Ongoing General Automotive Thread 2.0

[you&me]

Originally Posted by nik-

Let's be fair, late 90's to early 2000's was the peak for all the German brands.

Disagree. Mercedes is knocking it out of the park these days... especially in light of the lack of competition from BMW.

[nik-]

Mercedes are bland as hell to me, while also having pretty unattractive interiors. They really need to ditch the circular vent look.

This is pretty far from "knocking it out of the park"

Spoiler!

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I think Audi had a lot of momentum in the mid-2000's as they kind of pioneered the big grills that have dominated the industry for the past decade. That has petered out as their designs have got pretty boring of late as there's not a lot of differentiation between current and past gens as they have taken the big grilles as far as they can take them and will probably have to look to reinvent them at some point.

I see the late 90's early 2000's as their peak for certain. The B5's, C5's and D2's were just beautiful, subtle cars. Old school Audi grilles > the bigger ones. Audi and Lexus both need to go back to their old grilles.

I was actually getting pretty worried about Audi as a brand until they released the E-tron GT.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by nik-

I see the late 90's early 2000's as their peak for certain. The B5's, C5's and D2's were just beautiful, subtle cars. Old school Audi grilles > the bigger ones. Audi and Lexus both need to go back to their old grilles.

I was actually getting pretty worried about Audi as a brand until they released the E-tron GT.

I think Audi pulls off the large grill better than the rest and especially better than the train wreck Lexus calls a grill. That brand is dead to me until they stop being the second ugliest cars on the road (behind BMW).

Genesis would still get my money if I had to buy a car tomorrow. I just don't understand the Germans right now, Infiniti is a joke and Lexus is ugly AF.

[TorqueDog]

Performance-wise, Mercedes is eating BMW's lunch with the Mercedes-AMG brand, yeah I'd agree. I also think Mercedes design as a whole went a little too soft and swoopy on the lines now, they're kind of... blobs, a lot of them. The facelift that happened with Merc in MY2014 I think was the perfect mix of angles and curves and in just the right places.

It's like BMW decided to be the technology brand, while Mercedes, perennially known for having the latest and greatest tech in their S-Class cars, decided they wanted to be the performance brand.

[Table 5]

Big Grille ruined a lot of car brands.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I think Audi pulls off the large grill better than the rest and especially better than the train wreck Lexus calls a grill. That brand is dead to me until they stop being the second ugliest cars on the road (behind BMW).

Genesis would still get my money if I had to buy a car tomorrow. I just don't understand the Germans right now, Infiniti is a joke and Lexus is ugly AF.

Yeah I don't think the large grille Audi's are ugly, they still make great looking cars, but I just think the peak is that single horizontal grille above the crash bar era.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Big Grille ruined a lot of car brands.

Big grille ruined BMW but made BMW's dentist very happy.


Seriously, does anyone else have a hard time seeing anything other than buck-teeth when looking at modern BMWs? It's like being chased by a giant pissed-off squirrel in your rearview mirror.

[Table 5]

Agreed, they have this unfortunately ability to look dorky and angry at the same time. What a combo!

There are too many pissed off looking cars in general. Why you heff to be mad?

[nik-]

Yeah "aggressive" needs to go away for a while. Like, it's an Elantra, chill out.

[TorqueDog]

I'm personally a fan of the good ol' cartoon catfish:

Spoiler!

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Performance-wise, Mercedes is eating BMW's lunch with the Mercedes-AMG brand, yeah I'd agree. I also think Mercedes design as a whole went a little too soft and swoopy on the lines now, they're kind of... blobs, a lot of them. The facelift that happened with Merc in MY2014 I think was the perfect mix of angles and curves and in just the right places.

It's like BMW decided to be the technology brand, while Mercedes, perennially known for having the latest and greatest tech in their S-Class cars, decided they wanted to be the performance brand.

I'm not so sure of that. BMW accomplishes with 6 cylinders what takes AMG 8 cylinders.

[TorqueDog]

Give me a V8 any day of the week.

[burn_this_city]

Any head to head competition usually has the BMW in front of the Mercs.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Any head to head competition usually has the BMW in front of the Mercs.

The current M3/M4 Competitions are basically offer supercar performance for $100k. They are absurdly fast and capable.

[nik-]

ehhh, the CS ones do, but they're well beyond 100k.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by nik-

ehhh, the CS ones do, but they're well beyond 100k.

And look stupid.

[Ashasx]

it has been hard being a bmw fan boy these last few years, especially when the even the new M2 looks like a pig

[burn_this_city]

No king rules forever.

[81MC]

BMW stopped making attractive cars in 2007