Cast your imagination ahead 25 years. It’ll be 2035 (and I’ll be 58; eek!), and my 2006 MINI will be 29 years old, or about as old as the first BMW E30s are today. My 2000 SV650 will be 35 years old, my first car—a 1987 Pontiac Grand Am—will be 48. Many car and motorcycle enthusiasts like myself will be scouring barns and fields for the cars of their youth, looking to reclaim a long-forgotten vehicle as a project, something from a “simpler time”, even though there’s nothing simple about a modern vehicle.
Forget for the moment whether these are “good” cars (or bikes), because that’s not really the point; who, in 1967, thought the 1957 Chevy Bel Air would be the much sought-after classic that it is today? And what does “good” mean when you’re looking back a quarter of a century? Instead, think about trying to get one of these electronics-laden, black-box-riddled, emissions-control-saddled, proprietary, indecipherable vehicles running and drivable on the roads of tomorrow. Assuming you can still get 91 octane unleaded and roads are paved in the future (where we’re going, we don’t need roads!), how about passing emissions? If the laws are similar to today, you’ll need the emissions equipment working the way it worked when the car came off the assembly line, assuming regulations haven’t tightened to the point that even “antique” cars need to comply with present-in-the-future-day requirements. What about repairing or finding a replacement for the engine computer, or the climate control computer, or the ABS module? The manufacturers sure aren’t providing schematics, programming references, or the source code, even to their own factory-trained mechanics, opting instead to provide “if subsystem A exhibits fault B, then replace component C”. Will you be able to find component C in a junkyard, or will there be a dealer network in place that has stock of component C? What if you’ve got a rare car and the manufacturer went bankrupt? Or even a mass-produced car and the manufacturer went bankrupt? (I’m looking at you Chrysler; we’ll be lucky to see you in 3 years, let alone 25.) Will a Ferrari F430 be anything more than a large decoration because the manettino no longer responds?
These kinds of problems present themselves today, even on cars that nobody would begin to think of as “rare”, actively supported by the manufacturer and their dealer network. The early first-gen (BMW-owned) MINIs with the factory CD-based navigation basically have a pretty (although that’s open to interpretation) yet useless screen in the middle of the dash because the maps are out of date and won’t be upgraded because BMW is only updating the DVD-based systems. How many modern cars are cast off because their owners can’t afford dealership rates to diagnose wonky wipers or a climate control system on the fritz?
Instead, what if there were a way to replace these closed systems and proprietary parts? What if you could have a modular system that allowed you to replace the failing, antiquated, obsolete command and control systems in your old jalopy—either in whole or in part—with modern replacements, developed and supported openly, built on well-documented hardware with published schematics, and running open source software that could be easily updated on the road?
There’s a lot that goes on in a modern car: anti-theft systems, entertainment and navigation systems, remote start, keyless entry, traction control, passive restraints, emissions control, engine management, lighting, instrumentation, and the list goes on. Replacing any one of these failed systems on a 2006 MINI Cooper S (my own car) would be a monumental task, but I have feeling without an open alternative, you won’t see this car or any others like it on the road in 25 years, and that seems like a real shame.