WELCOME TO the New Cars section of ‘Dep-O’. No, don’t worry – we’re not abandoning our love of retro motors, far from it. In fact, what this section is chiefly about is trying to sift the wheat from the chaff, and establish that not all moderns are soulless boxes that will swiftly be forgotten by generations to come. In effect, we’re trying to predict the Future Classics, one of our ongoing series that has already been well received. We know that cars from all ages can get the juices flowing, and there are certainly some crackers in the showrooms at the moment… as well as some duffers. No such thing as a bad car any more? That’s simply not true, and we intend to keep you, our readers, the best informed motoring fans of the lot.

    So what can Dep-O’s new car reviews offer you that you can’t find anywhere else? How about refreshingly to-the-point articles awash with honesty, no matter who we might annoy?

    There is a feeling among the team here that, over the years, some motoring publications tend to review the latest machines and instantly give them top of the class marks, irrespective of whether these models are deserving of such accolades or not. You only have to look through some Eighties and Nineties copies of said titles to see effusive reviews of some truly bizarre cars they were (at the time) championing as paragons of automotive virtue – things that, today, would be hard pressed to muster 100 notes at some out of the way car auction. Was the Peugeot 306 Cabrio really ‘sexier than a sackful of E-types’ and did the Rover 400 really ‘take the battle to BMW’? Erm...

    No, we plan to tell it like it is, and if some people don’t like us for it… well, c’est la vie. We think the automotive industry ought to be held to account by totally impartial, truthful and independent journalism – not words designed to curry favour for that next international press launch and swanky hotel, but words that cut through the hyperbole and truly evaluate a car’s strengths and weaknesses. By doing this, we believe that cars will become better.

    We’re not out to shock for the sake of it, and we’ll always try to pick out both the good and bad of every car, but rest assured, if we think the latest hot hatch or most recent supersaloon is short of the mark, we will be telling you in straightforward terms. Instead of having to wait until a model has been replaced to read what testers really think.

    We really hope you appreciate our candour, because if we journalists don’t impartially inform our readership then we do not feel that we are doing our jobs properly.