Some things just disappear overnight, and other things are phased out so gradually that you don't notice until they are gone, for example - bumpers. The old Mini on the left has one, the new one on the right doesn't. But it wasn't a sudden transition, they just became bigger and flatter and then covered in rubber or sprayed to match the rest of the car until a couple of years ago, they disappeared complerely:
We all know why this is - it's because nobody cared if their bumper got bumped or scratched, and worst case, a new one cost £50 (in today's money) and could be replaced in minutes, but if you get a serious bump or scratch on the front bit of your car today, the garage will charge you hundreds of pounds to replace it, assuming they can even track down the part, because it's an integral part of the car and it's probably got miles of electric cable in it to link it up to the lights and the parking sensors and all that nonsense.
Image pinched from Wiki
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7 comments:
I remember when SAAB claimed their bumpers would withstand a 5 mph impact without any damage. Not any more. And side rubbing strips on cars have disappeared too.
You're even more cynical than I am!
Yes and no. The real reason is that EU rules have caused all the hard sticky-out-bits on cars to be done away with so pedestrians have a better chance of living if you hit one. Soft plasticky bits are better than hard chrome bits. That's why all new cars have big curvy fronts on them - so pedestrians roll up the bonnet, up the screen, and end up deposited "safely" off the side of the car.
Simples.
I think fermertory is half right. Yes to the shape and the chrome and the EU rules. But that does not explain why cheap soft non-sticky-out easy to replace plasticy bits could not be used on the extremeties!
I remember when you could take a car apart completely and put it all back again with just a set of spanners and a screwdriver. Now you need to borrow half of Microsoft's server capacity just to change a bloody light bulb.
C, the side rubber strips are also few and far between.
SL, OK, you explain it.
FT, an interesting counter-theory, which does not stack up. If they are doing something for safety reasons (like not having vertically positioned number plates on the front mud guard of a motorbike) then they just ban it overnight.
But bumpers were got rid of very gradually, e.g. my car is 14 years old and it still has chunky rubber/plastic bits at the front and back, which, while not the shiny chrome bumpers of yore, are clearly in the intermediate stage between 'bumper' and 'no bumper'.
W42, exactly.
MTM, ta for confirmation.
"SL, OK, you explain it. "
Purely style and fashion. Sticky-out bumpers have gone the way of sticky-out headlights (as last seen in the late, great Citroen 2CV). They'll probably be back.
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