Why are car keys so ugly?

[Jeenyus161]

You spend years of your life deciding what your ideal car is; ferrari 599 GTO, Aston Martin One 77, etc etc. You agonise over which exterior/interior colour combination is right. Which design/size of wheel do you go for? Do you want this extra, or that? Contrast stitching, yes or no? And so on and so on.

Finally, you've scrimped and saved your many pennies and get the chance to own that dream car. Perfect spec, low miles (or new), the sun is shining, your favourite band are on the stereo and there are miles and miles of empty Isle of Man roads to explore.

In short, you're in heaven.

Having parked up your car, you walk off, take a cheeky look back to admire your wonderful new purchase and head to the pub to tell everyone how in love you are.

So why is it, that the only bit of your car you get to take with you; the only piece of the car that can represent itself to the world is so frequently such a clear afterthought? I give you:

The ferrarri 599 GTO car key:
http://cdn.johnywheels.com/2016/04/09/ferraricarke...

The Aston Martin One 77 car key:
http://img0108o.psstatic.com/157206102_aston-marti...

At least the Pagani Huarya is trying:
http://www.revvolution.com/image/albums-1-43-s2-gv...

Surely, if you've spent more than some people spend on their house, you'd expect a decent key to take away with you? Tell me I'm being fussy, but Ferrari in particular (in my opinion) are failing their customers here.

Now come on, tell me all of these things:

1 - who cares about a key so long as I can do 23678mph in 2nd
2 - i'd rather they focused on achieving 0.00000000000001 Cd
3 - who cares so long as the blonde in the dress picks it out the bowl
etc etc

[Jeenyus161]

tankplanker said:

The current XC90's fobs aren't that bad:

The outer shell is removable and can be swapped with different leather/wood/metal cases.

The new Mini keyless fob is similar, but rather hiddeous:

I do quite like that XC90 one. I'm sure there are a few examples of ones that are reasonable, but for the most part they are fugly! Also agree with the notion of them doing more. App to monitor MPG etc? More functions like seat warmers etc?

I'm just saying that if you can get a piece of flappy plastic on your front wing that'll deform to channel air one way or another dependent on your speed, why can't your key look less like something that unlocks a storage bin??

[Jeenyus161]

jan8p said:

If you plonked that down on the bar, wouldn't people just think you're just some idiot who's brought a toy car to the pub?

Some child would steal it and it'd cost you about £5k for a replacement.

hahaha

[Jeenyus161]

smithyithy said:

On the subject of smartphone apps etc, would be cool if you could program your key to your phone so it can be used for keyless entry / start. Bit like contactless paying, it's convenient to have your phone do most things nowadays.

Yeah, like that idea a lot - have an app that lets you lock/unlock the car, have the car alarm paired to your phone so you know if it's being nicked etc etc.

Then you could have a back up key for emergencies/the days you drop your phone in your beer...!

[Jeenyus161]

You should be able to configure the key to match the car - this may just be my ocd coming out though. What do people think about finger print scanners? still have your start/stop button and an iphone style fingerprint recognition for entry.

[Jeenyus161]

That 928 key is fantastic!

It seems to me that the mid range exec rep-mobiles are where the innovation is. But back to the OP - why aren't more super / hyper cars making a better hash of this?