Opinion: what can Feeder’s ‘Buck Rogers’ teach us about the car industry in 2022?

[Da-na-now-now-now-now…]

“He’s got a brand new car… / Looks like a Jaguar… / It’s got leather seats… / It’s got a CD player (player player player player player player)…”

If you’re a kid from the Nineties, hopefully you just took a little nostalgia trip back to Gran Turismo 3. How many laps of Trial Mountain did you complete with Feeder’s Buck Rogers anthem blaring in the background? 

That solid gold banger popped up in my shuffle the other day, while I happened to be driving. And as the miles passed I thought ‘is that the most charmingly dated lyric of the 21st Century’?

Let’s break it down. “He’s got a brand new car.” No he hasn’t. No-one has. There’s a semi-conductor chip shortage, massive waiting lists, not enough HGV drivers to get cars that are built from the factory to the showroom and even if you could get a new motor, you couldn’t afford to put petrol or electricity in it afterwards, because the cost of living has skyrocketed like an early SpaceX booster lately. 

“Looks like a Jaguar.” Unlikely. Jaguar’s gone to sleep for a few years. The newest car it currently produces is the E-Pace, which came along in 2017. The recently facelifted XE and XF are actually on hiatus right now as partner-brand Land Rover demands the vital chips needed to keep the much more profitable Range Rover and Defender flowing down the production line.

Jaguar’s basically treading water until it tries to reinvent itself as an all-electric deluxe boutique. So if anyone’s got a brand new car right now, it’s extremely unlikely to be a Jaguar. 

As the miles passed I thought ‘is that the most charmingly dated lyric of the 21st Century’?

“It’s got leather seats.” Eurgh? In 2022? Get out. That should be a sustainably produced vegan wool-effect interior comprised of recycled microplastics harvested from our dying oceans and upholstery dyes fashioned from vapourised fruit, you decadent rock stars. 

“It’s got a CD player (player player player player player player player player player player player player)…”

A what? A laser-scanning device for a circular slither of plastic containing data in the form of microscopic indentations, capable of storing around 74 minutes of music. This, children, was how the world took its tunes portable in the latter years of the 20th Century. When this lyric was written, the CD player was indeed the premier form of mobile listening. Eight months after the song was released, Apple revealed something called an iPod. 

And so in four short lines, we see the demise of tech, the changing of tastes, and a harbinger of economic decline. Wow, Buck Rogers was deep for a three-minute stadium headbanger.

Don’t worry though, I’ve had a think and rewritten the song’s iconic intro to be bang up to date in 2022. Cue the music. 

“They’ve got a well-used car…. / Looks like a rough Tesla… / It’s got man-made seats…  / It’s got a giant touchscreen with no helpful switchgear which actually makes simple tasks like adjusting the temperature or angling the door mirrors while driving safely a bit of a pain, if we’re honest.”

But I don’t wanna talk about it any more.