End Of An Era

So in the absence of an announcement of any release date for the RX Vision, I’ve sold the R3: part-exchanging it for a new Abarth 124 Spider which has now arrived at my dealer.

I’m keeping the personalised registration, so it’s getting transferred over and in the meantime, the RX-8 has been assigned a new registration number and the plates went on today.

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Crash!

Well after driving in to the car park at the London flat last night, having been let down by @tweetalondoncab on Twitter this morning, I got the RX8 out to go to a meeting. Crawling out of the crescent at no more than 2 or 3mph, I got to the off-camber, downhill left turn and immediately slid sideways on the ice-covered snow … and slid into the metal bollards. Ouch! I wasn’t the first either as one of them had been knocked over already. So now Blue RX is a tad dented:

Andrew Appleton Photoshoot

Here’s the third shot from the “Dodgy Deal” theme element of the photoshoot Janey and I did with Andrew Appleton: dark and mysterious!

Andrew Appleton Photoshoot

Yesterday, Janey and I went out to do a photoshoot featuring the two RX-8s with a great local photographer, Andrew Appleton.

Most of the shots – from three different themes – are being processed now, but in the meantime, here’s me in a casual pose with my R3:

"Top Gear" Theme

Japfest 2010

After an early start – despite staying over at an ever-decreasing-quality Travelodge on Friday night, Jack, his mate and I made our way over to Japfest 2010 at Castle Combe Circuit. Loads of gorgeous Japanese cars, some trackday shenanigans and some demonstration drifting from some pros, coupled with brilliant sunshine meant a fabulous day. Here are some photos:

His and Hers

Well it’s here and this is what it looks like on our driveway with both the RX-8s together:

RX-8R3 and RX-8 40th Anniversary

I picked the new one up this morning from Nunns of Grimsby with just 3 miles on the clock. Lovely!

Goodbye ST200

A day of mixed feelings: after almost 132,000 miles, I had to take the ST200 in to the dealers, Nunns of Grimsby, who will be scrapping it as part of the Government’s scrappage scheme.

So it averaged 25.8mpg over the last few years of my ownership and – other than the little issue of the under-bonnet fire – it’s been … emotional. Worse then that, though, is that in a couple of days’ time, someone will wind down the front windows, run some chains through and then use them to hoist it onto either a skip wagon or on top of another car and away to grave.