So who is buying new for the new year or even in the new year and what are you getting?

Hopefully grabbing an Ioniq 5 and switching to Electric 😀

The new Golf is pure ugly with an awful interior. A big step down in quality from mk7.

One of these? :)

As for myself, the missus still hasn't got a driving test date so no sign of her taking my car off my hands.

Not doing too bad. I ordered a gti clubsport 5 months ago and it’s currently expected to be here in March.

Yes that may be so and he could easily have said those things. IMO the posts were just **** posting trying to get reactions from people.

Agreed 100%. Utter insanity. Even BMW are moving to touch screens now - and no, the fact that the stupid touch screens always show the climate control temperature does not mean it's OK to get rid of the buttons.

The whole point of something new is that it is better than what went before it, that's patently not true with a lot of newer cars - they're heavier (exacerbated by the move towards SUVs and EVs), have loads of rubbish we don't need like all the so-called 'driver assist systems' (whatever happened to people using their brains behind the wheel?), have worse exhaust notes (if they even are lucky enough to have a real engine) or fake noises pumped through the cabin thanks to all the emissions rules, and worst of all, they all have damn touchscreens which I find incredibly distracting and an absolute pain in the neck to use when I'm driving. I find a lot of the so called driver aids very annoying, too, and I will turn them off.

With buttons it's simple muscle memory, or something like BMW's iDrive, such systems give you all the technology and infotainment, but crucially it's all still with buttons and is not distracting at all to use the key functions.

And simple things like lighting are better in old cars; BMW stopped using the red-orange backlighting firstly in the instrument cluster (which was bad enough) and then altogether in the iX monstrosity. There's a reason planes use this colour - because it's been scientifically shown to minimise driver distraction at night (indeed that's why BMW put it in all their cars from the 60s onwards), and if you drive an old BMW with the red-orange backlighting back to back with a car with white backlighting, or worse still, blue backlighting (there's a reason ambulances and other emergency vehicles use this colour), you'd really notice how much more those colours distract you at night than the red-orange BMW used to use.

There's more and more cost cutting, too, on all the bits you can't see but on things that make a difference to the driving experience; note how BMW now uses front wheel drive rather than rear wheel drive and 50:50 weight distribution in the 1 and 2 series, the Merc A-class no longer has independent rear suspension, and VW Group MEB cars only have drum brakes at the rear, yet we're told EVs are supposed to be more cutting edge than ICE cars!

To top it all off, cars are outrageously expensive these days. Nothing lasts forever but I'd rather keep an old car going when it does many of the basics like ergonomics better than what's out there today, and costs far less to buy, if not always to run.

Strongly thinking of a petrol Octavia VRS

I put a deposit down on a Kia EV6. Probs have to wait until march for it. I'm moving from an MX5 ND so will be a huge change.

Hopefully I'm not disappointed!

Also going for Kia EV6. No delivery date, but in no rush, most likely March time frame.

Same as myself.. I sold the MX5 in august and bought myself a mark 2 golf GTI as a run around... It's freezing to drive on these cold mornings though.. looking forward to some "luxury"!

Did you get the GT Line and what colour? (I went GT Line

yacht blue myself)

Would love an EV6 but strongly tempted by the new Sportage.

Interior dash of new Sportage is very similar to EV6, certainly the flat screens, heater control panel and gear selector etc all very similar. I agree that the prices of the current and probably new Sportage are getting a little saucy for what you are getting. However, having owned 2 of them they are a fine car.

The exterior design on the front of the Sportage takes some getting used to, maybe it's very colour dependent too. My wife might have gone for the new Sportage but no electric option plus Europe gets the shorter European model rather than the longer rest of the world model really put me off. I think the longer model is much better proportioned and overall just looks better.