Be Excellent To Each Other

They'll probably do full electric instead.

Front-wheel drive, too.

A mate bought this last week, it's a diesel Panamera 4s. He paid £82K for it with 2500 miles on clock.

I'm still not clear on why he got a diesel one. (Although it's got 422bhp and does 0-60 in 4.something seconds.)

They are. It's called the Mission E and it looks superb.

@Hearthly

Does it have those massaging seat thingies?

I just can't imagine looking down at that hallowed steering wheel boss - the stuff of dreams - at that iconic badge, it having graced so many truly amazing cars second to absolutely none, turning that key.... and hearing some fucking cold diesel clatter and a glow plug light briefly illuminate on the dash.... I mean ffs

People say I should be glad because if it wasn't for all those Sales Managers buying their fleet-friendly Audis "Porsches", they would not have had the cash to develop the GT racers like my GT4, but for me it just jars too much. I don't see Ferrari or McClaren doing stuff like this, and yet as far as I'm concerned Porsche and its great motorsport legacy is at least up there with theirs, or anyone's.

Probably sounds great as well, just think of the speakers they'll be using to play that fake flat-six yowl as it milkfloats along.

Awesome..... so glad I've already got my GT4. They'll have to wrest the keys from the grasp of my dead, cold fingers.

I actually hate diesels too. They sound like tractors and are worse for the environment than petrol, hybrid or electric.

I've never owned one and never will.

Car manufacturers have strict targets for average CO2 emissions across their entire production, but there are exemptions for small volume manufacturers like McLaren and Ferrari. Although Ferrari are part of FCA they are run separately and still get to avoid the financial penalties.

Because Porsche are far more closely linked to the rest of VAG and sell a quarter of a million cars a year they have to try far harder to keep emissions down. Every four cylinder 718 or diesel Cayenne they sell gives them a bit more latitude to make an extra limited run 911.

For giggles I'm having a go in a Superb Sportline 280 estate on Saturday. Also a diesel Kodiaq but only because they haven't got any petrol demos, and the best petrol is a 180ps so it's really just about seeing how it sits on the road.

I sat in them yesterday and they're no JLR that's for sure but Skoda has come a decent way since my old Octavia vrs. But then they want twice as much money sooo...

On Sunday, a few hours in 250ps Epace and Disco Sports!

Diesels are for real men.

I love my V6 diesel Amarok if that helps at all, but it sure ain’t no sports car lol. It has a certain unpretentious honesty about it...

Mine has more unpretentious honesty than yours though.

It told me.

I think you're stretching the point of "unpretentious" with a >£40k pickup a little there

@Z

Unpretentiousness pissing competition, eh?
*narrows eyes*

Bring it on pal.

*shrugs*

£36k actually, but I take your point. Blame the taxman. It costs me very little as its classed as a company van.

I've had my Phantom painted matt red for that authentic unpretentious 80s look. And I've ripped the spirit of ecstasy off and replaced it with a Morris Marina badge. I win

*skulks off with tail between legs*

Ooof. This has to be the very definition of a gas guzzling money pit.

https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds ... ne/8386656

I remember wandering around the West End early one Saturday morning, I think it was Cavendish St (I lived in the West End for a couple of years). It was very quiet until I heard this delicious growling noise from several streets away, stopping to look, one of these in BRG came trundling past a few moments later.

Not my bag to be honest mate. Nice concept for sure, shame these were made at the absolute worst tail end of the British Leyland nationalised disaster-era that put paid to our home grown and owned volume car makers. “Build quality issues”, it’s fair to say.

Buy that one, Hearthly.

I wonder if stuff like this will get super cheap in a few years. I mean will classic cars end up like Elvis memorabilia when most of the people who are into them start dying off?

The engineering lives on, though: It's odd to think that the engine in the Exciting Rover also powers Caterhams, the larger version Elises and the 45's heater controls are found in Zondas.

No idea if that is the case. However, a very wealthy chartered accountant friend of mine thinks that the classic car price inflation from the last 10 years won't collapse as people have been buying them with their money and not borrowing money to speculate.

Mine neither. Hence my point about it being the very epitome of the thread title. It did sound good though.

For me, the irony here is Porsche find themselves in a position whereby, thanks to bullshit enviro laws, they cannot actually build the fabulous sports cars they really want to make (e.g. the wonderful, de-contented 911R which had the 4.0 litre, 500bhp naturally aspirated flat-six of the RS, but with a six speed manual, as opposed to bloody putt-putt 4-pot turbos that *everyone* hates, even the save-the-polar-bear crowd. The 911R sells secondhand for £800,000+... supply and demand).

It's precisely because of their Faustian deal with Audi whereby diesel Q5s and Q7s are supposedly transformed into Porsches, and consequently sold by the bucket-load and with great profits - that they generate the car volumes which exempt them from the likes of McClaren, who are free to build the cars they want to build, relatively unfettered by stupid legislation.

For the enthusiast it's both a travesty and a tragedy; turbo-free soaring redlines are now only for the very rich to savour (and very soon even conventional turbo ICEs will be gone, too). Still, I bet phone compatibility will be pie-hot!

Oh, we were great engineers, sure enough. One has only to think of the Mini, the Comet jet, Blue Streak rocket and any number of other stuff besides. Nationalisation and the unions destroyed our ability to actually make any of it to any degree of proficiency though, unfortunately.

Well they could if that's what they really wanted to do. Just reduce production to that of say Ferrari.

They like making pens, trainers, toasters and other tat too.

TBF their toasters sound the bollocks when they're cranked up to 5.

Not sure all the marketing tat has anything to do with it (Ferrari are the absolute worst for this type of thing btw). But I agree with your sentiments.

On the other hand, it's only really in Europe that people even give a shit about this kind of thing; I understand that in China, Porsche is thought to be a SUV manufacturer.

I had a quick look around one of the new BMW 6-Series GTs earlier. They're very nice.

As a replacement for Jem's Fabia?

Of course

Fabia sounds like a very intimate vajazzle.

Are there vajazzles that aren’t intimate?

No, but I guess a normal vajazzle just adorns the forward surface, the mons pubis if you will... a fabia, would require a parting of the legs for the full disco effect, which I would call it a very intimate vajazzle; not as intimate as a Cuterus, but moreso than your common vajazzle.

It's the Fablopians that are truly intimate.

That’s just mood lighting. They provide a womb with a view.

Let's get it right for the thread: VAGazzle.

It's as if EXCITING ROVER heard you! It started, ran like a dog for a while before cutting out. Restarting it was fine and it was lumpy before settling down. Cleared codes and ran it 15 miles and it hasn't happened again. Stop talking Britain Down, Cavey! I need to get about!

Have you changed that fuel filter yet?

TAKE BACK CONTROL OF TEH ROVER

Phoenix Venture Holdings tried that. It didn't go well.

Yep. The tale of British Leyland/Rover isn't a happy one, to say the least.

I actually bought a Rover 200 (a 2 litre direct injection "base" spec diesel), back in 1999, in a patriotic fit of pique.

Oh man, how misguided that was, what an absolute turd that car was (sorry Mali)
Only the Mondeo was worse.

I had a 627 Vitesse Fastback when I was 20, and I loved it to death.

That's the one that was merrily idling away in the car park when I came back from doing some shopping, despite me having switched it off and still having the keys in my hand.

Excellent. It was warming itself up for you. Is that an "8"27, though?

Get your wallet out @Cras

https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds ... al/8166268

Lordy that's a lovely creature

Ah, maybe.

A neighbour had a Rover 3500 back when I was a young 'un. I remember thinking it looked AWESOME.

<shuffles feet>

Just ordered one.

Might just do the trick