Thursday 12th July 2012

PH Blog: Why modern cars are too confusing

As a car-spotter, Garlick is feeling overwhelmed by the bewildering choice in the modern car market, and yearns for simpler times

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Mini is the perfect example of confusing model proliferation

Choice is a good thing, and in an age where anything is possible, certain aspects of life have never been simpler as we refine and tweak our lives to perfectly suit our needs. One thing confuses me, though. And I'm not talking about the latest technological gadget; I'm talking about the humble car.

Things used to be so much simpler...

Not so long ago, buying a car was a fairly easy process when choosing the vehicle that best suited your needs, and if you weren't buying a new car the used market was fairly easy to decipher, with easy to recognise models giving you a decent idea of what to expect when you peered inside.

Cast your mind back a few years and let's assume you wanted to buy a small hatchback. There would be three main choices to make: three doors or five, engines from, say, 1.0 to 1.8 litres (with maybe a diesel and a sporty 2.0-litre model), and four or five tiers of trim. Then - perhaps - a sales chap would show you a fairly small list of options available for your chosen trim level; nothing more exotic than metallic paint or maybe a sunroof.

Spot a 1.3L in the street and you'd know exactly what toys the driver had to play with, see a Ghia and you'd know the owner was lucky enough to have velour seats and a rev counter. OK, so we live in an age where to make a fuss of such features is laughable, but my point is that you would know what to expect from a car at a glance.

S line trim and the like complicates matters

Nowadays, the choice is bewildering: a plethora of body styles, a host of customisable options, a multitude of styling packages, a range of 20 choices of alloy wheel, five different dash trims, and Sir can have whatever colour Sir wants as long as Sir is willing to pay.

Has your neighbour just bought a swanky S4 or is that a base A4 diesel with all the styling kit? I wonder if he has leather and fancy audio, or might it be cloth trim and a cassette deck? That Mini looks good, too, and apparently it has the Chilli pack, whatever that means. and is that limo the LWB hybrid or the normal 3.0 entry model?

I'm not saying choice is bad, it just annoys me that as a car spotter more often that not I have no idea what trim level a car has these days. A Toyota IQ might have more toys than my LS400, but how am I supposed to know?

Does Sir want the extra-shiny wheels?

Why should I care? I have no idea, but I do, and short of reading the back pages of What Car? I have no idea what I can do about it. Buying a new car must take hours, as you choose what spec to go for (the new Vauxhall Adam has a million different option combinations, for example). Maybe I'm just getting old and should embrace trim levels called Jam, Chilli and suchlike...

 

 

 

[V6GTA]

Customisation is the future.