New Car Designs

Last week on my way to work some loser pulled out in front of me and I ended up scraping the whole left side of my car against his bumper. This of course is not good and I had to get a rental car for a couple of weeks while they fixed it. The car I got was a 2006 Ford 500 in a mid level trim package. Keyless entry and power windows but not the 6 CD changer or the wood trim or anything. It's a decent car, the window sticker says the MSRP was around 22k or so.

I've never been a Ford guy and after driving this car around for a couple weeks I doubt I ever will be. It's easy to tell what kind of demographic they were aiming for, the middle aged person that is afraid of too much technology. They are still using the old old style of locks, with the little knob that you pull up on to unlock and push down to lock. They've been using that style forever, but its a bit that an older person can identify with.

I'm not very fond of the new "euro" style dash layout either, everything is smooth. It's functional I guess, but it's just boring. I don't like how there is no cubby in front of the shifter, the only place to put things is in the arm rest which isn't very convenient or in the dash cubby which only accepts items under 1-2 inches thin. They do have trim levels that include a lot more features and would be pretty nice but I still would be unimpressed with the 500. Of course that's probably fine with Ford, I'm obviously not the demographic they were aiming for.