| The Citroen Car club had its monthly meeting at the Tesla showroom this month. Tesla were offering short test drives to club members as part of the meeting. The Tesla Model S is one of the few modern cars that interest me, so I jumped at the opportunity. In my view, the Tesla is the first ‘green’ car that is a great car as well as being green. Nobody bought a Prius because it was a great car, they bought it because it was supposed to be green. The Tesla Model S is a great car despite it being electric. […] This is the second in a series about interesting cars that have not had their prices driven up so much they become trailer queens. While Volvo is still known for it’s boxy and unbreakable 240 series from the 70s and 80s, in the late 50s, Volvo was still looking to add a sports car to their range, despite the failure of the P1900. The Volvo P1800 shared its mechanicals with the Volvo sedans at the time, but added an eye catching coupe body shape. This is what makes the car such a great classic today. The mechanicals are simple and […] It is hard to find somebody who prefers four door cars on aesthetic grounds. Sure, four door cars may be more practical, often cheaper to insure and easier to live with, but when buying a classic car, those considerations are not nearly as important. Mercedes Benz have always provided a range of handsome coupes in their range, which are still even years later a practical classic car, and can easily be used a daily drivers. This article is going to focus on the Mercedes-Benz classic coupes from the 60s, 70s and 80s, which are the most available for the collector […]  I had wanted to buy this book for a while, as the author, Bernd S. Koehling had written some interesting blog articles on his website, so I figured I would try a couple of his books too (I also purchased Volume 2 which will be the subject of a later review). Added to that, he obviously has great taste in cars, and I would like to try and support an author doing new works on these fine vehicles. I have to admit, I am a bit of a sucker for books that cover the W111 coupe and Cabriolet, so with […]  The Citroen DS, being such an iconic car, has inspired a plethora of books on it’s design, history, restoration, models etc. The one that is the most recommended is ‘The Original Citroen DS – The restorers guide” by John Reynolds, mostly because of it’s excellent set of pictures; but this book is currently out of print and quite expensive. (You can get it for around AUD$100 on UK or USA ebay if you wait long enough). That leaves room for some alternatives, and this book by Jon Pressnell fits the bill quite well. It has a better coverage of the […] In my opinion, the BMW E39 is still hands down the best looking 5 series BMW have produced. It significantly sharpened up the looks of the fairly boxy E34. It was later replaced by the bulbous looking E60. The current model still follows on too much from the E60 aberration. The BMW E39 has now depreciated to the point where they are an entry level way of getting into BMW ownership. It gives you a bit more room than a 3 series, and a more capable car. It also offers a better alternative to the W210 Mercedes E Class both […] After spending two weeks with a Volvo V40 and covering over 3,100 km, I felt like I well and truly knew what this car would be like to own. The Volvo V40 was owned by Hertz, and I rented it from Oslo, Norway to Brussels, Belgium. Hertz were the only company I could find willing to do this rental. Overall the car is pretty good. The styling is crisp, and it is different enough that it doesn’t look like everything else on the road. Like many modern cars, the visibility (both front and rear) is pretty poor, and while a […] This was a car that I fully expected to hate, yet was pleasantly surprised once I got to drive it. Having driven more than my fair share of Toyota’s, my assumption was that this car was basically a Camry with some leather and a Lexus badge glued onto the front. This is certainly not the case. My then girlfriend (now Fiancee) was looking to buy a ‘new’ car after her old Mitsubishi Magna started to get a bit ropey. She wanted something fairly modern, yet didn’t want to be paying for massive depreciation with a new car. We went to […] | |
