This week I’ve had two of the most talked-about cars of 2024 (and probably 2025, too) on my driveway: the new Renault 5 and the new Ford Capri (below).
One is, predictably, an SUV with a slight coupé leaning, the other is a small hatchback that’s as affordable as it is fun. And the response to both on social media has been staggering.
There’s something about the car community that makes them think they have personal ownership over the brands they love – and in many cases they have at some stage in their car buying lives.
The furore over the reinvention of the Jaguar brand (below) led to Jaguar MD Rawdon Glover refer to some of the comments as “vile hatred and intolerance”.
If Jaguar thinks it’s best to reinvent its brand, it is perfectly entitled to do so. We can all have our opinions, but some of them did go a little too far.
Ultimately – as always – the buyer decides, and time will tell whether Jaguar has got it right or wrong. My view? They’re on the right track and have a couple of years to refine the messaging, even if the cars have already been signed off.
Then we have the new Ford Capri. Let’s forget the name for a bit and talk about the car, which is actually a very attractive, good to drive and impressively efficient all-electric coupé SUV. Sure, it’s based on VW tech and that shows in some of the switchgear, but the Capri is a decent car.
It’s just not the Capri that the vocal minority on social media want it to be. The negative reaction has been huge and – from an enthusiast’s point of view, I can understand it. But out in the wider world, how many of today’s new car buyers will be put off by the fact that the new Capri is absolutely nothing like the iconic model that Bodie and Doyle drove in 70s and 80s action drama The Professionals? May potential purchasers probably don’t even know who Bodie and Doyle were.
Ford has history here and there was a similar kerfuffle over the use of the Puma name. It hasn’t harmed sales – the Ford Puma is Britain’s best-selling car right now.
The new Capri’s sister car, the Explorer, didn’t get quite the same reaction, probably because nobody really fell for the bloated 4x4 in its brief previous life in the UK.
The Renault 5 (above) seems to have escaped much of the ire the Capri has suffered, probably because it’s a more faithful recreation of the original. And it’s cheaper. In fact, it really is very good; comfortable, fun to drive and packed with high-tech kit. I love it.
Not everyone is happy, though, as the new 5 is electric only – as you might expect. But it’s a clever piece of retro-modernism with the charm that the Capri lacks. And if you like the 5, a new, more practical Renault 4 is following hot on its electric heels.
Another car that seems to have escaped the online miserabilists is the new Vauxhall Frontera (below), again probably because the original was one of the most hateful vehicles Vauxhall has ever launched.
Yup, it’s also an SUV – this time with a choice of powertrains – with value on its side. It’s also the first car that you can buy an electric car and a petrol version for the same price.
Fiat’s new Panda will expand into a family of funky small, affordable models – ironic given how difficult it is for Pandas to breed. And the new Honda Prelude (below) is another coupé just like its namesakes. Nobody will probably buy it, because they didn’t with the last one.
So we seem to have stumbled across a winning formula. If you’re going to use a treasured name from the past – which is cheaper and easier than trying to come up with a new name that doesn’t mean poo in a foreign language – there must be a link and it has to be cool. Either that or you use a name from a car that wasn’t widely known or loved.
Anyone fancy a brand new, all-electric Nissan Sunny?
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** Steve Fowler is one of the UK’s best-known automotive journalists and currently EV Editor of The Independent and a regular contributor to The Guardian. He’s the only person to have edited three of the UK’s biggest car titles – Auto Express, Autocar and What Car? – and has interviewed the biggest names in the car world from Tesla’s Elon Musk to Ford’s Jim Farley.
Steve has also presented documentaries for BBC Radio Four and is used as a resident ‘car guru’ on TV and Radio. He’s a World Car of the Year juror and a judge on both Germany’s and India’s Car of the Year Awards. Read more of Steve's work at stevefowler.co.uk.
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