Everyone needs a victim
04/09/2026
For Mr. Bean it was the light blue Reliant Regal; for Marshall Eriksen it was his Pontiac Fiero and for the guys from Top Gear it was the Morris Marina. And the Vauxhall Vectra. And the Nissan Juke. And the Toyota Prius. And the VW Beetle. And the Mini Countryman. And the Jaguar X-Type. And every modern Peugeot. The car that always gets a bad rap and always has to be used as a bad example.
Of course, I also have a favorite target that always has to take little side blows in blog posts and articles: the Opel Ascona C - the German offshoot of the front-wheel-drive J platform, which also produced such gems as the Cadillac Cimarron and with which General Motors proved in 1981 that you don't need help from Spain to build lousy cars.
How something like this could sell 1.7 million units is beyond me. Because while even total commercial failures like the Talbot Tagora and Lancia Trevi, for all their lack of quality, at least have good industrial design to offer, an Ascona C just looks exactly like what it is: an American from the deepest "Malaise Era": unimaginative and awkward with strange proportions.
However, this at least gives it another - albeit rather dubious - top position: in no other car does the visual impression depend so much on the choice of wheels. And that is the only impression I have of the Ascona C so far. That and the very vivid descriptions of a former editorial colleague who had to spend his childhood suffering in the back seat of several Ascona Cs.
Well, I confess: that's enough to make me talk, but not enough for a journalistic opinion. So I urgently need to drive one. Preferably an SR. Although: better not. After all, all the preconceptions about the Lancia Trevi and Talbot Tagora have already proven to be untenable. In the end, I still like the Ascona C. And then I'd need a new victim...
