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A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

'New' continuation Jaguar XKSS to debut in November in LA

Jaguar announced on Tuesday two important debuts for Jaguar Classic's continuation models, the Lightweight Jaguar E-Type and the new XKSS. In November, the Jaguar XKSS continuation model will make its debut in California to coincide with this year's LA Auto Show. The company revealed the plan to build nine of these cars a few months ago in order to complete the original production run. That run began in 1957 when Jaguar began building road legal versions of unsold D-Type race cars. However, production stopped short when a fire at the Browns Lane factory destroyed the remaining cars. Jaguar explained that the company will use what they learned from developing the Lightweight E-Type continuation series, and Jaguar Classic employees will build these XKSS models to the original specifications. If you had your heart set on ordering one to fulfill your Steve McQueen fantasy, you're out of luck. All nine have already been sold. View 46 Photos In addition to the XKSS public reveal, the 2015 Jaguar Lightweight E-Type will soon make its competition debut. The car in particular is chassis number 15, one of the six continuation cars, and it will compete in the Jaguar Classic Challenge race on July 9 at this year's Le Mans Classic. Another automotive icon will be behind the wheel of this iconic sports car. Top Gear presenter and automotive journalist Chris Harris will pilot the E-Type at Circuit de la Sarthe alongside an array of other vintage Jaguar race cars. Like the XKSS continuation cars, the Lightweight E-Types were also built to finish their respective production run. And although these continuation cars are only a couple of years old, they are identical to the originals and are thus FIA compliant for historic racing. Related Video:

Jaguar readying a pop-top F-Type Coupe? [w/poll]

Typically convertibles are spun off of coupes, but sometimes it goes the other way. Like the Porsche Cayman that was based on the Boxster, the Lotus Exige spun off of the Elise, and the Jaguar F-Type, which arrived as a roadster before the coupe debuted. But if the latest reports are to be believed, Jaguar could be planning something in between.
According to Auto Express (which has, mind you, been known to stretch the rumors out some), Jaguar is toying with the idea of offering a partial convertible version of the F-Type - something Porsche would call a Targa (and which we would too if Stuttgart weren't so litigiously protective of the name). The additional roof configuration would give the F-Type three body-styles, giving its customers more choices.
It wouldn't be the only sports car to offer three roof options: There's the Porsche 911, of course. Ferrari once offered GTB, GTS and Spider versions of the 348 and 355. The Chevy Corvette has been offered in all three forms, as was the Pontiac Solstice many moons ago. But that kind of variety in roof configurations has become scarce. Jaguar's decision reportedly depends on whether it can make the business case or not. Do you think there'd be enough demand for a lift-roof F-Type?