| Issue #50, March 23, 2007 |
Classic Cars
with Bob Gelber
In the late fifties, a famous headline for a Rolls Royce print ad read, “The stigma of high price is soon forgotten, but the quality lingers on.” This was during an era when a spanking, new Rolls Royce Silver Cloud listed for $12,500. However, that statement is very true today. Quality is very important in virtually everything. I agree with many yacht brokers, whose advice to many buyers is to buy as much quality as they can afford.
When it comes to automotive quality, I have to admit that Rolls Royce and its sibling, Bentley, are still the leaders of the pack. In fact nobody does it better than the British when it comes to scrumptious interiors. Jaguar’s a close third. Over the years, famous British automakers have been killing more trees and cattle to appoint cars than any other company. Maybe that’s why you can’t get a good steak anywhere in England. There is more leather and wood in one Rolls Royce than there is in Ralph Lauren’s den.
For years, other luxury car manufacturers have been trying to catch up with the British. Mercedes Benz has gotten close, but always seems to fall short because of its Teutonic build quality. You know what I mean, the German leather is either too hard or the wood is so perfect it looks like plastic.
The new kids on the block, the Japanese contenders, try their best to put a British ambiance into their cars’ interiors, but somehow the sweat shows. Maybe it’s pedigree. These guys are just too new to the game. Tokyo at night has a long way to go before it looks like Trafalger Square.
For a while, all British cars featured wood and leather interiors. Even the entry level sports cars like the MG, Triumph and Austin Healey, featured wooden dashboards, or facias, and leather covered seats. Most “real” British sports cars even had wooden steering wheels. In fact many early sports cars of all nations featured wooden steering wheels, which not only looked correct, but felt quite natural when driving. The great Ferrari outsourced its wooden steering wheels from the Italian specialty firm, Nardi. Alfa Romeo made its wooden wheels in house. Most British cars used their own wooden wheel products or those made by the British firm, Moto-Lita.
Today, the Nardi and Moto-Lita wooden steering wheel companies are still in business selling their beautiful products to automobile enthusiasts all over the world. Sadly, today’s contempory steering wheels contain air bags and in many cases, radio and cruise control buttons. In no way can these vintage steering wheels be fitted on a modern car. It’s a shame, because there is a lovely tactile sensation when touching and driving a car with a real wooden steering wheel. It is certainly a lot nicer than the more common leather steering wheels today and worlds apart from the cheap plastic steering wheels found on many, many automotive products. Yuck!
When one really thinks about it, quality in an automobile begins at the steering wheel. That’s the major part of a car constantly being touched. Then, the controls and materials in your line of vision are key features. Honda, which has earned an enviable reputation for building quality low priced cars, has always produced controls like signal light stalks and radio buttons with an expensive feel. They seem substantial and click into position with precision. That, my friends, is clever marketing.
I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but even the design of a car’s keys is becoming an event. This was brought to my attention several years agowhen I sat in on a design press conference with the head of Ford’s design department. One hour of the meeting was spent talking about all the research and design that had gone into the design of the key for a newly designed Lincoln. At the time I quietly thought to myself that this is really a silly priority and maybe Ford should put more thought into product dependability. But look at car keys today. They are mini computers. Just don’t lose one, replacement of some of the more sophisticated ones can run $150. For the record, I still think this “super key “ priority is zany.
So what really is quality? It certainly isn’t a car key that looks like a credit card. If you have any semblance of good taste in automobiles and I’ll assume you do, because you read me and live in the Hamptons, you’ll know quality when you see it. In automobiles, quality can be aesthetic as well as technical. To me quality is as quality does. How long does the vehicle last? How well does it perform? Does the car make design sense? Will it stand the test of time? Is it the kind of car that does more than just please the eye? Does it make you want to peek into the garage at night? Is it practical or wonderfully impractical? Quality does not have to be expensive, but unfortunately it usually is. Go out and find it.
Bob Gelber, an automotive journalist living in the Hamptons, appears regularly on television as an automotive expert. You can email him at bobgelber@aol.com
 |
