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I like big engines of at least 6 cylinders and RWD. This usually means a saloon.
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I like big engines of at least 6 cylinders and RWD. This usually means a saloon.
True. But there are a few nice exceptions out there. BMW 3 series Coupe (if you like handling), and the new Mercedes E class coupe (if you like comfort).
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A 'fastback' has always done it for me, I've owned nigh on 40 cars over the years, but I've never felt the urge to own a shooting brake, I've found them noisier than a saloon or a hatchback.
I also liked the Scimitar GTE and cars styled on that marque.
And lastly, I like the BMW touring models (estates?)
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I like sleek and graceful, this can come in convertible, coupe and saloon form and clean simplicity of design wears well, estates just don't do it for me, though i do admire their practicality.
The badge on the bonnet means little to be honest looks wise as really nice looking cars can come from anywhere, and many of the latest models are getting to be grotesque compared to the previous nice looking examples.
Trying not to negative here and failing miserably i find myself shying away from most of the latest offerings and staying with older simpler designs for design pleasure.
If i had a choice of car made today, the few that i could live with would probably be something like Dodge Charger, Lexus 460, Volvo S80, BMW 5 or maybe latest Amazon.
Amazon would probably be there just to upset the tree huggers, but i like vehicles designed to last.
Good thoughtful thread this.
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Amazon? I can only think of a 1960s Volvo - but they were certainly built to last.
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Amazon? I can only think of a 1960s Volvo -
My first car too..fond memories.
I think you know which Amazon i mean..;)
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The Citroen DS.
MD
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The Alfa Romeo Brera, to me, is one illustration of how beautiful a car shape can be.
Edited by Stuartli on 26/07/2009 at 00:16
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I'm the odd one here - the Land Rover Defender.... or 4x4 if you want the overarching style of vehicle. And with the new ones looking nice, I have to say if I won the lottery I would be tempted....
And not quite the question that was asked, but I'm also keen on the 6x6 trucks that the army are tending to use to replace the Bedfords.
Why do I answer these questions and then think I need a psychiatrists visit?
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Small sporty estate - but where are they now?
I had a cracking Honda Accord Aerodeck (the three-door 1980s one) but Honda didn't replace the model.
I had a delightful Lancia Beta HPE that was really practical and a hoot to drive, but Lancia didn't replace the model in the UK.
What I really fancied for years was a Lynx Eventer, the estate conversion of the XJS, but there aren't many around and even fewer really nice ones. At least I've now got the front bit.
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Long American-style station wagon, or a 30's sports car with a long bonnet, enormous headlights, and a sweeping tail.
Anything over 15 feet.
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My favourites are in following order
Estate - most practical
Hatchback - best value for money
Saloon - looks nice
MPV
SUV/4x4
Coupé - least practical
Convertible - impractical
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...Convertible - impractical...
Surprising what you can wedge into the rear 'seats' on a CC3 with the roof down.
Enormous boot with the roof up, too.
So not only are convertibles practical, they are also tremendous fun in any weather apart from heavy rain.
Convertibles - they're grrreat!
(Only because I've recently bought one, of course. :)
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Quite interested in the purchase psychology here. First and foremost I want to stress that I am not being critical of anyone here but merely interested in the motivation behind the decision to buy. Seems clear that cars still have the power to allow the heart to rule the head in many cases.
I too have a motoring soul. I can easily relate to being swayed by appearances.
It is though, a significant decision for the majority of people to buy a car. It should, one would have thought anyway, be mostly influenced by what it is needed for and to do. For most people lts purpose is to provide the means to transport themselves, their friends and family and any stuff they need to move in the most efficient and useful way possible.
Everything else in the decision should in theory, be now a function of taste and budget but at a secondary level to the former imperatives.
So for me the decision re bodystyle is funneled like this.....
Saloon? - no, due to limited practicality of loadspace. Often look a bit staid too.
Coupe? - no, can look great but not very useful.
Convertible? - no, love 'em to bits but even less practical than coupes
MPV? - er, no, I don't have the seating needs and find them dynamically compromised.
4x4? - no, but only because they are over specified for my needs.
Hatchback? - no, might as well have an estate
Estate - Yes, does everything I need from a car but can be bought in comfort, frugal, sporty, budget or premium configurations. Few would win any beauty contests but some look OK. Some of them in my view look better than their saloon/hatch counterparts.
It is of course to be celebrated that we are all different and that the human race is for now anyway still permitted to make irrational decisions.
My life tip though is buy an estate.....you'll never go back to a lesser car !!
;-)
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 26/07/2009 at 11:22
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>..Convertible - impractical...<
I've got a photo I took a couple of years ago of a MINI - the BMW one - cabriolet with the roof down and what looked like a fridge on the back seat.
Somehow I'm glad that the three cars we own are regarded in some quarters as 'least practical' and 'impractical'. Maybe we'll surrender again one day - but not just yet.
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Quite right Mike !
But....a Lynx Eventer would've been handier......
;-)
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Humph,
A Corniche convertible and a Rice trailer for your business kit - very stylish. :)
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Ah Humph, you do a good job of justifying the merits of what is essentially a van with windows by declaring other body styles impractical.
But impracticality doesn't really matter to many of us here, lets be honest we are quite an unusual and varied bunch, some are growing old disgracefully and to hell with convention/fashion/practicality, some are old and boring before their time, some a little too uptight, and others too barmy to fathom at all..;)
Naming no one here, but nominations on a separate sheet if you please.
We may well be a dying breed, those who have enjoyed driving before state surveillance became widespread and destroyed that pleasure, we enjoyed cars of all odd sorts for their sheer brutal power or fun handling or simplicity/dependability or a myriad of attributes.
We are unable to enjoy proper open road driving anymore, so the only pleasure left in motoring is to have a car that is a pleasure to behold or drive for it's own sake, forgetting performance as that's increasingly becoming purely a sales gimmick especially this obsession with 'brake', which as most of us know means nowt in the normal driving day.
While we can afford it, we'll own a car that fulfills the practical side, the pick up does that and makes no pretence to be anything other than a competent tough workhorse, it can't be flowered up to be a luxurious driving machine that one should buy in preference to a comfortable proper car.
And we'll own a car that pleases us too.
One that looks pretty to us, is reasonably unusual, but most importantly is an absolute pleasure to be in and drive in any conditions and at any speed, but easily.
The estate may well be the most practical van to own, as it fills weekend duties for many as well as being the necessity of the commercial traveller in work time, but i can scarcely find them in my list of 'favourites', it's tool not a car..;)
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This starting to be fun......
;-)
A tool you say ? A van with windows ? Fair enough...
Tools I wouldn't mind include, RS4 Avant, RS6 Avant, M5 Touring, ST220 Estate.........
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Tools I wouldn't mind include RS4 Avant RS6 Avant M5 Touring ST220 Estate.........
Nice cars in their own right, but why turn them into posh vans, the saloon version of the M5 especially (i just don't get Audi's, and IIRC the Ford is FWD which rules that out) is a lovely looking as well as capable car, putting a van back on it spoils the whole thing.
There's a chap running an Escort van round here with a turbo'd petrol engine in it, far more practical with the fun factor too, and makes no pretence to be anything other than it is..;)
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I've held off as long as possible, because I'm only going to be boring.
I like nearly all cars. Beautiful, and hideous, bodies of every possible style have been made by everyone from specialist European coachbuilders to Toyota and General Motors.
Generally I am not much swayed by beauty in cars although I am very susceptible. There are beautiful cars that aren't much good and pig-ugly ones that are terrific. It was always like that. But the main reason is that I have never been in a financial or personal position to have any car I wanted without any practical limiting factors. Few people are of course, but there's a sliding scale and I am well down it.
Under those circumstances, I might go for a lightish weight coupe or barchetta from any era. Then again I might go for a shabby Vauxhall van with BTCC engine and suspension. Or both. Until I decided those were a bit young for me and got a Lexus or something.
I said I was going to be boring.
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putting a van back on it spoils the whole thing.
No, no and thrice no.......
To take just one example under discussion. The M5 saloon is indeed a fine car, of that there can be no doubt but the touring version is undoubtedly and unarguably better. It does all the same things with the additional benefit of versatility of loadspace. Anything which allows you to get away from Ikea more efficiently has to be a bonus doesn't it ?
Lifestyle solutions, that's the nub of it. The same but better. The penny will drop eventually. Don't fight it.........
;-)
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Anything which allows you to get away from Ikea more efficiently has to be a bonus doesn't it ?
noooo, perish the very thought....having a car that's of no load carrying use at all thereby making a trip to the hell that is Ikea is the best bet.
It's no good i've trained many to escape from such a life, it seems there is much still to do.
..;)
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Another vote for small sporty estates here. Or, in the case of mine, what I sometimes describe jokingly as a '5-door coupe'.
As for where are they now - I've still got this one, and just get more and more pleased with it:
s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd144/bazzabearalbum/A...g
s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd144/bazzabearalbum/A...g
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> Another vote for small sporty estates here. Or, in the case of mine, what I sometimes describe jokingly as a '5-door coupe'.
As for where are they now - I've still got this one, and just get more and more pleased with it:<
Yesssssssssss!
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