In my 240z I have to shove my coffee into the ashtray, which sucks because then it cant be used for extra-curricular activities. In the e30m3 have to shove my coffee between the seat and the door, its snug like a bug.

68' Classic MiniCooper has an ashtray for every passenger, and a communal one in the front.

No cup-holders, less airbags.

My E36 M3 has a ring in the cupholder meant to accommodate smaller cups, which is promptly thrown away the first time it sticks to a cup that you then throw in the trash at a roadside rest stop...

It’s made for euro cups, aka espresso shots ha.

At least they're all really cool cars.

Yeah they really enjoyable. I daily the 240z, no complaints here. All smiles.

I recently bought a new car and cupholders were a major factor in my decision. I drink a lot of water and hence require a large cup (Yeti 30oz Rambler). I took my cup with me to every dealership, and was surprised that it only fit in a couple of cars that I looked at (one of which I ended up with).

did you lose the lid?

Funny enough, I didn't, but my brother in law did, so I gave him mine since I never used it. I guess I did lose it by proxy. I'm a chugger and lids tend to restrict the flow too much for me.

I thought most Yeti products could be purchased with optional wheels and ICE? Don't worry about a cupholder, just ride around in your cooler.

My 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee has my favorite arrangement now. One standard cupholder for each passenger and a water bottle holder in the door.

This means that even when you can't pull over to get a drink, you can always reach down and get water. However, the regular cupholder remains free if you get a coffee or whatever.

My VW golf has a large enough holder in the door for a 1L nalgene bottle. It's AMAZING. I rarely drink from it while driving but I often take a large bottle of water with me wherever I'm going, just so I have it to drink from at my destination, or whatever. For example, each of the past 2 weekends I've driven an hour each way to a trail race and have lots of water when I arrive. I suppose I could just let it bang around in the trunk the entire journey, but having it secured seems far more civilized.

The following is from Tom's obituary in WAPO [1]

Tom Magliozzi (cartalk [2]) once held up the Chevrolet minivan for ridicule, questioning why it needed 13 cup-holders.

“That’s one area where General Motors has excelled,” he said. “When people talk about the Japanese being ahead of us, they don’t hold a patch to us in cup holders.”

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tom-magliozzi-h...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Talk

I don't think I've ever felt the need to drink in a car. Must be a cultural thing, or I guess Americans are making loooong car trips.

I make a round trip that's 3-4 hours one way (often with a break stop partway through) about once a month.

That doesn't even involve crossing into a different state (far from it).

America is big with lots of empty space and people who drive really long distances.

The number of places where you can catch a train to go between cities is very limited and often even when it is an option it's faster and more convenient to drive yourself anyway.

The fact that in most places you basically have to own a car to be able to live in an affordable neighborhood and commute to where the jobs are contributes to that as well.

Yeah, long car trips. Just visiting my parents is 2 hours by car. My sister would be 2-3 days (I fly for that). I drove to visit my nearest aunt and uncle and that was a very, very long one day drive. About 12-13 hours.

It must be cultural, because two hours doesn't seem that long to me, yet nobody I know would drink in the car on such a trip, we'd stop at a gas station / roadside diner.

Probably. I can't see why I wouldn't at least want the option of being able to carry a beverage. But I primarily drive two-seaters and don't see the need for more than one or two, let alone 19!

It just seems like a waste of time to sit for 30 minutes in the middle of a journey and wait for your coffee to cool. It's far more leisurely to sip it as you drive instead of feeling hurried to finish it.

Yeah, another of our cultural differences is that we mainly drink espressos, not large cups. So it's a 5-10 minute break, not 30.

I'm a driving aficionado, not a cupholder aficionado. But surely Zee Germans have felt the need to sip a coffee on their way to the Nürburgring.

I far more often use the cupholder for my phone than for a beverage, but I definitely find myself taking an iced coffee on the go for longer trips.

If you drink coffee in the morning and drive a car to work then as a matter of public safety you should have a cup holder.

Or you could drink it before entering the car.

I think you’re grossly under estimating how much coffee is being drank.

Interesting how this seems to be a non-issue in Europe (I guess shorter commuting distances and public transport). Which also might explain why european cars have (or used to have) flimsy or badly designed cup-holders. I imagine the cup holders where designed in a rush to suit the North American market after the rest of the interiors had been finalized.

There's also far less of a takeaway drinks culture in Europe, for both fizzy drinks and coffee. The only drink I ever have in a car is a bottle of water which fits fine in the door pocket.

AFAIK the cupholders are a purely North-American thing. I never used one, ever, in any car, and I know of only one person that ever uses them to hold beverages (though never cups, always water bottles). Really an unfathomable mystery to me.

More an American thing, I think. Here in Canada (specifically British Columbia), eating or drinking while driving is considered distracted driving, and police will issue a fine of $368 and 6 driver penalty points.

I have never gotten or even heard about someone getting a ticket for eating/drinking while driving. It would be national news if someone got one of these tickets. Going through the drive-through for a cup of coffee and drinking it on your way to work is part of the norm here, dare I say that it’s part of our national identity.

Sure, it’s technically a crime. But it’s never enforced unless you’re being extremely negligent, just like jay walking. I think officers use the rule of “did you cause other drivers to take action to avoid you?” when enforcing this.

Drinking from a straw in a cup would be the least distracting action most drivers I see would ever take. Much less distracting than playing games on the phone, applying makeup, reading, etc.

If Europe had cities as far apart as America does, it would be different.

Remember that North America has states and provinces larger than some European countries.

Heck, there are American COUNTIES larger than 23 European nations.

The size of the countries doesn't matter that much. Almost 1% of workers in the EU cross country borders in their daily commutes. Close to half a million of French residents, for example.

And close to four million people cross the border into New York City from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Connecticut each day, too. What's your point?

> On the luxury end of the spectrum, cars like the Rolls Royce came equipped with elaborate, monogrammed picnic baskets complete with silver utensils.

They may not have it listed as an option, but I would think that Rolls Royce could produce one for your new Phantom.

Edit: I have placed a call to the local dealer and hopefully they'll let me know if you can still get one.

Reply from Rolls Royce - they offer the champagne flutes and refrigerator as a standard option for the rear seat, but a picnic basket would be available through their bespoke program, where they'd create one just for you. (I didn't bother asking the price!)

Maybe they are getting better, but for a long time German cars' cupholders were breathtakingly bad. I remember a Mercedes SUV a family member drove that you pushed a button and up popped this complicated structure with arms that unfolded to embrace your cup (if it was in a limited range of sizes). I guessed at least 20 parts, half of them moving, instead of the American car's zero-part hole in the console.

I broached the subject of cupholders in cars w/ a German expat I worked with around 20-ish years ago. She told me that German attitudes toward driving were such that drinking any beverages while driving is an unnecessary distraction. She said that she was surprised and appalled at how many distractions US cars have.

My sample size of German drivers is 1. I'd be interested to hear if others have similar feelings.

Make it 2. I try to avoid drinking while driving (pun not intended) but I'm not 100% on that. Sure, if you're on the road for a few hours you might take a sip now and then, a cupholder is nice - but I try to avoid it. It's better with a second person who can hold your drink. :P

I don't think I've had coffee while driving more than twice in my life (as a driver, 16+ years).

Both cars I have access to at the moment do have 2 cupholders in the front bottom middle, but in one car they really suck (not high enough, very small, not flexible, anything bigger than a small can will nearly touch your stick shift) so they're never used. In the other car you can put a coffee cup there, but using both of them at the same time is also not ideal.

Oh, and the bottle holders in the doors also kinda suck, you can kinda wedge a small can (250ml, like Red Bull) in, or a 500ml water bottle, but good luck taking it out to drink. The unscrewing part is why I also try to avoid this.

That said, I never even looked if and how many and what quality of cup holders a car I was about to use/buy has.

My wife has a 2002 Mercedes ML320 and it has usable cup-holders near the front door pillars and a place for bottles in the front doors. Not sure about the back since I never ride back there.

Saab's had similar complicated cupholders that broke all the time. To fix it was about $300 just for parts.

A telecom equipment company I used to work for had patented a cupholder in a outdoor enclosure. This was sort of an internal joke, but I think they did actually make them.

I wish they were everywhere. I spend too much time driving long-distance and wish my car had more cupholders.

Seating for five. Three cupholders. One of them in the back seat. Lame.

The 4runner is great because the front cupholders are separated vertically and horizontally, you can't mistake the passenger side from the driver's side.

and nalgene bottles don't fit in any of them!

Cupholders are designed for disposable cups from fast food e.g. coffee cups from Starbuck/McDonalds, soda from 7/11, plastic water bottles. A lot of reusable water bottles store much more liquid in shapes that are more symmetric or even bottom heavy to ensure greater stability. These disposable cups go straight from the restaurant, to the car, and to the trash.

FWIW, I love my BottlePro2 [0] for my Nalgene's, I have a few of them and they fit into my glove box when I need to pull them out.

[0] https://www.bottlepro.net/products/bottlepro-2-new-and-impro...

This was a joke mostly. I have no issue setting the bottle on the back seat or something. I'm a bit of a nalgene and water fan.

The risk with a bottle on the seat is that it can roll off, slide under the driver seat and then obstruct the pedals.

My 2016 Golf's door pockets are perfectly sized for a 1L nalgene.

Dont know the bottle, but thats a bad designed bottle then.

That seems unfairly knee-jerk. Nalgene bottles are very good at doing the thing they were designed to do- being water bottles for hiking (it's fairly noteworthy when I see a hiker drinking out of something other than a Nalgene bottle). To fit in cupholders, they'd have to have a much smaller diameter, and thus either hold much less water, or have a "layered" shape (like the large drink sizes from fast food restaurants). Either of these would be a major compromise.

Nalgene bottles are also nigh-on indestructible. I don't know if they still do, but at one point they had an "if you can break it, we'll replace it"-level warranty). Having the layered shape would compromise the structure you get from the regular cylinder.

Moreover Nalgene water bottles became popular for consumer use (previously they were a laboratory equipment company) in the 70s according to Wikipedia. I believe that well predates the rise of cupholders in cars.

Yep - you can still buy the original HDPE lab version by the case: Part number 2104-0032

Furthermore, they have lids.

And they always fit perfectly in outdoors activity vehicles with "cupholders", like kayaks!

They're typically 1 liter plastic cylinders for holding (in/out) water. I've seen a few cupholders where they did fit. You can find cheap adapters where they don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalgene

On a similar note: I want summer clothing that does a better job holding an iphone.

Lululemon is the best for this. You can tell that "where does the phone go" is an important step in the design process for most of their products. Most of their guys clothes have an extra little spandex sleeve inside one of the pockets to snugly hold a phone and keep it separate from whatever else you put in that pocket.

Running belt. Better than the fanny pack suggestion, more concealable if your shirt is untucked.

I, personally, just choose the fashionably unpopular option of cargo shorts. But if I had to come up with something else, I'd use my running belt.

A vest with zipper pockets is my go-to all weather solution now (outside the hottest of climes)

I can CCW a full size 1911 in summer clothing, so an iPhone should be simple.

The nature of iPhone access is very different: you want to make sure you feel the phone go off, and it's culturally acceptable, so concealment isn't a concern, which means that 'summer clothing' can include fitted shirts and needn't include a belt.

Making concessions in your attire for the sake of your hobby is a necessary evil. That isn't the case for phones.

neon fanny pack.

Lip plate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lip_plate

The linked Saucemoto Kickstarter project is just... wow.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/19375970/dipclip-a-cup-...

A beer goes between the legs, not in a cup holder.