The "soul" characteristic is often used to defend ones objectively inferior car against a poor comparison with a demonstrably, obviously superior car. Of course, you can't argue with something so subjective.
IMO "soul" is in the eye, seat of pants, fingertips, ball of foot, clenched sphincter, middle ear, and dumb, happy grin of the driver. A lot of cars have soul.
Tufted leather and polished burl may count as soul to some people, but they're sure not driving enthusiasts. More likely, they're just insecure status seekers who benchmark first by price paid, then by whatever they can use to fill in their gaping cognitive dissonance hole underneath.
