PH 2022 | Brave Pill of the Year
Which Pill would you choose to die on?
Christmas is a time for giving, a time for receiving and - to judge from the queue that you’ll find at the local waste centre on the morning of the 27th - a time for recycling. This is what brings us here, with a chance to celebrate this year’s greatest hits of money pits with another outing for what the SEO hamster continues to insist we call Brave Pill of the Year. The rules remain as before: positions have been chosen exclusively by the page views each one harvested rather than the love (or otherwise) they received in the comments. And, in the manner of Top of the Pops, we’ll be doing it backwards…
10. Audi RS4 (B7), 2007, 123K, £14,650
The combination of a posh German badge, a brawny V8 and bargain pricing make for about as typical a Brave Pill as it is possible to imagine, with this very attractive RS4 Avant representing the bottom of the B7 market when we featured in back in May. Limited modifications including a snarly Milltek exhaust and Bilstein coilovers didn’t cause any alarm in the comments, although the most recent MOT’s warning of worn pads and discs suggested that the next owner’s time with the car would be starting with some £££ bills.
9. Volkswagen Corrado VR6, 1996, 147K, £4,995
As internet entrepreneurs and Mail Online headline writers know, controversy means clicks. Proof comes with this Volkswagen Corrado VR6, a Brave Pill pantomime villain which received the sort of critical flaming that should have turned it into a BK burger, but also managed to sneak into the top ten. In the Corrado’s defence it was cheap for a VR6, looked tidy in the images and there was no mention of rust in the MOT record. The downsides were lowered suspension, Scene Tat visual mods and the fact it seemed to have been clocked at least once. PHer Dombilano summed up it up best: “it’s a PlayStation 2 and a subwoofer away from Max Power.” Ouch.
8. Mercedes SL55 AMG, 2002, 88K, £12,995
Amazingly it took PH more than three years to get to the R230 Mercedes SL55 AMG, a car that pretty much has its picture next to the word ‘bork’ in the dictionary of automotive clichés. Okay, so we had ticked off the SL500, SL600 and SL65 AMG before completing the set with this one, which looked almost like a sensible proposition thanks to decent colour, lowish miles and the reassurance of a nearly new set of P Zero tyres. Eight previous keepers did suggest that its appeal wore off quickly, though.
7. Porsche Panamera Turbo, 2009, 83K, £23,990
Another Brave Pill first, our debut Panamera was a nicely specced Turbo with ideas above its station - wearing a supplemental (and slightly wonky) S badge it wasn’t actually entitled to. It’s not as if the regular Turbo is exactly lacking in firepower or explosive performance thanks to the combination of 500hp and all-wheel drive. Beyond the risks inherent in anything so powerful and complex, this one looked almost sensible thanks to an MOT history that contained just a single advisory for worn rear tyres.
6. BMW M5 (E60), 2006, 123K, £14,695
Number six in the charts but arguably the pilliest Pill of the year in terms of the judging panel’s scores for both risk and value. The V10 engine has the proven ability to turn large fortunes into small ones, both through expensive mechanical maladies - most infamously spun rod-end bearings - and more prosaically fuel consumption that struggles to get into double digits. Then there’s the failure-prone single-clutch gearbox that has paid for many mechanics’ holidays over the years. Against that there’s the reward of 507hp, an 8,250rpm red line and what could well be the best-balanced chassis to ever sit below a saloon car. You’d be poorer if you owned a car like this, but happier too.
5. Porsche Boxster (986), 1999, 89K, £2,990
A heart taker and a rule breaker - in this case the car that violated what had previously been Brave Pill’s guiding principle not to select anything with declared mechanical faults. Against which this Boxster’s vendor’s admission of a poorly head gasket should have been a red card, but the rest of it looked so enticing that the selection criteria was relaxed to sing the praises of the rest of it. It found plenty of love in the comments among gung-ho fixer-uppers, too - although the fact it is still showing as SORN suggests it probably hasn’t found its forever home yet.
4. BMW i8, 2015, 74K, £40,980
Proof that variety remains the spice of life with what was probably our most atypical Pill of the year, and the newest car to ever have been featured. The i8 was chosen as a jumping-off point for what was meant to be a debate about how well (or otherwise) complex ‘leccy tech is going to age, but the comments section quickly turned to a love-in between owners of similar examples swapping notes and experiences of life with the three-pot plug-in sports car. The general conclusion was not brave at all, but still very attractive.
3. Jaguar XJ-SC, 1987, 118K, £8,995
This XJ-SC pretty much set our small corner of the internet aflame when it was Pill’d back in April. Put simply, pretty much everything about it was wrong, except a price which made it the cheapest XJ-S then available. As an SC it was the inelegant targa-bar convertible rather than the much more elegant full cabrio that came later, it had been resprayed purple with peeling pinstripes, came with the unappetizing combination of the six-cylinder engine and a manual gearbox and was wearing a TWR rear wing it had no obvious right to. It also had an MOT history more chequered than the World Chess Championship, with a grizzly list of rust-related fails, although these seemed to have been expensively sorted. Clearly it was so wrong it became right, in terms of clicks at least.
2. Ferrari 412, 1985, 105K, £34,995
Possibly the most divisive Pill of the year, and certainly the one that inspired the most below-the-line bread throwing. The cheapest Ferrari then in the classifieds was a spectacular example of the wedgy 2+2 GT, its appealing price down to a six-figure odometer, a three-speed automatic gearbox and the certainty of running costs to rival those of a small country. The thin pretense of editorial impartiality was soon abandoned on the grounds I’m a huge fan, but the critical reaction was balanced on a binary knife edge. Two consecutive comments summed up the debate: “the ugliest Ferrari ever made”/ “Utterly sublime. Best Pill ever.”
1. Jaguar XJ Supersport, 2012, 94K, £17,950
Anyone remembering listening to the official chart show on a Sunday evening and feeling the mild disappointment of a less-than-whelming Number One might have similar sentiments at the XJ that tops this year’s list. Not to suggest this is the equivalent of finding Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You in pole position for the sixteenth week in a row, but the XJ does seem very buttoned-down sensible compared to some of the year’s wackier and riskier offerings. Yet it’s also impossible to deny the appeal of so much muscle wrapped in such a well-tailored suit. Jaguar’s electric future looks a lot less exciting.
I wouldn’t own another RS4 - the ridiculous fuel consumption just wasn’t worth the reward IMO once the V8 burble novelty wares off.
But I would own another I8. They don’t make sense on paper but I had a very very memorable drive on a twisty road in mine.
As marmite as they are I like them, the side profile especially and wouldn’t say no to smoking about in one until the almost certain bang happened and you’re into an engine rebuild. Same V12 more or less as the Daytona and could live with feeling/hearing that going to the red line….
I’m sure it has the ability to turn grown men into blubbering wrecks but if I had the £££ I most certainly would try one
As marmite as they are I like them, the side profile especially and wouldn’t say no to smoking about in one until the almost certain bang happened and you’re into an engine rebuild. Same V12 more or less as the Daytona and could live with feeling/hearing that going to the red line….
If you get in the driving seat and just drive it, that visceral feeling of that fizzy Ferrari V12 and to know that it's yours and you can do that every day (subject to weather and gritty roads)
I wish they’d have another go on the i8, with a bigger battery pack and their latest tech.
I wish they’d have another go on the i8, with a bigger battery pack and their latest tech.
That being said, there's a company in Munich (eworks-mobility I believe?) offering custom battery pack upgrades for older i8s - not a bigger battery pack, just a more power-dense one. I think they're asking around £9k for 11.6kWh giving pre-facelift/2018 models around 33-35 miles of range; currently the best I've ever seen is 16 miles.
I'm not sure if I'll keep my i8 when my finance is up at the end of summer next year but if I do, I very well may do this upgrade - an effective doubling of the e-range isn't something to be sniffed at and at a stoke, would half more than halve the amount of fuel I use every month!
Same goes for the M5 and Jag.
The XJS needs total avoidance, its already on its way for recycling.
The best vfm in that list is the Panamera and Boxster, the latter is a bargain...
I wish they’d have another go on the i8, with a bigger battery pack and their latest tech.
That being said, there's a company in Munich (eworks-mobility I believe?) offering custom battery pack upgrades for older i8s - not a bigger battery pack, just a more power-dense one. I think they're asking around £9k for 11.6kWh giving pre-facelift/2018 models around 33-35 miles of range; currently the best I've ever seen is 16 miles.
I'm not sure if I'll keep my i8 when my finance is up at the end of summer next year but if I do, I very well may do this upgrade - an effective doubling of the e-range isn't something to be sniffed at and at a stoke, would half more than halve the amount of fuel I use every month!
Nice idea though....
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