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Asking a young lady what she thinks of Heritage is like asking a Justin Bieber fan what she thinks of Frank Sinatra.
Just offer to pay for their gas or phone bill next time, you will find that far more effective.
Heritage is not the privilege nor desire of those who have barely escaped adolescence, it is for those firmly in grasp of their future.
Last edited by Queen and Country; 06-11-2017 at 03:54 PM.
Moses you should put the Rolls Royce Ghost on your list.
I could not find any under a 100K which is already pushing the budget. A couple of Phantoms at that price, but that looks more like a chauffeur driven car. My dog likes to sit in the front seat if she has a choice... Wraith for me is the lottery Rolls I'd want. What a work of art that car is.
You have impeccable taste, and deserving of our best thoughts;
The Arnage is 20 years old in another year. I have a picture with it from 30 years ago, as its not much different than its predecessor. Its from a cash strapped era (its design and considerations)
The next generation (phantom, ghost) was a perfect meeting of currents- RR was given the freedom of finance, parts, and technology and most amazingly asked to be as British as it possibly could. For instance, the unmatched coachmanship was preserved and assisted with tech. The Carpathian elm burl dash was traditionally flat because the British art did not have tools for complex curves, they did with BMW's technology.
Its one of the rare opportunities to indulge in reverse taxation and subsidy.
The current generation has been raised to salivate over the Ghost and Phantom thanks to rap videos. Which guarantees its future, and reflected in the current lack of depreciation. Our Jag have depreciated 2x as much in comparison while being twice more affordable and rare.
You can easily get it for 80 when the market goes south. The only reason half the people can buy it now is ridiculously low int. rates and length of loan.
BTW, great way to get money out right now for 3%. I bet in 10 years you can sell the car for 65k even at a fire sale.
Go drive one, you will think twice about the chauffeured aspect. The grill in the garage alone is rewarding enough.
Friend's. He is younger than me and a prime specimen if there ever was. Its one of the few cars made for his height. I am far too small and would be disproportionate in the Phantom.
This is from decade ago, much water has passed under the bridge, yet that car looks as relevant today as it was then. Still no reservation required at any restaurant where they see you pull up in it.
Here is a better photo that shows how it appears to be in motion even when standing still. The Ghosts has all the same proportions to scale. Another huge difference from Arnage years. The current cars are designed for taller guys- which believe it or not goes a very long way towards resale values. (many of our cars were sold because of folks not being able to get in and out of them)
Moses, you are looking at it from the wrong end. One gets far more than they put into it.
Maintenance is no more than other cars with similar engines.
Depreciation is less than others. (RR works very hard at this- they would lose their brand otherwise)
However, when viewed in contrast to a $100k vehicle that goes to $20k and doesnt deliver $80k worth of pleasure this is a bargain.
Here is the best example of the Ghost's reliability and worth, a water damaged one just sold on ebay for $80k. That tells you how scared folks are of risk/reward.
look at this street 'presence' and yet not bombastic, there is nothing like it!
Asking a young lady what she thinks of Heritage is like asking a Justin Bieber fan what she thinks of Frank Sinatra.
Just offer to pay for their gas or phone bill next time, you will find that far more effective.
Heritage is not the privilege nor desire of those who have barely escaped adolescence, it is for those firmly in grasp of their future.
There is a difference in perception of heritage between the United States, and Great Britain.
In Great Britain, it was the norm to cement all acquisitions into one large estate, that passed down narrowly within one heir, this was the heritage that heir would take over. Ancient heritage under this system is important and relevant, because it was not parceled away in different directions, but passed down in its entirety.
This system made illegal at the founding of my country, and a strict equal division of property was enforced. This resulted in splitting up the heritage, and resulted in Americans no longer viewing the entire line, but rather the parts possessed by those that it was split too.
This created a fundamental difference in perception of heritage across the Atlantic. What has been done in a person's life time is more important; as they started with less, and the only way to rise is by their own actions and merits, rather than good management of a solid ancestral foundation.
Now while inheritance laws in the United States have been relaxed from a strict anti-British state, these differences remain in public perception.
When I walked through the tunnel under the Casino at Monaco, the heritage of Nuvolari, Ascari, Clark, etc, is gone. A new tunnel has been made, and only those that raced through the new tunnel belong to the new tunnel's heritage. Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton, etc.
It is a different matter in the Casino square, the ghosts of old and new alike still inhabit that place. The circuit of Monte Carlo has parts that retain its old heritage, and keep it into the present, but other parts do not.
Were all those parts reconstructed to evict the sentimental remains of those passed by, the heritage of the circuit from those days would cease to exist to me. A new heritage is made.
When it comes to cars, it is the places they are made, the methods they are made, and the people that make them that give them their heritage - not the name of the car.
In the case of Rolls Royce, the methods are passed down from person to person, this retains the heritage of the brand.
In the case of our Jaguar XK, this has not taken place, ours are made from machines and robots, and although there is still in places a personal touch, and they are made in an old factory, yet significant heritage does not pass down from the XKE to the XK.
In the case of our Jaguar XK, this has not taken place, ours are made from machines and robots, and although there is still in places a personal touch, and they are made in an old factory, yet significant heritage does not pass down from the XKE to the XK.
That tells me you might not be aware of the heritage of our model.
And its not a matter of perception.
Had you said that of the F-type, I might have agreed with you.
Practically all but one of the core DNA of Jaguar's heritage is present in the XK 5.0. (to a flaw)
Lets break it down:
1. Grace- space - pace. Check. Not an easy feat, its absent from Maserati, Ferrari, F-type
2. Appearance and throwback to the coolest car of all time, which made Jaguar's heritage, the E-type- check. This is what the E-type would have looked like if it were made today, in fact, some unnecessary throwbacks such as intake and teardrop headlights. The Ferrari California, Maserati, BMW 6, have virtually none of their ancestor's calling cards.
3. Exact feel and performance of legendary Jaguars. Long pull engine, (wide power band), low end torque, superb gas mileage, and authoritative passing power (overtake without changing gears- watch the earlier video I posted of XKR passing Aston)
4. Same coachmanship, if not slightly better, burls and leather and still a poor man's Rolls Royce.
Yes still made in Castle Bromwich the same shop its ancestors were made in. Nothing should be hand-made for the sake of being hand-made, especially if the alternative is better. That's not heritage that's retarded. Jaguar's were never manufactured in the Rolls Royce fashion. They were always production cars and thus affordable.
And yes still put together as a riveted aluminum monocouqe like the Spitfire airplanes built in same factor during the war. The Ferrari (I think), and definitely BMW 6 went to that form of construction but only in the second generation of cars. Most notably they have never built cars that way.
The Conundrum-Because it so closely followed Heritage, Jaguar was no longer revolutionary. Watch the end of the interview below. You will see Ian confess that he is trying to shake off the heritage.
An eyeopener for those who may not know behind the scenes at Jaguar.
Ian Callum on Jaguar design
Jaguar design suffered under Ford. The giant American carmaker that owned the niche British firm from 1989 to 2008 replaced Jaguar’s quirky identity with a non-descript generic one. Thankfully under new owner India’s Tata we are progressively seeing a return of the lost magic that made Jaguar cars so evocative.
The current design, however, is very much down to Ian Callum’s vision that is drawing on the marque’s rich heritage to explore a very contemporary Jaguar aesthetic. Under his astute design direction the current family of cars have adopted a modern, confident design identity. Design Talks has been busy driving the range that includes the XF, XK and XJ, as well as arguably one of the most evocative classic cars in history, the E-Type, which we tested on the eve of its 50th birthday at du Parc des Eaux Vives on the edge of Geneva, the very place where founder Sir William Lyons first unveiled the car half a century ago.
To complete our ‘Jaguar experience’ we caught up with Ian Callum over dinner to explore the thinking behind Jaguar design. Design Talks The XKR-S, unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, is the fastest Jaguar production car and a pretty powerful looking machine. How do you marry this with your clean car ambitions as demonstrated in the CX-75 concept car? Ian Callum The XKR-S is the cleanest car in its class. But you are right, we have to find a balance. We’re not going to sell many of these cars, but we are a performance car company so we have to have something saying we are capable of doing this. The challenge in the future is to have a car like this with extremely green credentials. DT The CX-75 was a really interesting take on green, clean automobile design. IC It was our attempt at an advanced car to demonstrate how you can have performance and style, an almost outrageous supercar design, but at the same time maintain proper green credentials. We’ve developed the technology for it and it would be a terrible shame not to build this car. In my view it is everything the brand stands for. DT Does the CX-75 demonstrate your approach to sustainable design? IC There is this idea that when you enter a green car it has to be bizarre, slightly in keeping with people who are not interested in the motorcar. I don’t believe that.
The irony is that once you get into an electrically driven powertrain your flexibility is much higher. You no longer have a great lump of metal at the front that drives everything in terms of package. And when you have four electric motors in each wheel then you are so free to design. As we enter this more conscientious world we have to take the performance with us. And it is hugely challenging. DT Jaguar has such a fantastically rich heritage and now that you’re celebrating the E-Type’s 50th anniversary, you can’t fail to fall in love with its evocative design. IC I saw a picture of the E-Type in the back of Life magazine when I was six. I asked my dad what the car was and he told me it is the new Jaguar. It just looked so modern. I don’t think this made me want to become a car designer but I was so drawn by it.
You can’t overstate the impact the E-Type had back then. You have to remember the car was accessible and so much cheaper than the Mercedes’ of the time. It completely encapsulated the spirit of the revolutionary era it came to symbolise. DT Why do you suppose the design is so evocative? IC What’s fascinating about the car is that its creator Malcolm Sayer used mathematics for the shape the car – it is geometrically shaped for perfect aerodynamics and the irony is that it didn’t have very good aerodynamics.
Sayer was a metric man, he was an engineer not a designer like us. Basically what he did was to wrap the metal around the structure and fit two people in it. The sculpture is almost by default. DT You’ve hinted at a small entry-level Jaguar in the near future. How would you go about designing this? IC I think it will be very difficult because a Jaguar will always need to have visual length, and the easiest way to achieve this is by lengthening the car. So in this case the trick will be to achieve visual length without adding length. This is what we’ve done in the XJ – giving the car as much visual length as we can.
The first thing I would do is to make sure we didn’t default into something that is very vertical with lots of curvaceous lines to look cute. It has to be sophisticated.
If you look at the E-Type it is a small car with visual length – it is all about this great big long bonnet. I suspect the long bonnet is probably referencing a woman – it is too voluptuous to be a man. DT Do you believe the E-Type’s design will continue to impact on Jaguars of the future? IC Yes. It is its spirit that I try to capture in our cars and I strongly believe the CX-75 has the expression of the E-Type. DT Do you feel it is struggle to find a balance between the digital and the mechanical? IC This is a very good question and we go through a little bit of a dilemma here. We will reach a balance of what the human spirit needs.
Sitting in the E-Type and playing with the switches, there is something wonderfully tactile about all the mechanical effort – the noises they make and that they give you a feedback.
I think it is very important to maintain that. There is so much you can put on a touch screen. In fact with the next generation of touch screen when you touch them a little pulse will give feedback. That tactility is so important to human expression.
With this car you are very much in control down to the rubber that touches the road. It is the same with the new XKR-S sports car but we have added so much in between so that you don’t screw it up! That’s why it’s sometimes nice to switch to old cars, as you are at one with it. There is no pretence and no forgiveness. DT You have put a lot of emphasis on the interior design of the new family of cars. How far can you take this aspect of Jaguar design? IC I think it is limitless, we have a lot to discover and a lot to learn and we’re just starting to scratch the surface. I started as an interior designer at Ford – I was a reluctant designer I wanted to do the emotional stuff. So when I broke away my whole focus was on exterior expression, the sculpture and the interior took second stage.
By the time we did the XF and the XJ my focus had returned to the interior because I was realising the opportunities are enormous. And you can have so much fun with the interior. DT How do you see the future developing with interior design? IC The smell side will be very important: wafting smells of cut grass or leather. It will become so impressive that I think architects will start learning from the car business because we have a wholly controlled environment.
The other thing I want to get into is the tactility of materials. Our leathers are very well protected to last a good 10 to 15 years. The car industry is so rigid with standards but I think there’s a huge opportunity to experiment with leathers, even create artificial ones to give that lovely soft creamy leather feel which you can only get in domestic furniture.
Oh and lighting as well – fun lighting. I think finding solutions in interior design is infinite.
An eyeopener for those who may not know behind the scenes at Jaguar.
Ian Callum on Jaguar design
Jaguar design suffered under Ford. The giant American carmaker that owned the niche British firm from 1989 to 2008 replaced Jaguar’s quirky identity with a non-descript generic one. Thankfully under new owner India’s Tata we are progressively seeing a return of the lost magic that made Jaguar cars so evocative............
Possibly, but Ford also made it possible for the average Jaguar to power itself more than six miles before a tow truck was required.
Superb design does no one any good when it is tucked away in a service garage 92% of the time.
Moses, you are looking at it from the wrong end. One gets far more than they put into it.
Maintenance is no more than other cars with similar engines.
Depreciation is less than others. (RR works very hard at this- they would lose their brand otherwise)
However, when viewed in contrast to a $100k vehicle that goes to $20k and doesnt deliver $80k worth of pleasure this is a bargain.
Here is the best example of the Ghost's reliability and worth, a water damaged one just sold on ebay for $80k. That tells you how scared folks are of risk/reward.
look at this street 'presence' and yet not bombastic, there is nothing like it!
the phantom is neat to be sure but the new db 11 may be the most striking car on the road today in my humble opinion.
the db 11 is calling my name and I am doing my level best to resist....it has not been easy
Possibly, but Ford also made it possible for the average Jaguar to power itself more than six miles before a tow truck was required.
Superb design does no one any good when it is tucked away in a service garage 92% of the time.
The 80's was a horrible era for any small independent car manufacturer. You recall the Maserati, Ferrari, Porsche from that era- mine did more miles going up and down on the mechanic's lift.
Also bear in mind that those were not truly unique Jaguar parts nor design. Our cars and the rest of JLR today reflect what Jaguar engineering is really capable of.
06-11-2017 | 03:33 PM
