Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Merc lowrider goodness.

I've only been in one X type, and it was a minicab on the island of Guernsey, but the trim creaked like a bitch, the suspension or steering made worrying noises, the wood was splitting. Basically all the care and attention to detail you expect on a modern Jag was notable by its absence and instead you got the thrown-together-by-arseholes build quality of a 70s Jag. A Mercedes minicab of the same age is like a new car in comparison.

They are cheap now because no-one wants one. They don't want one because they didn't want one when they were new. They were and are a travesty. The Allegro Vanden Plas of the lineup. The Rover 45 of engineering integrity. Jaguar's DNA is in their wonderful chassis, engines and beautiful styling, and Ford thought a Mondeo front-drive chassis, Ford engines, the desperate marketing ploy of 4 wheel drive to pretend it was a rear drive platform really, and a really ugly old-man body would convince the customers. Unfortunately the customers can tell when they are being hoodwinked.

Plus small reps' cars that pretend to be luxury models are a bit Hyacinth Bucket.

Cool that's the kind of answer I was looking for. So they are shit then :)

HAHA yeah I know that one too!

Where abouts in Essex did you live then?

Sounds like it's probably not far from me.

I live in Hammersmith, but my parents are in Upminster.

VW Lupo

I had a Lupo GTI and it was one of the best hot hatches i have had

These are incredible little cars, they still get silly money 2nd hand with ones with 70k+ going for £5000+

I live in Hammersmith, but my parents are in Upminster.

Sweet. My parents live in Hornchurch. So the E30 hides in Upminster? Hmm...

VW Lupo

I had a Lupo GTI and it was one of the best hot hatches i have had

I had the 1.4 16v Sport (100bhp) with the full length ragtop. So much fun, miss it dearly. I'll own a GTi when we no longer need a car that can swallow a pushchair.

These are incredible little cars, they still get silly money 2nd hand with ones with 70k+ going for £5000+

I can no longer countenance a Lupo as I failed my driving test in one some years ago, and seeing them still gives me a little bit of the fear.

My grandparents in my grandads three wheeler- my mum thinks it was called a Hornet:

Chevrolet/Daewoo Matiz.
Shit, but the cheapest car to insure that exists.

Depends how desperate I am. Had experience of working on one of them before, had to take the wheel bearing/hub off to get the brake disc off! Found out a mate of mine has a Pug 405 saloon, minor diesel leak from a seal in the fuel pump, he probably wants £200ish for it.

I'll see how things pan out with my car if I fix it or not then I'll go form there.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Muchos gracias

What were the last decent Mercedes made? The ones that were built like tanks and had decent (with some oomph) engines? Not the coke cans of today. Ta.

About 20yrs ago. All the recent ones rust, no matter how clean you keep them. I had thought of buying a Vito, then I noticed that they all had rust on them even the well looked after ones.

Ones from the era when they had model numbers are built up to a standard
So 190, 200, 300
Ones with letters are built down to a price
So C class, E class, and of course A and B

Obviously you get S and SL models from both eras. The more square the better, basically.

I think there might be some 200/300 and E class crossover but I can't remember. i.e. the first E might have been a facelifted 200/300

G Wagon is an exception to the above rule, mostly.

S classes and G wagons are the only ones still built in Germany.

I'm just about to go play in a newish Audi equiped with a DCT (S tronic) gearbox and stop start technology. I'm curious as to how it will fare at roundabouts, etc. where a quick getaway is useful. Being auto it stops when you come to a halt with your foot on the brake rather than when in neutral with foot off the clutch.

There actually not so bad when you get to roundabouts etc. The DSG gearbox was all about so smoothness. It behaves much like a regular automatic gearbox but without the noticeable clunk between gears. I drove one of the early Golfs that had it.

I quite liked it really.

It's the stop / start technology that worries me. Watch this space....

You'll be fine. They actually start quite quickly.

Well I must say I'm very impressed. Car is an A3 2.0 TDi Cab. and it's a really sweet drive. Gear change was very smooth up and down the box aside from some noticable engine braking on the down shifts. The stop / start would take a bit of practice to get the best from it. By adapting braking to ensure the final few mph were scrubbed off with light braking the engine stays running which is fine for a quick getaway into gaps in traffic. Pressing the pedal a bit firmer kicks in the engine stop. I got caught out a couple of times at lights by relaxing the pressure on the brake pedal which then restarted the engine before it was necessary. Once started the car needed to move at over 4 kph (from memory of reading the handbook) to reset the system so that it would stop again. As for restarting, it took no longer than say putting as manual car in gear would so no concerns there.

On paper the car should return a combined consumption of 55.4 mpg. I got around 45 taking in a few miles of country lanes, one junction of the M25, some A2 and then a bit of in town work and saw a constant 100 mpg for a mile on the M25.

A really pleasant car not just around town, particularly with adaptive steering, but at motorway speeds too.

I think I'll be borrowing it a few times in the future!

S classes and G wagons are the only ones still built in Germany.

The G Wagen has only ever been hand built in Austria (Graz), in the same factory since the beginning. It's the longest running mercedes model. It's really built like a tank :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gw-AxiVqihM

Forgive the Kraut rock but some great racing.

Sweet. Nice one.

I love this photo. My first car was a 126 FSM, and I'd love another as a little runabout for London town.