The malaise era of the 1970s-80s was over. Designs lost a lot of the boxiness and started to get downright curvy. I remember when economy cars from Japan and even the US "Big 3" started to get reliable enough to routinely exceed 200,000 miles (320,000 km) while safety and fuel economy improved. My mid-90s Dodge Neon with a manual got about 35 mpg with mixed city and highway driving even when I got it as a used beater with a heater.
All the makes still sold sedans, and there were still a lot of station wagons. The "Crossover SUV" wasn't really a thing yet, and small SUVs had real off-road capability. I remember when the Chevy Suburban seemed huge in the late 80s and into the 90s. Now it's a dainty little thing compared to the average new "half-ton" pickup.
And those prices... A brand-new 1994 Ford Ranger with a long bed was about $10,000. That got a simple rear-wheel drive two-door truck. Power was low by modern standards at 98 horse from a 2.3L I4, but that was still enough to get the job done when the truck weighed under 3,000 pounds, and you could still expect 20+ mpg. You could get short beds, long beds, four-wheel drive, towing packages, sport packages, and more.
Fast forward to 2024, and it costs $34,000 for the base model. You can only choose a 4-door short-box model. It now weights about 4400 pounds, and while it has 270 horsepower, it still gets... 22 mpg average. The new technology is better, but the utility is worse. That's just basic facts. The old truck is still considered reliable, and if anything wears out, it can be fixed, often by yourself with basic tools.
The auto industry is being regulated to death, and as always, it's backfiring with unintended consequences. Cars are bigger, but are they really better? Technology for the sake of technology often means weak points that will become obsolete and prevent repairability. The '90s still had mechanical and electro-mechanical systems that didn't suffer software bugs or need regular updates.
Cars did peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, and we may never see that again. Welcome back to the dystopia of bureaucratic malaise, just with more computer screens than we had in the 1970s.
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