Motoring
Breeding counts
Alan Judd
My wife has an image problem. She wants a car that is reliable, safe, capacious, nippy .. . and glamorous. It must cope with the shopping, with the weekend away and with a two-year-old. It must also be easy to manoeuvre and, most importantly, it must be beautiful without being flashy. It must, in short, have a number of the qualities not found in her husband.
Ideally it should also be convertible (another quality her husband obstinately lacks) but I wasn't convinced she really would like that. OK for the odd local trip on the right afternoon but a good thrash without a roof can be a pretty severe buf- feting, quite apart from what it does to the hair. This was ignored. She'd had convert- ibles before I ever had the temerity to influence her motoring. So what sort should she have?
I urged Saabs — safe, reliable, genuine four-seaters, performance if you want it, acceptable image, not cheap but still at prices that don't strain credibility. No good: she doesn't like the shape. Escort and Rover convertibles, or others in that range, failed on image grounds and build quality. The car must have the look and feel of good breeding. With all the old eager, mis- placed confidence with which I occasionally hazarded answers in school maths lessons, I suggested VW Golf convertibles. Surely they met just about every criteria? Again, wrong shape: they look like a car that has been turned into a convertible rather than designed as one. Also, the Golf is due to be replaced in a year or so and since, in con- vertible form, the design is not timeless, owners will soon feel sadly dated. Finally — most unarguable of objections — it would make her feel as if she looked as if she had chosen a convertible because it's convertible.
At that point I must have become light- headed. Why not a Mercedes SL in one of its many variants, all at least elegant, some actually beautiful? Why not — this with an almost Cossack abandon — why not the old XK Jaguars that always evoke such pas- sion? They can be had for an arm and two or three legs. Come to that — with the des- perate good cheer of one determined to do well at his execution — Hitler and his friends had a good line in open-topped Mercedes tourers, all generous four- seaters. One of those might be had for the price of a house. Or a convertible Rolls or Bentley, or a dowager's Daimler? Perhaps we could live in it.
Unwise jests are taken seriously. Mer- cedes SLs would be a definite yes — though not the new SLK because of its two-year waiting list and because (like the new MG) it has a rising waistline leading to a raised rump. The lines of older SLs are more attractive but even with them there is a slightly uncomfortable image problem: are they tarts' cars, the perfect mistress's carriage, bought to buy silence and contin- ued co-operation? We know a lively and attractive octogenarian who drives one but she has the flair and dash to get away with it. At thirty-something, however, a girl is in danger of the notorious gin-and-forties, of being suspected of needing to try to stay young. I suggested the similar-shaped but slightly roomier (and considerably cheaper) SLC, but no: surely I didn't want my wife to be thought of as a poor tart?
No such problem with XIC Jaguars but they go — or went — with real men and she would want me to take responsibility for it, whether I was there or not. As for an elderly Rolls or Bentley or one of Hitler's ships of state, could she really be seen landing our daughter at nursery in one? Though she readily concedes that those Nazis had a way with cars, as they did with uniforms.
BMWs? I suggested. Audis? Definite possibles but newer ones were expensive and there was a danger that you might look as if you were — well — trying to cut a dash. That would never do. Morris Minors? I suggested. Not sleek. MGBs? Maybe, provided I personally guaranteed reliability plus another car for longer journeys.
She mused. She'd seen a photo of a Peu- geot 306 convertible. It had style and if we could see one in the metal and feel the quality, it could be a contender. Or perhaps one of those S class Mercedes, the big, opulent ones that you can pick up for any- thing between 60 and 100 jeffries (dealers' slang for a grand, coined in honour of Lord Archer of Shepherds Market). When it comes down to it, she always feels most comfortable wrapped in a new Mercedes, better still when driving one. I felt comfort- able agreeing with that and we indulged in a little orgy of Mercedes-massage. 'Except that it wouldn't be convertible,' I concluded smugly.
'I didn't say it had to be.'
I went out and washed the Passat.
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