Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[petelang]

This gentlemen is quite the dilemma of today.
I have spent years in the British vehicle industry and always liked to buy British wherever possible but today the field has narrowed to all but a tiny few and even those are multinational owned.
I always hunkered after a Daimler XJ8 and acquired one a few years ago which I loved but SWMBO took an instant dislike to it, called it the "funeral car" (it was black metalic) and constantly badgered me to chop it in. (I loved that car...!).
Finding a replacement was just so much grief as I could not bear the thought of any of Gernanys finest on my driveway so I bought an XF Jaguar, dreadful thing with a 2.2 diesel, rattling away like a transit van.
After the smooth luxury of an XJ8 its just not, well "civilised" i think and I hanker to swap it but, for what?
All of todays offerings just fill me with pity. What happened to designers that they want all their products to look like everyone elses? There is seemingly nothing appealing in modern designs that are in my affordable bracket that I would happily buy as a modern run about.
There seems to be too much 'orrible' plastic and cheap fittings that adorn them and no real "class" about them. So, i'm stuck in the past, yearning for the likes of a Riley Pathfinder or such like..
Oh well!
Peter

[badhuis]

Agree on most of the points Peter made.
It seems styling, grace, elegancy and comfort are not available anymore for modern cars. It is all bold, big, ugly, aggressive and uncomfortable.
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a car stops being fun when it becomes an investment

[petelang]

Quite right Badhuis. Having had a taxi to Birmingham Airport via a top range Mercedes executive car last year, I was astonished at how rough th ride was. Instead of an effortless glide the suspension was so hard you felt every bump in the road and not particularly quiet either. It could have been expected from a brash BMW but I thought Mercedes was a bit more refined.
Low profile tyres apparently to blame.
Are we going backwards towards solid tyres?
Peter

[ukdave2002]

[lowdrag]

I had a S204 2012 C-class estate. It ran on 195/15 tyres. Seven years later SWMBO needed new wheels, so she took it over at 130,000 and I bought a 2014 model, identical mechanically but a few more toys. It has 205/17 tyres. It's amazing though. My car does less miles to and from the golf club than hers and my economy if far better! They obviously didn't bother to recalibrate the speedos.