Last Scottish impressions

August 17, 2012
Matt Gasnier

Land Rover Defender at Loch Katrine, Scotland August 2012

* See my entire Scotland photo album by clicking on the title! *

With my Scottish stay soon coming to an end I thought I would share a few more observations with you. In total I have driven about 500 miles in and around Edinburgh (which I learnt is pronounced Edinbra here) up to Loch Lomond to the West and St Andrews, the golf mecca, to the East. Having driven through quite a bit of the Scottish countryside I can report that many old and all-new Land Rover Defenders can be seen there, whereas in the city the Range Rover Evoque is present, but it’s not the ‘invasion’ I was expecting.

Jaguar XF

Paul from Brisbane, Australia, asked me yesterday whether the difficult economic situation that is affecting Europe at the moment could be felt in the streets and roads of Scotland. In a word the answer is no, illustrated by the 24% jump the Scottish new car market experienced in July. I have seen a massive amount of Jaguar XFs on the streets of Edinburgh as well as everywhere in the countryside.

MG 6

One thing I was very curious about coming to Scotland was to gauge the success of the ‘revived’ MG brand. I did see one dealership but with only a couple of models parked outside and I did spot one MG 6 on the road, a nice red one. So MG is still lacking a mainstream model that will make the brand seen more often on the road but it is present nonetheless.

Kia Sportage

Other models I was impressed to see very often on Scottish streets (over and above the ones I mentioned in my last two articles about Scotland) were the Seat Ibiza, all generations of Skoda Octavia extremely well established here, the Peugeot 508, especially the station wagon version, the Ford Ka, Peugeot 3008 and quite a few Renault Clio station wagons. One brand deserves a special mention: Kia, with a flood of new gen Sportage, Rio and Picanto inundating the roads, more often in the countryside.

Honda Accord Tourer