Rabbers

You could try asking the Palace press office, since King Charles often seems to favour this item of garb when in the country, and I can't imagine the vehicles he drives don't have leather seats.

Comfort, while desirable, was perhaps not necessarily the main consideration for the customers you mention.

No, David, I would figure Vovan is likelier to mean Vo[lkswagen]van, (i.e. the VW Microbus) which was a far more popular place of conception. I have heard it said that it was specifically designed with this purpose in mind.

This thread has taken an interesting turn insofar as I am left wondering if, back in the 1980s when he conceived the Lexus marque, it even remotely crossed Mr Eiji Toyoda’s mind that any customers would one day be debating how best to raise their car off the ground.

As a collector of Lexus-related trivia, I couldn't help noticing, on reading reports of a recent telephone prank played on the Italian PM - the latest in a long series of similar hoaxes involving politicians and celebrities including, among others, Merkel, Erdogan, Sánchez, Elton John - that the two Russian perpetrators call themselves "Vovan & Lexus". I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the name has some sort of comedic significance in Russia, but I can't imagine what it might be.

The cats I know don’t drive. They just leave paw-prints all over my paintwork.

Many years ago in Belgium I refused (or threatened to refuse) a new Opel Commodore as my company car because it showed 160km, which was explained as the distance driven to Liege from a showroom in Antwerp for the sake of prompt delivery. Rather than take the car back the dealer offered an extra 5% off the agreed price, which I accepted to my Account Dept’s delight.

Interesting, and something I’ll keep in mind. I‘ve had the message several times after driving in (literally) filthy weather with the front sensors coated with wet dirt kicked up by preceding vehicles, and a pouring of clean water only occasionally helped by a sponge has always been enough to clear them.

Sounds like overkill. What’s wrong with plain water and a sponge?

I’ve seen similar texts for several inexpensive brands of cordless compressors sold in supermarkets, and they have always prevented me from buying one to keep in the boot “just in case”. But if you think about it, the likelihood that you will ever need to inflate more than one tyre on any given occasion is not high.

Which goes some way to explaining why I get angry about getting angry.

I must admit that I often get angry with myself for more and more often feeling angry.

When changing to winter tyres this morning I took a close look at the treads on my SC7s after 14000km (evenly divided, I would estimate, between motorway, other roads, and town/city). All four were ~6mm, the rears maybe a tad less. So I would say that satisfactory resistance to wear can be added to the tyres’ merits.

Maybe I should rather have said "carriage-trade" then!

I remember one occasion when I found the dress code at my place of work particularly vexing. The year was 1970 and I had just been posted to the London HQ of a major advertising agency. In preparation for the move I had renewed my wardrobe to accord with what I figured up-and-coming young West End executives (as distinct from the quainter rolled-up umbrella City type) were wearing. So, I showed up on my first day in a grey flannel suit whose elegant sobriety was nicely complemented, I thought, by a dark blue-and-white striped shirt purchased at not inconsiderable expense from Messrs Turnbull & Asser, outfitters to the gentry, in nearby Jermyn Street. By mid-morning I was beginning to feel at home in my new surroundings and confident enough, on attending my first meeting, to take off my jacket like everybody else. Just as I was doing so it dawned on me, alas too late, that mine was the only shirt in the room that was not white or pale blue and unpatterned. Pointing a bony finger at me from across the table the Head of Personnel enquired for all to hear if I was aware of the difference between an advertising agency and a butcher's shop. I was fortunately not slow to understand that the absence of laughter in the room meant that his words were not intended as the joke I might initially have thought them to be. I later learned that only a couple of years previously it had actually been the practice not to take your jacket off anywhere in the building except your own office (and presumably the toilets). Which meant, veterans informed me, that I was lucky to have joined at a much more relaxed time.

Depressing thread, this. I don’t need reminding of my age. I’m already pleased I can remember it.

Having pondered this thread in the course of a long and boring drive earlier today, I came to the conclusion that it was leading me to overthink an issue which may not even exist. Like Peter, I have not experienced bad smells from the car AC, not in any Lexus, and none I particularly recall in earlier cars I had. I keep the AC on permanently - with closed windows, of course - summer and winter, and regardless of the outside temperature. I turn it off only (a) when the sunroof is open, (b) if the cabin needs ventilating after the car has stood in hot sun, and (c) periodically - not routinely, but whenever the fancy takes me - for a few minutes with the fan at max in order to let fresh air through the system as per a habit of obscure origin I acquired years ago, maybe from a BMW owner’s manual. When I turn the AC back on in cases (a) and (b), the impression I have is simply of a system recommencing its job of conditioning the air satisfactorily and wholly unremarkably, whereas in case (c) I have sometimes noted, though not on any basis beyond a very quick and fleeting thought, that the system is now providing air that I would describe, at the risk of splitting hairs, as “crisper” rather than “cleaner” insofar as the latter term would imply the earlier presence of a smell or other form of irritant when there wasn’t one. This I naturally find to be a good thing, and I would find it even better and more pleasing were I able to objectively confirm that my having turned off the AC was responsible for what I could only guess to have been a temporary reduction of the density of the moulds and bacteria populating my system to levels that are, and based on past experIence, seem likely to remain, sensorially undetectable.

I’ve sometimes, though I must say rarely, suspected my satnav of sending me to my destination by unnecessarily long routes. On such occasions, unless I judge it worth overriding the system, I simply console myself with the thought that it will one way or another get me to my destination in any case.

I’ve been doing that periodically for years - probably having got the tip from some motoring magazine - and I had frankly forgotten the reason why, so thanks for reminding me.

Fake News?

Sounds quintessentially British. Not all languages lend themselves to puns as does English, which may or may not be regrettable.

I’m only vaguely acquainted with the gentlemen you mentioned - scriptwriters, yes? - but I like to think that your comment was not unflattering.

I’ve booked to have a new set of winter tyres fitted next week. I must say I was a little shocked by the prices asked for the 235/40/R19+265/35/R19 set: upwards of €1400 for Michelin and Conti, €1280 for Pirelli (against the €970 I paid three winters ago), and the same for Bridgestones. So I settled for Hankook i*cept Evo3 at a comparatively reasonable (🤔) €1000. I’ve not had this brand before, either as summers or winters, but I’m told the quality is not to be sneered at. In any case, with winter tyres I am less concerned with the niceties of performance comparisons between brands than having a decent set underneath given the strong likelihood of snow in my neck of the woods or of even worse conditions if I drive north.

Indeed I was and still am!

I've always admired owners with affection for elderly cars that deserve it, as is undoubtedly the case with the LS400. Few would dispute, however, that affection can occasionally be taken too far, as happened with an uncle of my wife's in Denmark, who kept his 1959 Saab 93 GT on the road for the best part of four decades and 600000km. Of course there can be no general or specific comparison with the LS and its owners, but I though I'd offer the story as a sort of cautionary tale. My wife's uncle was quite a wealthy man and could have bought newer and better cars whenever he liked, but for reasons best known to himself, he stayed loyal to the Saab despite the entreaties of his family, much leg-pulling by friends, and the dark mutterings of neighbours who hated the sight of it. Few men have been more blinded by love for their cars and less receptive to advances in technology and design. Like his wife, who not surprisingly got into the habit of taking cabs, prospective passengers in later years avoided the car for dread of the bacteria and fungi that nested in the upholstery, not to mention the risk of olfactory dysfunction posed by a cabin odour whose pungency was accentuated rather than reduced by premium air fresheners, a situation not helped by the owner's partiality to cigars. As the years turned into decades, the only problem not resolved by the expenditure of vast sums of money on repairs was rust, which eventually produced a series of bubbles and holes all around the car's lower perimeter. The closing of doors, even gently, caused flurries of orange-brown dust to fall to earth and demarcate the surfaces where the car had stood. De-registering the Saab therefore spared it from the indignity of an official scrapping order and permitted it, against the better judgment of everyone except its owner, to be kept permanently garaged. What happened was that the animal welfare authorities identified iron poisoning as the probable cause of an alarming rise in respiratory and gastric ailments among domestic pets and species of local fauna such as deer and hares. Despite the absence of forensic proof, the Saab naturally came under suspicion as a likely source, though by no means the only one when the many specimens of vintage gardening paraphernalia lurking alongside rusty old bikes in the sheds of this leafy suburb of Copenhagen were also taken into account. But whereas these latter items left no regrets or long-term traces after being chucked into skips by an unsentimental and socially obedient citizenry, the Saab got to live out its twilight years in its own snug home, comforted by regular visits from a tearful owner in much the same way as a faithful old retainer might have received those of a grateful master. At the insistence of family members an adjoining shed was converted into a garage for a gleaming new Volvo S90, which was grudgingly admitted to be a nice enough replacement despite the regrettable sacrifice of style and character on the altar of safety and solidity. I believe the Saab, or what remained of it, wasn't removed until the house was taken over by new owners a decade later. To this day I remain doubt as to whether the Saab's pre-retirement longevity was a tribute to the marque or more simply a testimony to human folly. For sure there could not have been one without the other.