Senna
New member
Hi Guys, Thought I'd introduce myself after reading your many helpful posts for a few weeks. A little history first! I've had a few quick cars over the years most notable of which was my 540bhp RS500 Cosworth which I owned in the late 1980's. Over the last 10 years or so I've pretty much stuck with one brand, Audi, mainly because they are made well and are pretty bullet proof in terms of reliability.
We use a Q7 bought last year as our family car (I have 3 kids so the space is very welcome). I don't get to drive that much as it's pretty much my wife's pride and joy. Over the last 15 years or so we've only ever bought new and sold/part exchanged the cars just before the warranty ends. My last half decent drive was a 225 TT which I had from new in 2004 to 2007 and this was P/X'd for an A4 cabriolet (looked nice but drove like plank hence almost bored me to death). The A4 cab was about to hit its third year next month so I started looking around for a more exciting replacement.
Back in the late 70's, as a 19 year old I was lucky enough to own both a Lotus Elan Sprint and two years later a Lotus Europa special (0-60 around 6.5 seconds ish, quick cars for their day). I remember getting out of bed at 2am in the morning just to go for a blast on clear roads. Or getting up really early on a Sunday morning and going for yet another blast. Since those elusive days nothing has really made me do that and I wanted to recapture some of the excitement I've missed since. Because we have two other cars, a two seater was not out of the question. However, my first port of call was "˜sensible' Audi again. I thought long and hard about the new upcoming S5 convertible with the new supercharged 3.0 engine due out later this year. In some respects however, I thought this was more of a sideways step rather than a firm step upwards.
Next up I thought about a new M3. No offence to M3 owners but try as I did I couldn't visualize myself doing doughnuts in a McDonalds car park so that was out of the question. Couple of friends of mine have Boxsters. Lovely car but not for a guy in his 50's perhaps. Love the Cayman, new one looks to be a fantastic car but again I thought it was perhaps a younger mans car. Ok, so onwards and upwards. R8? Again very neat car, I've driven an S tronic version around silverstone for a few laps and driven one on the road for almost an hour. Couldn't fault it (which strangely was a fault in my book). There's been a lot of talk that the R8 is a 911 competitor. I really don't agree with that. I see the R8 as a modern day Honda NSX. Anyone can drive one quickly without it biting you in the rear. Polished and almost flawless from conception to design and whilst the car had character, it just didn't have the soul of a 911. Having had several test drives of the latest 911's (excluding the Turbo, GT3 etc) and spent many hours on research, I found the Carrera 2 PDK to be my 911 of choice. No disrespect to C4 or Cab owners but I just thought the overall lightness of the C2 made it a more nimble and a purer driving experience than its heavier brothers. So here I sit, the proud owner of a Meteor Grey 997.2 with PDK, black leather interior, with all the goodies including the new 19" Sport design wheels, sports seats, sat nav etc etc. With just 663 miles on the odometer and three weeks of driving under my belt I am absolutely loving every moment of ownership.
Cheers
Senna
We use a Q7 bought last year as our family car (I have 3 kids so the space is very welcome). I don't get to drive that much as it's pretty much my wife's pride and joy. Over the last 15 years or so we've only ever bought new and sold/part exchanged the cars just before the warranty ends. My last half decent drive was a 225 TT which I had from new in 2004 to 2007 and this was P/X'd for an A4 cabriolet (looked nice but drove like plank hence almost bored me to death). The A4 cab was about to hit its third year next month so I started looking around for a more exciting replacement.
Back in the late 70's, as a 19 year old I was lucky enough to own both a Lotus Elan Sprint and two years later a Lotus Europa special (0-60 around 6.5 seconds ish, quick cars for their day). I remember getting out of bed at 2am in the morning just to go for a blast on clear roads. Or getting up really early on a Sunday morning and going for yet another blast. Since those elusive days nothing has really made me do that and I wanted to recapture some of the excitement I've missed since. Because we have two other cars, a two seater was not out of the question. However, my first port of call was "˜sensible' Audi again. I thought long and hard about the new upcoming S5 convertible with the new supercharged 3.0 engine due out later this year. In some respects however, I thought this was more of a sideways step rather than a firm step upwards.
Next up I thought about a new M3. No offence to M3 owners but try as I did I couldn't visualize myself doing doughnuts in a McDonalds car park so that was out of the question. Couple of friends of mine have Boxsters. Lovely car but not for a guy in his 50's perhaps. Love the Cayman, new one looks to be a fantastic car but again I thought it was perhaps a younger mans car. Ok, so onwards and upwards. R8? Again very neat car, I've driven an S tronic version around silverstone for a few laps and driven one on the road for almost an hour. Couldn't fault it (which strangely was a fault in my book). There's been a lot of talk that the R8 is a 911 competitor. I really don't agree with that. I see the R8 as a modern day Honda NSX. Anyone can drive one quickly without it biting you in the rear. Polished and almost flawless from conception to design and whilst the car had character, it just didn't have the soul of a 911. Having had several test drives of the latest 911's (excluding the Turbo, GT3 etc) and spent many hours on research, I found the Carrera 2 PDK to be my 911 of choice. No disrespect to C4 or Cab owners but I just thought the overall lightness of the C2 made it a more nimble and a purer driving experience than its heavier brothers. So here I sit, the proud owner of a Meteor Grey 997.2 with PDK, black leather interior, with all the goodies including the new 19" Sport design wheels, sports seats, sat nav etc etc. With just 663 miles on the odometer and three weeks of driving under my belt I am absolutely loving every moment of ownership.
Cheers
Senna
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