THE SCIENCE of automotive marketing must be a confusing place to work. On the one hand, most volume makers harbour a dream of breaking into the premium market, but few make it: witness the rare success of Lexus in a world littered with Vignale, Infiniti and Xedos. On the other hand, the holy grail for most of the prestige brands is to attract a new, younger buyer despite the rather obvious hurdle that in general it’s the older buyers who have the money.
It was no doubt this line of thinking which brought us the rarity known as the S-Type Sportby the standards of 1998 was more self-consciously retro than was usual.
