My personal impressions:

The XJ6/XJ8 range is overblown: ok for large corpulent company directors.Too big. 20 year old styling. No "buy me now" styling or performance. And a V8? Someone has no idea of fuel economy...

XK8? Costs a fortune to run. Not that great performance. Company directors again. Sporting content : Nil points.

Mondeo alternative..(X type)? I can see why they can't give them away..

S type? Overblown skirts, could do with slimming down and losing 0.5tonne.

All looks very overblown/out of date or in the case of the X type mutton dressed as lamb...

Compared to the competition the brand image is 40 years out of date, they are too costly to run, the performance and handling are indifferent and frankly the product planners were working on the basis oil is going to fall to $30 per gallon..(typical myopic US product planning which has virtually destroyed GM and Ford in the US).

I'm in my late 50s. I consider the Jaguar range styling as too old man for me:-) Reminiscent of 1950s faded and long gone glories...







madf

Radio said that it was the motor (huh? These things don't

have motors do they?) I can only think that they mean

the actual generator bit. This caught fire and then set fire

to all the associated gubbins, interestingly enough even the blades appeared

to be burning.

Blue

That would be me :-)

Thanks for doing that mate, they're now posted in a seperate thread.

Blue

I've got one! (1975 MGB GT V8). Had it for 20 years, I've covered about 100k miles out of it's total 180k miles. It's in the office car park now, I use it all year round as an alternative to my Audi A4- keeps the mileage down. Fantastic fun, real character, cheap to maintain, turns heads. MPG hardly any worse than a 1.8 MGB. The MGR V8 is obviously much newer, but also much more expensive. Also if you are tall there is far more room in the MGB GT bodyshell compared to the roadster shell (inc. RV8)- the windscreen line is ridiculously low in the roadster. The only thing I'd say is that even if you buy a pristine one you need to be a bit practical to keep it in good shape, or be prepared to pay for someone to maintain it and pay their labour accordingly. Intrinsically a reliable car (it has never once let me down) but like all 30-odd year old cars they require a vast amount of maintenance compared to a modern car.

Carl

I must admit, I read this and can really sympathise with you. I have seen and been involved with drivers who seem completely unaware of their surroundings (outside the car).

I was involved in a situation about 18 months ago in a car park where an elderly lady reversed into my van, which was properly parked in a bay. She was attempting to park in a bay in front of my van.

She reversed with such force that her car bounced off the front bumper of my van, and came to a stop half a car length in front, protruding out of her parking space by half a car length.

Fortunately I had a witness to this, also there was no damage to either vehicle, and this was not my new van.

She then opened the drivers door, climbed out of the car, closed the door and locked it. I approached her about the incident, really just to make sure she was OK. She denied having done this. She was completely unaware that her car was now sticking out of the parking bay, and she was completely unaware that she had reversed into the van. I then turned to my witness who confirmed what I had told her. At this point she simply expressed extreme surprise, and apologised.

I was not going to claim off her insurance policy as there was no obvious damage and my vehicle was probably worth less than the price of a new bumper anyway, but I do regret not noting her number and informing the police, only for her own protection. I know a couple of PCs around here so I know how the local constabulary handle this sort of thing, hence a friendly visit over a cup of tea buy a PC would have at least alerted her to her awareness problem.

Carl, I wish you the best of luck. It's not easy handling this situation with anyone, let alone your dad.

There's an old saying, and I paraphrase "You can critisize anything you like about someone, apart from a couple of things, including their driving." So you're not alone.