Cars that "devalued" the brand...

[droopsnoot]

coldel said:

I could be wrong but I am sure the Cygnet was made to help AM comply with some daft regulation that the government brought in many moons ago around car manufacturers offering a range which covered different levels of emissions or some such nonsense?

I thought the same - bring down the average emissions of the entire range of vehicles to save something, tax presumably.

What about the Maserati Biturbo? My mate has one and quite likes it, but it's a radical (well, the opposite) departure from previous models.

[DoubleD]

rossub said:

Audi

A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8
Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8

Basically all of them since circa 1994.

And yet Audi are in a better place than they have ever been.

[Coilspring]

konark said:

Yes the Allagro was a 'car', just the ugliest most unreliable one ever..

The City Rover was not based on a Tata, it WAS a Tata Indica, built in India sent to UK where Rover stuck their badge on and doubled the price.

Even in India the Indica was regarded as a bit of a dog.

The allegro, commonly nicknamed as the all aggro, was unfairly criticised in my opinion. It wasn't pretty, but consideing what else was available at the time, and what was going on in the company, it was an ok offering.

It wasn't much different to being a bigger mini, and that was highly regarded. Not sure why the allegro was so slated.
Marina, Ital, Princess, Ambassador were around at the same time remember.

[niggtv]

white_goodman said:

But I think the Aston Martin Cygnet has to take the cake. Judging by the number that I see, I think that Aston Martin were a little misguided in thinking that this was the 2nd vehicle that their customers wanted but that would have been OK if they had actually put some effort into it and created something themselves. Putting a chrome grille and a leather interior in a Toyota iQ and charging double for the privilege was really taking the piss and a dark day for my favourite car brand.

Cygnet was never intended to be a big seller - it was produced purely for sustainability and efficiency metrics.

[rossub]

DoubleD said:

rossub said:

Audi

A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8
Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8

Basically all of them since circa 1994.

And yet Audi are in a better place than they have ever been.

Financially yes, but personally I dislike what they have become. Audi were cool in the 80s and 90s. Now they are anything but.

[white_goodman]

Wooda80 said:

The Cygnet makes perfect sense when you view it as an Accessory product rather than a traditional car.

If you want something stylish to put on the back of your yacht to drive around Monaco, or in one of your underground car park spaces to tootle around Kensington or Chelsea when you are at home then there's nothing quite like it to compare.

If you start looking for What Car? group tests and seeing if you can get one instead of a 320d with your employee car allowance then you are missing the point.

It's easy to understand an Aston Martin owner buying an Aston Martin branded watch or pushbike, for example, even though objectively better watches and pushbikes might be available at a similar price point from mainstream watch and pushbike manufacturers. So it was with the Accessory Town Car.

It was more the "lazy" engineering that I took offence to, not the fact that AM made a small hatchback. If they had made their own "mini"/"smart car" etc then that would have been fine but a rebadged, double price Toyota seems like a bit of a cynical attempt from a manufacturer that I had a high regard for. I don't think they sold many, so I guess for curio value alone, values remain solid but there's far more class in buying a MINI/Fiat 500/Smart car/ordinary Toyota iQ in my opinion than that "chaved-up" tat.

[skyrover]

[white_goodman]

Harris_I said:

Oddly I have the opposite view. Agree it's not everyone's cup of tea, but an unusual and interesting design, I wish more car manufacturers would take risks with design.

A lot of space in a small footprint. Very clever engine/cabin packaging - it may possibly have avoided fatalities when my father had a heavy frontal impact at high speed. The engine slid under the passenger compartment and the car was a write off but 4 people emerged from the car in one piece. (He wasn't conducting an elk test, in case you were wondering).

Ride is sensitive to wheel size. We've had both big and small wheels, and the former are terrible, but the latter makes it a pleasant enough (if unexciting) steer.

I've been looking at cars from my learner driver daughter and the old A-class seems to be a really sensible first time car: small, lots of visibility, easy to see the corners, safe, has a feeling of solidity other first time learner cars don't have (like her current Peugeot 207). What's not to like?

The current A-class seems inoffensively bland and undifferentiated from the rest of a saturated market.

I think that I could have forgiven the looks if it was actually a pretty decent car (see my thoughts on the Vauxhall Mokka) but it wasn't. Getting a job at a Mercedes-Benz dealership as a 22 year old and being told that I was going to get a Mercedes company car was pretty exciting but my A160 Elegance LWB manual was not the dream and lots of things broke in the year that I had it, even though it was brand new! You don't see a lot of these around any more and I can understand why and this was a 20k Mercedes. My mum's 5k mk1 Ford Ka was a much nicer car in every way. I agree that the engineering sounded pretty clever and had some merits in terms of packaging, interior space and safety and the mk2 A-Class (similar idea but improved) might have turned into a decent car (I can't say because I haven't driven one). The thing is, a "base-spec" 1-Series still drives and feels like a smaller BMW, the A-Class was in no way comparable to a C-Class/E-Class etc.

[white_goodman]

Boosted LS1 said:

Fat women like them. The slim chicks drive fiat 500's.

Funny, the Kia Soul seems to be the weapon of choice for the larger lady around here.

[DoctorX]

dme123 said:

Hard to think of anything further from the engineering lead, powerplant centric Jaguar of old that a front wheel drive X-Type with a 2 litre 4 pot diesel, and McPherson struts so the X-Type is in with a good shout.

For me personally the newer Civics with their stty beam axles detract heavily from Hondas reputation for taking pride in their engineering, and if Mercedes weren't already so far gone I'd say the same for the A-Class hatchbacks with a similarly crap setup.


These fking things still offend me.

I bloody hate those headlights.

[DoubleD]

rossub said:

DoubleD said:

rossub said:

Audi

A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8
Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8

Basically all of them since circa 1994.

And yet Audi are in a better place than they have ever been.

Financially yes, but personally I dislike what they have become. Audi were cool in the 80s and 90s. Now they are anything but.

That maybe true, but they are in business to make money.

[white_goodman]

niggtv said:

Cygnet was never intended to be a big seller - it was produced purely for sustainability and efficiency metrics.

I remember reading something about that. Was that just a tax incurred by the UK government on UK manufacturers though because other luxury car manufacturers (Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati) didn't seem to have the need to bring out a similar vehicle.

[anonymous-user]

DoctorX said:

I bloody hate those headlights.

That pinched, squinty, scrunched up face is the worst part of a very unpleasant looking car. In 3.0 AWD form it's *nearly* good enough to overlook it's uglyness, but how often do you see those? Doesn't help that a dog eared X-Type is now the single most UKIP-y car on the roads.

[white_goodman]

DoubleD said:

That maybe true, but they are in business to make money.

Don't confuse opinion with fact. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of cars like the Cayenne, Urus, Bentayga and Audi Q7 but I recognise that they added value to rather than "devalued" the brand if anything.

[rossub]

DoubleD said:

That maybe true, but they are in business to make money.

Not disagreeing at all. It’s just a shame it’s resulted in them swamping the market with so many models.

[Red 4]

Ford Sierra.

As a replacement for the mk5 Cortina it was not well received at the time.

FN2 Civic Type R.

Not considered a true Type R by many - feels fat and bloated compared to an EP3.

Suspension set up considered a backward step. No increase in BHP ( same engine ).

[Red 4]

BMW and Audi.

All models.

Too many cheap PCP deals about which makes them available to the feral underclass

[g3org3y]

Greg the Fish said:

BMW 'Active Tourer'

FWD st box.

[anonymous-user]

Coilspring said:

The allegro, commonly nicknamed as the all aggro, was unfairly criticised in my opinion. It wasn't pretty, but consideing what else was available at the time, and what was going on in the company, it was an ok offering.

It wasn't much different to being a bigger mini, and that was highly regarded. Not sure why the allegro was so slated.
Marina, Ital, Princess, Ambassador were around at the same time remember.

Totally agree.
Majority of cheap cars were much of a muchness, any offering from Italy was made from steel the thickness of a Rizla paper, Jap parts were expensive and prone to tin worm also, BMW's/Mercedes/Jags were out of reach for a lot of people back then which brings me on to the devalued theme which I think the abudance of a lot of the top marques has caused them to lose the wow factor, to see an Aston Martin once was a very rare sight.

[300bhp/ton]

dme123 said:

Hard to think of anything further from the engineering lead, powerplant centric Jaguar of old that a front wheel drive X-Type with a 2 litre 4 pot diesel, and McPherson struts so the X-Type is in with a good shout.

For me personally the newer Civics with their stty beam axles detract heavily from Hondas reputation for taking pride in their engineering, and if Mercedes weren't already so far gone I'd say the same for the A-Class hatchbacks with a similarly crap setup.


These fking things still offend me.

Lol, it’s a good job this isn’t a thread about people’s opinions that devalue an evolved society. Seriously take a chill pill