► The month’s top correspondence
► With comments from social media
► Have your say today!
Note to turbo lobby: hands off our sports cars!
> Letter of the month
Having just read in the August edition about the new Porsche Boxster and Cayman adopting four-cylinder turbocharged engines, and about the new Ferrari 488 adopting a turbocharged engine in the July edition, I can’t help feeling a tinge of sadness. The turbocharged Porsche surely won’t sound as good as its normally aspirated six-cylinder predecessors, with their charismatic wail, nor will the shrill scream of the Ferrari be quite as vocal. By all means improve the economy and reduce the emissions of our day-to-day runabouts, but please leave sports cars alone. Their existence must surely be to offer the most fun driving experience money can buy, rather than the most economical. I’m sure the typical owners of either car would consider their economy much less important than their ability to put a smile on their faces!
By Iain Lockwood
New Lotus, new cynicism
> Via email
I wonder if you view the latest (computer-generated) picture of a new Lotus through the prism of cynicism (as I do)
before putting it in the magazine? The Lotus SUV (CAR, August)? Hmmm. Whatever happened to the promised eight models of the Bahar episode? I’d shout a bit less about being first off the mark with a new Lotus if I were you. I, like most British car fans, hope it comes to pass, but let’s wait and see! Love the mag – even, or perhaps especially, the hopeless optimism.
By Scott Chesney
Swedish beauty
> Via email
Having just read the Giant Test featuring the BMW X5, Range Rover Sport and Volvo’s beautiful XC90 (CAR, August) my bet is that had you ‘spent’ the extra £2150 on the air suspension the Volvo would have well and truly wiped the floor with the X5, and you would still have had close to £2000 to spend on diesel to run said XC90 based on the ‘as tested’ price of your X5. Factor in that the Volvo has the look of a Swedish beauty and the X5 has the face of an East German ‘female’ swimmer circa 1984 and the XC90 truly deserved to win this test.
By Paul Bainbridge
On the Mondeo Vignale
> Via Twitter
That ‘more Aldi than Audi’ line will stick, rather than the Bentley supplier leather and other frippery.
@cloppy
Buttocks and the DS5
> Via email
Regarding Keith Jones’s first drive of the Citroën DS5 (CAR, July). ‘Your buttocks no longer read the road like asphalted Braille’ is the kind of writing that makes reading CAR so enjoyable. A fresh, new meaning of ‘reading the road’. The July issue marks 40 years for me as a satisfied CAR subscriber. Keep it up!
By Peter Romig
Midget gems
> Via email
I love reading ‘Our cars’, especially Ben Whitworth’s time with the Caterham 160. I’d been looking for a new car, and considered all sorts: Boxsters, BMW Coupes, MX-5s. I even did Ben’s maths on the 160 (same results!). Ben’s eloquent account reminded me of my love of the simple purity of driving, hence my recent (and rather bonkers) acquisition of a 1972 MG Midget. Never has 55mph felt as extreme or as satisfying. It has the demeanour of a Jack Russell on amphetamines, and being of similar size of said dog, every B-road has become a delight and every motorway an adventure. Yes, it appears to be made of badly assembled, pre-rusted Meccano; yes, the leaf springs and lever-arm dampers mean you can’t even catch a well-driven Micra (I tried, I really did..) but it is the purity of experience, its ‘machinery gone feral’ nature, that is so utterly beguiling. People of Britain: stop buying big fat shiny cars – you’re seriously missing out!
By Dave Taylor
On BMW drivers
> Via Facebook
BMWs now have an awful image, and that’s coming from a huge BMW fan, but I’ll never own one again. Not until their owners can drive them with due consideration for other road users. Merc drivers aren’t that much better; Jags are still driven by the 50+ brigade. I’d go and buy a Saab – they’re cheap as chips now.
By Stu Clegg
Gavin’s high horse
> Via email
How high is the horse Gavin Green rides up to his ivory tower where he plots how to mention Wayne Rooney in his column? For the second time in three months this has occurred (CAR, August). It’s tiresome. His admiration for a bunch of super-rich pisshead toffs is clear and I fail to see how, if they were alive today, they could ‘empathise with [today’s] bunch of self-made strutters’ having been gifted their fortune by an accident of birth. I confess to having no idea who Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton are, but I assume they are wealthy. Wayne, Coleen, David and Victoria are wealthy because of hard work and talent and have Range Rovers. The Bentley Boys would sneer at the unpublicised charity work both couples do.
By Phil Taylor
VW’s mirror bawl
> Via email
In your August issue you state that the electronic rear-view mirror idea has appeared on concept cars and ‘soon it could be for real.’ Have you already forgotten that you drove the Volkswagen XL1, fitted with them, at least two years ago and that our customers are now driving this model with them on UK roads? The XL1 was the first car to gain legal approval for use on UK roads with an electronic rear-view system to replace conventional mirrors. We sold our entire UK allocation of XL1 models last year and are now delivering them to customers.
By Paul Buckett, Head of PR, VW UK
On the Audi R8 review
> Via CAR Online
This review reads like an over-enthusiastic love letter. I’m not sure it will convince Audi to offer CJ a 90% discount, however.
By Airshod