I sympathise with the gentleman from England. I grew up in South Africa where large American cars were, let's just say, scarce... We were stuck with mostly small horrible European cars, and then small horrible Jappanese cars. The ability to actually fit humans inside in comfort and have such unheard of luxuries as ac, power windows and seats etc was it appeared an exclusively American luxury.

US car's from that era were in my opinion no worse than any European or Jappanese contemporaries, (Mercedes Benz excepted of course). The bad rap they recieve is by osmosis from the later (mid to late 70's) and 80's products which do seem to have been absolute crap. This was after Nader got his paws on the industry and numerous other social problems appeared to have affected design, development and production.

In 1993 when I first visited the USA I picked up a 72 Cadillac Sedan DeVille for a grand and drove it around California and Arizona for three months. It could be argued that the engineering and quality were not quite up to Mercedes Benz standard but I've never owned a car that came as close to an S-Class before or since in terms of comfort, ride and yes, handling. The thing was smooth, powerful, comfortable and a real head turner. Even though I'm a Mercedes fanatic I intend getting another 72 Caddy some day. The only thing you might fault it for would be it's fuel consumption. But if you are an S-Class owner fuel consumption is as much of an irellivancy as with a 7.8 Litre Cadillac.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S