Half-price heroes

Thanks BMW, but I'll take an old M3

James Ruppert — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:12:26 GMT

I notice that there is an M3 ‘Edition’ on its way. It’s a tad lower by ten mill, can have shiny black 19-inch alloys, with so called ‘dark chrome’ everywhere and some contrasting stripey interior trim. Isn’t this an M3 too far?

I know BMW makes more profit this way and buyers love the idea of a racer for the road, but can’t they do without all the luxury extras and the bodykit bling which leaves 318Ci drivers in doubt as to what has just overtaken them?

Click here to read about the BMW M3 Edition

The small trifle of £53,435 that your local showroom wants to charge you for a rapid and rapidly depreciating asset could better be spent on a ‘proper’ M3.

I do realise that the original convertible M3 was also a cash in, but in its original format an E30 M3 was just about perfect.

Watch our Meet the Ancestors video on the old v new BMW M3 here

Prices seem to start at £10,000, but you’d be better off with something that’s £15,000 and mint, though low milers can be bought in the £20-£30K uplands.

I think a modern M3 customer would find the old one tiny, uncomfortable and noisy, but undoubtedly a huge amount of fun. Plus they would have a few bob left in their pocket to buy food, or perhaps an E36 for the weekly commute.

Grab a Griffin

James Ruppert — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:21:31 GMT

We all know that the new car business is in meltdown with GM now up for sale, which actually gives us a wonderful opportunity to get Vauxhall back into British hands.

In the early part of the last century the big Griff was the chosen chariot for the very rich and the very royal with some seriously sporty models, sort of Bentley crossed with Aston Martin.

Don’t know if it would be possible to rekindle that sort of magic and I’m sure we can all come up with lots of clever modern day rescue scenarios, but as flippant as I’m tempted to be there is the small matter of 5,000 livelihoods.

Vauxhall certainly need an image makeover and calling their cars Griffs would be a start, but they have no Focus RS in the wings and right now which used Vauxhalls would you actually want to buy?

In the old days a GTE 16 valve, Lotus Carlton and the hotter Chevettes were all must-haves. Right now you think Vauxhall and you visualise a driving school Corsa, nothing more, nothing less.

A few years back it was the rep in a Vectra or Cavalier. Indeed, ex Professional and current George Gently Martin Shaw once did an advert for the Cavalier (Mk2 square one), driving the long way home if I remember rightly whilst playing born to be wild on the cassette deck. Oh Dear.

The biggest single personality was Gerry Marshall, a big man in a car called Big Bertha.

So are there any Vauxhalls I should be looking at? V6 Omegas and cop car white Senators and late ‘70s Royales are my bag, but are there any suggestions for a cool Griffin to grab or have Luton had it?

Technorati Tags: Vauxhal, Carlton, Senator

Why Mercedes leaves me cold

James Ruppert — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:36:31 GMT

Ideally I would like to have my blog sponsored by a huge multi-national company with a generous expenses allowance, in order fund my otherwise unsustainable lifestyle.

Sadly there are few takers at the moment and I doubt that Mercedes will be signing me up anytime soon. Because I’m about to say that I’m not that tempted by the Mercedes-Benz Used Car Weekend. It probably isn’t designed to appeal to me anyway, even though it is, to quote Mercedes, supposedly a “Win-win for customers”.

There are – of course – low-rate finance offers of just 5.9 per cent APR on selected C-class saloon and CLS-class models, and the usual minimum 12-month, unlimited-mileage warranty as well as the unique 12-month Roadside Assistance Package, which becomes lifetime cover if the car continues to be serviced by Mercedes-Benz Official Workshops. And there’s more, because everyone gets the chance to win tickets to a Formula One Grand Prix and AMG Experience Days at Mercedes-Benz World.

So it’s a fun day out for all the family, but am I alone in not be very inspired by the modern-day Mercedes car? New C-class and E-class are supposed to be good, but the R-class is wretchedly ugly and can anyone explain the point of a B-class to me? There are just too many of the alphabetized Mercs these days. Their line up confuses a stupid person like me. And all the SLs look the same.

I want to like new Mercs, but I preferred the simpler time when they made small, medium, large and lorry models with easy to understand designations. I’ve looked at what my local outlet has up for offer and I’m not really inspired. It may have something to do with some lukewarm receptions I’ve had in Mercedes showrooms over the years.

If anyone can help me and explain what the appeal of a modern Mercedes is and exactly what they might buy this weekend, then please put me out of my Mercedes-induced misery.

Technorati Tags: Mercedes, C-class, E-class, R-class, B-class

What should Captain Slow drive?

James Ruppert — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:40:50 GMT

A very close relative got ‘done’ recently for speeding when travelling at 36mph in a 30mph zone. He wasn’t going past a school at chucking out time, but proceeding downwardly from a derestricted hill into a rural 30mph area, where the only living thing he could bother was a sheep. Yes, he was in sunny Flintshire in Wales. He was given the option of going to speeders’ school in lieu of points, but there was a catch. He lives in Essex and he could only attend a course in Welsh Wales. Genius.

So, as part of his rehabilitation, I am proposing that he part-exchange his diesel Jag S-Type for something considerably slower. First thoughts are that he gets an ancient Series Land Rover, which is slow and suitably raised from the road so that you can see the ‘safety van’ behind the hedge. Indeed, loads of bread and butter classics with wheezy side valve engines would certainly do. Ford Pop anyone?

Despite the speed which professionals manage to get commercial vehicles to reach on the motorway, a civilian in an adapted van can become something of a slug, hence the Fiat Doblo, which I believe was the slowest thing on the road ever in diesel or even petrol form. It took 20.9 seconds to get anywhere near 60mph.

Maybe he should just make sure that whatever comes next has a towbar, so that he can simply hitch a caravan when he goes anywhere near Wales.

I’ll forward any constructive, deconstructive or plain stupid suggestions his way.

Scrappage Wonderland

James Ruppert — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:01:00 GMT

You may not be surprised to learn that not everything is rosy with the scrappage scheme. There is plenty of confusion, and few people are clear as to just how much they should be paying, or saving, or even where the money is actually coming from.

I know this because I have been talking to someone at the blunt end of it all at the moment, Richard Sanders, who runs Drive the Deal.com. His and other car brokers have been offering the sorts of discounts in the past few months that make the scrappage offer look just a little bit stingy. The best I can do is let Richard tell it like it is…

“We are inundated with enquiries about scrappage. The manufacturers haven't yet told their dealers what they can work with discount-wise, but I get the impression that most of the manufacturers are poised to claim that they are giving more than £1000 off the list price anyway, so that's their £1000 contribution, and the dealers can give the other £1000 that is from the government.

“I am not even sure whether all the back-end bonuses and support etc will be available to use in conjunction with the scrappage money. This is a farce. Frankly the government ought to have carved out the scheme in advance with the industry, and insisted that new money must be offered by the manufacturers in return for taxpayers’ money being used to generate car sales.

“Anyway, hopefully in the coming days we will know what we can offer people. But there is no shortage of people who think they can buy a £6000 car off our website and knock off £2000 to make it a £4000 new car! I imagine people are going to be disappointed when it becomes clear what will actually be available for them.”

Nothing I can add to that really.

Technorati Tags: Scrappage, drivethedeal

Small cars, big money

James Ruppert — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:12:47 GMT

These are very strange times indeed when cars at auction are fetching retail money.

Of course, this isn’t true of every type of car; the days of DB9s and Bentley Continentals and all that heavy metal fetching industrial-strength money are well and truly over. However, if you go down to the auctions today you can bid for a little shopper hatch from 2003 up to £2900 and feel rather pleased with yourself. Until you start to look at the price guides, which suggest you’ve overpaid by £900. Then you feel rather queasy when you look in the classifieds and find you could have got an example that was fully prepped, serviced and warranted for the same money.

This has reached such a stupid situation that a garage down the road from me is seriously considering cutting out the auction altogether and just buying the retail cars for a few hundred less. A garage will always be keen to turn a few bob with another trader to move something on, but this seems like a mad situation.

So it seems that mainstream small has become very big and a Citroen C3, Pug 206 and the like are the new must-have used buys. That got me thinking: what small car has been overlooked and is unlikely to be the subject of an auction-room bidding war?

Well, the early Hyundai Amica, the original Hyundai Atoz, and the toy-town Daihatsus that I really adore are all treated with the sort of suspicion that they don’t deserve. The Daihatsu Cuore is a fantastic buzz box, and these little things just don’t break down either. Not that you see many of these at auction, mind you.

Anyone else have some oddball suggestions that won’t break the bank?

Technorati Tags: Daihatsu Cuore, Citroen C3, Peugeot 206, Hyundai Amica

The two grand scrappage challenge

James Ruppert — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:58:00 GMT

There is only one story in town this week and that’s the upcoming £2k you will get against a new car courtesy of the government’s scrappage plans.

But what about spending £2k on something that isn’t going to depreciate and disappoint? I say let’s get out there this weekend and buy one of those cars that Gordon and his gang want to get off the road.

First up, while researching my “I couldn’t help noticings” for the mag, I spied not one but several Alfa Romeo 155s. Some were 1.8 Twin Sparks, but there were also some 2.0-litre models out there, and one - up for just £1700 - was a full-effect Sport edition from an Alfa specialist. It even had working air-con and a recent cambelt change, so no worries there. Could we lose characterful cars like these because they just happen to be the wrong hands?

Then a friend of mine bought an R-plate Mazda 323 in red for £500. It’s red and absolutely immaculate with a full service history and just 50,000 miles. This has become the family second car and all he had to sort out was a stray wire on the sound system. Is this the sort of reliable car we are happy to just dump when there is years of life left in it?

Finally, an utterly random £2000 internet search turned up a 2002 MGTF, a really spiffing 155k-mile Mk2 VW Golf GTI, and a 1995 VW Corrado. But if you really wanted to be boring, predictable and guarantee that you could complete the cat-food run without breaking down, a 2000 Honda Accord Aerodeck was on offer, with the added attraction of the eager 1.6 VTEC engine, for just £2000.

So don’t bother getting some small change off a Kia, go buy one of these secondhand gems.

Technorati Tags: Scrappage, Mazda 323, Alfa Romeo 155, MGTF, Mk2 VW Golf

Viva the Viva!

James Ruppert — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:35:51 GMT

Do you care what your insurance company is called? Of course not, you just want the lowest and best quote and hopefully nothing to do with them ever again. Renewal is hassle, but hey, that’s what comparison websites are for. So if you end up at the Big Bogey Insurance company, so what?

Well, Norwich Union though are really bothered about their name. After several hundred years of being NU with no discernible ill effects, some bright spark in marketing has reckoned that in down town Somethingorotherstan it may confuse the locals.

So now simple NU becomes Aviva - and they have spent zillions doing it. You may have seen A-list celebs like Bruce Willis and Ringo Star hammering the point home on TV ads.

However, unfortunately in a recent poll all the people stopped in the street and interviewed for regional news didn’t have a clue what Aviva now stood for. They did, however, know it was a car.

More than thirty years after the last Viva left Luton in 1977, the marque is still ingrained in the UK public’s consciousness. So in these troubled times, why not resurrect the name?

I presume GM still own it. They could even dump Insignia and just call it Big Viva. The Astra is okay, I suppose, but I would favour it being the New Viva, while Corsa has always has sounded rubbish, so that is the Little Viva. Then there is the ZaViva and MerViva and we’ve sorted it.

Everyone will want a Vauxhall again - and Norwich Union can go back to being NU.

Technorati Tags: Vauxhall Astra, Viva, Norwich Union

Cool people carriers

James Ruppert — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:44:59 GMT

Whatever else Easter means to you, be it chocolate poisoning, procreating bunny rabbits or something rather more godly, it must also mean family get-togethers. And ideally we should travel as one happy family group. So which multi-occupant vehicle delivers the most fun, or coolness, for the least cash?

This is where it gets creative. A Routemaster was always a pretty effective people carrier, letting people hop on and off as need be. More seriously, there’s the evergreen W124 Mercedes E-class estate with the flip-up rear seats. And if you’re getting vaguely silly again, a Volvo 850 T5 or an 850R with boot seats could be tempting.

Mazda Bongo Friendee has a crazy name, but is actually a fairly useful multi-seat van, which neatly segues us into VW Transporter territory.

For the people carrier with that bit of extra performance, there’s always a big-engined 2.8-litre V6 first-generation Ford Galaxy or a Vauxhall Zafira GSI Turbo. A friend of mine who has one of those Zafiras rather enjoys driving it, and she has no children to fill it with.

So what would you feel okay about travelling in if you had to carry more than five people?

Technorati Tags: Mazda Bongo Friendee, Vauxhall Zafira GSI, Volvo 850 T5, routemaster

The £5k coupe Friday challenge

James Ruppert — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:52:00 GMT

I have to admit that this week I have mostly been looking at the BMW 6-series. Not the fright mask-wearing, bloated one you can find in the showrooms for around £15k, but the old-school shark-nosed ones. You can get them for £2995 (albeit with not much of a service history).

Anyway, that got me thinking: why would you pay £15k for a coupe when you can get something far prettier for just £5k?

A white Honda Integra Type R for £5k would be nice and I’ve seen a few of those in the classifieds recently in all their milk float colour scheme glory. I also have an immense amount of time for the long-lost Toyota Celica, and you should get a 2002 one for that. You can get miley Mercedes CLKs and Sport Coupes for that sort of cash, too. But are they proper Mercs? Course not; you want an E320 coupe in Sportline spec (the good-old early 1990s W124 model) for that. Better still, the values of these particular models have actually been on the rise in recent months.

Oddly, the quirky Citroen C4 VTR coupe is pretty much within budget – £5k can buy you a 2006 example. I rather like Citroens these days and at least it looks different, is practical and seems a better buy than a 2004 Hyundai Coupe at the same money.

Or how about something really interesting, like an old Mazda RX-7? I doubt there’s a prettier coupe out there, and you can talk rotor tips all day long with likeminded Rotarians.

Apparently Smarts count as coupes, too, but not as far as I’m concerned. And one more thing - I got all the way to the end of this without mentioning the now very affordable E46 6-cylinder BMW 3-series coupes…

So what sort of £5k coupe turns you on?

Technorati Tags: BMW 6-series, Honda Integra Type R, Toyota celica, Mercedes E320, W124, Mercedes Sort Coupe, Mercedes CLK, BMW 3-series, Mazda RX-7

Is Britain Treasure Island?

Mike Duff — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:31:00 GMT

Remember ‘Rip-Off Britain?’ It’s not many years since the tabloids were filled with rabid headlines accusing British retailers – and especially car manufacturers – of profiteering on the back of prices that were substantially higher than elsewhere in Europe. The newspapers even coined a phrase for the way these profit-hungry multinationals saw the UK - ‘Treasure Island.’

In car prices, the differences were big enough to create a substantial market in ‘parallel imports’, right-hand drive cars sourced from abroad and imported for substantial savings. The number of middle-aged Vauxhalls you see wearing Opel badges is testament to how widespread the practice was.
But now the pound/euro exchange rate has slid to the other end of the scale, and we’ve suddenly got the cheapest cars in Europe.

Last week I blogged about Ford’s imminent price rises and I got contacted by an expat friend who lives in Germany and who – despite the price increase – is now seriously contemplating trying to source a left-hook Focus RS from Blighty.

His logic is simple enough. In Germany the Focus RS costs €33,900. Which, at current exchange rates, is about £31,300. Even after the £750 price increase takes effect today, a UK-sourced RS could be his for just £26,490. Even with the costs of getting it back to Germany and, in the worst case scenario, getting a right-hooker converted to full ‘TUV’ compliance, he’s looking at a four-grand saving.

The obvious point is that British prices are likely to rise further. But in the meantime maybe it’s time for some canny British dealers to cash-in and start ‘parallel importing’ back into the euro zone. It wouldn’t be too hard – send a few staff on language courses, put some adverts in the French, German and Italian press and entice some bargain-seeking continental punters to make the trip over here.

Technorati Tags: Ford Focus RS, price rises, Rip-off Britain

Bag a classic this weekend

James Ruppert — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:52:14 GMT

Hope you enjoyed meeting Charles Ware and his Morris Minor Centre in the magazine column this week (Autocar, 18 March, p80). Ware would prefer that we all think of car ownership in decades, rather than the short-term approach that the modern car industry lives by.

Now, I know you may not fancy a Moggy, but there are plenty of other classics out there which are every bit as interesting and easy to look after. Provided you are not fighting a rear guard action against rust, older cars are a pleasure to own. Mostly because the bits that go wrong you can usually sort out with a spanner and a screwdriver rather than a laptop.

Parts can also be pretty reasonable price-wise. Classic insurance is a pittance, and pre-1973 models are zero-rated for road tax. On top of these upsides there is also the sheer pleasure of driving something characterful. So, as spring hits us and all the classics come out of hibernation, go and snap one up.

A Caterham Seven is an option, even someone’s half-baked kit copy that you could spend the summer sorting out. Obviously, old Minis and Land Rovers are great too.

Rovers are wonderful as well: a Rover 2000 or a P5 coupe is a great way to travel. You can go foreign, of course, but Citroen DSs are getting pricey and, oddly, 2CVs have all but disappeared and very hard to find, according to my local Citroen nutter. He is currently transplanting a Rover V8 from a trashed MGB into the remains of a written-off 2CV. So you can see the sort of fun you can have.

Look after a classic and it will look after you, by not really depreciating. Modern cars are rubbish, so buy an old one, a really old one.

Technorati Tags: Morris Minor, Rover 2000, MGB, Citroen DS,

Chasing down a major Mini deal

James Ruppert — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:59:00 GMT

This weekend I dare you all to go and have a great big adventure down at a nearby Mini showroom to see what they have in store to tempt you. And I’d love to hear how you get on.

A reader has been doing this for several weeks now, and he initially found that local dealers did not offer much in the way of a discount so, in the spirit of Mini adventure, he started to look further afield, paying particular attention to two-year-old cars.

It was a frustrating game for our man, though, as the cars were either very expensive (Cooper D on 57 plate £13,500) or, in his view, had boring colour schemes (not a fan of the all-black interiors, apparently).

But his persistence paid off because, wandering fifty miles from home, he found a car poised to be registered as a dealer demo. It was white with black bonnet stripes, an ’08-style chilli pack, lots of extras (cruise control, usb port, bluetooth, headlamp washers, and interior pack with black and white leather).

Since the car was already paid for by the dealer, they offered a discount of £1800 (£1000 off for a half-price chilli pack, courtesy of BMW and the remainder from the dealer), and did the deal for £15,000. The good news is that he’s keeping the car for at least five years, so will get plenty of use out of it.

Looking forward, then, to hearing your own unscientific findings and seeing if anyone actually does drive home in a Mini this weekend. Especially if a dealer has makes them an offer that’s difficult to refuse.

Technorati Tags: Mini, Cooper D, chilli pack

Thank god it's the weekend

James Ruppert — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:50:00 GMT

TGI The Weekend. Amen to that eh? For most of us the weekend means that we can forget about the horrendous commutes we’ve had this week and, if we are lucky enough, what a crummy time we’ve had at work, so we can relax.

That means we’ve all got time to dream, to surf, to look at and drive all those lovely cars on sale. It’s my new job to point you in one direction or the other on such weekends. And not necessarily the right one.

This weekend: Alfas. It seems every motoring hack loves Alfas, except maybe for me. I once owned an Alfetta 2.0 GTV for as long as it took me to drive it to the trader who bid me the most; about 30 minutes.

Like many, though I do like the idea of an Alfa even if I would actually buy something German, Japanese, Swedish, or BMC in a flash. That said there are still Alfa 155s about for around £500. I even came up with a 1999 156 2.0TS for £600, although the details were really rather sparse and you wonder how it even got to 116,000 miles, as cam belt changes on 156s should be carried out far more frequently than the recommended 45,000 miles.

Down at the bottom end of the Alfa scale there are those long-forgotten models the 145 and 146. You can get £650 for a Cloverleaf or even a 2.0 Ti, but then again I am absolutely certain that you’ll have come across an Alfa which the owner will pay you to take away. Tell me about them, and let’s all be driving something Italian by the time Monday comes.

Technorati Tags: Alfa Romeo, 155, 156, 145, 146

How to own your own Alfa 8C (for a weekend)

Matt Saunders — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:41:55 GMT

The Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione may be a bit of a curate’s egg in the supercar world. It comes with the same badge as a 147, it’s not quite the perfect driving machine, and buying one would cost you nearly £180,000, or as much as a Lamborghini LP560-4 and a new Lotus Evora combined.

Still, how great would those gentle curves look outside your house, eh? How great would it be to rattle the china in your neighbour’s lounge with its unbelievable 4.7-litre V8? What if it could be delivered to your house and collected once you were done? And what if you could have another three or four supercars like it, each for a long weekend? Sounds like the sort of deal that could make your year.

The Marque II Car Club can make it happen. We’ve come across car clubs like it before, but none that offer such good value for money, because membership here can cost as little as £4500 a year. Why so cheap? Because the guys at Marque II aren’t daft enough to buy brand new cars, which means their stock depreciates less, and their overheads are much lower.

And what do you get for your money? Well, anything between 1000 and 2500 membership points, with which you buy time in any one car in the club’s fleet. Which, incidentally, includes the only club-owned Alfa 8C in the country.

Marque II loaned that car to us for an upcoming magazine feature, and we’re duty bound to thank them, so if you’re wondering why you’re reading such a brazen plug on Autocar.co.uk, wonder no longer. But all partisanship aside, club membership like this seems the most sensible way to get to drive the market’s fastest and most expensive cars at the moment.

If £4500 a year sounds like a lot, it’s nothing next to the amount of money you’d lose on a new Aston or Maserati in 12 months. It’s probably the cost of a thorough service on a Lamborghini LP640. It’s the kind of money you’d spend every 12 months leasing a new hot hatchback. And assuming you can meet your basic need for transportation by other means, I’d certainly trade 365 days in a Golf GTi for 10 in a supercar. Wouldn’t you?

Technorati Tags: Alfa Romeo 8C, Marque II