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Post by racingteatray on Apr 16, 2024 22:02:32 GMT
Those bastards at Capri Sun have been getting away with it for decades. Never mind them, what about Ford with their Cortinas, Granadas, and Capris. They even named the Escort and Fiesta after a couple of Jazz mags FFS. Not a minge to be seen between them. But possibly quite a few mingers...
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 15, 2024 20:58:19 GMT
Very pretty. All my cars are particularly filthy at the moment! Thought of you yesterday - we went to the Members Meeting at Goodwood and walked past at least six Yaris GRs in the carpark, four of which were a sort of wine red colour.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 15, 2024 17:08:10 GMT
So, Milano no longer and not Tychy either, but not far off…. The Alfa Romeo Milano was revealed just last week as the Italian marque's very first pure electric vehicle, but it seems the Italian government wasn't too keen on its name. As a result, the new compact SUV has been renamed entirely to 'Junior' before the first cars had a chance to hit the road.
In an official press release, Alfa Romeo confirmed that despite the firm believing the Milano name met all legal requirements, a government official declared the use of the Milano name illegal. The logic behind this ruling is that the new model will be produced in Poland, contravening a law that prohibits the sale of products with Italian-sounding names that aren't produced in Italy. The current Italian government isn't quite as batshit as ours (things you never imagined you'd write, huh?), but it isn't far off. Melons herself is quite a smart operator, but she's got some proper nutters in her party (not to mention in her coalition partner, Lega, led by Matteo "Putin Fanboi" Salvini) and she has to keep them on side with this sort of tabloid stuff. Plus it must be said that Italians have noticeably cooled on Fiat and associated brands ever since it become Stellantis and b*ggered off to pay its taxes in Luxembourg, which did cut through with the Italian public and generally went down like a bucket of sick.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2024 15:33:51 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2024 12:45:12 GMT
It looks nice enough for what it is (a small SUV I assume) but there's nothing really 'Alfa Romeo' about it is there. If you stuck a Renault badge on the front it'd be easy to assume it genuinely was one of those small Renault SUVs I've seen a few of recently. Quite.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2024 12:43:39 GMT
Mrs Tim got a speeding fine from Germany in summer 2020. Has something changed since then? Rental car or own car? But remember that Brexit took effect at end of Jan 2021 when the transition period ended - that's when EU law ceased to have direct effect.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 19:12:24 GMT
Being someone who is rapidly heading towards midlife fuddiness, I'm not sure I care for this development.
One of the things I liked about the Macan is that, being based on fundamentally ancient architecture, it was a rare car you could buy new that had most of the modern tech that I wanted with largely none of the modern BS that I didn't.
You can't, for instance, have a heads-up display on a Macan due to some element of the ancient platform. Do I miss that? Not in the slightest. I've had a car with a head-up display and I simply found it a bit irritating.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 19:07:03 GMT
The Austrian one is a pain but you can just stop in the first petrol station you come to then buy one. Switzerland also has a physical sticker, they make you buy it at the border however! Switzerland also has the advantage that if you rent a car there, you can drive into some of the EU countries and not get fines when you get caught on a flash cash speed camera. I’m not advocating this, but found out about it after I was caught in France on one of those 130-90-60 kmh stretches that seem to happen within about 500 metres. Nothing passed on to the rental company so I didn’t have to pay. ALERT!! Not any more - recent change in EU law means apparently the Swiss are going to have to be more law abiding from now on. So for now, Brit (and other non-EEA) plates are the only ones that confer this "immunity"...I say "for now" as there will doubtless by some killjoys here in the UK and in the EU beavering away to put together a new post-Brexit accord for swapping driver details.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 19:04:17 GMT
Morris Oxford….. Although that was intended to express the grandeur of a University City along with its stablemate, the Austin Cambridge. Ha. I'd forgotten those. It got me thinking about the possibility of a Rolls Royce Silver Sussex...but I feel the word "Sussex" has become a tad tarnished... Ford was probably wise to go for Capri over Brentwood.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 16:34:59 GMT
It amuses me this Italian thing of naming cars after their home cities and getting away with it - Ferrari Modena, Alfa Milano.
The Jaguar Coventry just wouldn't quite have the same ring. I suppose Vauxhall did do the Luton, but that was appropriately enough a van.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 11, 2024 12:44:02 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 9, 2024 9:12:37 GMT
A good choice, again I'm no fan of the front end but the rest of the package makes up for that and Tanzanite is a close second to that lovely green they do. Its why BMW are well ahead of most of the competition. It can't be hard to tool sales people with the right equipment to close customers. I was in car sales over 20 years ago and it seems that nothing has changed and that most dealers have a guy who has no power to make decisions and has to refer you to the sales/business manager. If that BMW was in the Jag showroom you would still be waiting to do a deal and probably never get round to it. Yes, the customer service I've had from Porsche during and since buying it has only been ok...definitely not as good as BMW. I know I was a repeat customer of Vines but I was spending half the money and I wonder how people get and keep new customers if you don't treat them extra-well upfront. Whenever we have a new client, I work on the basis that we have to actually deliver a better and more responsive service than that client expects in order to distinguish ourselves from our many competitors. Simply being "as good" doesn't really cut it in today's hyper-competitive environment.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 9, 2024 2:10:09 GMT
Excellent choice and a nice colour/ interior combination too. It will be interesting to compare the whole ownership experience. Indeed. "All-nighters" are mercifully rare these days but this is one of those times and I am sat here waiting for a Canadian legal point to be settled in something urgent, so went back to re-read my thoughts on the (lesser) i4 I tried knocking on for two years ago: themotorforum.co.uk/thread/3114/bmw-i4It's definitely a car that looks better on the bigger wheels.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 8, 2024 20:47:00 GMT
Ooh i4 M50....nice.
If I had to have an electric car, that would be my choice. I'm still not a fan of the buck-toothed front but one of our neighbours has one in Tanzanite Blue with the blacked out grille and it does look good.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 7, 2024 13:14:28 GMT
I am of course talking about Italian motorways - the cruising speed is, shall we say, more spirited...
We were also three up with luggage, but I confess I don't drive with even half an eye on economy. Mrs Racing eeks far better mpg figures out of any given car than I do.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 7, 2024 8:06:36 GMT
That is pretty good, but it is a diesel. I’ll just leave this reminder of what a 4.4 litre V8 petrol engine can do….at a decent average speed too Yes BMW achieves a level of cruising parsimony with its larger engines that is apparently unobtainable witchcraft for other manufacturers. Much of that methinks is the 8spd ZF auto but then again other makes use that box too without the same results. I did a run from Mantova to Fano before Easter in the Mini (1.5 turbo triple), a distance of around 170 miles and nearly all motorway, and used roughly one-third of a 45 litre tank, so that's something like 50mpg, albeit at an average speed of around 70mph.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 2, 2024 23:36:12 GMT
I still lust after the 456 and also have a weakness for the 550.
But would probably scratch the itch with a Maserati instead, having driven both the 4200 Coupe and the later GranCabrio and thought both very lovely.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 2, 2024 23:31:56 GMT
That Silver Spyder is lovely. In theory the Green one should be lovely but the colour just doesn't work does it? As much as the Spyders are fantastic a Boxster GTS would be a far better proposition 99 times out of a 100 in this country. It’s not the right shade of green and non-metallic to boot. Jet Green is the one to go for from the Porsche PTS green palette in my view.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 2, 2024 23:27:11 GMT
Looking at the market currently all my old favorites have either moved to EV or are in the process of changing its replacement to EV. Cars like the Giulia Quadrifoglio are going EV, the next Cayman, the death of the hot hatch. Now not all is lost as the i30N is being replaced by things like the Ioniq 5N. The problem, they're the size of a bus and at 65K not exactly affordable like hot hatches of old. Maybe I'm a dinosaur and in 5 years EV's will prove me wrong with them becoming smaller, lighter and less expensive. What happened to the Caterham concept that was supposed to be a game changer? Having looked its 80 grand for something that has a small battery and not that quick. If you can't sell an Alpine for 50K can you sell at Caterham for far more? So do I just get a car like a Cayman 4.0 GTS with a manual gearbox, manual dials, physical buttons for the controls, a great noise and let the EV revolution pass me by until a time when hopefully those manufacturers that have survived (probably all chinese) can offer us something interesting? I’m with you. I don’t per se mind electric cars - the i4 I tried back in 2022 was very impressive. But they aren’t very interesting. We’ve had Mrs RT’s Fiat 500 for knocking on for 11 years and we both still enjoy driving it. It’s getting a bit creaky in the suspension department but apart from that, it’s just fine. Can’t see it being replaced any time particularly soon absent a change of circumstances. Likewise, I remain delighted with our Mini Cooper, which we’ll have had for two years come August and can see that being a keeper for the foreseeable - it’s great to drive, very fit for purpose and still not due its first MOT until next year. The Macan is a great car but I suspect not one I’ll keep very long term just because the itch to change will turn up sooner or later and I already keep looking at Cayman/Boxster GTS 4.0s…. We own all of them outright nowadays, so no particular looming event horizons from a finance perspective.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 26, 2024 22:30:51 GMT
I am very happy with my ICE Macan. It would be better if it would shimmy around town on silent electric power with no weight penalty, but then the world is not a perfect place...
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 26, 2024 22:27:49 GMT
I think we should all just crash Racing's holiday and drive in a convoy to the arctic circle.................. That would be very awesome!
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 26, 2024 15:39:52 GMT
Might be yes. The backdrop is that we were thinking of doing a road trip in Norway, but the car hire for two weeks is extortionate. So Mrs RT was wondering about road tripping there in the Macan from London and then shipping the car back. I suspect it’s an insane idea but promised to look into it. Benco Freight in Hounslow, the main chap is called Mick Notter. I worked with him whilst I was at BAC from 2015 until I left in 2022. Very experienced in shipping of high value and rare cars. He and I developed the method for shipping Monos to the USA without sending them as individual components. They don't have a website, but give him a call if you need and tell him I put you on to him. 01753 686699. Ta. I will bear it in mind - still working out if just too complicated!!
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 26, 2024 15:39:14 GMT
Can I be a listener on the phone call where Racing says, in his extremely cultured tones, “my good friend “Blarno” has advised that you could assist me.” 😂 (apologies for such snobby humour but it made me laugh) I always think "cultured" sounds like something extracted from a petri dish....and I think my mother might object to the comparison...
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 22, 2024 19:51:02 GMT
I have a couple of good contacts for shipping if they are of any use to you? Might be yes. The backdrop is that we were thinking of doing a road trip in Norway, but the car hire for two weeks is extortionate. So Mrs RT was wondering about road tripping there in the Macan from London and then shipping the car back. I suspect it’s an insane idea but promised to look into it.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 22, 2024 19:46:45 GMT
This was today’s figure for a run from the NEC to Suffolk:
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 20, 2024 17:08:04 GMT
Saw my first yesterday - another Macan. One of our neighbours has a black 22-plate Cayenne and last night there was a smart-looking 24-plate Macan T in Copper Ruby red (a very dark wine-red colour) parked in its place. Whether this is a replacement or simply a courtesy car, I have no idea. I regularly see one round the corner in that colour and it looks lovely. The slightly gold tinted wheels also set it off nicely! Seems it was a courtesy car - the Cayenne was back today and looking clean and shiny, so presumably went for a service. My wife also thought the dark red an "old man's colour" - Gentian Blue was her choice on our Macan (of the ones I pre-selected obviously!).
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 19, 2024 17:34:15 GMT
Saw my first yesterday - another Macan. One of our neighbours has a black 22-plate Cayenne and last night there was a smart-looking 24-plate Macan T in Copper Ruby red (a very dark wine-red colour) parked in its place. Whether this is a replacement or simply a courtesy car, I have no idea.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 12, 2024 15:30:47 GMT
An acquaintance of mine has an extensive garage of supercars. F40, Carrera GT type of stuff - those don't get driven as they are his pension fund. I think the temptation would be too much for me. Yes, likewise.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 12, 2024 15:29:52 GMT
You are an exemplary father. Mine would have had me on the bus for the foreseeable at this point.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 12, 2024 15:27:06 GMT
I suppose trolling is inevitable with this thread...
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