Weekly View: Cars that are likely to suck in 2010
After last week’s superstars of 2010, we’re about to reveal cars that are going to be noted as the year’s biggest failures. Just to be precise, some of them will sell in large quantities, but does that make a good car? Right, it doesn’t. Below are the cars that are most likely to … suck.
1) Porsche Panamera
Porsche has posted a loss of 4.4 billion euros. That’s 4,000,000,000 euros. Yikes.
Anyway, everything would be good if they had knew what they were doing with their cars, but as it seems, everything went wrong with the Panamera. Porsche was already testing the limits of good taste and common sense with its monstrous Cayenne, but even though Panamera appears to be more conventional, it is far worse. You see, the Cayenne was simply a money maker. Back in the early 2000s, everybody wanted a prestige SUV that could handle like a real car. BMW has started it all with the rather good X5 (as an answer to the poor Merc’s M-Class) but if you want something that is even sportier than a Bimmer, what’cha gonna buy? A Porsche, of course! While the Cayenne wasn’t actually that superior than the X5 in terms of ride and handling, its badge did won over many buyers. Now, I’m not a fan of any SUV design, but the X5 was looking like a tall 5 Series Touring, which is acceptable, because all SUVs look like tall wagons. I mean, when it all started, all SUVs were basically station wagons with larger bumpers. Obviously, there is no such thing as a Porsche SW, so what should be the base for the design? Of course, a 50-year old sports coupe! That didn’t worked out well in the first place, but for some reason, Porsche took the same idea and applied it to a luxury saloon.
From the front, the Panamera even looks good, but the not-so-sleek profile and the disproportionate back are making it an exercise in poor taste. The interior isn’t much better either, there are far too many buttons and switches and I’m not sure about those back seats either. But it seems that Porsche isn’t stopping there, as it has just announced a three-door SUV based on the Cayman design.
And it all makes me wonder, how much digits does a trillion have?
2) Audi A1
One of the first modern Audis was the small Audi 50 launched back in 1974, later to be rebadged and sold as the Volkswagen Polo, probably because Volkswagen had no idea what to do with the brand that was forgotten for almost half a decade. It took nearly 25 years for the maker to get a small car when it finally did in 2000, with the A2, as an answer to the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, a good car with a bad habit of rolling over in bends. Unlike the A-Class, the A2 was a commercial failure, mostly because it wasn’t able to compete with the Merc in terms of prestige and its all-aluminum body was difficult and expensive to repair and maintain. Now, in its third attempt to conquer the small premium car market, Audi is launching the A1, based on the current Volkswagen Polo. And this is where the problems begin.
Talking from a personal experience, VW Polo is one of the worst small cars money can buy. In fact, you should consider a Polo only if you’re too lazy to look for other alternatives.
It is obvious that Audi want’s to spoil BMW’s Mini party, but considering what they have as a starting point, I’d say that Mini should not worry at all. The A1 will inherit Polo’s torsion beam suspension, which was probably developed somewhere in the 70’s, for the first Polo/Audi 50. Mini has an advanced z-axle multilink set-up, designed by no other than BMW themselves. Audi is also making big news for the technology the car is about to use, but even in that field, there isn’t any superiority over the Mini. Since the current A3 has recently got a stop-start system and brake energy regeneration, the A1 will also be using one of these, but Mini had those things three years ago, so what’s the big deal? And for absolutely no reason I could think of, higher powered variants will receive a quattro option. Having a 4×4 on a small, front-wheel drive car is like walking around with a helmet just in case someone drops a piano on your head.
However, I’m sure that it will be a massive success because people won’t care about the fact that it’s a Fabia/Polo/Ibiza underneath, as long as it has the badge and LED Christmas lights. But as a car, it will be a complete embarrassment.
3) Opel Astra
The current Astra is as much fun as playing chess on a Saturday night, but the new generations is like trying to play erotic chess with Victoria’s Secret models in their angel outfits. Or putting it simple: it’s pretentious. It’s not gonna happen. Somehow, Opel decided that their cars should be more upmarket, but they weren’t class benchmarks in the first place. I mean, take the Insignia for example. Even the name is pretentious as it’s hard to pronounce and sounds very…expensive. But don’t forget, it’s still an Opel Insignia, not Rolls-Royce Insignia. But the car itself isn’t much better either. Okay, it looks decent but only if you specify LED daytime running lights and 19 inch alloys. Now, the LEDs are not exactly a sign of exquisite taste and SUV sized rims on a family saloon? Doesn’t it all seem a bit…pretentious? And the interior is full of buttons which split all basic controls just to have as many buttons as possible. Again, what’s the word for that?
It’s not a very good car either; it still is not as good as the Passat or Mondeo. But getting back to the Astra – it has the same design, packaging and ergonomics problems. But for some reason, Opel has kept the torsion beam suspension on the Astra, although it would have been much cheaper to share the superior multilink set-up from the Insignia. Even the Kia pro’Ceed has one, and it looks miles better than the Astra simply because it is honest in its appearance – an affordable family hatch.
Instead of making good mainstream cars, Opel is making mediocre mainstream cars and is trying to sell them as something more valuable and more special. And quite frankly, they’re not, and I seriously doubt that ridiculously high price, oversized rims and a plethora of buttons will convince anyone that they are.
4) Bugatti Galibier
Okay, so this thing still isn’t a production model, but based on the signals Volkswagen has been sending to us last few weeks, it will become one. All the usual ingredients are here: it has too many horsepower, it’s heavy and it looks like a Batmobile after a Pimp My Ride inspired makeover.
But who cares about that? I mean, it will be the fastest saloon in the world right? Just like the Veyron before it, this will be a vanity fair for the Volkswagen Group just to show the world that they can. But the question is, do you really have to, just because you can?
They got it all wrong with the Veyron; the car was intended to be the fastest production car in the world which it is, but in other fields, it’s a complete waste of time and space. I mean, designing a car with the ultimate performance on mind, but starting from the exterior design was a tactical mistake clearly showing that things could have been done much better. And the result is a car that is way too heavy and has way too many horsepower compared to it’s rivals (but calling the McLaren F1 a rival would be an insult to it) and even in the field where it should excel, it’s not that superior. Just check the video on Top Gear and see for yourself.
Besides, all this obsession with sheer speed, since when is a fast car a good driver’s car? Maybe Obama should license his motto to the Volkswagen Group because except him, no one ever says “Yes, we can!” so frequently.
* The opinions stated here are not the official standings or views from My Car Portal and they are only personal opinions stated by the author here in this article
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