What’s been lost as car drivers have become more insulated from outside

1999 Volkswagen Cabrio commercial

A recent drive through a particularly lovely rural area in Oregon reminded me of a Volkswagen Cabrio commercial from decades ago. The spot did a good job of showing the sensuousness of driving.

Here I’m not talking about the engine’s rumble in the seat of your pants, but rather the sights, sounds and smells of a place. The car isn’t the star, but merely the vehicle to bring you there.

Cars have become much safer and more comfortable since World War II, but they have all too often been turned into airplane cockpits, heavily insulated from the outside. You can see that in the disappearance of convertibles on high-volume models. And on an emphasis on a quiet ride and dashboards that bedazzle.

Even most sports cars no longer allow the driver to connect with the outside like in the postwar era. Today the closest thing to a mid-1960s Corvette convertible is arguably a Mazda Miata.

1965 Chevrolet Corvette rear quarte

2021 Chevrolet Corvette dashboard
A 1965 Corvette (top image) and the interior of a 2021 Corvette. Go here for a design comparison (Automotive History Preservation Society).

Sure, you can still get a Corvette convertible, but it is so massive and enveloping that it seems more like a rocket ship than a car.

Not that you need a convertible to enjoy seeing the U.S.A. But it helps when the car has good visibility — which has become increasingly rare on newer models.

Also see ‘Auto blinders (or peepers): How they improve the human condition’

I also think that cars with less huge and flashy interiors can draw one’s attention outside (where it belongs anyway when it comes to avoiding accidents).

Perhaps with the spiraling cost of new cars, an enterprising automaker will offer a simple car that ditches the excess bulk, distracting dashboard graphics, and windows so small you have to rely upon cameras to monitor your surroundings. A car that helps you connect with the world rather than hide from it.

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3 Comments

  1. I try to drive with my windows down as often as possible. With modern cars the wind tends to buffet more than with my old 1965 Plymouth Sport Fury. I also rarely listen to the radio.

  2. My son and I recently drove from Indianapolis, through Chicago (on the Dan Ryan and Kennedy to avoid construction and tolls on the Tri-State Tollway) to Milwaukee, then Janesville and then back through Chicago on city streets no less to our hotel on Grant Park. Took South Lake Shore Drive (U.S. 41) to escape Chicago during afternoon drive, Hammond and the Calumet-area suburbs. Only the stretch to Janesville and then from there to Elgin on U.S. 20 east was what I would call enjoyable. The rest was the mind-numbing experience comparable to driving into the fall sun on I-70 in western Kansas…BORING (but for different reasons). Travel on the Interstates is tedious because if you don’t travel with traffic at over 70-m.p.h., you are stuck behind semi-tractors in a long traffic chain. Most of the trip from Merrillville through Chicago to Milwaukee and then from Elgin back through Merrillville was slow, laborious and an urban-suburban trek from one stoplight to the next. Normally, I have enjoyed going through these areas and soaking up the local-regional differences from my hometown area of central Indiana, but this trip was tedious. I, too, used to travel with the windows down, especially in the countryside. I remember as a youth the joys of riding in my uncle’s convertibles with the top down in the spring, summer and fall. Unfortunately, even with the E.P.A.’s best efforts, the polluted air spewed out on our highways and still remaining in our industrialized urban areas (Gary’s steel mills) has made open-air driving difficult in many areas. True, we drive in more congested areas and at faster speeds than we did in the 1960s.

    As to Howard Willey not listening to the radio, as someone who has programmed, managed and consulted radio stations for over 50-years, the quality and unique content of most local radio stations has diminished with consolidation and automation of most signals, plus the levels of interference, even on FM, has increased. For many, the sounds of silence in the car, is a welcome respite from the noise of everyday life.

  3. Simple… almost everything.

    MECHANICAL PROBLEMS —
    Much of these problems can be felt quickly with the car behaving strangely on its performance, by ear as you notice a strange noise or visible by eye as soon as they happen, but the amount of insulation we have been throwing on the inside since the 1990s can make us dangerously overconfident on the way we drive. Youtube is full of videos about “Just Rolled In” with comical defects that could’ve been avoided if someone walked around and layed down to check underneath the car or the wheel housings. Cars coming to repair with the strangest and ugliest damage you can imagine – even if the person trying to fix at home was really trying to fix anything with…. Super Bonder glue and silvertape.

    ENVIRONMENT PROBLEMS —
    And, nature as well. Surely, modern cars are designed with so much safety measures that everyone could’ve survived Covid sickness in the japanese solitary confinement called Skyline R-35. For basically two years in a row! A japanese monster that can go 400 kph with minimal tuning and also your favourite lockdown JDM mobile safe room. But then automobiles nowadays became everything integrated, almost emulating trailers from the past. It’s more like a Porsche Taycan office than an old living room from a Buick Riviera or Olds Toronado.

    EVs —
    Now, talking about EVs… surely the Cybertruck and other Teslas have a button to activate their “CDC-mode” to keep you away from pollution and germs in a bigger environment. Not that their Bioweapon Defense Mode is something par to some tanks that also contain armor and circuit ventilation to survive even half a week in a nuclear contamination zone, but… it’s there for some reason.

    “TWO-STEP SOCIALIZATION” —
    I think cars nowadays became so much like an isolated comfort zone for “enthusiasts”, that they don’t listen too much about what’s actually happening around them, leading to disturbances that are fruitless in the eyes of the provoker. This led to the crapshit of “exhaust pop” competitions and provocations that just denote that someone invested a big pile of money for not properly driving a car – yet, when they do, it’s only a straight line speed race or quarter mile drag racing. Older cars had very quiet factory exhaust pipes and even sports cars (Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa, Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, BMW, Opel…) had merely a louder but still respectable noise, not enough to disrupt your attention for… basically nothing. If you listen to a normal Jaguar XJS V-12 you can be enchanted by how fast the exhaust blows through the entire piping. A soft note on how good that V12 engine is.

    I’ve been a kid through the era of F&F tunning in the 2000s and early 2010s when people also put a lot of loud speakers on their cars, not even caring about if good listeners they were. I think most guys now in their 40s-50s are pretty much over this crap since 2010 at least, and no one has to tolerate idiots making noise with the worst compositions vibrating the trunklids.

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