What they have in common, though, is a very spacious interior and a well laid-out dashboard.The pick of the engine range is the 2.5 V6 turbodiesel, which is smooth and strong and more powerful than the petrol V6, while also delivering excellent 40mpg economy. The 9-5 is one of the safest cars you can drive, and one of the most comfortable and refined. It also depreciates with a ferocity that means it is quickly affordable.But Ginny and family may well want a change, and I agree that a large car for large kids is a good way to go. For me, the executive car has lots going for it in terms of affordability, equipment and comfort.

There are no small-car compromises, and larger vehicles eat up longer journeys and luggage with ease. Reliability is generally good, but I’m afraid that many cars suffer from the sort of strange electrical glitches Ginny has come across with hers. All the computer chips and extra motors these days add to the complication, although the mechanical core of modern cars is pretty tough.A car for the headOne thing about the Saab 9000 is that it is a hatchback with a massive boot. Ginny may miss this, although the Audi A6 that I would recommend comes both as a saloon and an estate. Here is a good-looking, very well-built, spacious car that isn’t a Mercedes or a BMW. The car needn’t be new, but it mustlast another 10 years.
I’m sorry that Ginny has fallen out of love with the Saab 9000.

We’ve got one with almost double the mileage, and it’s still going strong My instant response would be to trade it in for a Saab 9-5. It is little more than a reworking of the 9000, but that’s a good thing. It play ups electrically and bits of interior trim are falling off. This is the family’s second Saab, so Ginny feels a third would suggest they lack imagination She has a budget of about £20,000. They envisage a few years of university mileage up and down the motorways.

They have a 10-year-old Saab 9000 CSE with about 65,000 miles on the clock. These use hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity to power the car. It is working with a company called Plug Power on a home-energy station to take natural gas from a home supply and use it to make hydrogen.Americans must decide what to call their fuels: “filling up with gas” might be a tad confusing but it makes a welcome change from all those petrol-thirsty SUVs.. Honda, which has had a 20 per cent stake in FuelMaker since 2000, is also helping the company to gear up for mass production. Then it is hoped that GX and Phill will be offered nationally in the next few years.Honda is working on fuel cells.