Car Survey
From 1994, the magazine conducted a customer satisfaction survey that was published every April to reveal how satisfying certain cars were to own. The results were announced on the programme, though the full details were only included in the magazine.
The Toyota Corolla was winner of the first four surveys, with the Subaru Impreza winning the survey in 1998 and 1999, and the Subaru Legacy in 2000 and 2001.
The lowest-ranking cars in the surveys were the Vauxhall Frontera in 1994, Ford Escort in 1995, Lada Samara in both 1996 and 1997, Vauxhall Vectra in 1998, Ford Galaxy in 1999 and the Vauxhall Sintra in 2000 and 2001.
In 1998, Škoda was rated as the most satisfying brand of car in the survey and these findings made the headlines—just a few years earlier, the brand had been the butt of many jokes about the sub-standard design and quality of earlier cars. The Japanese manufacturers—particularly Subaru, Toyota, Honda and Mazda—also received high ratings in Top Gear surveys. Similar praise went to BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Volvo. In contrast, many marques received heavy criticism in the surveys—particularly Lada, Fiat, Vauxhall, Peugeot, Ford and Alfa Romeo.
Read more about this topic: Top Gear (1977 TV Series)
Famous quotes containing the words car and/or survey:
“Between here and that old car outside there are twenty-five paces. Make them. Now.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)