Ouch. Oof. Owie
That audi design aged like wine
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
A6 C5 is a timeless design. Even Škodas used it somewhere early 2010s. Just an unbeatable form.
That is an A4
As an owner of a 20 year old car, I approve this message.
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.
you’ll be able to run over small
treeschildren without noticing.
Back when they cared about aerodynamics.
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.
Now they cost 4 times as much
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In 20 more years old cars will look like the first picture, because of planned obsolescence.
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. Incredulity charming car.
Honestly, not weird at all imo. 2000s cars all look like weird bubbly fish to me.
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.
I drive the 20 year old car in your head. Love it.
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.
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 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)).
Meh, the eyes have evolved to be too squinty as a way to deal with LED overbrightness. I like the classic look
I’d rather have some simple knobs over a touch screen and a car that requires software updates for some reason
Wanna feel old? The moon landing was in 1969, that’s 57 years ago from 2026, the halfway year is 1997…
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.
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
