Ideal pairs X

Sir,

I hope to be among the first of the deluge of letters which you will no doubt receive on this subject—possibly you’ll bear with me better while I give my reasons. The really ideal pair for me would be the Ferrari Dino 246GT and the Jensen Interceptor Series II (NOT the III, which is too overburdened with safety and emissions equipment). The Ferrari is chosen for its advanced specifications and handling—the motoring journalists still seem unable to fault it for anything except luggage capacity—and for its beautiful, aesthetic lines, I choose the Jensen after having driven the one on the High Performance Course; the automatic gearbox is so responsive that it converted me immediately to the idea of automatics for the larger sports cars; the general driveability (excuse the Americanism) was so impressive that it can be driven like a small sports car on occasions and the overall comfort and capacity are really excellent. However, this choice is cheating slightly because the total cost is about £11,000.

Restricting the ceiling to £10,000 involves: either dropping the Jensen in favour of an automatic 4.2 XJ6 (total cost—£9,300) and having two very advanced engineering designs; or dropping the Dino and going to the other extreme for a Morgan Plus 8, thus having one “civilised” car and one “hairy” car to keep me in touch with motoring as it really should be—in a car that requires full concentration and real driving to give of its best (total cost of this choice—£7,000). Being single I would probably opt for the Jensen/Morgan combination, and forgo the advanced engineering bit.

The Dino still remains top of my list of available cars—though it may be displaced by the Boxer if that lives up to my expectations. All this is high fantasy anyway as, being in my early 20s, by the time I can afford these, we’ll all be flying everywhere (or walking).

Thanks for a splendid, authoritative magazine and strongest commendations(?) to D.S.J. for his stand against the GPDA on circuit safety.

Upton-St.-Leonards.
R. L. Oakeley.