Travel Reference
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if you're lucky, and sometimes all it takes to fix them is a screwdriver or the reconnec-
tion of a wire. So while the fact that they break down more often might reintroduce a
measure of frustration into the ownership/driving experience, being able to get them go-
ing again without possessing a degree in electronics and the facilities of a big city dealer-
ship's workshop actually feels quite rewarding; you feel reconnected to the world when
this happens, able to make a difference, to identify a problem and sort it rather than just
impotently hand it on to somebody who will take it away, deal with it out of sight and
return it.
There is also a kind of comfort to be had from having a vehicle that is most happy at
legal speeds. It's an unfortunate irony that speeds and levels of road holding previously
only attainable in expensive and exotic machinery are now easily reached in the average
modestly specified hatchback just at the time that our crowded, high-surveillanced high-
ways have rendered the use of such abilities difficult, dangerous and (sometimes even
reasonably) illegal. So a car that feels happiest at velocities of a non-nabbable nature
makes perfect sense.
The Jag is like this - it feels fine on the motorway at about 70 and happy enough at
60 on the open road - and so is the Land Rover, just because of its gearing and the fact
that it has the aerodynamics of a light industrial unit. (So, too, oddly enough, is our old
911, though this is entirely because it's a soft-top.)
The Jag, of course, comes from the time when our speed limits were set. Back then
people were happily revving Mk IIs up to 120 and above, however - despite the fact that
my one's been fully restored and according to our local garage is probably in better nick
than the day it rolled out of the factory back in 1965 - I've never had it above 90, and
have no intention of going anywhere near that figure again. The Jag feels its age at these
speeds; it complains, it roars and wheezes and there are suddenly all sorts of new vibra-
tions coming from practically every part of the car that argue against exploring further.
The Jag is just starting to get unhappy at about 75. The M5, on the other hand, treats
twice that velocity like this is the sort of speed it'll be happy with all day, thank you.
By the time it's doing 150 - just 5 m.p.h. short of its factory-set limiter; an unrestricted
M5 allegedly hit over 170 - it's growling a little louder, certainly, and you're aware that
you're surrounded by a jet-like rush of slipstreaming air, but the car just settles down,
seems to fix the horizon with a steely glare and thunders on, composed and steady. In-
stead it's the driver who's on edge, not the car; you're constantly just about to switch ped-
als with your right foot as a truck or slower car pulls out and you have to brake. In fact
you're travelling so quickly you have to react pretty quickly the instant you see a distant
sign announcing a limit on the autobahn.
That the nearly 40-year-old Jag feels about right at our national speed limits - even
given that it was a serious performance car in its day, the sixties equivalent of the M5 -
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