by Aubree Richards·Comments Off on Try a Classic Car Before You Buy One
Have you ever been looking for a classic car and been to a classic car dealer and they have signs saying you mustn’t touch the cars or sit in them?
How do they expect you to decide whether or not to buy one?
When you go to see a classic car with a view to buying it, if you ask they will let you try it for size but you are likely to be only allowed to drive it around the block, under supervision. If you are really lucky, you will get to drive the car for half an hour or so. While this may be enough to assess the condition and value of the car, it is not enough time to decide whether or not you can live with a classic car.
You need to understand a few practical things when deciding to own any classic car:
Is it comfortable – can you drive it for hours and not feel tired?
Can you fit enough luggage in the car to go away for a weekend or a full week touring in a classic car?
Can you cope without power steering?
Can you cope without servo assisted brakes?
Can you cope with a heavy clutch and a slow, heavy gear change?
Can you cope with not having synchromesh on 1st gear?
Is there enough leg room in the car?
If the car is a convertible, are you prepared to put up with the hood leaking in the rain (very few of them fit properly)?
As well as owning our current fleet of classic cars, over the years we have bought and sold a number of other classic makes and models, so have extensive knowledge of the trials and tribulations of buying and owning a wide range of classic cars.
Try Before You Buy – Jaguar E-Type
For many people the E-Type Jaguar is the archetypal British sports car. As a good one will cost you anything from £30,000 to £50,000 (or more) it is vital that you won’t regret your purchase after you have parted with that amount of money. An E-Type is a wonderful driver’s car; it is extremely responsive, with precise steering and very little body roll. It is also very comfortable whether you are just making a short journey or spending a whole day driving. Our E-Type Roadster has a limited amount of luggage space, just about enough for a weekend away.
Try Before you Buy – American Muscle Cars – Ford Mustang or Chevrolet Corvette
We have had quite a few customers hiring out our American cars as a ‘Try Before You Buy’ as they uncertain whether or not they will like driving a Left Hand Drive (LHD) car in the UK. For most people driving LHD can seem a bit weird. Obviously the driver is on the wrong side of the car and the gear lever is now operated with the right hand rather than the left. The pedal layout is the same so this doesn’t present a problem. Our 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible and 1978 Chevrolet Corvette are both automatics so getting used to these is really easy. Although the gear lever is operated by the right hand, mostly this is just a matter of putting it in Drive and off you go, keeping your left (clutch) foot firmly planted in the carpet. Our 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback is a 4 speed manual (four on the floor – as the Americans say) so gear changing is the same as in a UK specification, manual car, just with your right hand.
The other problem is brain related and takes a bit of practice to get used to. You have spent years on the right hand side of the car, driving fairly close to the white line down the centre of the road, and your brain is used to this. Drivers therefore have a tendency to wander towards the middle of the road and it takes a bit of practice to nudge left and work out correct road positioning for a LHD car. The easy way to judge this is to run over the occasional drain cover on the left, without ending up in the gutter, and you can then be fairly confident that there is more than enough space on the other side of the car.
The other issue, for which there isn’t a fix, is overtaking. Sitting on the left of the car, overtaking is a challenge as you can’t pull out a few feet to see past the car in front, to see if it is clear to overtake. The solution for this on normal two way roads is just to hang back, but on dual carriageways and motorways there is enough space and visibility to overtake safely so it isn’t an issue.
Try Before You Buy – Advice and Guidance
We include a full information pack with all our cars and this includes magazine articles advising on what to look for in each model. So if you are thinking of buying a classic car, then come to us and rent one of ours for a day or a weekend before you buy one.
Tony Merrygold of The Open Road is an expert in classic car hire having been in business in the UK since 1997 running The Open Road. Tony runs courses telling people how to start up a car hire company, having trained over 200 people over the past ten years.
Combining his 20 year background in sales and marketing with his knowledge of the classic car hire industry, in early 2008 Tony launched a new web portal Classic Car Hire World – listing classic and sports car hire companies around the world. Within three months of its launch this site achieved a Google PageRank of 4/10 and was showing on the first page of Google.com when users searched for ‘classic car hire’.
by Aubree Richards·Comments Off on James Bond and His Fleet of Expensive Cars
James Bond, the name is enough to glitter the eyes of children and vulnerable persons suffering from the exploitation of cruel people. Where the name of James Bond is considered as the strength of weaker and poor people, on the other side his name is not less than a synonym of fear for people who threaten the deprived people from their terror. The actual birth date of the Bond is although not known exactly, but it is speculated that his name for first time originated in front of world back in 1953 and since then he became an icon for every person.
Craze of people towards Bond can be understood from the fact that despite of being a fictitious character people consider him as living person and expect him to come and protect them from problems. According to stories, he is appointed in British Secret Service working as spy and is always equipped with technically developed gadgets, prefers to live in style and loves to drive luxurious cars. Going through his passion towards expensive and stylish cars, he has a huge collection of cars parked in his garage including Aston Martin, Cello Case etc. Despite of being aesthetic, all these cars bestow supercharged engines, embellished with high defined weapons that are capable to recognize any risk revolving around Bond.
An interesting fact about James Bond is that although he is a fictitious novel character which further emerged as a hero of various movies and video games, the personality of Bond has ruled over the hearts of people of all age groups. He has become the part of every body’s life and people keenly wait for him and are curious to know about every little factor associated with their super hero. Below is the list of some of the iconic cars which are found in the fleet of cars that are owned by James Bond.
Aston Martin DB 10: Aston Martin cars often referred as Bond Cars have been an integral part of James Bond movies. The DB 10 is the latest infant from Aston Martin family which was driven by super spy in his latest movie SPECTRE released in November, 2015.
Aston Martin DB 5: It seems, this is one of the favorite cars in movies starring James Bond. The car starred in five movies namely Goldfinger, Tomorrow Never Dies, Thunderball, Casino Royale and Golden Eye.
Aston Martin DB S: The car made its appearance in movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. An interesting feature offered in this stylish vehicle was sniper rifle placed in the glovebox of car.
Aston Martin V 12 Vangquish: This car can be said as replica of Bond, because as in the span of second he disappears from the eyes of his enemies keeping their eyes still. Similarly, this car also disappears without leaving any marks of its presence.
Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante: This car is blessed with features like rocket propulsion, spiked tires, self-destruct mechanism, side skis, convertible roof and many more all which are developed to satisfy varied needs of James Bond.
Aston Martin DS SV 12: The interesting thing about the Aston Martin DS SV 12 was that it did not have any technically advanced gadget mounted on it, but it had medical instruments which were helpful in protecting the life of Bond in movies Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace.
Apart from Aston Martin, cars from British car maker Bentley have been also driven by James Bond in different movies.
Bentley Mark II Continental: This expensive car integrated with a 4.9 litre engine, black colored interiors and Arnott supercharger which exhibited its charm in movie Thunderball.
Bentley Mark VI: The car made its appearance in last scene of movie Moonraker. The eye-catching and spectacular view of this luxury car was its dual colored leather upholstery developed with perfect mix of grey and dark blue color.
Bentley 4.5 litre: This is one of the common cars driven by Bond in movies including Live and Let Die, Casino Royale and Moonraker.
The above mentioned cars are not an end of car hierarchy driven by James Bond, there are few to mark their presence in list.
BMW Z Series: There were two cars representing the Z-Series which were named as Z3 and Z8. The features offered in Z3 were convertible with stinger missiles along with self destruct system. Whereas the Z8 was the advanced version of its predecessor and could be changed into helicopter with brush cutter.
BMW 750iL: Used in movie Tomorrow Never Dies, the car had features like rocket launcher, fingerprint protect safe, re-inflating tires, cable cutting instruments and few more.
Lotus Esprit S1: The car was armed with exclusive features like missiles, mines, torpedoes studded on front grille, cement cannons, and black dye. It was showcased in movie The Spy Who Love Me.
Lotus Turbo Esprit: Although it carried the same features as offered in Esprit S1, but it lacked the features like easy to drive inside the water. But, still it was offered with indispensable safety features that were helpful to protect Bond from kind of unexpected attack.
The cars listed above are just few names which reflect the interest of Bond towards stylish, luxurious, and protective cars. Besides, there are various cars which are parked at the garage of James Bond.
James Bond is the iconic name not only in the entertainment industry, but also in the field of luxury cars. Last year, in Spectre movie, Aston Martin unveiled a new car in India and Global named DB 10 which is also driven by the Bond.
by Aubree Richards·Comments Off on Electric and Hybrid Cars – The Wave of The Future
It seems like we’ve been waiting forever for electric cars to come along, but after more false starts than you’ll see at the London Olympics this year, it looks like the electric car is finally here to stay.
Now, we need to start with some boring terminology: A true electric car (EV, for Electric Vehicle) has no petrol engine as backup, so you are reliant on the batteries having enough charge to get you to where you need to go. The Nissan Leaf is the best-known (and best) electric car currently on sale.
A regular hybrid uses an electric motor and/or a petrol motor, depending on the circumstances. You don’t plug it into a wall socket as the batteries charge while you are driving. A typical journey, even a short one, will use both electric and petrol power to drive the wheels. The Toyota Prius is the most popular and best-known hybrid on sale around the world.
A plug-in hybrid, “range-extending” electric car, is technically more of a fancy hybrid than a true EV although it drives more like an EV than a regular hybrid. In practice it might be a huge difference or none at all, depending on how you use the car. A range-extender, or plug-in hybrid as it’s more commonly known, has a petrol engine which can be used to power the electric motor once the batteries have drained, but the petrol engine does not directly drive the wheels*. The Vauxhall Ampera/Chevrolet Volt twins are the leading example of this type of car, and they claim an urban fuel consumption of 300mpg (yep, that’s three hundred. Not a typo!)
A car running on an electric motor is usually very quiet (eerie silence or a distant hum instead of a clearly audible petrol engine) and smooth (no vibrations from engine or gearbox). The response from the car away from rest is both immediate and powerful, as electric motors generate huge amounts of torque instantly. They’re quiet from the outside to, to such an extent that the EU is considering making audible warnings compulsory in the future as pedestrians simply won’t hear an electric car coming.
In terms of exciting handling, electric cars are usually not brilliant, it must be said. They tend to be very heavy and usually run tyres & wheels more beneficial for economy than handling. But as a commuter vehicle around town, they are zippy and efficient. Plus they generate less noise, heat and pollution into the street so a traffic jam of Nissan Leafs in the city would be a lot more pleasant for passing pedestrians.
The batteries on a typical electric car only give it enough range for a few miles (although a true EV will have a bigger battery pack as it doesn’t have to fit a petrol engine & fuel tank as well), so the cars use various means to charge the battery while driving. Usually this involves converting kinetic energy from coasting and braking to electric energy to store in the batteries. The Fisker Karma even has solar cells in its roof to charge the batteries as well.
However, a longer journey will inevitably mean that the batteries are drained. In a fully electric car that means you have to stop and charge the batteries, so hopefully you parked near a power socket somewhere and have several hours to find something else to do. In a hybrid, the petrol engine will start up to provide the power. In a regular hybrid like a Prius, the car effectively becomes an ordinary petrol car, albeit with a fairly underpowered engine pushing a heavy car around so it’s not swift. In a ‘range extender’ like the Ampera/Volt, the petrol engine provides energy to the electric motor to drive the wheels, which is more efficient in both performance and economy. Depending on how you’re driving, any spare energy from the petrol engine can be used to charge up the batteries again, so the car may switch back to electric power once charging is complete.
So what does this mean in the real world?
Well, how much of the following driving do you do? We’re assuming here that the batteries are fully charged when you set off.
Short trips (<50 miles between charges).
These sort of journeys are ideal for electric cars and plug-in hybrids, as the batteries will cope with the whole journey and also get some charge while you drive. A regular hybrid will still need to use the petrol engine, although how much depends on how you drive it and how much charging it is able to get along the way.
Medium trips (50-100 miles between charges).
These are the sorts of trips that give EV drivers plenty of stress, as the traffic conditions may mean you run out of juice before you make it to your charging point. A plug-in hybrid or regular hybrid will be fine because they can call on the petrol engine. In a regular hybrid, this means the car will be petrol powered for most of the journey. In a plug-in hybrid, it will be mainly electric with the petrol engine kicking in to top up the batteries if needed late in the journey.
Longer trips (100+ miles between charges)
Not feasible in a fully-electric car, as you will almost certainly run out of electricity before you get there. The regular hybrid is basically a petrol car for almost the whole journey and the plug-in hybrid is majority electric but supplemented by petrol in a far more efficient way than a regular hybrid.
The pros and cons:
Let's summarise the three types of electrically-powered cars:
Regular hybrid (eg - Toyota Prius)
PROS: cheaper, no charging required, no range anxiety, regular petrol engine makes it feel like a regular petrol car
CONS: only very short journeys (a few miles at best) will be fully electric, small battery pack and weak petrol engine means relatively poor performance compared to a normal petrol car or a fully electric car, poor economy when driven hard (like most Prius minicabs in London...), not very spacious for passengers and luggage due to carrying petrol and electric powertrains in one car
Fully electric car (EV) (eg - Nissan Leaf)
PROS: powerful electric motor gives much better performance than a regular hybrid, larger battery pack means longer electric running, no petrol engine reduces weight and frees up a lot of space, £5000 government rebate, electricity is cheaper and usually less polluting than petrol, privileged parking spaces in certain public places
CONS: Still expensive despite rebate, minimal range capability due to lack of petrol engine backup, resulting range anxiety is a real issue for drivers, question marks over battery life, technology advances will make next generation massively better and hurt resale value, some driving adaptation required, lengthy recharging required after even a moderate drive
Plug-in Hybrid / range-extender (eg - Vauxhall Ampera)
PROS: powerful electric motor and backup petrol engine give best combination of performance and range, most journeys will be fully electric which is cheaper than petrol, no range anxiety, privileged parking spaces in certain public places
CONS: Very expensive despite rebate, question marks over battery life and resale value, wall socket charging is still slow, lack of space and very heavy due to having petrol engine and fuel tank as well as electric motor and batteries.
Electric Car Economics - is it all worth it?
For most people, an electric vehicle is difficult to justify on pure hard-headed economics. Even with a £5,000 rebate from the government, an electric car is expensive. A Nissan Leaf starts at £31,000, so after the government gives you £5K you have spent £26K on a car which would be probably worth about £15K if it had a normal petrol engine. That could conceivably buy you a decade's worth of fuel! And there are still question marks hovering over the long-term reliability of batteries and resale value, which may bite you hard somewhere down the line
Electric Cars and the Environment
Buying a hybrid or electric car because you think you're helping the environment may not be helping that cause as much as you think, if at all. Producing car batteries is a dirty and complicated process, and the net result is that there is a significantly higher environmental impact in building an electric or hybrid car than building a regular petrol or diesel car. So you're starting behind the environmental eight-ball before you've even driven you new green car.
Beware of "zero emissions" claims about electric vehicles, because most electricity still comes from fossil fuel sources (like gas or coal) rather than renewable sources, so you are still polluting the atmosphere when you drive, albeit not as much and the effects are not as noticeable to you. If you have your own solar panels or wind farm to power your car, this is much more environmentally friendly.
Range anxiety
The biggest electric car turn-off for car buyers (other than the high purchase price) is the joint problem of very limited range and very slow recharging. In a petrol or diesel car, you can drive for a few hundred miles, pull into a petrol station and five minutes later you are ready to drive for another few hundred miles. In an electric car, you drive for 50-100 miles, then have to stop and charge it for several hours to drive another 50-100 miles.
If you only take short journeys and can keep the car plugged in whenever it stops (usually at home or work), this may never be a problem. But you can't expect to jump in the car and drive a couple of hundred miles, or get away with forgetting to plug the car in overnight after a journey. You have to be much more disciplined in terms of planning your driving, and allow for recharging. Away from home this is still a big problem as there are relatively few power sockets available in public parking areas for you to use.
A plug-in hybrid like the Vauxhall Ampera/Chevrolet Volt gets around the range anxiety problem, as does a normal hybrid like a Toyota Prius, but you are carting a petrol engine (and fuel) around all the time which you may not need, adding hundreds of kilos of weight and taking up lots of space, so it's a compromise.
So as you can see from all of the above, it's not at all straightforward. You need to carefully consider what sort of driving you will be doing and what you need your car to be able to do.
*there is a complicated technical argument about whether the Ampera/Volt's petrol engine directly drives the wheels under certain circumstances, but it's really boring and doesn't really make any difference to how the car drives.
Stuart Masson is founder and owner of The Car Expert, a London-based independent and impartial car buying agency for anyone looking to buy a new or used car.
Originally from Australia, Stuart has had a passion for cars and the automotive industry for nearly thirty years, and has spent the last seven years working in the automotive retail industry, both in Australia and in London.
Stuart has combined his extensive knowledge of all things car-related with his own experience of selling cars and delivering high levels of customer satisfaction to bring a unique and personal car buying agency to London. The Car Expert offers specific and tailored advice for anyone looking for a new or used car in London.
His mission is to help people find the best car to suit them, at the best possible price. Visit his website at http://www.TheCarExpert.co.uk
