The Last Real [insert marque here]

There's a common lamentation amongst car guys: Cars have gotten simply too technological. The up-and-coming generation, we complain, cares little about how a car drives, all they care is whether or not the car will interface with their smartphone and has Facebook integration. The modern driver cares more about how the stereo sounds than how the exhaust sounds.

We complain about all number of things. We hate when a car uses an electronic sensor to let us know about the engine oil level rather than having a dipstick. We hate run-flat tires. Heck, there are even car guys running around who long for the days of carbureted motors. And sometimes we even complain about turbochargers, even though deep down, we still all want fifty more horsepower.

Some of us are shade tree mechanics, and we take it a step further. All of these things didn't just contribute to the soul of motoring, they also were things we could maintain ourselves. We'd need thousands of dollars of computer-based testing tools to be able to handle a hybrid car in our own garage, where it used to be all we needed was a set of socket wrenches and a spark gapping tool. 

There may be nothing that gets our ire up like modern transmissions. Car and Driver magazine has a Save the Manuals! campaign. Jeremy Clarkson complains once an episode about flappy-paddle gearboxes. We take pride in our abilities to drive a manual transmission. A Real Gearhead wants three pedals on the floor and a shifter to the right of his knee. A Real Petrolhead wants three pedals on the floor and a shifter to the left of his knee. It is simply The Way Of Things. 

As technology marches on, these things all change, and we get vehement about it. We declare that the modern version of a car isn't the true experience. The last REAL Charger had only two doors. The last REAL Miata had retractible headlights. The last REAL BMW had a naturally-aspirated inline-six. The last REAL Porsche was air-cooled.

We couch these arguments in terms of the "soul" of driving, as if the fundamental nature of driving has changed since the advent of front-wheel-drive or paddle-shifted transmissions or factory-installed subwoofers.

We talk in terms of driving passion, about the true nature of driving, sure, but we're mostly just being luddites. Why is it that we fear a remote sensor for oil level, but we're not all harkening back to the days when we used a dipstick to check our fuel levels?  Nobody seems to think that turning a crank on the front of the car is part of a pure driving experience, what makes an electric starter OK? What makes a disc brake (with power assistance!) or a tubeless tire just fine? Why is it that a manual choke adjustment isn't considered de rigueur for a  true driving experience? 

Really, we're mostly full of crap. The best cars, in our minds, were the ones from when we were in high school, or perhaps a bit before, the ones we loved in our formative years as a gearhead. These modern cars simply aren't those cars.