Car_and_Driver_USA_July_2017

novel interpretation of such a
fundamental control and then
not pay attention when using
it. Surely you can spare this a
few seconds out of your day.
Any function locked out while
a vehicle is in motion.
The J.D. Power Initial
Quality Study. It doesn’t
measure initial quality, it
measures the amount of stuff
Bike lanes in cities
where it snows
more than six months
of the year.
people can’t figure out about
their new cars.
Any system that warns the
driver with a beep, chime, or
flashing light.
In-car PA systems, as found
in the optioned-up Range
Rovers. Do we really want the
offspring of the hyper-privileged
learning how to bark
orders from the rear seat?
Nissan basically giving up on
the 370Z.
Diesel passenger cars.
“Coupe” SUVs and sedans.
Self-steering timers. Either
steer for me or don’t, but don’t
fight me on the line through a
corner. And if you are going to
steer for me, do better than I
would were I drunk—which
you don’t.
Mazda not being among the
best-selling brands in the world.
Travis Kalanick.
Magnus Walker’s beard.
The ’95 Mitsubishi Eclipse
GS-X a reader gave us a decade
ago, asking us to “do something
cool” with it. The coolest
things we’ve done so far are let
the gas go bad and drop some
lumber on it. But hey, we
brought it with us when we
moved from Hogback.
Our country’s lax driverlicensing
procedures.
Regulatory
Bullshit:
Unrestrained-occupant
crash tests.
That there’s not a nationwide
standard duration for
yellow lights.
That crash-test regulations
push cars to get heavier while
fuel-economy regulations drive
them to get lighter, but subsidies
keep our gas among the
cheapest in the world so that
nobody here wants the cars that
meet fuel-economy requirements,
and still we resist the fuel
tax desperately needed to fund
infrastructure improvements.
Really, We’ve Got This
—
Vehicles today do more for us than they
ever have. But some go beyond accommodating
to fussy overthinking. In modern
BMWs, the first push of the power button
doesn’t turn the car all the way off, and
the first pull of the door handle merely
unlocks the door. So you arrive at your
destination, throw the car in park, then
turn it off twice and pull the door handle
twice to get out. It’s the slightest of intrusions,
but what was so hard about the
process of turning a car off that it needed
to be improved on by adding steps?
And Jaguar Land Rover’s stop-start
system tries to anticipate when it should
do its normal thing and when it should
shut the car down entirely. Sometimes
when you shift into park, it turns the car
off, relieving you of the burden of pushing
the off button. Sometimes. Other times,
it’ll turn the engine off before you shift
into park, then restart it when you shift
into park. Still other times, the engine
will still be running when you shift into
park and then shut itself off a split second
before you press the button, so that when
you try to turn the car off, you turn it on
again. You know, machines, you can
probably just leave this one to us.
That Car and Driver doesn’t
have a party bus.
Luxury cars charging for
basic features, such as any color
other than black or white. It’s
like expensive hotels charging
for Wi-Fi when it’s free at the
Holiday Inn Express.
Most of our speed limits.
Series-built hot rods and
other efforts to commoditize
originality.
Texting while driving.
Traffc schools. Though at
least now most everyone
knows that they’re just revenue-generating
schemes.
That the Cadillac ATS-V
doesn’t have an LT1—or 4.
Import restrictions.
Vanity plates that aren’t funny.
So, very nearly all of them.
License-plate scanners.
CGI-enhanced car chases
in movies.
Gulf livery on new cars.
Gulf livery on any non-car
goods.
Fieros without Italiansupercar
body kits.
Paddle shifters affxed to the
steering wheel rather than the
steering column. You’re really
going to grab that downshift at
full steering lock?
Living one’s life a quartermile
at a time.
The Mitsubishi Mirage.
Drift mode. If you need a
special mode to do it, you can’t
really do it.
“Real people, not actors.”
Focus groups.
Target buyers.
080 . FEATURE . CAR AND DRIVER . JUL/2017