Not everybody can please everyone all the time, the cliché goes, accurately enough.
I’ve had a go and it hasn’t really worked. I’m fond of meat but I don’t like liver. I love the south coast but can take or leave some towns along it. Not everything you like is always brilliant.
Yet over the years I’ve read that you can’t really like cars unless you like very specific things about them. I once read, for example, that you can’t honestly like cars unless you like motor shows.
I’m not sure about this. I don’t mind them, when it’s quiet, and it’s cool to see new metal and talk to people about it. But saying everybody must like the experience is a bit rich, isn’t it? Where’s the fun in standing towards the back of a five-deep crush to peer at the roof of a Lamborghini, which will forever remain the other side of some ropes? And even if you have greater access, cars are meant to move, not sit on carpet under industrial-grade spotlights for three weeks. You can sit in a car on a show stand, play with the gearlever and make engine noises, but it’s still not going anywhere. It’s not a bad day’s work, but otherwise I can take or leave motor shows.
I’ve also read that, to be a car enthusiast, you have to like motor racing but here, too, I’m unconvinced. I think some of it is terrific, but you might think it’s boring, and that’s fine. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s just really inconvenient. I’m indebted to those who watch rallying live, and I’ve done it once myself. It went: park here, walk miles to there, wait several hours, probably in the cold, perhaps in the rain, to see cars actually moving for, maybe, two minutes. Sorry, but the time-to-reward ratio means it will hereafter evade me.
And yet still I like to think I’m a car enthusiast. Niche and far more embarrassing than it used to be though it is to admit it, I like cars. Fast cars, slow cars, big cars, little cars, the people who make them and the people who drive them. Cars. Engines. Motors. Brum. Whirr. Goody.
Which, belatedly, brings me to the BMW X2, revealed last week.
Well. What a thing. A car. Brum. Wheels. Bold lines. An interior! And I just... Look, I’m sorry, I can’t. I just don’t care.
It’s not the X2’s fault, specifically; rather, small SUVs and crossovers in general. What do I think of an Audi Q2? A Vauxhall Mokka X? A Nissan Juke? I’m sorry, I’ve got nothing for you. There’s a vacuum in my soul where the compact crossover lives.
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Alfa GT
Deep down, I love cars. But
Deep down, I love cars. But my goodness I don't like many in production today.
Ferrari went from joy to evil in around 1996.
I fear Lamborghini is on the way.
Mercedes - mostly ugly and crass, but the E Class is true to spirit, and AMG remains a source of joy and madness. And thank God for the 6 wheeled G.
BMW imploded between 2007 and 2014.
Audi almost always has been wooden tedium, but has lost the ability to surprise eg 2006 RS4.
VW - boo hiss.
Porsche - curse the turbos - but curiously it retains an understanding long lost to Ferrari that cars should make you smile not sneer.
Land Rover - there is something unforgiveable going on there, and I think McGovan is the cause.
I could go on, but no, you certainly don't have to like all cars to be an enthusiast. If fact I pity at times an obvious enthusiast like Matt for having to rustle up the enthusisasm necessary to do his job.
Height
These cars make a lot of sense due to their height, a lot easier to get in and out of. My parents have just changed an old ford fusion for an old jazz, both are really easy to get in and out of for them. As well as that if you are loading kids in baby seats in the back, doing so without having to crouch into the rear is also made easier. So fashion accessory aside there are sensible reasons to buy a small suv over a small hatch, theyve effectively replaced the small mpv. I dont like them though and would rather a tallish hatch like a jazz that isnt pretending to be something its not.