It's been a week since the SL was delivered so I thought I'd share my thoughts...
The first mistake we made is that it won't fit in the garage meaning it has to live in the car port. It was supplied with a car cover however, as my next door neighbour pointed out, it is see-through so there's little point in using it. It's funny how cars unite people - we've been living here 2 years now and most people have ignored us however over the weekend, it took me three hours to wash the Boxster as everyone wanted to chat.
The handling is very different to the Aero - my Aero was always quite over-steery (but controllable) whereas this is dead neutral. We've been told to drive in manual, sport as this saves the clutch (quicker changes = less clutch slip?) and the e-gear in this mode is brutal - it makes the drivetrain shunt on the Morgan look smooth
On paper, the two cars 0-60 are not that dissimilar however the SL feels much faster - and this is despite the fact neither of us have had the courage to put our foot flat to the floor yet.
The suspension setup is, as you'd expect, a lot harder on the SL meaning we can take our local roads quicker (the Aero would ground out on some corners so we learnt to take them slowly). However the suspension coupled with carbon fibre seats and a few harsh gear changes when I wasn't prepared for them means I am now sporting a massive bruise across my lower back.
The thing I miss the most about my Morgan is the noise, although the howling 5L V10 does go some way to making up for this
I also miss the camerarderie; we saw an Audi R8 yesterday - also in Recession White - waved and got completely blanked. Everyone who has an older car, no matter what the make & model, waved when we were in the Aero.
Because you can chuck it around with ease and the interior is alcantara, the SL feels like my Exige's older brother. I've always loved the looks of the standard Gallardo and the carbon fibre bits just make it even more special for me.
I'm pleased we chose the SL over anything else - Stephen & I test drove a few things and this is the only car that has equalled the Aero in terms of looking & feeling special and making every drive feeling like an 'event'.
There is, however, one fatal flaw with the SL - we haven't yet worked out how to use the sat nav and this means we are continually getting lost. A 10 minute journey to get some milk yesterday turned into a 2 hour drive as we got lost around the local country lanes. Admitedly, the Morgan had this fault too and we never managed to get it fully fixed
However I can't wait until I get another Morgan!