Back to basics
It would appear that over time the automotive industry has split up into more camps than one cares to mention. You have automakers that are now exclusively making one type of vehicle, others that have opted to cater for the budget-oriented motorists and others that only seem interested in luxury fitment.
Related: Car configurators - how do they work?
Some manufacturers still want to cater to all markets and offer what we in the industry call a grade walk.
A grade walk is basically, as the name suggests, a vehicle model that gets increasingly more expensive as the grade gets higher with more features and fitment added. This does mean that at the starting point you get a base model car.
Base model cars are the cheapest and least equipped models you will find on a grade walk and believe it or not are actually very difficult to find out in the market as in most cases consumers will want some form of fitment or specification when purchasing a vehicle.
Base model vehicles can also be spotted quite easily on inspection as you will notice the lack of fitment of items such as spoilers, wheels and bumper trim. Interior wise you need simply look for the blank off plates where switchgear would normally sit and the lack of features and trim.
There is nothing inherently wrong with base model cars, but manufacturers are moving away from these offerings toward model trims that offer a host of features as is. Luxury brands do this and then offer upgrades in the form of packages. This is called spec-ing your car and one can easily rack up a hefty sum in an online configurator so take care when selecting your options!
