Our Topic: The Fallible Future

   I was watching the original version version of Total Recall and had to laugh. The car of the future looked absurd: anything but futuristic. Kind of like an old gas station near home before you enter the Adirondacks just before you split off onto route 28..
   The sign up ahead, to be Rod Serling-ish, once read, “Futuristic Gas Station Ahead!” That was laughable by the time I started to drive in 1967. Not so “futuristic” even back then. The ideas featured in magazines by writers whose jobs were imagining what the future cars might be also also seem silly in retrospect, or at least seriously missed the mark.
   I have trouble imagining where cars may go 20 years from now, except I hope they all stop looking like some slight variation of the same SUV. So easy these days to get into the wrong care by mistake.
   Yes, cars belonging to the same era have always looked somewhat alike, but this seems extra, “Oh, come on, come up with your own creative design!” It’s as if they come out of the same factory with minor cosmetic changes. One hopes that will change. Oh, and PLEASE make it easier to get in without ducking, twisting, turning. Our current 24 Rav4 is tough, but every car I got into was bad as we tested candidates for now such a huge purchase. The worst was Tesla. Swear ya need both pretzel and cat DNA. Headroom might help.
   When I started to have a passion for automobiles in the 60’s the cars we would have in 2026 were unimaginable. Some companies: very few, were close to showing what the future might bring, say 20 years. Studebaker had the 50’s Commander that 20 years later one could almost claim turned into the mid 70’s MG’s. The Avanti still looks futuristic.

    Certainly the statement, “The future isn’t all that easy to predict” is an obvious statement. I always thought the statement in response to Marty McFly saying Ronald Reagan was president in the future was funny as hell.

Ronald Reagan?!? The actor?!? Then who’s vice-president?!? Jerry Lewis?!?

   Maybe it’s just a truism that what we think will be often won’t be THAT. But certainly this doesn’t apply just to cars: when I fell in love with Studebakers the future I had ahead was so unimaginable. But having owned my own business the results of business decisions are equally hard to predict. Looking back, understanding hindsight being an accurate name in many ways, a lot of business decisions were wrong. But that’s hindsight.
   Studebaker, a car company that had many futuristic designs, was the oldest transportation company in America. It barely survived the Great Depression after President Albert Russel Erskine committed suicide. Paul Hoffman and Harold Vance convinced a judge to let them save the company so their venders could also be saved.
   Investing in great designs done by famous designers put money where it shouldn’t have gone. Perhaps it should have gone into revamping their production line coupes as well as sedans. They lost so many orders. They didn’t have the money to buy fabrication equipment which they needed for the Avanti. That was a double loss because the fabrication plant they vended out to made the parts all wrong and never made good on their mistake. GM told them not to answer any calls from Studebaker.
   But I’m grateful they did. These models stand out historically, whereas many models done by other companies simply do not. But they failedto see the future accurately. AMC did and hung on until Chrysler bought them and only kept producing Jeeps.
   Personally, I side with Studebaker. Better to go out trying to offer grand designs than survive producing far less stunning models.
   I think this is why I love the automobile industry: you never quite know what will work. The struggle, those who hit the mark but don’t survive anyway. As humans we are all fallible and business is no exception.
   But as a parting shot I hope the future has more exotic designs. I swear most cars these days are so much the same it’s far too easy to get into the wrong car by mistake. I know cars from the same era often do look the same, but these days seems they are more alike than ever before. Let’s hope some company meets that challenge. Design for a better future technologically and visually!

                               -30-

    The Automotive Critic…

…is a column by Ken Carman, who has been writing a weekly column since 1972 called Inspection, as a beer judge several beer judging and beer industry-based columns. Ken is also the author of Autocide: which he started researching over 20 years ago. Autocide is alternative automobile history filled with funs, odd twists and quirky characters. He has been into cars, working with cars as part of his job, since he bought his first car: a 61 Lark, at 14. Mr. Carman lives in Eagle Bay and Beaver River, NY.
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