Might have to give an Aero HOT or v6 diesel a try sometime
I had a 2006 Aero HOT and really liked it (mostly).
Mine was a manual ‘Dame Edna’ model (with additional chrome round the headlights). It did feel quite old to drive – the torque-steer was awful and the car frequently struggled for grip (although I believe there are ways of minimising the problem – I never got round to it though). It was very highly geared, mainly I suspect as an artificial way to try to tame the torque-steer. The net result of this was that it was never comfortable in top (5th) gear except at speeds of over 60 mph. The gear-change itself was ok though as were all the other main controls.
There is of course a plus side to having a 260 bhp (280 with overboost) turbo-charged engine, and that is the fantastic in-gear acceleration once you’re going fast enough for torque-steer not to be a problem. The rate at which it could accelerate from 40 to 85 when joining a motorway for example always made me grin childishly. It was a great engine – smooth (although not particularly quiet), and surprisingly economical (I averaged 28.5 mpg over 20,000 miles) and it used no oil.
There were other good things too. It was a handsome and distinctive car (still is I think), and it was also well-equipped; I’m not sure exactly what was standard, but mine had leather, touch-screen Satnav, heated seats (front and rear), electrically adjustable front seats (with driver’s memory), xenon lights, rear parking sensors, dual-zone climate control, auto-wipers, self-dipping mirrors, lovely alloys and probably more.
Which brings me on to the interior. It has all the aforementioned goodies, but it looked and felt a bit hard and cheap. Most of the switches and in particular the indicator column switch are unpleasant to use, the latter making a horrid ‘clack’ noise. The window switches are in between the front seats which was mildly annoying but not as annoying as the fact that they had one-touch down but not up (you also can’t close all windows when locking via the fob). The cruise control was fiddly and you had to switch the wipers off and back on to the auto setting again for the auto-wipe function to be reinitiated whenever you restarted the engine. The satnav was very primitive and you couldn’t enter a destination when in motion (even though it knew when you’re carrying a passenger because of the seat-belt warning circuitry). The reverse parking sensors worked fine, but were quiet and didn’t mute the stereo.
The ride wasn’t great but this was compensated for by terrific seats. The switchgear and dash may have looked and felt like they belonged in something cheaper (although the instruments were a model of clarity), but conversely it all felt very well put together – there were no creaks or groans, and absolutely nothing went wrong during my tenure.
In short, it was an old car on which various attempts had been made to try and bring it up to date, with varying degrees of success. However, it had oodles of character (subjective I know), and I think the world has become a poorer place since the company’s demise.
I'd go for one if I were you!
OTOH they're worth so little any old fault can send them to the scrapyard as beyond economic repair, so £1000 is severely overpriced.
