Yep, that headline refers to the one called “Aaaaaudi…” from a few weeks ago, where I described my limited enthusiasm for Audi’s newfound love for King Plastic. This time, I’m afraid we’re back to one of the all-time great brands who have proven to be completely detached from reality.
Some readers will perhaps remember my post from December 2024 where we dealt with Jaguar’s re-branding and its incomprehensible decision to throw all the positive, historical values of the brand over board in favor of something that can perhaps be described as “Electric DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)”. Not that they didn’t need the re-branding – they certainly did, as mentioned in the post. They just didn’t need this one.
A restomod re-branding would have made more sense…
As part of the effort to go fully electric by next year, Jaguar are currently not building any cars and any sales are therefore of stock vehicles. As predicted in the post back in December, quite a lot of those are at bargain prices. Not that it matters much though. Sales in Europe in April 2025 came in at 49(!) cars, 97.5% lower than April 2024. And in the four first months of the year until and including Apirl 2024, sales are down over 70%. Again, certainly to be expected when you don’t build cars. But a shocker nonetheless. And if you doubt that Jaguar dealers still have new cars in stock to sell, check any of them on the net. There are plenty of cars, just no buyers.
Jaguar went all-in in a re-branding exercise which, had it been in 2021 or 2022, they could perhaps still have claimed to be part of the “EV for all” future. But in December of last year, it was pretty clear to everyone that the race was run and it didn’t go as planned. Other brands saw the writing on the wall and paddled back as well as they could. Not Jaguar.
The choice is yours – they’re all cheap!
As always though, there is good news as well. The XJ-S that I wrote about back in 2020 has been seen as a future classic for many years now and may turn out like a hedge fund manager I know speaks of Brazil: “It has always been the market of the future and will remain so”. I wrote back in 2020 that “Still to this day, the XJS remains something of a bargain – at least in purchase price. That will most probably change in the future.” That’s so far been a lousy prediction – but all the better if you still haven’t bought one!
This means that you can still pick up a fabulous looking, Connolly-leather oozing classic Jag in top condition for USD-EUR 15-20k, and should you prefer the more modern XK-series, it’ll be yours for the same kind of money. Buy one, enjoy a classic piece of British automobile history, and rest assured that if, or rather when Jaguar goes broke for good, the value of the classic cars won’t suffer. The re-branding on the other hand will be forgotten quite quickly.
The year 2024 is pretty much done and boy has it been an eventful one! Conflicts and wars are not the topic of this blog, but just looking at the car world, few of us would have thought so much would happen during the coming 12 months when we sipped our New Year’s champagne a year ago. Perhaps most notably, at the time it very much seemed we were set on pushing on with the electrification phantasy and that as a consequence, large-volume combustion engines were very much a thing of the past.
Well, just as little as Max Verstappen won his fourth world championship title without any opposition, that didn’t happen. What did happen though, is that the threat to Western automakers from China became very real, and will certainly continue to be so in 2025 – tariffs or not. What else can we expect? Well, taking the first letter of the coming 12 months and finding a word starting with the same letter on a car related topic, here’s what I think. If the past is any indication it won’t be much more than a somewhat qualified guess, meaning 2025 will be another year full of surprises!
That’s far more hood than any EV will ever need…
January: it wasn’t long ago that Jaguar announced its complete rebranding with a marketing campaign that made everyone in the car world and lots of people outside of it shake their heads. I wrote about it back in November, in a post you can read here, and basically argued that if Jaguar was a healthy company to start with, it wasn’t a branding campaign that would break it. The problem is of course that it isn’t. A week after the post, Jaguar presented the first concept car for its all electric future, which surprised everyone again, given it’s most prominent feature was a long hood, which of course you don’t need for an EV. Anyway, the new line-up is set to hit the market in 2026. I’ll stick my neck out and say that won’t happen, and that Jaguar may not be around 12 months from now.
February: Just as everyone was writing off the large combustion engine as a concept, Ferrari presented the 12 Cilindri, its splendid new GT featuring a derivative of the 812 Superfast’s naturally aspirated, 6.5 litre V12, here putting out more than 800 hp, without any turbo-chargers or hybrid solution. Long live Maranello and contrary to what was the common belief a year ago, I still believe the rumors around the V8 and V12’s imminent death are largely overdone!
This is what a naturally aspirated V12 still looks like!
March: the new F1 season kicks off in Australia on March 16 2025, and Max Verstappen will of course have his mind set on his fifth world championship driving title. Will he succeed? That’s of course impossible to say but the competition looks fiercer than in many years with Norris and Piastri at McLaren, Leclerc and eight-time world champion Lews Hamilton at Ferrari, and Russell (more than Leeson) at Mercedes. I’ll stick my neck out (again) and say that this becomes a bit too much for Max, and that Lando Norris and McLaren will be world champions in 2025.
April: the month of April is often characterized by what we call April weather, meaning quick changes between sun and rain – a bit like a modern hybrid switches quickly between electricity and petrol or diesel. And whereas new sales of EV’s continue to be dismal, growing by only 8% in Europe in the first half of 2024, according to stats from The Economist, hybrid sales grew by over 50% over the same period. That’s of course what I’ve long argued on this blog, i.e. that if we don’t want everyone to park two cars in their garage, then a hybrid is a much wiser solution than an EV for most people. That’s therefore a trend I very much expect to continue!
May: think how much richer the car world has become through the various media channels we now have at our disposal! There’s of course the private Youtubers as well as the more official Youtube channels of leading car magazines such as Evo, but lately, I’ve even discovered some really nerdy car podcasts that are highly enjoyable – none more so than Chris Harris’ The Car Podcast. Together with some of his blokes, Chris will hear answer some life-critical questions, such as which car to buy for a budget of 30.000 if you want it to work both as a family car and on track. Essential stuff with a healthy touch of British humour!
Podcast of the year!
June: I really don’t set out to pick on Japan, but somehow it seems I still do every year, quite simply because we don’t see anything exciting coming out of the land of the rising sun anymore. Sure, Toyota are doing really well by sticking to their hybrid technology, but what about the others? I heard an interview with ex-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn the other week, talking about how insignificant Nissan has become, but you could say the same about Honda. Or Mazda. They all lose market share, and nothing exciting is on the horizon. Will that change in 2025? Don’t think so.
July: what I’m pretty certain won’t change neither in 2025, nor in the years therafter, is the steering wheel. We won’t convert to joysticks, yolks or anything else. And with the exception of Tesla, all other car brands will retain the good old stick as turn signal, quite simply because it’s vastly better than two buttons on the wheel. And we all know Tesla knows so as well, but hey, anything’s good for cutting a few dollars…
August: Renault did really well when they decided to resurrect the classic Alpine brand, and the A110 coupé has received a lot of praise as one of the most fun cars to drive out there. Unfortunately, the market for two-seaters with practically no luggage space is limited, even at the A110’s quite modest price point, so it was obvious that Renault would need to do more if they wanted to keep the Alpine brand. And of course, they couldn’t resist doing so by promising to launch a range of EV’s over the coming years. Given ambitions for sold cars are modest, they may well make it.
We went from the A110 to this – that’s not progress
September: next year will mark the 15-year anniversary of the Swedish brand Saab’s disappearance, which many of us regret to this day. But actually, the traditional Saabs most of us regret are far older than that. I saw a first-gen Saab 900 Aero the other day, and it was my 22-year old son, not me, who said “that’s a cool car”. It is, and a practical one at that. I know, because my father had one, and my wife and I also had a wonderful 9-3 convertible around 20 years ago. Unfortunately the engineers at Saab were always better than the marketing people, which is what ultimately led to the brand’s demise. Saab will certainly not be reborn in 2025!
October: with the general insecurity surrounding the car world, it’s not fully clear what will happen to our dear oldltimers. I don’t doubt for a second that the real fanatics dream of the day when these polluting, terrible old things will all be forbidden, but I think that will remain a dream. Oldtimers are often owned by people with large wallets who tend to be large taxpayers as well, that the state doesn’t want to rub the wrong way. Oldtimers will be with us for many years to come, and I expect their secondary values to continue their upward path!
Buying an E-type as an oldtimer may be a particularly good idea!
November:Nio is one of the new Chinese EV brands we may have to get used to, and it’s about as remarkable as any of the others, i.e. not at all. Were it not for the fact that it has one more trick up its sleeve than the others, as next to charging it normally, it’s also been built for a so called battery swap. That means driving to a battery swapping station where in five minutes, your whole battery pack is swapped against a new one. What a brilliant idea! Now we don’t only need to build traditional charging stations around Europe, but also plenty of battery swapping stations, where in addition, a number of fully charged battery packages need to be kept. And this only for Nio, since as of now, no other brand is equipped with this technology. Seriously – who comes up with these ideas? This one will not be long-lived, and thank God for that.
December: to round it off, dodici means 12 in Italian, and I can’t really get over the Ferrari 12 cilindri, and the fact that they really did it – they built another coupé with a naturally aspirated V12. And then some journalists took it to a track and told us it was more a GT than a true track car, as if someone really cares. The point is that it exists, and that Ferrari went against everything they were told, for the love of the car. And for that, we love them dearly!
I travel quite frequently to London on business and on my last trip a few weeks ago, I had some time to escape the work routine and actually enjoy the city a bit. Of course, London is just as little representative of the UK as New York is of the US. Still, the things we consider as British are very present in London as well: rain for one, especially at this time of year, but then also the pubs, the Guinness they serve, the men in tweed jackets who drink it… And then, there’s of course the cars. Rolls Royce, Bentley and Aston Martin certainly rank as more fancy, but the brand most people associate with the UK, and also the one most of us can reasonably aspire to, is Jaguar.
Rule good old Britannia!
Unless you’ve lived under a rock the last two weeks, you’ve no doubt seen the storm erupting over the video announcing Jaguar’s re-branding. To say that it’s been criticized is a serious understatement. Everything, from the androgyne AI-like people, over the fact that no cars are shown, to the new logo: Jaguar lovers (of which all of a sudden, there seems to be a suprisingly large number) have been on the barricades over the sacrilege of destroying Jaguar’s image and by extension, the Britain they cherish. And since we’re on video clips, this one illustrates that view pretty well.
You certainly don’t need me to write yet another post on how terrible the rebranding is, there’s already plenty of those around. And actually, even though I believe Jaguar’s (I’ll still write that with a capital J, thank you very much) days are counted, I’m not sure the rebranding is the cause. Because just as little as the UK can today be summarized as a pint of Guinness in a tweed jacket or whatever way Jeremy Clarkson would like it to be, Jaguar was very far from a healthy car brand to start with. And, whetheryou like it or not, Britain has moved on, as has the rest of the world.
This was a long time ago.
Jaguar is part of the Land Rover group, which in turn is owned by the Indian Tata Group. However, contrary to Land Rover itself who under Tata has profited, and continues to profit from the SUV trend, Jaguar’s model line-up hasn’t really done so. There were two small SUV’s, the E-Pace and the F-Pace, both of which are quite alright (and one of those especially so, more on that below) but also quite far from the British spirit described above and also from the the poise of the Land Rover line-up, which I guess you could call less understated and far more in your face design-wise, which seems to be what people want.
Then there was the I-Pace, an EV SUV which wasn’t very remarkable at all. The four-door XE sedan and XF station wagon were even less interesting, and the line-up was rounded off by the only car Jaguar really deserve credit for, namely the F-type coupé and roadster. However, the F-Type is a 10-year old model by now and thus one due for replacement quite soon, and anyway a two-seat sports car is not something a brand can build its existence on.
An excellent drive and good-looking too, for those wanting something else than a 911.
To summarize all of this in numbers, Jaguar sold around 150.000 cars in 2019, a number that they couldn’t have survived on long-term, had they remained a stand-alone brand. This year, that number was down to 50.000 cars before Jaguar earlier this year suspended all new car sales, hence the usage of past tense in the paragraphs above. They do this to re-launch – surprise surprise – as a fully electric brand in 2026, which is of course what the rebranding campaign is meant to illustrate.
Jaguar was thus quite far from doing well at the launch of this campaign, and anyway, very few marketing campaigns through the years have had enough effect to make or break a brand, as some of the comments around this would have you believe. I’d even question whether rebranding in Jaguar’s case is such a bad idea, when you see the convulsions some car brands have ended up in, trying to combine EV’s and ICE’s. If your ICE sales numbers are dipping and your line-up is old and mostly uninspiring, and you’re convinced a new era is around the corner, maybe a rebranding is the right way to go?
Will the whole thing end with a contested re-branding video?
Unfortunately, there is a couple of issues. The first of those is timing, and the second is a five-litre V8. Starting with timing, my reasoning would have been far more convincing had this happened two-three years ago, when everyone (well, almost) was still convinced that EV’s would take over the world. Now, we’re at a stage where EV sales are crumbling in every single market (except perhaps China where to put it mildly, you can force people’s hand…), and car manufacturers are doing all they can to pedal back on their “full EV” commitments. In that market, Jaguar now wakes up and goes full EV in a way that doesn’t allow for any pedaling back, should it not succeed.
Then, there’s the five-litre compressor V8 that is one of the greatest engines out there. I had it in my Range and in the Jaguar line-up, it’s fitted in the top-of-the-range F-Type and F-Pace models. The F-Pace received quite a complete overhaul in 2022 and the five-litre V8 version called SVR has had motor journalists drooling all over it, calling it the best small SUV out there, and perhaps the best car in the market in terms of engine sound. That’s a sound it shares with the F-Type, a less spectacular but very capable coupé-roadster in an attractive packaging.
Going out with a bang – the lovely, 5-litre compressor V8!
Jaguar has thus sacrificed two great V8 models for a full EV experiment, debuting not now, but in two years, but already now being two-three years late. They do so with cars that so far no one has seen, but that they claime will be REALLY luxurious, and REALLY expensive. If you’re wondering how that could possibly go well, you’re not the only one. But it’s the full strategy they’ve embarked on, rather than a rebranding campaign or a new logo, that is Jaguar’s real problem.
Meanwhile, for all intents and purposes, what we used to know as Jaguar just ceased as a brand, meaning that if you can track down a new F-Type or F-Pace in V8 form, you could be down for the deal of your life, since dealers will be really anxious to get these out of their shops. And in the pre-owned market, I strongly suspect both of those will hold their value better than most at their respective, depreciated price point, and especially in the case of the F-Type, perhaps even become a collectible down the line. Until that day comes, I promise you’ll never get tired of listening to that V8!
It seems yet another year is coming to an end and at least if you ask me, it’s been one that’s passed quicker than most! I guess that may be a sign of our accelerating society, where everything seems to move at an ever increasing pace. Except for the adoptions of EV mobility that is, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As usual, in expectation of a hopefully good 2024, I’ve compiled a few paragraphs of stuff that we’ve seen, may see, or is just interesting to think about, following the first letters of the 12 months of the year. Enjoy the reading and the holidays!
January
The J for January this year is for Japan, not because of the exciting cars they bring to market (they don’t), but rather because they’ve become the last bastion of some kind of realistic thinking around future electric mobility, continuing to largely ignore full EV’s in favour of various types of hybrids, and with a number of projects also in e-fuels. It’s actually a rather simple calculation to see that if for all the reasons we know, your battery producing capacity is limited, then splitting what you have between several cars and complementing it with a combustion engine is far more efficient than building a small number of full EV’s. Let’s hope Japan can export its thinking to other countries in 2024 – but I wouldn’t hold my breath…
February
The February F is for Ferrari, and the fact that the Maranello company is doing better than ever before. Looking over the last 10 years, production numbers have more than doubled, the product range receives praise from motor journalists and is up to date. and had you bought the stock five years ago, you would have tripled your money. Not only that, if you were one of the lucky few to get your hands on a Purosangue, the most elegant SUV (kind of…) on the market, you could re-sell it for around twice what you bought it for – if you find one. There’s currently not a single one for sale in Germany, as an example. In two words already used when I wrote about the FF a few weeks ago: Forza Ferrari!
The first Purosangue I’ve seen in Zurich, as late as last week. Worth a fortune!
March
We’ll take the March M to mean money, since no month starts with an E, in which case I would have said Euros. Because it’s largely in Europe that money is getting increasingly scarce, and nowhere more so than in Germany, where the government is trying to find enough money to fill a small EUR 17bn budget hole that was “discovered” a few weeks ago. One of the measures taken is an immediate scrapping of the EUR 4.500 cash premium for buying an EV, and I’ll let you guess how that will affect already slowing sales numbers. Things are getting harsher, or let’s say less subsidized for EV’s in many other countries as well, so at least for now, the party looks to be over before it even started. Except for Tesla that is, more on that in May…
April
Before May though we have April with A for AlfaRomeo, that returned to full form five-six years ago with both the Giulia and Stelvio Quadrifoglio, a 500hp sedan and mid-sized SUV that received praise all over, and to everyone’s surprise, saw Alfa all of a sudden being able to compete with cars like the BMW M3. Given many of us enthusiasts are Alfistis at heart, this looked like the new dawn we had been waiting for since the 80’s – but then nothing happened. No further exciting models, an ageing line-up, and with as latest addition the small SUV called Tonale, which is unexciting, uninteresting, and overpriced. C’mon Alfa, time to wake up before it’s too late!
The Giulia was the most positive Alfa Romeo surprise since the 80’s!
May
Even though this is a blog for those of us favouring combustion engines, I’ll take the second M for the year to mean Musk, as I continue to be fascinated by the man. As mentioned last week when writing about the Cybertruck, it’s amazing what he has achieved with Tesla in only 10 years, and at the same time, it’s rather pitiful how the traditional industry still isn’t managing to produce good alternatives. This is something we’ll come back to next year, but looking at it now, the Model Y is the best-selling car this year in Europe, it ranks no 4 in the US, and the motoring press seems to agree on the Model 3 currently being the best EV out there. So was I wrong about e-mobility not taking off? No, but Tesla is the shining exception. I still don’t want one, but I’ll take my hat off for Elon!
June
J for June or a Jubilant Max Verstappen, who took his third consecutive F1 title in 2023 and by June of last year, had basically already settled the whole thing. Max is the best driver on the grid and also has the the best car from what is currently also the best team. He also has the aggressiveness and sometimes carelessness that can be irritating but, that almost every true champion has, and although the other teams came closer towards the end of the year, as discussed in the last round-up of the 20230 F1 season, it seems unlikely that he will not be on top again when we sum up 2024. Well done Max!
July
The second J is for Jaguar, that a bit like Alfa, I can’t really get my head around. Jaguar has all the tradition and brand name you can ask for, but currently a line-up which is not only small, but also pretty unexciting. In Europe as we end 2023, there’s only three models: the obligatory EV SUV called the I-Pace, a conventional one called the F-Pace, that is mildly exciting at best, and the F-Type sports coupé or convertible, that in V8 shape sounds really good, but is also getting rather old. The sedan called XF isn’t even on sale here anymore, neither is the smaller, E-type SUV. Given Land Rover has a fully up to date line-up, let’s hope it’s time for Jaguar in 2024, but it currently doesn’t look like it.
As mentioned in the post, it’s a good-looking car, but it’s getting old…
August
The second A of the year is for August and the auto shows, which are no longer the same, especially not in… you guessed it, Germany. The IAA used to be one of Europe’s largest auto salons, that would alternate with Paris every other year, and that has been at home in Frankfurt for longer than anyone can remember. In its old form it’s gone, replaced by a smaller event that will alternate between different German cities, and of course focus on EV’s. The show saw a 30% drop in visitors during Covid and somehow never recovered, at the same time as auto makers prefer invest the millions these events cost in more lucrative parts of the world, i.e. Asia and especially China. At least we still have the Auto Salon in Geneva – for now…
September
The only month with S in its name is September, that will here represent senses. This is something I’ve thought quite a lot about lately, and that became painfully obvious when re-acquainting myself with the wonderful Ferrari FF recently. Like most cars featured on this blog, it very much appeals to all your senses at once. But the EV’s we’re supposed to drive going forward don’t have much going for them in this regard. I think there’s very few people who would choose between accelerating to 100 km/h in sub-3 seconds in an EV, compared to doing it in sub 4 seconds in a V8, V12, or for that matter, turbo four-cylinder. And that’s before even looking at the car, since for efficiency reasons, every EV looks like a soap. How will our senses get any form of excitement from our future mobility? You tell me…
October
The O of October goes to Opel (Vauxhall in the UK), a brand that will never be a regular feature on the blog, as with very few exceptions, Opel builds practical cars of average looks, average quality and average size, that have absolutely zero attraction for anyone with an interest in cars. So what are the exceptions? I can think of three: the Speedster, a sister car to the Lotus Elise which was said to actually work, the Lotus Omega, an early kind of super-saloon from the 90’s that Lotus helped develop, and of the course the Opel Manta, that in certain circles in its native Germany has a very loyal following which has even been caught on film, as you may remember from the post back in the spring of 2022. So here’s to Opel, probably for the last time.
The Manta – probably the only Opel to ever be featured on this blog!
November
The N for November stands for Nio, one of the many new Chinese car brands, mostly electric, that sell literally millions of cars in China and that are now increasingly making it to Europe. Others include names such as BYD, Aiways and of course also MG, that has gone from a stylish UK builder of roadsters to a Chinese producer of basic EV SUV’s. Supported by their domestic market and rich on capital, many of these groups have now become a serious threat to especially European manufacturers, who still can’t get their act together when it comes to electrification and also can’t compete on price, something we’ll look closer at in 2024. The Chinese of course have the huge advantage of also controlling a lage part of the global battery market, which certainly helps!
December
We close out with a D for December and for the good old Defender, Land Rover that is, in the generation prior to the current one (that is also cool, but doesn’t quite have the same personality). Although becoming less frequent, you still see them more or less regularly, and they still have as much presence. These days, they also represent a simplicity that is otherwise long gone in a world where cars are judged by the size of their infotainment screens and the number of interior light colors. They still hold their value really well, even though you’d be forgiven for thinking that should no longer be the case. I have no idea where they will go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people continue to be attracted to them, in our increasingly complex world. I’ll have a 90 version please, in dark green or black, with the optional Recaro seats!
It’s still the only car you’ll ever need – and the coolest!
As regulation continues to dictate how cars look mainly for “safety” reasons, this leaves less room for designers to design their dream car. Also, as automotive designers move around, either within the holding companies or change firms, one can clearly see the design language represented in various cars, as they change company. One such example is Marc Lichte, who currently heads up the design at Audi. His long straight lines can clearly be seen in VW, where he was responsible for the exterior, into the current Audi line up.
AudiVolkswagen
One can also see his mark in the new Audi A6, where his hard,
long lines are evident making the car more masculine, longer and defined.
Clearly one can see the inspiration of Audi motorsport, which
the haunched wheel arches – a throwback to the Audi Ur Quattro, which dominated
the rally scene in the 1980’s.
Audi A6Audi A6
On the interior, his passion for Porsche can also be seen.
The double lines of the Porsches of old, can clearly be seen in the interior as
well. Even the steering wheel is similar.
Audi A6 InteriorPorsche 993 Interior
But are cues
from the past the way forward? Should car companies follow history and
previous design cues of the past, or like Jaguar, throw away history and focus
on the future?
New XJOld XJ
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Unfortunately I was not able to make it to the F-PACE launch event in Barcelona last week. But, fortunately, the Jaguar dealer around the corner from my office has a Jaguar F-PACE in the showroom.
I must say that the F-PACE is a very beautiful car, from the outside as well as from the inside.
It is slightly bigger (5 cm) than our Porsche Macan, but still smaller than big SUV:s. Rear seat space and boot space is marginally bigger than in the Macan.
The F-PACE is a very desirable car, and with the 340hp or 380hp supercharged petrol V6 (same as in the F-TYPE) it should be rather quick. The only problem is that for that kind of money I think I’d rather upgrade to a Macan GTS…
This Jaguar F-TYPE Coupé was on display at the Jaguar dealership close to my home in Barcelona. The car is achingly beautiful! I was allowed to sit in the car and the interior is really cozy and sporty.
När jag var i Genève förra året så tyckte jag att Ferrari F12berlinetta var salongens stjärna. Jag tycker fortfarande att det är en fantastiskt vacker bil, men Paris-salongens stjärna var en annan; Jaguar F-TYPE. Riktigt, riktigt snygg! Framför allt framifrån och från sidan, men även bakdelen är helt ok.
Invändigt har bilen väldigt bra stolar med utmärkt sidostöd. Bilen jag provsatt hade “Performance”-stolar som är extrautrustning. Inredningen är snygg och sportig och med tillräcklig bra finish för prisklassen.
Tvärtom mot vad vissa motorjournalister tycker, så tycker jag att F-TYPE känns väldigt prisvärd, framför allt toppmodellen med V8 och kompressor som ger 495 hästar. Det är 35 fler än i min California och då får man ta i beaktande att F-TYPE är billigare än en Porsche 991…
Toppmodellen avverkar 0-100 på 4,3 s. Även de sexcylindriga varianterna, i två trimningsgrader, är snabba med 340 respektive 380 hästar. Modellerna med V6:a är dessutom lite lättare. Mellanmodellen med 380 hästar ser väldigt intressant ut. För lite mer pengar än en Boxster S får man väldigt mycket bil. Det ska bli mycket intressant att se hur de är att köra. Leveranser börjar i vår. Coupén-varianten kommer ett år senare.
Bilen finns i tre utförande med kompressormatade V6:or och V8:or på mellan 340 och 495 (!) hästar. Vikten är på runt 1600 kg, dvs något tyngre än 911 Cabriolet.
Jag åker ner till bilsalongen i Paris nästa vecka och rapporterar mer då!
The Thrill of Driving 