Why My Car Is Like A Bugatti Veyron

 

See the similarities?  Actually that isn't my car, it's one the same that I found after doing a quick Google Images search.

 

So what could these two cars possibly have in common?

 

Well, they both cost their manufacturers two-and-a-half billion Australian dollars.

 

And if you're wondering why I'm quoting that figure in Australian dollars, it is because the information is sourced from this story in Caradvice.com.au.

 

It lists Europe’s Top 10 Loss-making Vehicles thus:

 

Model                       Years               Estimated Total Loss
Smart Fortwo         1997-2006           $5.0billion

Fiat Stilo                2001-2009           $3.0b

VW Phaeton          2001-2012           $2.9b

Peugeot 1007         2004-2009           $2.8b

Mercedes A-Class 1997-2004           $2.5b

Bugatti Veyron      2005-2013           $2.5b

Jaguar X-Type       2001-2009           $2.5b

Renault Laguna      2006-2012           $2.2b

Audi A2                  2000-2005          $1.9b

Renault Vel Satis    2001-2009          $1.7b

The list is, perhaps surprisingly, topped by the Smart car.  There are a few other quirky cars in there too, the Peugeot 1007 with its sliding doors that nobody wanted and the tiny aluminium A2 that was expensive to build.

There was also the original Merc A-Class seen here failing the Elk Test - maybe it wouldn't have been on the list if it wasn't for that embarrassment so early in its life.

I always liked the Vel-Satis but not many people were tempted to pay big money for a strange-looking luxury Renault so it was doomed from the start.

I am quite surprised that it had an 8-year lifespan.

The article also breaks down how much each manufacturer lost per example of these cars sold:

Model                     Years                    Estimated Loss Per Vehicle (rounded up/down)
Bugatti Veyron      2005-2013                $6,700,500

VW Phaeton          2001-2012                     $40,800

Renault Vel Satis   2001-2009                     $27,200

Peugeot 1007         2004-2009                     $22,300

Audi A2                 2000-2005                     $11,000

Jaguar X-Type       2001-2009                        $6800

Smart Fortwo         1997-2006                        $6500

Renault Laguna      2006-2012                        $5150

Fiat Stilo                 2001-2009                        $4000

Mercedes A-Class   1997-2004                       $2100

The Peugeot figure is quite shocking because $22300 = £12875 (€15400,US$20800) at current exchange rates which can't be too different from its selling price.

$6800 works out as £3925 (€4700,US$6350) so maybe I got a bargain when I bought my car.

Probably not as much of a bargain as Tata got when they bought Jaguar/Land Rover off Ford though.

X Marks The Ugly Spot

I was following a BMW X6 the other day.

I still think they look stupid.

And when I say "following" - I was behind it in traffic - I don't associate myself with anyone daft enough to own one.

Maybe it's something about cars that have names beginning with "X".

Autoguide today have this story about the Volkswagen XL1 testing in Spain. They use this still from a spy-video:

It is a diesel hybrid with a 2-cylinder engine so it sounds absolutely awful in their video but it looks beautiful in the picture.

So what about my argument about X cars being ugly?

Well, I give you how the car is meant to look:

That is pig-ugly and the only real difference is the covering of the rear wheels - a bit like the McLaren X-1 which features on the cover of this month's Top Gear Magazine.

Note the X name. It was built by McLaren as a one-off for a very rich, and presumably blind, customer.

Which brings us back, rather neatly, to BMW and their X1:

Quite ugly, although the earlier incarnation looks OK in this Top Gear story from 2009...

...although that may have something to do with the bikini.

Now, regular readers of my Blog will know that I, myself, drive an X car - a Jaguar X-Type.

This is clearly the exception that proves the rule.

If I was on television right now, I would turn to a side-camera, shrug, and say, "No, I don't understand that saying either."

As a child of the '70s, I like my cars to be big and square and I love the looks of my car even if some people think the X-Type boring. Mind you, designer Paul Smith (turn to side-camera and shrug in an "I've never heard of him, either" sort of way) was obviously inspired (or commissioned) to come up with this:

Enough said, I think.

Jaguar Re-Branded

A silly little story from AutoGuide today about quirky, hairy comedian Russell Brand being photographed with a Jaguar XKR that has been "tagged" by a "famous" graffiti artist.

I've put "tagged" in quotes for those of you old duffers (the sort of person who would drive a Jaguar) to remind me to tell you that tagging is something that those of us down with kids refer to as identifying and labelling a piece of urban art (graffiti) with a particular urban artist.

I've put "famous" in quotes because I've never heard of the bloke. Then again, the only person who does this that I have ever heard of is Banksy - and he's more art than graffiti.

Anyway, the gist of this story is that the tagged Jaguar (or "Taguar" - I just made that up!) is trying to move the Jag image down an age-group or three - and Russell's endorsement is adding to the effect.

As a middle-aged Jag driver (me, not the car being middle-aged) I have absolutely no problem with this - although the XFR, XKR and proposed X-Type replacement will have more of an impact on this.

Otherwise, the story is just an excuse to use Russell Brand to get a bit of attention.

Disgraceful! (That post from 2010 is my second-most clicked-upon)

What's the Point?,,!'*-."

I saw my first VW Up! today.It looked OK - I quite liked the snazzy rear lights but apart from that it was unremarkable - so why does it get an exclamation mark!?

That got me thinking about punctuation in car names. Volkswagen weren't first to use an exclamation mark - the Scandinavians got there first with the mostly defunct TH!NK electric car that also used the rather shouty CAPITAL LETTERS too!

Alfa went with the full stop in their Mi.To while Top Gear's "Reasonably-Priced Car" is Kia's Cee'd.

It all seems a bit daft to me - marketing types would find it impressive but nobody else would bother.

So, to take my mind off it, I might go for a drive in my X-Type, perhaps to Westward Ho!




P.S. A note to my American readers - Westward Ho! is a real town in the English county of Devon - it doesn't mean the same thing as in America and has absolutely nothing to do with prostitutes.

Just like the Devon town of Ilfracombe.

TV Cars - But Not The Obvious Ones

The obvious ones would be The General Lee or KITT or The Striped Tomato (or whatever Starsky's Torino was called) but they are all American. The obvious British ones are a bit more mundane like Delboy's Reliant Regal van or Mr.Bean's Mini but here are a few I like...
This very Vauxhall Victor appeared in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - a series about a couple of private detectives - one of whom happened to be a ghost. The alive detective, Randall, drove the Victor and was played by Mike Pratt who is now deceased while the deceased detective, Hopkirk, was played by Kenneth Cope who is now alive.

This X-Type was regularly driven by Inspector Barnaby in Midsomer Murders - a series which I've never watched but interests me because of the X-Type - albeit a saloon unlike my own estate version. The estate version was (and may still be - I don't know) a regular in the opening titles of Emmerdale - I haven't watched an episode of that since a plane crashed onto the village and I hadn't watched it before then since Matt Skilbeck had some trouble "int' top field." The X-Type estate also took a starring role in Top Gear when Jeremy ski-ed behind one on an icy country lane.

A white Stag like this one (but not this one because I couldn't find a picture of the actual one) was used in Bellamy's People - a spoof travel around Britain show. The Stag would be my ideal classic car if only I had the time and money to invest.

The Dolomite was my first car - not unfortunately a Sprint - but the vomit yellow 1500 Twin-Carb I had was plenty fast enough for me. This particular example is the one Richard destroyed on Top Gear but the Dolly Sprint also appeared in early programmes of The Professionals but BL used to muck about the Production Company by swapping the colours of the cars they supplied so that screwed up continuity so they moved onto the Capris that most people associate with The Professionals. The Dolomite Sprint is also driven by John Anderson in "The Ancestry Team" - a brilliant comedy drama about two people who run a genealogical detective agency but someone at the BBC didn't think it was suitable material for a comedy so it was never made.

Eddie Shoestring drove a Cortina Mark III estate just like this one - a beautiful car and a brilliant theme tune made the show instantly appealing to a young Metro.

A Viva like this one was driven by Bob in "Whatever Happend To The Likely Lads?" - it was meant to represent middle-class, boring suburbia so would be an Insignia today.

This Beemer was driven by Wayne in the second series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet. Gary Holton, the actor playing Wayne inconveniently died while they were making it so there were lots of shots of the back of his head.

The Volvo was driven by Peter Davison in "A Very Peculiar Practice" - a brilliant comedy drama set in a university at the same time as I was at university. I've always had a soft spot for Volvos and the hilarious script gets this one a mention even though the car had bugger all to do with the show.

Finally, after the Cortina Mark III, we have the Cortina Mark IV - although Van der Valk's car here was in Holland so is, strictly speaking, a Ford Taunus...
Great tune too.

Auto Express' Take on New Baby Jaguar

No not that type of Jaguar - the X-Type of Jaguar, or more precisely it's replacement. As an X-Type owner, I am natuarally curious to know what the replacement will look like, so when I saw this story in Auto Express this week, my interest was piqued.

The story came with these pictures:
Looks nice, doesn't it? Only trouble is, when you read the article, you realise it's an Auto Express article so these are nothing more than "an interpretation" - based on the current XF and a bit of XJ as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if it looked something more like the RD6 Concept announced by Jaguar themselves earlier this year...Anyway, think of the Baby Jaguar and save The Rainforest.

Who would buy a Jaguar X-Type?

With the announcement that Jaguar were to stop building the X-Type, there will have been much celebration within the offices of Top Gear Magazine. They seem to have an irrational hatred of the car but is it right that it should be pilloried so?

Well I bought one. Back in 2005 when lots of people thought it was a re-badged Mondeo but I knew that it was different - it had a 2.5 litre V6 engine and four-wheel drive and a picture of a big cat on the radiator grille.

I knew that by buying new I was going to take a huge hit on depreciation, but just like the only other car I’ve bought new – a 1991 Rover 214GSi in pearlescent cherry red (I know – the folly of youth eh?) – I have plans to keep this car until it falls apart and dies of old age. Mind you, if you believe the new car section at the back of the Magazine, us X-Type owners aren’t a happy bunch because our cars are already failing and falling apart – but that is more of a perception due to do with the comments in the Magazine not being updated since the Jag did particularly badly in its first user survey – since then it has had some good, respectable years. I’ve had a few niggles with mine which were all quickly resolved but certainly no problems compared to its predecessor, a 1999 Mercedes, but that’s another story for another day.

I think that the X-Type received a lot of criticism for two contradictory reasons:

i) Jaguars are boring cars with a non-changing look and staid gentlemen’s club interiors and
ii) Jaguar shouldn’t be going into new un-Jaguaresque areas such as diesel engines or estate cars or, worst of all, horror of horrors, having tow-bars.

Well, let’s take first things first, I happen to like the look of the old big Jags, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of Arthur Daley (have you been watching the repeats on ITV4? – very good and you get to see a lot of cars of that period – like Morris Marinas) It’s also nice to stand out from the crowd a bit – when I first bought the car, the poor X-Type sales meant that my racing green estate example was the only one around. The perception of the car amongst non-car-enthusiasts is also very high. I caught a repeat of a popular motoring magazine show that wasn’t Top Gear (other motoring magazine shows are available) on Dave a few weeks back. A survey they performed rated the X-Type as considerably more prestigious than the equivalent products from Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus and VW.

And, taking second things second, the diesel Jags have proved very popular although a diesel is not for me. I need an estate to transport my children, and more significantly, all of the paraphernalia that comes with them. The tow-bar not being compulsory meant that I didn’t tick that particular option.

Anyway, with them being discontinued and discounted, they should be available at bargain prices now with rarity and assumed prestige helping maintain interest in the model for years to come. Even Mr.Clarkson has admitted he likes the All-Wheel-Drive Estate.

So would I buy one? Well no, I’ve already got one, silly! But if I didn’t, then I would. As a driving enthusiast I’d have to go for the 3.0 litre – as a normal person, one of the cheaper, more economical front-wheel drives would do. So, time to get the Auto-Trader out (other car-selling magazines are available)