Quieter/More comfortable cars...

[Malc1]

58 minutes ago, Supafly said:

saying that the LS400 is now starting to get more attention as it ages gracefully.

and I haven't seen another Ls400 on the road for a very very long time ............  have you ?

Malc

[Alan305]

On 10/24/2022 at 3:40 PM, BigBoomer said:

The only car I can think of that even remotely compares to the LS400/LS430 ride was the Citroen XM Activa 3.0 V6 that my Dad had for about a year.
Citroen levels of waftiness yet once you started to chuck it through the twisties it was darty and a hoot to drive.
Of course, it spent 4 of those 12 months at a Citroen dealers having the Active suspension repaired and eventually detonated it's gearbox at some traffic lights.
I imagine that certain Rollers, Bennys, and Caddys are as good or better but out of my price bracket and not really my taste either.

Agree, I bought an XM when they came out in the early 90’s in fact I still have the 200 page hardback book that Citroen gave to new owners which covered the cars development. The ride was perfect but reliability terrible. Stranded on the road three times, radiator pipework and electrics. When the hydraulics fail, (once for me but pretty rare) you are in big trouble, suspension drops, then power steering stops then no brakes.

[Las Palmas]

40 minutes ago, Alan305 said:

Agree, I bought an XM when they came out in the early 90’s in fact I still have the 200 page hardback book that Citroen gave to new owners which covered the cars development. The ride was perfect but reliability terrible. Stranded on the road three times, radiator pipework and electrics. When the hydraulics fail, (once for me but pretty rare) you are in big trouble, suspension drops, then power steering stops then no brakes.

These French driving sofas were soft and extremely comfortable. Strange that the Citroën were so "not very reliable" when they are in family with Peugeot. The 404 and 504 were used in the unpaved rocky mountain trails in northern Africa and were impossible to destroy. Some of them still drive and though they do not look like new, they continue to be work horses. When they stop and need a repair it usually is because a tyre needs to get fixed.

[stepheneric]

1 hour ago, Las Palmas said:

Peugeot. The 404 and 504 were used in the unpaved rocky mountain trails in northern Africa and were impossible to destroy

In the 70's they were the universal taxi of East Africa and even though only eight seater regularly carried 16 people. I remember one taxi ride with four of

us in the front and I was immediately behind the steering wheel - the driver was hung half out the window. How else was he going to make a living.

[Las Palmas]

32 minutes ago, stepheneric said:

In the 70's they were the universal taxi of East Africa and even though only eight seater regularly carried 16 people. I remember one taxi ride with four of

us in the front and I was immediately behind the steering wheel - the driver was hung half out the window. How else was he going to make a living.

Both of us have been out of Europe. A good way to look and learn to see many things from more than one side.

[dutchie01]

Oh how things have changed! Just take a jaguar XJ from 2 decades ago or just sit ( without driving ) in a peugeot 504/604 with cloth seats. Back in the days comfort was a sales argument. Cars had loong suspension travel ( speedbumps how do you mean), and seats were truly sofa like. Tires? 60 or 65 at 13 or 14 inch. And then things changed. All had to be sports, sporty, nurburgring tested and so on. In came short stiff springs sport seats, 35 tyres all to keep weight transfer under control when negotiating a corner at 100mph. The nurburgring is the worst thing that ever happened to car industry .My old 2cv s were a joy to drive, my golf mark 1 had suspension travel to the moon and back, my 504 was just incredible as was my citroen bx. I am ONLY talking about comfort of course. Anyway, which car company, which model is now marketing their brand or car as comfortable? It would not sell, even a 2500 kg SUV needs to be "sport" to do the school run.

Which leads to the next question; Which new car is truly comfortable? ( LS 400 not allowed!)

[Las Palmas]

1 hour ago, dutchie01 said:

Which leads to the next question; Which new car is truly comfortable? ( LS 400 not allowed!)

Have not been in any of them, but sure the big S-class from MB, the Audi 8 series and even the BMW will have something comfortable, the new Honda Legend and probably also Accord will be worth driving in not to mention Hyundai that has started making cars of quality.

There is not many of the super big cars that are not comfortable. If they are in peoples taste is another thing. If such enormous big things are worth driving in, finding parking place to and many other things is something completely different.

I like the look of the LS from Lexus, but have no place for it in the garage and in a country where parking places were made for Fiat 500 such big cars are simply not fun.

[GEN]

While you are perfectly correct that most garages in this country were meant to accommodate a Fiat 500(the old one not the current one) I do not allow the size of my garage to dictate the kind of car I drive.😁

[Cotswold Pete]

17 hours ago, Las Palmas said:

These French driving sofas were soft and extremely comfortable. 

Crikey, this is all taking me back to my dads 404, in red, was like a sofa for sure, with a bit more poke than the Austin Cambridge it replaced.

The 404 was replaced by a 406, (I also owned a 406), the most uncomfortable care I ever had, but could corner like a good-un. Just meant after two years of owning it took a Chiropractor 4 months to get me sorted out

[dutchie01]

i had a 406 as well my first companycar. great chassis but the worst gearbox ever made and like you say comfort had left the building

[BigBoomer]

Way back in my late teens a friend had a 504 Familiale. His mother, his 3 siblings, and himself had all learned to drive in it. Was built like a brick ****house and slow as molasses so perfect for teenage idiots. 105Bhp (when new) and 1300Kg didn't make for an exciting car but you could get so many people in it, it became the party bus. Between that and another friends CX2400 Familiale we could get over 20 people from one place to another with just 2 cars. The CX was way more comfy, but the 504 never ever broke down. I remember one occasion when the 504 had to tow the broken CX (clutch failed) with 19 people (12 in the 504 and 7 in the CX) and whilst it was slow (20Mph crawl), it got us all there. How we never got busted I have no idea. 
The only car we had more fun in was LouLous Citroen 2CV. Painted matt black with bright orange radioactive  signs on the bonnet, boot and both sides, and NUCLEAR POWERED written across the bottom of the boot lid it certainly stood out. It was very much a late 70s punk reaction to the stereotypical hippy 2CV. With 6 people in it and all but the driver standing up through the rollback sunroof, we would do "doughnuts" around a local Rond-Point on 3 wheels at maybe 10Kph for 10 minutes at a time and we frequently used to "hop" it by all bouncing up and down simultaneously. 
I was a bike rider only at the time (Yamaha XS500) as I didn't take my car test until the grand old age of 33. The smallest car I have ever owned was a 2.0L Carlton.

[Alan305]

Agree my boss had a Citroen CX2400 which I drove frequently. Very, very smooth ride but fully powered brakes with a small almost button on the floor took some getting used to. The steering which quickly self centred the second you let go was also strange as was the gauges. I also had BX and C5 estates both had a really good, hydro fluid powered ride. Changing the fluid was really easy with the pump doing most of the work. 

[Malc1]

I very nearly bought a big Citroen Familiale  ? in the 1970's ...... having 4 kids and there was no other car offering in the UK that would traipse us all about as a family unit .....  we always had two cars even then ......  my Wolseley 16/60 🥰 and her Hillman Imp  ......  usually ended up with the 4 kids in the back of the Wolseley 

Malc

[First_Lexus]

I thought the cars my Father had when I was a child (early 1970s) were comfortable - Granadas, Rovers and the like. Then one day I went in a light blue metallic Peugeot 504 (automatique!) which belonged to the parents of a school friend. It truly was magnifique to the young me, with a huge beige velour sofa like rear seat. They must have been a Peugeot family, as later they had a 604 saloon. 

Move forward to the mid-1980s and I convinced my Father to buy a Renault 25GTX (with the speaking electronic dashboard). It had similarly sofa like and velour infested comfort. Wonderful.

[Alan305]

23 hours ago, First_Lexus said:

Move forward to the mid-1980s and I convinced my Father to buy a Renault 25GTX (with the speaking electronic dashboard). It had similarly sofa like and velour infested comfort. Wonderful.

Just shows how old I am. A 25GTX was my last company car at Express Foods Group before I moved on. Superb cruiser, not quite the ride of a Citroen but better reliability. I followed it a few years later with a Renault Espace. Captains chairs were great.

[Spacewagon52]

The only car I can remember being a ride as comfortable as my LS was a friends Citroen DS Safari estate. not only impressed with the comfort but the swivelling headlights as you negotiated a bend. My friend was a Citroen nut - being a mechanic helped!