People think that if they consult a car buying guide they’ll make the right decision when they part with their well-earned cash at the car dealership. Trouble is, people buy with their heart and not their heads and they always buy rubbish cars.
Let’s consider the Nissan Figaro. Girls like it because they think it’s cute but it’s a quite dreadful car that nobody in their right mind should ever buy. Unbelievably, more than 20,000 have been sold worldwide. That’s 20,000 dunderheads who have ignored car buying guides right there.
Then there’s the Citroen Pluriel – an abhorrence. A skateboard will serve you better but still we know there are people who have paid cash money to buy them because we’ve seen them…. on the actual road.
A Pluriel should only be used for crash testing. If you want a car that leaks, handles like a goat on roller skates and where the convertible roof takes at least two hours to assemble and disassemble, then go ahead sign on the dotted line. Instead you can save your time by putting all your money on a well-stoked fire.
It’s galling – I work for a car buying guide called Parker’s and if somebody asks me what car they should buy when I am in a social situation, I generally tell them to buy a horse because any words I say after that sound like, “blah blah blah, buy a VW, blah blah blah, don’t buy a French car, blah blah blah”. Then they go and buy a Peugeot 308, which is like buying a terrorist who has unlimited access to nuclear weaponry.
People lose the power of reason when they set about buying a new car. They want something that they feel reflects their personality, which usually means their car of choice is fatally flawed and close to a breakdown. People who buy Alfas think they are passionate, artful and good in bed, but an Alfa will break down, isn’t particularly artful and it’s rubbish in bed.
No, this is what you need to do when you are thinking about buying a car: forget about anything that you think might reveal your character. Just buy a Japanese car and know that, although your journey from A to B will be dull, you will, in fact, get to B.
There is one exception, though. For the love of God, do not, at any point think about buying that Nissan Figaro in Duck Egg blue with 70,000 miles on the clock. If you do, you’ll be miserable for every breath that you draw and it’ll be like that until the end of your Godforsaken days.
Here endeth the lesson.
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