Anyone who is familiar with the British roads will have been stuck, frustrated, behind an elderly person in an Accord, who insists on doing 30mph in a national speed limit area with no sign of moving out of 3^rd gear. After about 10 miles of this, you can feel your anger welling up inside you like a volcano that’s about to blow and you make a risky manoeuvre to overtake which results in you either crashing headlong into an oncoming lorry, or careening off into a ditch . Either way the Honda Accord driver will tut and shake his head as he slowly drives past your lifeless corpse.

This maybe a slight exaggeration, but the Honda Accord has really built up a reputation for being the elderly’s car of choice, but why exactly? Let me make it obvious. It’s the multitude of gadgets Honda include that take away all choice and responsibility from the driver. In the top spec model there is an annoying beep if you accelerate over the speed limit, there is annoying beep if you change lanes on the motorway and there is an Adaptive Cruise Control system, which presumably involves some kind of annoying beep. All of these little beeps and blips seem to attract the elderly car buyer; they are obviously reassuring or potentially keep the driver awake as they are cruising at 26Mph on the dual carriageway.

Despite all the annoying warning noises, the Honda Accord is a pretty handy car. The two petrol and diesel options are all punchy, responsive and ecologically sound. If given choice between the i-CDTi Diesel and the i-VTEC petrol engines, the diesel makes the most sense. Its performance is very close to that of the petrol and the monetary returns you’ll get at the petrol pumps are worth the minor drop in performance.

The quality and reliability of Honda cars is renowned internationally and these factors are also going to appeal to the more sensible and prudential senior market. You can’t really picture a 61 year old man going out and buying a sporty, but famously unreliable Alfa Romeo can you? No, those amongst us of a more ‘advanced’ age always choose the safe options and there is little safer than a Honda Accord.

The Honda Accord’s current reputation is slightly undeserved though. At its core it is a perfectly serviceable car for anyone looking for a good performance saloon with low residuals. I’m sure Honda aren’t like to be overly concerned by their current ‘elderly’ consuming demographic, as long as they keep buying the car in droves, which I’m sure they will…which they surely will.