ArcaMax

Irrespective of brand. Because everyone's got to comply with the same standards. There is no possibility - legally - of a "rogue" car company going its own way and designing something along the lines of a 1959 Cadillac (or a '69 VW Bug) because such a car would not fit the template. Whether it appealed to buyers being an irrelevance.

This trend toward ever-increasing homogeneity will continue because the standardization that is an element of corporatization - saluta il Duce! - requires it. All electrical outlets look pretty much the same for a reason.

The same forces are driving the adoption (the force-feeding) of small, heavily turbocharged engines in lieu of the simpler (read: less expensive/lower profit margin) larger, not-turbocharged engines that most cars used to be powered by. The reason for this is not market demand. It is government edict.

Specifically, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) edict. Next year (2016) all new vehicles - this includes trucks, incidentally - will be required to average at least 35.5 MPG on the government's test loop. Those that average less will cost you more - in the form of gas guzzler taxes. But also in the form of more complex/expensive engines (i.e., those with turbos, "auto-stop" and so on). This is why the new Ford F-150 pickup comes with tiny - but turbo'd - V6 engines now.

Rather than fight the federales' fuel economy fatwas, the car companies have bought in. Or rather, you have. Or, will.

Take a look at any new car, regardless of who makes it. Then look at other cars. The meaningful differences are increasingly superficial. Whether we are talking aesthetics or mechanics or electrics. Different drummer designs like the '59 Caddy or the original VW Beetle with its rear-mounted, air-cooled engine and simple (inexpensive) overall design are nonexistent today, new car-wise. The marketplace - if it can be called that - is a kind of four-wheeled analog of suburban cookie cutter sameness. Those developments in which there are maybe four or five models of home, with the differences limited to the color of the siding and the orientation of the home on its plot of land.

The one upside is that power (and performance) levels have never been higher than they are right now. Cars like the 707 hp Dodge Charger Hellcat I recently got to test drive (and the soon-to-be here 750 hp Cadillac CTS-V I hope they're going to let me test drive) would have been technically impossible, probably, back in the proverbial day. That kind of power was ungovernable - and could never be warranted.

But because of all the other stuff these cars come encrusted with, they are economically impossible for most of us to even consider buying. The Hellcat is relatively affordable vs. the CTS-V, but the minimum price of admission is nearly $60k. If only they could sell one without the air bags, the back-up cameras and all the rest of it.

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www.ericpetersautos.com or EPeters952@aol.com for comments.