I THOUGHT IT MAY BE A LITTLE BIT OF LIGHT HEARTED FUN FOR POSTERS TO TELL US ABOUT BOTH THE CARS THEY DRIVE AT THE MOMENT, AND THE CARS THEY WOULD ASPIRE TO DRIVE, IF THEY HAD THE RESOURCES.

nice thread, Oily!

At present, I drive nothing, because the public transport here in Frankfurt is so good. I have previously owned a Ford Capri II 2.0, which I sold to my brother and which burst into flames one night about three weeks later, and a Peugeot 405 estate, which I crashed in Paris. My brother now drives a TVR Cerbera, which he hasn't crashed into anything.

Aspirational/Fave cars? Range Rover, and almost anything by Jaguar. Have to agree with Oily about the Noble, as you get Ferrari performance for Porsche money, plus it has a lot of extra cachet for its scarcity.

All that said, if we're being sensible and realistic, I think the new Skodas are very strong (with apologies to Al!) and that the Mondeo diesels take a lot of beating. I've driven quite a lot of hire cars since coming to Germany and those really stood out.

I wondered when someone would raise the public transport bit, but I thought it would be someone from the Southeast of the UK!!
I was half expecting the usual nonsense about poor railways and how investment would improve matters. I already had my slavo lined up about a capito-centric idealism. The railways are a complete irrelevancy to the vast majority of the UK and I get fed up with them being treated as some kind of invention of the gods that deserves massive funding so a few London dwellers can reap the rewards.
Anyway, I got my rant in nevertheless.
Alan

Al, I have to say that the Germans really have it worked out when it comes to public transport. and in any case, any time you could possibly save by driving a private vehicle gets eaten up by the ten minutes you'll spend searching for somewhere to park it and the time you'll then spend walking between your parking space and the place you really want to be.

Oh, and when you've finished working/shopping/sleeping/philandering, you'll spend all that walking time talking on on your mobile to the nice people at "Tracker" asking them to locate your car for you, because with parking so tight, you'll never get to park it in the same electoral borough twice and will inevitably forget where you left it.

Hello one and all, seeing how i'm the new guy on here and this is only the second message i've posted ever thought it rather fitting that i be the one to lower the tone, currently drivng a vectra (feel free to laugh, personally i cry ever time i get in it) but my dream fun car would be, and i have very low standards, ariel atom just looks to much fun to miss out on, i know all this may sound at little insane compared to all the other great cars out there but i assure you i can still tell the difference between a hawk and a hand saw
Lee

Saab 9-5 Aero - dream car TVR Sagaris.

A message for you all to pass on to your friends. The uk motorist is about to be taxed even harder-register your protest now only one month left.

Go to htp://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/ and read about it.

I did think of doing a thread --what do you all think?

Skinny, Saab 9-5 definitely nothing to be ashamed of. Was once given a 2.3 Turbo as an upgrade and whipped it all the way from Frankfurt to Strasbourg and back. Lots of smiles per hour :o))

Back in the early seventies a mate of mine had a Reliant Sabre 6, this was the predecessor to the Scimitar GTE. It had a 2.6 litre straight six Ford engine, wire wheels and looked a little like an E type. It was an old bone shaker, but I think I had more excitement in that car than most, oh what memories.

ST - I've had the big Saabs for 20 years - this is definetely the quickest - but the build quality isnt there anymore - lots of vauxhall switch gear etc . Also they used to have stacks of interior storage space - but not anymore.

Skinny, curious about that. I haven't had enough experience to be able to compare; the Saab I did drive was about 4 years ago - but very entertaining!! Apparently Mercedes are also no longer managing the quality for which they used to be famous - have listened to a lot of German taxi drivers whingeing about how they no longer make 'em like they used to. BTW I can't stand Vauxhall switch gear - once had a new Vectra 2.2 DTI from Kennings and the performance and comfort were alright, but the indicators had me cursing the entire length of the M3. Gimme Mondeo any day!

MP - thanks for your post - will try and take a look later on!

alfa romeo ...... best cars on the road !

Had 205 (1.6) Gti but now got 206 Gti. Former absolutely fabulous fun car to drive - latter too heavy & lost the driver appeal, but better on motorways.
Also had a 1500 Spitfire but thanks to rubbish British Leyland steel had to give it away recently as a restoration project! Have got admit that I am a bit of a fan of Triumph Stags but the BL badge keeps reminding me why I shouldn't get one.
When my GOO shares make me rich, Aston Martin Vantage. (V8 Roadster?)

Well I do like my Volvo s40 se , However like Harrycat I do like the Aston Martin IF I Had the cash :)

I'd like everyone to drive an electric-powered delivery vehicle from Modec so that my shares in AXE can go up (AXE makes the batteries and power management technology!!) :o)

PS - Aston what?? I'm sorry, but even with a gun to my head, if I had the money to buy an Aston Martin, I'd still use it to buy a house instead.

Actually, there are places in Germany where for that kind of money I could buy a block of flats and still have enough change for a secondhand TVR. Who's the Daddy? :o))

Yeah, but soult, you can't drive a house. :o)
& it's all relative! In Southwold in Suffolk, beach huts are currently selling between 25-30K. Block of flats in Frankfurt or des res near a poultry farm in Suffolk; I know which I would rather have!!!

LOL :o)

REMEMBER EVERYONE TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO SIGN THE PETITION TO SCRAP THE GOVERNMENTS PLAN TO CHARGE TRAVELTAX EVERY TIME YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR..............................SO FAR THERE ARE ONLY ABOUT 1.6 MILLION SIGNATURES ON THE LIST. WE NEED 5 MILLION FOR THEM TO LISTEN......................TODAY IS THE LAST DAY.........TODAY IS THE LAST DAY................DO IT NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE AT......................PETITIONS.PM.GOV.UK/TRAVELTAX...............TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO DO THE SAME.

Oily - It only needs 100 signatures to be passed on to officials in Downing Street - so I think there is more than enough already.

I wouldn't overly worry about this suggested tracking concept because quite frankly, whoever proposed the idea didn't think it through. Have a think about what is being proposed. A number of satellites will be required to continuously monitor the movements of every car in the country, and since the satellites will not be able to predict when you are going shopping (or whatever) this literally will mean the monitoring of EVERY single car whether in motion at any given time or not in use (or in a showroom, etc). Does anybody think that we have enough satellites in orbit at the moment to continously monitor the millions of cars out there? I think not. So the governement would have to fund the production of a whole flotilla of new satellites, which will not be cheep. Is there enough space out there for hundreds of geo-stationary satellites? Hardly cost effective. And another thing - while these satellites are busy transmiting data back to their groundstations about car movements, they can't be transmiting TV signals, radio comms, telephony, spy images, etc. In other words, the idea of monitoring tracking systems in vehicles will take up too much of the available bandwidth of the satellite systems. I don't think the telcos and governmental agencies will be too happy with their satellites not being used for the function they were initially designed for, and would actively oppose such use.

Just my thoughts on the matter.