CAR TRENDS THAT NEED TO DIE IN 2019
M COLOUR GRILLES
Some repeat offenders here, for sure. Quite where the trend for painting, wrapping or clipping the vanes of a BMW kidney grille to ape the M Division tricolour originated, we’re not sure. Not from any BMW M car, at any rate.
MOTOR SHOWS
Not all of them. But when Geneva is now routinely described as ‘a quiet one’ and Paris has entire halls sat empty, do we really need an international motor show every other month? Will there be more diary casualties in 2019?
BULLSH*T ELECTRIC HYPERCARS
Almost every day TG is bombarded with a lengthy press release from a ne’er-proven start-up which claims to have a megawatt-powered thrustmobile that’ll do 0–60 in minus one seconds and create a singularity. And drive itself.
FAKE BADGING
We see you, in your Merc C220d. With your AMG badge. We see you, thinking your eBay AMG badge fools us into thinking your singletailpipe repmobile is a thundering V8 monster. Do yourself a favour and return to factory settings.
MASSIVE GRILLES
Huge grilles are a rich seam of trends we want binned. The A8 and X7 are modern cars with heatoptimised engines, so don’t need more cooling than a diesel loco. Even worse, the e-tron doesn’t even have an engine to cool.
TOUCHSCREEN CLIMATE
Hiding the functionality of simply heating or cooling the cabin in a touchscreen which invariably is slow to respond or doesn’t react to gloves is idiotic beyond belief, and downright unsafe. Yet for the sake of design, carmakers are mad for it.
‘DIAMOND-CUT’ WHEELS
Which aren’t cut by diamonds by master jewellers deep in the Swiss Alps. Basically, it’s two-tone alloys. They were fine, when it was only one or two brands doing them, and doing them well. But now they’re overdone and ready for the bin.
MODIFIED LAND ROVER DEFENDERS
Are there any standard Defenders left? It seems the ones that haven’t been nicked and callously stripped for parts are all destined to live out a life of urban ignominy, bolted to enormous, fussy wheels and sporting bolt-on widebody arches.
IMITATION GRILLES
Into the bin they go. So obsessed has the car industry become with meaningless mesh being shorthand for power, more and more cars are peppered with risible plastic acne that serves no purpose besides looking cheap.