Opinion: Flawlessly built cars have warped our idea of perfection

Is perfect the same for one person as the next? It’s very unlikely

My microwave door doesn’t fit. I don’t mean it’s falling off and preventing my rewarming of yesterday’s leftovers—I just mean it’s three or four millimeters down on the left. It doesn’t sit properly in the kitchen cabinet it’s built into. The main oven, directly below, isn’t actually directly below. It’s a couple of millimeters to the right. And the fridge door is a little wonky relative to the drawers next to it. I can’t help noticing every single morning as I get the milk.

But don’t worry: You’re the only one in your household who cares, at least unless you share your life with someone else who’s spent too much time, as you have and as I have, idly examining the fit and finish of cars. What other sphere of activity manufactures with anything like the precision and consistency of the automotive industry? The trouble with ‘handcrafted’ objects is the parts don’t consistently fit. Someone makes one part, then makes the next part to fit the first one.

OTHER STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:There’s a certain elegance to the Ferrari Roma Spider that feels unmatchedMercedes-Benz used an X-ray in a crash test...for science Henry Ford gets the credit for inventing mass production using interchangeable parts. But there are earlier examples. The Royal Navy needed 100,000 pulley blocks a year for its sailing ships, and they had to be jam-proof and repairable. So in the 19th century, it set up a block mill at the Portsmouth Dockyard. It used accurate lathes, standard screw sizes, and novel assembly machinery.

But does it make us happy? Look at the bumper gaps and the dash fit on an E30 BMW M3. Gaping. But we still want one. And if something got knocked on an ’80s or ’90s car, you might be able to biff it back, near enough that it wouldn’t matter. These days, it costs so much to realign a bumper. Plus, every time you walk into the kitchen, the sight of the oven door sets your teeth on edge.

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