Newera

Since I really love music listened to a few of those links and sad to say they sounded just as manic now as they did back then. That’s not to say I didn’t like some House music later on like Daft Punk’s ‘Fresh’ even though it is a 20 second musical loop or, more recently Mylo but is that the Electronic genre? What genre is Fun Lovin Criminals. I like a lot of their smooth stuff. Back in the 80s I was still buying LPs listening to music like Blue Nile, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, David Sylvian, Tracy Chapman, Robert Cray, Peter Gabriel, Queen, UB40, U2, Dire Straits, Sting, Madonna, Grace Jones, The Pretenders etc. Wasn’t until our kids grew up that we got into Chicane, Zero 7, Lemon Jelly, Nightmares on Wax, Groove Armada and all that stuff especially, recently, Bent and Bonobo. Very, very recently been getting into Bluegrass like Alison Krauss & Union Station and a lot of that is really, really fast and very, very musical. Now I am rambling on; actually Ramblin Man by the Allman Brothers, as opposed to Lemon Jelly’s similar title, was amazing in its day too.

I saw a hedgehog near the edge of the road going up our hill. Warned a few people coming down. Does that count as interesting?

Good point for people with anything like back problems - but they do look very nice indeed-io!

Good car but not a classic like the original. The back of the car is a bit odd so for me the rear end puts me off.

Money no object it would be a genuine Jag SS 100. Like the era for machines it was made in.

That's a hell of a lot of mods you have there mate. :wonder:

Herefordshire - Kington.

Nice pics. I have a 06 Black one. I would meet up with you guys to discuss matters etc. :wonder:

Speaking as an oldie there tend to be some of us which want to ‘test out’ our cars and others that could do the same but don’t. My business partner simply gets on with slower careful driving even though he rode mega quick bikes when younger. I have this annoying habit of always wanting to be in front to look at the scenery. My wife finds it annoying when I go into ‘boy racer mode’ so I drive less a lot less aggressively with passengers in the car. I put any racing instinct in me down to a fast metabolism. I was called ‘mildly manic’ when I was a lot younger and was the fastest guy in West Kent for the 100 metre sprint when I was a teenager. Be that as it may my rule of thumb is keep quite well behind the car in front, stay on a 50-60 mph cruse control or 3rd gear in a 30 zone etc for the bulk of the time but ‘go for it’, when there is an opening, because otherwise what is the point of having a remap? I have been on a driver's awareness course and that was very good for me. So I think we have to be very judicious with racing on the public highway otherwise it encourages the blue lights.

My car came out of the box with 150bhp. The later cars all did apparently. So I, for one, thoroughly believe mine has been mapped to just over 180 bhp though I have, as yet, not had it RR-ed or been given a map read out, as promised by the small firm I used. I has been mapped for six months or so now and no problems at all. I don't know what the fuss is about with mapping.

I used Gwyn Davies Autotec in Herefordshire for my 182 bhp remap. They are quite small and liaise with another firm but have been remapping diesels for well over ten years. In fact they are diesel fanatics and always preferred diesels when we liked GTis. They used to work on our Peugeot 205 diesel but Peugeot kind of lost the plot with diesels and car design (post 306) so we moved on. I think for basic overtaking action I actually like 4th the most for passing slow moving (45 mph ish) trucks and so on – especially when you are trying to cruise on a longish country trips – non motorway. The torque in this gear, with my particular remap, seems immense. It allows you, if you know the road very well, to pass in places where you have never passed before. Fifth is also excellent and sixth gear is also great too – especially(obviously)on motorways. Yet the price of fuel right now forces more of an economy drive with the computer trip meter claiming a very nice 55mpg.

Most fuel effficient trip ever. Drove like Miss Daisy to see what it can do but drove the bulk of the miles in cruise control. Kington to Aberystwyth (filled up) then on to Aberaeron and then back to Kington via Aberystwyth. When we filled up at Aberystwyth the computer said there was a staggering 705 miles left before we ran out of fuel and when we got back to Kington via Aberaeron there was still 600 miles in the tank left (Distance of just under 90 miles between Aberystwyth/Abereraeron/Kinton). :wonder: We still managed to do a little bit of very fast overtaking. Amazingly we even overtook somebody on a bog standard trunk A road in cruise control going about 60mph. We both at that. Never done that before. The road was very straight as are most of the roads around here going west. There you go you can do a little bit of fast overtaking, have a nice day in the sunshine at the beach :sun: and do it very, very economically in these very versatile cars. :love:

My mileage is going up though and now at 72k.

Don't be nasty - you blue eyed boys. I think the bog standard is just fine thank you. I have a nice little black Dec 06 version with cruise control and a cute 182 bhp remap and I also don't care what the Mark 2 boys claim about that car being vastly superior too.

It kind of worries me when you guys say the 180 bhp in a Mark 2 is a whole world better than the Mark 1. I have a Mark 1 which has been mapped to 182 bhp and feel it is quicker in many respects to my old very fast Peugeot 306 Rallye (bought many years ago with just 27k on the clock) which in turn had 167 bhp on tap with its six speed box but which was quite light and felt bloody quick. I would say go for a decent remap and you should feel a big difference. I would say it’s a more difficult call than some claim.

What!! Are you seriously overweight or something? (only kidding) We both drive ours and think the seats are fine. Pity they are not leather though.

Mine was mapped to 182bhp and its really fantastic. I have been told by others on here that the later cars came with engines already set up with a little bit more bhp though. My map was not cheap though. £400!

Well I had this issue with the Peugeot 306. Lovely Astor Gray GTi6. Yes that marque is now a chavs car but in no way was mine chavvy. I felt I was driving a genuine hot hatch. As for the Fabia.. I hope its not chavvy. I love the remap and it really feels fast on the road and I have timed it on various sections of road here in the border country and it seems as good as the 306s ever were - even my dear Rallye - which won a Autocar shoot out. On the looks front it will never be a classic like those were but hey we have to move on don't we?

52.

I can't complain. I am my own boss now. I never, ever, thought I would become a journalist. I just fell into job that would carry me into this career back in 1979 though little did I know it back then - the joys of life! It can happen to ANY of us. At the start I did not particularly enjoy life on news desks etc with Editors, some in glass rooms, asking me to write the bit items the Mickey Mouse stories. I shunned jobs like becoming a ‘City’ analyst as back in the 80s I was too left wing. Later I turned down chief press officer jobs, like for consultant W S Atkins. I could not go back to being an employee. When I was let go by The Engineer 18 years ago with a year’s salary (thank you ever so much NUJ) I did enjoy setting up a unique subscription news service and have enjoyed carrying all the investigations on my own over the years and occasionally getting the 'fantastic' and 'well done' Emails from readers. Typically last month we broke a ‘world' news story about the Sabastian James (DSG) education sector capital budget review. We revealed the highlights of what it would say more than a month before it is due to be officially revealed. It’s all down to contacts. I even took a guy off the streets (so he says) to help me run the dot.com web site (his idea) and now he is a 'publisher' even though he doesn't really believe it. The only regret I have is not having trained anyone to take my place - so far. Companies pay up to £1,200 a year to read our news. You have to add considerable value to get that money out of them each year. Some of my readers have been buying this news for past 18 years.

Also right the boot release is a doozy too but after a remap the thing really shifts especially overtaking in 4th just before 2,000 revs about about 45 - 50 mph. Brilliantly useful with trucks etc.

Only difference from me is we had a 205TD from new back in the 1990s so that was nice then. The locks take a bit of getting used to. First mine locks automatically after starting off. Also need to press the fob button harder or twice to unlock and finally there is a unlock button on the drivers side for front passenger which can be used. Bit strange the locking on these.

I bought a Dec 06 one last Autumn and really love it. Totally different from the fast petrol cars I had before. The cars of later years (ask the experts on here) came out of the factory with a 150 bhp set up so can easily be tuned to about 180 bhp. Mine also has cruise control though Xenons would be nice and apparently if fitted they allow for a bigger 5L screen washer bottle which would be a boon as the 2L standard one is too small and one of the few minor hassles with these cars.

Well for me it was almost ridiculous. Put some injector cleaner in and up in a big way went the miles left in the tank.