I'm not surprised! A relative of mine in England owns a 1910 Stanley that his father bought in the '30s. It's an absolutely magnificent machine – thanks to the incredible torque of the engine, there is no gearbox, and reversing is simply a matter of pulling a lever to change the valve timing.

This. A thousand times this. I grew up in New Zealand, one of the few countries that actually stood up to the USA – since the 1980s, nuclear-armed vessels have been banned from NZ's territorial waters. The US retaliated by kicking New Zealand out of the ANZUS defence treaty.

Exactly! When I was a young'un, my parents took my brother and I on a weekend camping trip. In my Dad's freshly restored Jag XK150. Sure, it was a character-building experience, but it is nonetheless possible to fit two adults, two toddlers, camping gear and food (and a sizeable toolkit!) in an XK.

Seconded. When my brother and I were young ('80s and early '90s), my folks' daily drivers were a Datsun 1200 and a 105E Anglia. We did just fine with those. We even went camping in their restored Jaguar XK150 coupe a few times. That, I'll admit was a bit of a squeeze, but very doable.

Back when I lived in Auckland, New Zealand, I was showing my American in-laws around the city. Due to Auckland's lack of coherent city planning, to get where I wanted to go (Western Springs Raceway, for those in the know), I had to turn right, then immediately cross 3 lanes of traffic to turn left at the next…

That must be fascinating! I'll often just stare at the insides of my Type 2 in amazement at the sheer mechanical cleverness. Sadly, mine's having trouble with the ribbon advance at the moment – it seems to always act as if it's got a cloth ribbon installed. I'll have to see if I can find somebody local who'll still…

Yeah, they're incredible to watch in action. Also, I don't think that anything can beat the Selectric keyboard in terms of 'feel'. I can type faster and more accurately on a Selectric than on any computer. Plus, I find the gentle background hum of the motor to be quite soothing.

I have one of the later squarish ones in blue, and it's gorgeous. Not my picture (mine is currently in pieces with a ribbon-advance issue), but it's the same colour. They're a design masterpiece, inside and out.

Precisely! I learned to drive in a 1976 Triumph 2500 saloon. The independent rear suspension setup that they used had an infamous wear-related problem that could cause it to 'lock up' under acceleration and release violently (with a loud BOING) if you backed off or hit a bump. Combined with pretty severe body roll,…

I'm not so inclined to jump to that conclusion. Tenikens Värld is in Swedish, so of course it's not that well-known outside of Sweden. Admittedly, the lack of information about the test conditions does raise a bit of suspicion, but that is still a catastrophic response to a fairly common evasive manoeuvre. Also, they…

Even if the vehicle was overloaded by Chrysler's specifications, it was only by 200lbs. Your average soccer mom isn't going to weigh every item going into the vehicle, and that is a very small safety margin for a vehicle that is designed to haul four to five people and their luggage. I agree that there does seem to be…

The '68 wagon's gone even further – 230,000 miles, I think, and most of that was done while towing either a boat or a caravan. It's been fastidiously rebuilt a few times, though, so I'm not sure if that counts.

The XJC is gorgeous. When I was young, my Dad had a restored XK150, and I spent an awful lot of time hanging around Jag club events, ogling the cars. Sir William Lyons was a genius. Even disregarding the rest of the car, the XK engine is a work of art on its own!

I had Jags in mind when I was looking at the SD1. I narrowly missed out on ending up with a Mk3 XJ6. I always liked SD1s, though – my uncle had one when I was a kid, and I thought that it was the coolest thing ever. Certainly a flawed car, but not without its attractions.

Awesome! I'm feeling a hunger to acquire another British luxobarge. Not sure if there are any left here in Minnesota, though – they've probably all dissolved :(

I'd just come out of a nasty relationship, and decided that I needed something to keep me occupied. Trawling online classifieds one night, I found it. A silver-green '84 Rover SD1. It was big, brash, loud, and fast. The perfect breakup car. It was a real case of my heart overruling my head.

Not sure about its hydraulic qualities (although LHM costs about the same!), but on my old Xantia, there was a little recess in the side of the boot that was meant to hold a canister of LHM in case of emergency. However, it was also the perfect size for a bottle of wine, and even had a little strap to hold it upright.

They were great cars in their day – civilised, fairly high-tech and a bit sporty. The top model came with the fuel-injected six from the Triumph TR5, and could do 0-60 in 9 seconds – not bad for a luxury saloon in the '60s. Great road manners, too – a bit quirky, thanks to a peculiarity in the rear suspension (google…

Yes – I used to have an old Triumph 2500 with a very similar arrangement (see my reply to RX_37). Taking it out of overdrive always made me feel like I was turning on the rocket boosters or something.

Quite a few old British cars had them in the 1960s and '70s, too. The arrangement that I'm familiar with (used on the magnificent Triumph Mk1 and Mk2 saloons) was a four-speed manual with 1:1 top gear. The 'overdrive' in this case was a hydraulically actuated epicyclic gearset that sat on the back of the gearbox,…