There is, however, one car company that has never lost sight of its role in the marketplace. Rolls-Royce. Sir Henry Royce, who founded the company back in 1904, really was a one-man quote machine. "Strive for perfection in everything you do." "Accept nothing as nearly right or good enough." "The quality remains long after the price is forgotten." "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it."
British broadcaster, journalist and writer
We see the same sort of thing in Japan. There was never 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 just be 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 cars and those early motorbikes. It's solely because of this link with the past that I like Hondas more than any other Japanese cars.
In order for a car to have personality, an X factor, the company that makes it must be able to take guidance and inspiration from one man, the man who started the company in the first place. This did not happen with the car outside my window, which was undoubtedly built in a jungle clearing by a company that makes cars to make money. No one began Proton or Hyundai or Daewoo because they harboured a dream of making something extraordinary or special. They are just enormous engineering and construction conglomerates that have been told by their respective governments to make cars so that the locals can get off their oxen and get modern.
First off, the whole point of airborne troops is surprise: you don't know they're coming until they're there. But because Cain arrived 24 hours after the first wave, the surprise was gone. And to make matters worse, the landing zone was some eight miles from the bridge. So, thanks to some incompetent planning by the top brass in England, the Germans knew that Cain and his men were coming, they knew where he landed, they knew where he was going, and they had the wherewithal to do something about it.
It is almost impossible to win a VC. In the hundred-and-fifty years since it was created, the number of British and Commonwealth troops who've seen action is in the tens of millions, but only 1,351 of them have been awarded the Victoria Cross. The chances of surviving a VC action are just one in ten, but if you do survive, the medal can never be taken away from you. You can go to the gallows wearing it. And no matter how many letters you have after your name, VC always comes first.
I have bought a farm. There are many sensible reasons for this. [...] Land is a better investment than any bank can offer. The Government doesn't get any of my money when I die. And the price of the food that I grow can only go up. But there is another, much more important reason: I can now have a quad bike. I have always loved the idea of such things.
[Reviewing Japanese kei cars in this passage.] Then there’s the styling. Or rather, there isn’t. Any attempt to give these cars a tapering roofline or a curved rear end is wasteful of precious capacity, which means all of them look exactly – and I mean exactly – like chest freezers. And because they have such tiny wheels they actually look like chest freezers on casters. And that in turn means they look absurd. And no one is going to spend their money on something that makes them look foolish.