It truly is the end of an era. This Friday, i’m afraid the XR suffers a fate worse than death. No, not the knackers yard, the auction house. She’ll go under the hammer to her next owner like a lamb to the slaughter. Bugger. The two year lease has ended and I will be carless.

To be completely honest, except for some initial troubles (because I believed a salesman when he told me ‘don’t worry about the 5000K service! It’s nothing!’) not a bloody thing has gone wrong. The power? Well do you really have to ask, it’s never dissapointed. The handling, for a standard family car near perfect. It’s chuckability… well lets just say it can always put a smile on your face. Torque? More than you could ever believe. Try taking off in fifth gear in your laser. Just a word of advice, that cloud of black smoke behind you is the clutch! Comfort? We’ll it wasn’t made for luxury, but the ride is sporty and it’s very well equipped without being soppy.

Well was it all perfect? The best love stories never are. New owner I give you one piece of advice. Don’t look in the driver’s side rear view mirror. Because you’ll see that none of the door panels line up. So instead of this great long, perfectly machined stripe of metal, you get a rough cut outline of panels crudely thrown together. This is not the panel fit of skilled craftsmen. IPod connector for the stereo? Dear sir, you must be joking! How’s the traction control? Well crude to say the least. It shuts down cylinders all the time and sounds terrible. God only knows what damage it does to the engine. Also, you can get pretty sideways before it kicks in.

And the size of the vehicle you ask? Well it’s just plain stupidly big. Not the big that you can fit handy stuff in. You know like drum kits, [presumably] prams, beds and stuff. Because the back door access is just plain stupid. It’s a very poor design. And for a car of its size, bloody useless. So you lug around this huge car, that’s actually bloody difficult to fit anything useful in. The economy. Just don’t ask. If it wasn’t leased, I would’ve been a bum with a big smile on my face begging for pennies for Optimax.

All in all however, it’s often the shortcomings that make something truly magical. This will no doubt be one of the best cars i’ve ever owned. For a car that you can thrash around like a real rock and roller in all weekend, then give to your girlfriend to drive to the shops, chances are she’s not going sizeways into a telephone pole. Try that in an old school muscle car of this ilk. It’s comfy on long drives, it puts importt cars back in their place and you can easily lease it and get it fixed. Most importantly, it has effortless power where you need it. In the middle of the rev range! So it could still sort a VE Commodore out if driven properly. And it doesn’t look overdone either.

I won’t miss parking it, but god I will miss this car. Long live the king. The mity XR6 Turbo.