Why do other drivers feel inferior to a BMW driver?

Care to expand on your "built quality" allegation? What's so bad about it?

Ooops, typo.

'Build quality'.

It was shocking - lots of brittle, hard plastics, cheap fabric on the seats, door cards and head lining that visibly flex with very little pressure.

Even simple stuff like the air-con and heating controls were made from cheap, airfix-quality plastics.

In summary, I've been in better quality Hyundis.

You may like it, but I haven't looked at one for posible purchase since sometime in the 1980s - a beautiful pillar- less white one, with the front that sort of slid down under the car. No room in the back at all, but who cared.

I might go for the first of the 1600 ones from the late 1960s. As it is now, I have another car from that era as my only car and enjoy the hell out of it. Dangerous? Yes! High fuel usage? Yes! Hard to find parts? Not really. Good conversation starter, Yes - and always will be. For daily use, SWMBO comes to the rescue - I wouldn't let her ride in mine as she has had neckbone work and it has low-back seats. OAPdom is for FUN!

I won't disagree about the seats, the least favorite part of my E46. However, I think the interior is otherwise quite nice. Coming from

I'll note that the newer BMW interiors I do not like as much - the 5 series especially deserves better.

See, BMW no longer even tries to sell 4-bangers in the US - we're too smart for that.

(Just ignore that we elected W as our president. Twice! 8)

Great fun on snow-covered cloverleafs!

Hmm, if you were *that* smart you wouldn't make the cars you do make. Or at least you would learn how to get 100bhp/litre or better from a car and how to o steering and what dampers on the suspension are for.

OTOH I drive mom's shopping trolley, a Ford Explorer, and it's worked well for me. Gets me to the farm up the farm track and covers drives of

OTOH the XJR could get me across Europe in a day and when I got out I felt no worse than if I had driven down the road to pick up the shopping. Sadly Les Flics have put paid to crossing Europe at an average speed of 100mph.

Jaguar XF, Aston DB9 those are proper interiors.

Steve Firth (%steve%@malloc.co.uk (Steve Firth)) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

"I want to pretend I'm a born-again godder with a huge ego and a thing for auto-erotic self-asphyxiation"...

I have come across a few, my boss used to have a 535 (12V 6) and that was quite nice but cramped as anything in the back, a co worker has a 318is coupe and that to be honest is well made and good to drive.

My boss wants a XF and has an Xtype - which is not nice.

TBH if I was going to buy a big saloon I think I'd get a VXR8

So it's not only people on newsgroups who think you're a tosser?

The X-type is mostly a cynical piece of marketing. The XK and XJ were the only real Jaguars up until the creation of the XF which seems to be both related to the two big brothers and somethin new for Jaguar in terms of appealing to younger people.

A bit too chest wig for my liking but I understand the attraction.

The XF is nice, it will be a winner. The X types are noisy, seats not good and reliability is not good at all, on a patch in quality on a P reg 318is here at work, also reliability is worst out of the whole company - new transfer box was nasty.

I like the Aussie idea, big V8s in Euro chassis, I hate the way Vauxhall had been going with their Vectras, and other nonsense - OK I did like the Senator/Carlton period.

Mind you I'd settle for an LS2 and suitable gearbox, (and another pair of LPG injectors to alter my 5,6,8 kit)

I can see the attraction but what I really like is V12s. The big V12s are the engines I really admire from BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar. I'm disappointed that Jag dropped the V12 in order to pander to the American perception that a V8 is best. It would have been nice if Jag had been able to use what became the Aston V12, but Ford didn't want two companies it owned competing for the same turf.

For a Jagnut, it was sad to see the F-type become the DB7 and the steel XK was a disappointment. However the alloy cars are a joy to look at, be in, and drive. Still a shame that there's no six-litre turbine-smooth V12 available.

If money were no object an XJ13 replica would be on the cards.

V12s only problem is physical size, I'd say over 6l 12 is better than 8.

Car size suitable ranges, get bigger revving is a problem

That said small engines such as 4l V12s can be very interesting.

I thought it was wrong

I do like the LeMans cars with the V12

Martin ("Martin" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

BRM?

IIRC Coventry-Climax built a 1.5 litre flat-16, but there was no power advantage over the V8 so it never made it to production.