QOTD: Caught Being Coddled?

Almost sounds sexual, doesn’t it? Well, listen, pal — sometimes a warm embrace is just a nice hug, but it doesn’t mean it won’t make you feel special. Special…safe…and content.

Coddled. It’s one of those words whose meaning never evolves, but its use in the automotive realm is usually associated with another word: luxury. And with good reason. The Oxford English Dictionary defines coddled as the act of being treated “in an indulgent or overprotective way.” Hey, that’s right up luxury’s street.

Yet one can feel coddled without all the trapping that come with luxury. Maybe you’ve experienced just such a human-vehicle relationship. What vehicle from your past (perhaps it’s in the present) coddled you the most?

You author, a man who grows unhealthily excited – nearly to the point of giddiness – over local grocery store deals, is hardly the one to go to for stories about motoring in the lap of luxury. Choices were made, and all that.

But that doesn’t mean you, dear reader, didn’t achieve success and prosperity, opening the door for a vehicle purchase that proved as titillating and pleasure-inducing as any sailor’s extended shore leave. Perhaps that vehicle, that damn-the-expense-I-earned-this purchase, was the vehicle which coddled like none other. Luxury does have a way of making a driver feel special.

And yet other things can fall under that dictionary definition. Seat comfort, for one, is something not entirely dependent on vehicle price. Nor is reliability — something many a British or Italian car owner has discovered. A supremely comfortable chair and limitless confidence born of a well-made machine (of any price range) can indeed make a driver feel indulgent and pampered.

Let’s put this question to you, B&B, and see which year, make, and model of vehicle you consider the most coddling of your life.

[Images: Ford, BMW]