Ha! I test-drove all the current Jaguars to make sure, considered all the usual suspect GT's as one must when spending that sort of cash, but had to listen to the heart which would have been saying "Should have bought a GranTurismo!" no matter what I'd gone for. Experienced nothing but positivity so far, it is just simply the most beautiful car on the road, a triumph for Pininfarina who aren't known for ugly cars, lets face it. Not checked out Douglas Park in Hamilton yet, but it's good to have a west-coast option up here, so will take a spin over sometime this month.
There's been three cars that the moment I first saw a picture I knew I'd have one day, the original XK, the GTV and the GranTurismo. Funny, just knew it.
The picture was taken on the Braes just to the north of Ullapool last month, a rare moment of clarity in a scene usually obscured by rain and snow, particularly at that time of the year. Back up later this month, looking forward to the drive already, always take the A82 option and it took all my willpower to not turn left at Invergarry and head down the A87, one of my top three driving roads in the World. Next time…
The gearbox thing. Well, since you asked Adam, (thanks) the Sport button seems to be a bit unpredictable, as is the transition from Auto to MC-Shift. Just started doing this last week. It'll start fine (learned the smoothing-out pedal trick from here, thank you) then will just stay in Sport regardless of switch position. If I turn off Auto in Sport-mode, the mode indication will go blank, but still blip on the downshift, then after about 3 or 4 miles the red MC-Shift will appear. Not coincident with temperature, it'll have been up to temp for a while.
Now at least it is staying in noisy mode, but sometimes I'd like the stealth option! The suspension seems to be following the exhaust, staying in sport regardless, again it would be good to smooth it out sometimes, particularly for speed bumps or the utterly appalling roads Renfrewshire council seem unable to repair around here.
Then again, sometimes it works just fine. Sometimes it does the reverse of the above, and stays in quiet mode, but that is rarer. Go figure! It is Italian after all, and I do have a few hours on Italian cars and bikes so well aware of all that implies, good and bad. Paradoxically, and coincidentally all this seemed to happen after I changed the language to Italian during a moment of boredom, which I immediately regretted as apart from andante, piano, fortissimo and that phrase from Gregory's Girl I really don't have a clue, and it was only through sheer luck and persistence that I found how to get it back to English! Eejit!
Still got a bit of warranty left, so will chase it up via a dealer if I'm not missing something damned obvious. Had a look through here, but not seen similar, though that doesn't mean someone hasn't posted ref a similar issue before, just that I'm **** at finding things, as my partner will testify to.
Thanks to all for the welcome, it does seem a very friendly and civilised board indeed…
Alan
