What happened man? You used to be cool.

There is a problem with new cars.  

As car makers have tried to make their cars last longer and more reliable, I think they have lost something: frivolity.  Those things on a car that you’re not quite sure why they built it that way, but man it’s cool.  

Now, the frivolity I’m talking about isn’t million dollar cars with a thousand horsepower.  Yeah, that’s frivolous, cool, and people build them, but why should I care?  There is probably as much likelihood of me being able to buy one of those as getting to ride a giraffe to work.  I want to see cars that evoke desire, something that I can work towards, something that I’d want to see every time I go to work.  Instead, most cars that people can actually buy is just some overly smoothed shape painted in a color out of a grey-scale or, if you're lucky, a primary color.

You wish that your car made your commute this exciting.

But what has happened to these cars that real people can afford and that kids want to hang a poster of it on their walls and dream that it will be their first car? (Not many want to hang a poster of reliability reviews on their wall.)  Are the car makers so concerned with staying afloat that they are worried about making an interesting car because it may offend potential buyers?  The concept cars are even tame now, most are just almost-production-ready-cars that will be on the lots in a year and a half.  Why no more crazy, rocket powered, flying car concepts that could easily be turned into the Batmobile?  Many of these concepts were never intended to be built, but they pushed the design to the future and made people dream of cars that they would actually excited to get in and drive every day.

The Portland International Auto Show is just around the corner.  I am hoping that I’ll see some cars there that change this trend.