Consumerism Be Damned: A Cars and Cellphones Metaphorical Musing

January 14, 2015

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When your cellphone contract expires, the generally expected thing to do is to stride immediately into your local telecoms agency and sign yourself up for a fresh deal on whatever phone grabs your fancy.
The contract for my cellphone expired last march and, well, I really didn’t know what to do. I had been nailed into a 24 month term and the phone had actually been perfectly satisfactory, battery issues aside, and no doubt its replacement would do just the same job, but the idea of being locked into another two year relationship with anything then on the market really didn’t appeal to me.
There was just so much choice, and I really didn’t like any of it. Thank goodness, I thought to myself, we’re talking about a phone and not a car.

I had spent the last two years with a Samsung Galaxy Note. This was among the first generation of grossly swollen cellphones and was seen as a bit of a marketing risk at the time; would people take to being seen in public with what looked like a good-sized plasma TV pressed to their ear? Well, the gamble paid off and the Note has survived into a fourth incarnation. That’s four generations in less than three years. Mine has been through its fair share of batteries (it’s now just eaten its fourth) and is the charging socket is also, handily, all screwed up.
The Note had already been on the market for a while when I signed up in March 2012, long enough after launch for the first round of price-cuts to take effect. When phones are concerned I want a decent degree of future-proofing, but I’m not so desperate to be on the cutting edge that I’m happy to pay through the nose to achieve it. So, why did I abandon Samsung in favour of HTC this time around? Well, there’s a distinct parallel here between what I want from my phone and what I want from my car.
The Galaxy S and Note series from Samsung has been brimmed full of innovation from the off. There are myriad facilities on the Note that I knew where there but I never used, and there are probably more beside that I don’t even know about. The follow-up models went even further, technologically, with proximity sensing screens that you don’t even have to touch. Madness.
The Samsung is a neat enough piece of kit, but in your hand it feels like, well, a ‘phone. Just another phone. Another transitional, two-years-then-the-dustbin consumer durable. Compared to less expensive models in the Samsung range the Galaxy S and Note are slimmer, neater and generally nicer in feel, but they’re still don’t feel like something that future generations will enjoy being handed down through the years. After two years, and once you’ve moved on to the next one, you’ll forget you ever had it.

In the end I chose the HTC One M8. Not because I love it, but because I dislike it the least. It’s bang up to date, so shouldn’t be technologically backwards too soon, but I was never expecting to particularly enjoy using it. Now I’ve had it for a few days, though, I am quickly beginning to appreciate its feel and its look. It seems like it’s hewn from a solid piece of actual metal, which, in effect, it is. The one piece casting feels truly substantial, permanent. I enjoy jostling it around in my pocket, along with my keys and loose change. I’m even looking forward to it picking up chips and scratches on its metalwork, like a favourite pewter tankard does.
In two years time I might even consider, this time, assuming the thing is still reliable and technology hasn’t marched forward so far that the M8 becomes a wax-cylinder in a 33rpm world, I will probably change my contract to SIM only and hang onto the phone for as long as physically possible. Like I do with my cars. If I like my car, what’s the point of changing it?
With the HTC I’m firmly anchored into a 24 month contract, which I can live with, ‘cos it’s only a phone. But I’ve just conducted a quick poll and there are very few cars out there that I’d want to have sitting on my driveway for two years, with no escape unless I buy my way out. And after that time has elapsed, are there truly any that I would want to keep for beyond my contract period and enjoy for years to come?

Years ago, cars like I’m describing actually were out there, but priorities have changed and such a beast is probably neither marketable nor physically possible today, unless we’re talking ultra-cars so mind-bendingly, surreally expensive and exclusive that they might as well not exist.
Can it be done? Can somebody design a regular, every-day car which is nice enough, timeless enough and capable enough to last not just beyond the lease period, but for potentially the rest of your life? It would need to last very well physically, but would need be created in such a way that its looks transcend fashions and trends. The way I see it, the closest anybody has ever got to achieving this is with the Land Rover Defender. I would buy, new, a car built to that ethos. It would become my “Car”, and it would probably be augmented by a couple of far less capable machines on a short term fling basis, perhaps something sporty and stupid, or something dull but practical but which doesn’t matter if it explodes and has to be buried. As long as my “Car” is everything I want in an everyday vehicle, of sufficient lasting design interest, enough fun and tolerably reliable, I might well keep it for ever.
What about you? Do you, like me, desperately want to reject this tedious consumerist cycle that sees us perpetually leaping from one heavily financed rock to the next? Do you yearn for permanence and tactility above fashion and novelty? Or do you have absolutely no idea what I’m on about and wonder why the hell this article was ever posted?
As a Car Guy who feverishly anticipates every exciting new automotive development, do you worry about being an enormous hypocrite because you wouldn’t dream of buying any of them?
You can expect my follow-up article in two years time, when we’ll see if I’ve fallen out with the HTC entirely and I’m eager to jump at something, anything else as soon as my contract ticks its last second.
(Images 2015 Chris Haining / Hooniverse)

About

RoadworkUK

RoadworkUK is the online persona of Gianni Hirsch, a tall, awkward gentleman with a home office full of gently decomposing paper and a garage full of worthless scrap metal. He lives in the village of Moistly, which is a safe distance from London and is surrounded by enough water and scenery to be interesting. In another life, he has designed, sold, worked on and written about cars in exchange for small quantities of money.