The excellent James May in his Saturday column in the Telegraph made the point that luxury isn't paint or leather or bird's-eye maple inlaid with ivory and gold, although those are all right in their way. It is a decent ride, making the Citroen C6 a contender for the best luxury car.
I was reminded of the truth in that when a wife's cousin gave us a lift a few blocks the other night in his shabby old non-turbo diesel ZX, which he had just collected from my mechanic down the back after a couple of chassis jobs. The cousin seems to me a rough driver and a bit of a mimser, but he is a mechanical engineer by training although now a software man (and good at it too). However I was very impressed by the way that car oiled over the cobbles and speedbumps, a different world from anything else I've been in for years.
I haven't driven that car enough to know what it's like over the bumps when you try to hurry. That can catch soft supensions out, but it doesn't always especially if the driver knows the car and the bumps.
Yeah, wouldn't mind a nice C6 actually.
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Actually Lud, the C6 has a disappointingly firm ride, at low speeds I would describe it as harsh. It gets better at higher speeds and handles reasonably well without much bodyroll, but the car fell well short of my expectation of the wafting magic carpet ride that my rose tinted memory tells me I experienced in GSs and CXs in days gone by. An E-Class Mercedes is much better as is a Renault Laguna.
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How disappointing... perhaps one is supposed to keep one's clog buried in it at all times like an old-style DS driver (once on the move)...
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My Corsa's ride is quite simple awful. There is a road near me where which is full of point holes and if I do more than 20mph my car just starts to fall apart. I just do a nice gesture in my head for all the people who try and overtake me on the blind bend despite the fact there is a red light ahead anyway.
To me luxery is more about the quality of the materials used. I've been in some American cars with leatheresque seats and metalish door handles made with the finest quality russian plastic probably made out of old Ladas. Its tacky and horrible, cheap cars which try and be luxery are just horrible.
I think Rover in the 90's had the idea :) They could make a really nice luxery dashboard which was classes above the rest.
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I think Rover in the 90's had the idea :) They could make a really nice luxery dashboard which was classes above the rest.
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At least it gave you something nice to look at while you were waiting for the breakdown truck to arrive....
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in the same article he also mentioned pillows as being the height of luxury in a hotel
i agree
i had to wrap my raincoat up to make a firm pillow when i was in a frankfurt hotel earlier this month,the bed was nice though
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You should try Algeria bb. It may be different now - somehow I sort of doubt it - but in the capital in my day, anywhere but the two really classy and expensive hotels, one old and one new, you got a hard four ft long French-style bolster and no pillows at all if you were out of luck. And there was only water four hours a day, cold of course. And it was a good idea to have your own loo paper and plug for your bath if you had one. Both would nearly always be lacking.
Add it all up though and you have a taste of the, er, 'exotic' they call it I think. Part of the fun.
Edited by Lud on 01/11/2009 at 17:44
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Ah, luxury ride quality, passed by in the quest for image and racing car handling and the world's biggest wheels, so desperately needed to traverse the daily grind to work or shopping at Morrissons.
I still like the leather/wood combination though in the right colours....so much nicer than ice cold aluminium gearknob and acres of black plastic.
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Luxury for me is windscreen wipers that operate completely silently.
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Luxury would be sleeping 7 hrs a night for 182 nights a year - the 3hrs a night for rest of year I could cope with. I wouldn't care how rough ride on my car was then.
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Luxury is a personal concept, but James May got it totally right in many respects. It is not about how may gizmos are available to you. Its that feeling of serenity when you have exactly what you want.
In my case it is sitting on a beach, with the children quietly playing, me reading a book in the shade and a pizza delivered for lunch with a large bottle of chilled lemonade!
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I would call my Almera a luxury car, its an automatic with power steering, electric tinted windows, electric mirrors, climate control, CD player, cloth upholstery, remote central locking, variable window wiper speed, interior adjustable headlight aim, audible reversing warning signal - items once found only on luxury cars, so perhaps all todays cars are luxury cars!
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That is a bit like saying the Lada 1500 from 1974 was a luxery car because it had reclining seats :p
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>>I would call my Almera a luxury car
I wouldn't call mine that. Certainly the climate control and other bells & whistles make it easy for SWMBO, but the low profile tyres give it a very firm ride (although it does handle well).
My £50 KIA Pride has a far more supple ride (but it doesn't like going round corners).
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I personaly prefer handeling to ride quality as I do have to go round lots of corners some very tight. I believe some american luxery cars are now being fitted with steering wheels that actually work.
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comfort, effortless and opulence = luxury for me
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Rattle, I am unfortunate enough to own two American cars and the steering seems to work very well indeed.
As even most entry level superminis now have power steering, power windows and air conditioning, the meaning of luxury surely has to be supreme ride comfort. Citroen must come quite close with their hydropnuematic suspension, but any car with conventional suspension and a long wheelbase seems to ride well, which is why american luxobarges have a very comfortable (if a little wallowy) ride. The most comfortable car I have driven was a Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
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Actually Lud the C6 has a disappointingly firm ride at low speeds I would describe it as harsh. An E-Class Mercedes is much better as is a Renault Laguna.
I beg to differ, Bagpuss. I stepped out of an E-class to test a C6 and found it much softer and more envelopping (and yes, with vaguer steering to boot), but am sure I could get used to that. Yes, the low-speed town ride is harder than big Citroens of yore, but just look how French roads have improved since the days of the DS - they don't need such soft suspension in their cars - although we do for our 'wonderful' roads.
The E-class has a comfortable supportive seat (more so than the C6), but the actual ride quality is not as good as the Citroen (all IMHO).
I could have been tempted by the C6 if only the rear seat hadn't been so 'shaped' for 2 (I have 3 kids to accommodate!).
I saw a C6 being driven along Bayswater last week with a very comfortable looking bod in the rear. I was horrified to think the car had been demoted to taxi status until I saw the number plate - FRA 1. Presumably the French ambasador in his rightful place!?
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BMW 5 series GT has all the Hallmarks of a luxury car :-q
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I saw a C6 being driven along Bayswater last week with a very comfortable looking bod in the rear. I was horrified to think the car had been demoted to taxi status until I saw the number plate - FRA 1. Presumably the French ambasador in his rightful place!?
I saw the same car in Waterloo....presume it is indeed the French Ambassador...would like to know if there were ferrero Rocher chocolates in the boot..
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>>would like to know if there were ferrero Rocher chocolates in the boot..
Or chocolate dipped brussel sprouts in Ferrero Rocher wrappers. ;>)
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I saw the same car in Waterloo....presume it is indeed the French Ambassador...would like to know if there were ferrero Rocher chocolates in the boot..
>>>>>>>> no Dynamic Dave"s mate knicked them all and replaced them with Brussels sprouts :-(
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To me luxury is space. There's no such thing as a luxury studio flat and there's no such thing as a luxury small car. Gadgets and extras are nice in their way but to be luxurious a car has to be big,
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Looked on Askmid for FRA 1....not showing as insured. Neither is PAK 1, the Pakistan High Commission's car...............diplomatic immunity ?
Ted
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Gadgets and extras are nice intheir way but to be luxurious a car has to be big
I agree. Leather upholstery is a must of course, loads of legroom front and back, and as little plastic as is humanly possible.
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to be luxurious a car has to be big
I agree too. Long wheelbase and a heavy body make a car feel smoother, but the internal feeling of spaciousness is important too.
My present car isn't big, but its high roof and internal layout somehow produce an illusion of spaciousness that is one of the good things about it.
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You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
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>>>We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank<<<
Pah! I lived down a septic tank for over 12 months and am now an ex pert in all things smelly :)
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I am slightly ambivalent on the subject of firmer suspension making for a sportier drive. We live in very rural Dorset and I would say that 90% of the time I can drive down most of the roads here faster in my Laguna than in my daughter's MG TF simply because the "sports car" jumps, thumps and jars along the road whilst my French barge glides effortlessly along.
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Quite agree with the ride thing. The first definition of luxury when applied to anything travel, must be insulation from the (less agreeable) sensations associated with it, e.g. bumpy roads.
The bestist(!) car in my experience was a Renault R6 of late 70s vintage (looked like a slightly bigger R4) - pillow soft springy ride (with surprisingly tenacious grip even in max roll mode) & soft fluffy seats. Next in order of merit was a Merc W124 coupe with 15inch rims & 195/65 profile tyres, with a Skoda Superb in 3rd place.
A previous poster mentions the disconnect between (or apparent paradox of..) low profile tyres & siff suspension not being the best for good progress on typical roads - quite agree with that too. Surely for a car to be gripping well, it must be in contact with the road most of the time, not bouncing & skitting from bump-to-ridge-to-pothole.
Every time I contemplate a new (or newer) car, my heart sinks when I see the 'luxurious' specification spoiled by blingy, fashion-victim sized alloys, 'sports' spec suspension etc.
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Just had a look at the interior of the C6 online. What a dreadfully plain and plasticky dashboard. We spend far too much time inside a car so it has too look and feel luxurious. The C6 may drive luxuriously, but it doesn't look like a place I would want to spend much time, especially crawling through traffic.
Surely luxury is a combination of things that will be different for each person, but with some common features. So a Renault 6 may well have a great ride and lots of space for the size of car, but it was pretty basic.
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Luxury is anything with a sealed cabin and a heater, for me. I still remember riding bikes in the 60`s (and the Bond minicar) and coming into places bent over with cold, like an orangutang.
I straightened up a bit in the `middle years`, but now I`m going back into that posture even with the heater ;-(
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Luxury is a huge transmission tunnel and enormous centre console.
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Air-con on a hot, humid day.
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Listening to JJ Cale on the stereogram thing during rush hour on the M62.
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A car that heats up really quickly on a cold day.
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heats up really quickly on a cold day.
General Motors and Lada had powerful heaters that came on quickly (think prairies, think steppes).
I have only ever owned one proper luxury car. Being about twice the mass of an ordinary jalopy, and having many layers of trim and sound deadening, it stayed warm inside for much, much longer than most cars when left parked in cold weather, although its heater - it was made in 1953 - was a mediocre electric affair.
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Luxury is anything with a sealed cabin and a heater for me. ( the Bond minicar)
Nostalgia........ My dad had one of those in the early 1960s and today's kids don't know what they're missing. No doors, just a cut-out shape - and therefore no way of locking or securing the thing; no windows, just a fabric-and-clear-plastic flap; two "seats" in the back which were really just hammocks (facing inwards); heater... why would you need one?; a two-stroke engine which sounded like a small lawn-mower......
After a Bond Minicar a go-kart is the meaning of luxury
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My Dad had one too, before moving up to the luxury of Reliant Regals and Supervans.
No reverse gear. He could still parellel park though. Nose in, out of the car, round the back, pick up the rear end and drop it in to place. Thems were the days.
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Most people younger than a certain age won't have a clue what this is all about.
Here's luxury........
www.ridelust.com/wp-content/uploads/800px-Bond_Min...g
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Thats a posh one, my dads Bond didn't have the dummy front wings.
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Thats a posh one, my dads Bond didn't have the dummy front wings.
It could be that the one with the wings had a self-starter (earlier ones were started by hand with a sort of lever thingy). I'm not sure it stretched to a reverse gear though.
A friend had one some time about 1960. He certainly made it go (around town anyway) quite rapidly. Once he got it going the front tyre hardly stopped squealing until he turned it off. Must have got through tyres at a phenomenal rate.
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I wanted to buy Bond in the 60's as I understood that they could be driven legally on a provisional licence, so I took time off and travelled to their dealership in Ipswich only to find that they had no stock whatsoever on that particular day.
Made do with a Vespa 125 instead.
Clk Sec
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No, one of these:- 1952 model I believe.
tinyurl.com/yh8oy9o
Edited by Old Navy on 03/11/2009 at 19:26
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