i’ve seen a caterham with a couple of bikes strapped to the roll cage.

or theres always the Lotus Carlton.

The german options just dont excite me.

hm, and i reckon the boot of a TVR Chimaera is big enough to swallow a bike frame or 2, with the wheels behind the seats.

you’d need to take a road bike as well to actually get you there. not a lot of riding to be had on motorway hard shoulders

look lets not fanny about we all know its an RS6! 😀

bmw m5

i can confirm a chimaera will take a bike in the boot, even with the targa panel off. 🙂
couldn’t have put wheels behind the seats though as it had a roll-over hoop.

All these people recommending the A6/S6/RS6 – Have you ever actually driven one or just read about them?

Accelerate massively, slow down for the corner as you have now idea what is happening at the wheeels, teeter round the corner, massive acceleration… repeat.

Fun for the first 2 journeys then just tiresome. There is no way to get into the flow of the drive. It is a binary car, on or off, no fluidity.

I know it doesn’t meet your criteria but thought you’d enjoy this photo of my bike & car anyhow…

😉

http://www.mymojo.co.uk if you want more info on the car…

Try something from this site perhaps?

http://www.pestalozzi.net/sb/a_photo_index_2door_super.html

Perhaps
http://www.pestalozzi.net/sb/ferrari_daytona/daytona_400.jpg

Mitsubishi Legnum (Galant) VR-4. I can put four bikes on the top and four inside if I wish. Goes like stink, it’s stealthy and one of mine has been timed at 0-62 mph in 6.7 seconds. However, we had three bikes on the roof, the car was full and we were going up a hill.

AWD, AYC, a twin turbo 2.5 V6 coupled with comfort make them the best car I have ever driven (and I have owned sports cars and driven RS6s etc.).

Anyone driven one of those VW Touareg with the 5l V10 diesel? Not too keen on the car but that engine’s a beast. 350bhp and almost 600ft/lbs of torque. 6.7secs 0-60 and 25 ish mpg…

there’s a W8 passat in our village…wonder if they’d like to swap?

Probably only worth doing if they agree to swap back when you want 😉

nuttysquirrel……that’s what I was on about in my original thread. VR-4 is what I was thinking of.

Would I be a heathen idiot to mention the Mondeo ST TDCi estate? Not sure if they still make the one I am on about – mainly seen in blue with multi-spoek wheels – the ‘old’ shape.
Looks great, goes OK, handles excellently, huge boot and if it’s not quick enough you can always get it remapped.

No, they don’t make them any more. The current Mondeo estate is available with the same engine, mind.

STs however are available for good money second-hand. Just be wary of further depreciation (should it matter) and injectors on the 2.2 diesel at around what, 60K miles?

There’s always the 456GT Venice if you want a laugh 😉

re. M5s. The E39 (good looking, V8)was never available in Touring guise in the UK/RHD. The current E60 (ugly, V10) is, but of course there’s the cost that comes with it, and, as with any such car, epic depreciation. Also, if my sources are correct, the engine/gearbox isn’t as reliable as big BMWs usually are (Nikasil aside)

You’re asking for two oposing things from the same car, really. Bike friendly = big, spacious, capable of taking a battering.
“Fun to drive” = small, compact, lightweight. Aiming for both results in a compromise that’s not quite ideal for two bikes, and won’t set your pants on fire driving wise.
I would suggest two cars/one car + one van, but two vehicles = two parking spaces, two lots of tax (Brown/Darling will love you…), two lots of insurance, maintenance et, etc. It’s a right headache…

You could always look a bit further back into time…..

We had a similar plan a while back (before the @rse completely fell out of the motoring market!)

Wanted one car which would do all the things we needed; carry us, our son and all required baby paraphernalia, and fit the bikes and trailer in/on it, and as we’ve had a few more involving/less practical cars in the past, still be fun to drive. As we do very limited miles (neither of us drive to work), and petrol prices hadn’t got to the ridiculous levels of late 2008, we weren’t excluding less economical cars.

Test drove a fair few cars, including RS4 Avant, RS6 Avant Supercharged Range Rover. Also considered th M5 Touring. I soon realised that any car would be a compromise, and would not feel as nimble as a smaller performance car. That’s why we looked at 4x4s. Hated the image but as the bigger engined models were dumping money from new, you could get a lot of kit for your money.

RS4 was surprisingly small inside, and the RS6 (it was the old model as the new one hadn’t been launched) was fantastic to drive although looking a little dated on the interior. Range Rover was great inside but was like driving a boat compared to our previous cars.

Got persuaded by my wife to test drive I Porsche Cayenne. I didn’t like them as I thought they’re pretty ugly and hate the image. Was very pleasantly surprised. Felt like I was sat in in rather than on it. Interior was functional and similar to smaller Porsches I was familiar with. Performance was surprising. Masses of straight line acceleration and very nimble in the twisty stuff. Ended up getting the Cayenne and we’ve been really pleased with it. Picked it up second hand for just over a third of its list price. Still think it’s quite ugly but then we spend most of our time on the inside rather than the outside. Surprising off road performance- handy at the quagmire that was SITS last year!

Looking at your original post and later comments, I say that at the moment you need to be prepared to take a real hiding on the resale value of any performance car at the moment. They are haemorrhaging value. If I had my time again I’d likely go for the Cayenne again or an M5 Avant. If you are completely against a 4×4 fair enough, but I’d say test drive one of the faster Cayennes; you’ll be surprised.

Ideal option is have 2 cars; an Elise or Caterham (which will probably lose less money) and a more practical ‘work-horse’.

Good luck shopping and test driving. There are certainly bargains to be had!

May I introduce you to the Nissan Skyline Wagon he hee

that is just soooooo wrong

hora – i drove the new diesels both Outback and Forester. So bad, awful, clatter like a cheap tractor have the pulling power of, well, me, so not much. Just utter pish. And the new Forester feels like its been put together out of Lego – tacky tacky interior, mate has one that has slowly disintegrated over 4 months inside out.
The 2.5t WRX is quite hard to find, there was only a small period of time they used that engine. I’ve had 2ltr ones as well and this has way more poke. Its been slightly modified now and its very much fun to drive. It also takes 2 bikes + a 8.2M adv racing double on the roof with 2 people and heaps of gear on the inside and will easily crack 140kmh uphill with all that attached – not that I would do that obviously in case it fell off….
And the Skyline Wagon – oh.my.goodness.

normally aspired? do you mean normally aspirated as in an atmospheric engine, non turbo!

My last thought. As the proposed car will only be a bike carrier once every two weeks. Give in to free-thought and choose whatever you want. Adapt the bike to the car, not the other way round.

Ps. If it was me. I’d buy a 2nd gen (circa 2005) 1.8 Toyota engined-Elise and a Fiat Panda (only one bike to go inside with me). – For you a 2004 Skoda Octavia estate.

Perfect. The Panda makes a perfect Ratcar and its cheap as chips- you can pick them up for 2.5k FFS!

BMW 335d Sport Touring, with DMS treatment, awesome! When I finally stop paying £850 a month on childcare I may treat myself to one….

Thanks everyone for all the diverse information and opinions, not to mention the tags. Will hang fire for a couple of months as the job front is suddenly looking a little unpredictable. I don’t want two cars, so has to be a compromise, and ideally (but not essential) I would prefer 4WD. Therefore options:

1) Keep the R32 for another year until the new Mk VI R** comes out
2) Try an RS4
3) Cayman or 911 – checked on the Porsche web site and you can get roof racks for both – bit of a faff but for once every 2 weeks why not?

Or just stop yapping about German motors and see the light – we have a BMW, 2 Mitsubishis, a Honda CTR and a v. old Honda 2.2 VTEC with 210K miles. The freshest feeling cars (and most reliable) have been the (older) Japanese ones all the way. Some of the time, it’s the closest you’ll ever get to a British car (still miles away) thanks to Swindon and Sunderland.

My old pops has an m5 estate.. Goes like shit ,eats gas and has loads of room. Handels cool to

Until the road’s wet, snowy or muddy. Then you’ll be sideways or backwards into some poor bugger. Handel was obviously more talented, and perhaps cool to boot, but he was German as well.

Just get the 911, I really can’t see how you’ll be disappointed, they are great cars.
I can’t think of a single alternative that will give as much pleasure, sure there are better load luggers, but I can’t think of a better everyday usable car.

2U2R, deep down I have to agree. Was very sad the day I had to sell my 993 to pay for building a garage at the new house 🙁 . Trouble is it doesn’t really take a bike, and the missus will hate it

Sell the missus then 😉

My mate once turned up for a night ride in his Ferrari – the frame was wrapped in a blanket and strapped into the passenger seat and the wheels were in the funny shallow thing where the engine would be in a proper car. We chucked the bike in a van for the homeward journey and he gave me a lift. It was okay I guess, a little slow given that it was simply a massive but normally aspirated engine and overtaking did feel a little pedestrian, but it seemed like quite a nice car in a red sort of way.

It wasn’t that practical though.

I think the bottom line is that you want a car with ‘thing’ and that means different things to different people. For me it’s a tweaked and tuned Mk2 Golf GTi or my Corrado VR6, but for you it might be something else entirely. A lot of people on here seem to get their rocks off on fast estate cars, but honestly, have you ever seen a half-attractive estate?

I’d probably get a 911 in your position, but then I’ve never driven one, so I might hate it anyway 😉

This works for me although boot space is limited. The black one in front has more space and to be honest is more fun