Cars Is Cars

So, in the "automotive world" the big news is that Ford is to cease making cars. What? Steady on, I say, the Ford Motor Company is not going out of business, just rationalising its product. So sedan cars are being phased out, as demand for trucks & crossovers/SUVs continues to ramp up. Apparently the exception will be the 4 seat Mustang. Which isn't really a sports car, being more of a car with a sporting nature, for the most part. The only American real sports car is the Corvette, which, as we observed from a visit to a Corvette car show last weekend, has bloated from a lovely-looking & sensibly-sized vehicle into an aggressive over-the-top extravaganza.
We also observe that most motoring journalists are just hacks nowadays, regurgitating manufacturer-supplied blurbs, parroting each other without much originality. Gone are the likes of LJK Setright, an opinionated intellectual whose views weren't always sensible (he only liked Bristols) but at least were so beautifully written & thought-provoking that his stuff, in, say, CAR magazine, was the most entertaining as well as informative.
But back to Corvettes.

 It's not hard to tell which are the newer models & which date from the earlier, more graceful era.  Mind you, the level of safety & convenience are not at all comparable - the silver one below only had lap belts instead of the safer 3 strap belts we're familiar with nowadays. Also, the seats themselves were not bolstered as effectively. Still, I suspect the materials used were of a higher grade.
 I often wonder why cars have such appeal. It isn't really because of what they DO, so it must be either what they've DONE, in the past, like a classic racing car, or perhaps, it's just because, of how they LOOK.

Such as this Jaguar SS above. Surely no-one doubts that it's a beautiful car, but really, it is better looking than this, umm, is it a Bentley? Looks like a car from the late 1920s, whereas the Jaguar above dates from the 1930s.. it was called SS, from Swallow Sidecar, the original maker of Jaguar cars, but due to the War & the German organisation of the same name, the SS had to be dropped!

I waited for this

Waited nearly 6 months before our Canadian winter - mild though it is in coastal BC - was suitable for an open sports car. After all, there's not much point in powering the top down if it's raining as it often is during those long winter days. If you did, you'd get wet, although, perhaps surprisingly, only when you slowed right down or stopped, because the natural wind tunnel caused by the passage of the car mostly keeps the water out. But you gotta stop every now & again, so thus, our lovely 350Z stayed in the garage. Until now!
Suddenly our weather turned lovely & warm. It was time!
Down to our local ICBC office we went to renew the insurance & tax sticker, where we were processed by a pretty young woman with very bright green fingernails some 30 mm in length.
And then out on the open road again, & what a delight it was to be able to change gears myself, to judge the moment to stretch out my left leg to depress the clutch pedal, letting up on the throttle at the same time, & then snicking the leather-covered aluminium lever into the selected slot. And then pleasurably being aware of the powerful growl of the "naturally aspirated" - meaning non-turbo - six cylinder engine - one that is rapidly becoming a classic in these days of whiny fours supplemented by a hot & noisy turbocharger.

And although this particular photo was taken last autumn, when the first tinges of nostalgia were prompted by a rapidly weakening sun, our last week was both brighter & warmer than you see here.
We drove down the coast a bit, along windy lanes that were ablaze with flowering trees - dogwood, cherry & apple were everywhere & the ash & maples were already showing leaves in pale green. It was very pretty. We took a ferry over to Salt Spring Island & on our return, down to Duncan to see the lovely Flowering Cherry-lined roads all over town. Sitting in the park by the sadly abandoned E & S Railway line we could smell spring in the air, & see people in shorts & summer dresses, in anticipation of the longer summer days ahead.

The air was warm enough that we could sit on the upper deck of the ferry for the 20 minute ride across to the other island.

Soon To Be Topless...

...Because it's Spring. Not that you'd really notice, if you went outside, but as of this writing we've had a full month of spring. Which is a controversial thing to say. Seems like there is an OFFICIAL start of spring & a METEOROLOGICAL one as well. How an Official one can differ from a Meteorological one is beyond me - after all, what are the seasons but weather changes? Who looks at & reports the weather but the Meteorological/Weather Bureau? But still, in Canada, it seems that Officially (& illogically) spring starts at the Equinox, instead of the obvious change of seasons.
I say obvious because it's clear to anyone who pokes his head outdoors from time to time that winter is well & truly over by the end of February. The snow is mostly gone, crocuses are above ground & the grass is greening. Indicating a change of seasons - called spring. By the 21st of March, spring is already rampant - daffodils are out & the flowering trees are beautifying streets in temperate climes like coastal BC.

  This was taken in the last week of March in Beacon Hill Park, Victoria.

Doesn't this look like Spring, to you? It certainly does to me!  And yet, officially, it was still Winter!
Ridiculous, say I. And in most countries I would be in accord. It's apparently mostly a North American thing again. At least we can't blame Trump for that!

But this burgeoning season means Sports Car Weather. Yippee! I can get the Z car out, power down the electric roof, bring over the few items that I transfer from car to car & then we're off. Where to, I don't know at present, but we'll wander up & down the Island, stopping at places that randomly take our fancy, toying with the idea of the expense of venturing across to the mainland. We'll see.

Back In (or On) Shape

I want to revisit the discussion about vehicle shapes, because yet again, I read in a car magazine the oft-repeated moan about people choosing crossovers/SUVs to drive instead of "real" cars. I suppose the argument is that cars, being lower to the ground, are "better" to drive, on account of their being able to corner faster than crossovers, which ride a little higher.
But buying a car isn't just about g-forces around corners - it is a far more complex decision than that, being both practical & emotional. Some people really do need a vehicle with lots of seats for the family, but others, like us, really just look for front seat comfort along with some carrying space in case it's needed.
The trend towards SUV appearances is really a reversion towards a more practical layout of cars & away from the lower, knees-in-your-face set up that too many cars deliver.

Here is an example of the hypocrisy of motor journalists. BMW X6, like the Infiniti QX70 is much denigrated in automotive magazines because of its silhouette curving down at the rear instead of the square box back end that conventional crossovers display. Here's a picture of a popular SUV, the Chevrolet Equinox followed by an image of the BMW X6. You'll observe that while there is less room in the back for things like, say, furniture there's not much difference ahead of the B pillars. In the front where most people sit. After all, how often do you see these vast, 3 row SUVs actually full of people? Hardly ever, mostly it's just the driver, & companion. Very often, it's just a solitary driver.
Now see the Honda Accord Coupe - see how low it is? So I say "why shouldn't people want a graceful silhouette, along with a small amount of hatch space and a slightly higher point of access, instead of sitting almost on the ground & also having very limited storage space, for those rare occasions when a large box is carried?"
And finally, see the last photograph. It's a 1938 Chrysler, I think. Guess what? The fundamental layout is just the same as the QX70 or X6 - a rear-wheel drive layout & a curved back end that is both graceful & reasonably roomy aft of the driver. Of course there is significant difference in how the engine surroundings are shaped, & the windshield is more vertical than nowadays, but after that...not much difference. You sit higher than in a modern road car & the vehicle shape is not compromised by pretending it's a full-blown minibus or hauler of goods.There are specialised vehicles for that, but a nod in that direction can be useful.

And Then It Was Summer

In lovely British Columbia by the sea, summers are reliably dry & warm. Something which surprised us on moving here 4 years ago. We'd expected the West Coast's reputation for rain to persist all year, but instead, for perhaps 5 months, we get very little rain. So little, in fact, that water restrictions are usually in place by July.
It seemed a waste to drive around in an enclosed car, even with the sunroof open, as we were doing. And so, towards the end of a hot, sunny summer, my eye was magically directed towards a sports car. A real "sports car", not a "sporting" car like a Mustang or Camaro.
It only stood out from the other cars in the used car lot because of the lovely orange paint, & because it was mounted on a ramp to show off the elegant lines.
I really didn't know very much about the Nissan 350Z, except that it was the same rear wheel drive platform that our Infiniti was based on known as FM by Nissan, meaning "Front Midship". By this they mean the car is rear wheel drive based with the engine in the front but being pushed back as close to the middle as possible, thereby allowing the wheels to go ahead of the engine. This gives both more foot room, as a narrow inline engine takes up less side to side space than a transversely mounted one, as well as more even weight distribution. Even in a V-shaped 6 cylinder engine, the actual block is much narrower than the top - see this photo on the left:

If the engine were turned around transversely, all those cylinders lined up would take up much more room, which is what happens in front-wheel-drive cars - they sacrifice some "spare" width of the engine area to gain it in the longitudinal area. Space is saved, but at the expense of a little foot room. Following this philosophy, Nissan's Infiniti brand emulated that of BMW.  That orange colour is lovely,isn't it?

But, I thought, it was a coupe, not a "proper" open sports car like the 1972 MGB that I'd once shared with my ex. Still, I took that car for a decent spin around the area & was very impressed. The manual gearbox was a delight, the seats were quite comfortable & the engine, the same VQ350 as in older Infiniti FX35s, was a beautifully sounding delight. So I checked around. And found a lovely, low mileage, 2004 Roadster in terrific shape. And as well, equipped with almost everything - including navigation & lovely leather seats. These latter were a trifle worn, but I put that down to patina! The engine is the same as in the FX35 - a CUV replaced by the FX37 we had before. This model sold for almost twice the price of the base coupe! This is it here - yes, we bought it! I know, it isn't that lovely orange paint, but apart from that...it's perfect! The actual colour is named as grey, not silver, but there's not much difference between the 2 cars we have when set next to each other.
This Z car just aches to be taken out on the winding roads of Vancouver Island & has even been across the mountains into the desert-like interior of the province.

Talking About Shape

I mentioned in an earlier post my thoughts on the trade-offs that accompany front-wheel-drive cars. But there are undoubtedly benefits, too, those being more cabin room resulting from the absence of the rear drive train & differential. Usually too, the engine is mounted transversely instead of inline with the drive direction, allowing what might be called a "cab forward" design.
But I cannot see the advantage in a fwd platform being adapted, as most good machines are nowadays, to four-wheel-drive. If you have to have drive to the back wheels, that power must come along the passenger space to the back axle, thereby negating one of the main benefits of front wheel drive.
I have 2 main objections to the prevailing fwd layout in most cars - the first is the possibility of torque steer, which I observed directly in the Audi 80, despite its modest power, & also the lack of foot room in the front which arises from the space that a transverse engine consumes by the way it is mounted in the car. In every fwd car I've driven it seems to me that the pedals are too close to the driver because the wheel arches intrude. They have to because the transverse engine mounting places the engine ahead of the front axle. So the wheels arches have to move back. Observe the layout in these pictures of older cars - the A pillar - the pillar surrounding the windshield is more vertical than a modern car admittedly, but look at the angles - see how the pillars are aimed behind the front axle. The front wheels are not intruding into the driver's foot space.
Now look at this picture of a competing Lexus RX350. The A pillar is aimed in front of the wheels, which means that the wheel arches will intrude an amount. This is one reason why "prestige" car manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW & Jaguar, (& of course Bentley & Rolls Royce) stick to rear-wheel-drive. See in the older cars here - a green Pontiac & grey Alvis - there is distance between the leading edge of the front door & the wheels? That used to be space where your feet went, but now, as below that space has been consumed in the interest of "package efficiency". Meaning that although the overall vehicle is smaller for its given passenger space, it comes at a price.

In yet another photo of the QX70, it's easy to see the different approaches - the A pillar of the Infiniti is aimed behind the front axle, giving a reasonable amount of space between the leading edge of the door & the wheel - despite those wheels being 21" in diameter!
Certainly there's more back seat space & more room behind the driver to carry stuff - the Acura MDX, which is about the same overall length as the QX70S - even has 3 rows of seats! Why on earth would an older couple need all that? In fact, I have never seen these CUVs with 3 rows carrying any more than just a couple in the front. Should any prospective purchaser really need seating space for 6 or 7 people, my thoughts are that they instead buy a minivan.

Satisfaction, At Last

Or at least as close to it as I've ever been. No, it wasn't the Jag, but it might have if this hadn't been the first year of the F Pace on the Canadian market (which meant that there were no significant discounts available). And being a new model, the Jag revealed the latest technology - digital displays in bright colours that changed according to activity - for example, when using the sat-nav, which was a giant 10 inch display in the middle of the facia in normal driving - as you approached a turn or your destination the display was also put right in front of you instead, or beside the normal speedometer/rev counter! I liked that very much as it meant you could look at the road ahead at the same time!
The salespeople were very urbane & it seemed like we were being interviewed before being allowed to drive the car. In fact, we spent over half an hour talking about how much aluminium was used in manufacture, engine options & power, manufacturing processes & so forth that we began to wonder if we'd ever get to actually drive one! And when we did, well, it was a bit of an anticlimax! The car drove well, had a fancy gear selector thing that was flush in the centre facia until the car was started, upon when it glided up into your hand, was nicely responsive...but, apart from the electronics, wasn't any better in any way I could observe than the comparatively old-fashioned QX70S that we'd just driven. We certainly liked it better than the much vaunted Audi Q5 - whose dealership, by the way, was very downmarket compared to the others. And I felt reassured that we hadn't lusted after the very expensive Porsche Macan, which was, after all, a tarted-up Q5. In fact, in discussions with the Sales Manager - yes, we got that far - he volunteered that the Audi wasn't in the same class as the Jaguar, & by implication, the QX70S.
But then we got into the various trim & engine levels. To get a petrol engine (not a diesel), seats of same quality, & a couple of other things we'd be looking at $70,000! Ouch! Way out of our price range. And there weren't any demos available to soften the blow.  So it was back, again, to the Infiniti salesman, who, while we'd been away, had been asked to think of the very best price they could offer. And they came up with a price that was too good to pass up - we were presented with a lovely silver & black car & offered a 20% discount!  The S in the model name, picked out in red in the name on the back, meant attractive 21" wheels, purple stitching in the upgraded leather seating, a sunroof, navigation as well as a surround camera which gives a very helpful picture in the display due to cameras under the wing mirrors, in the grille & in the hatch lid, which combine all the picture to give you the all-around view.

As well, there are paddle shifters around the leather-wrapped & purple stitched steering wheel, so selecting the right gear is just a flick of the wrist away.
Interestingly, despite the 3" larger diameter wheels, I thought the ride was slightly more comfortable & found out that was due to adaptive dampers which the base model didn't have.
I should say here that one other aspect attracted me to Infiniti & that was the straightforward way the models were presented. There was very little of  the "start with the base car, & then add on thousands more in options" approach of BMW & Audi. Instead, you have a couple of choices & that's it. So you don't get sucked into spending more than you can afford.

Here's the car we bought.

Don't you agree it's a lovely looking car? Admittedly, it doesn't have the roomy back half that the F Pace has, but we are only a couple - our children are grown & live on the other side of the continent - so our needs are concentrated more on the front seating areas. Of course, it has way more power than we need - 325 HP - but it's nice to have!
It is a very traditional sporting car, despite being shaped like an SUV.  The driver & passenger sit exactly midway between the wheelbase for the best weight distribution, & Apple phone is not part of the deal.

Settling Down

I have another blog called "Uncertain Wanderings" (uncertainwanderings.blogspot.ca) which perhaps reflects a restless life, but my wandering days were coming to an end. We combined our "assets", such as they were, sold off what we could & sent the rest off to the other side of the continent. We followed a short while after in the new car. As it was the end of the year daylight hours were short & snow was a risk along Canadian highways so we opted to go along US Interstates, mostly I80. It was a wonderful journey, even if a slow one due to darkness arriving soon after 4 pm at times. The FX37 was comfortable, powerful & managed to accommodate all the stuff we'd decided to bring along for our rental sojourn in BC.

And happy we were in our new home. We'd left all the snow & bitter cold behind & were now living beside the Pacific Ocean. That's the way things would have stayed, except that we'd been persuaded to lease this blue car, instead of buying it outright. In the end, it worked out just fine, but after 3 years with the Infiniti FX37 it was time to turn it in.
But for what? It was time to start the search again.
As Infiniti/Nissan knew it was time to turn in the leased car, I began to receive "special offers" from my local Infiniti dealer - the only one on the Island, by the way!
Just out of curiosity, you know, I thought that even though the lease wasn't due until late April, we'd pop down to have a look, & see about test driving a couple of others.
As I said before, I'd gone off BMW because I thought the company was milking its reputation to an excessive degree with the cost of options. When we'd driven the X3 in 2013 the base car had just vinyl seats, an awkward-shaped gear stick, as well as annoyingly stopping the engine each time the car ceased to move. And then starting again when the throttle was depressed.
I was aware this was a trend, along with turbo-charged 4 cylinder motors in order to achieve lower fuel consumption figures, but, being a sort of an old-fashioned guy, I wanted an engine with some balls, or rather, cylinders. I'm not a fan of turbo-charging even though I do accept that at lower engine speeds they are more efficient than a normally aspirated engine. However, the ratio of fuel to air stays the same - the turbo just pumps more air into the engine than normal air pressure allows - so at high revs consumption goes up accordingly.
These preferences, or prejudices if you prefer, ruled out the X3, which we also thought rather ugly, as well as the Volvo XC 60, leaving, it seemed to me, another Infiniti, the Audi Q5 & the new guy on the block, the Jaguar F-Pace. This last excited me & I couldn't wait to drive one.

Life Changes

A new lady in my life, who became my wife,  also gave us the opportunity to combine our assets & decide to move to BC. As we planned to drive across the continent with enough possessions to last us a couple of months in the apartment we had rented in lovely Victoria, I told myself (& my most agreeable wife) that we ought to have a new car. The Subaru had its faults. I found the foot well rather cramped for my size 10 feet, & there was something odd about the algorithms upon which the automatic transmission was based - even going up the smallest hill the car changed down & then up again. The change was fairly smooth, but once noticed, became something of which I was always aware. The "symmetrical" all-wheel-drive was very effective in snow, however it did have a slight "drag" upon fuel consumption, being always on. As well, there was considerable anxiety when we had to replace a torn tire in S. Carolina, because that symmetry required all wheels to be of the same diameter, meaning that if a tire wore down, all 4 had to be replaced because you couldn't have mismatched tire circumferences, or else risk excessive wear to the drive train.

A new search was begun, & we were in no hurry. As it had been over six years & as we had a rental property to maintain we thought that leasing would be a tax advantage, but that was not a factor in the search. But it did mean that perhaps we could aspire to move up a bit in the automotive world.
I wrote comparative lists. Planned to drive as many as I could. Made phone calls to arrange those tests & realised we'd have to drive a bit out of town. This time we included  Mercedes GLK,  BMW X3, Volvo XC 60 & Lexus RX350 as well as the Audi Q5. Infiniti, which is the "luxury" brand of Nissan.
As usual I was leaning towards rear-wheel-drive, which brought a previously unconsidered make into the game - I'd seen the racy-looking FX35 around, & had even, out of curiosity some 5 years earlier, asked a driver of one for his opinion of his car. He was very enthusiastic & that opinion must have stuck. But the price was out of the question at that time. Acura had already been ruled out - MDX was too big, the smaller one -RDX was just a tarted up CRV I thought, as seemed to be all Lexus's too. But Infiniti was of a different calibre I thought, being based on their own platform, shared just by the sports cars  - the exotic GT-R & the slightly more mundane 350Z. Soon, though, we had a short list, the Audi Q5 & the Infiniti EX. As you'll see, it did have a much richer & more pleasing interior than the Audi.

Here's the interior of the 2013 Q5 above. And, despite Audi's vaunted Quattro drive, I didn't like it. Didn't like the club-like gear lever nor the switch on the dash for turning on the headlights. We thought the materials in the lower priced (below $60K) models were a bit VW like. But this was such fun. We were treated very well at these posh dealerships - given good quality coffee & not hurried. Sat in well upholstered furniture to discuss the merits of each car. And began to lean towards the Infiniti EX. It really did have a lovely interior with rich, tan leather surrounded by maple wood highlights. But there was a problem. I thought the EX rather odd on the outside, & it was a little smaller inside than the Q5 despite having the same wheelbase & overall length. I didn't think the EX would have as much resale value as the always-well-spoken-of Q5. And eventually came to the very sexist conclusion that the EX was...a girl's car!  Unlike the one shown above right.
We drove the BMW X3, in base form, & were not very impressed, sad to say. Vinyl seats were likely to be very hot, the gear lever looked like the end of a walking stick, & the stop-start effect at traffic lights was irritating (although it could be turned off). But when we added up the costs of reasonable extras, we concluded there were better deals out there!

We went back to the Infiniti dealership - some distance away - for a second look. And while mulling it over, just happened to look over at another model in the showroom, that very expensive FX 37. See above. Just to pass the time, I went over & sat in it...and...was in love, again!

Getting Closer

I ASKED my car contact to find me a good, used BMW 5 series. A new one would be well out of my financial reach as I didn't want to borrow, given the very high interest rates around 1990. And in no time at all he came up with a 1989 model, the E34 as it was known in house. This was the first year of this model, replacing the E28 which had that famous shark-like leaning-forward grille. And, of course, I fell in love at first sight. Or rather, first drive. The interior was every bit as well put together as the Audi 80 but a little more glamorous, having lovely tan leather seats, a leather covered steering wheel in the proper 3 spoke shape, leather around the lovely gear lever controlling the 5 speed Getrag box and many other features that made this car a really upmarket vehicle. I rejoiced in the care taken to ensure the ergonomics were perfect - electric seats that moved up & down to provide enough head room, even with the sunroof open & the pedals & wheel being just the right distance away when adjusted to fit a 6 foot tall man.

In fact I liked this car so much that I kept it for 16 years! It took me to Nebraska & the Black Hills of South Dakota & although I would like to say "without trouble" I have to confess I can't. I didn't put big miles on it over the years, but even early on it needed brake rotors & a new clutch. I didn't mind however, as it was Just right, I felt. Well, almost. I did make a couple of "improvements" to put my mark upon it - a solid wood gear lever took my eye at the dealership one day, & my only lament was the absence of wood around it. So I took out the  shiny, black plastic & spent several hours shaping a lovely strip of walnut to go in its place, as you see in the photo above.

Apart from that, the car was  so well balanced that despite being rear-wheel drive, with decent Dunlop winter tires on I found that 5 inches of snow was traversable along my long, country driveway, before I even got the tractor out.

Because by then I was an apple farmer, with 15 acres & 250 lovely apple trees. Unfortunately, I was pathetic at that career, making insufficient money to properly support myself, so eventually I sold, in recognition also of my advancing years & the significant appreciation of the farm. But I was there for 7 years or so, & it was indeed an idyllic place...in the summer! Winters were another matter in this snowbelt region of central Ontario where spring often waited until May before appearing, somewhat shamefaced, & autumn seemed to be way too eager to push summer aside in early October.
Eventually those aspects & the cost of a new gas tank (the original had a rust hole in it) - $1000 ! - caused me to think about new horizons. The complex relationship with my ex-wife resulted in a move to "town" & with the sale came a new car. This time again, a really new one. Since I'd bought the farm a new-fangled service had become both normal & practical so it was online I was able to read about developments in automotive transport over the last 20 years. Where I lived was over 100 miles away from Toronto, so, from a practical point of view I visited dealers within 20 miles or so of my home. Being a dyed-in-the-wool imported car driver (confirmed over the years by occasional rentals of American cars) I was limited to VW, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai & Subaru from what I could see. The trend towards all wheel drive crossovers was in full swing & seemed sensible for someone living in a semi-rural environment. I drove all the mid-range models I could - except for the too expensive & too big Toureg - including the quite luxurious Vera Cruz, the Pilot & also the Tribeca & Nissan Murano.
It was fairly easy to filter out the Pilot as I thought it clumsily soft & too much akin to driving a Buick. The Vera Cruz did appeal, but was too big - I didn't need 3 rows of seats. When I got to the Murano I hesitated. The size was just right & I particularly liked the way the pedals moved forth & back to accommodate long or short legs, but still maintaining a preset distance to the steering wheel.
But it was a bit dear & I worried about gravel roads chipping away at the wheel wells which didn't seem to have a plastic lip as protection.
Now V & I had had a Subaru Forester some 15 years earlier, & I had fond memories of that boxy first edition Forester so went across the road to the Subaru dealer. Thinking again of the Forester.But then I saw the Tribeca, with what I thought was a very attractive interior - it looked very modern & spaceship-like with a bright, swoopy aluminium (really plastic, but well done) fascia.
When I read the reviews, they were very positive about the Tribeca, saying it had good handling (which it did) & a decent engine. So I bought one.

We took that car down to South Carolina & were really, very pleased with it. It was comfortable, roomy for all our stuff, had enough power - a 3 litre flat 6 cylinder - and was, I thought, quite an attractive vehicle. The front end apparently, according to the manufacturer, was intended to resemble an aircraft's wings & I agree, it does have that look. But a stupid journalist complained about the appearance, thought it looked pig-like, & from then on, every reviewer criticised the appearance, which very quickly had an effect upon sales. Within 2 years of the 1996 release the front end was reshaped into something very boring, & what had been a good shape, was now rubbish. So, when, 6 years later I decided to move on, that image was adversely reflected in the trade-in price.

Staying Off Mainstream

I kept the 1980 Rover SD1 for three or four years, & then sold it for what I paid, thanks to its rarity, perhaps. I wasn't intending to sell, but my girlfriend's sister was looking for a car to replace her worn out Chevrolet Astra (which wore out very quickly, being so poorly made) & I suggested she get a Toyota, for their reliability for a young single woman. So we went looking together & found three, the same afternoon! One for her, one for her sister (a nice Honda CRX ) and,...I fell in love with a 1987 Alfa Romeo Milano. It can only have been a year old, but Alfa had a very poor reputation, & perhaps justifiably so - "all go & no show" might have been the label, but this manufacturer, with its link to Ferrari had plenty of go - in fact they went too fast as far as bodywork was concerned. Rust was a major problem on salt-encrusted Canadian roads. I don't, sadly, have a photo of it, but it was just the same as this one, but in a rich, dark blue. I think this car, the Alfa 75 in Europe, is one of the best looking cars of its time.

With a fabulously responsive 2.5 litre V6 engine it was a delight to drive. Well, almost. Sadly - and unnoticed by me on my ecstatic test drive - these cars suffered from the famous Italian ape-like driving position! Meaning the steering wheel was too far away when the seat was moved back to enable efficient pedal reach. And even more disconcerting was the staggered layout of those pedals - they were not in line with your seating position, so you had to sit sort of sideways a bit to drive. I didn't mind that around town, but on our long, 2 hour journeys to our place on Georgian Bay, I fretted. Complained.

And then one day, my partner's brother - a budding automobile broker, brought an Audi 80 for us to look at. I was astonished at the build quality - it seemed to be cast from a solid piece of metal. So off I went, charmed with the pride of ownership of a "quality" car for perhaps the first time.And indeed I was mostly pleased - nothing squeaked or moved as you drove along, unlike my (almost) beloved Alfa. The car was attractive, in a bland sort of way, comfortable, economical & very well built. But a little (a lot, really) slow after the Milano. In fact, despite the sensible manufacture, the car was BORING! Slow, with awful torque steer I discovered one day when having to accelerate heavily in a tight corner. Oh dear!. And, as an avid reader of car magazines, I knew -or thought I knew - that these cars came with a 5 cylinder motor which was said to be an ideal compromise between the economy of a 4 cylinder & the power of a 6. Imagine my surprise - confusion - embarassment even, when after a couple of weeks I went to check the oil - and noticed - oops! Only 4 spark plug leads! That must mean, umm, four cylinders! No wonder it needed a bit of patience when overtaking!

But my tastes were gradually becoming more refined as far as cars were concerned. Of course, everyone, even then, aspired to BMWs but too many, in my opinion, opted for status instead of the dynamic reasons for the maker's reputation. Me, I wanted the comfort of a US car, the build quality of a Leica camera all combined with the rear wheel drive handling of a European aristocrat. The Audi had the quality, the Rover had the comfort & the Alfa epitomised the Euro handling, but to combine all those things, it seemed to me, there was just BMW & Mercedes.

The Unachievable Search For Perfection

MY FRIEND at work, Ron, was a serious car aficionado, who convinced me to subscribe to Car magazine, which set itself & its readers, lofty heights. Comparatively speaking, that is, seeing as magazines for petrol-heads these days are filled with glorious pictures of unobtainable supercars.
But then, reading this & other mags put me "on the road" for the eternal quest for my ideal car.
I did like the Saab 900 but there were a couple of irritations: even with my seat lowered to its bottom level, because I like to have my backrest fairly vertical, my hair often touched the headlining. And also, on the overrun, the gear lever seemed to rock back & forward again when accelerating. As the engines were mounted back to front in Saabs - with the gearbox in front of the engine, this may have been the cause? Anyway, I was always aware of this, & began to explore the benefits of rear wheel drive cars.
One day, mooching around town while getting the Saab serviced, I came across a seldom-seen-in-Canada car - a Rover 3500.

 It was a 1980 model, so I expect the date here was 1983 when coming across the car, in this same gold colour. And...I fell in love! This car had so much going for it! A smallish V8 engine, a hatchback, a sunroof & air-con. Central locking! Power windows! What more could I ask? The price was even bearable, at $6000, which was indicative of heavy depreciation, some 60% from new, but why (I didn't ask)?
So I bought it. My wife was furious, perhaps justifiably as although I'd previously expressed an interest, she seemed not to think me serious, & admittedly, we didn't really need it, as we still had the fairly new Saab 900, but by then I'd borrowed half the money & brought the car home. Now we had 2 cars; one for winter days & a more luxurious one for the rest of the time.
Perhaps that was the excuse she needed for finding a boyfriend & then moving out? I'd tried to appease her, giving her the Saab with a personalised number plate, but the writing was on the wall.
I kept the Rover, and it wasn't long before I began to see why the Rover had suffered such serious depreciation. This was the era of tremendous industrial strife in Britain, with very bolshy unions that Mrs. Thatcher was dealing with, but my car was a product of those unfortunate times. A wonderful car in design, the execution left something to be desired. The panelling on the doors was really just thin mouse fur velour over cardboard, & frequently popped out. The engine sometimes cut out while driving, momentarily, apparently due to Rover's poor choice of Lucas ignition. But apart from that...I loved the car.

Adapting To Winter

Where we used to spend holidays & non-work days was 100 miles N of Toronto, on the edge of one large lake & close to another even larger one. The winds blew chill off the icy waters from October to June, & too often carried snow. Once the snow started it usually didn't melt for over 4 months, so a more suitable car for those conditions was needed.
Besides, the little Fiat 128 didn't really fit my increasingly discerning tastes - I read all the car magazines to form those opinions!
A most sensible choice seemed to be a Saab 99.  These were fairly new to Canada & rapidly making their mark. After all, few cars had heated seats, demisters for side windows that actually worked & solid, thoughtful construction that went so far as to camber the car doors in at the sills so snow & slush didn't easily transfer to clothing upon entry or exit. A fairly sprightly 1800cc engine (Triumph based) gave a bit under 100 HP controlled by 4 gears. I also liked the quirkiness of the ignition key being by the handbrake instead of in the dashboard like every other car.  Ours was the same colour as shown here, except it wasn't the hoity-toity Turbo model that this one is, so also didn't have the flash wheels. Not that I aspired to the Turbo model as these early adoptions of turbochargers meant engine heating problems - you had to run the engine a few seconds after stopping, before switching off, & after all, I wasn't - never have been - much of a speed demon. I bought cars for esoteric reasons. Comfort, style & build quality. Suitability for purpose.

 Now, if you're a Canadian reading this, you won't be impressed with pictures of cars half-buried in snow, but to me, a relative newcomer to real winter weather at the time these photos were taken, in the mid-seventies, I was aghast at the severity of blizzards!
So the Saab 99 did us well - that is until the Saab 900 came on the market. I was a bit dismayed at the price - around C$13000 which was a big jump over the previous model; but this was the era when inflation began creeping up.
Our Saab 900 really wasn't very different from its predecessor, now I think back on, just a bit more modern in appearance, with fuel injection, a 2 litre engine pumping the power to over, gasp, 105 HP! With 5 gears, it seemed very peppy to me. And perhaps a trifle more mainstream in appearance from outside, although it maintained the sensibly placed ignition key socket.
It was the same colour as the one below, and had those ugly rubber bumpers required by US safety regulators.
These were know as "5mph" bumpers as they were supposed to resist an impact of less than that speed without damage, but unfortunately, that even was questionable, & the cost of replacing one, with it's built-shock absorbers, exceeded the earlier & prettier chrome ones.

Off To Canada

BUT FIRST there was a short sojourn back in Oz with my dear parents. By this time, the very early 1970s, Dad had progressed to the Volkswagen 1600, which was a radical difference in appearance from the Beetle, really called the Type 1. It was still built on a chassis, with a rear air-cooled engine, but it was a bit bigger & more conventional appearance. Dad's was probably a 1971 or so, & likely fully imported from Germany, although some other body shapes were made in Melbourne, until production ceased, with the remaining cars just being imported as CKD, which means in pieces for reassembly - Complete Knock Down. A new company was formed to do this which also assembled Datsun & Volvos.

The 1600 served them very well, & initially I recalled it as a nice car, but upon a visit when it was some 15 years old, the upholstery had lost its comfortable padding & the car was terribly hot without air-con.
Cars in Australia can last for decades longer than in Canada or northern US states as rust is not a problem in such a dry climate, so on later visits to Melbourne it was interesting to see the same cars still going strong, even if the paint & dashboards faded from prolonged exposure to the hot sun.
Some other family members had memorable cars: a cousin drove - & carefully polished & maintained - a Mayflower, & an uncle owned a lovely Humber Snipe.

But my partner didn't enjoy life in Australia, so after a short return to England, where we lived & worked in Hampshire, we, with a very young son, moved to Toronto, Canada.
With family responsibilities now, a steady job was obtained & we soon bought a house. Houses were quite affordable then, in Toronto, & I observe that our first house, bought for around $50,000, would be worth some 25 times that now, making it, & most other houses in Toronto, too expensive for  young families. And so it was then I was able to afford my first NEW car!
Not that the bright yellow Fiat 128 we carefully chose was a luxurious car, but it was well reviewed, back then when car reviews had meaning & were useful & trustworthy - so very different from the superficial rewrites of company blurbs you read nowadays.

Our little car had front wheel drive, just like my earlier Renault & unlike the rear wheel drive VWs I had become used to, & fwd was a significant advantage in snowy Ontario.
We were fortunate enough to be able to spend weekends & holidays in the country, and even more fortunate in that my job also provided a car for business & personal use. We were supposed to keep track of personal miles & not claim them back in our expense accounts, but this was a minor expense, so instead on taking our new Fiat over rough, unpaved gravel roads, through salty slush & often deep snow, we used the company car, a  1973 Ford Torino, which to me, seemed enormous, as did the following Chevrolet Chevelle. Here's photo of me (and her) from that time. I have mixed feelings about these very large American cars. On the one hand they handled terribly - going over bumps while cornering often made the back end hop sideways, and the seats, although wide, were not really comfortable. But there is something appealing about the effortless power of a big, lazy V8 engine, as well as the burbling sound the engine makes.

And then promotion came along, & the significant pay raise was modified by the loss of the car as the job became mostly an indoors one. I didn't really mind having to go to the office every day as I wasn't disciplined enough to work efficiently from home 3 days a week, & public transport in Toronto was both good & cheap, as it still is.
But the Fiat, being a European economy car from a climate far less harsh than Canada's, really wasn't cut out for deep snow as we suffered from in the snowbelt part of Ontario where we spent weekends. Lovely in the summer, but then, 8 months of the year...Brrr!

Back To The UK

IN MY EARLY twenties I moved back to England. Sort of ... as I went back & forth several times, as in those days I was able to get an easy job transfer between the AA & the RACV.
In London you don't really need a car but by the time I was living in Walthamstow with my girlfriend Jennifer & her parents, there was much to explore. I don't know how I came upon my 1964 Renault R4, or how much it cost - around￡300 I think - but the R4 was probably the first hatchback & thus a precursor of the ubiquitous SUV. Being a french car, designed to compete with the iconic Citroen 2CV, it was pretty basic, with a small engine of less than a litre in size, seats reminiscent of deckchairs & lots of roll (but limpet-like handling) but also had a wonderfully large sunroof. Many manufacturers charge around $2000 for sunroofs these days as an "extra", more's the pity! You can see that the Renault has the 2 box shape so prevalent today. But the interior was rather different as the gear lever protruded from the dashboard. To change gear you pulled & twisted left & right, in more or less the familiar H pattern.

This car was slow to accelerate, but very comfortable & practical, so I was sorry to have to sell it, as I "moved on" in life. I put that term in quotes as possibly inappropriate, but changes were certainly made.
As I said I worked in London for the famous Automobile Association, who were based in Leicester Square, a truly wonderful place to work. As the job involved dealing with cars going in & out of the continent, in those pre-EU days, cars were required to carry Carnets de Passage to enable easy entry into France, in particular, so I was exposed to many international travellers, at at time when travel was not as cheap as it later became. Several were planning to go "overland" to Katmandu, perhaps inspired by The Beatles venture into eastern music for a while. George Harrison's Within You, Without You is the best example.
So I wanted a car that could go anywhere - just in case my new lady friend & I decided to take off for Asia. It had to be something strong & 4 wheel drive, we thought, but the obvious choice, Land Rovers, were out of our price range. Still, as the Second World War was only 25 years in the past, an ex-military vehicle appealed, built as they were supposed to be, to last!

Ours looked just like this restored one, without the snorkel or shovel, but we were able to utilise the gun racks for umbrellas. Unusually, the Champ had the ability to reverse the transmission, so that with a lever, you could go through all 4 gears in reverse! We used to joke that this must have been very useful during the Dunkirk evacuation! We took that car for a lovely summer sojourn in Andorra, camping out in a farmer's field by the edge of a lovely stream, & fell asleep each night to the sound of that bubbling brook mixed with the dinging of the cowbells around the necks of the farmer's Charolais cattle.

Other Interesting Cars From My Aussie Days

WHEN I was a teenager our family lived mostly in Australia, which meant that by the 1960s there was a good mix of British & American cars to choose from.Of course, the most popular models were Holden & Falcon, home grown for the most part, taking styling ideas from their parent company in Detroit. An early Holden is a visible prop in the TV series A Place To Call Home,  which is set just outside Sydney in the Fifties. As you can see, it looked very much like big brother Chevrolets.

Falcons had a more modern appearance by the time they came onto the market about 10 years after the Holden, and progressed from the ponton look of Holden into a more integrated shape, thereby doing away with the engine bulge, fender shapes & curved trunk into a 3 box design that would last for many decades until the rise of the CUV of today.
The evolution of car shapes is a very interesting one, beginning as they did from a horseless carriage with a motor, to the powerful, safe & quite efficient car of today.
The trunk was literally that in early days - a luggage receptacle strapped to the back of the car in the US, but the British term "boot" predates "trunk", going back to the 18th century where footmen of wealthy households did double duty as coachmen, and, due to the undeveloped nature of roads those days, need boots for the coach. These were stored in the "boot locker" attached to rear of the coach. Gradually, the "locker" bit was dropped to become just "boot" as is used today.
To my mind there is something very attractive about the shape of cars before, say 1955, when cars in North America underwent a dramatic change in appearance - they were usually very outdated underneath, with cart springs, pre-war engines & poor brakes. And perhaps they needed refined chassis far less that European cars, because that was the time when the wonderfully useful Interstate system of wide, divided, gently curving freeways was put in place. So a big, clumsy car with a floaty ride was popular...for a while until Ralph Nader exposed GM shortcuts in his famous book Unsafe At Any Speed  which was an attack upon Chevrolet's attempt at a smaller car - the somewhat Volkswagen mimicking (by having a rear air-cooled engine) Corvair.

The Volkswagen Era

It wasn't long, however, before my cousin, still in his twenties, discovered he had a knack for sales as well as an interest in cars.Soon, he combined the two by deciding to buy & then sell, used Volkswagens. And of course, as he trolled the market, suitable cars for the whole family became available. We, Dad, me & others, soon all drove VWs. They weren't called Beetles, in those days of course, as there was only one model, starting from before the war. At the time I became a VW driver, the engine was an air-cooled one of 1200 cc developing, gasp, 36 HP! (In comparison, my current car has way too much engine power at 325 HP)
My first Volksie was a 1956 with the small back window like this one below - I think the original pre-war cars had a tiny, divided rear window so mine was a step up!

But of course, after a while there were further refinements to the car - the engine power went up to 40 HP, turn signals were incorporated into the mudguards, replacing the lit-up semaphores in both my car & Dad's earlier A30.
Dad got a green one to replace the Austin, & later another with fancy, chrome override bumpers! 
One of the reasons we drove Volkswagens was that, in many ways, they were an improvement upon the alternatives, being mostly outdated Morris Minors or Fords. VWs were well made, virtually indestructible & very economical with fuel. But one funny quirk was that in the interest of economy, my car didn't have a fuel gauge! Instead, it had a little lever tucked away in the footwell above the pedal which switched the basic fuel tank over to the emergency tank, giving you about another 30 miles of driving. What you were supposed to do was drive until the engine spluttered, kick the lever over to horizontal, fill up as soon as possible & kick the lever back into its vertical position. It was all very easy to do, but very hard for me to remember, so what happened far too often was driving until the engine coughed, trying to switch over & then discovering that you were ALREADY drawing petrol from the emergency tank, & thus stuck!

MY First Car

But the A30 was my Dad's & wisely perhaps, I didn't get to drive it. However before we left Perth I learnt to drive on a 1948 Buick that was supplied to my salesman cousin in his job.
He taught me about the pedals & gearchanges - how to double declutch & to release the brake at the very last moment when stopping, so that the car doesn't jerk to a stop. Most people haven't mastered those skills, I observe, by the way. I also was taught to use the manual choke to move the car a bit before managing to balance the clutch with the throttle. I expect the Buick looked something like this old Chevrolet. It was a very simple & easy car to drive, with just 2 or perhaps 3 forward gears, mounted, as they say, "on the tree".

Later on, when I could afford it, I was able to purchase my own car, a Ford Consul. Used, of course but still in reasonable shape. I think it was a 1956, with 2 tone paint. The Consul was the cheaper of the mid-sized Fords, the better & more well-equipped model being the Zephyr, but fundamentally they were the same car. But the Consul had less chrome, no heater nor, gulp, the ultimate luxury for the day, windscreen washers to enable one to clear the screen without having to stop, get out, find the rag, rub away, pour a little water from the bottle you carried onto the viewing area, rubbing again before hopping back in - only to usually find that streaks had been left, so it was either out again to finish the job, or restart the engine, because, of course, the wipers were not electric but needed the engine running to provide the vacuum. One other drawback of that system was that just when you needed the wipers most, say at speed in heavy rain, the wipers wove back & forth very slowly, depending on throttle position. But once you backed off the gas, they beat away like crazy, making a puff with every stroke! I think my Consul looked just like this, except being green where red is shown here.

By the way, after so many decades of cars mostly having just one colour, I think I perceive a trend back towards 2 tone cars, but time will tell.
The Consul was quite a roomy car, especially after the cramped Austin. But even though Melbourne doesn't ever have below freezing temperatures, it can get pretty close, & the lack of heat meant that I'd often have to drive with a blanket around my knees!