I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I love my car and have trouble replacing it even though it’s 8.5 years old and has 90,000 miles on it. There’s nothing I can think of that is as ‘cool’ and useful in my immature analysis of cars. Namely:
looks cool
sounds cool
goes fast
is fun
is useful (has more than 2 doors, and good boot space, is AWD etc)
isn’t gigantic or unwieldy
The only thing that fits the bill is…an old ass RS4.
Got any other ideas for me? I don’t mind the automatic transmission.
The other thing I must add is that I’m hella tall, and I don’t want to be squished into my car anymore. I want some legit headroom. I want to sit tall in the vehicle. I say vehicle because I recognize that most cars won’t fit me and I may have to move into an SUV.
The other side of the coin is maybe I just go for something really useful and utilitarian and stop caring about the car being sporty, fun looking, fast etc. On that front I have a few candidates.
One thing that I find intriguing is plug in hybrid cars. I have always thought hybrids make a ton of sense if you can drive them in all electric mode. This way you’re not range limited because you still have a gasoline motor, but you can also accomplish a bunch of your little short trips on the electric motor. Problem is regular hybrids need to run the gasoline motor BEFORE you can use the electric motor…and the batteries are small…and the car can’t go fast on the battery so it always kicks over to gasoline power.
For perspective I have a friend with a Lexus RX Hybrid who gets an average of 25 mpg. That’s over the 100,000 miles he’s owned it. That’s pretty cool…about 20-25% better than the RX 350 gas model. Of course this is also basically diesel SUV type mileage so why not get one of them?
The plug in hybrids are different. Still a hybrid with all the beits, but the car is designed to run battery alone.
Enter the Porsche Cayenne S e-hybrid.
Can run up to around 70 mph on the battery alone…all electric
Can charge the battery with the engine
Can charge the battery by plugging in (if you’re parked somewhere with a free plug, that’s cool)
Can run battery only for 15 miles or so before needing a recharge
Still has a gasoline engine (one we’re all familiar with…the 3.0T made famous by the B8 S4)
It’s big inside, it’s not unwieldy, it’s AWD, it’s good looking, it’s quick enough, it’s very useful space wise and headroom wise, and on top of this can run electric mode 80% of the time if you live in a small town like I do.
Anyway, let me know why that’s a terrible idea or what other cars you think are interesting.