I'm buying a new car.

[ramjet]

So the only new car I ever bought new, was a Red (is there any other colour?) Holden VL Commodore manual. 5 speed with the Nissan inline 6 in it. It flew. Must have had the engine made on a Tuesday. Not Monday when the workers were annoyed that the weekend was over and not late enough in the week that they were winding down for the weekend.

Then I bought an Esprit and the Commodore was remembered as being fun, but not that much fun.

Anyway, that was all the way back in 1987.

Well I am going to do it again. No, Not a Commodore. Nothing from Holden really does anything for me.

Liz has a Skoda Karoq which hasn't missed a beat or given us an ounce of trouble since we bought it in 2019.

So I am going to buy myself a Skoda Fabia Monte Carlo. Has neat little checkered flag emblems on the front guards. Hopefully going to go for a test drive on the weekend coming.

They have a new white one with a black roof and other black bits. The other one is all black. Does look cool. Liz likes it. You can also get the Fabia in a rather nice blue. There is a new one in blue at another Vic dealer, so I'm going to ask about the blue one. There is one thing that bugs me and it seems to be happening with a lot of car makers. Some mag wheels they use for cars have a hand. The mags look like they go forward on one side and go backwards on the other.

Oh well. Somewhere down the track, I might spring for another set of mags that are symmetrical so it doesn't matter where they are on the car.

Or I may just not give a fat rat's arse.

[Bibs]

The Turbine's on the Evora did that! Are you going to pop a nice set of carbon rims on it to solve the problem?

[Escape]

As did the OZ routes on late Excels and early Stevens Esprits.

But I feel your pain, I don't like the difference left to right either! Don't care if they angle forward or backward, as long as it's the same both sides! I vaguely remember someone had replicas of the OZ routes made, but in a larger size (to have more choice in suitable tires) and sided. A very nice idea, but quite expensive... 

[Rambo]

I've just bought the new 16 valve Skoda.

There's 4 in the engine and 12 in the radio 🤣

[Bravo73]

5 hours ago, Rambo said:

I've just bought the new 16 valve Skoda.

@Rambo, the 1980s just called. It would like its joke back, please. 

[ramjet]

7 hours ago, Bibs said:

The Turbine's on the Evora did that! Are you going to pop a nice set of carbon rims on it to solve the problem?

Carbon don't make a wheel that size, or for Skodas that I know of.

Turbines would look really odd going the wrong way.

[ramjet]

I reckon it’ll be the all black one. The white one has a black roof, but if I’m going to have a black roof (think sun heating it up), I might as well go all black. Test drive Saturday. 

[Bibs]

I had 2 black Esprits - While they look amazing the minute you've cleaned them, the very next minute they're dirty again! 

[exeterjeep]

London Lotus let me have a loan car for a couple of days, many many years ago, it was a Rover 216 Vitesse in black. I washed it twice before taking it back.

[ramjet]

Yeah, I know the issue with black and dirt, but I just see WAY too many white Corollas, Swifts, Barinas.

I'll just have to be prepared to wash it every other day.  

[ramjet]

I pick this up next Saturday.

Nice to drive.

I ended upwith the white and black one as the all black one was sold on Thursday.

 

[Escape]

Congrats!

[Steve V8]

Say no more.

[ramjet]

Would you look at that.

My Skoda looks just like a Lotus Eletre, but smaller.

[ramjet]

Just over 20 hours to go. <dancing Snoopy emoticon>

[ramjet]

Picked it up yesterday.

 Fun little car to drive. Im rapt.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

And the Skoda is wrapped!

[ramjet]

I'll take some photos over the weekend.

4 cylinders goes down to 2 cylinders as required. Engine is tiny so when it is running on two cylinders, my old Ducati that I used to own was bigger than the two cylinders pushing this thing along.

Keyless entry and keyless ignition. Never had that before.

All digital dash. Never had one of them before.

Steering wheel controls. Never had them before.

7 speed DSG. Never had one of them before.

Adaptive cruise control that works way better than our Honda that we had. Never had that before.

Automatic levelling bi-Led headlights as well as automatic on/off and DRLs. Never had that before.

TPMS. Never had that before.

Front collision avoidance braking for if I'm catching a nap. Never had that before.

Lane Keep Assist which is really nice and really helpful as when I am driving and I look over my shoulder to check the lane across, my arms follow my head since my stroke. Now the car helps and let's me know. Nice, that. Also has blind spot monitoring. Yep. Never had that before.

Cup holders. Not the largest, but cup holders.

Big bottle holders in the door. Never had that before.

Door pocket bin. Never had one of them before.

Rear diffuser. Never had one of them before.

DAB. Never had that before.

2 colour ambient lighting which is only on the strip across the dash. No footwells.  Red or White. Never had that before.

Umbrella in the drivers door. Never had that before. Handy here in Geelong where it can rain just when you don't think it is going to.

Automatic wipers. Never had them before.

Rear parking camera. Never had one of them before.

Front & rear parking sensors. Never had them before.

Folding mirrors. Never had them before.

Auto dimming rear vision mirror. Never had one of them before.

Oh. And airbags. Never had them before.

ANCAP rating of 5. I don't think that my Old Holden was even allowed to apply to be considered.

It's just a huge adventure.

If it makes me a coffee when I am driving home, I'll be really chuffed.  

I know that there is some other thing/s that I have not remembered.

The more I think about it, the only thing in common with my old Holden is four wheels, an engine and some windows.

I'm finished now.  

 

[ramjet]

What I do have is a rather large rock in the backyard that I have lived under for the last ten years.

Actually, that's a big fib as well. I don't have a rock either.

[Rambo]

 

2 hours ago, ramjet said:

I'll take some photos over the weekend.

4 cylinders goes down to 2 cylinders as required. Engine is tiny so when it is running on two cylinders, my old Ducati that I used to own was bigger than the two cylinders pushing this thing along.

Keyless entry and keyless ignition. Never had that before.

All digital dash. Never had one of them before.

Steering wheel controls. Never had them before.

7 speed DSG. Never had one of them before.

Adaptive cruise control that works way better than our Honda that we had. Never had that before.

Automatic levelling bi-Led headlights as well as automatic on/off and DRLs. Never had that before.

TPMS. Never had that before.

Front collision avoidance braking for if I'm catching a nap. Never had that before.

Lane Keep Assist which is really nice and really helpful as when I am driving and I look over my shoulder to check the lane across, my arms follow my head since my stroke. Now the car helps and let's me know. Nice, that. Also has blind spot monitoring. Yep. Never had that before.

Cup holders. Not the largest, but cup holders.

Big bottle holders in the door. Never had that before.

Door pocket bin. Never had one of them before.

Rear diffuser. Never had one of them before.

DAB. Never had that before.

2 colour ambient lighting which is only on the strip across the dash. No footwells.  Red or White. Never had that before.

Umbrella in the drivers door. Never had that before. Handy here in Geelong where it can rain just when you don't think it is going to.

Automatic wipers. Never had them before.

Rear parking camera. Never had one of them before.

Front & rear parking sensors. Never had them before.

Folding mirrors. Never had them before.

Auto dimming rear vision mirror. Never had one of them before.

Oh. And airbags. Never had them before.

ANCAP rating of 5. I don't think that my Old Holden was even allowed to apply to be considered.

It's just a huge adventure.

If it makes me a coffee when I am driving home, I'll be really chuffed.  

I know that there is some other thing/s that I have not remembered.

The more I think about it, the only thing in common with my old Holden is four wheels, an engine and some windows.

I'm finished now.  

 

One thing you don't have is ........

 

 

 

 

 

a Lotus 🤣

[ramjet]

15 years with the S4. I'm happy, but true, I don't have a Lotus anymore unless you count the two car models that I have?

[Bibs]

That definitely counts! 

[ramjet]

9 hours ago, ramjet said:

15 years with the S4. I'm happy, but true, I don't have a Lotus anymore unless you count the two car models that I have?

I just remembered that I actually have three.

A white with red stripes Esprit Turbo.

A yellow Exige.

And a silver Esprit highwing.

[ramjet]

And just got the Fabia back from getting the front windows tinted and ceramic paint protection. 

[mg4lotus]

Front windows tinted