Farewell Jags it was great while it lasted
Picking up from where I left off with the last post. I’d run the Jaguar XK for a couple of years and whilst it was a hugely impressive car it wasn’t really very practical. For example, I couldn’t fit my golf clubs in the boot or very much else for that matter. This was obviously somewhat of an oversight at the time of purchase, but I remember being seduced by the gorgeous styling and size of what was under the bonnet rather than the size of what was under the boot lid.
The XK did have one other annoying design fault which manifested itself in the winter. I know what you’re probably thinking but no, it wasn’t a death trap on slippery roads, to the contrary it handled very well on wet and icy roads, as long as you gave some respect. It was the fact that you couldn’t actually get into it! Because the door windows were frameless, when you open the car door the windows used to automatically drop about 10mm to allow them to clear the rubber seals. However, even in a light winter frost, the window mechanisms would freeze, meaning they wouldn’t drop, meaning you couldn’t get into the bloody car, and if by chance you managed to prise the door open, then chances were you couldn’t get it closed again.
This combined with the fact that Jaguar ownership can be somewhat expensive, and with residual values that drop faster than the lift in Disney’s Tower of Terror ride, I decided to cut it loose before it burned an even bigger hole in my pocket. So, with a certain amount of sadness it had to go, and the search began for something more practical from a space perspective and something I could use all year round.
Hello again old friend
Another 4×4 seemed the obvious choice and after doing the rounds looking at a few different makes and models, I finally settled on …
Only another Touareg!!!
Talk about being boring, it was black like the first one, it was a 3.0 diesel like the first one, and the only difference being the trim level was R-Line instead of SE. That said, five years had passed since I waved goodbye to my first Touareg and VW had made some changes to body styling and handling, and they had stripped out many of the offroad knobs and levers and replaced them with computers which could detect the road surface and set the car up automatically. I enjoyed this Touareg as much as I had enjoyed the first and I still believe they are one of the best 4×4’s money can buy.
Thanks for reading part 8, read part 9 here
Footnote: these pictures are for illustration only they are not necessarily my cars
Stuart Lynn - Masters Athlete 