I’d love to hear what Thanos Pappos thinks. To my eye, like a lot of new cars, the new Z4 is way over styled and unrestrained with a cornucopia of unnecessary plastic addendums. The later looks like it was drawn by a 10 year old who did not know when to stop adding bits. The front, although bold, is not the car’s best angle but I still think any allusion to a clown shoe is most unkind. The rear end and Z line on the flanks are a work of genius. 20 years after it was first designed the body lines are still pure and unique. Bangle’s designs at BMW may have drawn a lot of criticism (7 series especially) but the first Z4 has to go down as an absolute classic. To my eye the first series Z4 (E85) has always been a great looking car and has aged very well. It felt solid and purposeful, almost like a mini Bavarian old school muscle car. Many years ago I hired a BMW Z4 for a few days and loved it. And one last non negotiable was that the car absolutely had to be a manual. P plate legality would also be good to allow my younger son to enjoy a drive. My other car is the current model Golf R so that pretty much killed the idea of any sort of hot hatch in comparison, especially at my budget. A car that cannot be shared with loved ones is useless to me. Both my sons are well over 6 feet tall and they could not fit in the new MX5 at all. The passenger seat especially is terrible and neither my wife nor I could sit there for very long. But as hard as I tried to make it work it was just too small and uncomfortable. So naturally I looked at the current MX5 ND. I have also previously owned a third generation Mazda MX5 (NC) and loved having a convertible. I had previously owned a Toyota 86 which fitted the brief perfectly but life is about finding new experiences. It had to feel special, be exciting and love a twisty mountain road for under $25k. As long as it could get me a short distance to work every day, other things like the number of seats or fuel consumption really did not matter. There was already a family car to do all the mundane practical stuff so this car could be more about fun. When the opportunity to buy a new car came around I had a number of criteria in mind. I thought about you for a long time before we met.
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