Steve Cropley
WEDNESDAY
Fantastic to begin the new year talking about a car I’ve wanted to drive all my life, the Jaguar Mk2. Borrowed this superb Coombs-improved example for a brisk lunchtime ramble on 30 miles of curving, rising, falling roads around the British Motor Museum, home of the Jaguar Heritage collection to which it belongs. I was doubly lucky to be accompanied by Mike Cross, whose Jaguar Land Rover engineering group has the task of ensuring that every new product embodies the Jaguar values of this 1960s icon.
You can’t help marvelling at the Mk2’s looks. It’s one of the sweetest saloons ever made. But if you don’t drive old cars much, you forget how subject they are to the warm-up process, gearbox as well as engine, and – forgive me, Mk2 owners – how damper improvements have revolutionised ride control in half a century.
This car does a decent job at six- or seventenths, staying easily with traffic, but it gets unruly thereafter. The steering has good low-to-medium speed centre feel, although the Herculean parking effort shows how much we take power steering for granted. But no one could fail to be impressed by the mid-range punch of the long-stroke 3.8-litre XK straight six, one of the world’s greats. Or fail to enjoy the deliberate, mechanical action of the gearbox and its silky overdrive. As we glided back to work in a 2018 Jaguar XE 300 Sport, I couldn’t help noticing, despite obvious dynamic differences, how similar these two were for size, character and visual impact. Which is as it should be.
FRIDAY
It’s a while since I’ve done serious miles on an unrestricted German autobahn, but a journey through the Fatherland (story soon) helped me remember. One was the glorious freedom of cruising mile after mile at 115mph on roads that can handle it. The other was the less pleasant memory of how the fastest German drivers clear you ruthlessly out of the fast lane by storming up to your tailgate at undiminished speed, braking at the last micro-second to emphasise the extent to which you’re impeding their progress. Stats on their fuel consumption and brake wear would make fascinating reading.
Huge thanks from us all to the many who contacted us in appreciation of Autocar’s Christmas double issue, a production we look forward to all year. It’s always the year’s biggest seller, which is a good thing on its own, but its appearance is also accompanied by an almighty spike in the auld mag’s web audience, another gratifying result of our year’s work.
Will 2019 be a happy new year? You’d be excused for pondering this more deeply than usual, given that as the result of a heavy-handed EU decision taken late last year, the motor industry is under new pressure to change everything it does in pursuit of a 37.5% cut in CO2 emissions by 2030. Ironically, this target would not seem nearly so punitive were it not for the huge cuts in cargenerated CO2 and toxic emissions the industry has already achieved.
Yet I believe we should be optimistic about 2019 and the years beyond. Every time the world’s car creators are confronted with big changes, they make the best of them. The resulting products are invariably more appealing, more practical, more efficient and cleaner. Companies acknowledge that whatever the pressures, we customers simply won’t accept new cars that don’t eclipse their predecessors. So let’s give ourselves a pat on the back (for being discerning consumers) and look forward to new waves of exciting products. Meantime, please accept – personally – best wishes from all of us at Autocar for a terrific motoring new year, and our thanks for your vital support through 2018.
I believe we should be optimistic about 2019