What made all that reading most worthwhile was the bit about the porno-shift transmission:

...The selector is, in fact, much more than just an unobtrusive yet completely practical solution to selecting an automatic gear mode. For it also imbues the car with a strong driver 'handshake'. Get into an XK and the start button in front of the JaguarDrive Selector™ pulses red, like a heartbeat. Press this button to start the engine and the cast alloy JaguarDrive Selector™ rises into the palm of your hand...

Much more indeed. I mean, I prefer stick shifts too, but come on. Compare Thomas Pynchon:

...Profane wandered up by Rachel's cabin again. He heard splashing and gurgling from the courtyard in back and walked around to investigate. There she was washing her car. In the middle of the night yet. Moreover, she was talking to it.

"You beautiful stud," he heard her say, "I love to touch you." Wha, he thought. "Do you know what I feel when we're out on the road? Alone, just us?" She was running the sponge caressingly over its front bumper. "Your funny responses, darling, that I know so well. The way your brakes pull a little to the left, the way you start to shudder around 5000 rpm when you're excited. And you burn oil when you're mad at me, don't you? I know." There was none of your madness in her voice; it might have been a schoolgirl's game, though still, he admitted, quaint. "We'll always be together," running a chamois over the hood, "and you needn't worry about that black Buick we passed on the road today. Ugh: fat, greasy Mafia car. I expected to see a body come flying out the back door, didn't you? Besides, you're so angular and proper-English and tweedy - and oh so Ivy that I couldn't ever leave you, dear." It occurred to Profane that he might vomit. Public displays of sentiment often affected him this way. She had climbed in the car and now lay back in the driver's seat, her throat open to the summer constellations. He was about to approach her when he saw her left hand snake out all pale to fondle the gearshift. He watched and noticed how she was touching it...

 Reply

Quoting Pynchon to a Jalopnik post from a car show. Now I know why I got up early.

 Reply

What, pray tell, is "ratbagging"?

Also, the proportions of this car are just right, in person...but it still looks cross-eyed to me.

 Reply

And ratbagging is another term for Hooning, but without any sort of respect for the car. Ratbagging is hooning by people who don't love cars, and don't care if they wreck them in so doing.

 Reply