Car Cravings

2019 Hot Wheels Seattle

Iaman sent me this picture and my immediate reaction was that this is a very cool car. I would love to have it. But then I thought about it for a few seconds and I realized that just because a car looks good doesn't mean that the rest of it is any good. For a car to perform its basic function of carrying people from one place to another, the drive train, chassis and operator controls all have to be working. If you are a super-hero, or just an everyday commuter, you want all the little convenience do-dads to be working properly, things like switches, lights, latches, doors and windows. That's why people buy new cars, because they want all that stuff to work. They may not use all of them, but the ones they do use need to work and work reliably.

There is another thing about custom cars that has been bothering me because I don't understand it. Custom cars are almost invariably lowered so they have less ground clearance. I understand it makes them look cool, and I agree. But why? From a practical aspect, it's dumb. You can't go anywhere where there is the least little bump in the pavement. Even modern front-wheel-drive cars that carry the engine cantilevered out in front of the front axle have problems with curbs in parking lots. Used to be you could pull forward until your wheels hit the curb. Now you have to stop a couple of feet short or risk that embarrassing bang when the subframe hits the curb.

Could it be that a lowered car provides the illusion that it is sliding along on a glass smooth surface where there aren't going to be any bumps to disturb your peace of mind?