Pretty much everything in the UK is 50% at two years, with few exceptions for well-built performance cars.

I’m starting to think my wife has slipped you a cheque for these comments...

You’ve got the link. Feel free. I’m errr.. busy. Doing stuff.

No. No you wouldn’t.

Well, brave on two accounts.

I’m just pretty wary of hardtop convertibles as a whole - they are my wife’s preferred genre and we’ve never had one that hasn’t given trouble.

Anything we post is just our opinion, Jon. It’s not fact, or an encyclopedia entry. You don’t have to explicitly state that - goes with the territory.

I’ll bow to your superior knowledge on the NC point then, but still lots of net forum posts re. leaking and unreliability for the NC’s hard top roof. However, if you know what you’re talking about, I’ll tip my hat and accept it.

It’s starting to get very expensive for what it is.

Every six or seven years since I first bought an 850R estate (which I loved), I’ve been disappointed with Volvo. Every time I get one I am assured ‘this is a new model, totally different from the last one, new quality, new company.’ Every time it’s been terrible for long-term ownership.

When my political expertise is recognised, as Minister of Immigration, this series will be required viewing. People seeking British nationality will be required to pass an exam based on these episodes alone.

If anyone needs a James May fix, I highly recommend seeking out James May’s and Oz Clarke’s ‘Drink to Britain.’ They made three of these road trip series with various themes, but have an on-topic satnav clip:

Sure - it’s more fun than working unless you’ve really screwed up your plans. Try it!

The write-off category that is assigned to the car is given to it by an insurance company (Raccoon got that description spot on below) but if *no claim is made to the insurance company by the owner* then a category will not be applied to it.

Hell, yes. I think some of these hideous, zero-taste creations, are far, far worse than a lift-kit or mud tires. Lifting a truck gets very expensive, very quickly, in the UK due to needing specialist insurance and then you’ve just made yourself a vehicle that is really limited in where it can go.

Thanks for the viewpoint from someone who actually lives there. I’ve never spent more than two weeks in Singapore at any one time, and living in a hotel on company expenses is not the same as trying to organise family life from your own home at all. Our allowances are generous but I still feel significantly poorer…

Absolutely - easy hop to Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand. Indonesia is a pleasant 30 minute ferry ride with no queues and none of the airport hassles (as well as having duty free!), so that’s where I would tend to go.

Absolutely. As I said, many of my colleagues found the place to be over-controlled and boring, but I found it refreshingly free of people who mistook ‘freedom’ for ‘I can do what I want and fuck you.’ In the States, you often have the physical space to do what you want without affecting anyone else - Singapore is tiny…

Cool soundbite, but it depends on what you define as ‘freedom’.