I was having a chat today with someone from work, who like me, is an avowed petrol head.. and he asked me the question "What will be your next car then?"
and surprisingly, for the first time, I haven't an answer
I don't know whether it's my age (45), but there's nothing I really hanker for..and yet all my motoring life, i've usually lusted after something.. and when younger went out and bought it.
Don't get me wrong, a bit of inheritance or a lottery win, would have an Aston Martin of some sort and a Jag XF, no problems, but once back in the real world, anything sub 30K doesn't really interest me and I can't afford anything more than 30K.
I'm wondering whether it's the fact that everything nowadays is such a compromise i.e. fuel costs have made V8's and V6's a no-no unless you're doing seriously limited mileage and/or the new tax classes.. a diesel is practical but boring, so for the first time if i can't get what I want, i'm not prepared to take a big dive on depreciation etc, so i'll keep what i've got
I do spend more than is probably prudent keeping my 9 yr old car in tip top condition (just had both bumpers re-sprayed re minor parking scrapes), but have never been anywhere near to being a champion of bangernomics
what's happening to me? am I normal? are there any more of you out there? can I be cured?
|
Personally I gravitate towards utility type cars these days, LR Defender, Santana etc mainly because I like something that is a bit challenging to drive, cruder the better - todays cars are just too soft to be enjoyable. I still lust after a 1980 LR Series 3 diesel that I didnt buy when I really should have.
I even habour a secret desire to own a 70's Pug diesel saloon, 504 ideally. Why I have no idea!
|
|
|
Sounds pretty normal to me.
Nothing available at the moment really makes me think I really want one.
I asked my wife the same question, said she could have any car (within reason), her reply was a beaten up SAAB 900 (original shape) 5 door with odd coloured doors.
|
|
Yep, tend to agree. I can't think of anything moderately affordable that I would rush out and buy. I had a go in a £30K A4 Avant recently, which was full of toys, none of which I need. Apart from that it was ok, but not worth 10 times the value of my Octavia! Similarly, my neighbours 2.0 Titanium X Mondeo is ok, but not exciting in the least. Trouble is, all the cars I used to hanker after are long out of production - Cooper S, RS 2000, Mexico, Golf Mk1&2 GTi. I ride a bike now, so all cars seem slow, obese and ponderous. Maybe that's why.
|
Golf Mk1&2 GTi. I ride a bike now so all cars seem slow obese and ponderous. Maybe that's why.
Maybe thats also why lots of mid life crisis 45 year old blokes are turning to bikes and spreading themsleves in a nasty mess on british roads in ever increasing numbers.
|
|
|
Yep tend to agree. I can't think of anything moderately affordable that I would rush out and buy. I had a go in a £30K A4 Avant recently which was full of toys none of which I need. Apart from that it was ok but not worth 10 times the value of my Octavia!
So is the credit crunch the problem, or is it just that modern cars are dull? I had the same problem, but with much cheaper cars. When I compared a few new cars to my current car I decided that I prefer my current one dispite it being a much cheaper (when it was new) car. I've finally found a car that I want to buy, but it's still not perfect.
I can't see many reasons to get newer cars. Fuel consumption has hardly changed unless get you some special technology such as a hybrid vehicle etc. Visibility has got much worse. Interior space has got worse, and exterior dimensions have got bigger. The ride has got duller. Then we pay for all the features that we don't need.
|
|
|
|
|
Interesting train of thought.
It boils down to what you think of as 'desirable' - if I remember right your 9-y-o car is a Jaguar, and you're obviously fond of it, so your standards are high.
You could wait until XFs come with a discount - not long in the present climate? or appear on the second-hand market. The 2.7D is £33k list now.
Or what about:
- BMW 330d new or 335d / 535d nearly-new
- VW Golf GTI (or if you need the room, Octavia vRS with the same engine)
- Audi A4 3.0 TDI
- Mercedes C320CDI
- some form of Alfa if you don't mind a gamble
I don't know if you do enough mileage to make a diesel worthwhile, but you were saying that a V6 petrol is a no-no. A 6-cylinder diesel is practical without being boring.
|
there's some good choices on there Avant, either you're quite perceptive or you think alike
trouble is there's nothing that 'rocks my boat' and i'm left indifferent to a degree, despite the fact some of them are very able cars
i secretly want a smooth petrol V6 or loud V8, but common sense says maybe a diesel, but as i don't really want diesel, maybe that's why i'm thinking i won't bother
some of it must be down to the 'what's around the corner' angle. There's already been the hit for post 2001 cars re RFL, where's that going to end? Where will petrol prices end up, it might be economic now to have petrol if you do less than 12,000 miles a year, but how about a year or two's time?
cars are depreciating badly at the moment, esp the bigger ones, maybe that's a worry more than you ever used to
i think it's sad that a petrol head who has to keep it relatively affordable, hasn't really got much to look forward to for the new stuff, maybe i'll become one of those eccentric old duffers who only drives old stuff around.
|
I feel just the same too - really, there's nothing I lust after now. I drove company cars for many years and always ran a supermini type car (currently Jazz) for my wife in parallel.
For many years we changed our company cars every 2 yrs which was great - for 1 year it was new and the second year you were looking forward to getting a new one. Also there was usually what seemed a significant upgrade - Ford/Vauxhall etc adding sunroofs as standard was a huge deal, and I can even remember switching from radio to radio/cassette and then CD. Getting a/c and then ABS as options before they were standard was also a big win.
But even the most basic cars have all those things now. I do have a hankering to get an SUV of some sort (X5 probably favourite, maybe ML) before they become completely unacceptable. However my view is coloured by the soft riding, extremely comfortable SUVs that I always hire in the US. There's also the advantage of wide roads and HUGE parking spaces there, which make living with an SUV easy.
|
I'd like a Vauxhall VXR8. A real V8 brute and pretty cheap. Never going to happen though. Failing that a 535d would be nice, but I don't really do the mileage (nor can I really afford one).
Nu Labours assault on the motorist means that, sadly, we'll all only be able to afford 50bhp shoe boxes soon.
|
I desire the XF but they are over 33K new & with a few options closer to 35K. As much as I desire one I couldn't stretch to that so it was a newer S-Type which I love.
Otherwise if I had another few K it would be a XK but I couldn't get comfy in the old shape one so would have to be a newer more expensive one.
Also find the Jag is a bit on the big side so could be tempted back to my other love which is Alfa. Guy on PH has just got a Spyder in white, tan leather & 2.4JTD ummmm lovely!
|
|
|
we'll all only be able to afford 50bhp shoe boxes soon
Don't be so upset, Baratt homes selling newly built flats for half price. One day you may find "closing down sales" or "half price sales" in dealers' forecourts! :o)
|
|
|
|
|
How about embodying your two mutually exclusive desires in two different cars? Something off your V6 wish list for limited mileage when the weather's nice and you're not stuck in traffic, and something a litle more sensible for everyday use.
|
|
Could it be that even among petrol and diesel heads the penny is dropping that cars are becoming (or are) domestic appliances? Might also explain poor driving standards.
Edited by Old Navy on 02/10/2008 at 15:10
|
|
|
I'm increasingly finding myself hankering after classics, but not the exotic or desirable, but more the workaday vehicles of my youth. So, a Mk3 cortina, Renault 16 & Fuego, Hillman Hunter, Avenger etc. Could be seeking comfort in an uncertain world?
In common with others, I also am about to buy a motorcycle.
It may just be that time of life (I have just turned 38... wow, that looks scary written down!)
BW,
Alex.
|
Believe me fast approaching 52 is really scary.
For the last 10 years my driving priorities have moved away for performance and handling and towards economy and reliability - that's what family life does to you. Its now reached the stage were I will be seriously looking at economy specials like the Focus Econotec next time, and driving every where at 56mph.
That way I can economise more, do my bit to save the planet and push more funds into my pension - DOH looks like my pension has just gone down the drain with the 10 million repossed trailers in Omaha, should have bought a v8 while petrol was realtively cheap.
MPZ
|
Personally I do see modern cars as less and less desirable because the fun, perhaps necessarily, has been taken out of many of them...... and the others are to expensive :(
I'm just selling an 18 yr old BMW e30 325i after 18 months of real fun and enjoyable driving. Why so enjoyable? A light, well balanced and very manoeuvrable car with no thick pillars, bloated body shape and almost total detachment from what's going on outside. Yes of course I'm certain it is not as 'safe' as modern cars but every time I get the car out it puts a smile on my face. And driving without all the modern 'safety' gear around certainly fine tunes the senses making me much more alert and aware.
Continuing the theme I am only getting rid because I have managed to buy a V8 powered car at a great price due to residuals tanking. It's enjoyable in a different way and meets the same benchmark of putting that smile where I want it.
I can't ever see me buying new (lottery win excepting) - perhaps I'll buy the BMW back in a few years!
|
|
I would settle for one of the new Mark 6 VW Golfs - 2.0 TDI. NOT a silver one, though, pleeeaase!!
|
|
|
"I have managed to buy a V8 powered car at a great price due to residuals tanking"
R40, can I be nosey and ask what you bought and what deal you got?
|
R40 can I be nosey and ask what you bought and what deal you got?
Have emailed you.
hth
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Something off your V6 wish list for limited mileage when the weather's nice"
I think that's the way to go. My wish list hasn't changed since I was a little boy, - XJ saloons, XJS, so current trends are unlikely to affect it. I ran a Jag as a weekend car back in London and if I do have to buy something with 3 rows of seats next year I'll be looking for something with 2 banks of cylinders and 10 years old to roll out and wax every Sunday. Finances permitting of course. I'm not a petrol head or a boy racer but I do like my Jags.
|
|
What is the matter with everybody. Cars are cheaper in real terms, better equipped ,more reliable that they have ever been. There's a huge range out there with surely something to suit everyone What's all this talk of white goods and hankering after some rusting classic from the past. Surely we are now living in the golden age of motoring choice
|
|
Choice yes, but unless you have serious money, character is absent.
|
|
|
|
BBD,
I have just the thing for you.
A '51 reg Daimler Super V, 49K miles, sat-nav plus front and rear phones, all the toys except headrest DVD and reclining rear seats.
Lovely paintwork (Quartz) but with grey leather interior (should be ivory piped with brown to match the walnut).
£14,995 including 1 year Jag warranty at my local Jag dealer in Basingstoke.
If it wasn't for the grey leather I'd have bought it myself.
Go to the Jaguar UK website and look at "Approved Used".
Kevin...
|
Slightly tangential to the thrust of this thread, but here's a current trend that reduces new cars' desirability in my eyes:
Privacy glass on rear side windows!
Cast aside all the arguments about privacy or keeping the interior cool, I'm just talking about aesthetics:
Imagine, there's the stylist, taking great pains to create a design that looks good and coherent from the side (and which works when dark glass is present on ALL the windows, in the adverts), and then the look gets totally ruined by privacy glass being on the rear side windows.
If you have a black hatchback, it looks like you bought the van derivative. If you have a white hatchback, it looks like you bought the van derivative and then tried to make it look less like the van derivative by painting the rear side panels black.
It just jars.
Oh, and on the subject of dark glass, I just noticed the piece on the side there about 'Vanity Over Vision' - too right! The recent fad for big sunglasses with broad arms means that peripheral vision is drastically reduced. Try changing lanes on a busy motorway with a pair of these on, and see if you feel utterly comfortable that there's no-one coming past you in your blind spot. Mind you, SWMBO agreed but said she hadn't realised until I pointed it out...
|
>>If you have a black hatchback, it looks like you bought the van derivative.
When I neighbor parked his dark blue new Honda CR-V (with privacy glass) for first few minutes I really wondered since when CR-Vs came in van format :)
|
|
|
|
"If it wasn't for the grey leather I'd have bought it myself."
I couldn't live with the grey leather either Kevin. I've seen many Daimlers and Sovereigns with grey leather and I can't imagine why anybody would specify it in the first place.
|
grey leather and I can't imagine why anybody would specify it in the first place.
What on earth is wrong with grey leather?
|
|
|
|
|
I can understand where you are coming from. In my case, I think it's all down to the fact that so many new cars are not only very similar but downright ugly! Now admittedly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I really think that the BMW 5-series that preceded the current slab-sided lump was a very elegant and attractive car. Likewise, at the other end of the scale, the 1996-2001 Mondeo also had a lightness and certain elegance that the more recent incarnations don't have.
I drive a 2004 model Saab 9-5 estate, having been a Saab man for the last 25 years, and I'm now stuck in a dead end because the latest 9-5 with the Edna Everage fron is so damn ugly! And the 9-3 just doesn't appeal.
To a certain extent, I don't care what the thing looks like, but I just couldn't face owning something that didn't have that certain je ne sais quoi (don't ask me what it is, because I don't know...)
Edited by Webmaster on 04/10/2008 at 00:59
|
I wonder what the French would make of this thread, in the current economic climate?
I always assumed they bought cars new, treated like an appliance and so on until scrapyard time.
Is it an Anglo Saxon thing? Or are they now like us, getting out the little touch up stick and polish at weekends, then chopping in at great loss every two or three years.
I must say, I`m largely basing this on French reactions to me getting a touch up stick out to a 2CV on a campsite in Le Lavandou. (major amusement)
;)
|
Ive only ever bought older cars due to my finances, but also having an in-built aversion to high depreciation, but at least in the past I used to dream of owning certain current cars. But now I largely dont, personally I feel that unless you have a lot of money to spend, the majority of modern cars are characterless, dull things. Sanitised and over weight.
In terms of cars I actually own age has never been an issue to me, I've owned cars from 4 to 15 years old, although nowadays reliability is more important to me than it used to be, which tempers my choice a bit.
In one mag this month, there is a buyers guide to the AMG Merc C43 - 4.3 litre V8 in a compact body for £5k. Now that is interesting.
Trouble is if I bought one as my only car to do my commute in, I wouldnt be able to afford to fuel it. Will be sticking with diesel for the forseeable future. :o(
Edited by Rich 9-3 on 03/10/2008 at 15:06
|
|
This thread reminds me why I will never sell my 2CV. Sooo much more involving in every sense than any modern car.
|
|
|
|
QUOTE: "I was having a chat today with someone from work, who like me, is an avowed petrol head.. and he asked me the question "What will be your next car then? ................................
what's happening to me? am I normal? are there any more of you out there? can I be cured?""
I think you're entirely normal.
I regularly find myself chatting to car heads, mechanics, etc, who can't find enthusiasm for anything nowadays.
Ask the question, what would you spend £12k on?, and everyone shakes their heads, or starts mumbling about MGB's, etc.
For me the greatest problem is lack of comfort, with too much unwanted technology as a close rival.
I had a 504 Pug, and it was SO much nicer to drive than anything modern. Yep, the build quality was inexcusable, but what a lovely car to drive. Fond memories of Renault 4, 16, etc - again, terrible rust probs and loads of niggles, but fun and comfy.
One of the other great probs is everything getting "styled" out of practicality.
Look at a Mk 1 Primera estate. Huge glass, masses of space, lovely to drive, fantastic reliability. Look at a mark 3 model of the same !!??
Same can be said for model after model.
I was finally forced to give up my 18yr old BX, and since have found nothing I like. I'm happy that engines are much cleaner, but practically speaking modern cars are generally LESS space efficient, unimpressively more economical, and lumpy and bouncy to drive and ride in.
Bah!!
|
Been pondering this thread for a couple of days, i thought it was only me that found all these newer cars as boring as i do.
Nothings really different any more, we have French cars pretending to be German with solid suspension instead of their wafting ride and quirky controls, i like different.
I used to like older MB's as they looked like no one else's cars with lovely solid interiors, now they appear to have followed the crowd, and those new wide jawed grille's...hideous, and as for that bent banana shaped CLS, truly awful thing.
Agree about the E39 5 series BM, lovely sleek well proportioned car, replaced by a battle cruiser with mock up grille and headlights that were left on by mistake.
Think how refreshing the Accord in the 90's was, same basic model as the rover 600 of the time, and again they have slab sided eurorep clone's currently, not saying they arn't a good car, far from it, just so...boringly identical to the competition.
Your own S type WP, lovely individual design, to my mind spoiled with the facelift.
I really liked the rover 75 too, luxurious place to be, comfy seats and unusual pleasant dash.
Diesels that sound universally awful, and with few exceptions tremendous torque but only if driven in a certain way, as against old fashioned diesels that would pull for ever but were impossible to stall and as simple as possible to the point that once started you could remove the battery and it would run all day.
I know they are so much better apparently, but i hate this tremendous surge, i want constant torque from my diesels.
'oh look i like the lovely sleek look of that new mondeo', or is it a mazda/honda/hyundai/whatever they all look the same and up to a point drive and sound the same, take the badge off and you'd be pushed to know.
Interiors are the same, acres of black plastic mostly with some imitation plastic aluminium surrounding the controls, boring, gloomy and bland, with few mainstream exceptions.
Been trying to think of a new car that i've driven recently that i really liked compared to the usual standard boring mainstream, the only one that stands out is the 407 coupe 2.7 auto diesel i delivered yesterday, mind you don't deliver many larger engined new cars at the moment and even fewer proper auto's.
For some reason the Jag XF leaves me cold, not saying its not good, its astonishingly quick, but another large Eurotoff barge with a bosch washing machine dial as a gear lever..;)
Think i may have the real reason for the hilux..;)
|
|
|
|
