..a golden age of Automobiles.... Maybe the 30's..if you had cash to spend? I remember, long time ago, standing small between 2 absolutely massive fully glass shipping containers, showcasing a insane Duesenberg hyper-limo in each of them. It's 35 years ago now, and I am still traumatized from that impression. Biggest car show in the world back then, in Germany, and those 2 cars are all I remember now. Those must have been built to outlast an empire's rise and fall, wouldn't you think?
I think you guys are preaching to the middle-aged choir here with your anti-plastic sentiments, here at
www.ithinksotoo.com. For me, these ineffective use-and-throw products are a daily torture to my unshielded OCD-riddled brain. Drives me up the walls when even a new broom breaks after a week and you find out there isn't a decent broom for sale in a nation of 23 million well-to-do, university-schooled people. Been looking for 16 years now. It simply can not be done.
It's even worse with cars, for they generally cost more than brooms and unlike brooms, are often tied to very attractive marketing campaigns and performance packages, insinuating all kinds of future satisfaction.
If a W140 had 94 computers before the invention of Windows 95, what on earth are cars like today?
How is any respectable DIY guy not going to end up on a roof top taking pop shots at random automotive CTO's?
A 100 grand for a car that sheds 25 grand in the first year, and another 10 each following year, unless you've got one of those millions of cars up for recalls in the last decade, after which you won't even be able to hold on to 50% of that decreased value. The only time that's a bonus is when you hear your ex-wife bought such a vehicle with your hard-earned alimony.
I like living here in Taiwan for a great many reasons, but the cars here are even more monochrome than they are in Japan. No relief for the eyes, sometimes not even once in a year.
Why do people put up with it? How do they not all suffer from PTSD, cataracts and glaucoma growing up with this faceless, gray, plastic, digital automotive sludge from Japan surrounding them? It's beyond me.
On that note, I never understood the US market neither. Massively heavy gas-guzzling, door rattling, no-suspension and will-not-corner bricks-on-wheels. Cars built like houses, indeed, but not modest brownstones like in Europe. US houses with 12 bedrooms, made out of wooden planks, ensuring maximum mobility in storms. An army of complementary termites actively pursues full recycle-ability, while the dense walls ensure the kids are perfectly aware of their parents declining sex life.
But what do I know? Looks like half the planet's lost the plot a few decades ago.