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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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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 18:22:40 GMT
I can't believe somebody bought this gorgeous machine new and has owned it for nearly 14 years yet put just 740 miles on the clock. collectingcars.com/for-sale/2010-mercedes-benz-sls-amg-10Perhaps they've been ill? Perhaps they just had a policy of never taking it out in the rain and eventually realised that, in Auchterarder they might wait forever for dry roads...? Whatever the answer, what a shame. If I had a car like this, I'd be driving it everywhere.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:55:22 GMT
Has anybody got any good experience with, or know of, a reliable company that would ship a car to/from Scandinavia?
Thanks
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:24:04 GMT
How much is ceramic coating? Decently done? I am tempted for the Macan, which a year in is already looking swirly.
As for the Audi on AT, apart from this not being cabrio season, I am of the view that anything worth more than £8-9k is difficult to shift privately. I didn't even try with the 440i after failing to get even the slightest sniff of interest in my M135i, despite pricing it as the cheapest on AT (notwithstanding it was a 1-owner low-mileage great spec example). I was given to understand that this is because the vast majority of buyers (a) want to buy on finance, (b) want the ability to part-ex and (c) like the security of buying from a stealer...
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:17:17 GMT
Well, this particular MINI adventure is over. I don't understand how, but he's managed to damage it badly enough for the insurance company to declare it a write off. Somehow he's got it against a concrete post and panicked and made it a whole lot worse by getting stuck. They have valued it at £7,500 (not bad as I paid £8,200 nearly 12 months ago), so the cost must be that less whatever the remaining value is. I'm amazed it's that bad, but I haven't seen it. He's absolutely gutted, but at least he hasn't put it on its roof in a ditch and there aren't any injuries. He's had a loan car from the repair place for a few days, but as it has been declared a total loss that's been collected immediately and he's on his own. He can walk into work, so not a major issue in the very short term, That's annoying. I imagine his insurance is now going to be horrendous?!
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:14:50 GMT
I looked at the XE-S back in 2016 before getting the 440i. It was a fairly recently launched car at the time but I didn't much like the interior and the financing package was woeful - although the optioned-up list price was similar to the 440i, a combination of much higher APR and rather worse GFV meant the monthlies were something like double those of the BMW. These are the sorts of factors which I think get slightly overlooked when journalists discuss why certain cars have been sales successes and others not.
Had the monthlies on the XE been on par with the 440i, I would have been very tempted - I liked the idea of the Jag more than the BMW. Of course, we ended up being delighted with the 440i and might not have proved so delighted with an XE-S, so I can't complain!
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 8, 2024 17:38:44 GMT
To be honest I was quite surprised to learn they were still building the XE.
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R5
Feb 26, 2024 10:17:36 GMT
via mobile
Post by racingteatray on Feb 26, 2024 10:17:36 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 22, 2024 10:45:30 GMT
Yes the whole "ID" thing is awful.
Agree that if it looked anything like that rendering, it would be rather attractive.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 19, 2024 16:52:09 GMT
Annoying. I always photograph and video every hire car within an inch of its life.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 13, 2024 23:45:28 GMT
I was with AXA on the house insurance on unlimited buildings and that went up to £800 or so from £500. I've got it back to nearly that with Hastings at £1m buildings cover and pretty much the same contents. It does sometimes pay to shop about. Home insurance is a nightmare - the moment you might have anything remotely valuable in terms of contents, especially stuff you want cover for outside the house, the premiums head rapidly for unlocked Range Rover levels of insanity. And policies seem to come in one of two forms: (a) bog-standard; or (b) apparently aimed at Succession-types with valuable art collections in their Belgravia townhouses, with nothing in between. The former is cheap(ish) but inadequate in terms of cover and the latter is bollock-crushingly expensive and completely OTT in terms of cover.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 13, 2024 23:36:02 GMT
I have to say that one of the things I really like about the Macan is how solid it feels - it has that general "hewn from rock" look and feel that Audis used to have in the early 2000s. Little things like the way the doors shut with a sort of expensive-sounding muffled "whumpf".
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 13, 2024 15:16:19 GMT
I remember my sister saying that it's a godsend for dog owners - they had an X-Type estate that had one and she said the beauty of it was that it enabled them to access the boot to take things out or put things in with less risk of their labrador making an unscheduled bid for freedom.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 12, 2024 21:34:57 GMT
No rear glass opening? That'll tick owners off - it's such a handy feature that one wonders why all estate cars don't have it.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 7, 2024 18:11:34 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 7, 2024 18:07:01 GMT
And lo the £100k electric 5-series estate. It's not winning any design awards by the looks of things.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 5, 2024 13:42:30 GMT
When you look at the market there aren't that many twinair cars around. The overwhelming majority are 1.2s. My brother reckons there's not much in it performance wise and the smaller engine isn't as economical in the real world as the NEDC test figures would have you believe so most buyers just stuck to the 4cyl models. Having had 1.2s as rentals, they do feel different to drive - the Twinair is turbo-charged, so it has a much perkier power delivery, and shaves a couple of seconds off the 0-60 (from 13 secs to 11 secs, or 10 secs if you get the 105bhp Twinair). My wife noticed the difference when she had the 1.2 as a loaner - her remark was "it doesn't move"! That said, the 1.2 is smoother and less demanding (the first two gears on a Twinair are ultra-short), so I think for most people going for a 500, the 1.2 is what one might term "perfectly adequate" - it's a small cheap cute car, and so long as it moves that's fine. Plus, the Twinair is quite a noisy little engine, which appeals to people like us who find the noise characterful, but I think the average 500 buyer preferred the rather more refined nature of the 1.2, which was also cheaper to buy new - the Twinair was given more premium pricing and at least initially had more kit - for example, ours has digital climate control as standard - good luck finding a facelifted 500 with climate control - vanishingly rare.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 4, 2024 20:27:25 GMT
Welcome to the 500 club!
Lounge trim comes with a fixed panoramic roof as standard. An opening glass roof was an option.
I was wondering why your road tax wasn’t zero but then realised it isn’t a Twinair.
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