Back in the latter quarter of the last century, there was a reaction to the gas crisis among car companies. They all tried to make compact cars that would compensate for such a problem in efficiency while keeping the customers coming. You had Datsuns, the Gremlin, Toyota’s Tercel, Ford’s Pinto and plenty more. In comparison to the 1980s, which was almost the king of all decades when it comes to lemon cars, today’s models have improved tremendously in quality and performance. However, there are still quite a few lemons in the market. Most manufacturers have at least one; I have only here named a few of the ones that are from the most luxurious brands.
Jaguar’s XJ – An expensive vehicle, a terrible ride. What are you paying for?
Mini’s Countryman JCW – The worst of these editions. Expensive, yet slow and sounds like it’s going to fall apart.
Land Rover’s Freelander – You might as well upgrade to the Evoque for the same amount of money.
Kia’s Optima – Kia’s making a comeback, but not with this model. The look doesn’t match the driving experience.
Mitsubishi’s Lancer 2.0 GLS – You won’t find what you’re looking for here. A sad imitation of the Evolution X, you might as well save some pennies and go for the good stuff.
Jeep Compass – A front wheel drive JEEP? How can you go off-road in that?
These are all supposed to be the best of the best in their class. What happened? Is it just the calm before the storm? In an effort for autos to become more energy efficient but still maintain the same visual attraction, companies must have lost their spark on these. Maybe in the next few years, we will see another car design revolution, like we saw in the 1990s and 2000s. The third generation Honda Civic was probably the best car of its time in both visual quality and gas consumption. Since then, there has been the introduction of cars as computers, replacing cars as machines. Perhaps there will be another major transformation of this nature that will take our vehicles to a new level of attractiveness.
