Has it ever struck you as weird that in our society, when two people meet, it’s considered a respectful process for both parties to slap together their possibly germ-laden, urine-tainted, food-covered right hands and give them a good jerk up and down?
But here we are, handshakes are objectively strange but strangely important. And when they’re not good, that’s a disappointment, as we can all attest after going to shake the hand of a strapping rugby player type and finding their handshake reminiscent of pulling a leaf off a damp sapling. Or, conversely, meeting some slight individual and finding their idea of an acceptable greeting is to crush all the tiny bones in your hand while attempting to dislocate your shoulder. A bad handshake is a terrible disappointment which brings me, obviously, to exterior doorhandles.
In my mind, a car’s exterior doorhandle is its handshake. As your first point of contact, it sets a tone for so much else you’re about to experience. So it’s an enormous let down when it’s a bit limp. The handles on the early 2000s Jaguar XJ, for example, looked nice enough and their chrome-y finish matched the somewhat baroque style of the rest of the car. But to use, they were surprisingly lightweight and felt a little loose in their action, sending a short memo to your subconscious that maybe this wasn’t an entirely high-quality experience. A Jaguar insider once darkly hinted that the blame lay with the enforced use of Ford parts within the door mechanisms.
