I know I once read about Stevie Wonder in a tour bus and he was the most polite and interesting man. He said to the driver "Would you like me to take the wheel for a bit?" so he has a great sense of humour.

Increasingly, car test drives from the UK and round the world are concentrating on sideshows like the quality of the dashboard plastics. The journos are keener to run their hands over the dash than to drive the thing.

This about the Range Rover Evoque in today's Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/car-manufacturers/land-rover/8636873/Range-Rover-Evoque-review.html

The delight continues in the cabin, with glistening switches and dials from pricier Range Rover models and beautifully upholstered and supportive seats in the front which, with the adjustable steering column, give a perfect driving position. Features from a higher grade of cars include one-touch interior lighting and the split-screen centre console display, which allows passengers to watch television or DVDs while the driver can see only the satnav.

Look farther down in the cabin, however, and the cost accountant’s hand is just visible as plastic quality drops off.

Just goes to show how materialistic many people have become, and how important presentation seems to be rather than the actual deliverable.

MartinZT wrote:Just goes to show how materialistic many people have become, and how important presentation seems to be rather than the actual deliverable.

I think it's also easier to road test a car's plastics without ever leaving the showroom. Like the cook from the Daily Mail.

patpending wrote:one-touch interior lighting

I've never met a car with multi-touch interior lighting ... but my MG ZS has automatic interior lighting.

Is one-touch lighting desirable for some reason

Windy wrote:I've never met a car with multi-touch interior lighting ... but my MG ZS has automatic interior lighting.

Is one-touch lighting desirable for some reason

if you're sitting in the car trying to think of something to say without actually driving it?

The only time you want interior lighting in a car is when you aren't driving it TBH...

patpending wrote:The only time you want interior lighting in a car is when you aren't driving it TBH...

And even then only if you are into nefarious activities in lay-bys in the countryside...

patpending wrote:

Windy wrote:I've never met a car with multi-touch interior lighting ... but my MG ZS has automatic interior lighting.

Is one-touch lighting desirable for some reason

if you're sitting in the car trying to think of something to say without actually driving it?

The only time you want interior lighting in a car is when you aren't driving it TBH...

I guess that is why the automatic lighting in my MG ZS switches it on when you turn the engine off, assuming it is dark. It's not something I notice very often, but that is probably because it always gets it right.

Maybe Landrover owners have some other use for manual lighting, maybe the sheep need it.

To its critics, the V70 sums up all that’s bad about Volvo – it’s heavy, the appalling turning circle continues to amaze and the body rocks on its springs like a boat on the waves. But it also has supremely comfy seats for four, plenty of room in the boot for the obligatory Labrador, a fantastic sound system, big chunky feel-good knobs and buttons, and a plush interior in the higher trim range.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/picturegalleries/8655363/Top-10-estate-cars.html?image=3

...feel-good knobs? Now I know that Erin Baker got married a few months back, but...

It's like reading reviews of new computers and mobile phones these days.

Kia Rio review from The Daily Telegraph 23 July:

Lots of love has gone into the cabin, with soft-touch plastics...

and when you hear there's a fuel-saving model,

It's a hair-shirt car, however, with a stripped-out interior, wind-up windows and as much fizz as cold soup.

Wind-up windows? I first presumed it has hinged windows like the Mini...but then realised they are carping that the windows are not electric!

auto, motor + sport 25/8/2011:

The Jeep Grand Cherokee smacks suspiciously of spaghetti since the FIAT deal.

Although the B*W X5 is made in the US, you can tell it has the ingenuity of German engineers behind it.

No matter how much we wiggled the B*W's i-Drive, we couldn't break it. Whereas the Jeep has a single column stalk that we can't work.

The Jeep comes with lots of equipment like leather as standard for €57,650, whereas B*W (base €54,500) charge extra for zoned climate control, satnav, leather...

Result: BUY GERMAN!

New Subaru Trezia Mini-MPV: Nasty hard plastic, nowhere to put 2-litre bottles when driving. No mention of 49mpg petrol economy in the text. Clearly a heap of dung compared to the Polo or Golf.

auto, motor + sport Feb 2011:

100,000km test of Mercedes C200 - "the question on everybody's lips is - will its dashboard plastics stand up to this long-term test?". They do, but the fact that its 1.8 petrol engine returns worse than 25mpg is not commented on...

Style over substance ?

Roverman wrote:Style over substance ?

Stuff you can look at in the showroom over stuff that involves driving one, certainly.

All the more disappointing because the German approach used to be to measure everything objectively, and it was just that the German cars were best-engineered. A new generation of German journos is even inventing words meaning things like "of plastics, appearing chunky (was once humorous)" (Haptik). The Jeep-B*W comparison of two American-built 4x4s shows that subjective factors now rule...

From the auto, motor + sport Frankfurt motor show edition:

With their new A5, Audi clearly return to the lead in the premium segment, as the dashboard plastics are top quality!

Now Hyundai unleash a team of journos on a car!

It was monkey business as usual at Knowsley Safari Park this week - after a group of baboons went ape and monkeyed around with a family car. (That's enough monkey puns - Ed.)

The family car in question was a Hyundai i30 - deliberately parked in the baboon enclosure in order to test its durability and, of course, garner some publicity.

patpending wrote:Now Hyundai unleash a team of journos on a car!

How much do baboons weigh? - It could do with some more ride height!

Windy wrote:

patpending wrote:Now Hyundai unleash a team of journos on a car!

How much do baboons weigh? - It could do with some more ride height!

Depends how many bananas they've had.

An infinite number of baboons wrote this review in the weekend press:

"NEEDS spoilah NEEDS biggah motah (to warm I bum) NEEDS biggah wheels NEEDS pineapple holdah NEEDS lowering (I and mates help)"