[Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the June 2013 issue of Grassroots Motorsports, before the “Dieselgate” scandal and when both the Volt and Beetle TDI were new cars on the market.]
It’s probably time to admit it: The future may not be as exciting as we’ve been led to believe. We can all certainly be thankful that August 4, 1997, came and went without Skynet becoming self-aware, though we did eventually get Facebook, which may have actually been worse. And in less than two years, Marty McFly and Doc Brown are scheduled to return to a Hill Valley complete with hoverboards, “Jaws 19” playing in holographic 3-D, and self-fitting clothes in department store window displays. None of the aforementioned is likely to exist by then. The giant trucks of horse crap, however, probably will.
They didn’t get it all wrong. Although “The Running Man,” a fictional reality game show in which people are hunted and killed for sport, isn’t supposed to premiere for four more years, there are several reality game shows currently being broadcast where simply being one of the horrible humans involved is a far worse fate than death.
What does all this mean to us, the auto enthusiast populace? We’re a paranoid crowd. Each advance in technology brings a new cry from the masses that our fun is being quashed. But if we look back to recent automotive history, we can see that nearly every technological advance first believed to signal the end of performance and fun—digital engine management, ABS, fuel injection, traction control—has also produced a high-performance analogue. Cars are now faster, better-handling and safer than ever, and we haven’t lost much—if any—of the tunability we crave. In some cases, our wrenches have been replaced by laptops, but the sentiment remains the same.
Future Shock
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