Media | Articles
Our Two Cents: The Best Cupholders (Or Not?)
We received valuable feedback in a previous Our Two Cents, something that we took to heart. Not to toot our own horns too much, but Hagerty Media is an organization that believes in continuous improvement, on par with the actions of a Toyota assembly line. Here’s that feedback, from Hagerty Community member Michael A:
C’mon Hag…this feature is really kinda’ lame. Your answers are coffee, tea, water, soda, and (maybe) beer. Is this a surprise? To anyone?
A better feature would be the Top 10 automotive cup holders of all time. Whether we’ll admit it or not, it’s one of the first things we look for when trying-on a new car.
Ask and you shall receive! Well, sort of: Here are the best cup holders, along with a few that aren’t so good, according to the Hagerty Media staff.
The Magnetic Ones
“Any old truck (or car) with exposed steel on the doors or dash and this amazingly convenient Craftsman magnetic cupholder are perfect together. I think it’s meant for a toolbox, but man it’s awesome to have in the shop truck on an early morning parts run!” – Ben Woodworth
LT-1, 6-speed, And A What?
“Back in the late ’80s, my dad had a Chevy Celebrity. It didn’t have cupholders, and we were always on the road, so he bought those really awkward plastic ones that you hooked onto the window sill. They didn’t work all that well, and didn’t hold anything bigger than a can or a smallish styrofoam (such were the times) cup of coffee.
So when the ads for the ’93 Camaro came out touting its 275 horses, a six-speed manual transmission, and a ‘cup holder big enough to hold a Slurpee,’ 13-year-old me was blown away. All that performance and a real cupholder for big drinks? Sign me up.” – Eddy Eckart
Marketplace
Buy and sell classics with confidence
Perfect For Thirsty Elbows?
“The cupholders in my 2008 Civic Si are absolutely sublime. I love how they are situated just behind the gearshift and in front of the short console armrest. I absolutely love the sensation of hitting my elbow and arm on the water bottle in my cupholder every time I change gears. And with that close-ratio box, that’s every few seconds. Admit it, you’re jealous.” – Greg Ingold
Flawed German Engineering
“With Greg’s car in mind, a candidate for ‘forget about hydration and drive’ is the first-gen Porsche Boxster. The ultra-flimsy, shallow pop-out cupholders were located immediately above the radio and guaranteed you’d either spill your drink onto the dash or it’d fly out on acceleration or cornering. Fortunately, the center stack of the 986 Boxster is modular, so I deleted the cupholders, moved the radio and A/C controls up, and added extra cubby storage beneath.” – Eddy Eckart
“This is a good time to ask people to click on my story of the BMW E39 cupholder upgrade. Because the aftermarket does a great job fixing the occasional sins of German engineering.”– Sajeev Mehta
Packing It Up
“The best cupholder is my Kriega R15 backpack. All of my vintage cars and motorcycles lack functional cupholders, so it’s up to my backpack and a thermos to hold anything I would like to have to drink wherever I’m going. This backpack has been a cupholder on a lot of adventures and is only just getting broken in—and still has no evidence of spills.” – Kyle Smith
The Bare Mini-mum?
“I always liked the wire hang-on cupholder in my 2006 Mini Cooper. It’s removable if you don’t need it, and it’s one of the few parts on the car that are still good as new.” – Steven Cole Smith
Whatever’s In The Rental Car
“Since most of my vehicles do not have cupholders, I look back fondly at every rental car I’ve driven. Their cupholders have always come in handy, but not just for long road trips.
I somewhat fondly remember my past life as a corporate suit, and how great it was to have a car with a cupholder for the passable coffee offered at most hotels. Sipping on that stuff on my way to a (usually) stressful business meeting really helped take off the edge, and get me in the right frame of mind.
So to all the rental cars I’ve had the honor of borrowing, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The sticky bottoms of your cupholders have always brightened my day.” – Sajeev Mehta
Mid-Cycle Refreshment Failures
“Miata is always the answer, especially in the matter of where to put your beverages. Each of the two cupholders in the NB Miata are protected by a lid that’s impossible to open if you already have a drink in your hand. Even worse, their placement—inline, in the center console aft of the shifter and the window switches—means that your drink is never safe from your elbows. What could be a better arrangement for sipping an iced coffee in a lovely little convertible?” – Grace Jarvis
“Not to be too much of a Miata dork, but Grace is actually talking about the improved NB2 center console that had two separate cupholders. If you wanted to use the cupholder in 1999-00 Miatas, you had to open the console door. Either way, this is a good incentive to put the cup down and drive.” – Eddy Eckart
“Sheesh, these comments remind me of the improved cup holders for the 1997-98 Lincoln Mark VIII. They usually broke 28.7 months after the warranty expired, but at least there were two broken cup holders instead of the one functional unit in the outgoing 1993-96 models.
Ford and its Japanese subsidiaries really knew how to revise an interior for a mid-cycle refresh back in the 1990s, eh?” – Sajeev Mehta
Find more values
Search for prices of other cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles
Saab deserves a mention for their cupholders. Totally hidden and then they deploy with a single press.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tjVN6p8VkPM
Now those are really neat!
Yes, indeed. I thought these were genius.
I also remember the flimsy plastic ones that hung on the door. In my past working years, we had company cars like Ford Taurus & Chevy Celebrities. I would keep one of them whenever I had a car checked out. One trip I was working with a young lady who grew up with much privilege (she was the daughter of an oil company executive). When another coworker and I were off at one job site, she took said car to the office. She had grabbed a cup of coffee at the hotel, placed it into the cup holder, and then slammed the door. Obviously, she ended up with the entire cup all over her silk dress. I never heard the end of it, as it was my fault for having such a defective cup holder!
Nordic elegance vs. Germanic Over Engineering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFrkmDd_0g
By the way if your drink spilled into the shift it caused pure havoc with the transmission control module.
The movie, not the book: “Fate Is The Hunter.”
And, just the punchline: Don’t forget the coffee, dear.
Although I always have either a Yeti coffee cup or a water bottle in either of my Audis, I’ve always appreciated the German’s early attitude regarding cupholders. When they finally decided to equip cars with them for the US market, it was almost with resignation “Fine, you vant cupholders, ve’ll give you cupholders but. don’t expect us too engineer our cars around them. Ve’ll find a place to put them at our convenience, not yours. Ve build cars for driving, not for going through das drive through!”
I was coming here to say my 2006 Saab 9-3 had a great hidden cup holder. It opened with an easy touch and was still reasonably sturdy.
The earlier Classic 900 didn’t have cup holders unless you counted two shallow indents on the inside of the glovebox door. Totally useless unless you were sitting very still.
No cup holder is just fine. Cars are for driving.
You think Enzo sweated over where to put a cup holder LOL!
Probably more worried about the GT-40.
doh!
Probably why he was always reportedly cranky.
Enzo said: “You pay for the engine, the rest of the car is free”.
So, for cup holders…you get what you pay for….LOL
We have a 2004 4Runner (it’s technically Mrs. DUB6s car, but it really is the dog’s). It has two cupholders in the console just ahead of the shifter. There are adjustable little arms to accept larger or smaller containers and keep them firmly in place. But the part that really sold me on them is that there are small dim lights inside them (that come on with the headlights) so that you can see where to aim your container when driving at night. Might seem like a small detail – and even a bit silly – but the console and the dash are black, as is my YETI cup, so it really helps to replace it correctly without taking my eyes off the road.
I know, I know, maybe I’m a little too easily impressed!
As to Miata cupholders, I’ve owned all 4 generations. NA and NB were not well placed for shifting, and needing to leave the console lid open was a pain in the neck. NC cupholders were better placed, but were so loose that you risked dumping your drink onto the shifter if you hit the brakes hard. The ND cupholders hold drinks securely, but their locations aren’t great. If you have no passenger, you can move one of them to the passenger transmission tunnel, and it’s very effective. Otherwise, you need to be able to dislocate your shoulder to reach a drink… that is if you don’t knock the drink out of the cupholder with your elbow.
I’m guessing that these are NOT your submissions for “best” cupholders, right Mike? 😉
Pretty much.
Best cup holder for NB – any version – foam coozie – properly adjusted passenger seat – stuff coozie between seat and rear bulkhead – insert properly sized beverage or cup. Voila!
Mike, I love your analogy here! I own a 2020 RF, and you are spot on with them! You can forget about drinking anything when my wife is in the car. I can only use the cup holder (on the passenger side) when I’m the only one in the car. And let’s not forget about the center storage compartment, just above the drink holders. Let’s see, how can I get something out without spilling my coffee??? Hmmmm.
No cupholders in any cars or trucks I had before the 90’s. How did we ever survive back in those primitive times?
My ’68 Park Lane had two armrests in the front seat and I could use one and leave the other mostly up and it would hold a bottle of coke just perfectly. My ’72 Satellite would hold a pop between the pass’ seat and the console, squeezed in perfectly. My ’75 F-250 had a flat dash and you could wedge a coffee in between the dash and windshield pretty securely, just drive smoothly. Enough for now.
Ye-gads! Running out of things automotive to review? What’s next, who has the best muffler bearings? Or “how to grill a chicken at 65 MPH?
Eating,drinking, and big screens require distraction from driving. Finish your drink outside the car and focus on driving.
Well, I don’t know about the chicken, but I did a baked potato once. With butter and pepper!
First, if you’re out on day long runs in a roadster, you damn well NEED a drink. If that annoys you, then think of it as a teaching aid. Put the car in a perfect drift without creating a ripple on the surface of the beverage. (as per ‘Initial D’)
Cup holders are a necessity. Remember the old days when we held the cup between our legs and then had to make a sudden stop?
I would like to see an article on the dumbest car names. I look at silly car names and chuckle. Mitsubishi Mirage? Did I really see that? Espire? Trying to Espire to what?
None of my vintage rides have cupholders, and I’d use them if they had them, so as it is their best cupholder is my greasy callused paw. Doesn’t impede my stick shifting ability either.
Supremely honorable mention to the Saab example linked by comfortablynumb.
The 88-98 Chevy trucks had elite designs, the only issue was that they were not made of great materials
By far, the worst I have ever seen or owned was the one in my 2004 Mercedes E320. This thing was very complex (for a cupholder) and it broke twice. Finally, I just gave up and pulled it out and used the hole it sat in.
Same with my 2004 E55!
I assume you’re talking bout the spiral pop-ups that were an early Mercedes cupholder concept. They were absolutely the worst!
Pretty sure that both photos of the Craftsman “magnetic” cupholder clearly show sheet metal screws, so, there’s that.
Looks to me like the “screws” are likely the magnet attachments.
Yep. The “screws” are short bolts that attach the magnet to the cupholder.
Or you could just google them and see they’re real: https://a.co/d/6Ew1odQ
The worst ones were those tiny indentations on the rear of the glove compartment door of 1960s GM cars. Totally useless!
I think those were drink trays for the use when at the drive in movie theatre… could just be my imagination though.
Still useless
Not completely. I remember in the late 50’s/early sixties we would go to the “Big Pixie” drive in for burgers and root beer floats. Down would pop the glove compartment door and mom and dad were well accommodated as long as we sat parked. My brother and I in the back seat? Not so much.
94-97 dodge Ram cup holder located above the radio, held two cups, hit a bump or take a hard corner and the 40 oz cup of soft drink bounces out and spills all over the dash and gauges. Lovely way to spend some alone time cursing and cleaning your dash. Horrible design !!
Plus 1 on poor design Dodge Ram cupholder. I bought a 96 2500 diesel brand new. Only put coffee cup in it one time. Learned not to use it after that. It was mounted too high up on dash.
Sounds about like the cup holders in my ’84 Caravan. The lower part of the center dash jutted out several inches from the upper part, and had a flat top with two circles drawn on it. Actually I think they were depressions molded in, a little less than 1/16 inch.
I remember Car and Driver saying the Caravan didn’t have enough cup holders, and down grading it for not having enough. I remember saying that I don’t by a car for cup holders. I guess the general public what cup holders.
Well cited! The whole concept of this article is a take-off on that era of car reviewers. Also, if Porsche upgraded their cupholder, it made the cover of R&T.
Not sure if good or bad. My 2019 RAM has 12 cupholders. That is 2 six packs….for the mathematically challenged. 😉
Pontiac Solstice pop out cup holder on the right side of the console. Only big enough for a soda can and very fragile. One bump from a passengers leg and it’s done.
BMW e9x cupholders compete for worst design. Tucked into the dash. When they still function they provide a flimsy low center of gravity holder sure to dump anything taller than a 12oz drink. And both intrude on the passengers lap.
Actually makes me miss the plastic window hangers in Dad’s’66 Buick.
The Pontiac Solstice holders were weird to say the least. A pair sprung from the waterfall between the seats, and another out of the side of the forward transmission tunnel on the passenger side. Why a two seat car needed three cupholders was always a bit baffling to me. Also about as flimsy a design as possible.
+1 on the ridiculous Boxster cupholders, but they aren’t limited to the first gen Boxster. My 2014 Cayman has the same poor design. It’s almost like Porsche doesn’t want you use them.
My 2000 Boxster S has the factory cup holders that clip into the far left and right air vents. You can’t put much of anything in them and get it out without hitting the A pillar. Quite useless!
Twenty years later, nothing has improved on the score, unfortunately. Despite the mechanical billiance of the 718 Porsches, the cupholders evoke a mid-eighties Yugo. Lots of arrogance there, I’m afraid.