Boxes to go

They have a car here called The Cube. No kidding. In fact most of the cars look like the angular boxes with wheels most of us drew in kindergarten. Personally I’m still there! Maybe they’ve finally conceded that streamlined cars designed for speed is a redundant concept here. The speed limit is often 30km. Even on the big roads it’s only 50km. But strangely it feels fast. Maybe because the car I’m driving is so small. The streets are so narrow you have to drive slowly as there’s often not enough room for two cars to pass. It’s a messy drop into the concrete lined rice paddy next to the road should you swerve too far. It amazes me I’m yet to see a car deroaded.

The new trend seems to be retro cars. They’re pretty cool. Someone took the redesign of the bug and the cooper a step further and came up with a pseudo historic feel. Cars with a flavour of the forties or fifties designed in. Maybe it’s the front grill or a sweep of a line on the body. Neo-retro, post-old-fashioned, call it what you will, they’re a lot more interesting to look at than the boxes here, or the bubbles back home.