We car critics have one job – we drive new vehicles and then report back on them to tell you what we think, so that hopefully you can make an informed decision on your next set of wheels.
But sometimes, even if we recommend a product highly, it doesn’t find quite the same love with the car-buying public as maybe it should. There are lots of reasons why this doesn’t happen, of course, but here are five of our favourites that are perhaps less common on our roads than they really ought to be.
Alfa Romeo Giulia
This is a classic case of Alfa’s truly infuriating nature, especially if you’re a petrolhead who loves cars. One of the most evocative and desirable manufacturers in the world, Alfa Romeo somehow seemed to cling on to its glittering reputation into the 2010s, despite having delivered decade after decade of underwhelming (yet often extraordinarily pretty) products, all layered on top with questionable reliability.
And then, in 2014, the late Sergio Marchionne gave Alfa a huge pot of money (running to the many billions of euro) and told the company to build some world-beating cars, with a view to moving its sales from 74,000 units globally in 2013 to 400,000 worldwide by 2018. Thus, the Italian brand came up with ‘Giorgio’, a new, premium-car platform that would underpin eight models from the Milanese outfit. The first two to sit on these underpinnings were the Giulia saloon and the Stelvio SUV.
They initially launched in late 2016 with rather sub-par interior finishing, which was hastily remedied in 2020, and the regular models were good, but overshadowed by their truly stellar and less-than-attainable Quadrifoglio high-performance derivatives. Yet the Giulia, certainly, felt like a compact, premium, sporty saloon that could genuinely take the fight to BMW’s all-conquering 3 Series. Quite some achievement from perennial underachiever Alfa, you have to agree.
Of course, the epilogue to all this is that Alfa’s engineers completely forgot to gear-up the platform to accept any form of electrification, so when Peugeot-Citroen merged with FCA to become Stellantis, the Italian firm was basically told to put the chassis quietly in the nearest bin. And so only two of the eight proposed models ever saw the light of day, meaning another massive pile of development cash squandered by Alfa Romeo – for rather mediocre, at best, global sales of both Giulia and Stelvio.
BMW 2 Series Active Tourer
Keeping things briefer than the vexatious Alfa tale of woe above, the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer is simply a case of a car being a bit late to the party. By the time the German firm launched the original in 2014, multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) were already considered old hat in the face of an SUV showroom onslaught
So the fact BMW persevered with a second-generation car in 2021 is all the more surprising. BMW got rid of the Mk1 Gran Tourer, which was an extended seven-seat variant of the standard MPV, which means that for the second generation the Active Tourer was a five-seater only. In effect, you’re buying an egg-shaped hatchback. The BMW 2 Active Tourer drives well, has a high-quality interior and is pretty versatile, as well as offering economical drivetrains – but you’ll just buy an SUV instead, right?
Honda e
Honda must look at Renault and wonder what the French firm did right that the Japanese outfit did so wrong. You see, back in 1972, both companies put out two, small, hatchback runarounds – Honda arrived with its original Civic, while Renault was giving the world the ‘Supercinq’ in the form of the 5. Both went on to serve with distinction, even if neither set the world on fire when they were new, and while Renault effectively killed off the 5 badge in 1990 when it launched the Clio successor, the Civic is still going – more than 50 years and 11 generations later.
However, fast-forward to the modern era and both companies decided to shamelessly delve into their back catalogue to create new, affordable, five-door electric vehicles (EVs) for the masses. Honda, though, got in first with the ‘e’ in 2020, complete with retro-glorious styling akin to the Civic Mk1. But it was also rear-wheel drive, reasonably powerful and blessed with a lovely interior. Yet it’s the Renault 5 E-Tech electric, arriving five years later, which is winning all the plaudits and the big showroom sales numbers, despite offering a very similar proposition to the e – why?
Two chief reasons, really. One, the Honda e could only ever do a 220km to a charge, whereas the Renault 5 is capable of up to 410km in one go. And two, even back in 2020, the Honda started at around €30,000 – whereas, in 2026, the Renault kicks off at €26,000.
Mazda CX-60
Mazda as a whole is an often unfairly overlooked manufacturer anyway, but the CX-60 is one of those things that looks primed for success – yet never quite attains it. It’s a large, stylish, sharp-driving SUV with a superb interior and, even better, a lusty turbodiesel drivetrain option based on a 3.3-litre straight-six configuration. So why doesn’t it find more love? Well, put simply, that diesel drivetrain is the best choice from an experiential point-of-view, but the time for big-hearted diesel-drinkers has been and gone. And the plug-in hybrid (PHEV) alternative in the CX-60 range just isn’t as edifying to drive.
Skoda Superb Combi
This is on the list representing all estates in Ireland, not only the big Skoda wagon. We just don’t seem to like estates here, instead preferring saloons, hatchbacks and SUVs. Yet the latest Skoda Superb is an all-round-sensational thing that does everything very well and nothing badly at all. You should buy one of these instead of a default SUV; no, really. You should. But you probably won’t, regardless.