Photo: Florin Profir
I think we can all agree that cars have evolved exponentially in the last decade or so. No matter what you're talking about, whether it's safety, speed or comfort, there is almost no direct link between a passenger car developed in the noughties and one that's being sold in 2017.
A short look at crash test results then and now, and how organizations like EuroNCAP have gradually made their protocols harder to ace is a good example of how things have evolved for the better.
The same could be said about how cars have become increasingly faster over the last few years. Heck, a front-wheel-drive hot hatch from 2017 is quicker around the Nurburgring than an RWD sports car from a decade ago. Can you imagine that? A Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport S is faster on one of the world's most demanding tracks than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS (997) or a 670 horsepower Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG of the Black Series variety.
Now, if that's not progress, I don't know what is. Remember how it was nice that you had stuff like dual climate control and heated seats as an option in the good ol' Golf V? Well, now you can change the radio station or answer calls in the Golf VII by waving your hand in the air, like a slightly annoyed orchestra director.
Sadly, progress sometimes comes at a cost, and one of the biggest downsides of exponentially improving the speed, safety and comfort are that most of that stuff eats up interior space.
That's right, to make a car go faster you need an assortment of modifications, almost all of which take up space from the vehicle. A turbocharger needs room because of all the plumbing and required intercooler, but that's OK since they take up space from the engine bay.
“As long as I have enough room for passengers and their luggage I'm willing to make the trade-off,” you will probably say.
That is true, but aerodynamic bits like a flatter floor and a rear diffuser take up volume from the trunk, and so does a rear limited-slip differential.
"OK, fine, but what if I don't need or want a sports car, but just a safe and comfortable vehicle to haul all my stuff in?" Well, to make automobiles safer in the event of a crash, most carmakers have resorted to better-designed safety cells and crumple zones. Those need space to be perfectly integrated as well.
When talking about comfort, some luxury cars nowadays can offer audio systems with a quality that's similar to that of a professional studio. Multiple speakers, tweeters, and subwoofers are usually employed, and those need a good amount of room to work as well.
Do you want a vehicle that simply soaks up potholes and road irregularities, then an electronically controlled pneumatic suspension might be the thing for you, but those don't come in pocket-sized versions either.
For example, you won't be able to spec an all-wheel-drive S-Class Coupe with the fancy "active curve tilting" function for the same reason. There is either room for 4Matic AWD or for the trick suspension system underneath all that beautiful slab of German aluminum und schteel.
That is all fine and dandy, but I have yet to come to the point that I should be making, right? Fret not, it's coming.
So, we have established that modern cars have come a long way in the last decade or so. Do you know what else hasn't come a long way? Flat tires. They still happen, and they still need to be fixed one way or another, especially when they happen during a road trip in unfamiliar territories.
You know, the classic long-haul road trip, where you visit places you've never been at before and the worst that could happen is a dreaded flat tire. Just about everyone who's driving knows how to change a tire, though, so what on Earth am I on about?
Well, changing a tire is obviously a necessary and great skill to have during a road trip, but no matter how good you are at it, you still need two tires to do it, right? The flat one that's hugging your wheel and a non-pierced one, to exchange it with.
This is where the biggest problem that nobody likes to talk about in modern cars lies. To finally make myself clear, we are currently witnessing the extinction of the spare tire. And it's all happening because of that exponential evolution that I was blabbering about earlier.
From an automaker's perspective, a spare tire has three characteristics, and it seems that two of them have slowly but surely begun to be incompatible with a contemporary car. They add weight, they take out space, and they're handy when you get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere.
Ergo, most of them have replaced the good ol' full-size spare tire with various pieces of small and light technology. Some now use a run-flat design for the wheels of most of their cars (hello, BMW!), while others offer you a so-called tire inflator kit. Some can't even be bothered to give you those when you purchase a new car.
The problem with all these alternatives to a full-size spare tire is simple: they don't work. No matter how much miles you will put on a flat tire of the “run-flat” variety you will ruin it. Once you (hopefully) reach the closest tire shop, you will have to exchange it for a new one no matter what. Also, they don't work if the tire's side walls have been slashed.
Coincidentally, almost the same can be said about those tire sealing and inflating kits, which on top of it only work for smallish punctures and once you use them, the tire is toast in the long run. If you have a tire blowout, pretty much nothing will work, and you'll find yourself stranded.
Among the best road trip vehicles you can buy today don't even come with a collapsible spare tire, and I'm thinking about cars like the Porsche Panamera, in Sport Turismo guise or not, the Mercedes-AMG E63 S and other similar grand tourers.
I understand that the need for bigger brake discs on these leviathans would make a collapsible spare tire useless, and a full-size one would take a generous amount of space in the trunk. Then again, whatever happened with engineering? In some cases, we could be talking about a life or death situation that simply happens because you have nowhere to go with your six-figure GT.
A 2015 study made in the U.S., where this problem is actually less prevalent than in Europe, concluded that no less than 36 percent of all new cars sold then lacked a spare tire. Only 5 percent had the same predicament back in 2006. With that said, I am now lobbying for the resurrection of the full-size spare tire, and I hope that many of you will start doing the same, or else we'll be heading into a pretty grim future from this point of view.
The same could be said about how cars have become increasingly faster over the last few years. Heck, a front-wheel-drive hot hatch from 2017 is quicker around the Nurburgring than an RWD sports car from a decade ago. Can you imagine that? A Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport S is faster on one of the world's most demanding tracks than a Porsche 911 GT3 RS (997) or a 670 horsepower Mercedes-Benz SL 65 AMG of the Black Series variety.
Now, if that's not progress, I don't know what is. Remember how it was nice that you had stuff like dual climate control and heated seats as an option in the good ol' Golf V? Well, now you can change the radio station or answer calls in the Golf VII by waving your hand in the air, like a slightly annoyed orchestra director.
Sadly, progress sometimes comes at a cost, and one of the biggest downsides of exponentially improving the speed, safety and comfort are that most of that stuff eats up interior space.
That's right, to make a car go faster you need an assortment of modifications, almost all of which take up space from the vehicle. A turbocharger needs room because of all the plumbing and required intercooler, but that's OK since they take up space from the engine bay.
“As long as I have enough room for passengers and their luggage I'm willing to make the trade-off,” you will probably say.
That is true, but aerodynamic bits like a flatter floor and a rear diffuser take up volume from the trunk, and so does a rear limited-slip differential.
"OK, fine, but what if I don't need or want a sports car, but just a safe and comfortable vehicle to haul all my stuff in?" Well, to make automobiles safer in the event of a crash, most carmakers have resorted to better-designed safety cells and crumple zones. Those need space to be perfectly integrated as well.
When talking about comfort, some luxury cars nowadays can offer audio systems with a quality that's similar to that of a professional studio. Multiple speakers, tweeters, and subwoofers are usually employed, and those need a good amount of room to work as well.
Do you want a vehicle that simply soaks up potholes and road irregularities, then an electronically controlled pneumatic suspension might be the thing for you, but those don't come in pocket-sized versions either.
For example, you won't be able to spec an all-wheel-drive S-Class Coupe with the fancy "active curve tilting" function for the same reason. There is either room for 4Matic AWD or for the trick suspension system underneath all that beautiful slab of German aluminum und schteel.
That is all fine and dandy, but I have yet to come to the point that I should be making, right? Fret not, it's coming.
So, we have established that modern cars have come a long way in the last decade or so. Do you know what else hasn't come a long way? Flat tires. They still happen, and they still need to be fixed one way or another, especially when they happen during a road trip in unfamiliar territories.
You know, the classic long-haul road trip, where you visit places you've never been at before and the worst that could happen is a dreaded flat tire. Just about everyone who's driving knows how to change a tire, though, so what on Earth am I on about?
Well, changing a tire is obviously a necessary and great skill to have during a road trip, but no matter how good you are at it, you still need two tires to do it, right? The flat one that's hugging your wheel and a non-pierced one, to exchange it with.
This is where the biggest problem that nobody likes to talk about in modern cars lies. To finally make myself clear, we are currently witnessing the extinction of the spare tire. And it's all happening because of that exponential evolution that I was blabbering about earlier.
From an automaker's perspective, a spare tire has three characteristics, and it seems that two of them have slowly but surely begun to be incompatible with a contemporary car. They add weight, they take out space, and they're handy when you get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere.
Ergo, most of them have replaced the good ol' full-size spare tire with various pieces of small and light technology. Some now use a run-flat design for the wheels of most of their cars (hello, BMW!), while others offer you a so-called tire inflator kit. Some can't even be bothered to give you those when you purchase a new car.
The problem with all these alternatives to a full-size spare tire is simple: they don't work. No matter how much miles you will put on a flat tire of the “run-flat” variety you will ruin it. Once you (hopefully) reach the closest tire shop, you will have to exchange it for a new one no matter what. Also, they don't work if the tire's side walls have been slashed.
Coincidentally, almost the same can be said about those tire sealing and inflating kits, which on top of it only work for smallish punctures and once you use them, the tire is toast in the long run. If you have a tire blowout, pretty much nothing will work, and you'll find yourself stranded.
Among the best road trip vehicles you can buy today don't even come with a collapsible spare tire, and I'm thinking about cars like the Porsche Panamera, in Sport Turismo guise or not, the Mercedes-AMG E63 S and other similar grand tourers.
I understand that the need for bigger brake discs on these leviathans would make a collapsible spare tire useless, and a full-size one would take a generous amount of space in the trunk. Then again, whatever happened with engineering? In some cases, we could be talking about a life or death situation that simply happens because you have nowhere to go with your six-figure GT.
A 2015 study made in the U.S., where this problem is actually less prevalent than in Europe, concluded that no less than 36 percent of all new cars sold then lacked a spare tire. Only 5 percent had the same predicament back in 2006. With that said, I am now lobbying for the resurrection of the full-size spare tire, and I hope that many of you will start doing the same, or else we'll be heading into a pretty grim future from this point of view.
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