We humans are a fickle lot, aren't we! Today, we are driving cars, equipped in such ways that those of us who started driving in the 1950s could only dream about.
Advances in technology, particularly in engineering and solid-state electronics have led to us having standard features in our cars that satisfy our every desire.......almost! Of course, along with those advances in our cars, our expectations are also much greater and we find things to quibble about in every modern car, whether it be the absence of a heated steering wheel or the lack of a spare wheel; the brightness of the lights, the TPMS types that don't show every wheel's individual tyre pressure, the servicing schedule that doesn't seem to suit the needs of some, the cost of a software update........the list is endless.
My first two cars had no radio, had vacuum wipers and the heater was on the options list!. There is no doubt that we have progressed but, from a country that prided itself in defeating fascism (with enormous assistance from the USSR and USA though it seems nobody wants to mention that any more!) by overcoming the Nazis, the Japanese and the Italians. We didn't buy their cars or motor cycles because everything that was British was the best in the world.....we claimed.
That didn't last too long before people wised up! The foreign cars from all three of those defeated nations began to appear in car showrooms and garage forecourts and even the most jingoistic Brits started buying them for all the reasons that ultimately led to the demise of the British carmaking industry.
Even in the 1950s, Korea was the epicentre of a major war and the USA with British support lost that one to the communists. The nett result was that Korea became two nations and, just as after WW2, the defeated nation, South Korea, went on to become a major force in the automobile industry.
Now, well at least for the moment, foreign powers have British labour building their cars with profits going to Germany, France, Japan, Korea and Italy for the most part.
Perhaps I was wrong to state that we have made progress?
