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Hello from Austin, Texas. I was waiting for it to stop raining so I could wash the car properly, but that's never happening, apparently, so here are pics of my new-to-me car, dirty. It's a 2007 V8 Vantage, 19k miles, all the bells and whistles. The paint is sharp, a pearl metallic that has the tiniest hint of a nacreous glow in the right light. Everything works, so all I've done to it since I got it a couple of weeks ago is put stickers on the back window. Well, ok, it wants gas struts for the passenger doors; I bought them last week and will pop them in next weekend. It sounds cooler than my Miata. I'm pretty pleased about the whole situation.
Texas F1, I'll watch for you on the highways and byways. I'm in the middle of town. Looks like you're in Leander, which puts you much closer to the dealership. With luck, dealer location won't be too relevant to me! I've seen an Aston Martin at Fair Bean coffee by my house a couple of times, so maybe there are a couple in my neighborhood, now. ncamv8, I confess I haven't played with fuse 22 yet. We've got a car tinkering weekend scheduled for next weekend, and I'm giving the honors to the guy who will get the biggest kick out of the fusectomy. Ron Avery, a three pedal set up is a deal breaker for me. I was shopping for low mileage F-Types, but the manuals only came out in 2016, so I realized I'd have to wait a year or two if I wanted one of those used. I also drove an Alfa 4C, which is flappy paddles only, and was almost swayed for the first time in my life to buy an automatic, but I resisted. It would be way easier to live with than the Lotus Elise I've tracked and road tripped all over the place, but my wife would still have considered it ridiculously low and annoying to get into and out of. I sorta hate to buy a car that the other driver in the house would actively dislike. And the particular 4C I was considering had a fun LOUD boy racer exhaust that made me smile, but would not have made the neighbors smile. Anyway, stick shifts for me for as long as they keep making them. shootermcgav1n, yeah, I'm pretty giddy. Rain chances are down to only 20 percent for a few hours, so it's out to the driveway with soap and bucket now.
Interesting that you looked at the F-Type, I am a classic Jag owner (1965 E-Type coupe) so I thought a new F-Type would be cool in the garage side by side. I had looked at them for a while but only wanted the manual transmission. Now that it is out I am glad that I bought my Vantage. With only 380 BHP, it is slower in acceleration than my Vantage by 1/2 a sec 0-60. And to order an F-Type with a few options it would run close to $90k. The Jag is still cheaper than a new Vantage. I was able to purchase my car in 2007 with 2800 miles for $69k (I now have over 9000 miles). So I think I came out on the better end with this decision. Puss my car with the sport exhaust and the powerpack upgrade is a real blast.
Ron
Ron Avery, yeah, it sounds like we had similar lines of thought about F-Types. I still see one in my future. Maybe the prettiest car in production that a regular guy could hope to afford. And in Austin, the dealership is in the middle of town where I live, instead of waaaaaayyyy off in the next county where most of the fancy dealerships are located. The fire sand metallic orange paint looks great on the F-Types, I think.
blue2000s, no kidding! The Elise (which is a friend's, not mine - we share cars at the track) makes you feel like a genius. Easily the best handling street car I've ever driven. The Elise owner and I went in halfsies on a Spec Miata that handled as well, but didn't have the power/weight ratio (and you had to trailer it). So the Elise wins if you're trying to go precisely somewhere quickly. It's so light that it just goes wherever you point. It's so small that when we've road tripped to tracks, we had to pack socks inside helmets to get everything in. Meanwhile, this Vantage has gravitas, presence. I guess it should considering that it weighs 80 pounds more than my A4!
W126C, Star Motors was fine. I saw some unflattering comments about them elsewhere on this forum, but they did alright by me. The salesman was pretty much a straight shooter. He didn't point out to me that the car needed door gas struts, and I wasn't sophisticated enough about these cars to know to check, but that's within the acceptable range of car sales wheeling and dealing and disclosure. We settled on a price that was about market correct, given the 27 other similar cars that had been listed on Autotrader in the three weeks running up to the sale. It was fun. (And the trip to Houston also resulted in my wife finding a Vera **** ball gown for $80, which made her about as pleased a shopper that day as I was.)
05-27-2016, 05:31 PM
