Mir's Garage - Supercars, old cars, and wagons

Other than exposure to road dirt, an external magnetic connector for the charger sounds like a nifty feature. I usually get caught out on my MR2 by thinking "I'll drive it tomorrow" but that quickly becomes 2 or 3 weeks, then the battery is flat. It is more of a faff to connect though...

Six days parked up for a £2.5k battery to go from (presumably) full to 5-10% and shutting down?

That seems... ridiculous... lol

Other than that, all is good

Totally bonkers - you wouldn't accept that with a white goods vehicle so how is it 'acceptable' on a £300k car?! lol

I take that as excellent news, as it means you’ll be out in the fast red one more often, and I do love the pictures you post.

Might be the best looking colour combination I’ve seen on a Ferrari!

So, finally found a moment to breathe and do a bit of car admin, which involved primarily tyres/rims on the Pista.

Current set of rims and tyres needed pulling off. Carbons to go into storage, and the Cup 2s they're wrapped with are ruined from my Milbrook session.

New PS4S have been sitting for a few weeks, as have my new OEM alloys from Ferrari. Finally collected the alloys, drove them down to my tyre guys and got the PS4S on it. Fun little extra run-around, Ferrari being italian don't use a normal valve stem, so a universal set don't work. Needed a set from Ferrari, wasn't included.

Anyway, got it all sorted and the new set of alloys and tyres are on the car now. I loved the carbons, and I'm not sure I love the silver, but I'll leave it for a bit and see how I feel after a while. Even if I don't like it as much, it's more about what's practical - and in this case these alloys win hands down.

I’m imagining you with 4 alloys wedged into your Ferrari… driving from the main dealer to the tyre place … tell me that’s how it happened…

… I had one on the passenger seat and one on the footwell … not sure where the others went …. Wheels (especially with tyres on) are massive when you’re trying to shift them inside a car … except your Porsche by the sounds of things.

Fabulous car and brilliant thread. Salt covered shots just epic. Great work.

In other news and other areas of the garage, I've done a deal to P/X the Panamera for a Range Rover, pending my insurance coming back to me on Monday stating it isn't, in fact, going to cost the GDP of a small nation to insure.

I liked the Panamera, great machine and beautiful car - but I continued finding myself wanting something even further disconnected from the road, and I needed some towing capability. The ST can tow, but this car had no preperation for towing so I couldn't have retrofitted one easily enough without the OPC getting arsey over the warranty.

Finally, and the biggest thing. OH was starting to get upset because the current configuration of "dog seating" was 2 on the back seats and the big one in the boot. She said this was generally problematic when the dogs are muddy, or in the event of any accident. I was reminded of this each time we used the car to transport the dogs anywhere. So, in my mind, a Range Rover fit the bill perfect - as all three of them can get loped in there.

I wanted one with all the toys, my general outlook on this sort of thing is, if you're already spending £100k on a thing, you may as well just go whole hog and get the best possible. Fortuitiously, a short little pitstop at the local LR dealer showed me a car that fit the bill perfectly. A 2022 First Edition, more or less as I would have spec'd it myself save for the color of the leather. Car was at a different branch 45 minutes down the road, so the next day I bundled OH into the car and went down to have a look.

What followed was a bit of a saga. She wasn't overly impressed with the size of the boot (on a fking Range Rover) - so she sort of switched off the idea a little. Essentially, the executive seating pack on the Autobiographies/SVs/First Eds take away circa 3-4 inches of floor space. We saw an HSE on the floor which had a much more agreeable boot with the reclaimed space. Only issue was that car was £20k+ more expensive as it was unregistered and showroom new. Out of question as I've just taken a kick in the balls on the Panamera to start with, on top of topping off the difference between the two.

Anyway, we drove the car regardless and it was utterly lovely. Ride was sumptious, best ride I've felt this side of an Rolls Royce, very S-Class. Drives easy. Seating position brilliant. Loved everything about it. Power was adequate from the D350 powerplant, but I am really quite over the concept of "super fast dailies", after I realised I hadn't even touched the sport exhaust button in the Panamera for months. So, big ups from me.

Then she saw a Defender. And it all began. She fell in love with it. Even more so with the Hardtop which is the perfect animal-wagon. Obviously the hardtop is too much of a compromise as we need the seats, but the Defender itself was speaking to her. Soooo we went out for a drive. It took me by surprise, it drives quite nicely I must say. Ride about on par with the Panamera in terms of comfort, certainly not a nice as the FFRR, but still good. Car was on the big wheels so that would have hurt it a little. Handles nicely for the brick it is, and felt more spritely than the RR. Very capable and quite desireable, I must say. But my heart was set on an RR because the Defender is not quite there on the motorway, toys, and refinement perspective. Also, the rear apeture opening was not quite there for both of us, the split tailgate is significantly more practical on the RR, the defender would need us to swing the door completely open to retrieve the dogs from their cages, which poses somewhat of a problem parallel parking at the beach, for example. Defender @ £70k or RR @ £100k, they seem weird to cross shop, but oh well.

Either way, an argument sparked. We deferred the decision to the drive home and over dinner. We also needed to size up the space vs. the dogs. We agreed the car we came to see was nicer in every respect, but it's all moot if it can't do what we set out to do which is have all of them in the back and caged up.

Anyway, a bit of research later, we discovered the cage structure we wanted to purchase for both cars was actually smaller in the Defender than it was in the RR w/ exec seats. +1 for the RR, but even then - in the RR itself we weren't sure the German Shepherd would fit. So, we looked at a different cage structure which was less enclosed and more atypical to the standard divider setup.

For context, what we were going for before, below.



German Shepherd on one side, 2 (small) whippets in the other.

Weirdly, smaller on the Defender, albeit taller.



So, the compromise was this.



You can move that center divider wherever you want, so we can give one section more space, or keep it equally divided. Handy.

This also meant that the room afforded by this more open setup put the car we went to see back in contention.

With that in mind, this morning I bundled the German Shepherd and OH into the Panamera, went back down to the dealer, and threw the dog into the very car. She fit just fine, very comfortable, even if we divided the space in half. Loads of room to sit up fully upright, lay down, and turnaround. Perfection.

So with that, only the final piece of puzzle to sort. There was a little rattle/creak coming from the dash. I took the car out and showed the wonderfully helpful sales fella, Leon - who agreed it's an annoying one. Went back into the dealer and had a good chat with the used car manager and they agreed, we can do a deal now, they will rectify before delivery, and if not to my satisfaction it's totally OK to reject the car, no hard feelings.

So, we did a deal. I got a few thousand off, and got a price I was very satisfied with. P/X price for Panamera also roughly what I expected. Ultimately, I did not pay a six-figure asking which is all I really wanted, and it left me happy with the transaction. (All pending nominal insurance prices)

So, final things - get insurance on Monday, confirm the rattle is sorted, and then pick up the car some time this coming week.

Personally, this is how I would have spec'd the car myself with the exception of the cream interior, which I still like, but would have gone with the tan/brown instead. I think it's quite a regal, handsome spec, not the typical black/black/black situation.





Let's see what my insurance guy comes up with on Monday. John's brilliant so I'm hopeful, but who knows with the way these things are stolen.

That looks really smart.

I can't stand black/black and more black combinations either!