SATURDAY/SUNDAY - Every time you take a decent drive in an Jaguar F-Type Jag, you turn a fresh page in its book of superb qualities. Driving Autocar’s V8 this weekend, I kept noticing how brilliantly it balances day-to-day usability with engine/steering/brake responses that make you feel you could drive straight to Le Mans and win.
It’s hard at first to tame an abiding sense of awe (is this really me, sitting on top of 550bhp?), but the car soon becomes so easy to place, so supremely obedient, that you realise any driver of reasonable skill can drive it well.
The problem becomes how others treat you, which is for the most part well. The F-Type has star quality far beyond its rarity or price. People crowd it. When it’s parked, they want to be photographed with it. On a motorway, they speed up to take a closer look, or slow down so you’ll pass. The odd idiot wants to race you. The odd simple-minded van driver tries to impede your progress, your punishment for being able to afford such a car. Staying calm in such unfamiliar circumstances is a skill you need to acquire, but it’s a small price to pay.
MONDAY - Not often you see a motoring executive walk deliberately into a revolving door, but in my opinion Sarah Sillars, new chief executive of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, did just that when – according to The Times – she described today’s cars as “85mph lounge rooms” and said that, following the rise of aids such as ABS, parking sensors and chassis stability controls, cars were “almost too safe… in relation to people’s expectations that they won’t get hurt”.
Sillars was, admittedly, peddling the IAM’s view that drivers of all levels of experience need the benefit of extra driving tuition. It’s true, too, so perhaps she should be allowed some slack. But even to think the words ‘too safe’ when six people a day still get killed on British roads strikes me as barmy.
WEDNESDAY - Rolls-Royce’s keenness to emphasise its pedigree as a maker of utility vehicles gets a boost today from leading UK engineering chief Nick Fell, who first came to prominence 25 years ago as head of BL’s MG F project.
Out of the blue, Fell sent us a heart-warming 1963 picture of himself (above) posing in the New Forest with his family beside the 1932 Rolls 20/25 Shooting Brake that was their only car at the time. “The Rolls used to take us on our annual summer excursion from Aberdeen to Hampshire,” he says, “a daunting journey even now. I’m sure it had a role in spawning my lifelong passion for automotive engineering.”
THURSDAY - Talking MG Fs, our man Nigel Donnelly has just bought a roadable example for £500. Values are low because there are lots about and they are considered a bit complicated to be embraced by the home hobbyist. Still, our colleagues at Classic & Sports Car note that they’re starting to bob up in MG specialists’ premises, simply because their owners love them. Redemption is coming.
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