i drove a car

Vehicle: Hyundai Genesis

Trim: 3.5T Sport Prestige (lol)

Miles: 3,500

MSRP: $75,000

Color: Light Gray

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What a strange vehicle. What a strange, strange vehicle.

It’s sort of a luxury/performance vehicle. I mean, that’s how it’s marketed

Unless you have the—yes this is actually what they call it—”sport prestige” trim, this thing feels pretty sluggish and heavy.

I drove this for about 1.5 hrs on the freeway down to Eugene, so I think I got decent feel for it. I have more questions than I do answers.

UI

I give it points for not being entirely touch-screen-based (I’m look at you, Audi). There are physical buttons. Some of them are even nice! Made out of real metal.

But now we have to talk about the primary UI dial in the mid-console. Look at the picture. Take it in.

That’s the primary UI control dial adorned with some Swarovski-esque glass bling. Hauntingly ugly. Great way to collect fingerprints, too.

That aside, I do appreciate a company that makes physical UI buttons out of genuine elemental metal from Earth; so few exist.

The Beans

It’s an inline 4 turbo that feels decently spicy around town. But nothing to write home about. For a car this expensive, I expected more; I expected verve! But, no. This is a luxury car that goes kind of fast when you give it the beans.

The Bling

I think this car is aimed directly at the Korean domestic market. I hope this doesn’t come off as super racist, but I think the over-the-top styling and goofy-ass UI is inherently Korean and, shall we say, “aspirational.” And I don’t think it’s an accident that the design cues obviously reference Bentley.

That’s my review. Thanks for reading.

Vehicle: Toyota Camry

Trim: Hybrid SE

Miles: 4

MSRP: 34,000

Color: White

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A brand-new, never-driven, ’25 Toyota with all the fixins.

As I hop into the seat, I think: not bad. The human interface control suite—the UI—is pretty good for a modern car; there are physical buttons for almost all basic functions. Almost all.

The CC controls are inexplicably relegated to the little swatch of touchscreen below the physical controls (see img 1), for no reason whatsoever. Sure would be nice to adjust the fan and temp with dials like a regular human, but I guess that’s just not modern enough.

The interior is PU faux leather, which is actually pretty nice, except for the glaring white stripe that bisects the front seats. PU doesn’t age quite like leather, and I suspect that stripe is going to look pretty grim as it ages.

Steering is decent. I’d prefer stiffer, but it’s not a sloppy nightmare like so many other vehicles I drive. Like all Toyotas, the driver-assistance software only activates if you turn on cruise control; which kind of makes sense, but is stubbornly contrary to most other vehicles.

The Juice

This is a hybrid, right? On my ≈2 hr drive down I5 I managed a truly stunning 31 average mpg. Yikes. Maybe there’s a break-in period before the electric drive wakes up and does its job? I certainly hope so.

The Beans

Better than I expected, especially for a Toyota, which are usually pretty boring and sedate. It’s not a performance vehicle, but it’s not a miserable slug like the Rav4 either.

Thanks for reading.

Vehicle: Chevy Corvette

Trim: Z06

Miles: 15k

MSRP: $115,000

Color: Red

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I drove a mid-engine car that wasn’t a Porsche.

It was a Chevy!

This is a slick little beast. If you like sitting really low the with the engine peaking over your shoulder (I do), then you’re in luck. If you also like searching through the HUD menus to find the 3-axis accelerometer, you’re also in luck 😬

This thing is priced … almost reasonably? You’re getting a lot of car for the money. On the other hand, you’re getting a Chevy, so lol.

Control

Hope you like hunting for controls while you’re taking turns in the wine country at very high speeds. Oh jeez, it might get cold in the cockpit, let me just turn on the heat.

Hm. Looks like the arcane hieroglyphics laid out insanely on the center console are CC buttons? (img 2).

Ride

It doesn’t have a 4 or 5-point harness standard, which it should, because nobody in their right mind is going to drive it gently. But whatever.

It’s an automatic because … imagine trying to fit a stick between those cheeks seats. But no, get used to the paddle shifters. Which are really good!

Positive

Well, this thing is fun to drive. It weighs nothing and has a huge turbo v8 putting out nearly 700hp. For non-car people, that’s what is known technically as “as shitload of horse ponies.” [yes, HP stands for horse ponies]). If you press go, you go. If press brake, you brake. If you paddle-shift down and hold it there, you make can the engine jump out of the back seat — but I don’t recommend it.

If you like mid-engine cars (which I do, I really do) you’re probably gonna like this car, which again, is a fucking Chevy. Hah!

Thanks for reading.

Welp, drove a Jeep Rubicon.

They should actually call it the Jeep Carrhae.

Because it gets annihilated by superior technology and serves as a warning to future civilizations.

This thing is priced like a premium, luxury/performance vehicle. Hilarious, but I don’t think most people appreciate the joke.

Control

The control surfaces and instruments are all, from a tactile standpoint, terrible. Alarmingly bad. The stalks feel so flimsy and rickety that I think they might actually be made out of plastic reclaimed from 1980s action figures. I could feel the unfinished creases where the mouldings mated; you don’t even encounter that shit in Mitsubishi Mirages. Every time I signaled a turn, I was sure the stalk was going to break off. Imagine using that stalk for 100k miles! (haha, just kidding, this jeep would ever make it to 100k miles)

If it takes you a moment to locate the usual mirror and window controls, don’t worry. They’re all in the wrong place because this vehicle has removable doors. Yep, a shitload of interface compromises just so you can take the doors off of your car for … reasons.

But don’t worry, the build-quality evident throughout the vehicle should give you confidence that the doors will probably reattach and function flawlessly.

Ride

How’s the ride? Loud. Loud as fuck. Hope you don’t like to listen to the radio or the thoughts rattling around your head, because the road noise will drown it out. There’s also some kind of harmonic resonance that occurs at higher speeds that interacts with the flimsy removable doors to create an even more awful sound than usual. Also, the factory-provided offroad tires will start howling at 30mph and get louder and louder, and more erratic, and make it increasingly hard to steer on regular, human roads. But who needs roads when you’re off-roading!?

Suspension is ruinously bad. Stiff, unforgiving, kidney-poundingly bad. Every turn I took at speed felt alarming. You might be thinking to yourself: “Buddy, the suspension is tuned for off-roading!” To which I say: what percentage of Jeeps Rubicon will ever, ever leave the suburbs? The answer is zero. Zero percent.

Positive

It’s not all bad. Here are the positives:

• There are physical buttons that perform basic car functions; climate control (very important), radio/media controls, iphone stuff.
• Visibility is pretty good, for a modern SUV. You can use your own human eyeballs to view things outside the vehicle in almost 360 degrees.

Okay, short list.

Thanks for reading.