Ford Ka Revisited

I’ve been driving around for the last couple of days, and will be for the rest of the week, in a ’97 Ka that’s been in the family for thirteen years.

It’s hard to believe it now, with rusty, dishevelled old Ka's ubiquitous on our roads, and on the back of scrap lorries the country over, but the Ka looked like it was from the future when it arrived in ’96. Ford was in the middle of its “edge design” adventures, the Ka was quite a radical departure for the small car market, and particularly for dull old Ford.

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Driven #21:- Jaguar S-Type :- Unexplained Attraction

Flaming Hot Monster Munch. Never liked ‘em. I didn’t really like any spicy food much, to be honest, and yet now if a peppered steak appears on the menu I’ll jump right at it, and the nice, gentle Roast Beef Monster Munch no longer hits the spot.

It’s funny how we suddenly take a liking to a taste, a sensation or a product that we previously held with disinterest or contempt. It happens with music, it happens with fashion, and it happens with cars. And yesterday evening, it happened to me with the Jaguar S-Type.

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Driven #16:- Fiat 500 Abarth

I’m six foot five and there are certain cars I simply cannot fit inside, a Renault Alpine, for example, and a Lotus Exige. Both of these cars have something in common; they were built for enthusiasts. Their drivers would likely put up with a bit of discomfort for the sheer joy of driving. I know I would, I have grazed knees, bumped heads and pulled muscles to savour the experience of a Lotus on a winding road.

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Driven #3:- SLK Rediscovered

Sports cars are everywhere. They are synonymous with the open road, being in touch with your surroundings, driving according to your instincts and not just your reactions. To drive a sports car is to be utterly in control, to have conquered the machine. The greatest sports cars enable every driving cliché to be lived, allowing you to attack every sinewy curve, clipping apexes to be set up perfectly for the next bend in the road.

It takes effort, though - to get the most out of driving a sports car can be hard work. But does it really have to be? 

Get your hands on one of the original SLKs and you can relax your way to a good time. 

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Driven #2:- Mercedes Viano.

Working at Mercedes, if a Sales enquiry comes in about the Viano, I tend to shrug my shoulders and pass the responsibility onto a commercial vehicles specialist a couple of miles down the road. We don't really deal with Vianos very often, they take up a lot of showroom floorspace, enquiry levels are low and they're a lot more expensive than people think.

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Driven #1:- '96-'08 Ford Ka

2009s Ford “new” Ka was met with a universal shrug of ambivalence from the motoring press. A car widely acknowledged as being "nice". There were no fireworks released or front pages being held, Ford had released quite a nice car into a sea of quite nice cars. And as has been commented in numerous places, this is rather a shame.

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