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Originally Posted by Paul Markham
Eva and I have just bought new cars.
I looked at the Saabs, Audis, Mercs and more of the more expensive cars Even thought about buying a Jaguar, which was nice and the only one I seriously considered.
But in the end it's only a car to go from A to B. Ended up with a Ford.
Just can't justify spending $50,000 on transport.
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When I still lived in London, I resented owning any car, since I only drove at weekends and that only occasionally. The solution was to buy a "classic" which - depending on what you buy - offers several ways to save money: no road tax on anything more than 25 years old (it was then, now it's pre-1973 I believe); lots of insurance companies will give you full cover on cars over 15 years old for as little as 75 stirling a year (so long as you can live with a 5,000 mile per year cap); and if you buy carefully, little or no depreciation, often a profit.
When I was younger, a real classic (read vintage) involved a lot of cash and hassles over reliability and maintenance. But since you mentioned Jaguar, at least until 10 years ago you could find low-mileage, as-new series2 XJ6/12s (my favorite ride) for 8K-12K. Come to that, RR Shadows were only around 15K then. In other words, nowadays you can buy quite a lot of really nice more-or-less "modern" rides without a major cash layout or special ownership problems.
Otherwise I would agree about Fords. I have owned a Zodiac, a couple of Granadas and a Scorpio (a great shame they screwed themselves with that "frog-eyed" design and dropped out of that end of the market). One of the cars I wish I had kept was a supercharged RS Capri which could see off a 911 Turbo without any effort at all, and I had all the XR range at one time or another
