The problem is that GM are trying to sell the same cars under the Opel/Vauxhall/Holden brands on one side, which are normal mid-range brands, and Buick on the other side, which pretends to be a premium brand even though no one is really fooled. I don’t know how long they intend to keep this up but unless they move to…

Believable. Dutchmen are the tallest people on earth.

What’s they?

Maybe because they completely blew it on the fundamentals. It’s all well and good to offer Italian style, soul and passion, but people in this segment also want technology, toys, security features and driving assists, and the Ghibli is way behind its competitors on that front.

I must say I find the Jaguar XE equally pretty.

Hot damn. Add the future Giulietta and Stelvio and Alfa will start to have a proper range again. It’s been what, 10 years?

The average MX-5 buyer wants a simple no-headache sports car to have fun on the weekend, I think they’d consider having to step out of the car to remove a cumbersome roof panel they’d then have to store in the boot as a giant pain in the ass, and they’d probably be right. This system may be heavy but like the soft-top…

The days of premium models not sharing their cheaper counterparts’ platforms will soon be entirely over in my opinion.

I assume they’ll cram more features and tech for your money? If you want comfort and plenty of toys but aren’t too interested in the badge, that might work.

Why wouldn’t Australia get a few Alpines? You get Renaults already don’t you?

Not to nitpick, but it’s more the Twingo that uses the platform of the Smart. Twingos were the opposite of rear-engineed before the partnership with Daimler.

A few years ago they had this, the Laguna Coupé. More of a cruiser for retirees than a sports car, but the automotive press in France went absolutely bananas over the rear which everyone described as Aston Martin-like. It was a very pretty car.

It’s just something you have to take into account at the beginning of a car/platform’s design. Premium carmakers go through the trouble because the US has potential for them. Renault don’t see their cars doing well in the US anyway so they don’t bother.

They’ve been kind of dropping the ball lately on the hot hatch front. The Clio RS used to be the darling of every car magazine under the sun, but now it’s the Fiesta ST. The new Mégane GT seems to be a very good platform on which to build a great new Mégane RS, but it’s not clear yet wether or not it’ll get a…

why get X Merc or X BMW when you could have the AMG or M for twice the cost?

The Acuras just looks weirdly cheap for supposed luxury cars. The Infinities and Lexuses of this world may not be to everyone’s taste but they look like they cost money, and that’s what people are after (among other things).

I had almost completely forgotten Acura was supposed to be Honda’s luxury brand. Bar the wood can’t you get Honda models just as richly appointed as their Acura equivalents?

It was polarizing (I personally liked it). Now it’s boring.

Ah yes, those are a speciality of French car companies. Take a panel van and give it seats and windows, tell people it’s just as good as an MPV. But no amount of extra seats ever makes up for the fact that panel vans are not designed to the same level of comfort and refinement than real passenger cars. But they’re…

Well it’s a cheap tiny panel van, not an MPV. But I haven’t driven one so I’ll take your word for it. Still, if Mercedes sells a badge-engineered one it can’t be that bad, right?