20 Jun 01
Rolls-Royce luxury on a manageable scale has been the ambition of many manufacturers over the years, with results that have ranged from cool to kitsch. Aping the upper classes has always been an obsession of the British middle class, so perhaps it's no surprise that some of the most notable examples of jumped-up small cars come from Britain.
As coachbuilders such as Radford and Vanden Plas struggled to survive in a motor industry where traditional skills were no longer in such demand (even from the likes of Rolls-Royce, which did more and more of the bodywork and trimming in-house as the post-war years unfolded) they applied their talents in a more superficial way, attempting to give off-the-peg cars that upmarket, wood-and-leather gravitas. Others, such as Jaguar and Daimler, achieved mini-luxury status by merely 'downsizing' (as the modern parlance would have it) its existing luxurious models.
At the cheaper end of the scale, BMC used badge-engineering mercilessly to give its Mini mainstream luxury appeal (but the results were a perfect example of how more is often less) while Ford never pretended that its plush 'E'-badged Escorts were anything more than, er, tarted-up Escorts.
So it's time to dig your heels into the Wilton carpet, admire the gloss on the veneer and take the picnic tables for a test-drive in 10 small-scale luxury classics that are guaranteed to impress the neighbours... especially if you happen to live in Bournemouth.
