Favorite cars for regular long journeys (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER) Rover SD1 awesome, BMW 7 series great, Ford Granada MK2 excellent, Opel Senator great, Lincoln Continental great, Peugeot 407 very good, Peugeor 405 good, Volvo 240DL very good, Oldsmobile Cutlass- very good, Fiat Tipo good, Ford Taurus good, covered long distances in these cars, in different countries.

Big cars are incredibly competent for covering long drives in comfort. My father had a Merc 220s which was good and the Borgward Isabella was even better.

Two very different beasts for very different purposes but I'd call out:

SsangYong Korando, which I had for four years. Brilliant 4x4 system and built like a tank. Great for some more remote winter family trips and bad weather.

Current daily driver is a c class estate (1.8 petrol, more than enough) and it's excellent for long distance comfort. Very well built and very comfortable.

Best cars I’ve personally owned have all been Japanese. A Nissan Primera 1.6 LX which did everything asked of it for years then served a good friend for several more when I was done with it was probably the best all rounder.

I too was a fan of the Nissan Primera,I had the then top of the range 2.O egt. It was a great car and I had it superchipped which gave it better driveability and more on the throttle response.

It’s difficult to compare cars owned in the past with modern cars due to modern technology and gizmos. That said, one of the best I’ve owned is a 1983 Vauxhall Carlton estate. We had a large family and a dog so roomy cars were de rigueur and in 1986, people carriers hadn’t been invented (I don’t think). It was a 1.8 litre but it had adequate power for motorway cruising and the smaller engine gave respectable fuel economy - 38 on a long run. It was also the first car we had with a 5 speed gearbox, a sunshine roof and a proper radio/cassette player built into the dash rather than screwed underneath the dash on a bracket. We bought it at 42,000 miles and ran it until it reached 93,000 miles and drank a pint of oil every 300 miles.

But the car I think I’ve enjoyed most is my current one, an Audi A4 Avant. It’s a 2 litre petrol turbo and has poke, good fuel economy, a very comfortable ride on smooth roads, plenty of room, lots of toys and tech and I love the looks. But how is that a fair comparison with the Carlton estate?

Before the A4 I had an A3 Sportback with the 1.4 petrol turbo engine. Until then, that was the best car I’d ever owned, but the A4 beats it as the A3 didn’t have all the gizmos that the A4 has and, being smaller, the ride wasn’t quite as good.

Agree about the Volvo seat comfort..and I loved that 5 cylinder symphony of the V70 I had..was a joy to drive the car each day just to listen to it.

Mine was an auto and had the W (Winter) button facility...nothing stopped that car from getting through snow etc where lesser cars failed.

It replaced a Ignis AGS which is an automated manual. Now that did have a few issues.

Thanks Ethan, well the AGS gearbox in the Ignis is a source of great irritation to me, particulalry because in certain other markets, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand that i know of, the Ignis auto has a CVT transmission. That here in the UK we have been saddled with the AGS, i'd blame on the motoring press who really seem to have it in for the CVT. To be honest, i'd rather have the Ignis than the Swift because of it being narrower (we live in a narrow street with double parking) and also due to its seat height (getting old!), but that automated manual gearbox does put me off!.

I will probably try and get a test drive of an Ignis AGS (as well as a Swift auto) to see what i think, but what issues did you have with yours?. Looking through owners reviews, i have seen mention of jerky 1st-2nd/2nd-3rd changes, and especially when cold. Though this does seem to be much reduced by lifting off the throttle slightly during the change. Also seen it mentioned that you can only apply a certain amount of throttle when pulling away, otherwise juddering will result.

As "excellent to own" means lack of rust , reliability and long lasting wear and tear items this puts a different emphasis on it for me. The only excellent cars I have actually owned are new or almost new cars from the VW group over the last 30 years. I've had the odd problem.

Excellent to drive is another thing. I've had many cars that did not meet any of the above, but were a pleasure to drive when behaving, Mini, Maxi and even Marina. My Renault 18TL (same engine as a small Volvo) was excellent on the motorway and in the winter with Uniroyal tyres.

I've enjoyed driving other peoples cars like Rover 90, Rover 3 litre, original Fiesta XR2, Sunbeam Rapier H120, various Ford Zephyrs including a Dagenham dustbin. Lots of flashbacks there.

Thinking more on best cars I recall the response when the Volvo 850 was launched, I still have a copy of What Car with a test between the 2.0 GLT, the BMW 520i SE 24v, Audi 100 2.0E, Vauxhall Carlton 2.0i Diplomat and the Saab 9000 2.0 LPT SE. We all remember the praise the 5 series got but the Volvo won the test, it even beat the BMW in the handling and ride section. Here was a solidly built Volvo that was every bit as reliable and long lived as any other but it also drove brilliantly. I was present when my dad test drive one, the very same model but instead he strangely bought a Honda Civic 1.6 VTi 4dr, a rarity even then. It was a good little car, pretty rapid but it was noisy and hard riding, it was replaced by a Merc C180 not long after. He didn’t half waste money on cars, this is where my hatred for losing money on them comes from. I think the Volvo would’ve been the best longterm buy he could’ve made at the time, in fact a friends parents bought one new in 1994 and only recently got rid of it when they stopped driving. It’s a strange omission but although I’ve sold them I’ve never personally owned or run a large Volvo. I’ve had several smaller 440’s as company cars in the 90’s but although comfortable and surprisingly quick in 1.7 injected form they weren’t well made cars, not in the same league as the 700/800 series models.

I recall that too, SLO...and of course the 850 did particularly well in the British Touring Car series of the day...and the 850R was legendary.

I always fancied an 850 and we went to look at one, around 8k as I remember, quite a bit of cash then with a family and dogs. The salesman saw me look at an older but much cheaper 740, headlight out, crack in the screen but he said it was basically good. They fixed the light and the screen, I ignored the 165k on the clock and ran it for a few years, result I think.

Best and worst were both in the days when living in East Africa in the 1970s:

Best was a Volvo 145S - tough as old boots on dirt roads; and the worst an American Ford Bronco (like SWB Land Rover but without the charm) - it had awful vacuum-powered wipers (remember those? - they ground to a halt in heavy rain when the engine was labouring) and worse still had a horrible tendency for the back-end to break away and attempt the overtake the front (probably been in an accident under a previous owner - this was a particular concern on escarpment roads with no barrier and a vertical drop of several thousand foot to the valley below)

A 1972 Triumph Dolomite 1850, bought 4 years old and kept for ages. Smooth, fast comfy, but it did have the odd fault. I nearly wrote it off one icy day in the wilds of Cambridgeshire.

More recent nice cars: 1990 Ciroen BX GTi auto. Wonderful auto box, very light, 1.9 petrol. 2000 Volvo V70. Run out model, last of the 850 shaped V70s. Great car with 2.4 engine and, in contrast to later V70s, a truly tight turning circle that meant manoevering in tught spaces was a doddle.

All time favourite..

Rover 827 V6 manual 2.7 litre Honda in British Racing Green.

Nothing more to say!

1990, H reg Nissan Primera. Bought it in 1996, reluctantly parted in 2004 after a hitherto trusted garage bowlsed up a timing chain replacement and left a once bone-dry engine leaking oil. Sold it as a temporary runabout to a work colleague who left it on his drive to rot and then scrapped it. Great drive, not much in the way of power but when you got into that car, you knew you'd get where you were intending to go. Took me and my family on many a happy holiday during its time in our ownership.

Next best our current car, a 13 plate Honda Jazz. Needs lots of revs to get it moving, but again, it raises your expectations of what a car can manage reliability wise.

We've had many Fords over the years and I once said I would never buy a Japanese car, but those two beauties have finally persuaded me that first on my list from now on is always likely to be from an Oriental stable.