My car may be decades old, but I don’t ever see getting rid of it. It’s the heart and soul of my driving life and even if road trips with friends in their own cars is fun, nothing beats going for a solo drive in my old hatch.
But, I will confess that sometimes when I ride with friends or family in their modern cars — which were all made after the Y2K scare — I do sense a little bit of jealousy welling up inside of me.
Things like Apple CarPlay, backup cameras, tire pressure monitors, or blindspot warnings would be awesome to have in my little Bimmer. Yes, I’ve gotten by without them but it hasn’t been always been comfortable. I am an avid hike-and-bike trail user, and every time I go for a run I have an irrational panic that one of these days I’m going to back up in an exhausted and distracted state while a biker or runner is bombing down the lot and I’ll hit them.
So, I do that move that we all know so well: I grip the passenger seat headrest and crane my neck hard then leer into the parking lot, looking desperately for anyone I might have missed before clutching in and reversing. Damn, I really gotta stop daydreaming about car hi-fi and get a backup camera this year.
I don’t have much experience with the bleeding edge of tech in modern cars because even the newest cars I’ve ridden in don’t have 2022 model year tech, so I’ll turn it to you readers who are familiar with the latest in that segment.
A back up camera tops my modern tech wishlist, but what tech have you seen or used in a new car that you couldn’t imagine life without?