Why Do So Many Cars Today Lack The X-Factor?

As a society, we have traded public health and safety for many of our individual freedoms. Children are vaccinated, water is chlorinated, pollution is regulated, and housing conditions are required to meet a minimum standard. Overall, it’s safe to say that these have benefited mankind and were generally bright ideas for a civilized nation like ours.

But one health and safety advancement draws the ire of petrolheads like no other. It’s a profound indignation that can compare only to that one Thanksgiving at my parents’ house when I brought over the hottest, skankiest girl I could find. It is, of course, the type of purity and driver interaction that petrolheads like to bore their unimpressed girlfriends with. That je ne sais quoi, the X Factor, “it”.  We like to think that cars today don’t have it, so they’re nothing more than boring whitegoods and appliances. Unlike the good ol’ days, when cars were alive, men were men, and you could smoke on an airplane. Or so the petrolhead maxim goes.

 

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focal - 5/25/2011 3:54:55 PM

+6 Boost

driving smoothly and precisely is faster than drifting (turning off the electric nannies)...but the latter is more fun

the x-factor is driving too fast in a car that's not built for it or at a car's ultimate limit.

all good cars are so good that most never need more than 20% of their potential to reach legal road speeds and handling. The rest is ego.

the only way to have fun in a car is on a track now.

Joe_Limon - 5/25/2011 4:53:09 PM

+1 Boost

+1 I don't think it's legally possible to make a vehicle handle as poorly as the muscle cars used to anymore. What with all the stringent safety standards.

Hoorayforpeepee - 5/26/2011 9:12:20 AM

+2 Boost

WTF X Factor ??? What, were you born in the 20s or something ?

g2ok - 5/25/2011 4:58:09 PM

+1 Boost

GF ? dude I thought you was married .

focal - 5/25/2011 5:04:42 PM

+4 Boost

HP wars really are pointless....auto transmissions have dulled the driving experience further...it reduces cars to just 0-60 straight line bragging toys.

a simple Miata with a 6 speed and their modest 160 hp or so...a Mini Cooper S manual, or just driving a civic at it's limits is a lot of fun

learning to drive fast, first with go-carts and then with a modest vehicle is so much more fun ....not reaching the limits is what makes a car dull

Yonder7 - 5/26/2011 7:49:18 AM

0 Boost

Cause they take Aerodynamics as main trend for every design so now is a lot harder to identify the defferences ...