Buying another Jaguar
price through a trade contact (I’d have kept the Mercedes myself), THERE HAVE been hundreds if not thousands of column inches written of late on the subject of fuel I also found myself looking at a few rather more interesting cars, prices, and not without good reason. the vast majority of which (well, all of them) had a Jaguar badge After all, it’s an emotive subject and one that we’re on the bootlid. And while the sensible thing to do would, of course, have been to all having to face up to, with the average cost of filling up a family car increasing by around £30 over a period of just close my computer screen, collect the Peugeot for my mate and call a few weeks. Even with the latest duty cuts, petrol and diesel are still it a job well done, I didn’t. I instead found myself on a train to Lincoln ridiculously expensive commodities. with a pocket full of cash, the collecting of which was an adventure in itself thanks to the fact that nobody uses paper money anymore. I When you run an old Jaguar, that’s a pinch you’re going to feel, but unless you swap to a smaller and more frugal car, there’s no had to make an appointment at my bank and take my passport, but the trade-off was that I turned part of my investment into a new-toescaping it. And if you’re someone who, to friends and neighbours, ‘knows about cars’, there’s also no avoiding being me Jaguar. The above photo will tell you what it cornered and asked for help. is – an S-TYPE – but in this case it’s also a pretty That’s what happened to me very recently, special one. when a friend in the small town where I I’ll leave the story of the car for the next I FIGURED live asked for my assistance in finding him issue of Jaguar World though, since during the THERE WAS a new work car to replace his six-cylinder course of my research another Jaguar piqued my petrol Mercedes-Benz (I almost bought it, but interest. It was also just inside my £2,000 search ‘NO HARM’ the reasons why I didn’t will soon become parameters and was even closer to home, so I IN GOING TO apparent). He’d decided that with a 70-mile figured there was ‘no harm’ in going to take a TAKE A LOOK daily round commute, he wanted something look. So I did and at the time of writing, I’m due that wouldn’t hit his wallet quite as hard at the to collect it in just a few days’ time. I guess I’ll be pumps. Since I have a lot of contacts in the local telling you about that one in the fullness of time, motor trade, I said I’d have a look around. too, but let’s just say, it’s a fair few years older than the S-TYPE and is a very, very lovely thing indeed. The trouble is, everyone else is doing the same, so the market So what’s the moral of this story? It’s this; if you have a friend for frugal hatchbacks has gone potty. The days of buying a 12- or who’s in the market for a cheap car then it’s probably not a good 13-year-old runabout for less than a grand are long gone, and I idea to offer to help them out, especially if the money you ought to found myself looking at average Astras and tedious Toyotas, rapidly be spending on the family holiday is burning a hole in your pocket. re-evaluating what my perception of a bargain should look like. But if you have the same atrocious levels of willpower as I do, Setting my search parameters to a limit of £2,000 within 50 miles there’s also never been a better time to go and find a lovely but of home was a dangerous game, though, not least because a teninefficient old Jaguar. Irrespective of what fuel costs per litre, there’s year savings plan I’d invested in many moons ago had just matured no better way to travel. And if you’re going to pay through the nose and – to quote Father Ted – the money was “resting in my account”. to fill the tank, you might as well do it in style, right? You can’t take So, while I eventually solved my friend’s transport problem with it with you, after all… CC the purchase of a diesel-engined Peugeot 308 for a very sensible
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May 2022 \ Jaguar World | 19
