Auto Show Musings

I went to the KC Auto Show yesterday. Here are some random thoughts & musings:

Chrysler, Ford and GM have come a long way in a short time. The quality of the look and feel of their new cars is amazing. Chrysler's new interiors are stunning as are Ford's. GM is finally building cars I'm interested in, including the new Chevrolet Cruze and Buick Regal.

When it comes to imports, Hyundai and Kia are lapping the field on Toyota and Honda. The Korean automakers have always provide a good value at a low price. Now they're turning out stunning designs and workmanship. The new Kia Optima looks better than a Jaguar XF--and I never thought I'd say that. And the Hyundai Elantra looks like it came from the future. I sat in a Mercedes C300 and then the Elantra. Both cars are about the same size, and line up nicely on paper, but you can buy two loaded Elantras for the price of one C300. What's more, the Elantra actually had a nicer interior with its mix of materials, design and colors. Even if they were the same price, I'd still pick the Elantra.

My latest obsession is a Mini Countryman. It's the first Mini you can get four normal sized people in without a shoehorn and some butter. At $27-30K, I thought it was price, but it's everything I want in a car. Unique styling, room for four, all wheel drive, good gas mileage, and loads of fun. I'm sure this obsession will pass eventually--people who genuinely obsess about cars are like serial monogamists or high functioning addicts. And if they have means, they will collect cars like Charlie Sheen collects women and grams of coke. But for those of us with limited means, who have to make due with one car in the garage, the Countryman would be hard to beat.

Mr. Automatic

There was a time when I'd only buy a car with a manual transmission. Slushboxes, as automatics are sometimes called, were boring to my way of reckoning and they robbed power from the engine. I liked revving the engine, snapping off crisp up-shifts, and listening to the exhaust crackle as I downshifted. It was a way to satisfy my inner Walter Mitty as I pretended to race at Watkins Glen or Monaco.

Somewhere along the line of marrying and having kids, I began buying cars with automatics. I didn't mind the car shifting itself in stop and go traffic, or when I needed to retrieve the lost binky from the backseat. But somewhere along the march of time, I realized I now would prefer to own an automatic over a manual transmission. This truth became self evident recently when I looked at the new Dodge Challenger and realized I'd rather own the auto instead of the six-speed manual with pistol-grip shifter. In fact most of the cars I've been dreaming about lately have automatics, from Jaguars, AMG powered Mercedes Benzes, and the Challenger. In fact, there are only a handful of modern cars I'd own today with a manual transmission.

To be fair, slushboxes have come a long way in the last ten years. Most of them are much tighter, more efficient and some of them offer a choice to let you do the shifting yourself. Ironically, we have Porsche and Ferrari to thank for this. Porsche began offering a Tiptronic transmission in the early 1990s. Licensed versions of this gearbox even made their way into cars like my Hyundai Sonata and it worked surprisingly well. Ferrari pioneered the "flappy paddle" gearbox, an automatic with two paddles mounted on the steering wheel to shift gears. Six time F1 champion Michael Shumacher once boasted he was faster in a car with this setup than with a conventional manual.

As I approach middle age I've learned several bits of wisdom. I can't eat or drink as much as I like and not somehow be punished for it. There is such thing as a "recovery period." And a compromise is not a draw but a positive, "win-win" outcome. It is in the spirit of win-win that I view auto-manual gearboxes. With one, I can better endure the stop and go traffic on my commute, retrieve lost toys for my kids, and pretend I'm Michael Schumacher charging the field in Formula One.

In Praise of the Beater

Henry David Thoreau wrote about the futility of acquiring material wealth. If he were alive today, his argument would apply to cars as well. Thoreau would be appalled with our car culture, shunning it for public transportation. But if he had to drive, I’m sure he would own a beater.

A beater is the car equivalent of a horse at a glue factory. Its value fluctuates depending on how much gas is in the tank. Usually people who drive beaters are a flat tire away from permanent bus ridership. But not always. Sometimes a person drives a beater because they like the car too much to part with it. Or a person may view car payments with the same disdain Thoreau had for paying taxes. Aspiring race car drivers or people restoring a car drive beaters so they can spend money on their other car. Celebrities sometimes drive beaters to blend in anonymously. Sometimes the person driving the car in front of you, with a bumper sticker that says “My other car is a Porsche,” really does own a Porsche.

Most of the cars I owned were beaters. My hand-me-down Olds Cutlass and the VW Thing qualify. I also had a Buick Century which was an especially good beater; one I took for granted until I sold it. The Buick was roomy, comfortable, the air conditioning worked and it got great gas mileage. It wore peeling paint, a GM factory option at the time, and no hubcaps. When I drove it, traffic parted for me like I was Moses at the Red Sea.

A few years ago, the Buick began ringing up large repair bills. I decided I’d had enough and bought a brand new Hyundai Sonata. The Sonata was a great car. I liked the styling, which was criticized for looking like a funky Korean Jaguar, and liked rowing the Porsche licensed Tiptronic gearbox. Compared to the Buick, the Sonata was a joy to drive and in two years of ownership, nothing ever went wrong.

After a while, driving a new car began to wear on me. At work, I parked on the street downtown and mysterious scuffs would appear. My kids spilled milk and Teddy Grahams in the backseat. I realized I was leading a life of quiet desperation and car payments, so I put the Sonata up for sale and began looking for another beater.

I looked at Hondas and Toyotas, but the ones in my price range were shot to hell or looked like rejects from “The Fast and the Furious”. I looked at GM cars, but couldn’t bring myself to own another wobbly land yacht. One day I stumbled across a ten year-old Infiniti I30 with less than a hundred thousand miles on it. I remembered it was the same basic car as the Nissan Maxima but better looking. Curious to why it was in my price range, I called the owner who informed me it had slight hail damage. Two hours later, I brought it home.

The Infiniti is too nice to be described as a beater. Everything works and I wouldn’t hesitate to drive it on a two thousand mile road trip. It’s more rewarding to drive than the Sonata and has leather seats and a sunroof. I don’t mind parking on the streets or in the sun. I don’t cringe anymore when I hear, “Uh oh, Daddy! I spilled!”. And even though it’s black, I don’t feel the insatiable need to keep it washed. But it does clean up well and I’m not ashamed to take my wife out in public in it.

For me the Infiniti is the best of both worlds. Thoreau would not approve. But he might appreciate it, if he knew it saved me from the quiet desperation of car payments.