Ok, for example:
"We see the same sort of thing in Japan. There never was a Mr Toyota who, since he was a small boy, yearned for the day when he could build a small family hatchback that never broke down. And you can scour the history books until the sky turns green but you'll not find any mention of a young Timmy Datsun who stayed up until ten o'clock, even on school nights, devising his plan for a car with two milometers.
Subarus are made by a romantic-sounding outfit called Fuji Heavy Industries. At night I bet the chairman sometimes forgets he has a car division. It'll be just another entry in his plofit and ross accounts.
The only Japanese cars with even a trace of humanity are Hondas, and there's a very good reason for that. There was a Mr Honda and he did have a vision when he was a small boy. Even today that vision still steers the engineers, and as a result there's a very definite correlation between the S2000 sports car and those early motorbikes. It's solely because of this link with the past that I like Hondas more than any other Japanese cars.
Of course, in Europe most car firms were started by a visionary. Lotus was kick-started by Colin Chapman, who liked things light and frothy. Jaguar was the brainchild of Sir William Lyons, who liked comfort and speed, with a low, low price. Enzo Ferrari wanted to make cars solely to support his beloved race team.
Most of these guys, and others like them, are remembered by sound-bite quotes. Ettore Bugatti, for instance, once said, 'Nothing is too beautiful or too expensive.' Enzo Ferrari came up with 'the customer is not always right'. And Colin Chapman summed up his philosophy thus: 'Simplify and add lightness.'
Mind you, he also said, 'You would never catch me driving a race car that I have built.' Which probably explains why Lotus came to be known as an acronym for Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious."
Wish I could write like a talentless idiot...
