Peak Car: The search begins

This might appear to be a conventional group test of three different eras of Volkswagen Golf GTI and, on one level, that is precisely what it is. But that’s not why they’re here. Instead they are tools: the spades, pickaxes and crowbars if you like, to help us as we dig into the past in our quest to find when cars were absolutely at their best.

Of course some might question the very use of the past tense here. Are the cars of today not safer, stronger and more reliable than ever before? Are they not broadly more comfortable, and packed with features of which we could have scarcely dreamed a very few years ago?

Well, I’d debate the safety point: they certainly crash better, but with their massive weight, thick pillars and ever increasing requirement for drivers to take their eyes off the road to execute even the simplest of functions, their ability to not crash has surely been seriously compromised, even with the wealth of ADAS ‘assistance’ now at the driver’s disposal. But those responsible seem to believe cure is somehow better than prevention so they don’t test for that.