many on the roads these days.
I daily drive one. I love it to bits but it's been through three engines and gearboxes, four coils, two carburettors, and two distributors in the last 70,000kms and I still have a niggling ignition fault and can't get the mixture quite perfect.
As I've been through all these faults I've slowly been doing more and more of the work myself as I don't trust "specialist" shops to put the time and care into my job to do it right, and as a result the car is a lot better now than when I bought it. But its a lot of work.
In short, buy a 40 year old Japanese car, not a British one!
It looks like mine. But mine a little longer in the back. If it’s my car it’s a VW Fox. But there’s three VW models that all pretty much look like that. Mines an 89. Almost 40.
It feels like just yesterday that we were riding around in the model t
Don't.
I'd take the top over the bottom in a heartbeat.
That was my first car, the only difference was the condition of it, but still was a nice car.
Ha exactly! Also the ps3 sure is a spankin new system huh? So cutting edge. I don't think they can top it.
cars lool all the same now
Is it weird that I kind of appreciate the design language of the Volkswagen in that picture? Moreso than the Audi, at least.
Yeah, that form factor is definitely old people coded at this point, and has always been for as long as I can remember, but I find something quite charming about it. I can't quite explain it. It's not nostalgia, because I never owned a car like that before, but I do remember seeing them on the road 30+ years ago and thinking to myself "that's an old car!".
I wonder if design trends ever loop back around for cars the same way that it does for fashion? Perhaps not, as I'm sure the industry has purposefully moved away from cars that look like that due to improved safety features or enhanced auto regulations, but if I were interested in buying a car for it's unique or appealing shape alone, then I would much rather be driving around an old boxy VW Golf than ever be caught dead in a Cybertruck.
They are but I don't think it's fully cyclical. Modern boxy Hyundai's like the new Santa Fe and the ioniq 5 are kind of like that.
I owned an 81 VW Rabbit and I still regret selling it. Incredibly charming car.
Honestly, not weird at all imo. 2000s cars all look like weird bubbly fish to me.
Ouch. Oof. Owie
In Hungary, Fidesz supporters used to claim that the cars on the bottom are all brand new, and thus people are now buying new cars and are rich. In reality, Golf Mk.IIIs are no longer new cars, and there are even newer ones.
What
In Hungary, Fidesz supporters used to claim that the cars on the bottom are all brand new, and thus people are now buying new cars and are rich. In reality, Golf Mk.IIIs are no longer new cars, and there are even newer ones.
TBF that audi design also aged like milk...god damn that thing is ugly AF.
I prefer this by a mile over the SUV thing that everyone is doing nowadays... at worst, that 20yo Audi design is boring, older Audi models were way more distinctive.
Especially now that they're turning them into sports cars, like everyone needs a 3 ton speeding death machine that they can't see over the dashboard in.
Looks are unimportant. SUV's, crossovers and minivans are practical and can adapt to a lot of situations. Sedans and trucks are better for specific tasks, but can't really compete overall.
In what world are crossovers (what was likely meant by "the SUV thing", since everyone's making those) practical if wagons have more cargo space for the same amount of euros and feel better to drive?
Get an SUV or a wagon if you're looking at crossovers. SUV if you actually need proper ground clearance, wagon if you need space but drive mostly on roads. Don't get a crossover, they're shit. Minivans obviously are the epitome of practicality IF you need 7+ seats or tons of cargo space, or the option to have either.
Audi in particular is known for making wagons of varying price and performance, including in the age pictured in OP. I'll agree that minus the additional comfort of having an enclosed trunk (less noise) a sedan isn't "better" than an SUV or a wagon though. But a crossover is the worst of both worlds between SUVs and wagons or hatchbacks.
I have one of these, also 20 years old, it'll beat pretty much any bullshit crossover in both off-road performance and on-road comfort. While having cargo capacity up the wazoo and towing capacity of nearly 2 metric tons. Of course there are better ones if you only drive on roads, I like having the freedom to go where most SUV drivers don't dare and most crossover drivers simply can't. It's also got more cargo space than the similarly priced Audi Q5 crossover. Loses to the Q7, but that's a big behemoth with a much bigger price tag, it's largely the extra width and length that give it more space, not just the extra height from being a crossover.
But you could also have this one, actually the same chassis, just won't go as tall as my Allroad's max setting. Has a biturbo V10:
Or if you're shopping crossovers that don't try to pretend they're big SUVs, you could have the A4 Avant, smaller than the A6/RS6 chassis pictured above, but still more trunk space than many crossovers. Can be had with some pretty tiny engines, nearly as small and dinky as your average crossover, with pretty good fuel economy. Or go as big as a 4.2 V8 in older models in the RS4 spec. You've got options.
And of course many other manufacturers still offer wagons too. You don't have to get an expensive (or formerly expensive) one.
And you can even get EV wagons nowadays, no longer are EV buyers stuck with ugly crossovers that have no reason to exist:
TBF crossovers basically replaced compact-ish cars like the later VW Golf generations or Ford Focus. The added SUV shit is obviously counterproductive, but the length is IMO a pretty good compromise between outside dimensions and cargo space/adults actually being able to sit somewhat comfortably in the back seats, especially when roadside parking is the standard in your area.
Other way around IMO, the additional possibilities don't weigh as heavy as the impact on the environment and traffic infrastructure (worse road safety for other traffic participants, especially pedestrians, bicyclists and people in small cars, more spaced used on roads and for parking, higher weight, worse fuel efficiency) and some of those issues affect the SUV drivers, too (worse visibility = more accidents, harder to find parking, more money paid for fuel). Minivans are different IMO because they solve the "I need a big car for all the people and luggage I'm transporting"-issue with much better road safety and space efficiency.
You're really claiming that a truck has better road safety and lesser environmental impact than a crossover?
I didn't talk about trucks, but my opinion on them is pretty similar. No one picks an SUV over a lorry truck, and there aren't that many people who genuinely need a pickup truck instead of a (often smaller) van or regular sedan/station wagon types of cars, especially if it's not for their job. IMO, even if a pickup truck is sometimes useful, it rarely makes sense to use it as your day-to-day vehicle instead of buying a sedan and renting a bigger car when you actually need it.
An ugly design/aesthetic and a stupid type of car that doesn't need to exist is something entirely different.
SUV is more than a type of car, it's also an aesthetic that's used even by compact, clearly non-SUV cars.
Ah yeah whatever. I was just trying to help you understand that comment you were clearly missing the point of.
Wow.
It’s fine? Just a bit nondescript.
At least it predates the design impulse to make the front grille big enough for the car to drive though with a company badge the size of a toddler’s head.
Dont agree. Its understated and styled well. I haaaate every car design of today. I'll take a 90s escort over any car today.
Just fell into the early 2000s sameness that a lot of cars were