Old people really like high seats, cos they are old and have trouble getting out of lower cars. So it’s a fair market segment. They also need to be small cos old people are usually hard up and don’t need a family sized car.

They should make one that looks like a 1930s Rover though, that’d be more appropriate.

I passed five Qashqais on the way home. All were being driven by folk, none of whom looked over 50.

Yeah that’s the thing with Faux x Fours, they’re not really targeting the hive of STW, they’re looking at young 20 something’s who have Jobs in offices and care about their careers and starting young families.

Thing is, not much of a market to go for.

Thing is, not much of a market to go for.

Well, the Qashquai alone had a 15.9% jump in sales from 2011 to 2012 and was 6th most popular in the UK, although well outsold by the Golf in 5th place. Not bad for a car being sold to not much of a market. And, I’d hazard, most people driving them are far from retirement age.

Most Qush sales are Company Cars though.

I had a bright blue original Fiat Multipla. I loved it. Especially the fact that most people hated it. Had three children and we used to bundle down to the south of France in it twice a year. had it for about 5 years and did 95,000 miles in it.
Great original car and despite what crashtestmonkey says it was ok to drive and three front seats is genius when you have children.

Most Qush sales are Company Cars though.

Source? And even if it were so, what difference would that make anyway?

My point is that Qashquai’s are incredibly popular across quite a few demographics. You see them everywhere…the city, the country, the burbs.

DD good point.
The Qashquai is a big success, it’s a car that ticks lots of boxes for lots of people.
It’s a hugely versatile and adaptable platform which appeals to a varied bunch of potential owners.

What’s possibly more important is that it doesn’t really alienate anyone – It’s big enough for families or outdoorsy couples (unlike the Juke and M***a) but not too big to be awkward.

The M***a however is a ‘lifestyle’ product – you can fit kids in, but not all their paraphernalia.
It’s too small to carry people and loads of outdoorsy stuff, but too big to qualify as a true city car.
It values style over substance and (even if it does look like a beaky squid) flatters to deceive.

Vauxhall are pushing it at us btw:

Dunno about you, but I get terrible chaffing riding in leather pants.

Source:

Company Carpark.

RS, I loves it in white.

It looks just like a Duster. The local Renault salesman feigned polite amusement when I translated “duster” into French.

I saw one about 6 months ago driven by a rep in Michaelwood services – looked ok in the flesh tbh, albeit I did give him a word in the ear about his maladjusted headlights dazzling me on the motorway beforehand.

Those Dusters are popular in France I noticed during the summer. They’re pretty horrible looking. I’m guessing that being Dacias, they’re on the cheap side.

Vauxhall haven’t designed a car that’s aesthetically any more interesting than an Ikea tea towel in god-knows how long. Every single one is a vapid compromise of design features and the result is so horribly middle-of-the-road you wouldn’t be able to get two of them down the same street at once. With several decades’ hindsight the Chevette looks mildly interesting – other than that leafing through Vauxhall’s design history is like watching some very ordinary grass grow.

The Multipla was a brave and utterly fantastic piece of design and an admirably ballsy product.

The Multipla is horrendous, just admit it and stop trying to be STW-fashionable. I only ever see them driven by beardy yoghurt knitters and women with knitted hippy shoulder bags and 3.5kids anyway. The same people that thought 2CV’s were cool 20 years ago – they weren’t, they were crap too.

Vauxhall’s are inherently bland though, I’ll give you that (I never want to be inside a Vectra ever again).

smug, piss-boiling scenester who wears brown leather trousers and gels his beard.

It is a good beard though.

I’m not saying the Multipla was cool or that it isn’t driven by yoghurt weavers. I’m saying it was good design and I’m glad Fiat had the balls to turn it into a product. The replacement version was as exciting as a Vauxhall.

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR – Member

The same people that thought 2CV’s were cool 20 years ago – they weren’t, they were crap too.

You’re right – Dyanes were way cooler – hatchback, see?
Wish I’d have kept mine, it was wonderful. 🙂

Vauxhall’s are inherently bland though, I’ll give you that (I never want to be inside a Vectra ever again).

Dunno about that. My 280,000 mile Omega was far from bland:
If you relaxed your hands on the wheel it tried to kill you.
Nothing bland about that – had character that car.
Admittedly, the character of a demented psychopath, but character nontheless.

labsey – Member

It is a good beard though.

Is he breaking it in for an adult?
Sorry, but outside of the mythical land of Bellendery, no beard has ever looked like that. There’s not even any breakfast in it.

4 Qashquixes in the carpark at work belonging to the shiny suit **** and shoulder padded she-**** of the recruitment agency below us. ****.

There are many uglier vehicles out there today and I really struggle to see what message they are trying to convey as there is simply no thought applied to the aesthetics.

I think Fiat win in the ugly stakes, Qubo and Dolo! Ugly as sin but I think their Idea takes the cake as obviously what they are saying is “We have no idea!”.

Mini coupe, soooo impractical you would need to be about 4ft tall to live with that on a day to day basis and looks pish in the Cooper.

Renault Twizy! I kid you not just take a look for yourselves!

Anything by Chrysler especially that cruiser.

Friend has a Juke and loves it, terrible IMO. Either you buy a 4X4 or a people carrier, these ‘lifestyle’ things seem to tick no practical boxes or silly/for the hell of it boxes.

Friend has a Juke and loves it, terrible IMO. Either you buy a 4X4 or a people carrier, these ‘lifestyle’ things seem to tick no practical boxes or silly/for the hell of it boxes.

But most of them are not actually 4-wheel drive, just look like 4×4’s.

The Mokka and Juke are the sort of car that beige people buy to make them appear slightly more quirky and interesting.

Where as everyone else insists on buying cars in various shades of the most boring colour available – grey/silver or something that looks like grey/silver

Friend has a Juke and loves it, terrible IMO. Either you buy a 4X4 or a people carrier, these ‘lifestyle’ things seem to tick no practical boxes or silly/for the hell of it boxes.

My dads got one. I asked him why he bought such a hideous pile of crap. His answer was that it was ‘fun’. He has the 190bhp turbocharged petrol one, and he’s an ex-rally driver and advanced driving instructor. So that’s fair enough. Plus even my mum (who’s 66-ish) finds it fun because she can get away from the lights faster than the boy racers and the diesel Audis. 🙂

Bez – Member
Vauxhall haven’t designed a car that’s aesthetically any more interesting than an Ikea tea towel in god-knows how long. Every single one is a vapid compromise of design features and the result is so horribly middle-of-the-road you wouldn’t be able to get two of them down the same street at once. With several decades’ hindsight the Chevette looks mildly interesting – other than that leafing through Vauxhall’s design history is like watching some very ordinary grass grow.

The same can be said for many car manufacturers, because they play the safe numbers game.

VW? Hmmm, the new Scirocco, perhaps. But that’s no better than the new Astra GTC. Passat/Phaeton…?!
Audi? Aggressive fronted middle management boxes?
Citroën? Plenty of boring design but have some interesting cars in the ds range now. They tried with the C6 that was supposedly a good exec car, but no one bought it…
Renault? Yeah, the Megane from a few yrs ago had that bum on it. They tried a few design statements like the Avantime & look how well that did?

Thing is, they want to sell cars. They can’t afford to spend millions developing a car, then give it a strong design that 90% of their market look at and go ‘eurgh’.

It would be nice to have some interesting designs back on the road. Something that got people talking again (good & bad). Last car I can think that did that across a wide demographic was the original Ka.

Not sure the Ka will ever become a “classic” but it deserves it. That original design ran for years and years. In fact, despite many thinking that Fords are a bit boring, they’ve often been the ones to break the mould. Escort MkIII, Sierra, Ka, original Fiesta.

Yep, I think the Ka was ’94…..

Puma too was another of their good efforts. Wiped the floor with the only real competitor I can think of when it came out; the Tigra.