by David Finlay (27 Jul 03)

"There are no bad cars any more." People have been saying this for at least the last ten years, and it is undoubtedly true that manufacturers are now creating products whose quality would, within fairly recent memory, have been considered unachievable. By an enormous margin, cars in 2003 are faster, quieter, cleaner, safer and more economical than they were at any point during, say, the Thatcher administration.

I suppose the definition of the term "bad car" has to be continually revised so that it covers anything whose design is well below the current average. These days that no longer includes cars which can be expected to fall apart within two weeks of leaving the showroom. Of course, there are still individual cars which do this (some of the warranty claims I've been hearing about recently are simply appalling), but that's a question of build quality rather than of design.

It's also important to distinguish between a car that is actually bad and one that you simply don't like. I am no great fan of smarts. I am not wildly fussed about the Ford Ka. I do not feel that the world is a particularly better place because of the Volkswagen Beetle. These, however, are my problems, and I don't object to anyone else being thrilled by any or all of the above. I wouldn't say that these cars are inherently bad, it's just that they don't appeal to me.

Similarly, I would run a mile to avoid Gospel choirs, string quartets or any song in which the word "baby" was rhymed with the word "maybe", but I can't complain about their existence, and if you want to listen to them, go ahead. Live and let live, that's what I say.

Reader's Voice: Is there a point to all this?

Myself: Yes, yes, I'm just coming to it.

Just occasionally you do come across a car which is truly awful, a complete and utter lemon, a dead sheep in the reservoir of the motor industry. It happens increasingly rarely (see first paragraph), but when it does the memory stays with you forever.

Fortunately Long Gone

The vehicle which established itself as the worst I ever drove - and please God nothing will ever come along to displace it - is no longer in production but was on sale recently enough that you still see some on the road. I hereby apologise to anyone who owns one and thinks it is wonderful, but I still get the shivers when I see it.

It was the Asia Motors Rocsta, a sort of Jeep-like thing brought into this country by Kia. Whatever Kia does in the future, whatever atrocities it may commit, I shall always be grateful to the company for abandoning this particular project, because the Rocsta really was a hideous device. No car based on the Jeep principle can ever look especially beautiful, but the Rocsta was far uglier than any of the others, not least because from the rear it managed to give the impression of a badly executed 1920s replica.

Frankly I thought it was embarrassing to be seen in the thing, a view shared by various friends who hooted with laughter every time they saw me coming. I would have left it at home if there had been any alternative form of transport at the time, but there wasn't, and in any case my job was to drive it as much as possible. I haven't blushed so deeply or so often since.

On one grim occasion I had to take it to a race meeting, making a point of parking it as near the exit of the car park as possible. Driving home afterwards, I came to a large roundabout, and discovered to my alarm and dismay that I was about to encounter another Rocsta. I joined the roundabout behind the other guy and left it before him, then accelerated up to a socially responsible 70mph on the following piece of dual-carriageway.

The other guy accelerated to 80mph (quite how I don't know - I wouldn't have had the nerve myself) and passed me, at which point I realised I was effectively competing in a Rocsta race. Mortifying.

My companion seemed quite pleased with this. "Ooh, this is fun!" she said. "No it isn't!" I cried. "Don't ever tell anyone about this. And if you start waving I'll never speak to you again."

Everything Against It

The Rocsta was extremely uncomfortable and horrible to drive. It had a flat and almost vertical windscreen, and you could feel the air pressure building up massively as speeds increased. You had to drive the thing flat out on the open road in order to make any kind of decent progress at all.

Not that you would necessarily want to. I live in an area where the roads are very challenging, a fine test for any car. They complement good chassis set-ups and reveal the inelegancies in bad ones, but whatever the car you can generally tootle along at 60mph most of the time and never experience the slightest hint that you are about to lose control.

Unless you're driving a Rocsta, that is. I couldn't do more than 45mph on these roads without feeling that it was going to leap into the scenery. This led me to make a vow which I knew I was not going to break under any circumstances. Within a couple of days I was going to have to go to the press launch of another manufacturer's latest car, and because of where I lived and where the launch was taking place I would have to drive 250 miles each way on very similar roads, with only the tiniest stretch of dual-carriageway about halfway along.

I wasn't having any of it. The whole process, assuming I survived it without either physical injury or a nervous breakdown, looked like it would take about a month, and I would be in no state to write a coherent article afterwards. Either I found another mode of transport, or I would stay at home.

It all worked out in the end. I borrowed a Vauxhall Astra and took that instead. I've been quite a fan of the Astra ever since.

Back to David Finlay column index