Two Chaps Talking

My Dear Old Thing,

There are certain things that a chap has an unalienable right to; random peeks of racy lingerie in summer, seeing our boys spend ninety minutes dismissing the Argies every four years, and of course sitting in the drivers seat of this year's finest from Newport Pagnell.

Cocoon yourself for a moment in soft Connolly hide, burnished walnut and thick Axminster. Raise your hands to the controls, grip the gearstick (matron) and thrust it forcefully into third, rip the wheel to the right and then the left, swerving past SPECTRE and leaving mayhem in your wake.

Check your insouciant expression in the rear view mirror and look around for a racy young bint in a red sportscar to race down the mountain, ending in a three hundred yard spin, coming to rest exactly five inches from the kerb, perfectly parallel.

Can you think of a better way to spend Saturday afternoon? And as if that wasn't enough I was also going to see the new models from Coventry and perhaps one or two from Crewe. So overseas interlopers held the paperwork on all of 'em, they were still made where they should be and by who they should be. Little did I know.

Sporting correct driving raiment M and I wandered over to the venue for this orgy of motorised consumerism. All right so I knew they were also going to be showing motor cars from other places, but a chap doesn't worry about passing burger bars en route to Le Gav now does he?

The profusion of goatee beards should have tipped me off, as should the milk shake drinking, coach party travelling, baseball hat wearing, mid-western squawking, generally obese hordes that were headed in the same direction. But you know, all that would've been all right. I could've risen above the masses, I could've lowered myself into the front of my Aston and closed the door on the lot of 'em. I could have, had I not seen something so terrible, so un-Godly, so utterly obscene that I was shaken to my very core.

They have, you see ...

They have... no I can't say it.

Oh God,

Here goes - They've changed the only Jag designed before the bloody Americans took over!

The only one, the last true Jaguar. The one that's been conveying crooks and ambassadors around the world for over thirty years. They've moved things around, they've raised some things and lowered others. They've made one of the finest cars in the world look like a New York Taxi Cab.

I took these points up with the resident apologist.

'Oh but there's more luggage space,' replied she.
'This is not a bus, the boot is for a picnic hamper or a body,' I pointed out.
'Oh but there's better fuel efficiency.'
'If you've paid half-a-small-rural-house for your car who cares how many miles to the gallon it does?'
'Oh but there's more headroom in the back.'
'A gentleman rides in the back of his own car only when unconscious after a good lunch, or perhaps when steaming the windows, parked, and not entirely alone - neither case requires more headroom.'
(I had her on the ropes by now)
'Oh but there's a new lightweight aluminum (sic) construction.'
'A lightweight aluminium construction? Ye Gods! How on earth is a chap to drive his car through the front of his errant bookies if his car's light in weight?'

I could go on, but now as then it hurts too much. And so passes an era. How long before we see mini cab firms from New Jersey to Slough offering XJ's with furry seat covers and vanilla scented mirror trees.

After a shock like that I was in mood to appreciate anything from Newport Pagnell. I drank myself into oblivion and slept in the back of my proper car, vowing never to desert it.

I can say no more at this time.

Bring me sunshine,

S