I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a car show or meet and I encounter at least a dozen people gazing at the gleaming, state-of-the-art machines and shaking their heads. They reminisce fondly on days of fewer regulations, leaded gas or massive engine displacement. “They just don’t make them like they used to,” is a common sentiment.
Nostalgia and the yearning for the yesteryear is a powerful aspect of automotive culture. We dream of the golden ages of decades past, when things just seemed better. But that’s the problem with nostalgia. Selective memory almost always ensures that whatever we’re dreaming of is better than what we presently have, whether or not it’s actually true.
So, let’s focus on The Now. What are we in the automotive golden age of? My mind immediately jumps to super cars. The McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, Bugatti Chiron and Porsche 918 have pushed the boundaries of what’s possible so far that I couldn’t imagine how much further we could go. But we probably will.
What about you? What will people recall fondly about today?