Jaguar is keen to promote the F-Type as their new hero of the line-up, its position further solidified by the news that the long-running Jaguar XK is going to end production by this summer, with no replacement planned anytime soon. However, as big of an improvement as the F-Type is as a sports car, it is missing the main reason that I bought the XK for: cargo space.
While the other cars on our fleet are just toys, the Range Rover is the family vehicle and performs the bulk of our transporting duties. We’ve also trusted it as our luxury ride for important time-sensitive meetings and airport drop-offs. As such, it needs to be reliable. Thankfully our greyish-green Vogue has served us faithfully since 2012 with only minor niggles, especially since we properly take care of it. But it is nearly a decade old and has 111,111 km on it, so we decided to do the inevitable overhaul after it started showing signs of tiredness.
As we’ve said before, the Honda S2000 is supremely reliable when it comes to mechanicals. But keep it in top cosmetic condition is a never-ending battle due to all sorts of random cost-cutting measures by Honda.
The BMW 1-Series has always been an acquired taste ever since it launched in 2004. Even if the looks don’t bother you, there is still the price, as it costs more than a Golf without necessarily offering that much more (at least in the basic models). That said, if you look past the basic models, the top-of-the-range 1-Series have always been interesting cars, combining arguably BMW’s best straight-6 engines with an entertaining chassis, and probably more closely evoking the spirit of BMWs from decades ago than their larger brethren in the current model lineup.
We’ve had our Range Rover for nearly 18 months now. When we bought it, it had some minor cosmetic flaws that we elected to leave as-is at the time, because they didn’t hinder the operation of the car. But we recently decided to keep it for longer than we initially anticipated, so we figured we’ll dress it up and restore its new-car vibe.
The first thing we did after buying our used Jaguar XK last summer was to take it in for “smart” repair. If you’re unfamiliar with what that is, then read on.
So how’s our much-maligned Range Rover doing? Perfectly fine, actually. It’s become our daily driver, used even for the occasional trip to Abu Dhabi. This kind of reliability is more than we ever could’ve hoped for. But the 282 hp 4.4-litre V8 engine is nine years old now, with around 107,000 km on the clock. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if it has lost any performance over the years, as is supposedly the case with all engines?
The Honda S2000 is one of the greatest cars ever built, and it’s funny that we say this, because we never took it seriously when it was actually still in showrooms. Honda never seemed to have a media test car, and we figured it wouldn’t be much of a runner anyway, based on its measly horsepower and torque specs. We did shop for one back in 2008, among other options, but couldn’t afford even a used one due to sky-high resale values. Eventually, we did buy one last year of course, paying a premium for a good example, not because we were specifically looking for one,
Our Jaguar XK has been running fine since we bought it in early summer. Which makes its minor non-mechanical issues rather annoying. The fact that we’ve covered only 800 km so far makes it doubly so.
This is old news for those in the know, but our 2010 Mitsubishi Pajero has bid us goodbye, going back to the same used car dealership we bought it from.
