Trim levels. What was Wrong with L,GL,GLS etc?

[Junkman]

I have no idea why they called the VW Golf Golf. It's even less exciting* as the game.

[brickwall]

As a dude who did marketing, I can tell you it's all down to that crap. Most people will never use most of the extra stuff, but it keeps the second hand value of yer car up. Manufactures have to be seen to offer more and more and more and still look fresh. Remember when an extra wing mirror was an optional extra? Remember when floor mats were only for the Bonus, Lux or Special Edition?

 

Perception plays a massive part, but just buy a car that's got the bits you need and fuck the rest - you'll only have to spend more time fixing all that stuff anyway.

 

 

Vogue

Vogue SE

and so forth.

[Junkman]

Remember when an extra wing mirror was an optional extra?

 

I remember when a wing mirror was an optional extra. That's how old I am.

[Guest Facelifted75]

Ford are good at daft trim level names. Titanium? Is that made out of Titianium then or summat?

[Guest Facelifted75]

Wasn't it that Daihatsu Charade with an optional glovebox ffs?

[RobT]

I like the fact Ford have kept the Ghia spec going for so long, together with the little badges on the rear flank or wherever. A rare bit of continuity in the modern age.

 

I've got a bit of a bootlid badge fetish going on. I love the 80s Rover ones such as 2.0EFi or the badges on early 800s. But the flip side is comedy fonts or italics like the italic Maxi or XM ones, they just look RONG.

[twosmoke300]

Those lovely ghia badges were about the only extra old ford ghias had. Proper stingy for a top spec model

[HMC]

As I kid ( and probably still now ) I was always slightly in awe of ghias and especially ghia x's. really far more than the sum of the differences over the next one down, but there you go.

 

I is a badge and marketing victim.

[Hendry]

Kia have gone back to the simple way have they not? We have had Picantos, Rios and Ceeds at work and their specs are 1, 2 and 3. Simple!

 

I never understood Rover specs either, my uncle had a P reg 420SLi saloon but it seemed to be identical to the GSi spec, also it was hit and miss with them whether they were just badged 400 or whether they had 414Si, 416i, 420GSi badges on the back.

 

Austin Rover started it off in the early 80s too, i remember my old mans base spec D reg Maestro being a "City" and the next up was a "City X"

[forddeliveryboy]

 

Perception plays a massive part, but just buy a car that's got the bits you need and fuck the rest - you'll only have to spend more time fixing all that stuff anyway.

 

 

THe French traditionally offered cars which had everything you needed in the basic editions, there were often only two trim levels, standard and a bit plusher. Fancy seats made the cars even more comfy, for many cars they made the ride tolerable. Even a 2cv came with a good heater as standard back in the 1940s, yet English cars froze their owners into the 60s with optional heaters. It seems hard to believe, now.

 

Some basic model cars felt bloody basic, proper poverty models - perhaps it was the rows of blanks in the dash, I'm not sure. But get into many basic French models and somehow less was more. The basic BX14 was a good example - the little suitcase engine lying almost flat contributed to better handling than the bigger-engined models and they still had the same suspension which Rolls-Royce and Mercedes paid for, plus the linked amazing brakes. Even the performance was perfectly ok, you rarely had to slow, so good was the handling and braking. You never felt as if you'd been sent to a gulag in a boggo BX, as you would have in a basic Sierra 1.3/1.6 or Golf 1100/1300. Instead, you felt like you'd beaten the system.

[Jim Bergerac]

I never understood Rover specs either, my uncle had a P reg 420SLi saloon but it seemed to be identical to the GSi spec, also it was hit and miss with them whether they were just badged 400 or whether they had 414Si, 416i, 420GSi badges on the back.

 

SLi would usually have different alloys and cloth as opposed to the leather of the GSi. The badging was changed at a certain point after which it was always just the model number rather than the actual version. Of course, to make it confusing they changed different models at different points. For instance the 400 changed to the new badging system a year before the 200 did.

[myglaren]

I think you hit the nail on the head their - manufacturers want everyone to feel special now. Mercedes have been doing it for years with the Elegance trim i.e. cloth seats and wheel trims. Sadly honest, basic, transport just isn't aspirational enough anymore for today's buyer and imho it's the manufacturers themselves who have engineered this (at least to an extent).

Cloth wheel trims sound very posh

[Pete-M]

I've always bought whichever model has the most toys, most powerful engine and highest spec I can find.

 

Buying cars in misery spec because the nice bits might break seems a bit Puritan hair shirt to me. Way I look at it is that if I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the car I'd much rather be in a Ghia than a Popular.

 

 

The whole idea of having hand cranked wiper, foot operated squirty washers and a bulb horn because those new fangled electric ones might break just strikes me as sheer bloody minded pessimism.

[Junkman]

I am a pessimist. That's an optimist with experience.

 

Apart from that, for three decades, I had cars with all the toys and whistles. Yanks. If anything ever was gimmick-ridden, they were.

When I bought my first P6, it was the most austere car I had seen in what must be a quarter century, and I had serious qualms whether its lack of buttons could keep me happy in the long run. Funnily enough, the opposite is true, and I enjoy the back to the idea the motorcar was initially invented for immensely. So much so, that I now find most of those 'convenience options' rather inconvenient, pointless, and generally the answer to a question nobody asked. A driving machine reduced to the bare essentials beats electric seats any day.

[Pete-M]

I find it's often the misery spec stuff that breaks. I've known more manual window mechanisms break than electric ones.

[Junkman]

Yeah, the manual locking mechanism of my Rover broke just in time for the MoT, but it's haunted.

I've never seen the central locking break on any of my cars, despite I had 14 Granadas, three of them with non functional electric seats.

The electric window in the driver's door didn't work when I got the Mitsubishi, but it was only a lose connector.

[Cavcraft]

It's not a modern thing, who remembers 1970s/80s Talbots being called Minx and Rapier?

[forddeliveryboy]

I've always bought whichever model has the most toys, most powerful engine and highest spec I can find.

 

Buying cars in misery spec because the nice bits might break seems a bit Puritan hair shirt to me. Way I look at it is that if I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the car I'd much rather be in a Ghia than a Popular.

 

 

The whole idea of having hand cranked wiper, foot operated squirty washers and a bulb horn because those new fangled electric ones might break just strikes me as sheer bloody minded pessimism.

 

Aye, but have you ever bought them new, or have you just taken advantage of their totally massive depreciation? And just how old is your shite? I drive stuff day-to-day with decades and 100 of 1000s of miles behind it - the last thing you want is an otherwise rather lovely W124 where the roof sticks open and the front windows have to be raised by hand and secured by tape. Which in an otherwise beautifully engineered car, is a common occurrence.

 

I'd choose nicely-geared hand-wound windows any day over daft and heavy leccy motors (have you ever enjoyed a really decently engineered manual window wind, Pete-M) and spend my money on the fastest, most-refined engine and a high quality set of 'shocks'.

[JohnDeere]

Land Rover Discos and Freelanders still have a decent model naming system: S, GS, XS, HSE, HSE Lux.  The Evoque has a more mysterious set of names to ensure that ladies in Cheshire do not know whether their neighbours are richer or poorer than them.

[Cavcraft]

I have no idea why they called the VW Golf Golf. It's even less exciting* as the game.

 

 

Let's have a look.

 

One involves buying expensive shit to impress the boss. The other is a game.

 

One involves endless time at work/pub/home twatting on and on and on about how great it is. The other is a game.

 

One of them is something you buy into, because you think it makes you great. The other is a game.

[Ghosty]

Ford's numbered Kas really didn't last that long - my uncle had a 2. Weirdly they revived the idea for the Fusion for a bit.

Zetec seems to be the only constant spec on Fords.

Why did Ford do away with Ghia (about 6 years ago now)?

 

That's reminded me - Kia work off numbers too.

[Negative Creep]

I have no idea why they called the VW Golf Golf. It's even less exciting* as the game.

 

 

Isn't it German for Gulf (as in Gulf Stream?) I believe Polo is Polar and Scirocco is a trade wind as well

[Pete-M]

I normally buy stuff when it is 10-15 years old and unfashionable.

 

Let someone else spend all the necessary on the option pack.

 

In 25 years and thousands of cars driven I've only ever had one electric window I couldn't get to close. 5 minutes with a bit of wire and that was sorted even if it was just to close it until I fixed it.

 

On the W124s I've owned any window problems have been down to the switch. Not difficult to bypass the switch to close them. Sunroof always worked fine on my ones.

 

The wiper was forever going wrong. Switch overheats.

 

My current daily driver is a 2003 Focus ST170 with 165k on the clock. Everything electrical works exactly as it should.

[Spiny Norman]

Mercedes must have had a hairy fitwhen they saw Elegance badged cropping up on the back of Skodas.

[Junkman]

Isn't it German for Gulf (as in Gulf Stream?) I believe Polo is Polar and Scirocco is a trade wind as well

 

Yeah, it all makes perfect sense. I guess that's why they called the Golf Pick Up 'Caddy', which must be German for El Niño, and the 'Santana' was for the few Germans who don't listen to the Scorpions, the 'Passat' is named after the last German windjammer, and Jetta consequently must be a girl all Germans want to have a shag with, if they can get it 'up!'. The 'Phaeton' is a saloon, and following this logic, they will call the next LT delivery van 'Roadster', 'Cabriolet' is already reserved for the next estate, and the upcoming SUV will listen to the moniker 'Limousine', except where prohibited by law. There it will be called 'Motorcycle'.

[Pete-M]

Can you send me Jettas number?

[chaseracer]

I remember when a wing mirror was an optional extra. That's how old I am.

I remember when wing mirrors were on the wings. That's how old I am...

 

[chaseracer]

Let's have a look.

 

One involves buying expensive shit to impress the boss. The other is a game.

 

One involves endless time at work/pub/home twatting on and on and on about how great it is. The other is a game.

 

One of them is something you buy into, because you think it makes you great. The other is a game.

Both are utterly pointless. And involve walking.

 

But for different reasons...

[forddeliveryboy]

I normally buy stuff when it is 10-15 years old and unfashionable.

 

In 25 years and thousands of cars driven I've only ever had one electric window I couldn't get to close. 5 minutes with a bit of wire and that was sorted even if it was just to close it until I fixed it.

 

On the W124s I've owned any window problems have been down to the switch. Not difficult to bypass the switch to close them. Sunroof always worked fine on my ones.

 

 

I usually buy cars when they're over 18 - it gets rid of alot of the crap. 124 window mechanisms are weak, they strip the teeth off so preventing the motor making the glass rise the final 2 or 3 inches. Amazing how far door assemblies have come since 1990. Btw, you can do betta than jetta.