The UK’s Most Opinionated Automotive Reviews? - Car and The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Personal note: Car magazine was the first motoring title that altered my younger self to how automotive writing could be witty, thought-provoking, and often idiosyncratic. To look at an edition from 1977 is to be immersed in a world of L.J.K. Setright, scoop photographs of prototypes from Hans G. Lehmann and, of course, “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly”.

For those unfamiliar with Car, GBU is their unmissable buyers’ guide, divided into “Interesting” and “Boring” for saloons and coupes. Some of their reviews ran contrary to the long-running mythology – the “Interesting” section contained the Leyland Princess - “Good but more for the older man” - and the Austin Maxi - “Much improved”. The Alpine received the “Nice one Chrysler” accolade, and the Mazda 323 1000 was a “Serious Chevette/Opel rival”.

Photo credit: Simon Hayes of https://www.leylandprincess.co.uk/

Equally surprisingly, the “Boring Saloon” section contained some surprisingly balanced comments. The Cadillac Seville was “Quite OK”, and the Polski-Fiat 125p was “Cheap but not so nasty”. They also regarded the Ford Cortina Mk. IV as “Much, much better now” and the Toyota Celica as “Fair”. Their review of the Vauxhall VX seemed optimistic enough to belong in the “Interesting” section: For: Room, smooth looks. Against: Not all that much. Sum-Up: Honest”.

But I would suggest that many readers did not purchase Car to read thoughtful, measured content in GBU. Instead, they were drawn to observations that are best described as “downright rude”. The AMC Pacer somewhat inevitably attracted Car’s wrath. Their conclusion simply read “Yech!”, on par with their assessment of the Moskvich 1500 - “Arggh!”. It comes as a mild shock that the latter was still on sale in the UK as recently as 1977.

Many vehicles from Japan were also summarily dismissed; the Honda Civic in the “Interesting” section received the back-handed compliment “Is it really Japanese?”. More typically, they asked whether the Toyota Crown was “A joke of some kind?’, the Carina was “ZZZZZZZZ”, and their review of the 1000 is actually too offensive to repeat. Datsun did not fare any better, the 120Y Sunny = “Y indeed?”, and the 200L = “Rather you than us”.

Further spleen was vented over the Morris Marina - “An embarrassment” - while the writers engaged the spirit of Les Dawson regarding the Ford Capri Mk. III - “Just fine for your wife”. They also recommended of the Fiat 126 “Buy one for your mother-in-law”. The Reliant Robin fared even worse - “For: You tell us. Against: Some-one stole a wheel. Sum-Up: Is it a bike? - It’s not a car!”. And it would be fair to say the Vanden Plas 1500 was destined not to appeal to Car - “For: Pseuds, mainly. Against: Poor little Noddy. Sum-Up: Ho! Ho!”.

Another surprising element of GBU is how many long-established classic cars they dismissed on the grounds of age. The BMW 1502 and the VW Beetle found themselves relegated to the “Boring Saloons”; the former was apparently “The past lingering on” and the latter “Strictly for Beetlemaniacs”. The Simca 1000 was “Like a bad hangover”, and the Chrysler Hunter was “Horrid”.

As for certain BL products, the MGB was “Decrepit” and the Midget “10 years out of date”. Car managed to be even more abusive about the Triumph Spitfire - “Someone shoot it please”. The Mini was also “Five years beyond the grave”. Even placement in the “Interesting” sections would not save a venerable design from complaint. The Rover P6 was “Due for the chop”, and the Triumph 2000/2500 was “outdated”; the 2300/2600 SD1 succeeded both only a few months later. However, the Renault 16 was an “Oldie but a goodie”.

Nearly 47 years later, I have to say that I would be happy to experience any of the models Car decreed “Boring”. It is always worth repeating that for many owners, reliability, standard equipment, and ease of servicing are priorities above and beyond performance.

That said, their review of the Datsun 280C in 1982 was highly memorable - “Datsun aren’t silly - they won’t let us drive one.”