You irascible rascal, you

HERE'S my Grumps Guide for 2014.

2005 Ford GT, up for auction.

HEADING into the new year this paper's Weekend A Plus featured a "Grumps' Guide to 2014", detailing what most of the section's "friends" didn't want to eat, drink, watch, read, see or hear in 2014. Did editor Stephen Brook ask his poor relations in the motoring section, Phil King and me, what we didn't want to drive, watch or eat? No. Of course not. So here it is.

I don't want to drive: The Lexus IS 350 F Sport (from $73,000 here, $49,000 in the US). Toyota, we know what you are doing. Lexus is for people who want a sanctuary. Somewhere quiet, somewhere with no surprises, something like an upmarket Volvo that will never break down. Excitement and fast is another world. A world for people who don't remember a time before seatbelts. A world full of WRXs, M3s and even Mercedes A45 AMGs, which are too out of control to be sold to the dopes in the US. Everybody knows you have to keep these worlds apart. Kramer and George Costanza had it right: "If the worlds collide they explode into something like a Skoda."

I don't want to read: Car manuals, particularly from countries where English is a second language. Car manuals are as interesting as Baltic exchange rates, as long as Mark Proust's In Search of Lost Time and as dense as Lee Smolin's ripper on string theory, The Trouble with Physics. They serve no useful purpose except to confuse you and as a fallback for manufacturers who can say: "But it says in the manual you are not meant to do a three-point turn with the radio on." Any manual that comes with a Japanese or Korean car may as well be in Urdu.

I don't want to watch: Any television show on cars except the British Top Gear. More than 90 per cent of the population of the Western world said they hated TV shows on cars. Another 9 per cent lied. That leaves less than 1 per cent of us who like some car programs such as F1 live, Bathurst and MotoGP. The only exception is Top Gear, which has a bigger budget than The Great Gatsby and a better story-line.

I don't want to see: The end of drive-ins. At their peak there were 4000 in the US; today there are 357. There were 330 in Australia; today there are 17. Ironically, it has fallen to the fashion house Chanel to show us how to bring them back. I'm not sure if Gabby Chanel (people who didn't know her well called her Coco) is still running the show but last month her people built a drive-in inside a Dallas fairground and filled it with classic American metal and 100 of the best-looking models dressed in what French designers think is cowboy and Indian gear. Not politically correct but if the Kirby brothers want to lift the Village Roadshow share price, I've given them the business model.

What would make me grumpy: Some retired Australian agri executive gazumping me on the 2005 Ford GT being auctioned by RM in Arizona this week. Yes, I should have bought one new when they were $120,000. This one has only 7000km, all the options and at somewhere near $250,000 is going to be a steal. Once upon a time new Cobras were $6000. Forty-nine years later that same car will cost you $850,000. The Ford GT is a better road car, and will just get more unaffordable.

No thanks: Carmakers ripping us off with parts and service. We all know at the bottom end of the market dealers are losing money on every car they sell. But at the upper end dealers are making more than 20 per cent on some models and still marking up parts by 300 per cent, lying about reliability issues and charging serious money for servicing cars badly. And just wait until you hear how the insurance duopoly is doing us over!