Classic muscle cars are obsolete. Most cars today have 0-60 times a 1970s Dodge Challenger could only dream of.[1] Plus, they can now go around corners.
Here's an old movie: "Hot Rod Girl" (1956) [2] The opening scenes are of a real drag strip in Southern California. Technical advice from the San Fernando Drag Strip and the National Hot Rod Association. Accelerations are so low that those things would be obstructing traffic on a freeway onramp today.
The original hot rods were invented because young people could literally go to a junkyard and build them. They were practically free junk/trash. It was a totally different world. When built from junkyard parts became $100,000 it became a lot less popular.
Americans today are also a lot more stuck up/image conscious. Grandma thought it was cool/impressive grandpa built a car out of junk, the average date today would call that worse than a poverty wagon and make someone undateable. I have a stick shift Ford Focus ST. It's incredibly fun to drive, practical, good for the environment, but it definitely turns dates away because it's a poverty wagon.
Acceleration times say nothing about the character of a car.
Anyone can launch a Model S or Taycan at insane accelerations just by pushing a pedal and letting the computer sort things out.
Trying to do so in a 1970s Camaro or a 1980s Sierra XR4 requires skill and practice whilst listening to the howl of the engine, feeling the texture of the road through the steering and sensing the suspension loading-up. All of that has been lost.
Driving has been reduced to an ordeal to be ensured with as little interaction with the vehicle as possible.
The point of a vehicle was always to take you from point a to point b.
Perhaps a certain minority enjoys pushing buttons, pulling levers and pressing pedals to move your butt around, heck I enjoy it too.
But when I am leaving for work at 5:30AM I am much happier to be seated comfortably in a train and letting someone else move me around while I take a nap
Since I can’t respond to the dead comment that replied to me, I’ll respond to my own comment.
On the 5:59 train from Zürich to Basel, there is no chance of this happening. It’s an extremely pleasant ride on the DB ICE, up until Basel.
On the afternoon or evening trains(there’s one every 30 minutes) I have also never felt threatened. Although I typically get a 1st class ticket on my way back home because it gets kind of crowded with all the families and retired folks in 2nd. class, and I prefer to nap in peace.
If my company weren’t paying for my tickets, I’d probably go in the 2nd class as well.
Perhaps your society has some issues if you feel threatened in public spaces.
>The point of a vehicle was always to take you from point a to point b.
Yeah, and once society progressed beyond the bare minimum to accomplish that goal a whole host of ancillary nice to have bonus goals (style, comfort, etc) opened up.
Driving has been reduced to an ordeal to be ensured with as little interaction with the vehicle as possible.
Let's hope that trend continues, ideally to the point that humans need to do nothing besides specify where they want to go. We're too careless to be trusted with the responsibility.
An opinion that basically distills to "everyone who likes a thing that I disagree with has been indoctrinated by bad forces" doesn't exactly make whoever peddles it look intelligent regardless of what context it arises in.
> doesn't exactly make whoever peddles it look intelligent regardless of what context it arises in.
Contrary to people praising the transcendental spiritual experience of burning gas and shifting gear, who obviously are the creme de la creme of what an independent and strong human intellect is capable of.
I also liked cars as a kid, because of all the money funnelled in toy cars, car movies, car games, car magazines, at some point I realised it was just a gigantic multi generational ad campaign from the beginning, I started questioning my belief, and has it turns out I didn't really know why I dreamed of owning these expensive metal boxes, it felt like a very artificial goal, almost as if it was pushed on my from the outside...
Let me be clearer. I don't care whether you're saying that people who like cars have been brainwashed by big oil or the people who buy highly processed manufactured food have been brainwashed by the food industry, it's a stupid baseline belief to have.
Most people who like their cars and their Oreos or whatever else do so genuinely.
Food is a good example actually, for example nestle spent decades making coffee "cool" in japan even though it was never a cultural hit there, and Japanese people do "genuinely" love their sweet caffeinated drinks, because both are a drug so why wouldn't they love it! I'm still not going to defend nestle
How many people finally buy their 911 thinking they'll have "made it" just to realise it's yet another trinket trophy of the never ending rat race? If my comment made even a single person question their opinions I'll be content, as for the others I don't really care, it's not my time nor money, do what you please
Here's an old movie: "Hot Rod Girl" (1956) [2] The opening scenes are of a real drag strip in Southern California. Technical advice from the San Fernando Drag Strip and the National Hot Rod Association. Accelerations are so low that those things would be obstructing traffic on a freeway onramp today.
[1] https://www.0-60specs.com/dodge/challenger-0-60-times
[2] https://archive.org/details/hot_rod_girl_1956