1 @ Auto trends

Auto trends


Fads come and go, sometimes on a whim, other times because of outside forces. Here at the halfway point of the new millennium?s first decade, car culture has sure taken some interesting turns.
Those of you who innocently took a test drive of a plain-Jane Nissan Altima when it was new in 2002, floored it, and nearly sprained your necks upon discovery of 240 horsepower, may have suspected that the standards of speed had risen a tad since the 90s. Turns out that was only the beginning. Nowadays, the Volkswagen Passat raised that same family car bar to an excessive 280 horsepower. We have little $30,000 Mitsubishis that can leave Camaros for dead. The 500-horsepower Dodge Viper suddenly seems ordinary, and the once-acclaimed Acura NSX is a joke. Whether or not you?re a speed freak, there are two trickle-down benefits: the minimum standard of horsepower has risen from 55 (Geo Metro) to 103, and very few used cars in any segment are truly underpowered anymore. Not a bad development.

Cars just won?t stop growing. Every redesign has to be bigger than the last one; the new Toyota RAV4 is 14 inches longer than the last, and current Civics now dwarf Accords of years past. It?s an inevitable force of marketing; no one wants to pay the same money for less car, right? Bigger also means heavier; our cars pack more pounds than ever.