The Car Thread, or How Man Maths works in reality

[Craiglxviii]

Back by popular acclaim, the resurrected Car Thread. Please post pictures of your latest wastes of money highly considered purchases vehicles, comment, poke fun and all the other good things that we have come to expect here.

[Craiglxviii]

Ok… I’ll go first then.

The last few months have been full of strenuous activity at Casa LXVIII; we have been replacing the flooring in the whole house over the last two years, tiles on the ground floor replacing laminate “click” flooring that was fitted when we bought the house new; carpets upstairs had been replaced after two years as the cats had ruined them, but were never satisfactory. So, room by room the upstairs flooring has been replaced with oak- I was lucky to come into possession of a load (brand new, still in original packaging) that was being scrapped. That’s all completed now including capping the stairs in it, which I must say looks really nice now.

Anyway, that was just to set the scene. During this time of most recent upheaval - we have been a bedroom short over the last two months straight - my car died. Well, not dead dead, but the ignition started playing up. This was a 2005 S500L (Benz S550L to the cousins), nice car, sporty AMG wheels etc but tremendously unreliable as it happened. Not only that but the FunBus, herself’s load lugger for the school run, shopping etc. also suffered the same fault. So I took the decision to replace them both.

As we have 4 sproglets we need a 6-7 seater, and looking at budget that pretty much narrowed it down to a VW minibus, a BMW X5 or an Audi Q7. Looking at what was available and after a few test drives, we traded her car in against a really nice dark blue Q7. She’s over the moon with it, I must admit it drives really nicely and is much more pleasant on the road than her last car. So she’s happy. That’s good.

Then it came to me. My work requires not excessive mileage, but equally I may be required to do fairly long distances at short notice. As I’ve matured into my 40s, I’ve discovered that comfort, safety and the ability to distance myself from boy racers have increased in importance over strict economy- hence why my last two cars have been V8s. Running cost not massively increased over straight-4s in practice, but work pays for my fuel when I have to do business trips anyway.

I thought that this new car, it would be something different. No Mercedes for me; you may remember I was considering Maserati.

Well, I was able to find a stunning bargain, and traded the S500 in against this. Newly christened… Conrad

1E649809-056E-47C6-AE34-9659903EF452.jpeg

Conrad is a Panamera Turbo with, most unusually for me, a Lorinser exhaust. LOUD!

[MikeKozlowski]

Craig,

There's a couple of Panameras in the vicinity here, and I gotta tell you....they are damned good-looking cars! Never quite thought of them as family riders, but if it works, it works.

I think I mentioned once that there are several Maserati Quattroporte lurking here as well - I'm afraid I can't get quite as excited about their looks, however. First couple times I saw them, I thought they were tarted-up Buicks.

There is also a gorgeous, showroom-condition, bright red XKE convertible here, which - as you may expect - had base stickers for 169FW (SCANG Swamp Foxes) on it. I mentioned it to my son once, and he was pretty sure it belonged to a senior enlisted guy.

Mike

[Craiglxviii]

Craig,

There's a couple of Panameras in the vicinity here, and I gotta tell you....they are damned good-looking cars! Never quite thought of them as family riders, but if it works, it works.

I think I mentioned once that there are several Maserati Quattroporte lurking here as well - I'm afraid I can't get quite as excited about their looks, however. First couple times I saw them, I thought they were tarted-up Buicks.

There is also a gorgeous, showroom-condition, bright red XKE convertible here, which - as you may expect - had base stickers for 169FW (SCANG Swamp Foxes) on it. I mentioned it to my son once, and he was pretty sure it belonged to a senior enlisted guy.

Mike

It’s only a four seater so I can’t fit the whole family in. However I can do the school run if needed.

I must say, it scares the everluvvin’ crap out of me. A big lazy cruiser when the loud pedal is used sparingly, but give it a poke and JEEZUSHKEERIST.

Yep you mentioned the local Quattroporte. I didn’t get a chance to look at any, but speaking to my brother who drives all of these cars professionally as an experience driver, they’re nothing like as nice as the Panny. And it is a seriously nice car to drive.

[MikeKozlowski]

Craig,

There's a couple of Panameras in the vicinity here, and I gotta tell you....they are damned good-looking cars! Never quite thought of them as family riders, but if it works, it works.

I think I mentioned once that there are several Maserati Quattroporte lurking here as well - I'm afraid I can't get quite as excited about their looks, however. First couple times I saw them, I thought they were tarted-up Buicks.

There is also a gorgeous, showroom-condition, bright red XKE convertible here, which - as you may expect - had base stickers for 169FW (SCANG Swamp Foxes) on it. I mentioned it to my son once, and he was pretty sure it belonged to a senior enlisted guy.

Mike

It’s only a four seater so I can’t fit the whole family in. However I can do the school run if needed.

I must say, it scares the everluvvin’ crap out of me. A big lazy cruiser when the loud pedal is used sparingly, but give it a poke and JEEZUSHKEERIST.

Yep you mentioned the local Quattroporte. I didn’t get a chance to look at any, but speaking to my brother who drives all of these cars professionally as an experience driver, they’re nothing like as nice as the Panny. And it is a seriously nice car to drive.

....Details, details. Dad briefly owned a Austin-Healey Sprite, which is very much a two-seater...and there were four of us. So Dad drove, Mom held my brother on her lap, and I got to sit between the seats. It was like riding on the outside.

Mike

[OSCSSW]

Gentlemen I am here to look at beautiful cars and learn just enough about them to shock my Motor Head #1 daughter. So please use very small words and short sentences.

How in God's name do you folks copy pictures into your posts. I have spectacularly failed. I even tried the image button



It has proven to be very frustrating, I can't even upload my old avatar which is the best portrait I ever sat for. It's enough to drive a man to drink!

[OSCSSW]

Gentlemen I am here to look at beautiful cars and learn just enough about them to shock my Motor Head #1 daughter. So please use very small words and short sentences.

How in God's name do you folks copy pictures into your posts. I have spectacularly failed.
/home/joe/Pictures/Proximo2.zip

I even tried the image button



It has proven to be very frustrating, I can't even upload my old avatar which is the best portrait I ever sat for. It's enough to drive a man to drink!

[Craiglxviii]

Gentlemen I am here to look at beautiful cars and learn just enough about them to shock my Motor Head #1 daughter. So please use very small words and short sentences.

How in God's name do you folks copy pictures into your posts. I have spectacularly failed. I even tried the image button



It has proven to be very frustrating, I can't even upload my old avatar which is the best portrait I ever sat for. It's enough to drive a man to drink!

I think it’s because you have it as a zipped file. You should uncompressed it to jpeg

[Pdf27]

image_2022-11-20_141454716.png

[Pdf27]

And yeah, anything ending in .zip isn't an image file.

[David Newton]

Just don't post images of a roads with lots of curves which have been in a ZIP file. They'll get decompression sickness due to the bends.

[JBG]

Good work getting a Panamera Craig. The chap at work with the Maserati is having buyer's remorse after on 6 weeks or so. latest thingy go go belly up is the alternator. Before that the parking brake mechanism...he did sell a Jag to get the Maserati and has owned Alfas so he is manna from heaven for people trying to off-load things that usually look like cars but seldom provide transport. I suggested that given his track record he should ge a Rangie next.

Jonathan

[Craiglxviii]

Good work getting a Panamera Craig. The chap at work with the Maserati is having buyer's remorse after on 6 weeks or so. latest thingy go go belly up is the alternator. Before that the parking brake mechanism...he did sell a Jag to get the Maserati and has owned Alfas so he is manna from heaven for people trying to off-load things that usually look like cars but seldom provide transport. I suggested that given his track record he should ge a Rangie next.

Jonathan

Ah, Range Rover, the only vehicle that should be sold with a complimentary trailer recovery service!

[Poohbah]

Just don't post images of a roads with lots of curves which have been in a ZIP file. They'll get decompression sickness due to the bends.

I see what you did there

[OSCSSW]

image_2022-11-20_141454716.png

Thank You sir.
I was asked to post some of my wood working here.
You asked for it so don't blame me

[OSCSSW]

This is Providence as a WIP