It comes, I suppose, from years of experience and conditioning. There are back-of-mind stereotypes about small cars. See a Ford Fiesta or Fiat 500? That will be a young budget-limited buyer with places to go.
See a very old, very cheap small car? That will be driven by a middle-aged, blue-collar bloke who fixes it himself and drives everywhere at eleven-tenths. See a pretty new, very clean Honda Jazz? Come on, you old duffer – get a flipping move on.
I wonder how frequently this stops people buying what could be the best and most suitable car they will never own. I love the Picanto and its Hyundai i10 sibling.
They’re two of the best things I could and should probably buy as a family daily runner. But when it came to buying, one thing that would play on my mind would be knowing that as I passed cars on the motorway, there would be some berk behind me, impatiently gesturing me to get out of the overtaking lane, because he would be thinking exactly like, er, I would.
Will this go on forever, I wonder? The market is in its biggest phase of disruption for a century. Where do newer players sit?
Teslas seem to be driven with the same motorway, um, ‘spirit’ as Audis or Mercedes. In my mind, GWM, maker of the Ora 03 (formerly the Funky Cat), is a bit Proton and it’s a bit soon to tell about BYD.