The world is full of takes. You probably read at least one take each day on this website and during the weekend, our David pulls an opinion out of his heart and mind. Some of you are still reeling over the revelation that David Tracy thinks timing belt engines are a form of unreliable. If you keep abreast of global news, you may even be reading takes and not even know it. With that in mind, do you have an automotive hot take? Do you have a car opinion so spicy it would ruin a family dinner?
I have two automotive takes that some might call hot. Maybe they aren’t as spicy as David’s timing belt take, but I still stand by them. Are you ready? Here we go!
My first take is a conclusion I recently came to: Nissans are ok! Hold on, before you fire up that keyboard, hear me out. Yes, I’m fully aware that a number of Nissan’s models don’t bring much, if any, excitement to the table. The Sentra isn’t raising your heartbeat and the Rogue doesn’t really live up to its name. Yet, it’s hard to deny that Nissans come reasonably well-equipped for the price and as of very recently, they don’t make you feel like you’re being punished for a crime you didn’t commit.
I know that’s a very low bar, but it wasn’t that long ago when buying the base model of a car meant crank windows, optional air-conditioning, and optional radios. Seriously, there were cars sold in America a decade ago that didn’t even have a radio. A Nissan may not thrill you and the brand doesn’t have the best track record for reliability, but I see why people buy them. They’re cheap new cars with decent styling and decent features, perhaps bought by people who don’t care about cars one bit. And that’s fine! Some people just want a transportation appliance that won’t piss off the HOA and will last the length of the warranty. A Nissan should do that just fine.
Now that I have you all hot and bothered, I’ll lay down my second take: Automatic transmissions are fine!
Look, I love a manual transmission. I spent five years looking for a manual version of a diesel wagon that was sold in America only with a terrible automatic transmission. If a car I want has a manual version, I’ll buy it, and that includes my daily driver Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI, my BMW X5, both of my Japanese imports, and my Saturn Sky Red Line. If my Nova Bus RTS-06 was available with a stick I would have bought one that way, too.
I mean, I even made a fun flight stick shift knob for a Mercedes-Benz 240D. I need to make another one of those.
Yet, I have seen some disappointing developments in car culture. Some people covet the manual transmission to the point of being toxic about it. I’ve seen it right here in our own comments and I find myself baffled. It’s just a transmission, it isn’t that big of a deal. Nowadays there are reliable automatics that shift faster than any human can while returning good fuel economy.
There are people who either do not want to shift a manual or just physically can’t. There’s no shame in driving or liking an automatic. Is the death of the manual transmission a travesty? Of course! But direct your scorn toward the automaker, not the automatic transmission or the person who buys an auto. I will always champion your choice to drive whatever you want, because car enthusiasts aren’t just people who drive brown manual diesel wagons.
Whew, that felt good to get off of my chest. What are your automotive hot takes?
Topshot: Bring A Trailer; stock.adobe.com/cyrano
Oh you want a hot take? Well here’s one:
Left lanes are for passing only laws are stupid, inefficient, encourage speeding and reward the tantrums of lead footed manchildren.
1. Manuals are … OK. A lot of the time they’re fkn annoying, E.G in traffic. A good auto with paddle shifters is superior the vast majority of the time.
2. The OG Murano looked great.
3. The PT Cruiser was cool.
4. Bruno Sacco wasn’t very good.
5. Bangle’s 7-series butt is beautiful.
6. The vast majority of old cars people have sexy thoughts about and rose-tinted nostalgia over are mediocre at best and miserable shit heaps a lot of the time (E.G. CRX, souped up Escorts, K cars, etc). It’s fine to love them, no issue with that, but don’t be silly trying to convince people your CVCC is hot shit.
7. A lot of cars people hate are or were pretty decent, E.G. the bubble Taurus, some RAV4s, many Nissans, etc)
8. The best small turbocharged 4-cyl engine will never ever be as awesome as a good naturally aspirated large engine in any vehicle over 3,000 lbs.
9. Not wearing seatbelts is one of the dumbest human behaviors ever recorded.
10. Chrysler and Dodge need to be put out to pasture, next to Fiat and Alfa.
11. Innocenti, Autobianchi, and other minuscule little city cars need to come back.
Cars are a terrible form of transportation. Moving around 3k lbs. of metal to get a single 200 lb. person from point A to point B is just dumb. Nearly anything other than a car is a more efficient use of resources. Motorcycle, bicycle, bus, train, subway, walking, roller skates, golf cart, even most airplanes – all of these are much more efficient and better for the environment than cars. Electric cars are only marginally better since they are even heavier and take a lot of resources to build and charge.
-Almost all Fords suck, except certain classics
-All new cars suck, they stopped making real cars after 1993
(1980-1993 I like certain models)
-Separate from that, the real classics w/ design that I like stopped after 1979
-All EV’S/Hybrids suck…anything that doesn’t have a straight gas/diesel engine…I don’t like it, don’t want it and would drive it off a cliff
My hot take… Hmm
I kinda like the look of the Pontiac Aztek.
Almost all automotive badges have WAY too many models. Do we really need a choice between a Trax, Blazer, Trailblazer, Equinox, Traverse, am I forgetting any even before I get to the Tahoe, and dare I also point out that GMC also exists, as well as Buick?
I’ve admitted to mine before, but I actually rather like the later versions of the C3 (like in the top image). I know they’re slow and might as well be built by a family of raccoons using actual trash, but I still like them…
I agree on Nissan as well as its luxo line. I flew into New Orleans awhile back, and the rental place gave me an Infiniti Q50. It was pretty nice. Drove well, had a good level of tech, was comfortable, etc. And if we’re honest, it had much better styling than the Lexus I daily – I still haven’t gotten used to that predator-mouth grille.
I’m annoyed that the Q50 is the only non-truck you can get from Infiniti, but other than that, I’d drive one if the price was right.
Miata isn’t always the answer.
Some questions just aren’t worth asking.
My hot take: I actually like the Mitsuoka Orochi’s looks and would 100% daily one.
I also partially disagree with Mercedes’ “automatics are fine”; DSG are the only ones that are “fine”, slushboxes & CVTs are garbage.
The mitsuoka rock star makes up for anything bad they ever did. If they ever did anything bad.
V8s and especially their exhaust note are overrated. They sound broken unless muffled to malaise-era near-silence.
C3 is best Corvette. And it not just best Corvette, but the third best car ever, behind the Countach and F1
I’m speaking, of course, of pre-1974 cars, not the one in the thumbnail, which is a travesty and abomination
Good day
The C7 is the most important Corvette since the C2. Without it as a transition point, the mid-engine C8 would have failed.
That’s a hard sell. The C5 both saved the Corvette and turned it into an actual good car
The C7 turned Corvette into a globally competitive great car, but it didn’t save the brand from the brink of death
Take wasn’t supposed to be luke warm….
Agree. While the C4 was a dramatic leap forward, the C5 brought greatness to the vette.
As a performance car, there’s no good reason to consider anything pre-C5
The C4 ZR1 would like to have a word with you
The C4 ZR1 was a legend and makes sense as a collectible, but if you’re going for performance, even the basic C5 was far superior in every way.
More people should own and daily drive pickup trucks.
More people who daily pickups should either use them or daily something smaller instead.
Most people who drive trucks would be better served by vans.
They should dally daily in their dually.
My buddy, John did that. He had a 1994 Ford F-350 4×4 crew cab with an eight foot bed. Gas engine! He and his wife drove it from Alaska to Florida pulling a thirty-two foot, fifth wheel travel trailer the entire way.
He’d drive it to work every day. He’d drive it to the grocery stores, to the mall, everywhere. He drove it even when gas was near $5.00 a gallon and never companied even though he was getting nine miles per gallon when it was empty. (I don’t want to know what it got when he pulled the trailer through the mountains.) This was when he was making around $15 and hour too.
People who never owned a pickup don’t realize that make sacrifices for the love of their pickups just like those that love sports cars, motorcycles, hot hatches, or sedans. Pickup owners pay more for heavier load bearing tires, registrations, insurance, basic maintenance items as well as gas. Their passions run as deep as any other. They are enthusiasts.
Sometimes it seems like when towing that 9mpg will just stay 9 mpg. Depending on the tow vehicle.
Good to know.
Most people who own pickup trucks are daily-driving really badly designed minivans.
Thank you Happy Walters, R Rr, and sentinelTk for proving my point. Only by having more people driving pickups can they discover the inherent goodness of them and overcome the hardened prejudice against them.
“overcome the hardened prejudice against them”
It’s hard to overcome a prejudice when the thing in question is much more likely to kill, harm or otherwise put you or someone you love at risk solely for the ego of its driver.
Good morning my friend. Shall we go over this again?
Sure:
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212737005/cars-trucks-pedestrian-deaths-increase-crash-data
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/the-hidden-danger-of-big-pickup-trucks-a9662450602/
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a45753214/pickup-truck-crash-test-iihs/
Blaming the object and not the people again.
Counterpoint:
Distracted: Texting While Walking – Blogs – International Council for Media Literacy (ic4ml.org)
New Projection: U.S. Pedestrian Deaths Rise Yet Again in First Half of 2022 | GHSA
Uh huh. Nice try.
It makes no difference whatsoever in the focus of this comparison how the other person ended up getting hit except perhaps that larger, heavier vehicles are harder to control and stop than smaller ones. Especially if it’s a truck doing actual truck things like carrying a bed full of concrete blocks or pulling a trailer of horses.
The point is when the vehicle that does the hitting is a modern full sized truck or SUV the person getting hit is much more likely to end up dead or badly injured than if they were hit by a smaller vehicle. Your attempt to muddy the water does not change that fact.
Evn worse it does not change the fact full sized pickups and SUVs aren’t even safer for their rear seat occupants than a smaller vehicle:
“While large vehicles like trucks are generally perceived to be safer, they actually don’t perform that well in a moderate overlap crash, the IIHS says. We’ve previously covered the farce that is family safety in the rear seat of SUVs, particularly for children, and pickup trucks are no different.”
That alone negates the “BUT MUH FAMILY!!” argument.
Have you ever owned a pickup truck? If I remember, the closest you ever had was a minivan.
No. I’ve never owned one nor had any desire to. My microvan gets the job done well enough.
On the exceedingly rare occasions it can’t I rent or borrow a truck. I don’t enjoy driving them. They’re heavy, squeaky and lumbering.
And this is why you are the first person on my list of people who should daily a pickup truck for a year.
It would definitely help with your perspectives on pickup ownership and those that own them.
My perspective has absolutely nothing to do with the fact such pickups and SUVs are more dangerous for everyone other than the driver and perhaps the front passenger. That is the perspective of the professionals who evaluate such things for a living.
“It would definitely help with your perspectives on pickup ownership and those that own them.”
Here’s another *perspective* for you:
According to survey data from Strategic Vision, a vehicle research firm, 63% of Ford F-150 owners rarely or never use their truck for towing, and even more astonishingly, 32% rarely or never use their vehicle for personal hauling! So what the hell are they using their gigantic hauler for then? While the numbers are high for shopping/errands and pleasure driving (which makes sense, as those are normal parts of vehicle ownership), the surprising statistic is that 52% frequently use them for commuting. In other words, they’re not using their F-150 to haul construction equipment or landscaping supplies, they’re simply using it to haul their suit-and-tie ass to work.
Even truck owners themselves admit that they don’t need their trucks!
https://www.insidehook.com/autos/pickup-truck-owners-admit-dont-need-trucks
If you were to ask my perspective I’d point out those survey numbers are based on self reporting by truck owners not on objectively measured data. As such I’d say those numbers are probably biased by insecure owners towards justifying their truck ownership, e.g. the percentages claiming they haul or tow are higher than the reality.
I’d also point out “hauling” is highly relative. Those “hauls” in the bed could be anything from a literal ton of broken up concrete or manure to a single 2″x4″, a box of nails or a broken toaster oven. Same with towing.
Now put your scarecrow away, it’s not fooling anyone.
Yep. You definitely need to daily a pickup for at least a year.
The entire point is that you can enjoy a truck just for being a truck.
David Tracy Promised Us A Nice Car For Our 5,000 Mile Honeymoon Road Trip. He Gave Us An Old Jeep Farm-Truck Instead. Here’s How That Went – The Autopian
According to your standards, David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky shouldn’t own pickup trucks.
David Tracy Bought Me An ‘Unkillable’ 1989 Ford F-150 But Getting It Home Was A Shitshow – The Autopian
There is no scarecrow, just the facts that pickup trucks are enjoyable and bring happiness to their owners.
“the facts that pickup trucks are enjoyable and bring schadenfreude to their owners”
FIFY scarecrow.
Does this include Mercedes Streeter?
I Drove The Basic Ford F-150 With A 700 Horsepower Supercharged V8 And A Warranty. It Rules. – The Autopian
That whole review is a confession:
“One thing I can tell you is that the truck stops accelerating at around a limited 120 mph”
..
“Part of what makes the FP700 so great to me is that it’s a colossal middle finger to logic and sensibilities.”
…
” I’m so happy this truck exists. It’s all about fun, power, and speed, everything else be damned”
Everything else including the safety of others.
So yes.
You missed the main point.
This is why more people should drive pickup trucks.
No. The actual point is that *happiness* is schadenfreude as it comes at the expense of others.
You want to drive a pickup? Fine by me if that pickup is no more dangerous to everyone else than a regular car. Instead they are more dangerous BY DESIGN because that is what their owners like.
Physics are physics and trucks are trucks. We enjoy them for what they are as much as what they do and what they promise.
That is happiness.
….At the expense of others.
Yes. An unfortunate estimated 19,515 deaths out of a population of 333.3 million, or a 0.00585508 percentage of death.
Traffic Crash Deaths | Early Estimates Jan-June 2023 | NHTSA
population of usa – Google Search
That’s over 6.5x the number of deaths of 9/11 in just one year alone. By your reasoning we should have just ignored those deaths even more.
Whatever you say. You want to “win” this? Fine. I have other things to do, and pickups are still selling.
Have a nice evening friend.
Now THIS is a hot take!
Hot take: The Subaru WRX is slow, poorly built, unreliable, overrated, and sounds like shit.
You forgot ugly.
..and the garbage fuel mileage
I was booing you until the sounds like shit part. I love WRXs and hope to never hear one again.
That’s not as much a take as it is fact, haha
My hot take: classic cars that were once pedestrian but have all been used up and are rare now (I.E. J-Bodies, K-cars, Ford Escorts, etc.) are just as interesting (sometimes more so) to see out and about or at car shows as muscle cars. Sometimes, seeing the same ‘69 Camaro over and over again gets a little boring. Especially when you know the owners just ordered everything on or in the car out of a catalog.
An absolute hero at a cars and coffee I attended last weekend brought an ’85 LeBaron convertible, white with white leather interior. Everybody was tripping all over each other checking it out.
I regularly take my near-showroom condition 61,000 mile 1990 Pontiac Sunbird to our local Cars & Coffee and it usually gets a fair amount of attention, too!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who geeks out at a freaking K car and ignores a high-5-figure frame-off restored ’69 Charger.
This is true on a daily basis as well. I will turn my head and gawk at a pedestrian 80’s car, but won’t so much as blink when I see a lambo.
Same. Great minds think alike!
Hot Take the First: Lamborghini is a joke. They make hideous poseur-mobiles for awful people who drive them badly until they inevitably do something too stupid for the car’s driver aids to rescue them from. I’d say “kill them with fire” but they often do that on their own.
Hot Take the Second: Chevrolet should just build 4-cylinder Corvettes and pipe fake V8 exhaust noise out the back. Few people who actually buy them would know the difference.
The truly heartbreaking thing is how great Lambo used to be… and not even that long ago
I definitely should have been more clear that I’m referring to present-day VAG Lamborghini and not the company that brought us the Miura, Espada and Countach.
Even VAG Lambo was great for a while. They know how to do it. New Countach was the most disappointing car there’s ever been
Been kind of feeling this way for a while. The stealth jet styling was neat the first time it came out, but then they went all in with it. It’s a bit circus freak-show-y now.
The Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive system with the Atkinson cycle gasoline engines and ECVT transmissions used in the Prius and the Highlander Hybrids is one of the greatest achievements in motorcar history. Everybody else chasing an efficiency/reliability compromise is standing on its shoulders.
The MkIV Supra just isn’t all that great. They couldn’t get rid of them on dealer lots when they were new. I don’t get it.
Then again, I have a thing for VW Bugs and they were objectively terrible cars, so I’m not exactly one to pass judgement on another driver’s love object.
Yeah, in terms of legendary Japanese 90s cars it’s beaten by both NSX and GTR, hands down
This is too many takes, I can’t deal.
Take #1:
0-60 is a fruitless pursuit that ruins sports cars. They often have awful gearing just to make sure 2nd tops out at 62, so much engineering time is wasted on launch control, and worst of all, everything keeps becoming AWD. AWD M-cars, AMG’s, Porsches, every compact sports sedan is some kind of Haldex FWD/AWD Evo clone, not even oddballs like the Kia Stinger and the upcoming Charger are safe. And all of this compromising and hamstringing of the fun ICE platforms is done to improve a metric in which they’ll never match EV’s anyway. All the things that are good about internal combustion, lightness, engagement, gearing, character, are all sacrificed at the altar of acceleration for people who race spec sheets.
Take #1.5:
Production car track times are a stupid metric and also ruin sports cars. Now, I’m not saying cars can’t or shouldn’t be track-biased or fast, or that they shouldn’t be tested on track, but their lap times at the hands of a professional are meaningless to a buyer, as track times only matter in racing. Racing is done with race cars, production car racing is usually in one-make spec classes where it doesn’t matter how fast the car is, and open classes use modified cars.
“But what about track days?”, one might ask. Track days serve to hone one’s technique and improve as a driver, what one needs is a competent car for those occasions. Competent, however, doesn’t mean fast.
A competent track car is one that responds consistently and appropriately to driver inputs. It should understeer and oversteer the same way every time under the same inputs, and have the appropriate throttle response for high-speed shifting, devoid of rev hang or hesitation. Moreover, a good track car is reliable at the limit. It should have brakes that resist fading, suspension alignment that doesn’t chew up the outside edges of tires, and an engine that doesn’t overheat or lose oil pressure under hard acceleration and cornering.
These features help the driver improve their lap times, not the car. A Civic with appropriate suspension, brake and oil/cooling upgrades is just as good a track car as a 918, if not better. At the end of the day, the only relevant comparison for your current lap is whatever time you put down the previous lap. Nobody is impressed when someone in a fast car puts down a fast lap, it’s expected of them.
On to why it ruins sports cars, let’s go back to the year 2008, there was an upcoming event that shook the world: The R35 GTR was one year from release. Supercars were all about screaming engines, and everyone wanted some of that. We had the E90 M3, S2000, Golf R32, RX8 and many other fun-focused cars that weren’t all that fast. They weren’t slow around a track, but nobody cared, they just wanted fun. If you proposed an AWD M3 back then, you’d be laughed out of the room.
But then Nissan pulled out its big meaty twin-turbocharged thing and slapped it down on the table. “The supercar killer” was more than a moniker, it actually did kill the driver-focused supercar. In shameful defeat, everyone started scrambling to claw their way out of Ghosn’s grasp, and in doing so fell right into his hands. The R35 had a mixed reception, while the numbers were astounding, many found it too heavy and its smart AWD system too meddlesome. But that’s exactly how it put down such astounding times. As a result, there was an industry-wide push towards the GTR-ification of sports cars and supercars. DCT’s and advanced AWD systems were popping up everywhere and Nürburgring laps started being discussed more than ever, cars that were previously fun on a mountain road became hyper-stiff track weapons with advanced traction systems and too much power to touch the loud pedal for more than 2 seconds in the real world. Everything had to be either a supercar or a supercar killer. You weren’t allowed to be slower than a cheaper car around the Ring, and you definitely couldn’t be slower 0-60.
The one-upmanship has led to an endgame where every category has a super-something in it, from the super-hatch to the super-sedan and even the super-truck. I would’ve been amazed by it all as a child, but all I feel now is robbed. We could’ve had fun instead.
Oh, this is a GOOD hot take. Numbers are great. They’re objective. They look good on videos and in ads. But love isn’t objective. Feelings aren’t objective. And the way we actually use and enjoy our cars have little to do with those metrics. I love revving the nuts off of my NA Miata in normal daily driving and still being completely within(ish) the legal limits, smiling the entire time.
I missed my NA so much that I bought a 986.
Wow, this is the take to end all takes. And a very good one at that!
BTW, did we find James May’s Autopian pseudonym?
James May is my hero and my spirit animal, if I had a time machine I’d join him in the Bombing of the Nürburgring Campaign, maybe we could sneak a Spitfire on the trip back as a little keepsake.