Opinion: are 'boring' old cars more interesting than 'interesting' new cars?

It stands to reason that the main attraction of Top Gear is the coverage of exotic and desirable performance cars. Of course, we’ll happily tell you if the new Skoda Enyaq is a little bit better than the old Skoda Enyaq (it is) but, let’s be honest, that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to ogle an outrageous, tyre slaying weapon that you’d sell a kidney on the black market to own, even if you knew you’d have to sell the other one just to cover the insurance premiums.

But you’ve probably noticed there’s a growing movement in car culture that celebrates the ordinary, rather than the extraordinary. Events like Festival of the Unexceptional and Mismatch at the Hatch are dedicated to appreciation of some of the most boring cars from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s that you could possibly imagine.

It’s only at places like this that you’ll find a concourse spec and entirely rust free 1988 Austin Montego that is, implausibly, someone’s pride and joy. Montego is apparently a name with Spanish origins that means ‘mountainous’, but if that thing could get up a gentle hill it’d be some sort of minor miracle.

Typically, racing video games serve much the same purpose as Top Gear does, to bring you closer to the experience of driving the latest combination of letters and numbers from Ferrari, but this trend for the tedious has reached the digital realm as well, albeit in a slightly unconventional way. The Gran Turismo series has always attempted to cover the entire gamut of automotive transportation, but apparently that wasn’t enough for some industrious fans.

Enter the evocatively titled Gran Turismo 2: Beige Edition, a fan-made modification for 1999 PlayStation game Gran Turismo 2 that adds over 330 cars from over 50 manufacturers. And yes, you’d better believe the poster car for it is a Chrysler PT Cruiser.

When it comes to bland metal, designer behind the mod, a gentleman who goes by the name HWTsuchiyaNathan has exquisite tastes, if that’s not a flagrant misuse of the word ‘exquisite’. In what other racing game could you hustle a Vauxhall Sintra past a Fiat Marea Weekend on your way to victory? The commitment to the unremarkable is remarkable.

While I’m tired of hearing people complain about EVs, and believe they do have a place for routine commuting, I can’t help but wonder if this renewed interest in bog-standard boxes is driven not just by nostalgia, but in part by the fact that the majority of modern electric cars are severely lacking in character. The novelty of pressing your passenger’s heads against the headrests with warp speed acceleration wears thin after a while and you’re usually left with a leaden, numb driving experience.

Older cars are lighter, tend to have entertaining, novel quirks and feature one of a wide variety of distinctive combustion engines. Could it be that a boring old car is inherently more interesting to drive than an ‘interesting’ new car, which is actually boring? I swear that sentence made more sense in my head...