The letters game

Whatever happened to proper trim levels?

Today I want to talk about something that has quietly and almost imperceptibly disappeared from modern motoring. Not so long ago your social standing would be made obvious to the world by the trim level of your car, those little letters on the bootlid that told everyone how well-equipped or otherwise it was. A lot of people may take them for granted and not give them a second thought, but these trim levels had far more importance than their stature might suggest - they said a great deal about the person behind the wheel and, particularly in the company car world, your success in life would be judged by your peers on what badge you had. Nowadays though, these traditional hierarchies have all but disappeared in favour of meaningless names, and I for one miss the days of designations like L and GLX, whose simplicity belied the connotations attached to them.