Why Are Cars So Boring These Days?

     

     Throughout history, cars from the 1950s and 1960s were the most exciting cars to look at. For instance, the Aston Martin DB5 or the Buick Rivera. Cars would start looking better as time went on, right? Wrong. Today's cars are nowhere near as exciting as their predecessors of (what I call) the Golden Age. Why is this?

      During the late 1960s and early 1970s, people discovered that the emissions from car exhaust were bad for not only their health, but also the environment. this caused laws to be passed, limiting the amount of harmful gases that each car could spew out. This led to cars being smaller to save weight and thus use less fuel to get the car moving. Car manufacturers also installed catalytic converters in their exhaust systems to filter out some of the harmful gasses by making them less harmful gases and water. This caused a very slight reduction in power and noise. Some car enthusiasts take the catalytic converter off, but recent laws have made that illegal.

      The Highway Safety Act passed in 1970 limited a car's design to keep both passengers and pedestrians safe in case of a collision. This caused car design to become more "boring" as bonnets were placed higher so that pedestrians didn't hit their head on the engine block underneath. Also, the shiny chrome bumpers were replaced with plastic so that there was less chance of a severe injury to a pedestrian in case of a collision. Cars got boxier to accommodate crumple zones and other safety features. The extra safety measures also added weight, inhibiting the cars performance even more.

      Cars have started to bounce back, with the likes of the Lamborghini Sian, the Ferrari SF90, and the McLaren Senna. This fills me with hope for the future, and shows the world that car design doesn't necessarily have to be limited by laws. The future looks bright, but will we ever get back to the level of creativity car designers of the 50s and 60s had? Only time will tell.