Lady Elanore

Maybe "one day in the not too distant future..." ...a man (or woman, it could be a woman) will put a V12 into one of these as a restomod. Happy times will ensue and a lot of spannering

Chris Harris and friends have had a drive in the car and seem genuinely impressed with it. I'm becoming excited that this once great British manufacturer may survive and produce cars worthy of the marque...even if they don't have proper engines

Funnily enough, I have a colleague who is trying to get out of his Taycan, but it is serious negative equity. I suggested that as it's a PCP he might be at the voluntary termination point. It turns out that unlike a personal PCP, the VT point of a business PCP is 85%! Who knew? He still had a good deal at the beginning as he offset his annual Corporation tax for that year, but it isn't going so well for him now. Mind you, it is a stunningly well-made car, even if it has been on the back of a low loader 5 times because of breakdowns. He would buy another he reckons. Obviously, this is utter madness, but there again, his brother buys Range Rovers and has had a similar success story with breakdowns and yet he too keeps buying Range Rovers

Lots of jorno's have now been in a late model prototype and even some have been in the virtually finished car. The one thing that is repeated is the ride is sublime and the car doesn't want for performance. Perhaps the Jag strengths of Power, handling and refinement are still alive. I certainly gives me a lot more hope for the brand than I had earlier, even if it won't sell that many in the UK

Palmer Motorsport McLaren Artura Apparently they take the hybriddiddy bit out first

I wouldn't say it has to be prestige. I've had a Hyundai Kona and a couple of Vitaras in recent history But I agree the Plymouth Speedbird spoiler is comical and if I was keeping the car, I'd have it replaced with the standard spec one. But seriously, the current deals on the A35 are strong (and non-negotiable). I did get an alleged ceramic detail and a full tank on delivery. The car isn't as well built inside as the M135, but it doesn't suffer from the weird FSD bouncy thing that the BMW has going on over lumpy roads. It feels like their boffins got their sums wrong. Having said that, the A35 ride is always busy and firm and feels like a sheepdog wanting to go chase some woolly friends around the place. It does have an amazing "ooooh" factor inside however and the economy on the motorway is better than my PHEV was when it had run out of charge (which was most of the time). The A35s downside (and also one of its strengths) is the way the suspension is bolted to the car (imho). It is very similar to the way BMW does its M cars; a lack of bushes, a shear panel (that's what the blurb says anyway) and a rear subframe bolted directly to the car (get me and my fancy car BS). It creates a lot of road noise and the spec I have is dropped 10mm further which not only gives the car a ground clearance similar to my F Type, but feels like it has compromised the travel of the springs, so much so, that a pothole is quite an adventure. Also, rubber band tyres probably don't help. But it is a long time since I had a proper hot hatch and at least for now, I'm enjoying the chuckability and terrier like approach to handling. And apart from the usual DCT crudeness as the car is coming to a stop and moving off again just as the car is about to come to rest, it is very quick and very smooth. The exhaust note is even quite nice and fruity, a rarity these days and funnily enough the car sounds better than the A45. One huge annoyance and It's not really directed at the A35 in particular, are the nanny systems. The beeps and bongs are ludicrous. Every time you set off you need to go to different menus to disable the speed limit warning, you can stop the bongs very easily as there is a permanent shortcut on the screen, but the speed sign on the dash and head-up display flashes constantly until it too is disabled. Also, the ruddy lane keeping assist resets every time you start the car! You can make shortcuts for things, but they aren't all in the same place....arghhhhh. But another plus is the inbuilt camera that looks for cars in front of you so it can adapt the headlight beam, can be used as a video recorder. You have to pay MB (its a retroactive thing surprisingly, done after I received the car) a bit of extra cash in order to access this function of course but it means no wires or obvious camera to be nicked, sitting on your windscreen. You do have to enable it every time you start (thank you EU nannies), but this can be done with a direct voice command if you like, as you don't even have to use the wake up phrase "hey mercedes". There are several of these 'Direct' phrases like "next track" "increase temperature" and so on. Makes things a little easier and so far works well and understands my accent. Funnily enough, when you increase the temp, the turbine air vents glow red and when you drop the temp, they glow blue Very silly but a nice touch. I had also looked at the Cupra Formentor and the Golf R, but they were out of my price league. So even though the A35 isn't quite the quickest kid on the block, it is great fun and I'm enjoying getting to grips with it.

That A35 is very pretty

A35 (with stupid big roof spoiler). A lot cheaper than the equivalent BMW, VW, Cupra, Audi. It's just a shame Skoda doesn't do a Vrs 4x4.

One of you is very close, probably the 8 speed is the giveaway? (and I suspect you are fully nerded up on these sorts of things). But it isn't a hyper hatch like the RS3/A45. Although given the choice between A45 and Vitara V12, I know which one I'd like to have a blast in. It isn't the i30 nice car though, that it is.

After 4 hours I got the car back. Not washed (I didn't want it washing, but they hadn't asked anyway). So a total of two visits and 6 hours waiting for a bit of plastic trim to be replaced (it is a bigger job than you might think). I've had a gentle but firm word, things will be 'forwarded,' the Sales manager has been strapped to the Rack, the Dealer Principle has been recalled from his around the world cruise and the Area Manager has been awakened from his cryo-sleep....or on the other hand, bugger-all has/will happen.

So far I've spent a total of 5 1/2 hours waiting in total for this bit of trim to be fixed!!!!!

Actually, come to think of it, I sat around at the same dealership (Williams next to the Trafford Centre) the last time waiting for the trim to be fixed. It's only when I chased that up, I was told "oh, it looks like the part is damaged so you'll have to book it in again"....nice of them to tell me as I sat patiently waiting for news of the job being finished. I'd go elsewhere, but the alternative is Sytners, where I bought it. I've still not had a single follow-up call from them about the car since purchase (2 years ago) and a salesman and a 'Tech wizard' both failed to return my last email. Jaguar are not helping themselves.

I'd love a V12 but can't afford to run one. I've still got my Jag, which interestingly enough is being worked on at the minute. A bit of external trim was starting to come away last year and after a botched attempt to fix it by the local dealership (Williams) owing to a claimed damaged part being sent, they are having a second go today... Unfortunately, I was told it would take 2-21/2 half hours to replace. It's a Jag, so large bits of internal stuff has to be removed to fix the teeny external trim. Anyhoo I opted to wait and so at the appointed hour of 11:00 I dropped the car off - actually I was a little early. I've now been sat here for over 3 hours and the best I can get out of them is "I dunno when it will be ready". The very nice chap who picks the cars up and takes them around to the workshop is trying his best and reckons it will be another 30 minutes, but I'm not holding my breath. Getting ready to have a calm, but rather direct conversation with someone. Great service for a car that was allegedly over £100k when it was new (I didn't pay that of course and it's on a PCP). All I want is to be kept informed of the delay and a time when it should be done, It is only a piece of external trim (goes around the rear window). Funnily enough, I received a potential theft alert around 12:30 which was the time they disconnected the battery. I reckon this means they started work on the car 90 minutes late, which as a customer that is waiting is a bit crap imho. As for new car, it is a 2.0 petrol, is 4x4-ish and is not a BMW (Oh and it's an 8 speed DCT). I got £6.5k off, it's on 3.8% PCP and has 2 free services. It's also grey as they don't do colours in this car any more it seems. It comes with a 14 year olds wet dream of a rear roof spoiler as it is a standard fit and they all have them !!!! I'm too old for this car. It's also not a super hatch/coupe

As per title, the PCP on my Peugeot 3008 PHEV, is coming to an end in the next couple of weeks (technically I am Voluntary Terminating the PCP a month early) and I'm sad that the car didn't work out as well as I hoped. The car itself is great. It was pretty faultless whilst I had it, although it suffered well over a month unable to be used, after I blew a tyre out in a pothole one rainy Manchester evening. Turned out there were no comparable tyres in the country. I tried every avenue, including Peugeot themselves, but it was a big "no" from everyone. But that aside the car was very reliable - oh and the tyres are freely available now Good points The interior, which is a really nice place to spend time. Anyone remembering Peugeot from the 80/90/00s would be surprised by the quality and general style of the thing. They have gone down a contentious route of placing the speedo display above the eye-line of the steering wheel. I didn't even notice on the test drive and found it natural and worked brilliantly, others disagree The switchgear, especially the metal piano key buttons are a tactile delight and massage seats were a fun option that I rarely used. The only thing missing in the spec was a sunroof (I don't like them anyway) and wireless Android Auto/Apple carplay. This is easily fixed with a cheap Amazon dongle that plugs into the car in place of your phone connection and works seamlessly as a conduit for wireless operation. Great fix The ride quality is great, as the car is quite softly sprung (remember those days when cars were just so, I'm looking at you, you naughty stiff German cars). It does roll a fair bit in corners, but I quite enjoyed the challenged of keeping speed up on a cross-country blast, it was much more of a challenge than regular modern cars, especially VAG, BMW and their ilk. The gearbox was an 8 speed slushmatic and worked really well, even if the flappy paddles were connected to the gearbox via a dialup modem. Also, suprisingly, the performance could be described as quite brisk in a straight line and quite scary in a combination of challenging corners. This is because, quite incongruously, my 3008 had a 1.6 petrol engine and two electric motors. This gave a limited power of 300bhp! So the car could certainly pick up its heels and head off like a scaled cat (well, comparatively speaking). Not so good points and the main reason the car was a disappointment. The PHEV bit! I admit the car was an experiment for me but as it turned out, the real world running costs, mainly the economy, were a big disappointment. Ok, I could charge at home, but my job entails that I needed to charge the car many, many times away from home. At this point it becomes very expensive and I would have been better off buying a standard 2.0 petrol car in this regard. Another issue is range. Peugeot claim "up to" 39 miles of electric range, but in reality low 20s is your lot in summer and less than this in winter, at least with all the usual toys turned on. This has the effect of you driving around dragging a dead-ish heavy lump of a battery, which doesn't help your overall fuel economy. Ideally you fully charge the car and use the satnav as the car will determine how to use the EV side in conjunction with the ICE and meter it out so you finish your journey with zero charge and maximum MPG. Then of course you have a flat battery and if you are away from home, you need to find a charger again (at great cost) and this brings me to the other miserable 'feature', charging speed! Boy, or girl, is it slow! Because the car uses a 300V architecture, it charges quite slowly not helped by an inbuilt inverter that limits you to 16amps, so the assumed 10KwH of available charging required (a couple of KwH is reserved for the cars general running, (things like heating etc) in reality turns out to be nearer 11Kwhs or more, due to inefficacies of charging and takes around 3.5 hours or so. It's basically a pain. In reality, the car has been driven around with a flat traction battery for much of it's life :( The massive discount I got when purchasing the car on PCP (£17K) has meant crippling poor residual. My car is in negative equity to the tune of around £2-3K. Luckily the benefit of PCP/HP protects you from this burden. So my thoughts overall are these. It's a great car to own, except for the above and the fear that the extraordinary complexity of operation in its drivetrain, will lead to a very expensive vehicle for future owners somewhere down the road. To see graphics of the car running in real time, switching a combination of engine, front electric motor, rear electric motor or any combination of the above, coupled with recharging off the front motor, rear motor or ICE (which it does regularly) beggars belief. It works seamlessly, but it is terrifyingly clever to watch operate and hence when it goes wrong, it will rival brain surgery in its difficulty to repair. The car would have been a better fit for me if it had been simply a 1.6 litre engine with a simple 4x4 facility. Certainly would have been lighter. I think I can recommend this model as a great value one, just avoid the PHEVs if you travel around a bit. My replacement car is a petrol one, has teeny bit of mild hybriddy, 4x4 and at least on the motorway, is much more economical. It's ride quality however, is a polar opposite. I'm going to check the transport chocks haven't been left in :D

Gan canny with ye yool logs bonny lad.

You know, I would have loved to have joined in on your Trump thread, but I honestly don't think my heart/bloodpressure could take it.

That's why I used the phrase 'let go' as there seems to be a shift in the Jaguar narrative in this matter in the last few days. It certainly was a terrible rebrand, even if it got everyone talking about Jaguar for a while. It just needs some kn0bhead footballer to go to Mansory and spend a couple of hundred grand on making the car look totally legotastic and who knows, maybe every rich youngster will want one? It is ridiculously long though and it doesn't look like it has much room inside either. Maybe it will sell in Murica once Trump has gone.

Jaguar 'let go' the man deemed responsible for the horrific launch of the pink elephant campaign, but having seen the Autocar video and read the article, maybe they are on to something special. It will be a tough sell, but who nows, it just needs a few of the right celebrities to be seen driving them and it could take off (in relatively small numbers). I certainly don't think of Jaguar as pipe and slippers (I currently don't use either) and when I think of Jaguar engines, I think of silky smooth straight 6 engines, so in a way the EV thing is not a total departure. Two days ago I feared the worst, which is saying something, as I didn't think much of their chances, even before the ICE U-turn. But now, I see "potential", not a word I thought I would use in the Jaguar rebrand. I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what this car can do. I certainly won't be buying one, it will be far too rich for my blood and also I really don't want an EV, but Jaguar, which looked to be going down swinging, seems to be at a surprise training camp to get in shape.

I'm sure the many petrolheads on here will be following the Jaguar odyssey in the press and I wondered if your views have changed at all. Personally I figured if you were going to go down, you might as well go down swinging, so Jaguars "in for a penny" decision was not one without merit. Like many, I despaired at what seems a Lemming like attempt at suicide by Jaguar, as they abandoned ICE cars and went full 'white goods' mode. It only seems to have become worse with the recent revelation that Europe has decided that ICE cars can continue to be made for the foreseeable future, something that Jaguar can no longer do now, I suspect, having thrown away their babies with the bathwater. Many people have ranted about how Jaguar had made some great cars, how they had great heritage and we should still support them, but 99% of those people were "all talk and no trousers" (imho) and never actually put their hands in their pockets and bothered to buy a Jag! So this brings me to a piece published today on Autocar. Maybe....just maybe... Jaguar are on to something a little bit special? Steve Cropley intimates something on that note.

As per thread title. Enjoy AutocarI drove Skoda's museum classics from 1940 to 1993. There'...Skoda DNA oozes from these historic cars

I don't feel forced to be honest and indeed, dipped my toe in the waters by getting a PHEV (never again!) ICE cars will be around for many years yet, even if new ones, won't. I'm happy to buy something ICE powered and hanging on to it. I'm at an age that means I won't be here when combustion cars are totally phased out.

It's almost ironic that I work in a tech-heavy industry and use a wide variety of electronic kit daily, both for work and my hobbies. I'm not so interested in being a server engineer or IT specialist, but these things do encroach on my job. But I can't really feel emotionally connected to EVs. I like the wheezy bang-bang of ICE cars :) Not sure why. I've wondered if it comes from my youth? I remember when I left home at 19 y/o to find employment 150 miles away. The car gave me freedom and Independence, something I valued tremendously and have enjoyed for many decades. On my journey through life and on tarmac, I've had some great hot hatches, sports cars and such like and this has strengthened a bond with the automobile that goes way beyond it being mere transport. It lives and breathes and talks to you as you drive it. Sometimes your car is a mad, frantic collie dog, sometimes a greyhound, sometimes a big fat Labrador (to use a weird analogy) but it responds to your commands and tells you how it feels moment by moment. Noise, vibration, power/torque curves, all feeding back to you in your joint experience, something that I find EVs simply lack. Going from A to B in silence and with great linear response, is very efficient, but sometimes less is not more and I don't want a totally subservient device on my travels, I want a partner, one with its own opinions and character. It makes life more interesting, even if it also brings many compromises. I think of it like a beautiful hand built wristwatch, It is more desirable than the undoubtedly more accurate and cheaper digital watch. As a time piece, the digital watch wins every day, to the micro second! But the craftsmanship of the beautiful hand built chronograph, is still more desirable for many people. I don't deny the many benefits of EVs and the great qualities they have, it's just at the moment they don't make sense for me and I can't emotionally connect to them in the slightest :( I'll be a petrol head to the day I die, I suspect, even if I end up with an EV eventually

I could see me having an EV once I retire and give up on cars in general. At the moment they don't fit my needs and certainly don't align with my passions (ooh errr). I know there are many happy EV owners out there, but I won't be joining them any time soon (assuming my health and employment status don't change, of course). As I've said before, I am time poor in my job and do not want to stop whilst travelling and also charging away from home as I would have to do frequently, would make an EV cost similar to running a diesel or economical petrol car (assuming some recharging at home). So the way I see it, there is no financial advantage, it would rob me of time and I find EVs souless, even though they may be a great conveyance in general terms. I also find their design in general, to be extraordinarily bland. I would much rather a Tesla 3 looked like the original Fiat Multipla, than the way it actually does, but that's personal taste of course (I thought my M3 - G80 - was a handsome car ).

Without disclosing my travelling arrangements and job locations, I'm doing a job in the near future where an EV would be a nightmare for charging and distances covered. I do work rather long hours, though. Got a 17-18 hour day coming up shortly, for instance (including around 250 miles travelling - not at eco speeds). I'd need 100% charge for some of the days I work I'm sure and as I've shared cars with a colleague who drives a Taycan (big battery model) recharging can be a pain, even though it is a very fast charger, at least at first. Range is an issue. Although to be fair, so is reliability as it's been on the back of a low loader at least 3 times that I know of and back to Porsche a few times more. Beautifully built though Not sure if the Audi variants of this battery and engine combo are as unreliable? I assume the tech is shared?

I've heard of a goose berry bush before, but a tree!