BMWLand

As it seems everyone else is deserting the marque I'll do my bit and announce that yesterday I acquired a lovely F30 335d in Alpine White!

A bit of background: my daily driver was an E91 320d which although reliable and well-maintained, I just felt a bit bored with it. It was my mistake not looking (or indeed knowing) what options cars could have, consequently I found myself having to mod quite a bit to get it to even a mild level of comfort. With others who shan't remain nameless (i.e. @Spuffington !) doing a good job selling the dream and such I started looking around for another car - very rare for me as I tend to keep cars quite a while!

When I learned that @The CO was selling his F31 I was very interested, but the trouser wearer decided that the max budget should be £18k which sadly meant I wouldn't be able to have Ian's car. So then the search began! With my modding days behind me I knew which sort of spec I wanted; Heated...

Well, I’m now just over 2.5wks with the Macan so thought a write-up was in order.

By way of background, the Macan was both a spontaneous purchase as well as one which had been many, many years in the making. Since 2008 I’ve been on the cusp of realizing a dream and owning a Porsche but many things have got in the way. None of these necessarily financial – there’s been the battle with myself (I have suffered quite a bit with “imposter syndrome” in the past and believed I wasn’t good enough or that suddenly everything would come crumbling down) and my ex-wife was always one to call time on the idea whenever it was mooted.

But once the house was sold and cashflow free’d up, a chance conversation with my girlfriend about a Carrera 997.2 I’d seen at 911Virgin had her immediately say “if you like it, why don’t you buy it”? The seed was sown. That was one lazy afternoon in Frankfurt lying on the sofa playing with the iPad, which then turned into many...

As many of you know, I've struggled with the 3er for a little while and our last blast to Scotland sealed its fate really. It's a consummate car and likely all you'd ever need but I got frustrated with the average interior, the road noise and the lack of space - for us anyway. So we've been looking around and checked out the X3&5 but I didn't like the ride nor the clumsy styling. Had a bash in the X3 M40i and as fun as it is, it just didn't feel that special. We had another brush with the Macan but space is no better than the 3, epic car that it is. Discounted Audi as I've had them in the past and didn't want to go back there. As for the others, not interested.

So it came down to the FFRR or the RRS and test drove both and although I actually really liked the FFRR, it's a monster car. The ride is sublime though. And then the RRS which I was bit lukewarm to but we shoved all our crap in one; dog cage, bags and all the rest of it and it just swallowed the whole lot up. Sweet. Took...