One of these days, I’m going to start a blog about cars. In the mean time, you get the benefit of my random thoughts. (I know, lucky you.)
I had two rental cars recently. The first, a Chevrolet TrailBlazer; a car I guess I knew was still in production, but yet didn’t really remember was still being sold. Its undergone very few changes as of late, but one is quite unique … and odd. Note the circle just to the left of the stereo. Its a logo. For the TrailBlazer. – Really? Of all the cars that deserve a logo, I’m not sure this is one of them.
The next rental was a Pontiac GrandPrix, a car I wanted so badly I could taste it back in the day (that was the day they started with those “wide track” commercials). This is a fairly big 4 door car and yet it felt like a really bad use of all that space. I felt like stuff on the dashboard was competing for my attention. And yet, the digital displays (off to the side of the spedo) didn’t care if I paid attention to them or not.
When you start up the car, the top display you see below says “GP.” (Again, what’s with GM logos in cars these days?!) After that, it has a number of display functions, all of which aren’t that important – despite the fact that the display placement is in a highly visible area when you’re driving.
Below that is the stereo display, one that most people pay quite a bit of attention to when driving. I could barely see the station number I was on, had to stop and lean in to see the rest of what was on the screen, and found that I was spending far too much time trying to figure out what was on that thing vs. actually driving.
Finally, as you can see from the photo, there’s not really a good angle to be able to see either of these displays without at least one of them getting reflection from stuff outside.
No point, just random rental car commentary.
Tags: gm, grand prix, rental cars, trailblazer
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