The car bug

source

Cars are rum things aren’t they? Years ago cars had a significant hold on the young masculine imagination but times change. Is anyone interested in the sleek products of robot factories? Technically they are far better than the old cars, but in becoming better they have lost something.

As I drive around I tend to see three types of car, small, medium and large. They seem to come in three colours these days too – black, white and grey. So that makes nine general types. In spite of being overloaded with gadgets all are pretty efficient at doing what cars do and really there is little point in customers making much of a distinction between them. 

BMW and Mercedes just about manage to keep hold of a faintly upmarket image even though both brands are mass-produced, common and unremarkable. There are also a few eccentricities and a few genuinely upmarket brands but the great mass of cars are an undistinguished stream of black, white and grey boxes. Even the so-called MINI has evolved into an uninspired lump of a car.

Yet considering the money spent on them, one would think manufacturers would make their wares more distinctive even if only superficially. I suppose the exigencies of robot manufacture, and the physics of aerodynamic design make for an inevitable sameness. Who can tell one SUV from another without a quick peek at the brand name? And who cares?