Poverty spec?

Edward M

A poverty spec car, doesent exist lads, just poverty spec owners.

demanufactured

1.4 petrol toyota corolla.
No AC
No climate control.
No electric windows.
Grey interior.
Steel wheels.
No extras.

The perfect car for the middle aged Irish motorist who doesn't like driving.

swarlb

demanufactured wrote: »

1.4 petrol toyota corolla.
No AC
No climate control.
No electric windows.
Grey interior.
Steel wheels.
No extras.

The perfect car for the middle aged Irish motorist who doesn't like driving.

In many regards this is the PERFECT car, minimalist and cheap to run.

Brian Scan

demanufactured wrote: »

1.4 petrol toyota corolla.
No AC
No climate control.
No electric windows.
Grey interior.
Steel wheels.
No extras.

The perfect car for the middle aged Irish motorist who doesn't like driving.

Surely if you like driving it matters very little whether or not a car has electric windows, a grey interior, steel wheels, or other unspecified extras.

demanufactured

swarlb wrote: »

In many regards this is the PERFECT car, minimalist and cheap to run.

I like my cars to be a place I want to be.
I do a lot of driving, and enjoy driving.
It's usually people who don't like driving who buy paddy spec cars.

demanufactured

Brian Scan wrote: »

Surely if you like driving it matters very little whether or not a car has electric windows, a grey interior, steel wheels, or other unspecified extras.

Of course it does, if you like driving, a bland car is the last place you want to be.

Del2005

Brian Scan wrote: »

Surely if you like driving it matters very little whether or not a car has electric windows, a grey interior, steel wheels, or other unspecified extras.

If you like driving you wouldn't buy a 1.4 Corolla or any similar car. An MX5 or Caterham etc is OK to be bare bones, the family car isn't.

Brian Scan

demanufactured wrote: »

Of course it does, if you like driving, a bland car is the last place you want to be.

So, if the Corolla you referenced in your earlier post had alloy wheels, electric windows, a less bland interior and loads of unspecified extras, would you want to own/drive one?

demanufactured

Brian Scan wrote: »

So, if the Corolla you referenced in your earlier post had alloy wheels, electric windows, a less bland interior and loads of unspecified extras, would you want to own/drive one?

It would be a nicer place to be, personally I would not want one.
I just reference I'd the corolla as it is a common model, the same could be said for a megane etc.

ambro25

demanufactured wrote: »

Of course it does, if you like driving, a bland car is the last place you want to be.

I like driving.

Which is why I'm (still) running a 21 year-old MX5 mk1 as a 2nd car, 18 years after buying it.

By contemporary standards, it is very much poverty spec: electric nothing, drive assist nothing (alright, it does have power steering, and I'm told there's an ECU under the hood), minimalist interior all made of 90s Japanese plastic. It's got carpet, I suppose.

Now you see, when someone says they like driving, I picture they'd be happier driving a Lotus 7 with all the home comforts of a steel bathtub, than a German autobahn cruiser with an interior little removed from a Habitat showroom...and wholly uninterested in any econobox in-between, however well-appointed. I suspect that, for good many of them, lack of equipment is actually a (weight-saving) feature

MetzgerMeister

swarlb wrote: »

I love the self depreciating nature of some of these posts, we Irish certainly have a very low opinion of ourselves at times.

Kennedi Teeny Lavatory wrote: »

the self depreciation is humble-bragging, we all feckin love ourselves

Relax folks, it was but a joke.

The Rape of Lucretia

Most of the bleating about poverty spec cars in Ireland comes from people buying second hand, upset that there arent enough high spec models around for them to choose from, and are frustrated by the number of base spec models instead.

However, the irony is lost on them - of course you can buy a highly kitted out car if you want to. Order it and buy one. But they are the ultimate poverty spec merchants, not wanting to buy a new high spec car in the first place. Yet moan about why others havent done so for them.

Tazzimus

ambro25 wrote: »

I like driving.

Which is why I'm (still) running a 21 year-old MX5 mk1 as a 2nd car, 18 years after buying it.

By contemporary standards, it is very much poverty spec: electric nothing, drive assist nothing (alright, it does have power steering, and I'm told there's an ECU under the hood), minimalist interior all made of 90s Japanese plastic. It's got carpet, I suppose.

Now you see, when someone says they like driving, I picture they'd be happier driving a Lotus 7 with all the home comforts of a steel bathtub, than a German autobahn cruiser with an interior little removed from a Habitat showroom...and wholly uninterested in any econobox in-between, however well-appointed. I suspect that, for good many of them, lack of equipment is actually a (weight-saving) feature

Cars like your MX-5 in "poverty spec" are actually preferred, and classed differently as it's a sporty ish car.

For cars like that, which you love to fling around a bendy backroad, less is more.

A normal bog standard Micra or the likes, not so much.

Twenty Grand

Some people put more stock in having a new car than a good car.

JoeA3

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Most of the bleating about poverty spec cars in Ireland comes from people buying second hand, upset that there arent enough high spec models around for them to choose from, and are frustrated by the number of base spec models instead.

However, the irony is lost on them - of course you can buy a highly kitted out car if you want to. Order it and buy one. But they are the ultimate poverty spec merchants, not wanting to buy a new high spec car in the first place. Yet moan about why others havent done so for them.

This in a nutshell. I see it on this forum all the time.

Philb76

It's a term I've used on here myself not to cause offence or be derogatory i classed a model with very little as paddy spec compared to uk equivalent but as someone else said we get better spec in some models polos and golfs for example friends have a 12 corolla saloon irish car borrowed it for a few days recently has a strange spec reverse sensors armrest but nothing else really don't even think it had a clock

demanufactured

Philb76 wrote: »

It's a term I've used on here myself not to cause offence or be derogatory i classed a model with very little as paddy spec compared to uk equivalent but as someone else said we get better spec in some models polos and golfs for example friends have a 12 corolla saloon irish car borrowed it for a few days recently has a strange spec reverse sensors armrest but nothing else really don't even think it had a clock

.....

galwaytt

Soon a manual gearbox will deem it 'paddy spec'. I know someone who got a (lovely) Q5. Lovely colour, lovely grey leather interior, 2.0.

Special order though, took 5 months. Audi were probably shocked that a manual gearbox was ordered. Probably had to design one for it first !!

Pity, as a used car in 5 yrs it'd have been just about perfect, spec-wise.

swarlb

demanufactured wrote: »

I like my cars to be a place I want to be.
I do a lot of driving, and enjoy driving.
It's usually people who don't like driving who buy paddy spec cars.

Quite the opposite in some instances. Ferrari at one stage had complaints from customers that their cars were becoming too plush and comfortable. The F40 had virtually nothing, no radio, no carpets, no door cards...no door HANDLES, no window regulators (although they did fit windy up ones on later cars), not even inertia seat belts or leather seats !! The 'most expensive poverty spec' car on the market, makes a top of the range Dacia positively glamorous.The McLaren F1 didn't even have ABS or a servo, never mind a turbo, although they did fit a radio and air con...
Let's say for argument sake that a company in the UK orders 100 basic model cars. Then after 2 years they are sold on. Some of them make their way over here... hardly 'Paddy Spec' if the original supplier and market was in the UK... Maybe 'John Bull' spec.
Don't lump 'people who like driving' into the same category.

elperello

"Nice place to be"
That Jeremy Clarkson has a lot to answer for.

Dartz

Any car can be Poverty-spec. A poverty-spec car ise car you forever sit in and feel that slight dissapointment that you didn't find the extra hundred quid. It's the car that seems to go out of its way to point out that you could've easily spent more on it, but couldn't.... like the blank switches, spare wiring for features not fitted, the empty space under the bonnet, or the complete lack of delta-v when the foot goes down.

A poverty-spec car is not a car with no extras, it's a car that seems to exist solely to remind you that it could've had those extras, if you paid the money.

porsche boy

fancy pigeon wrote:

I can't imagine a modern C class appearing with the same spec as my one!

Your C class will be infinately more reliable and maintainable, and in years to come more desirable too