At this year's North American International Auto Show in Detroit, several important things were introduced. Dodge brought out the Dart, their new entry in the compact segment, taking on Canada's top sellers. Ford brought out a new Fusion, which is very nicely styled and has a bunch of environmentally friendly options to choose from. Both of those models are extremely important to their respective manufacturers and will be on the streets of Yorkton soon enough. But, strangely, the car I'm most interested in isn't extremely important for the manufacturer, nor will it be sold any time soon. It's a minor concept by Chevrolet, and I wonder what it means.
It's called the Code 130R, which doesn't seem to mean anything, and it was developed by a team trying to connect with some kind of youth market. They also introduced something called the Tru 140S, with the same goal of hitting the younger crowd and getting people interested in their products from the moment they can afford new. That's something that manufacturers have been trying to do for decades, and the Tru takes a normal path to get there. It's a sleek two door coupe based on a pre-existing model, which is great. It promises to be relatively inexpensive, but interesting looking, often a path to youth market success.
The Code, on the other hand, goes in a different direction. The car looks like a sports car from the 1980s, with a very upright and somewhat box-like appearance. It's also a unique platform, being a rear wheel drive car when most of General Motors is front wheel drive outside of Cadillac and some sports models, so it's more expensive to develop. It's very odd, since it runs counter to most of the prevailing fashions and looks like a modern interpretation of the old beaters that littered the parking lot when I was in high school.
The reason I say it makes me wonder what it means is partially due to the research the company did to make it. They claim they spoke to many young people and made two cars based on their responses. In the process, they made one car that looks like it could fit comfortably in 1985, which makes me wonder if my generation might be getting a little bit too enamored with that decade.
Music has seen '80s trends reappear in popular albums, films from the '80s are getting remade, the games from the '80s are inspiring an entire visual style that has popped up increasingly often, and now we have a car from the '80s gracing the show floor from a major manufacturer. While it's not the dominant cultural force, the '80s are cropping up increasingly often, and it can't really be claimed as nostalgia since most of the people driving this trend weren't actually around. I'm not nostalgic for things that happened before I was five, I don't even remember them.
It's strange to see an '80s revival marketed towards people who weren't around to remember the original decade, and I'm not entirely sure I like it. To be honest, while I wasn't there, I greatly prefer more modern design trends to the straight lines and boxes that were popular back in the year I was born. Even being in the right age group, I would be reluctant to bring home a Code 130R. I'd like the trends of the '80s to go back where they belong.
