As with most things these
As with most things these days it seems bad cars aren’t commonplace in the way they were twenty or thirty years back. I wasn’t looking for a huge load lugger per se, rather something midsize hence the 306 (coupled with the fact I’d seen a few about). As for the Focus, little to dislike in practice but cam-belt seems to be Ford’s 16V weak point.
That said, certain manufacturers are very good at building mythology. German cars being a case in point…The emphasis now being upon refinement rather than engineering per se… I quite like the 1 series BMW estates but felt in some regards the 16002 and 2002 cars from the 70’s were better than the 3 series that replaced it.. Depends on how we’re measuring things….
BMW’s R65, R80 & R100 boxer twin motorcycles were fine motorway machines…The R45 by contrast was rare and gutless.