Five Buyer: Class of ‘98
Hard to believe that it’s 20 years since this lot appeared. Which one will waft you to a luxury bargain?
We ask which of these 20-year old class acts you should buy today.
Glance across this page and try to imagine that all five models are from the same year. Some are almost extinct, others still seem current. The Rolls-royce, meanwhile, exists outside normal time in a universe all of its own. They would probably be an SUV if current. So, was 1998 the last great year for the saloon car?
The Mercedes and the Lexus were almost entirely absent from the UK until 1999, but they were rolling off the production lines in the second half of ’98. Were we really two decades younger when they first appeared? Yes we were, and a very different world it was too: before 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Good Friday Agreement was signed that year and Glen Hoddle left Gazza out of the World Cup for eating a kebab.
Maybe Mr Hoddle would have been more lenient if he’d been sitting in an Alfa Romeo 166 when he heard about Gascoigne’s gaff. Or perhaps he’s more of a Jag man – the S-type was trying so hard to be traditionally British, it even borrowed its name from a Sixties model, but we all knew that it was a Lincoln underneath. The Lexus IS, on the other hand, was an all-new challenge from the East aimed squarely at the BMW 3-series and Merc C-class. Mercedes offered their latest stab at ‘the best car in the world’ with the W220 S-class while Rolls-royce casually showed how it was done with the Seraph.
Modern Classic luxury: today they are all supern value… buy now.