Owning

My E36 has been getting tons of use as ever, equal to that of my alleged ‘daily’ E34. It’s typically very reliable, but there was a recent hiccup, that being a burst CV joint while hundreds of miles from home in Birmingham. A known weak spot to most owners, and yes, I have exacerbated the issue of course with a Ade’s E36 323i welded diff, lots of lowering and some harsh drift action!

For 23 years my brother has come over from Australia for Beaulieu and Goodwood, latterly buying a cheap 2CV on arrival to get him around Europe, then shipping it home and selling for enough profit to pay his air fares. Impressed by his driving it flat-out to the South of France and back, I began looking for a 2CV for myself and soon found a local dealer ad for a 28,000-mile, one-owner, five-year-old example for £2500.

I’d had the R8 about a month when a neighbour sauntered over and asked if I had won the lottery. Sitting on his drive at the time was a new Renault Zoe with a list price that would comfortably see him into an R8. Not as nice as this one, but a decent R8. And that is the beauty of this generation of Audi: it went into production 15 years ago and has aged so well that people just assume it is still a new car. Why shouldn’t they?

In my last Carrera RS update, I voiced my distress at seeing most of the front end of the car in a rust-riddled and singed heap on the workshop floor. The situation rapidly improved as new panels were welded into place and front wings and doors temporarily attached to ensure that everything was aligned properly. With the Porsche once again looking like a more-or-less intact car, I was lulled into imagining that the job was almost there. Hmm. How foolish of me.

I’ve always wondered if the caveman that invented the wheel ever imagined we’d all be sitting in endless traffic jams. The romanticism of the journey is quickly dispelled by the sound of bass-driven rap music from the car next to me. I must admit, though, that the Audi has been pulling its weight in hauling me and my photo gear effortlessly from adventure to adventure - and I’m always looking for opportunities to place my car wherever I happen to be.

It’s been a busy few weeks for Paul’s 2000 Jaguar XK8 4.0 X100 having been compared to not one or two but three rivals. Although the 18th century French philosopher and mathematician, the Marquis de Condorcet, once advised to, “Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another,” I still find pitching my XK8 against rivals from the same era to be a fascinating experience.

With warpaint inspired by the legendary Green Hell, this Mercedes-AMG GT R is a serious track monster. WORDS DAN BEVIS IMAGES JASON DODD HellbeastIt may seem like an obvious thing to say, but the Mercedes-AMG GT is a special car.

Let me introduce you to Doris the Daimler. More precisely, a 1954 Daimler Conquest. Gloss black, with gold, hand-painted coachlines added to relieve the boredom. We met via a nearby dealer's website in the spring of 2019, dated, and have been going out together ever since. Social climberLegend has it that the Conquest, fitted as standard with a six-cylinder engine and pre-selector gearbox, was so-named because of its £1066 ex-factory price tag.

Richard tell us that his M635CSi was manufactured at BMW’s Dingolfing plant on 18 May 1987 – number 421 of 524 right-hand drive M635 models. Reader’s Rides Interestingly, it was the penultimate pre-facelift UK-spec car to roll off the production line. Painted in Royal Blue Metallic with a Pearl Beige leather interior, it boasts factory-fitted air-conditioning, an electric sunroof, headlight washer system, electric seats, rear headrests, and a rear sunblind.

Chromium is a chemical element occurring naturally in many forms, but in hexavalent form it’s toxic and carcinogenic. And it covers significant parts of an old car, including bumpers, doorhandles and windscreen surrounds. Funny thing though, as Nigel Hayward, production manager at S&T Electroplating, points out: ‘We don’t use a lot. In fact, the chromium is really just a thin lacquer to seal in the nickel-plate underneath.

‘A summer of excuses’, I predicted. And sure enough, at every opportunity I’ve enjoyed a blast in the Boxster – when I haven’t been using my BMW Convertible, that is.

Introduced to Mercedes-Benz and the first generation SLK at a young age, it was only natural for William Duke to purchase his own roadster two decades later The R170 still looks striking today — a mixture of neat detailing and clean sides.

Recent weather incidents have made the Sovereign an obvious choice for a seaside getaway. Of course it had to happen. My Range Rover’s air conditioning had to fail just before the most intense heat wave on record in Britain. And so once again I found myself using my Sovereign as daily transport. After all, you need aircon in weather like that. And that meant that when I needed a car for date night with my good lady, the Jaguar was at the front of the queue.

After a 30-year career in the police in Scotland, the last 20 as a traffic cop, in 2010 I bought my dream car, a manual Ferrari F355 GTS. As soon as I had joined the police I knew I wanted to be in the traffic department, but I did ten years on the beat in Rosyth first. I joined Traffic in 1991, achieved a class one advanced pass in training and was named driver of the year. We drove SD1 Vitesses, Senator 24V 3.0-litres and Granada 2.9 Injection 4x4s – proper rear-wheel-drive power machines.

I don’t know a soul who isn’t enamoured by the thought of owning a large Citroën, even though most are usually rather inhibited to take the plunge. The CX, released in 1974 and replacing the seemingly irreplaceable DS, is one such machine. Styled by the incomparable Robert Opron for a company on the verge of bankruptcy with monumental illusions of grandeur, Citroën created the car for sale worldwide and in doing so, brought all the political ravages of the day crashing down upon its dreams.