We here at Jalopnik have never been shy about sharing our opinions on cars — but some takes are simply too hot or too off-the-wall to share on the regular. Today, though, is our day. Today, you’re about to learn more about the staff of Jalopnik than you may have ever expected. Today, we’re sharing our absolute hottest car takes, rocketing up the Scoville scale to rival even the spiciest of peppers.
I don’t know that this is my hottest car take, but it is absolutely the one that gets racing fans most riled up. So, here it is, one more time: Gulf liveries suck.
Gulf Oil has been involved in motorsport for ages, but the blue-and-orange livery most associated with the brand ascended to icon status thanks to its participation in endurance racing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Back then, in the right context, those liveries look fine. They’re pretty simple, but they stand out on a race track — which is exactly what you want when you’re competing against tons of other cars in a 24-hour race.
Now, though, that livery has evolved to become the livery. Any boring bro who thinks he’s edgy has used this livery in the past to express some kind of uniqueness that is exactly the same as the uniqueness peddled by other boring bros. At this point, it’s overdone, and if it’s your favorite motorsport livery, I can immediately tell that you’re not the kind of person I want to have a conversation about race car with, since you’re probably going to ask me some dumb shit like, “Have you ever heard of this guy Mario Andretti?” Expand your horizons, folks. Try an Elf oil Tyrrell livery instead.
No modern automotive feature has drawn more ire than auto stop/start. Jalopnik commenters have even vowed that, given the option, they would pay to have the system removed from a new car. I think this is nonsense. Auto stop/start is great — provided you know how to use it.
Now, granted, there are some lousy stop/start systems out there. A laggy setup that kills the engine a moment too late, or takes an agonizing extra second to get the engine lit again, is a rolling disaster and a frustration to any driver. Early iterations of this technology felt botched and half-hearted.
But that’s true of any newly-introduced automotive technology. And think about it: Your car probably has some kind of quirk or hiccup that you’ve learned to anticipate. Maybe you’ve got a big fistful of turbo lag at low RPM, so when you’re driving spiritedly, you shift in such a way to avoid that dead zone. Maybe your car needs an extra stab of brake going into certain types of corners, to help rotate the chassis or get rid of the dread understeer. If you spend 10 minutes getting used to a car’s stop/start, and you’ve got a halfway decent understanding of how to drive, you can almost certainly learn to signal the system so you’re not left flat-footed when the light turns green.
It’s true that my love of stop/start probably comes from the fact that I do a lot of driving in city traffic. My genetic frugality makes me abhor the thought of idling uselessly at a 90-second red light, dozens of times on a morning commute. There is nothing more serene and luxurious than sitting in a silent, vibration-free cocoon, with no disturbance from the engine churning away uselessly while we’re not going anywhere.
When I try to explain this to friends, they react as if I told them that horse dung is delicious if you give it a try. But genius is never appreciated in its own time.
Yeah, you heard me. I think every single sports car should be a convertible. Why? Because it’s more fun to drive without a roof. Sure, you may point to “structural rigidity” or whatever, but I wholeheartedly do not believe you when you say you can tell the difference. You aren’t a race car driver and neither am I. 99.99 percent of our driving is done on roads – roads where you will not be able to tell you lost a 1/10th of a second of pace because you didn’t have a roof.
Actually come to think of it, the most raced vehicle in the entire world is the Mazda Miata. You know what the Miata doesn’t — and has never — had? A roof. No one here is doing the type of driving where you need a roof.
There is nothing in the world better than the feeling of driving down the road with the wind in your hair and all of the lovely smells of nature filling up your nose. Plus, you can hear your engine better without a roof. That’s just science.
You know what, I’ll take it a step further. Every vehicle on sale should be a convertible. Chevy Suburban? Better if it was a convertible. Mercedes-Benz S-Class? Better if it was a convertible. Subaru BRZ? Don’t even get me started.
Convertibles are a dying breed in the automotive world, and it’s because of one thing: people are stupid.
Yes, there’s more nuance to this one than that. You can draw the line at midsize SUVs and pickups. Larger vehicles shouldn’t be available to buy beyond a certain weight class or dimensional footprint, and should be taxed to the moon below those limits — EVs included. Or, you should need a business reason to buy one.
If you want to move people, buy your people mover; it’s called a minivan, not a Suburban and certainly not an F-150 with a crew cab. Hell, if you want something to off-road in, I don’t even really care that much about your lifted Wrangler, so long as its headlights are redirected not to blind oncoming traffic, anyway. The TRX can take a walk, though.
Big vehicles are wasteful and threaten the safety of everyone not inside of one. Behemoths like the GMC Hummer are going to singlehandedly undo all of the practical benefits to EVs, and leave us no better off than where we started. Cars are personal transportation, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t excuse the brazen selfishness of our car choices as a society.
I love cars. Truly, I do. Small cars, medium cars, red cars, yellow cars. Manual-transmission cars are best, but automatics are fine, too. Gas-powered cars make glorious sounds, and EVs will hopefully help us clean up our act. But as much as I love cars, I love motorcycles more and have always believed that bikes are the superior form of transportation — the majority of the time, anyway. My hottest car opinion is that bikes did it better.
Sure, families need cars but commuters and others who drive alone most days would be perfectly served by a motorcycle. Not only do bikes produce lower emissions, they also cost less to run (lower fuel costs, for starters) and are easier to service than their four-wheel cousins. Any argument about the electrification of cars is also simpler when applied to electrification of motorcycles, which weigh less and can achieve longer ranges on smaller batteries.
It’s true that bikes are more dangerous to use than cars, but that’s not inherent in their nature. It has more to do with driver attitudes and attentiveness to motorcyclists, whom many drivers are not focused on when behind the wheel. I’m not blaming drivers here — or as angry bikers would say, cagers. It’s just science that drivers struggle to see us. But bikes get a bad rap as unsafe through no fault of their own, and therefore are seen as just toys in the U.S.
In other parts of the world, two-wheelers are family cars in their own right, which is to say bikes and scooters are recognized for the practical tools they are. All of this and I haven’t even made an appeal to the feeling of riding a bike! I’ve skydived once or twice, and riding a bike is basically the closest you can come to jumping out of a plane. It’s like falling forward, hurtling through space while fully exposed to the environment. Cars are great, but bikes are just better.
I love cars, and they’re great at so many things. They offer a freedom that you can’t find in a lot of other modes of transport, they look awesome and they’re fun to drive when you hit the open road. But one thing they suck at is traversing a busy city.
If you head into town at the wheel of an automobile, you’re heading straight into a nightmare of epic proportions. You’ll be stuck in traffic, have to fight for a parking space, have to pay for said parking space and, as is the case in many major metropolises now, have to pay just to take your car in there in the first place. No part of city-center driving is fun.
But you know what is fun? Cycling around a city so you can soak up the vibes. Or, staying late at a bar with friends and then getting the train home, not having to worry about going back for your parked car the next morning. I think if I was to rank the best ways to travel around town, I’d go with:
I am the last person that should be hating on any kind of wagon since I love a good long roof. But the key word there is “good” and I’ve been tempted by a few wagons and almost pulled the trigger until I came to my senses and realized some of these cars aren’t really that great.
My two key examples are the Acura TSX wagon and the Volvo V60. The Acura is objectively a solid car, it’s well-built and sporty-ish. However, as an enthusiast, it’s hard to stomach the fact that the TSX wagon was front-wheel drive, automatic only, and frankly, a bit slow. I could have lived with two out of the three demerits, especially if there was a manual option.
My other long roof letdown was the 2015 (and similar generation) Volvo V60 T6. On paper, this thing was perfect, with a 300 hp straight six in a stylish and supposedly practical package. Then I drove it, and found that the sluggish automatic transmission made the car feel like it had way less power on tap, but the worst part was that the actual usable cargo space behind the rear seats was pretty much the same as my 2010 Mazda3. What’s the point of a wagon if you can’t fit more stuff versus a small hatchback?
Honorable mention goes to any SportTurismo model made by Porsche… awesome cars, but crappy wagons due to the severely raked rear hatch that cuts into the cargo space.
The Mazda Miata is incredible. I’m not going to argue with anyone about that. Every time I’ve driven one, I’ve had a great time. It’s small, light, simple, and incredibly fun to drive. As a 50th percentile male, it was basically designed with me in mind, and there’s a reason “Miata is always the answer” is such a popular phrase among car enthusiasts.
But sadly, the Miata doesn’t work for everybody. If you’re more than six feet tall, it can be tough to fit comfortably, and if two people want to go on a road trip, they’re going to have to be incredibly strategic about what they pack because while the trunk exists, it’s not exactly large. If those two people have a kid, it probably means it’s time to sell the Miata, which is sad. Everyone should be able to enjoy the Miata.
My solution? Mazda should simply make a bigger Miata with room for taller people, back seats that are spacious enough for a kid and a larger trunk. It shouldn’t replace the Miata, though. Just add it to the lineup. Would it be as light and nimble as the regular Miata? Nope. But I bet Mazda engineers could make it drive almost as well. They’re good at that kind of thing.
Am I basically talking about bringing back the RX? Kind of. But I don’t want a completely different sports car. I just want Mazda to offer a Miata that’s a little bigger. Which is probably why I’ll never get a job as a product planner.
The EV transition has been too...sudden. The whole thing has been a scramble. Automakers have gone all in on EVs, and officials, from the local to the federal level, are right behind them. The entire U.S. — and countries around the world — have committed to getting rid of gas engines by the early to mid 2030s. Some people have been thrown for a loop. Buyers are responding in kind by buying EVs, and market share is rising. But it seems to be more of a clamoring to get the new hotness rather than a true understanding of how much of a change EV ownership can be. Automakers should have started slowly.
Some may say that the bridge I’m referring to has been around for years in the form of hybrid vehicles. That’s true in a sense. But hybrid vehicles for the most part can be driven and owned as normally as a gas-powered vehicle. I’m looking more to the plug-in hybrids.
Plug-in hybrids would have been a fantastic ease into electrification for every automaker. While the idea and multiple variations of it have been around for decades, it seems like automakers are just getting into them. Today there are over 35 different PHEV models available, granted that selection is limited to certain body styles or price ranges. However, PHEVs offer more than enough range for people to do their around-town errands, range anxiety really isn’t a thing as the gas engine is there to back you up when the battery dies, and it can provide a good learning experience of knowing when you should charge your vehicle.
But we seem to have gone past the point of automakers offering buyers more plug-in hybrids. With the “all-or-nothing” attitude that has accompanied EVs and electrification, more people are just going to have to find themselves learning as they go and hoping they don’t get left behind in the scramble for zero-emission vehicles — if they can afford it at all.
There is, shall we say, heated debate on the question of very old cars’ impact on the environment — it’s certainly not a hugely pressing concern, because very old cars simply aren’t driven that much — but, aside from that, very old cars are inescapably unsafe. No crumple zones, no airbags, steering columns that don’t collapse, lap belts: the list goes on and on of safety features that today we take for granted.
And while we should definitely save a few examples of every car ever built just for the sake of history, we should probably junk the oldest, in part to protect people from themselves. A 10-year-old car is a car a little past its prime; a 20-year-old car is really feeling the passage of time; and a 30-year-old car is on death’s door, if it hasn’t succumbed already. Anything older than that probably isn’t fit to drive; anything older probably also isn’t very much fun to drive, because it is an old car. (Try driving without power steering for once in your life, it is not all that exciting.)
Further: the past is past, and it’s impossible to relive the same experience of driving a 1957 Chevy, for example, as it was in 1957, because we’ve all seen and heard and driven so much better since then. We can’t enjoy the same context, in other words, and, aside from that, it is obsolete technology. We’d be better off junking very old cars and moving on.
One of the most often spouted raisons d’être that automakers have for their factory racing programs is that the crucible of competition is a vital element of production car development. The cutting-edge technologies used to erase seconds from lap times will one day be available on the showroom floor. However, the vehicles in the most expensive championship only visually resemble their road-going counterparts at best.
With the proliferation of crossover SUVs in the American or overseas markets, it seems like a missed opportunity not to race them in any capacity. Stock car racing in the United States and touring car racing internationally live on the marketing-born idiom “win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” The only genuine effort to race crossovers was the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy, a single-make support series for Formula E. The electric series lasted two seasons before Jaguar pulled the plug after the 2019-20 season.
Also, Ford has decided to replace its Fiesta in the FIA World Rally Championship with the Ford Puma crossover. However, the Rally1 Puma looks more similar to the Fiesta than a production crossover. If automakers want to market crossovers in motorsport, drivers should be beating and banging body panels on racetracks. I want to see a Honda CR-V going wheel-to-wheel with a Lamborghini Urus. Make the sport in crossover sport utility vehicle mean something.
People love Tesla. As someone who’s driven a few of them and who’s spent the last five and a half years covering the company, I totally don’t get it. What I get even less is the public’s fascination with Elon Musk, the union-busting internet troll who is currently running Twitter into the ground.
Seriously though, the only really decent things about Teslas are their range, the styling (which is subjective) and the Supercharger network. Everything else from their build quality, materials quality, Autopilot being a total mess and more just leads me to look at them on the road and think, “Wow, there goes several thousand pounds of future e-waste.” They don’t even drive that well, given their price, and especially compared to EVs from established brands.
It’s my hot take that Tesla will never be a real car company until Elon is out as the boss and they get an experienced automotive executive in there who focuses less on “moving fast and breaking things” and more on quality and safety. Someone who spends less time knocking up employees and more time knocking out safety issues with the Full Self-Driving beta.
The ethos of our car culture has always centered around that most American of obsessions; Freedom. For the longest time, I thought car=freedom, even when my own eyes told me the exact opposite.
Think ‘50s greaser teen with the wind in his (and it’s always a him) hair on a once-in-a-lifetime road trip, or parked on a Lover’s Lane making memories with his best gal. But friends, I’m about to blow your minds: The car has actually made us all less free, including the men, but especially women, minorities and the disabled.
I want to take you all the way back to the 1920s when mass automotive adoption was just starting to pick up. More cars on the road began to equal more and more cops. Even today, the majority of police interactions most people will experience involve some sort of traffic stop. The rise of the car can be directly linked with the rise of the police state in general and the curtailing of our freedoms, as Sarah Seo argues in her book Policing The Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom. As public roads became the playground of more powerful and dangerous vehicles America needed more laws and more police to handle these new motorists. Even being outside of a car on the road became a crime as car ownership exploded. The term Jay-Walking was coined to describe humans just trying to navigate busy roads.
But even culturally, the car only ever meant freedom for men. For young women, their place was perpetually in the driver’s seat. Young men were always assumed to be the driver and that meant these boys had full control of interactions with the opposite gender. From staying out past curfew to “parking” for trysts to full-on sexual assault, the car was a dangerous place for a young woman and could lead to her “goodness” being questioned by the community.
For married women, the car was always just a tool to fit in more chores, especially when families began moving to the suburbs en masse. A car was needed to do the grocery shopping, fetch children from school, go to the dry cleaners, etc. It was such a tedious tool that Betty Friedan, the ground-breaking feminist and author of the Feminine Mystique, sent her children to school in a taxi in order to find more time to work.
And while owning a car could mean freedom for a Black person to find more equitable work or housing, the car also became the focus of intense police interactions with Black people—a situation that continues to this day with tragic consequences.
Nowadays we’re all in the driver’s seat, because we’ve built our culture and communities around the car. There’s no freedom not to own a car if you want to engage in any aspect of public life in many communities. Public transit has degraded in American cities and suburbs to almost non-existent in some places, stifling options for elderly, disabled and people too poor to afford all the taxes, fees, occasional parking or speeding tickets, payments and insurance it takes to keep a car on the road.
That’s another way cars make us less free: tickets from traffic stops or moving violations can drain a person’s bank account with fines and fees for years. Hell, when I applied for a mortgage seven years ago the lender brought up a speeding ticket I’d gotten three years previously. I got a worse rate on my homeowners insurance because of that, even though I average a speeding ticket maybe every five years or so.
None of these factors are the fault of cars, but rather the toxic culture around cars. I love cars. I really do. I just resent being forced to own one for most everyday functions.
I never shared this story on Jalopnik, but as a teen, I managed a ride in newly arrived GM’s EV1, courtesy of a GM Family Day at the Milford Proving Grounds. My first-hand experience left me to envision the hippie, eco-conscious lifestyle my adulthood could embrace with a car like that. But, the EV1 died, and EVs took another decade or so to sorta catch on. In that time, global warming became something we just couldn’t ignore, and suddenly, the auto industry was the villain — the cause of our burning world. Automakers needed to come up with an answer to fix it. That answer was to go all in on the electric car to “save the world.”
I honestly think they made a huge mistake.
First, as Lawrence mentioned earlier, you have to consider that the auto industry and developing nations went all-in on this EV expenditure fairly quickly — enough that it seems like they all didn’t take the time to explore the best options for the metals and materials needed to make the batteries, or improve the technology already long in the works.
Automakers could have taken the time to also look at how to make smaller, more efficient cars. Instead, we have tank-sized “connectivity” offices and homes on wheels. Do I need a Hummer EV to transport my friends and family around in or just to run errands? No. No one does. Could we have used those resources to not capitalize on a fallen badge to find and build cars that would actually be useful and affordable for the common people and not people with more money than they should have? Absolutely.
Then there’s the ever-struggling infrastructure, which is typically garbage as a whole, but is also years away from actually being beneficial and dependable for electric vehicles. The electric cars charging in Michigan and the Midwest, unless they’re solar-dependent, are likely charging on electricity fueled by coal, which is wholly counterintuitive. Not to forget, those heavy and oversized crossover and SUV EVs will crumble our already shitty roads... and so on.
And then there is the question, What do we have with all the ICE cars we have now? Junkyards are already filled with hundreds, thousands of vehicles and their parts with no place to put them. The billions of cars on the planet need a home, and it’s not realistic to EV-swap ‘em all. We can recycle some of our gas-dependent friends, but even as a millennial, I find it hard for any of us to want to throw away every ICE on Earth.
But if electrifying cars isn’t the answer, what is? Not the dystopian course we have so well set ourselves on with this one-track mindset. Better regulations and fuel alternatives for shipping, freighters, planes and semis would be a good start. Regulations on factories — especially fashion and textiles which are slated as the number 2 polluters in the world — would also be more beneficial. Reassessing our modern diets, and oh yeah, exploring alternative fuels.
A few automakers are still looking into the possibility of alternative fuels, like Toyota still exploring hydrogen fuel cells and Porsche is using one of a few of its alternative fuels in a real-world testing ground: its race cars. We have the technology and abilities today to find something combustable to run through our engines and not cause them to slowly disintegrate them from the inside out.
Those will all help, and also just getting over ourselves with the large vehicle infatuation. Japan got it somewhat right with the Kei cars — there’s no reason we can’t all agree to having a smaller footprint on this planet.