For mainstream manufacturers, the only way of emulating premium brands is to develop models which offer something unique, so that there will always be high demand from used car buyers. A prime example is the Škoda Yeti, whose residual values are phenomenal. It was pretty much the first desirable compact crossover, and that appeal remains valid at every age – it was one of the first of its type when new, and it will still be one of the first of its type at 10 years old. There is a ready pool of buyers for five-, six- and seven-year-old Yetis so, as the car ages, pent-up demand from steadily less wealthy buyers keeps residual values high. The same principle keeps Ford Kugas more valuable after six years than top-spec Focuses of the same vintage: a 2008 Kuga 2.0 TDCI Titanium has a premium of more than 50% on a franchised dealer’s forecourt compared with a Focus of the same age and specification.

Conversely, the worst thing for a premium brand is to have a model that becomes just another used car when it ages. Take Jaguar Land Rover as an example. All Land Rover products made in the past 10 years are in high demand (none more so than the Defender, to which the term depreciation is about as relevant as the concept of agile handling).

However, the X-Type is pretty much an orphan in the used car market. That does not mean all Jaguars have to be orphans, but the company will be happy to see X-Types progressively scrapped so they stop reminding people of a dark period in the company’s history.

This situation is more of an issue for companies like Lexus. If Lexus is going to emerge as a true premium brand in the UK, it has to get to a position where people aspire to a 10-year-old example the way they do with German brands.

Perhaps that is a new area for market research for the manufacturers. They spend huge sums of money on researching attitudes of new car buyers – in pre-internet days, the industry-financed “New Car Buyers Survey” was such a weighty tome it could have provided the foundations for a fair-sized building.

Maybe the car makers should also think about the attitudes of those people who will never buy their new cars, or even visit one of their dealerships. It may be counter-intuitive, but people who spend only £2,000 on a car may actually influence the success of the manufacturer’s new cars.