What I considered the ultimate luxury as an adolescent in the 1980s is usually standard nowadays. I can make that clear by going through the equipment with you. I can skip the electric windows, air conditioning and central door locking with remote control, even Dacia considers them mandatory for a Sandero or a Duster. Meanwhile, the more exclusive treats are also rapidly losing their elitist luster. An Opel Corsa also has that heated steering wheel on my Countryman. I recently came across the chair massage, which is of little use in the Mini, on a Golf. You can now find electrically adjustable front seats in BYD’s entry-level Dolphin, an electric budget Chinese costing around 35 grand excluding purchase subsidy. It also has excellent audio and the multimedia system is rock solid. In the context of the offer, my lifestyle Mini is wimpy middle management. Yet I consider it a privilege to be bathed in such luxury. Anyone who, like me, was not used to anything at home or opted for voluntary deprivation in his cool youngtimers will never completely lose the dream come true feeling in new cars. I had that more than twenty years ago with my first fresh Golf and now with this one. There is nothing more beautiful than pressing the virgin buttons of your own toy for the first time. As long as you never forget that you won’t impress anyone with your power-locking trunk lid and your Harman-Kardon stereo. Everyone has them. The difference that almost everyone thought should exist in the past has been leveled out by widespread prosperity, and through the lease, half of the business community in the Netherlands is reaping the decadent fruits of it, including people who would never be able to afford their private business. I wish everyone the pleasure, not least myself. What a shame, nevertheless, that everything is becoming so normal. There is nothing left to dream about. The dreams you need to stay motivated. In a cloud of excitement I drove out of the showroom after the unveiling of my Countryman. I felt that never-thought-you-got feeling that you lose forever when your boss lets you lease your first Model 3 at twenty-five. On the way home I asked the co-driver ten times: “It drives well, doesn’t it?” To which she said: “It’s DISGUSTINGly big. I will NEVER drive this.” We are such spoiled, jaded brats. The other side of pride is conceit. No more gratefully eating what the pot provides. Loudly complaining that the weather is not good. And me, a day after purchase, to my shame, I either forgot what I bought or got used to what I have. My pride is quenched by the power of habit. Just like my previous, manually adjustable seats, these seats always remain in the same position after one adjustment, because I am the only driver and it sounds like I remain there. The day after tomorrow I find the adaptive cruise control as normal as Peugeot 208 drivers have their mood lighting or the Corsa woman her warm steering wheel, and we all have our wireless phone chargers, digital dashboards, navigation, digital radio, voice control and ventilated seats. Twenty years ago I brought a Cayenne Turbo back to the factory in Zuffenhausen after an exciting week of testing. On the way back I briefly drove 280. He did it with two fingers in the nose. He did drive 1 in 3, but that was not my problem. It was a monster, a dizzying synthesis of Versailles and Nürburgring. I was flabbergasted. “How did you like it?” the PR man asked when I gave the keys back. The question embarrassed me. I had driven the Mercedes SLR on the Top Gear circuit. I borrowed hot hatches from importers for pieces in the AutoWeek arena with insane capabilities for that time. I didn’t know it yet, but the numbness hung over my head like a sword of Damocles. I was already becoming uncannily accustomed to the exceptional. “Great,” I replied, “but I have to ride Ugly Duck for a year to learn to find it special again.” I think that now again in my plug-in car with over 300 hp, as average as the plague among Uncle Elon’s middle-class lease guns, rockets with one and a half to twice my power. I should thank Providence on my knees for the privilege. Nothing, I think it’s normal.
Source: www.autoweek.nl
