If you’re looking for something to distract you from President Donald Trump performing magic tricks like making your retirement fund disappear by causing the stock market to do backflips, may I suggest zoning out and watching some old car reviews on YouTube? Normally I’m a diehard MotorWeek Retro Reviews fan, and that isn’t changing any time soon, but yesterday while watching said Retro Reviews I clicked on a suggested video that turned out to be the gateway to my latest infatuation.
It’s no secret that we here at Jalopnik are fans of the tireless work done by Consumer Reports to assess cars and share important data for folks looking to make an educated purchase decision on a new vehicle, but I didn’t realize what a comprehensive archive of car reviews were hiding deep in the CR YouTube channel. Once I made the realization, though, I promptly went down the rabbit hole and forgot all about The Horrors for a while.
I guess 2010 is retro now
The archive of Consumer Reports YouTube car reviews is nowhere near as comprehensive as that of MotorWeek, but it’s fun for an old fart like me to reminisce about the cars that I remember reading about in the magazines when I was a kid. To find these old videos, visit Consumer Reports YouTube channel and either sort all the videos in reverse chronological order, or go to the playlist labeled “Cars”. The playlist encompasses a diverse array of content that includes first drives, reviews, auto show coverage, podcasts and more, so among the over-800 videos in the playlist, there’s plenty of car content to keep your mind distracted.
The earliest reviews were posted in 2009, but the oldest model reviewed is the third-generation Toyota Avalon, which was first introduced in 2005. I’m still having a hard time coming to grips with the reality that many of the cars are 15 years old already, and that they could feasibly be considered retro by a young’n. Whether you say they’re retro or you’re like me and still can’t conceive of 2010 being retro yet, it’s still fun to look back and reminisce about the days before cars became the buttonless rolling smartphones they are today.