Do premium badges guarantee slick design? Not if you squint at a Proton, says Ben Whitworth
Snarled up in traffic trying to get into Chichester last Saturday morning, I spotted the rear of a snappy-looking supermini in the queue ahead that, for a few seconds, I couldn’t put a name to. I’d seen a press release about it, but just couldn’t place it.
I liked what I saw, though. Flared arches, clamshell bonnet, tidy lights, stepped glasshouse, central exhaust pipe. All very distinctive. But then I glimpsed the badge. It was a Proton Savvy. Almost immediately I caught myself thinking, ‘Oh God, it’s a Proton. It’ll be a right spudder’. Like a first-class badge snob, I’d junked my positive first opinion the moment I saw the car’s badge. So much for an impartial, experienced and unbiased journalist.
Unfortunately, the Savvy conforms to the norm and is decidedly average to drive. It will remain a small seller and deservedly so. But I walked right into its visual snare. It’s easily done though, isn’t it? It’s simple to write off a car because its badge isn’t up to scratch, no matter how good it looks. And for a long time now – too long, perhaps – the good old badge-ometer was a pretty accurate measure of a car’s worth. Premium car makers made good-looking cars and, by and large, the mainstream manufacturers produced dross.
Now we have a market turned on its head by cool-looking Kia Cee’ds, funky Skoda Roomsters, slick Ford Mondeos and edgy Vauxhall Astras taking on drab-looking BMW 325is, stomach-churningly ugly Porsche Cayennes, breeze-block Audi Q7s and Ferraris 612s best viewed in dark metallics at night. So the question is this: on a pure design level, would you rather drive a sharp-suited model with a common-as-muck badge, or a visual dullard with a pay-through-your-nose logo?
Yes, of course, style and design are hugely personal choices, and plenty of you reading this will disagree with my shortlist of uglies and beauties. But am I wrong to think that exclusive and expensive no longer have the monopoly on motorway eye candy? The next time you’re drawn in by a car’s looks – for the right or wrong reasons – look first, decide second and then badge spot last. Don’t repeat my schoolboy error.