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A friend has an original "Morse" jag as a weekend toy. He also has a modern house with a small garage. Fortunately the car has a Webasto sunroof which is the the only means of getting in or out of it when it's in the garage.
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Hello Avant!
Thanks for the greeting. I have missed you all but, frankly, done a lot more work in my absence!
Thank you, Ed. But I really am old enough to be having a mid-life crisis. The Wyvern was hilarious. As you may recall, it was so rusted that my French Knitting fell through the wheel arch one day, on the way to Gloucester. The rear doors were held on with roof rack elastic, wound through the interior handles. When I was very small, I liked to do two things with our car: 1. pick at its rust to while away the hours and 2. watch the road go by through the big holes in the chassis. Sadly, MOTs have since put paid to this and all similar kinds of fun for young children.
Nostalgia drove me to look up the Wyvern today. I have been in hoots of laughter. We three kids would be in the back weeping, and begging our father to slow down. Its maximum speed was 60mph! And whatever anyone says about it, we found it to be a very safe car. Every single year we used to go on holiday to Cornwall. And every single year Dad fell asleep at the wheel and crashed it into a tree, just outside Padstow. We were never hurt and he was always able to reverse out of the branches. (I realise that is an unusual testimonial!)
The Suzuki Swift 1.5GLX auto was utterly, utterly fab. I am so sorry to see that it is losing its reputation (JD Power Survey 2009). For me it was fantastic: fast, fun and reliable. Apparently, this has not been the experience of some. Wish I had held on to mine. I miss her every day. I miss her every time I go around a very wiggly bend. I miss seeing her elegant shape outside the house. I felt absolutely terrible when I handed her keys over in part exchange. I cried about it on the way home and wondered whether to go back. When I asked about her the next day she had already been sold. I am not surprised. You would have to be mad not to want her.
So why did I do that? A year ago I was still applying common sense to my mid-life-crisis car-buying decisions. It simply didn't occur to me that two people could have three cars, or four or five or six. Whyever not? Running a nice car for a year is a very valid thing to do instead of a having big holiday, and just as much fun - more, if you are a restless person like me who hates relaxing and would prefer to have driving adventures in a very interesting car.
I have stopped buying cars with my head instead of my heart. I like the Qashqai, which I bought with my sensible head on. It is an excellent car, and very functional - but I don't absolutely love it, so it is on borrowed time. I still haven't got the massive 4x4 thing out of my system - so there is always the risk I'll get something bigger again for moving stuff around. I also like being high up. And please remember. Under the equal opportunities rule of "husbands cannot have anything wives can't" surely I am due my own used Jaguar at some point? I love the whole Morse-ness of the S-Type, despite its faults. I am spending half my life combing the used stock lists for the perfect example.
Hubby's crisis went: BMW 330D, Hyundai Santa Fe 2.2C something or other, SAAB 9-3 convertible then the Jaguar XK8. I think I am due something frivolous, don't you - especially when he sold his SAAB just two weeks after having a £3000 Hirsch upgrade he couldn't live without?!
Cars. They make you bad. They make you mad. Thank goodness.
Best wishes to all.
Ali
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Head v. heart? I think there are some cars, if you choose carefully, that can give you both.
This year, head said 'estate', heart said 'Golf GTI'. VW don't make one.....oh yes they do if it has a Skoda badge, or an Audi badge for £6,000 more. I loved the Audi I had 3 cars ago (hence my nom de keyboard), but it was expensive. My Octavia vRS estate does a great job of satisying head and heart together.
Last year, when I reached 60, an insurance policy matured - head said 'equity shares', heart said 'fun car - a convertible'. My Y-registered BMW Z3 2.2 has been lots of fun (although I have to admit that the Skoda is faster) and with the economic crisis has held its value rather better than any shares I might have bought last summer.
So enjoy the XK8 - your husband isn't such a stupid boy after all, Mr. Mainwaring....
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I wondered what you had been up to. I suppose everyone is driving something different now. I am going to have to learn all the new cars.
Love the idea of the Z3.
Dinner time....
Ali
PS heartily approve of cars over shares. Every time.
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im sure i was looking at a wyvern on that internet sight last night but cant find it now?
it had a jag irs back axle and a capri front one but the car looked a proper street sleeper
wasnt your old one was it alijazz? as it had plenty of holes everywhere :-)
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I think the Jag E-type came out around 1963? Anyway, around then I and my peers were just starting school. There were twins, a boy and a girl, in our group of friends who would have been about 5 at the time. Their father was car daft and on reflection must have been quite well off thiough that thought hadn't really occured to any of us then.
He bought two brand new E-types, both convertibles one red, one blue. The cars were put into storage in an outbuilding, unused for the next 16 years. On the twins 21st birthdays they were presented with a "new" E-type each. We of course hated them......
;-)
That event is some 30 years ago now and I have lost touch with my childhood friends so I have no idea whether either of them still have the cars.
I sort of hope they do. I'd like to think I would.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 25/07/2009 at 19:35
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Alijazz you did well.
I once acted for a client who sued a housebuilder because the garage door of his 'executive home' was too narrow. He couldn't even fit a Golf III in let alone a 5 series. Interesting case in the small claims court (the cost of altering the door was about £3,000) and there was much discussion about what car an executive should drive if he lives in an executive home.
We won, but only because all the other houses on the estate had a double door and this house had two singles because it had been the show home, so half the garage was an office.
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Hi Ali,
Interesting thread. When we got our XJ-S (I say we, but mean me - my mid-life crisis, not my wifes, although it is OUR car...) I had the same dilema.
Had never thought to use a garage to hold something like a car before. When we got the Jag the agreed value insurance insisted on it being garaged so I had to buy a very expensive shed to hold all the accumulated stuff that lives in a garage. Mine was also a width problem being a single garage, but length was tight as I have three freezers in the garage that I have managed to keep in there, so we are just 1/2 an inch in lengthwise too now.
Years ago in Lidl I bought some rubber 'things' that act as bump-stops so I get the car in perfectly length-wise. I wonder if anyone else sells them. Invaluable. They are a flat pad of rubber (about the size of a mud-flap) with a big 4" high lump of rubber at the end. You place them on the garage floor (one will do) at exactly the right point to stop you from driving too far into the garage. The car wheel rides onto the flap part and them bumps against the raised rubber part stopping the car from going further forward. They can be a small trip hazard when the car is not in the garage but better that than the risk of taking the back garage wall / fridges down if I was being careless!
By the way, I always drive my car in front-first as in mine the battery is in the boot. That way if the battery goes flat when the car is parked, I can always get jump leads into the boot by parking our other car up to the garage door.
Enjoy the XK8. I definately think you need something for you though. Daihatsu Copen? My wife loves them and it is a fun little thing!
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>>Years ago in Lidl I bought some rubber 'things' that act as bump-stops so I get the car in
>>perfectly length-wise. I wonder if anyone else sells them. Invaluable.
Yes. A couple of hundred pounds for 400 of them.
www.blanchford.co.uk/acatalog/London_Bricks.html
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Aha!
Now there is an alternative!
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Hello Slightly Fat Director! What a great name.
I love the Copen, and considered test-driving, but we went to Jaguar first and were overtaken by events.
Ah. I *intended* to look at an S-Type, but ...... it was warm and breezy, its door was wide open, the leather so opulent and inviting, the elm glowing, the chrome gleaming.... It had just 6000 miles on the clock. It drove like a cross between a rocket and a hovercraft. Resistance was futile. So I never got to the Copen. I am now the shocked but proud owner of a very shiny, indigo blue Jaguar XJ - just two years old. It's the diesel and it's very handsome. Believe me, you would buy, too, if it happened to you.
I have never fallen in love with a car so thoroughly as I have with Barnaby. Yes. It's a Barnaby. We name our cars when inspired by their plates. I think the Jaguars have come off quite well. Heidi (HDE) and Barnaby (BRB) really suit them. My first car was not so lucky - a VW Beetle incongruously named Ghurka (GRK 518J - the only plate I ever remember, all these years later).
It suppose it looks a bit odd, really, my having the great, big, butch, beefy XJ and my husband's streaming around in his glamorous, girly Xk8, but so what? We cannot stop smiling.
Re. the garage. I am pleased to report that we are now driving Heidi in and out at sixty miles an hour with our eyes closed; emboldened because we can't stand looking like a Two Jags family, even if we are one. Barnaby won't fit, widthways or lengthways, so he's just going to have to rough it outside. It's probably a crime to do that to him, but I have no choice.
Hope your summer is balmy and breezy and that you're having as much driving fun as we are.
Best wishes to all.
Ali
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Hi Ali,
I was 'slightly fat rep', but then got a promotion!
Lucky you with the XJ. My wife would happily swap her Almera for one of those in a flash!
You are not the only one to name your car. My company 5 series BM is Finlay (because of the 'fin' aerial on the roof) the Almera is Alfie, the previous Fiesta was Fast Freddie, the Mondeo Monty, the Volvo was 'Big Wig' (BWG number plate!).
The XJ-S is causing a problem though. I started calling him Jagsworth after a guy that posts on this site (J bonnington jagsworth) but it has not stuck. The number plate H** MPE gives no inspiration and so (very boringly) he is called 'the Jag'.
As our jag is black I liked the name Mog after the black cat in Meg & Mog but this just caused my wife and 9 year old daughter to give me a funny look.
Any ideas?
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Thanks HJ. I look forward to explaining that to my 9 year old daughter!!! :0)
Good though.........
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I had a name for my Espace, several actually.........
:-(
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Dear Slightly Fat Chairman (anticipating the inevitable)
Your Jaguar's name ........ for your consideration:
1. Humphrey (noble enough but might be a little staid-sounding) or
2. His Majesty (perfect - but a bit of a mouthful)
or
3. and I like this the best - Max. Shortened from Maximilian de Winter: English; rich; handsome; dashing and romantic. Only ever-so-slightly a wife-murderer (HE HAD HIS REASONS!) The hero of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Film starring Laurence Olivier at his most Jaguaresque. What a perfect name for a black Jaguar XJ-S.
MAX.
Best wishes.
Ali
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SWMBO always gives her cars names.
The only time that I have ever done this is to my current run-around, who is called "Richard".
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