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.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Nah - I just think it’s human nature to get attracted towards creature comforts but I think of cars like homes - obviously you enjoy your time In a 5 star hotel but there is a certain comfort sleeping in your own house!
A heated wheel is a heated Disklok!
totally agree!
Heated this, heated that, electric adjustment, 360 cameras, head up display……
……My car doesn’t even have a rev counter. You only get that on the top spec model!
My Opel Adam S also has a heated steering wheel and seats, ambient lights and even wi-fi but costs about 40.000£ less than the Jag.
You’ve always been that way since you drove that Bentley
As someone who lives in Australia, I feel like a refrigerated steering wheel would be much more useful.
An imaginary all-wheel-drive Jaguar XE Wagon with the 2 litre diesel and the 8 speed automatic would be my ultimate daily driver. Had a rented XE 20d last year, I drove the hell out of that thing with 70 mph average, half Autobahn half normal roads: 33 mpg. A8 3.0 TDI on the same route, same average speed: 24 mpg. Also, the Jag is much better in terms of the interior, without all that “audi design selection” nonsense and the totally random button placement (every time you want to engage the cruise control in the Audi, you hit the button on the very outside of the turn signal stalk, which turns on the f*cking lane assist). Also, the Jag obviously looks better. You have to be mad not to buy one, if you can.
As a kid that grew up in S classes, BMW’s and a couple of other luxurious cars I agree with these issues. I hope I could just be able to get into a completely basic car and not die immediately, if conditions are not perfect
Sweaty hands included.