When Was the Last Time You Were Really Excited about New Cars?

Well, in my opinion it all boils down to weight and characteristic design and engine sound. In most 80s and 90s car you got less weight, less electronic nannies and larger distinction between brands. The character is also something that I relate to little imperfections that don’t ruin the experience, but become part of it. Like the oversteering tendency of old BMW’s. BMW can no longer produce a similar car due to the increased safety requirements now. Yes you can make new BMWs go sideways, but generally you need to stab the throttle really hard and turn off all the electronics that don’t let you commit suicide. My E21 doesn’t do that. The slightest burst of power or lift off can cause its rear end to say “Hi” to the curb. It requires you to be more respectful.

“1998 BMW M Coupe: This was love at first sight for me. ”

Yep, me too. Haunts me.

Would have to agree with this.

The Silver Age. That’s what it was. The 90’s through the early 00’s was the silver age for enthusiasts. Its been on a limp ever since. Then there’s also that inevitable vision of the future thats right at the next corner most enthusiast refuse to acknowledge. Can’t really put fault on the manufactures. As a ‘business’ they need to adopt or face annihilation. Die-hard enthusiast don’t command a substantial amount of revenue as they used to. In fact, some of them operated at a loss building performance models during the past. They had to let something go. So, to make everyone happy, the homogeneous, platform sharing, confusing design language was adapted. The Miata ND & the FRZ would have never come to fruit without a partner to share the platform. Kudos to Toyota & Mazda for at least trying to find the means to keep us excited. But, for how long more?

The boutique manufactures are building more exciting machines then any of the manufactures. The Icons, Singers, Emory Outlaws, Eagles. Even though priced at an unattainable amount for most of us, they are inspiring. Maybe even to find our own forgotten hero cars from the past. Our history is littered with amazing machines to choose from. Just pick a decade that you can relate to.

I’ed take the 1st generation Integra Type R please 🙂

Afshin,

On behalf of bimmerforums and http://www.mcoupebuyersguide.com there is still a standing offer to provide you with a Coupe for purchase. Just say the word.

I find all this a bit depressing. I am a huge fan of second hand car and have never purchased a new one. However, look at what is coming down an assembly line near you. TVR will be bringing a car built using Gordon Murray’s revolutionary iStream production process, with a new Cosworth V8 and retailing at about 60k GBP. Alfa have just announced a great new and rear wheel drive saloon, the first of a whole new series of cars. Lotus continues to finesse and up the performance of its cars. Renault have brought a rear engined rear wheel drive Twingo. Wait until RenaultSport get hold of it. The Aston DB 11 is currently being designed as is the replacement for the Defender. Jag is working on a rage topping F type. Masaerati will be bringing the Alfieri to market. Honda has a new Boss who is focused on breathing life and fire back into Honda. Honda must be working on a new Firblade, perhaps even with a V4. KTM will be producing a MotoGP bike. To name but a few really exciting, innovative and beautiful cars and bikes to be produced. Having said that, if I could have any car it would be an F1.

After an evenings consideration I’m going to wind back the clock a bit and seriously amend my previous post to what in truth are the last two cars to really and genuinely got me excited rather than just sort of interested ;

1) McLaren F1 – The last genuine revolution rather than evolution in automotive design and technology . The one car for which every automaker has still yet to learn half the lessons the car has to teach and the only car since the Citroen DS and its SM sibling that truly can be considered revolutionary . The sad fact about the F! today is even McLaren has forgotten/abandoned the lessons learned from the F1 with perhaps only Koenigsegg being the true successor albeit a minor evolutionary successor

2) Honda/Acura NSX – If the McLaren F1 was a genuine revolution then the NSX must be considered at the very least a major uprising in the automotive world . Out Ferrariing Ferrari … embarrassing Porsche .. sending Lamborghini back to the drawing board with its tail between its legs and all at a price and level of reliability even todays Exotic manufacturers can only dream of . All from the company that brought us the lowly Civic

So forget my previous post and comment . These .. are the only two cars in the last 25 years that have truly gotten me excited . To the point that both still can excite me .. though in light of what McLaren has chosen to morph into the F1 can be a bit .. depressing to think about sometimes . My choosing to ignore what ever the new NSX may turn out to be .

Never. Not even a little. I have owned quite a few new cars, and find them interesting, but I would never really say I got excited about them. I have enjoyed them but I would not really say I miss any of them once they moved on.

I’m in the same boat- that is, having trouble getting excited about new cars these days. I’m always suspicious that it’s just my age (45), but not fully ready to buy that explanation. You could argue that there’s never been a better time to be an enthusiast- by most measures, cars are “better’ than they’ve ever been; incredible performance, features, safety etc. But it seems to me that almost every car company is following the same mold now: build two platforms (one smaller, one larger), a handful of engines, then make one sedan and one SUV design in small, medium, and large sizes on those platforms. That covers probably 80\% of the market right now. Supercars have become absurd- and basically unusable on public roads. That leaves a handful of affordable, interesting machines out there. Perhaps this is why the used market for interesting 15-30 year-old cars is going crazy right now.
Or maybe I am just getting old and grumpy. Sigh

I think a lot of new car designs are either lazy or simply confined by restrictive requirements that dictate design. Horsepower wars are a little over the top these days; shoving massive horsepower in a sub-par car isn’t a great way to make for a good ride. With that said, the one car, the [i]first[/i] car I’ve been excited about in a very long time is the ND Miata (and whatever the Fiat version will be; though I’m bummed it won’t wear an Alfa Romeo moniker as was initially reported).

This car has captivated me. It’s pretty. It’s fun. And like its great grandfather, the NA, it is more focused on being a driver’s car than outright performance numbers. I’m legitimately excited about it, and a great many other folks are.

Hmmn

Morgan Aero
Donkervort D8 coupe [ what Caterham should of done but didn’t ]
Pagani Zonda
Ferrari wise the 456 was the last in my book worth desiring
Porsche … hmmn .. the last of the 993 GT3’s
BMW Z3M Coupe .. fugly as all get out in a very jolie laide sort of way and completely bat **** insane . A German Shelby Cobra if you will

Other than that ? Truth be known I love my daily driver but I wouldn’t say I was excited about it . its our Goldilocks car . Everything else of late ? Errr … not much really . If it weren’t so over priced for what it is maybe the Evora .. oh well

This is a great article and exactly how I have been feeling recently about the auto industry as a whole. There is nothing I love more than cars and I was wondering, “Is there something wrong with me? Am I depressed?”. I did some reflection and I think I have figured out why. The industry as a whole, to save on costs and leverage economies of scale, have switched from making cars for enthusiasts and are focusing on building cars for the “unwashed masses” of automotive appliance buyers. Eradication of the stick shift and clutch, focusing on the SUV/CUV models and creating designs that don’t polarize nor offend, designs that ooze blandness. They are also focusing on models that sell to the automotive ignorant, case in point the BMW X6. Why would someone buy the monstrosity that is the X6 if they had access to the 6 series. The X6 is something that doesn’t do anything exceptionally well but it’s what sells and the typical buyer is likely not well versed in cars. He/she probably is buying it because “it’s cool” and wants to show off that they have a BMW to their neighbors. They likely wouldn’t know an apex if it came up and bit them in the face. Manufacturers (sans a select few) are not designing and building for enthusiasts anymore. Case in point, import tuners don’t lust for the newest cars coming out of Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Honda. They lust for the 20 year old Supra Mk IV, the S2000, the 240SX, the 3000GTs and the RX-7s. Why is that? Short of Nissan and Subaru, these manufactures are not putting out innovative, exciting designs they put out 10-15 years ago. They’re selling and catering their products to “sheeple”

I find that in order to get particularly excited about cars, I need to back the OLD ones. Right now I currently own an M3 E46, and could not imagine trading it for newer car (with the exception of new 911s and Lotus models). Newer cars just don’t seem as exciting!

Pah – why can’t you edit posts???

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