Be Excellent To Each Other

I don't like AMGs as a rule but I must admit, that's one awesome, iconic car and a fabulous engine, the likes of which we'll not see again thanks to eco laws/regs. Personally I'd have the estate version (wagon); a relatively small, 6.3 litre NA estate car is just wonderfully absurd. Trust me, that engine makes all the right noises from the drivers' seat - I've had the (albeit brief) pleasure.

Nope.
If it's bought in the next year or two it will stay on the current CO2 system for life (though I can't imagine the V8 is very low here).

After 2018 most cars are a flat rate £140 with anything over £40k paying an extra £310 on top for the first five years.
A Mustang should be under that limit so will be very reasonable to tax.

£550 *per annum* road tax on a £40k car, for five years....?
Cripes, I thought the £310 was a one-off, not recharged for each of five years. That's best part of three grand there.

£450, but yep just like the steps in stamp duty did, it's going to distort the market quite badly as everyone tries to squeeze in just under the threshold.

Once you get much above the £40k, it'll be neither here nor there.

Man, I hope Doc G doesn't read this thread, it appears I cannot add up...
(You're very tactful Dr Z. Me? I'd have LOLed)

Remind me to lend you some money at some point. With maths skills like that I'm sure I can find a way to exploit the situation

There's seemingly loads of them in Bradford.

One day I might post pics of my car to see whether I'd be forcefully ejected from the forum.

Dude, I drive a Citroën Xsara Picasso. Diesel.

I drive a blue car.

Look what some cunt did at the car park today.

Looks like a blue car did it.

Was that at work Grim..? Something similar happened to one of my colleagues a couple of weeks ago so she put a message on our notice board saying amongst other things, something like "if the owner of the car would like to be honest then get in touch"

Sure enough, he did and is now paying for the damage he did. He reckoned that he didn't do any damage to my colleagues car but he did... Clearly he thought he could get away with it.

Leaving a note saying "the witnesses think I am leaving my details, I'm not, am I?" Isn't cricket, either.

It happens a fair amount in work car parks, so I park on the road. When I worked elsewhere, someone had their motorbike knocked over and nothing said so a "All users " email was sent reminding people of the company values.

Is the Puma your daily driver, Grim...?

I bought a roof rack. Took ages to find one that was not a thule to fit a solid roof railed car. Now I can buy a boat. Yarr Harr and fiddle di di. Do what you want because a pirate is free!

Mrs Fop bashed a car in the supermarket car park but was in a rush to pick up Mini Fop, so left a note on the car with her number. Later that day he calls and, as luck would have it, works at a bodyshop and says to give him £90 and he'll fix it himself. And now we use his garage and get mates rates. Winnar or the dingars.

Sorry about your Puma, Grim...

Nah, in the train station car park.


I flit between it, the Jag and the Focus. Normally I choose by seeing which keys I pick up, or which one is facing the right direction.


He's a tough little car, he can take it

Does anyone have an opinion on the VW Phaeton?

I'm thinking about what I want to drive when I finally get out of this place and there do seem to be a number of them on the interwebs between 5-10 years old wich reasonable mileage (for a car that's 5-10 years old).

Sorry to hear of this Grim..., what a tosser for not leaving a note. It's hardly as though they couldn't have noticed making a reet ol' scrape like that.

However, I must take issue with the above - all cars are girls (as are bikes). Oh yeah. Stephen King says so in his seminal Christine, surely one of the best car stories like evarrr.

I still have unhealthy fantasies of owning a red-and-white 1957 Plymouth Fury that only ever plays old Rock 'n Roll numbers (Last I looked, these cost about as much as a new GT3 though, they killed most of 'em that were still left out there to make the film!)

It's well reknown as being a really good secondhand bargain (considering the size, performance, toys etc., it's more or less a VW badged Bentley). Car snobs don't like the humble VW badge so they suffer fall-off-a-cliff-face depreciation from new.

Personally I'd be a bit wary though - it's still going to suffer big car consumables and repair bills when things go wrong (which at 10 years old, they clearly will), tyres, discs, pads & stuff will be pricey. It's a big old beast of a thing.

Unless you're looking at buying the W12, you can get to fucking fuck

The W10 diesel would also be acceptable.

Iirc, didn't Trooper own a W12 Phaeton once. Yes, they are as Cavey says, effectively Bentley Flying Spurs in drag, so do be wary as if anything such as a gearbox goes wrong then you'll be looking at more than the car is worth to fix it. Maybe get a third party warranty for it. Other than that, hugely over engineered barges.

Some cars are girls, some cars are boys.

Something like your Harley or my Tomcat would be seriously butch girls.

Your Tomcat looks awesome, but never really does anything useful, needs constant maintenance, and costs a fortune. A braver man than I can join the dots on that one.

You naughty man.

It towed a bus around in the snow!
And it pulled some trees down on two separate occasions!
And it dragged a horse box out of a field!

And... Uh...

It's usefulness seems to be limited to tugging things.

WAITDAMINIT!

This is getting worse now, I'm outta here.

My daughter managed to take a chunk out of an Audi with her car door in a Pizza Hut car park over Christmas and I left a note. Turns out this was the second time it had happened to him. I gave him all my details, rang my insurers (can't afford to pay myself) etc - he was going to pursue it - but then it all just went quiet.

Still worries me that he's going to suddenly remember one day and drag it all up again.

Hopefully he's dead.

Cor, that Autocar review of the Civic Type R was painful to read. It felt like really hard work, a slog to get through.

I have to admit that I think that new Civic looks alright, although I wouldn't buy one. My friend is buying one though!

It does look like they chopped the head off Optimus prime and stuck wheels on it

Currently at Nissan ordering a Leaf. Exciting times.

Cool, ask the salesperson how many electrons it has.

A 1962 Lincoln Continental just parked up outside.....

I'll say one thing for the Americans, they sure as hell knew how to make BIG cars. You could easily live in the thing.

I've seen it around the place before, but never at such close quarters!

(It says on the registration plate in small writing that it's a 1962 Lincoln Continental.)

According to Wikipedia it will have either a 7.0L, a 7.5L, or a 7.6L V8 in it, probably only putting out around 150bhp through a three-speed auto and returning 8mpg, but still.....

My first car was a Ford F150 5.7l V8. It too did about 8 MPG but man, peeling wheels was fun as fuck in that thing.

Man, what a juxtaposition after my post

Two triple-headed rapid chargers were installed at Telford services on the M54 just yesterday, so with a short detour on the way home from work I could do a rapid charge (30 minutes max.) at the services for free (currently, at least) and effectively zero my fuel costs.

Relatedly, does anyone want to buy a BMW 750i?

Must resist......

Haven't you only had it a month?

I think DocG's wife learned to drive in one of those.

Two. A new record

Heard that Contintental fire up around 11pm last night so popped out for a quick chat with the owner and his wife. Turns out he worked in the States for a few years and brought it back with him as he's always loved big American cars from watching telly and films when he was growing up.

It's the 7.0L variant and it does indeed return less than 10mpg, usually around 8mpg, in fact. That massive V8 sounded incredibly horny, I have to say.

He has another car for day-to-day use but does enjoy driving the Continental as a bit of a treat.

Nice people too.

You could probably turn one of those into a real beast if you threw money at a tuning shop.

I think that's about what my 535d returns on my 4.5 mile commute.

Then again, Helen's mk3 mx-5 drinks a surprising amount the way I drive the same route. Tyres squeal a lot more too

I'm not having much luck shifting the BMW

Well it's a pretty limited market I'd suspect, and aren't cars like that about to get blasted into the sun with new tax rules next year or something?

What's the tax on a car like that at the moment? I know over here that engine/emissions will put you straight into the £463 per year bracket, and I believe it's getting hiked a fair bit next year too.

It gave me pause for thought when I was looking at that R36 (well, that and the beach's worth of crap that appeared to have been deposited under the bonnet).

Saw this in the Village just now. Awesome.

My LEAF is sat at Nissan Telford awaiting PDI and collection, woo! I have the reg. number and that shizz, so it's all go for collection on Saturday it seems.