Cars aren’t rational, which helps explain why automotive icks exist. You know, little turn-offs that make our skin crawl. A car could be perfection on four wheels but as soon as one of these icks shows up on it, you can never see it the same again. I’ll start things off by sharing one of my automotive icks, because it’s on an excellent car.
The Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is spectacular. It’s a supercharged, manual, rear-wheel-drive love letter to the traditional super sedan, an encore for a classic recipe. It’ll break the 200 mph barrier, beat up on supercars of a decade ago around a track, and do it all with Cadillac luxury. It’s absolutely brilliant, but it also has a design element that I just can’t wrap my head around.
See, the CT5 has a swooping fastback greenhouse plucked from the fabulous Escala concept car. Not only does the roofline that comes with that make the car look lower than it is, it helps with visual length. Unfortunately, one big corner was cut with the shift to production, as the quarter window is entirely fake.
Yep, what looks like a piece of glass on the c-pillar is actually shiny black plastic that will acquire swirl marks and fingerprints like nobody’s business. What’s more, it means less light for rear seat passengers than if there was a window there, and potentially larger blind spots. It just feels so repugnantly cheap for a thing on a luxury car, especially when the current Honda Civic has a similar greenhouse treatment with real quarter windows.
So, what are your automotive icks? Whether styling elements that ruin cars for you or user interface choices that cause your eyebrow to twitch, let’s hear those turn-offs in the comments below.
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