Driving A Car With A Million Optional Extras Has Turned Me Into A Creature Comfort-Loving Wuss

A funny thing happened the other day. I needed to get somewhere, so I jumped in the car - only, it wasn’t the Jaguar XE S we’ve been running as a long-term test car since December, since CT Features Ed Darren had the keys. Instead, it was my own car, a basic spec MkV VW Golf GTI, which meant I reached for the electric seat adjustments, only to find it has none.

“Oh!”, I thought. Then: “Since it’s a cold day, I’ll turn on the heated seats and steering wheel.” But the Golf doesn’t have those features either, and I felt a twinge of disappointment. You see, just a month and a half with this car has made me a bit soft. With about £10,000 of optional extras - including four heated seats (the front ones being cooled too), a heated front windscreen, head-up display and 360-degree cameras, I’ve quickly grown accustomed to having every toy under the sun.

This meant that on the recent miserable winter’s day when I swapped back from the supercharged Cosworth Toyota GT86 we’d been testing - with its low equipment list and super firm suspension - I was bloody glad to be back in the wafty Jag.

We have had a couple of reasonably minor issues which are currently being investigated by Jaguar (full report soon), but driving the XE has overall been a positive experience, and I adore the way it cocoons you from the outside world with lashings of leather and fancy gismos. All while still being able to put a smile on your face when you’re blatting down a good road, of course.

All this leaves me a little worried, however. Does this call my credibility as a petrolhead into question, since I’m no longer happy to daily a car unless it has all sorts of creature comforts pre-installed? Does it mean - as one CTzen recently suggested - I’m getting “too old for this s**t”? I’m not sure, but when I flick the XE into Dynamic mode while having my bum and hands nicely toasted, I cease to care.