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Post by Martin on Dec 4, 2020 8:50:37 GMT
It’s awful on seats, steering wheels and gear knobs, but it’s an absolute delight as a roof lining. Agreed and it's so much nicer than cloth, I'd happily pay c£1k for it on a new car if it was an option. When i was looking I was quite surprised that most RR ABs have a suedecloth headliner, even though it's a no cost option with leather as standard |
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 4, 2020 9:41:15 GMT
Oh yes as a headliner it's very nice - had it in my M5 - but not being a racing driver I much prefer normal leather on seats and controls.
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Post by PetrolEd on Dec 4, 2020 10:55:19 GMT
I love a bit of Alcantara/Suede cloth, the more the better, though not sure its appropriate in an SUV. Think of it like a nice pair of moleskin trousers Jonny
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 4, 2020 11:43:26 GMT
I love a bit of Alcantara/Suede cloth, the more the better, though not sure its appropriate in an SUV. Think of it like a nice pair of moleskin trousers Jonny My objection to it is purely practical rather than aesthetic. It just doesn't wear or age well, and it's the most awful stuff to try and clean if you get it dirty. |
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Post by Martin on Dec 4, 2020 12:10:23 GMT
I love a bit of Alcantara/Suede cloth, the more the better, though not sure its appropriate in an SUV. Think of it like a nice pair of moleskin trousers Jonny I read that the 'Race-Tex' Porsche now fit is (partially) recycled polyester....not especially luxurious or sporty! I like the look of it when it's new, but even if you clean it regularly with the right products, it doesn't stay looking great for long. |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 4, 2020 16:11:56 GMT
I'm another one who doesn't like Alcantara - awful stuff. looks new for about a week and then you're forever trying to brush it, hoover it to try and make it look decent.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 4, 2020 17:27:07 GMT
Until Lancia stopped making large cars, my father always insisted that his official car (ie the one he got driven in to client meetings etc) was a Lancia as he felt it more tactful in Italy to turn up in an Italian car rather than a foreign one. So his office had a series of dark-coloured Themas, Kappas and Thesises (Theses?), with just at one point a silver Alfa 166, presumably for novelty value.
I recall one of the earlier Lancias having beige alcantara seats and they looked terrible very quickly. It was not a mistake he repeated - after that they had all leather seats.
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Post by PG on Dec 4, 2020 18:31:40 GMT
A black suede-cloth headlining is a thing of real beauty. In fact since having the XFR, I'm totally sold on black headlining in cars. All JCW Minis come with black headlining as standard which was good, though no suedecloth sadly.
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Post by ChrisM on Dec 4, 2020 20:25:08 GMT
Oh no ! Black headlining in any material makes an interior so dull... I hope I never have to buy a car with black headlining
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Post by Tim on Dec 7, 2020 11:15:56 GMT
Oh no ! Black headlining in any material makes an interior so dull... I hope I never have to buy a car with black headlining Ha! Internally my M5 has a black roof, black pillars, black dash, black leather, black carpets and a titanium strip across the dash. It's the proverbial coal hole! |
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Post by ChrisM on Dec 7, 2020 11:43:48 GMT
Just as well I can't afford an M5 then !
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Post by Tim on Dec 7, 2020 11:50:16 GMT
There are still shitty E39s about Chris, so long as you don't mind rust, moonshot mileage and chavvy upgrades.
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Post by Grampa on Dec 7, 2020 12:25:58 GMT
Until Lancia stopped making large cars, my father always insisted that his official car (ie the one he got driven in to client meetings etc) was a Lancia as he felt it more tactful in Italy to turn up in an Italian car rather than a foreign one. So his office had a series of dark-coloured Themas, Kappas and Thesises (Theses?), with just at one point a silver Alfa 166, presumably for novelty value. I recall one of the earlier Lancias having beige alcantara seats and they looked terrible very quickly. It was not a mistake he repeated - after that they had all leather seats. Your father got driven to client meetings? You're even posher than I imagined  Our Mini has 'Alacantara' (I'm sure it's imitation) edges to the seat bolsters and at 5 years old, they're holding up well, even in the rear with grandchildren constantly climbing over them. |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 7, 2020 13:32:14 GMT
When my dad got his first Jag he ordered it with tweed seats as the company chauffeur said that leather ones shined the arse of his suits. I'd left home by then but when I saw it it was a real "smack my head moment". I asked the Jag dealership what tweed seats would do to the resale value and they just said they wouldn't even stick it on the forecourt before it had been sent off for re-trimming in leather.
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Post by PG on Dec 7, 2020 14:56:13 GMT
Ha! Internally my M5 has a black roof, black pillars, black dash, black leather, black carpets and a titanium strip across the dash. It's the proverbial coal hole! Almost "snap" for the XFR but swap titanium for dark aluminium and carbon fibre. |
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Post by PG on Dec 7, 2020 14:57:03 GMT
When my dad got his first Jag he ordered it with tweed seats as the company chauffeur said that leather ones shined the arse of his suits. I'd left home by then but when I saw it it was a real "smack my head moment". I asked the Jag dealership what tweed seats would do to the resale value and they just said they wouldn't even stick it on the forecourt before it had been sent off for re-trimming in leather. In this instance, I seriously do not know if you are joking or not.......  |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 7, 2020 15:35:22 GMT
When my dad got his first Jag he ordered it with tweed seats as the company chauffeur said that leather ones shined the arse of his suits. I'd left home by then but when I saw it it was a real "smack my head moment". I asked the Jag dealership what tweed seats would do to the resale value and they just said they wouldn't even stick it on the forecourt before it had been sent off for re-trimming in leather. In this instance, I seriously do not know if you are joking or not....... I'm dead serious. I called round to see it and opened the door to be confronted by an interior that seemed to be entirely trimmed in hacking jackets. John the chauffeur was a lovely Scottish fella who would regularly come round the house when I lived at home and beat us at snooker but his taste in car interiors obviously left a lot to be desired. |
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Post by PetrolEd on Dec 7, 2020 16:06:39 GMT
In this instance, I seriously do not know if you are joking or not....... I'm dead serious. I called round to see it and opened the door to be confronted by an interior that seemed to be entirely trimmed in hacking jackets. John the chauffeur was a lovely Scottish fella who would regularly come round the house when I lived at home and beat us at snooker but his taste in car interiors obviously left a lot to be desired. XJ40? I'll do a my dad has a crapper Jag then your dad. Because he wanted the 3.6 over the 2.9 he had to make sacrifices on spec. So in came an XJ6 in flat red, hubcaps, tweed interior and manual. |
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 7, 2020 16:37:56 GMT
I'm dead serious. I called round to see it and opened the door to be confronted by an interior that seemed to be entirely trimmed in hacking jackets. John the chauffeur was a lovely Scottish fella who would regularly come round the house when I lived at home and beat us at snooker but his taste in car interiors obviously left a lot to be desired. XJ40? I'll do a my dad has a crapper Jag then your dad. Because he wanted the 3.6 over the 2.9 he had to make sacrifices on spec. So in came an XJ6 in flat red, hubcaps, tweed interior and manual. I've just remembered the second time I saw my dad's new Jag. I was driving down the road and at the entrance to the estate where my parents lived I saw my dad's Jag firmly embedded on the tow bar of a signal yellow Ford Capri, which had failed to proceed out of the exit with the speed anticipated by my dad, hence him rear ending it. The sight of my dad, in sports jacket and tie, leaping up and down with ever increasing force on the rear bumper of the Capri, trying to free his car, while the young lad who had been driving it looked on helplessly, will stay with me forever. Later, my mum, who had just sat in embarrassment in the passenger seat while this was going on said that the poor lad just kept apologising profusely as my dad got ever more infuriated, until she eventually got out and told him not to apologise as it was the idiot now sitting on his tailgate that was actually at fault. |
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 7, 2020 18:10:30 GMT
Until Lancia stopped making large cars, my father always insisted that his official car (ie the one he got driven in to client meetings etc) was a Lancia as he felt it more tactful in Italy to turn up in an Italian car rather than a foreign one. So his office had a series of dark-coloured Themas, Kappas and Thesises (Theses?), with just at one point a silver Alfa 166, presumably for novelty value. I recall one of the earlier Lancias having beige alcantara seats and they looked terrible very quickly. It was not a mistake he repeated - after that they had all leather seats. Your father got driven to client meetings? You're even posher than I imagined Dad headed the Italian operations of one the global British banks for over 20 years. In Italy, it's unthinkable that someone in such a position might drive themselves to meetings and most HQs of big organisations will have at least one smart office car with driver on which the boss has first dibs. When I was in Moscow, my office had two BMW saloons with drivers, one of which was on stand-by at all times for the use of the managing partner. |
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Post by Roadrunner on Dec 7, 2020 20:02:21 GMT
The Jaguar my dad bought when he retired had previously been the chauffeur driven car for the CEO of Powergen. Fortunately for us, that particular car had been specified as a black Sovereign with all the toys. Just over 12 months old when he bought it, with 62,000 motorway miles on the clock and it went past 120,000 needing nothing other than routine servicing and brakes.
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Post by PetrolEd on Dec 7, 2020 21:54:37 GMT
When I worked for Lloyds Banking Group many years ago our chairman had a chauffeur driven car. His chosen ride was a GWIZ. Fucker should have been sacked for that alone but went on to preside over the HBOS takeover before given the bullet.
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Post by chipbutty on Dec 8, 2020 11:00:46 GMT
The 3.6 manual was a closet hot rod - 60 in 7.6 seconds and 100 in 20.2 seconds (Autocar road test). That was properly quick in 1986/7 and IIRC the only manual BMW saloon that was quicker was the M5.
Also - spotters points, the early XJ40 Sovs had the same hubcaps as the base 2.9 and 3.6, it wasn't until a year or two later that you got alloys.
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Post by michael on Dec 8, 2020 11:11:49 GMT
Are XJ40 the ones with square lights at the rear? My parents had an XJ6 Gold which was the run out model and had what then seemed like massive five spoke wheels but I bet they were no more than 16".
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Post by Martin on Dec 8, 2020 11:18:54 GMT
My customer is quite ‘traditional’, they have a couple of chauffeur driven cars, Bentley Flying Spud, RR and Model S (plus a plane) but the thing I’d like to benefit from is their large and well equipped valeting bay on the side of my warehouse (next to their head office). All the Directors get a weekly valet, which is a proper one inc polish (and fuel fill up) and they do a very good job.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 8, 2020 11:35:56 GMT
Are XJ40 the ones with square lights at the rear? My parents had an XJ6 Gold which was the run out model and had what then seemed like massive five spoke wheels but I bet they were no more than 16". Yes. We never had many Jags in my family. My father had a Mk2 3.8 as a weekend classic, one uncle had an S-Type and my brother-in-law had a company X-Type estate, but that's been it to date. No XJs of any sort. When Lancia stopped making large cars, and there wasn't any other Italian alternative apart from a Maserati Quattroporte (deemed too flashy), Dad's bank switched to Audi A8s for the office cars which were massively better but nowhere near as interesting. |
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Post by Big Blue on Dec 8, 2020 11:36:38 GMT
In Italy, it's unthinkable that someone in such a position might drive themselves to meetings and most HQs of big organisations will have at least one smart office car with driver on which the boss has first dibs. The head of AGIP has a Villa on the shores of Lake Como at their disposal, or used to have certainly. They didn't have one car driving them anywhere - they had a fleet of armed outriders! The Chairman of Exxon Mobil UK's chauffeur gets to choose the cars and years ago when I did some work for them he chose a fleet of XJs. He also got a flat on site in Ermyn Way so he could be on call in comfort. To be a chauffeur you had to do 20 years of Tanker driving without incident just to be put on the course. |
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 8, 2020 11:46:32 GMT
My father always told me he could choose pretty much anything he wanted as a company car provided it had four doors, but he preferred not to exaggerate. So he had three Range Rovers (3.9 SE, 4.2 LSE and 4.6 HSE), followed by two A6 Allroads (both 2.7Ts), an RS4 Avant and finally an S5 Sportback.
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Post by PetrolEd on Dec 8, 2020 12:16:16 GMT
Barclays were quite generous with their company cars as was Lloyds. My boss at Barclays had a 996 C4S as his company car and when at Lloyds as a lowly BDM I could have had anything I wanted and was going to go for a brand new Cayman but thought it unwise to have something so flash whilst out trying to get new clients so got my Edition 30 Golf. They also had a neat scheme where they would give you a car loan rather then class it as a company car so there was no BIK to pay.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 8, 2020 12:54:20 GMT
Barclays were quite generous with their company cars. Well indeed. |
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