Ford shelves plan to sell off Jaguar and Land-Rover

In what way are they shit? They have soft touch plastics IIRC...

Overpriced, cheap interiors (they may have soft touch plastics, but the toggle switched on the dash are cheap, chrome painted plastic), they look shit, the engines (apart from the supercharged versions) are nothing to write home about, they make you look gay.

Need I go on?

Bull: the Citroen 2cv was also a basic car, even more so than the Mini. Yett Citroen didn't loose money over it.

As to "cheap" for the orginal Mini: I never fancied them but iirc a Mini wore a price tag of about 450.000 fr ( 9000 UKP) around 1990, it was unsafe (or of the same safety standards as the 2cv or comparabel Fiat 126/127 which were up to

4000 UPK cheaper).

If its aim was to be the cheapest car of the market, then it was an even bigger flop than I thought because a lot of cars were cheaper than it: the basic 1.1 l Ford Escort just to mention that one...

All in all : the Mini was a British car which has but very limited improvements, consistely held its errors and never -over its complete lifespan- made a profit, partly due to the way it was made and needing a lot of manual labor.

It's only merit it that its shape took to some people's heart and that's precisely why BMW took the name/shape and where the marketing plays onto.

However concept and build quality are into another dimension if only because the actual market wouldn't tolerate such poor standards as the original any more. Sounds quite accurate as the Rover-story.

Overpriced and overrated are qualifications that the market gives. As I live in an aera where "car DNA" is not strong the price and reductions are in relation what the market is prepared to pay for it. Mini nor BMW are givers of big reductions.

As to oversized: the Mini is about the same size as Clio, Pug 206, Ford Fiesta yett it plays in price-wise in another league and still manages a handy profit.

Unless you are you a communist : the art of making cars is to produce something people want to buy and on which the maker earns a living.

Like it or loath it: if a car makes money, it is improved. If it looses money, there are no improvements, there are strikes and reorganisations and then the factory closes or is taken over.

Bull once again and what's more: you know it.

As to driven both: big question mark of about the same size of your expertise concerning Aston Martin. The only place where you have driven them is PS2.

Tom De Moor

Lol. Tom has driven more cars with brand DNA than you have had hot dinners.

Fraser

That was in 1990, when it was only still on sale because it had a cult following and people were still willing to buy it.

And in the late 1950s / early 1960s when it was launched? - You shouldn't be comparing it with something designed 20-odd years later.

It's a cynical cashing in of image - in the same way a new Beetle is.

People were still buying the old one, even when it was a 50 year old design. That says a lot for just how right it was first time around. The only thing that killed it in the end was current safety and emissions standards.

About the same size on the outside. Little more space inside than the original.

Rubbish. I appreciate the go-kart, seat of the pants handling and raw fun the original delivered. The new one doesn't really deliver anything more than a whole load of other warm and hot hatches on the market out there.

Well, I don't own a PS2. So I haven't driven an Aston. But I do know what an Aston should be like - it's not a rebadged BMW with what the Germans consider to be 'British' qualities. You only have to look at the VAG clone Bentleys to know this.

Am I speaking to a wall? The price to pay for it is only secondary: the orginal Mini NEVER EVER made a profit for its company.

Maybe you should be self-employed in order to understand that any business which doesn't earn you more money than spent ain't no interesting business.

At the time of launch it was not cheap compared to other tin boxes likes the

2cv or fiat 500.

An other way of saying that tradition and model branding is not done. With you kind of reasoning the Britisch motorindustry wouldn't even got through the

1950's.

The shape is the shape, just like an XJ-Jaguar has its shape, just as the oval inlet grille on the actual XK hints to the E-type.

It may be that image-sucking is not done but Porsche, BMW and Mercedes have items and shapes to relate to but inverse to British sportscars (who hasn't been horrified by the handling of the "classc" MG with -factory placed- wooden blocks on the suspension?) then deliver more than the shape, underneat is a modern car which doesn't break down.

Bull: what killed the Mini was that it didn't sell at a profit and that build quality was close to none. I am not that young that the pictures and reports - for internal use at Honda- were not available to me: leakage testing was done while putting a man with a torch inside the car dand driving it thriugh a shower, couch building without any robotwelding (resulting in errors bigger that 15 mm), etc etc.

Proof that you haven't been in either of them or that you are blessed with no memory.

I think you have made it quite clear: you invent a lot, you read a magazine and proclame the contence as your own experiance. Even the phrasing comes out of the magazine.

Further is what you call the go-kart-seat of the pants the very fact that handling of the orginal Mini -as it was with the Beetle or 2 CV- was just plainly crap.

See above. I don't know what those famous British qualities are because to me it is kinda hard to love a car which fails a lot. Sometimes I think -mostly for British sportscars- that the designer didn't understand that a road car is not a racecar and that what is normal for a racecar is not acceptable to a roadcar.

Only few people -even in the UK- drives racecars, but evrybody drives roadcars.

It is quite OK that a car kills you while driving hard, it is acceptable that it bites if you screw up. But it is NOT acceptable that it kills you because it breaks down nor is it acceptable that you have to worry everytime that you enter the garage that there will be a pool of oil underneat it.

Sorry to say but that latter was the reality -even with Rolls-Royce and Bentley- untill very recently. One buys a Porsche, BMW or Merc and the thing drives, one buys a Jaguar, TVR, Marcos, Lotus or other MG and the thing breaks down, always when it's least conveniant and always with mayor bills.

The price of a new gearbox for a Jaguar XKR (4 years old, first owner, 55000 km) is 30000 Eur, guess how I know. Even for people with lots of money, that is annoying and the garage floor full of oil even more so.

So the "Britsch qualities" may thank heavens that they were bought up by Germans, Japs, Malaisians and quite possible Chinese. The Russians -big on emotions but less so on the technical side- did not make the grade.

Tom De Moor

Yes but what makes them different to the previous incarnation?

It didn't.

The Mini eventually died because it was a 1950s car being built in the

1990s. That's it - no safety to speak of and the A-series lump would never have passed a modern day emissions test. Re-engineering it to include 60 air-bags and a K-series engine was never going to happen - they'd have built it for as long as there were customers for it, if it wasn't for the fact that it could never meet modern standards.

I'm blessed with enough memory to know that a new Mini is sitting in a class above the original, but is still very cramped inside - the rear seats are someone's idea of a joke.

Bollocks. I've driven both a modern Mini and an original, as they've both been on my list of cars that I was considering at some point or another.

The Beetle was a bit iffy, the 2CV massively entertaining (and yes, I've driven one of these, too - mate's g/f had one many years ago). The Mini feels like it should be on a kart track. Huge fun.

Not all old British cars break down. That's definitely something you learned from a magazine.

Which ones exactly don't break down? The old Jags my dad's had have been pretty reliable, but I remember as soon as there was a bit of rain, every mini in the country stopped because of water getting into the dizzy. All the other old British cars have rusted away. That said, there's not much manufactured before the 80s that didn't rot like mad.

OTOH we invented everything ever when Queen Victoria was in charge, did all the development work that the yanks nicked to build the first supersonic plane, and still build the vast majority of F1 and top flight race cars. Whereas the Belgians invented beer and make nice chips ;).

I think you'll find that almost anything of that kind of era used to play up in damp weather. Hell, Escorts and Fiestas still did that in the

90s.....

*ding*

Actually, point of order here.

'Beer' is our invention.

Fizzy piss is Belgian.

HTH.

Porsche, BMW and Merc do not compare with Jag, TVR, Marcos, Lotus or MG. Jags are a hell of a lot cheaper than the German competition. Marcos and TVR are low volume manufacturers selling to lunatics. MGFs and Lotus Elises do have the K series engine, which isn't as solid as it should be if you don't check the coolant. Neither is comparable to anything BMW, Merc or Porsche turn out. You also omit Caterham, Noble, Westfield, Radical etc. who produce some of the fastest cars in the world at a fraction of the price of stuff the rest of the world can manage for similar pace. Even the likes of Subaru turn to British companies to improve on their fastest machinery.

Jag buy their transmissions from the same people as everyone else. Either ZF or Getrag. It's not exactly a Jag specific problem.

I had several Mini vans in the 60s/70s and they were great fun to drive.

Simply not true. I ran Minis for many years over long distances in all weather and never once had this problem.

There are 2 kinds of Jaguar: the "cheap one's" (X and S) and the expensif ones ( XK and XJ). Even the showrooms are divided.

The XK and XJ are in identical price settings as their counterparts at Porsche, BMW or Mercedes but they depreciate like the proverbial falling brick.

An example first hand: a perfect XJ3.2 with 60.000 km and 4 years of age, with all maintenance done at the offical dealer went for 10.000 Eur ( 6700 UKP) on the condition that a new XJ was bought... otherwise the price given was 8.000 Eur (5.300 UKP). Try the same with a BWM 5 or 7-serie.

If Jaguar doesn't compare with (the big) BMW and Merc's, where do you compare it with?

Not correct: they are not low volume manufacturers any more as they are bust.

They would have survived -and will survive in one way or another- because their cars broke down more often than they drove. When somebody buys a TVR or a Marcos he accepts that they are not a big company but is that a explenation as to why the engine has to be changed 3 times over a period of 5 years?

And those cars weren't even driven on circuits, only normal streetdriving.

One moment: I might have been misunderstood. Lotus -as it is now- is for me in the same league as any other sportscar maker. If maintained they are as reliable as the same priced Porsche or Ferrari.

But not so long ago Lotus stood *with reason* for Lots Of Troubles Usually Serious. They were -as the Ferrari's, TVR's and Lamborhini's of that era- built like racecars and broke just as often.

The actual Lotus-cars are reliable but that is not thanks to Lotus but to the industrial group behind Lotus. However it still is good practice if an Esprit- new or seconded hand- is considered to be very cautious notably concerning the gearbox.

Please: as much as I like Caterham, Westfield and Radical... these are not roadcars, that are racecars and if they produce as much cars in a year as a normal manufacterer they have a spectacular year. Noble -while being somewhat more luxurious- falls into the same spec.

There are genuine reasons as why those cars are at a fraction of the price of the similar performance cars. Just look what you get!

There is no doubt that British motorsport companies such as Prodrive and McLaren are the best in the world.

But these constructors do not build roadcars, they build racecars. Reliability on a racecar is measured in race-miles of stage-miles. The Ford race-turbo is warranted 1500 stage-miles and it will not survive 3000 miles. So -to me- it is an error to put a race-turbo in a "streetcar".

Wrong: I have had gearboxes changed with several cars, most were changed because we overcooked things. When a car comes with 220 HP as standard and after tuning it produces 450 HP *at the wheels* it is pretty normal the gearbox goes south.

What I however do not accept is that a gearbox with the stated use and normal driving gives in after 4 years and comes with a bill of 30.000 Eur. Just to be complete: that gearbox is replaced, not through the official Jaguar network but through an other importer which seemed to be able to do the job... at half the Jag-price (which still is a lot of money for a gearbox) using a new gearbox. The dealer in question is the Belgian importer of Aston Martin.

Tom De Moor

Not in the UK, they're not.

I went looking at X-Types (they were on the car list), which were sat next to XJs and XKs on the showroom floor.

Not in the UK they're not. An XJ is significantly cheaper than an equivalent BMW or Mercedes - especially if you spec. them up with the same toys.

That's very odd, 'cos in the UK all big executive cars depreciate like a Fiat Mirafiori.

They *do* compare with BMWs and Mercs. In fact the XJRs deliver 99% of what you get from an M5, but without the silly iDrive and at a lot less money (around £10k for similar specs, as I recall).

They also have impecable ride quality - far better than anything offered by BMW and Mercedes, and a really high quality interior finish - wood that looks like wood, rather than wood that looks like plastic.

Before you bring out an old line - no, I've not driven an XJ, but I'd been a passenger in one, as I have been in the similarly priced E-Class Merc. The Jag was a much more special place to sit.

Belgians make the best beer in the world. Bar none. And I'm an Aussie so I should know. : )

Fraser

To be fair, Aussie 'beer' is fizzy piss, too. And the less said about VB, the better.