What are the most underrated car manufacturers?

25 Mar 2017

Where I live, I’d say the top 5 underrated brands are:

Mazda - often overlooked despite having a generally solid range
Subaru - almost nonexistent on roads
Skoda - seems to have a “cheap” image, despite the modern (VW-group) cars being pretty decent
Seat - slightly less cheap image but still perceived as inferior to Volkswagen
Hyundai - definitely improved - even the non-Genesis cars seem OK

As for most overrated, where I live that definitely goes to Audi.

Comments

Subarus aren’t underrated. Well, on the road maybe, but according to the internet certainly not.
As for most overrated, I totally agree.

Subarus where I live are as common as kangaroos in the Australian outback

Mazda is doing pretty good here recently with the CX-5/CX-3.
Subaru, is a bit non existent unless you go into certain neighbourhoods, then they pop up more often
Skoda and Seat, those two are not that common
Hyundai, most of the time the older generations and the Tiburon/Coupe

As for here I would say that Honda is underrated… Don’t really see a lot of them on the road

Peugeot

I just find them all-round bad. The CC models are especially ugly. I was in the back of a 207 recently and the interior was pretty cheap and the ride was bad (we were going over a really bad gravel track, but it was still noticeably worse than the same road in a 2014 VW Golf).

Saleen, Callaway, etc..

There’s a difference between underrated and obscure. Pretty much nobody who isn’t a car guy will have heard of these, and it took me a while to remember who Callaway are (the Corvette shooting-brake guys, right?)

Saab

I agree with you in nearly everything, Skoda have amazing cars for the money, specially the Superb is a pretty luxurious car for even less than 30.000. Another brand I would add is Lexus. They have amazing cars such the RC-F, GS Series, and the new LC which have a beautiful design, but general people only think in Audi/BMW/Mercedes.