Speedhunters was a car culture juggernaut | Hacker News Reader

Speedhunters was a car culture juggernaut

thedrive.com

20 pointsPaulHoule5 comments

Speedhunters was the best way to experience broad car culture as a young kid in high school, in its prime it used to be two articles a day of well-written and photographed car features from all over the world in every style, all presented with no ads. A shame to see it go as there's nothing else really like it out there, now it's all scattered across instagram and various youtube channels. I'm hoping EA sells it off to someone who cares but knowing their track record they're likely to completely shut it down as soon as someone remembers it exists

Anyone who was born before 2000 lived in the golden era of car culture. It's sad to see what it's become now.

Automotive design really peaked between 1995 and 2010. Timeless "regular car" designs like the Panther body, the 4th gen VW's, the E46 BMW's, Astro vans, Ford Rangers, etc. I'm sure my late-millennial nostalgia is making me see the past with rose coloured glasses, but things really are dull today [1]. It was really the confluence of the right regulations, slowly increasing fuel prices making innovation necessary but not highly urgent, and value engineering still being primitive enough that nobody was quite ready to stomach stuff like CVTs.

Nowadays, manufacturers and dealers are taking advantage of emissions regulations to turn everything into a "light truck" or SUV, leading to the most bland and uninspired designs. A body used to be designed by one small team, now every panel has its own focus groups and the cohesive whole is completely lost. And of course, value engineering and simulation is so sophisticated that Nissan and Chrysler can make your engine blow up exactly 1,000 KM past the warranty interval.

[1] https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/whit...

> And of course, value engineering and simulation is so sophisticated that Nissan and Chrysler can make your engine blow up exactly 1,000 KM past the warranty interval.

Probably not a coincidence that those two companies write a ton of subprime loans, lol. I’d never own a modern Nissan or Stellantis vehicle.

I loved Speedhunters and Hoonigan when they were in their prime. Both brands just oozed "cool". Between the tragic death of Ken Block, and the brand collapse of both of those companies I feel like we are in the dark ages of car culture now.

But I still have hope and I think we will one day have a resurgence of car culture like it was.

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