BMW USED CARS

There's something
really attractive about a proper soft-top in the era of folding metal. It harks
back to a time when convertibles, roadsters and cabriolets were more of a
rarity and an indulgence; a vastly more emotional purchase, and one that
commanded attention and envy.

It's
ironic that after 12 years of sales, no one really knows how to pronounce Ford
Ka. Even Ford people mix it between K-A saying the letters separately, Ka with
a short 'a' or Ka as in car. And all this despite the fact that it's racked up
1.4 million global sales, a staggering 500,000 of which have been in the UK.
It's almost like not knowing how to pronounce Coke.

This is the finest large sporting saloon in the world. It sits
at the top of a distinguished and expensive heap, including the V10 Audi S8,
the 525bhp Mercedes S63 AMG and the all-new BMW 7-Series V8 twin turbo, and it
trounces them all in different ways.

Whenever and wherever the conversation turns to the Jaguar XF, it's all about the design. Even today, when we show up to drive the thing, the talk begins with the shape of the sheet metal, and the furnishings within.

I won't dwell on it though, save to say two things. First, it looks terrific on the road. Seeing it in pictures and at motor shows, I was tempted to judge the nose as slightly overworked, and the tail as slightly over-subtle. But actually that's the right way to go. Consider: if a car comes the other way, you see its face go by in a handful of seconds. The only time you get the chance to study a car at length on the road is when you're following it, either directly or in an adjacent motorway lane. This means the frontal aspect has to be assertive to make a quick impression, while the rear end can be more subtle but has to be flawless.

Standard 19in AMG alloys and beefy side skirts do far better justice to the new S-Class's oddly distended wheelarches, while a huge front apron with outsized air intakes and similarly chunky rear end, broken up by a pair of massive twin exhausts, complete the kind of repackaging that makes you think of borscht and punishment beatings.

But the S65's sales pitch gets skewed again by a £145,365 price tag. To put that into a Merc context, the 'L' version of the S320 CDI is £58,975, while the 500L is £73,770, and that'll still hit 62mph in 5.6 seconds.