Oddly, I have to agree with you about the series of Escorts: they started pretty bad and shot down hill after a few sparkling vehicles (made at AVO, not Dagenham!)
Luxury cars: yes... Old Rolls were pretty poor, too but, when compared to some of their contemporaries, they weren't too bad. In their 'early life' they were well ahead on comfort but, when you get to the Citroen ID and DS, series, Rolls were left for DEAD in those terms. And the new ones are simply spectacularly good.
But.... isn't this the key... in terms of being a 'Car' (transport for people', then they are a joke.... the price range is not realistic. The term 'road barge' would seem better!
I use my own standard for judging cars (surprise, surprise....):
Does the car do what it PURPORTS (to claim to be a certain thing, etc. by manner or appearance) to do?
Cars that succeed at this are:-
The Micra (cheap, reliable small family transport) The Elise (spectacular driving experience) The Rolls Silver Ghost (gliding to dinner parties or the opera) The Trabant (the CHEAPEST personal transport on the planet in the 60s) Tata Nano (cheapest car for 3rd world) The GTR (Just don't mess with ME!) etc..
Cars that don't:-
The Nissan Qashquai (I am an 'off road' vehicle...) The 911 (I pretend that I am a SERIOUS sporting car.... I also pretend to be reliable.... and the public FALL for it!.... tee hee!) The LandRover Disco (I am reliable, off-road , green-wellies car for huntin'/shootin' brigade) Latest Subaru (I could still win rallies without modification) The Mini Cooper S (I am small, well made and handle well...... (ooooops)) Any BMW on low profile tyres (I can get up the smallest incline if the weather deteriorates...)
That seems a reasonable system to consider the car. What drives me BONKERS is when car magazines/programmes try to judge cars by a standard that they DON'T purport to be:-
Telling us how the Toyota Yaris handles Telling us that Elise fails on taking waste building material to a skip... Assessing the handling on a Tata Nano... Comparing the GTR to the Veyron.....
So.... the Escort WAS cheap and cheap-to-run family transport back then. It was NOT a performance car until AVO got to work on it. When they started pretending that the final series Escort RS was a PERFORMANCE car....... well......
I commend my judgement-decision-tool to the house.....
Does it do what it PURPORTS to do?
Ian
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