Jeremy - The Times

[RedMoon11]

Mix iron, wood and little boys’ dreams

THE CLARKSON REVIEW: 2016 FORD MUSTANG FASTBACK 5.0 V8 GT AUTO

Jeremy Clarkson      Published: 20 March 2016




Plainly, someone at Ford in Detroit was given an atlas for Christmas, because after 50 years or so of making the Ford Mustang, the company has decided to put the steering wheel on the correct side of the car and to sell it in the hitherto unknown Great Britainland.

Many of us on this side of the pond have known about the Mustang for years. We’ve seen it in lots of films and when we go on holiday to California it’s what we rent to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. Of course it is. You can hire cars for less, but the Mustang brings out our inner line dancer. And for a couple of weeks that’s not such a bad thing.

Because of the films and the fond memories we have of rumbling through Monterey with The Boys of Summer on the CD player, we like the Mustang. However, just because something works when we are on holiday, it won’t necessarily work on a miserable Tuesday morning in November in Leamington Spa.

I’ve always harboured a concern that the Mustang is a bit like a Greek fishing boat captain. In Greece, after a couple of hundred retsinas, it seems perfectly natural to take him to your bed. But would you want to bring him home and introduce him to your mother?

Or food. I was once invited by the owner of a restaurant in Hanoi to suck out the still-warm brains of a dead sparrow, and I must admit I enjoyed the experience very much. They were delicious. But in the office, when I have only a couple of minutes for lunch, I’d rather have a cheese and pickle sandwich.

So this is the question I must answer. The Mustang: is it a viable proposition in Britain? Or is it nothing more than a come-hither poster boy for Hertz?

Well, first of all we must take a long, hard look at the price. And you’ll need to sit down for this, because the 5-litre V8 Fastback GT auto coupé I’ve been using is £35,995.



This means it costs less than half what Jaguar makes you pay for a superficially similar F-type. More incredibly, this 410bhp, 155mph American icon costs less than I paid for a Volkswagen Golf GTI. I do not know of any car that appears to offer such good value for money.

It’s not as if you just get an engine and four seats either. Because it comes as standard with a limited-slip differential (yeah), selectable driving modes, dual-zone air-conditioning, a rear-view camera, DAB radio and so on.

Confused by the price tag and the sheer amount of stuff you get free, I plunged into the cabin with a raised eyebrow, looking for where Ford had cut corners. It doesn’t take long to find them. Lada would describe the plastics under the steering wheel and around the glovebox as “a bit cheap”, and I suspect the seat leather came from a polyurethane cow. But that, really, is it.

All things considered, I’d say that I prefer the look of the Mustang’s dash to the rather dreary affair Jaguar fits to the F-type. It’s more exciting. Let me give you an example. On the speedo it says “Ground speed”. How delightfully childlike is that?

And there’s more. On the bonnet are two massive ridges that reflect the glare of the sun directly into the driver’s eyes. Now, Ford’s engineers must have noticed this when they tested the car in the vast, unending blueness of the Arizona desert. And they must have said afterwards: “Hank. We can’t see where we are going because of those ridges.”

And then there will have been a meeting at which someone must have stood up and said: “We take your point, Bud, but those ridges look good, so they’re staying.”

I like that attitude. Style over practicality. And you see it everywhere. The speeding-horse symbols that are projected by down lighting onto the ground under the door mirrors. It’s as though Ford only employed designers who were 10. Which is as it should be. Ground speed. I love that. I’m only amazed it doesn’t have space lasers.

So far, then, so American. But now it’s time to fire up the surprisingly quiet V8 and see how it copes with the Hammersmith Bridge width restrictions and the M3 roadworks and doing a three-point turn in Monmouth Road, west London.

Straight away, there’s an issue. In America the Mustang is a small car. But in the UK it is ginormous. And it has the turning circle of Jupiter. Which means that a three-point turn in Monmouth Road is actually a 72-point turn with much swearing.

It also feels a heavy car. After just a yard you start to understand why the Jag costs so much more: because it’s made of exotic materials. The Mustang is made from steel and iron and, possibly, wood.

It’s billed as a sports car, but that’s like calling the Flying Scotsman a “sports train”. It just isn’t. It’s too heavy. What it is, is a muscle car. And you sense that in the second yard. This is a machine that wants to turn its tyres into smoke and go round every corner sideways. You’ve seen the film Bullitt. Well, it’s that.

This is emphatically not a criticism, because who wants to go round the Nürburgring in 40 seconds when you can go round slowly, sideways and smiling?

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course, because for more than 50 years the Mustang has been built as a starting point. Only rental companies buy one and then leave it alone. Everyone else buys one and then employs a tuning company to turn it into something else. That’s what I’d do with this model: buy it and then give the money I’d saved by not buying something else to Hennessey or Roush. Those guys can make a Mustang fly.

Don’t get me wrong. The Mustang as it is can be driven quite normally. It moves around quite a lot on poor surfaces, indicating that it has fairly rudimentary underpinnings, but for the most part it’s quiet, docile and rather unassuming. Too unassuming, perhaps. Because, despite the flamboyant touches, the actual shape is a bit ho-hum. It’s not the worst-looking Mustang — that accolade rests with the post-oil-crisis box — but it’s not the best either. Not by a long way.

Certainly it doesn’t turn many heads. But I liked the reaction it caused among those who did notice it: they smiled.

Which brings me to Ford’s recent advertising campaign. In the meeting at which this was dreamt up, the company will have decided to shake off its Mondeo Man image and tell everyone it now makes exciting cars. So it is showing us pictures that include the new Focus RS, the Mustang and some kind of snazzy SUV and urging us to “unlearn”.

Well, if I “unlearn” what I remember about Ford’s past, I’ll have to forget about the Lotus Cortina, the GT40 and the Escort RS Cosworth. I’ll have to forget about everything that makes people smile when they see the Mustang go by.

If I were to sum it up as a car, I’d give it four stars, because a big V8 coupé for £36,000 is remarkable. But because it’s a Mustang, because of Steve McQueen: well, that makes people yearn to own one. And now you can. And there’s no earthly reason why you should not.



★★★★☆

Designed by a 10-year-old, and I love that

PROS
Half the price of the competition
Lovely, brutish power
Speedo says "Ground speed"

CONS
Rudimentary underpinnings
Cheap materials inside
Not the prettiest Mustang ever... but not bad

SPECIFICATIONS

Price: £35,995
Engine: 4951cc, V8
Power: 410bhp @ 6500rpm
Torque: 391 lb ft @ 4250rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Acceleration: 0-62mph: 4.8sec
Top Speed: 155mph
Fuel: 23.5mpg
co2: 281g/km
Road tax band: M (£1,100 in first year, £505 thereafter)
Release Date: On sale now

 
www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/clarkson/article1678926.ece
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-ford-mustang/

[RedMoon11]

It’s a blast ... until you look for the brakes

The Clarkson Review: Zenos E10 S

Jeremy Clarkson   Published: 27 March 2016




In the past two weeks I’ve been to Barbados, India, Turkey and Morocco. And having studied these places in some depth, I’m forced to ask an important question. Why doesn’t anyone buy sports cars any more?

By and large, driving is extremely boring. You sit there listening to the engine moaning out its one long song, with your face in neutral and your mind turned off. Just look at the faces of people when they are at the wheel and tell me this: when do you ever see people look like that in normal life? Gormless. Like fish.

When you are mowing the lawn or buying washing-up powder or having breakfast with the children, you are animated. You are thinking about stuff. But when you are driving a car, the dopamine and the serotonin and all the fundrugs that normally course through your body just dry up.You become the undead. You become a zombie.

Unless you are driving a sports car. A sports car is exciting when it’s parked in a multistorey and you’re in a meeting. A sports car is even exciting when it’s November and it’s raining and you’re on your way to a funeral. Because in a sports car you are living the dream that gives “the car” all of its appeal.

Remember The Ballad of Lucy Jordan? She was sad because she’d realised at the age of 37 that she’d never drive through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. To me that’s what carsare all about. Nobody dreams of driving through Paris in a Hyundai with the warm wind in their hair.

Think of all the hundreds of thousands of people who design cars for a living. Not one ofthem joined up so they could design a saloon car or an SUV or a pick-up. They signed up so they could design sports cars. Because sports cars are fantastic. They fizz and they pop and they bang and they talk to you and they make you smile. Sports cars make you happy.




But I’ve noticed on my recent travels that people are giving up. In Barbados everyone has a Suzuki Swift. In India they buy whatever has the most amount of legroom in the back. In Italy it’s nothing but small grey hatchbacks. The car is being bought as a tool, not as a dream.

Remember the film Battle of Britain, when Christopher Plummer set off from his base to meet Susannah York for a bit of inter-sortie rumpy-pumpy? He had an MG. Of course he did. He was a Spitfire pilot. Whereas today I can pretty much guarantee he’d have a Nissan Juke.

I met an astronaut once. He’d been to Top Gun school. He could handle an F-14 on combat power. And he had been the first man to dock a space shuttle that was travelling at 17,500mph. And yet he drove a Toyota Camry. It was tragic.

And at this point I should explain what I mean by a sports car. It’s not simply something with no roof. A Lamborghini Aventador convertible, for example, is not a sports car. It’s a supercar. And neither is a Mercedes SL. Or a Bentley Continental GT.

A sports car must be little and light. It should have a small, revvy engine and no more than two seats. The Mazda MX-5 is a sports car — and a bloody good one. It’s fast enough. It handles beautifully. The roof folds in a jiffy. It’s also well made, reliable and prices start at just £18,495. It is the obvious choice and yet all over Britain there are people who wake up of a morning and think , “If I borrow some money from the bank and get a shed, I could make a sports car that is even better.”

The latest offering comes from Norfolk. It’s called the Zenos and it’s a sports car unplugged. Its designers have looked at every detail of what isn’t needed and simply thrown it away. Which means it has no doors, no windows, no sun visors, no radio, no carpets and no roof of any kind. I have encountered better-equipped pencils.

The result is a car that weighs just 725kg. That is ridiculously light. A Triumph Herald weighed about the same and that was made from tinfoil and hope. And a Triumph Herald was not fitted with the 2-litre turbocharged engine from a Ford Focus ST. The Zenos is. Which means it has a Looney Tunes power-to-weight ratio. And that means it’s bloody fast.

To drive? Well, you climb over the side, hunker down into the unpadded seat, attach the steering wheel and then do up the optional four-point harness, by which time the chap in the Mazda MX-5 — which has a fixed steering wheel and inertia reel belts — is back from his lap of the track, talking about what fun he’s had.

You’re going to have more —eventually. Because when you are fastened in place and the wheel is on, the Zenos is a hoot. It’s more than just a track car fitted with indicators and lights to make it road-legal. And yet you know the track is where it belongs really.

It’s good when the going is smooth and there’s nothing coming the other way. It feels balanced, as it should with the engine in the middle. And as you jink this way and that, you think that maybe your commands are being sent to the four corners of the car using telepathy.

However, on the road, where I mostly drove it, the noise was fun for about a minute and then not fun at all thereafter. The exhaust bark is tremendous, but all you can hear really is the wastegate, which sounds like a fat man who’s using Victorian plumbing to flush away the after-effects of a particularly enormous dinner.

The steering became wearing too because it’s unassisted and very fidgety. It’s not as bad as the setup in an Alfa Romeo 4C, but it’s quite draining nevertheless.

And then, I’m afraid, we come to what might fairly be described as the turd in the swimmingpool. The brakes. In a car with not much weight at the sharp end, the front wheels have a tendency to lock up. See the original Lancia Montecarlo for details.

To get round this, the Zenos boffins have backed off on the brake force to the point where the pedal feels like it’s connected to not much at all. This causes you to push it more firmly, which causes the fronts to lock up anyway.

An antilock system wouldsolve all that, but the whole point of the Zenos is that you get no driver aids of any kind. I like that philosophy, when I’m on a sofa and someone else is doing the driving in a race, on the television. But I’ll be honest, I like it a bit less when I’m heading towards a tree in a cloud of my own tyre smoke.

At a time like that, you tend to think that maybe you would have been better off in one of the other low-volume British sports cars that have the same amount of go as a Zenos. But can stop as well.



★★☆☆☆

You'll love the speed right up until you're heading for a tree

PROS
Stunningly light
Wildly fun on a circuit
Corners as if it's reading your mind

CONS
Brakes are either off or lock the wheels
Steering is fidgety
Noisy wastegate is tiresome

SPECIFICATIONS
PRICE: £32,995
ENGINE: 1,999cc, 4 cylinders
POWER: 247bhp @ 7,000rpm
TORQUE: 295 lb ft @ 2,500rpm
TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual
ACCELERATION: 0-60mph in 4sec
TOP SPEED: 145mph
FUEL: N/a
CO2: N/a
ROAD TAX BAND: £230 a year
DIMENSIONS: 3,800mm x 1,870mm x 1,130mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/clarkson/article1681115.ece
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-zenos-e10-s/

[RedMoon11]

For comfort and looks, a camel wins

The Clarkson Review: HYUNDAI I800 SE MANUAL

Jeremy Clarkson     Published: 10 April 2016


The Hyundai i800: the worst car in the world?




The road from Marrakesh to Ouarzazate should be right up there with the best of them. It has everything. You start in the desert and then you climb through pine forests in the foothills of the Atlas mountains up to the snow line, where it’s hairpin after hairpin and drop after vertical drop.

After you crest the highest point, which is about 6,000ft above sea level, the road surface becomes foreign-aid smooth, and as you drop down into the Sahara proper, the corners turn into third and fourth-gear sweepers. This is the section Tom Cruise chose to use for the bike chase in his most recent Mission: Impossible outing, and I can see why. It’s fast and it’s dangerous and I loved every inch of it. Especially because it was 85 degrees and I was at thewheel of an Alfa Romeo 4C and the roof was off.

However, the road does come with one or two issues, chief among which is “drivers going the other way”, who are never really sure which side of the road they should be on. Or maybe it’s because they are mostly at the wheel of ancient Renault 12s that have never been serviced and are therefore impossible to steer with any accuracy.

On one long stretch a chap going the other way pulled out to overtake a lorry and I assumed foolishly that he would see me approaching and immediately pull back onto his side of the road. So I didn’t brake. And I should have done, because he kept coming for such a long time that I was able to register the fact that his face was rather gormless.

Anyway, I reversed back out of the desert, and when the dust had settled and I’d stopped swearing, I got back on the road, and two miles later the same thing happened again. I think there must be a rule in Morocco that states overtaking vehicles have the right of way.

It’s not just the locals who cause a bit of buttock-clenching, because as Morocco is now the only country in all northern Africa that we can visit, it’s become a favourite among Europe’s classic car clubs. Which means that when you are not swerving round Mr Gormless in his spit-and-Kleenex Renault, you are presented with an out-of-control E-type Jaguar with an enormous Belgian at the wheel.

I haven’t even got to the biggest hazard of all yet: the roadside vendors who walk out in front of your car, even when you’re doing 90mph, to see if you’d like to buy their rock. That’s all they sell: rocks. I think everyone in this remote place has a rock that has been passed down for generations.

“My grandfather didn’t sell this rock before he was mown down by a German in a big Healey. My father didn’t sell it before he was squashed by someone in a Renault 14. And now it’s my turn not to sell it either.”

Someone ought to explain to these people that tourists are unlikely to buy rocks, as there are many that can be had free at the side of the road. And indeed in their own gardens back at home. And they should certainly be told that the stopping distance of an Alfa Romeo 4C when it’s travelling at, ahem, 50mph isnot “one inch”.

The fact is, though, that I didn’t crash into an oncoming Renault or a speeding Chevrolet Corvette. And I didn’t run over any roadside vendors, and despite a couple of near misses I arrived in Ouarzazate with a burnt face, hair as solid as a breeze block and a smile the size of Cheshire on my face. It had been four hours of unalloyed joy, a reminder of what it was that made me fall in love with cars in the first place.



But then two days later I had to drive back to Marrakesh on the same road, and the Alfa Romeo was not available. Which meant I had to hitch a ride with my colleagues James May and Richard Hammond in the back of a Hyundai i800 people carrier. This would provide a rather different experience.

First of all, there was the seating. I was sitting in the middle, on what Hyundai probably bills in the brochure as an airline seat. But “church pew” is nearer the mark. And to make life even less comfortable, the bench in the back wouldn’t anchor properly, so every time our driver touched the brakes, Richard Hammond clattered into my spine.

Then there was the view. I love a desert. A man can get in touch with himself in the vastness. But when you’re in the back of a Hyundai i800, it feels as though you’re watching the world go by from inside a police van. You don’t even get wind-down windows; just a sliding flap that would be familiar to owners of the original Mini. Which brings me on to the air-conditioning. Or lack of it.

So I was hot and feeling like a criminal, and Richard Hammond had just clattered into the back of my head again, and then I realised this journey was not going to pass quickly because the engine under the Hyundai’s bonnet was producing what appeared to beno more than four brake horsepower.

It’s not as if it was heavily laden. We were only five up. And since one of the five was Richard Hammond, it was more like four up and a packet of biscuits. But even so, there simply wasn’t enough grunt on even thelongest straight to pass even the slowest lorry.

We tried to tell the driver that it was the job of oncoming drivers to get out of our way, but he didn’t believe us, which meant that we wouldn’t be getting to Marrakesh any time soon. Thank God I don’t get carsick.

After what felt about a month I began to think that we had accidentally encountered the world’s worst car. But Richard Hammond disagreed. “It is not the worst car in the world,” he said. “It is the worst thing in the world.”

And I think he may have been right. It’s worse than that parasite that burrows into children’s eyes. It’s worse than the cubicle on a hot army base with a D&V outbreak. It’s worse than trying on trousers, even. I would rather apply sun cream to James May’s back than do that journey again in a Hyundai i800. It was, I think, the worst four hours of my life.

It’s annoying. Hyundai knows how to make a decent car. But with the i800 it has chosen to make one that is boring and slow and ugly and awful. Because it probably figured there was no point trying with a car that was only going to be bought by African taxi drivers and European Catholics who’d had too many children and were consequently too exhausted to notice that they were going at only 6mph.

I will never go in one again. Even if it’s three in the morning and it’s raining and I just want to get home and it’s what the taxi driver happens to be driving. Because I’d rather sleep on a bench and catch flu.



Never again

☆ No stars

PROS
It has four wheels
And an engine (debatable)
And seats (of sorts)

CONS
No power
Central bench seat is like a church pew
No wind-down windows in the rear

SPECIFICATIONS
PRICE: £24,835
ENGINE: 2,497cc, 4 cylinders, diesel
POWER: 134bhp @ 3,600rpm
TORQUE: 253 lb ft @ 1500rpm
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual
ACCELERATION: 0-62mph: 17.6sec
TOP SPEED: 104mph
FUEL: 37.7mpg
CO2: 197g/km
ROAD TAX BAND: J (£500 in first year, £270 thereafter)
DIMENSIONS: 5,125mm x 1,920mm x 1,925mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/ingear/clarkson/article1685551.ece
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-hyundai-i800-zlc3nsbnh
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-hyundai-i800/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Thor’s family chariot can race a Ferrari
Volvo XC90

Jeremy Clarkson
April 17 2016, 1:01am,
 


The Range Rover is an excellent car; fast, luxurious, well made and capable of bumping smoothly over a grouse moor. It’s so excellent in fact that shortly after you take delivery, it will be stolen.

The problem has reached such epidemic proportions that whenever the police in London are not investigating former MPs and army officers for no reason at all, they are apparently under orders to pull over every Range Rover they see. Because chances are the man at the wheel is on his way to Albania.

I suspect this would take the sheen off the ownership experience; coming out of your house in the morning to find your car isn’t there. Or finding it is there and being pulled over every hundred yards by a policeman who will assume you are rich and that therefore you must at some point have done some inappropriate touching.

So if you are not going to buy a Range Rover, what other choices do you have? Well, only one, I’m afraid. And it’s the new Volvo XC90. And now your shoulders have sagged and you are thinking that if that’s the only other option, you may as well commit suicide.

I get that. As a small boy you didn’t lie in bed at night dreaming of the day you could own a Volvo. It’s something you buy for practical reasons, like a pair of gardening gloves. It’s what you do when you are old and everything stops working down there. It’s just somewhere to sit while you wait for the Grim Reaper to pop his head round the corner and say: “Ready?”

The old XC90 was a little different and in some ways even worse because this was a car you bought because it was a safe and practical space for your children. Which meant that it was always bought with just a hint of resentment. You weren’t old enough for a Volvo. You still had fire in your loins. You could still ski and scuba dive, and at parties, women still found you attractive. You wanted a BMW M3.

But you had to have a Volvo because you needed seven seats for your kids. And it was the most practical seven-seater of them all. And it had to be a diesel, really.

The new XC90, however, is different. Yes, it’s still a Volvo and, yes, it’s still the most practical and sensible seven-seater of them all. But, oh my God, it’s a nice place to sit. It feels like you’re lounging around in one of those Scandinavian furniture shops where everything is beautiful and pale and a chair costs £2,500.

There’s a diamond-cut starter button and a crystal glass gearlever and detailing on the dials that makes the detailing on an IWC watch look like something you’d find on a proud parent’s fridge door. The central command screen is like an iPad and the roof is glass and it’s protected by a cool and crisp electric sunshade made from what looks like white calico.

Every other car in the world feels like the inside of a German’s washbag. They’re all a symphony of dark greys with red detailing. The Volvo is not like that at all. It’s better. This side of a Rolls-Royce Phantom, it’s the nicest interior you’ll find anywhere.

And unlike a Danish chair, it’s not that expensive. Prices for the entry-level all-wheel-drive diesel start at less than £47,000. And so that’s that then. Or is it?

Because the car you see in the pictures this morning is a new version of the XC90. It has the same enormous body and the same spacious and wonderful interior. But this one, says Volvo, can do 134.5 miles to the gallon.



That’s not a misprint. It is actually claiming that this car, which is almost five metres (more than 16ft) long and weighs 2 1/2 tons, can travel from London to Nottingham on less than eight pints of petrol. And that’s not a misprint either. Petrol. Not diesel.

Oh, and just in case you are thinking that it must be fitted with the sort of engine that you’d normally expect to find in a tin opener, consider this: it’ll do 0-62mph in 5.6 seconds. It’s as fast off the line, therefore, as a Ferrari 348.

So what we have here is a large and sensible seven-seater estate car, with an excellent Scandi interior, that can keep up with a Ferrari but do 134.5mpg. Drooling yet?

Well, obviously, there are a few things I need to point out before you rush off to the Volvo dealer. First of all, it can only do 134.5mpg in theory. You’ll never manage that figure in real life. And certainly not if you go from 0-62mph in 5.6 seconds. Oh, and the car I tested, which had a few extras fitted, costs more than £75,000.

The design is called the T8 Twin Engine, and I like that. Most car companies use the term “hybrid”, which is another word for “mongrel”, but Volvo has been honest and told us what’s what. The car has two engines.

There’s a 316bhp turbocharged and supercharged 2-litre four- cylinder petrol engine at the front that drives the front wheels. And then at the back, driving the rear wheels, there’s an 86bhp electric motor. In between, where you’d expect to find a prop shaft, is where the batteries live.

This car be charged from the mains, or by the petrol engine as you drive along. Either way, it is not going to be a vehicle you can service at home. Even if you have the Haynes manual.

There’s a button on the centre console that allows you to choose whether you’d like to use power made at a power station by burning Russian gas, or power made by crushed prawns to produce oil. Most of the time I used both.

Volvo says you can travel about 27 miles on electric power, but I didn’t get that far. I engaged silent drive while in the multistorey car park at Selfridges and I’d only gone down one level before a woman ran out of the shop and right in front of me. She simply hadn’t heard me coming. I decided after that to use the petrol engine as well. Because that’s the thing about petrol, it’s not only brilliant and ecological but safe too.


The Volvo XC90 has two engines, and doesn’t pretend otherwise

Other things? Well, sitting on the optional air suspension the ride was smooth, the stereo was beyond brilliant, the seats were comfortable, the handling was better than I expected and while I didn’t understand all the readouts on the dash, I did enjoy looking at the graphics.

Drawbacks? A couple. The petrol engine is not what you’d call refined. It sounds like a diesel and this is a sound that has no place in a £75,000 car. And the gearlever has to be nudged twice before it engages a gear. And the size, I’ll be honest, can be a nuisance. It’d be fine in Houston, which is what Sven and Thor were thinking about when they said to one another: “Let’s make it enormous.” But it can be a bloody nuisance in Britain.

You’d have this issue with a Range Rover, too, of course. And that brings me back to the original question. Which is best? Well, for refinement and imperiousness, the Range Rover, of course. But in every other way, it has to be the Volvo. Especially the way it will always be where you left it. Because who in their right mind would ever want to steal it?

★★★★☆
Choose this over a Range Rover, not least because it won't be stolen
 
PROS
Powerful but planet-saving, too
Lovely scandi-design interior
Smooth ride

CONS
You won't really get 134.5mpg
Feels massive on UK roads
Noisy petrol engine

SPECIFICATIONS

PRICE: £,64,55
ENGINE: 1,969cc, 4 cylinders, turbo petrol
POWER: 316bhp
TORQUE: 472 lb ft @ 2,200rpm
TRANSMISSION: 8-speed auto
ACCELERATION: 0-62mph: 5.6sec
TOP SPEED: 140mph
FUEL: 134.5mpg
CO2: 49g/km
ROAD TAX BAND: A (free)
DIMENSIONS: 4,950mm x 2,008mm x 1,776mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now





www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-thors-family-chariot-can-race-a-ferrari-kk0k35zn2
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-volvo-xc90-t8-twin-engine-inscription/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Ferrari 488 GTB

It’s devilishly good at rattling Mr Normal

Jeremy Clarkson
24 April 2016, 1:01am,
The Sunday Times




We British like to think of ourselves as being well mannered and cultured, with a great sense of humour and a steely resolve that manifests itself in the shape of a stiff upper lip. But when you drive a Ferrari through this green and pleasant land, you realise quite quickly that, actually, we are mealy-mouthed, bitter and racked with envy and hate.

If I drive a normal car to work, I pull up to the junction at the end of my street, and people let me into the slow-moving crawl on the main road. But when I’m in a Ferrari, they don’t. And it’s the same story on a motorway. People pull over to let a normal car overtake. But when I’m in a Ferrari, they just sit in the outside lane for ever.

In Britain, Mr Normal sees a Ferrari as a reminder that his life hasn’t worked out quite as well as he had hoped. And he sees its driver as a living embodiment of the good-looking kid at school who got the girls, and the sixth-former who nicked his packed lunch on a field trip.

He believes that if he can inconvenience a Ferrari driver, just for a moment, it’s one in the eye for the rich and the privileged. It’s “score one” for the little man.

Then you have the cyclists. Many, as we know, use their bicycles to wage a class war. They see all car drivers as an unholy cross between Margaret Thatcher and Hitler, so they spit and they yell and they put footage of you on their bicycling websites when they get home.

If, however, you are in a Ferrari, they go berserk because now you are an ambassador for the devil himself. You used child labour to make your money. You were responsible for Bhopal. You may even be a Tory. So it is their duty as a comrade to bang on your roof and scream obscenities.

Even the moderately well off can’t cope with a Ferrari. It upsets their inner zebra. Last week, in one of those towns outside London that’s exactly the same as all the others, I encountered the owner of a hunkered-down, souped-up BMW M3. This was his patch. He was the alpha male in this manor. He probably owned a wine bar. And he really didn’t take kindly to someone turning up with what was very obviously a bigger member. So he came alongside and he roared his exhausts and he danced and skittered to make me go away. Which I did.

You simply do not get any of these responses in other countries. A Ferrari in America is a spur, a reminder that you need to get up earlier in the morning and try harder. In Italy it’s a thing of beauty to be admired. Elsewhere it’s a dream made real. But in Britain it causes everyone to say: “It’s all right for some.” Which is the most depressing phrase in the English language.

And it means that for every minute of enjoyment you get from your Ferrari, you have to endure 10 minutes of abuse and hate. This means you need a thick skin to drive one. Unless you encounter me on your travels. Because when I see someone driving a Ferrari these days, I want to run over and embrace them and offer to have their babies.

The problem is capital gains tax. Because there isn’t any on most cars, they have become a zero-rated currency. You buy something rare, then you put it in a garage, in cotton wool, and then you sell it and trouser 100% of the increase in value. George Osborne gets not one penny.

This means it’s your nest egg. It’s your pension. It’s an Isa with windscreen wipers. And so, obviously, you’re not going to drive it anywhere. The risk is too great.



That saddens me because all of the world’s wonderful cars are now locked away in dehumidified cellars, which means they aren’t on the road where they belong. If I were chancellor of the exchequer, I’d introduce capital gains tax on cars tomorrow. And I’d make it retrospective. It would be a vote winner among the mealy-mouthed and the bitter. And because rare cars are now changing hands for millions, it would net enough to pay for a kiddie’s iron lung or something. And, best of all, it would get all of these wonderful cars back into public view where we can enjoy looking at them.

Certainly, if I owned the Ferrari I was driving last week, I’d use it to go everywhere. I would take it on unnecessary journeys. I would volunteer to run errands for friends. And I would be happy when one of the children rang at three in the morning to say they had no money and couldn’t get home. Because I could go and pick them up.

There are those who say that a 488 is not a proper Ferrari because it’s turbocharged. And that turbocharging has no place on such a thoroughbred. They argue that it’s turbocharged only so that it can meet EU emission regulations and that sticking to the letter of the law flies in the face of the Ferrari ethos. A Ferrari is about freedom and adrenaline and speed and passion and beauty and soul. It’s not about carbon dioxide and bureaucracy.

Yes. I get that. But let’s not forget Gilles Villeneuve’s Ferrari race car was turbocharged or that the best Ferrari of them all — the F40 — used forced induction. And also let’s not forget that thanks to modern engine management systems, you simply don’t know that witchcraft is being used to pump fuel and air into the V8. It doesn’t even sound turbocharged. It sounds like a Ferrari. It sounds baleful. It sounds wonderful.

And, oh my God, it’s lovely to drive. You can potter about with the gearbox in automatic and it’s not uncomfortable or difficult in any way. That is probably Ferrari’s greatest achievement with the 488. To take something so highly tuned and highly strung and powerful and make it feel like a pussy cat.



It’s so docile that you get the impression it can’t possibly work when you put your foot down. But it just does. I know of no mid-engined car that feels so friendly. So on your side. There’s no understeer at all and there’s no suddenness from the back end either. The old 458 was not as good as a McLaren 12C. But this new car puts the prancing horse back on top. As a driving machine, it’s — there’s no other word — perfect.

I still hate the dashboard, though. Putting all the controls for the lights and indicators and wipers on the steering wheel is silly. And so is the sat nav and radio, which can be operated only by the driver.

I suppose you’d get used to it if you used the car a lot. And that’s the best thing about the 488. Because you can. James May recently bought the old 458 Speciale, which, because the car market is mad, has rocketed in value to such an extent that he hardly ever uses it.

The 488, because it’s not a limited-edition special, will not make you any money. So you can, and you may as well, use it as a car.

Yes, it’ll cause everyone else on the road to become Arthur Scargill. But look at it this way. When you’re filling it with fuel and you’re being sneered at by the man at the next pump, give him a real reason to dislike you. Saunter over and point out that if you didn’t have a Ferrari, it would make no difference to his life. He’d still be on his way to a useless garden centre, in his crummy Citroën with his ugly wife and his two gormless children.



★★★★☆ 
A perfect driving machine — if you can handle the hate
 
PROS
Powerful yet docile
Wonderful, baleful noise
Can be driven every day

CONS
Steering wheel controls are silly
It won't make you money
Other drivers will loathe you

SPECIFICATIONS
PRICE: £183,964
ENGINE: 3,902cc, V8, twin-turbo, petrol
POWER: 661bhp @ 8,000rpm
TORQUE: 560 lb ft @ 3,000rpm
TRANSMISSION: 7-speed dual-clutch sequential auto
ACCELERATION: 0-62mph: 3.0sec
TOP SPEED: 205mph
FUEL: 24.8mpg
CO2: 260g/km
ROAD TAX BAND: M (£1,120 for first year, £515 thereafter)
DIMENSIONS: 4,568mm x 1,952mm x 1,213mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-devilishly-good-at-rattling-mr-normal-8kztvsmsv
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-ferrari-488-gtb/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Mercedes-AMG C 63

The superbarge gets a rocket up its rear

Jeremy Clarkson
May 1 2016, 1:01am,
The Sunday Times



Right. Let’s be clear on one thing straight away. If you have a BMW 3-series, or a Mercedes C-class, or an Audi A4, then you are driving the wrong car. Because what you should have is a Jaguar XE.

It may appear to be an ordinary four-door saloon, but actually, if you stand back for a moment and look at it properly, you will notice that it is extremely handsome. The body appears to have been stretched over the wheels, which gives the impression that it’s ripped, that it’s barely containing its internal organs.

And that’s just the start of it. I was bombing about last week in the V6 version, and, oh my word, what an engine. It doesn’t move the needle very much when it comes to power or torque. It delivers what you were expecting. No more. No less. But the noise it makes when you accelerate is sublime. Not since the Alfa Romeo GTV6 have I heard such a muted, mellifluous sound. And it seems to be coming from the engine itself, not electronic trickery in the exhaust system.

There’s more. Even though it is fitted with 35% profile tyres that sit on the wheels like a coat of paint and have about as much give as elm, the car is not busy or crashy in any way. Life gets a bit hectic if you put it in Dynamic mode, so I didn’t bother. I left it in Normal and settled back into a perfectly crafted seat to let it waft along in the way a Jaguar should. And the diesel version I tried a few months ago — which has taller tyres — was even better.

If I had to find a criticism, I’d say the dashboard is a bit dreary. All the buttons are small and hutched up in a corner, leaving vast swathes of plastic. I’ve seen more interesting-looking tabletops. And the graphics on the dials are a bit Lada circa 1974. But that’s not a good-enough reason to not buy this car. Not by a long way.

The only reason you might buy something else is that you don’t want an engine under the bonnet. You want a howling, fire-breathing monster. Jaguar will offer such a thing in the future, but for now it doesn’t. That means if you want a superheated, medium-sized saloon car today, it comes down to a choice between the BMW M3 and the vehicle you see in the pictures this morning, the Mercedes-AMG C 63.



This is not a good-looking car. The back looks as if it’s melted, and there are way too many flashy styling details. It seems as though it’s crashed into an Abu Dhabi interior design shop and everything has just sort of stuck.

Inside, the news is better. It feels special. And beautifully put-together and interesting. When I had the Jag, I accidentally removed the sat nav data card, and when I put it back I was told via a message on the screen that I had to turn the car off and then on again so the system could reboot. You just know that this wouldn’t happen in a Mercedes. And that if it did, the man responsible would be sent into the desert with a shovel and a service revolver.

Then of course there’s the engine. Gone are the days when AMG Mercs had massive, charismatic 6.2-litre V8s. Because of emission regulations, you must now make do with four litres. Sure, a brace of turbochargers means you get even more power than before, but the bellow has gone. And the crackle. Now it’s just loud.

Not as loud as the tyres, though. God, they make a racket. I went to Bray in Berkshire for lunch, and when I arrived, all I wanted to eat was a handful of Nurofen.

I was also extremely uncomfortable. One of the things I used to like about AMG cars was that no real concession had been made to handling or Nürburgring lap times or any of that stuff. They were fast in a straight line and sideways in the corners. This made them fun and comfy.

But obviously someone at Mercedes has decided that AMG cars must corner flat and fast, which means the suspension has been beefed up, which means they can go round the corners more quickly, which means they have become frightening and bumpy.



Very bumpy. I know my car was running on the optional 19in wheels, which will have made things worse, but the ride really was far too stiff.

On the upside of all this, the car doesn’t half shift. The mid-range acceleration is mesmerising, and it really does cling on in the bends.

You’d imagine, then, that because the company has gone all serious and decided to change the character of the AMG from a sort of European muscle car — a Ford Mustang in lederhosen — to a finely balanced and fast road racer, it would have fitted a twin-clutch flappy-paddle gearbox. Weirdly, though, it hasn’t. You still get a slushmatic that, even more weirdly, is operated via a Cadillac- style column-mounted stalk.

Regular readers of this column will know that I’ve been a fan of AMG Mercs for many years. I’ve even owned three. But the love affair is waning slightly. They’re becoming too chintzy. And unsure of what they’re supposed to be, which is smile-a-minute battleships. Not fast and agile motor torpedo boats.

Because if it’s a fast and agile motor torpedo boat you want, you’re way better off with the BMW M3. As a driver’s tool, it knocks the Mercedes into a cocked hat. And it looks better. And it’s easier to live with. But, that said, it too is far from perfect. The steering is weird and it feels heavy. If I were to write a school report on this car, I’d say: “BMW can do better.”

Frankly, if I were in the market for a fast, medium-sized saloon, I’d wait six months and buy the new Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, which has 503bhp and rear-wheel drive and is an Alfa. But you probably don’t want to wait that long for a car that you sort of know won’t quite live up to its on-paper promise. ’Twas ever thus with Alfa.

Which brings us right back to the beginning. Because that Jaguar V6 is not exactly a slouch. It does 155mph, accelerates to 62mph before you’ve had a chance to look at the speedometer and corners beautifully. And it’s cheaper to buy than its German rivals, costs less to run and is better-looking.

Right now, then, as I wait for the Alfa because I’m daft in the head, you should buy the Jag. Because if it’s your head you’re using, it’s the obvious choice.



★★★☆☆

My love affair with AMG is waning

PROS
Beautifully made interior
Mesmerising acceleration
Lots of grip

CONS
Where's the V8 bellow gone?
Noise and stiff ride from tyres
Slushmatic gearbox

SPECIFICATIONS
PRICE: £60,070
ENGINE: 3982cc, V8, twin turbo
POWER: 469bhp @ 5500rpm
TORQUE: 479Ib ft @ 1750rpm
TRANSMISSION: Seven-speed automatic
ACCELERATION: 0-62mph: 4.1sec
TOP SPEED: 155mph
FUEL: 34.5mpg
CO2: 192g/km
ROAD TAX BAND: J (£500 first year; £270 thereon)
DIMENSIONS: 4,686mm x 1,810mm x 1,442mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now



www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-mercedes-amg-c-63-3v0fwfkkp
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-mercedes-amg-c-63/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: The secret sex robot has testers in a fever

BMW M2

Jeremy Clarkson
May 8 2016, 1:01am, The Sunday Times



Two recently launched cars have sent the specialist motoring press into a squeaking frenzy of tinkle-clutching ecstasy. One is the Ford Focus RS, which, they say, is as good as a Nissan GT-R, for less than half the money. And the other is the car you can see pictured here this morning: the BMW M2.

I’ll be honest. I’ve yawned through their eulogies, thinking: “I’m sure the Ford is very good ... but only for people who can’t actually afford a Nissan GT-R. And the BMW M2 is only very good for people who can’t afford an M4.”

Seriously. Who in their right mind is going to wake up one morning and think: “Yes. I have the money to pay for an M4, but I shall buy something smaller, less good-looking and with less power and less equipment instead”? That’s like saying: “I can afford to take my holiday this year on a superyacht in the Caribbean. But I’ve decided to rent a cottage in Margate instead. Because that’ll be better.”

The problem is that not-very-well-paid road-testers are like Brummies, endlessly banging on about how Birmingham is so much better than London, when everyone else in the entire world knows it just isn’t. Unless you have only £7.50 to spend on a house.

I’ll be honest, then. As I climbed behind the wheel of the M2, my hackles were up. I wanted to scoff and scorn, and happily there was plenty to be disappointed about. The steering wheel was too big, the plastics were horrid, there’s some kind of eco-readout on the dash and the seat was so high I felt as if I was sitting on the car rather than in it.

And, yes, while it costs considerably less than the M4, it’s still a whopping £44,070, which is a lot for what is only a jumped-up, pumped-up version of the 1-series. Which is basically a BMW Golf.

But then, about an hour later, I was in a secret-squirrel car park near Stamford Bridge, on my way to that dismal Chelsea game against Manchester City. It was chock-full of Aston Martins and Range Rovers, as you’d imagine, and yet somehow the little BMW didn’t look out of place at all. It may be only a 1-series in a muscle-man suit, but thanks to its flared wheelarches and the way the tyres seem to be stretched to breaking point to fit over the huge rims, it looks kinda cool. I liked it.

And then three hours after that, I was on the A1, going round a long left-hander at 70mph, and I thought: “Hang on a minute. This steering is absolutely bleeding fantastic.” I wasn’t taxing the car in any way at all; a Reliant Robin could have taken that bend at 70mph with ease. And yet I could feel that the steering was weighted perfectly and that it was talking to me in a gentle whisper.

And what makes that even more astonishing is that the power assistance is electric. Which means that the sensations were all artificial. If BMW ever makes a sex robot, you should buy one immediately, because it’ll be indistinguishable from going to bed with an actual person.

Later I was overtaken by a Porsche 911 GTS that was travelling at about a million. And then, before I’d had a chance to think, “Golly, that was quick”, my world was rocked by an Aston Martin DB9 that tore by at a million and one. It’s been a while since I’ve seen two cars really going for it on the public highway. It’s a hobby I thought had been killed off by speed cameras. But plainly, up there in the flatlands of eastern England, there’s nothing else to do once the turnips are planted, so the locals are still at it.



I didn’t join in. Well, not much. But, coming off one roundabout, I may have put my foot down a bit, into the overboost zone of the M2’s turbocharged torque lake, and there’s no getting round the fact that it was faster than both of the way more expensive GT cars.

At first I thought the M2 simply felt fast because from behind the wheel it’s as if you’re in a low-rent hatchback. So you’re not expecting much of a shove in the back. But, actually, it’s fast no matter what yardstick you use. Round the Hockenheim racetrack in Germany it’s faster, apparently, than its bigger brothers.

And that’s because it’s not just fast in a straight line. It’s also fast through the corners. And not just fast, but a complete delight.

It’s worth remembering at this point that while the M4 is extremely good, it is not perfect. It has a lot of electronic jiggery- pokery in the steering and suspension systems that in the M2 is gone. BMW’s engineers set it up to be as good as it can be, and you aren’t given buttons to change anything. That’s why the M2 is cheaper than the M4: because it’s less complicated. And because it’s less complicated, it is a better drive. Much better. It’s so good that in a few bends I was actually dribbling with joy.

Thanks to a clever electromechanical differential, it can corner with its tail out like a Looney Tunes muscle car, or right on the raggedy edge of adhesion like a proper racer. It’s brilliant at both disciplines. And you want to know the best bit? It’s not in the least bit uncomfortable. Sure, it’s stiff, so it’s a bit bumpy on poor road surfaces, but it never jars.

My only concern is that in the last small BMW M car — the 1M — I suffered the biggest and most sudden spin in my entire road-testing career. It hit a puddle while travelling in a straight line and swapped ends in an instant. Will the M2 do that? I don’t know. It wasn’t raining.

Away from the performance stuff, you get seats in the back that can be used by humans and a large boot. And now it’s time to get back to the performance stuff, with news that the M2 comes with a launch control system that permits what are called “smoky burnout” starts. Utterly pointless. You’ll never use it. But it’s fun to know you could.

There have been many M cars over the years. The lineage stretches back to 1986 and the original toe-in-the-water, left- hand-drive-only M3, which many still regard as the best. I disagree. It was too racy. Too serious. And in the wrong hands — mine, at the time — a twitching nightmare.

I like the M3 before the present model — the one with the V8 — and I adore the current M6 Gran Coupé. And then there was the original, 286bhp M5: the ultimate Q-car. It looked like the sort of box that your chest freezer was delivered in but it went like a spaceship. That’s always been my favourite M car. Until now.

The road-testers were right. The M2 is a lot cheaper than the M4. And a lot better as well. It’s a fabulous little car, and now I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a Focus RS. Which, apparently, is even better.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-bmw-m2-vzgkkljnj
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-bmw-m2/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: It’ll give Geoff all the fares he can carry

Skoda Superb estate

Jeremy Clarkson

May 15 2016, 12:01am,
The Sunday Times



At school, after committing some trivial misdemeanour — hopping through the memorial garden or putting Polyfilla in all the classroom locks; I can’t remember what — I was made to write a thousand-word essay about the inside of a ping-pong ball.

It was tough, but the practice was useful later, on the Rotherham Advertiser, where I was regularly made to file a report on what had happened at the previous evening’s meeting of Brinsworth parish council. That meant coming up with six or seven paragraphs about absolutely nothing at all.

Today, though, I face my biggest challenge yet, because I must write a 1,200-word report on the Skoda Superb diesel estate, which has headlamps, a steering wheel and some seats — and that’s it. Except that isn’t it, because I still have a lot of space to fill.

This hasn’t happened before. Not once in more than 20 years of writing this column have I sat for quite such a long time, watching the cursor blinking impatiently as it waits for me to write something down. Four times the screen has gone to sleep. I’ve done much the same thing twice.

I was going to explain that a Skoda Superb is a cheap way of buying a Volkswagen Passat because that’s what it is, under the skin. But the truth is, you’re not going to be very interested in reading about a Volkswagen Passat either. It’s not a car that keeps anyone awake at night. And being told that there’s a cheap way of buying one is like being told there’s a cheap way of flying to Dortmund. Who cares?

I became so desperate for inspiration that I even turned to Skoda’s brochure, where I discovered you can buy a Superb with a system that downloads the car’s data to your iPad so you can analyse your day’s driving style over supper with the family.

“Hey, kids, I pulled 0.4g on the roundabout this afternoon and hit 3200rpm at one point.” Who’d want to do that? No Skoda driver I’ve ever met, that’s for sure.



I’ve met a lot of Skoda drivers over the years. They are called Geoff, and life hasn’t been kind to any of them. They all had reasonable jobs, as timber salesmen or line managers, but the company they worked for was driven out of business by Chinese competition, so they ended up at home all day, eating biscuits and slowly coming to realise that they neither liked nor fancied their wife any more. To get out, they bought Skoda Octavias and set themselves up as provincial minicab drivers. Which means they now spend their evenings mopping up sick, which is better than watching Downton Abbey with fat women who hate them.

What they really want, of course, is to give up the late-night runs full of drunken provincial agri-yobs and get some of the airport work, because then, instead of watching Downton with a fat woman or clearing up sick, they can stand around in arrivals at terminal 3 in an actual suit while waiting to pick up a businessman. And run the lucky bastard home.

And that, I guess, is where the Superb estate comes in, because it’s not only cheaper than a Passat but also bigger. Much bigger. Geoff could get three adults in the back easily and every single one of their belongings in the boot. Even if they were all compulsive hoarders. It is the biggest car you can buy for £20,000.

And never mind what it says on the steering wheel about it being a Skoda. It isn’t. It has a Volkswagen engine, a Volkswagen gearbox and Volkswagen electronics, and it was built by Volkswagen robots. It even has Volkswagen economy: the manufacturer claims it will average 67.3mpg. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

The only trouble is that while the Superb estate is a great minicab, Geoff is unwilling to take the plunge, because he knows that as soon as he does, Uber will open in his town and he’ll be back at home with his enormous wife, his place on the cab rank taken by a small man in an anorak and a Toyota Prius.



All of which means that no one is interested in the car I’m reviewing this morning. No one. Not even the minicabbers who bought its predecessor. And I still have 500 words to go.

But bear with me because I’ve been having a think recently about the star rating system that’s used in these reviews. The Skoda Superb estate is a five-star car. It’s nigh-on impossible to fault. It is beautifully made. It is equipped with everything you could reasonably expect. The 148 brake horsepower diesel engine is quiet and powerful. It is extremely good value for money. It’s really rather good-looking. It is spacious and — try not to laugh — it does nearly 70mpg. Oh, go on then. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

And yet it just isn’t a five-star car, is it, because it has the same amount of soul as a fridge freezer. It’s the sort of car that you’d buy by the foot.

“Hello. I’d like five-and-a-bit yards of car, please.”

“Certainly, Geoff. Let me show you the Superb.”



At no point when you are driving a Superb do you think, “Eugh.” But you never think, “Wow,” either. And that’s not good enough. If you spend thousands of pounds on a holiday, you want the view and the service to take your breath away. And it should be the same thing when you buy a car. It should dazzle you.

There should be a handful of small touches here and there that are absolutely brilliant, and I’m not talking about being able to download your drive home onto a tablet. I’m talking about styling touches and finishes and noises.

I drove for 200 miles up the M1 the other morning, and it was an endless procession of cars such as the Superb. Some were Hyundais. Some were Kias. Many were Vauxhalls and Fords. And they all suffered from the same problem. They were all average. And so, in the past, they’d have got three stars in a review such as this. Because 2½ is hard to illustrate.

Well, that’s going to stop. From now on, if a car is dull, no matter how competent it may be, it is not going to get more than two stars. Because unless the car companies start to let their creative juices flow, people will simply stop buying cars and go for something more convenient instead. Such as an Uber app or the number of their nearest minicab driver.

Which I guess is good news for Geoff. Cars such as the Superb are going to cause people to wonder why they bother with the hassle or the expense of car ownership when the car itself offers nothing in return. Which means there will be lots of business to go round.

So go ahead, Geoff. Buy the Superb. Because as a tool, which is what you want, after all, it’s impossible to better. And, thanks to the design philosophy that created it, there’s a lot of work coming your way very soon.

★★☆☆☆

Roomy. Attractive. Soulless.

PROS
Space for multiple fares and their luggage
Looks great
Efficient engines, so they say

CONS
Zero "wows"
The soul of a fridge
Likely to kill off cars altogether

SPECIFICATIONS
PRICE: £26,785
ENGINE: 1,968cc, 4 cylinders, turbodiesel
POWER: 148bhp @ 3,500rpm
TORQUE: 251 lb ft @ 1,750rpm
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual
ACCELERATION: 0-62mph: 8.9sec
TOP SPEED: 135mph
FUEL: 67.3mpg
CO2: 110g/km
ROAD TAX BAND: B (free for first year, £20 thereafter)
DIMENSIONS: 4,856mm x 1,864mm x 1,477mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now






www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/the-clarkson-review-skoda-superb-estate-7cxvfcc5t
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-skoda-superb-estate/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: The attack bunny has hearts thumping
Mazda MX-5

Jeremy Clarkson
May 22 2016, 12:01am, The Sunday Times




I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it here again, now. Nothing brilliant has ever resulted from a meeting. A meeting, by its very nature, is bound to produce a consensus. And a consensus is never going to have any peaks or troughs. Margarine came from a meeting. Butter didn’t.

I once worked with a television director who let everyone argue about what we’d do next. And then he put up his hand and said, quietly but firmly: “Right. We are going to have a meeting where only I speak and then something happens.” So that’s what we did, and everything worked out well.

Gravity didn’t come from a meeting. Neither did the Spitfire. But most cars today do come from meetings, and as a result they’re almost all yawn-mobiles. The engineers compromise their position to accommodate the whims of the stylists, who have to compromise their views to keep the rule makers happy, who in turn must satisfy the wishes of the accountants, who are ratty because they had the engineerson the phone last night arguing about the need for multilink suspension.

And now, to make everything more complicated, you have the electronics nerds, who baffle everyone with their weird science and seem always to get their way. Probably because no one knows what they’re on about. They sit talking to people who can’t tell an iPhone from a fax machine about how they can use ones and noughts to change characteristics of the car as it goes along. And that sounds brilliant to a layman.

“Wow. You can make the suspension soft or medium or hard? You can change the feel of the steering, and even how much power the engine is producing?”

You can see why the board of directors and the marketing departments would go for something like that. But actually it means the way the car feels is down to the customer, who, as the IT manager for a building supply company, doesn’t know one end of a shock absorber from the other.

Let me put it this way. When you buy a really good amp that’s been built by a brilliant acoustic engineer, it has two buttons: one to turn it off and on, and one to adjust the volume. When you buy a really bad amp, it comes with a graphic equaliser.

And so we get to the new Mazda MX-5. The old model has been the world’s bestselling sports car for about 25 years, thanks to a combination of low price, ease of use and a smile-a-minute factor that’s up there alongside a game of naked Twister with Scarlett Johansson and Cameron Diaz.

When they were deciding what the new version should be like, the electronics people must have been there, jumping up and down and saying they had the technology to change the shape of the boot lid and make the headlights see round corners. And it must have been very tempting. But I’m glad to my core that they were told to shut up and get out.

This is a car that has been set up by engineers just the way they like it. You can’t change it as you drive along. And after about a hundredth of a second you think: “Why would I want to? Because it’s completely perfect.”

Actually, that’s not exactly what I thought. What I thought was: “God, I’m getting fat.” I didn’t really struggle to fit into the old model, but in this new one I felt as though I was the corned beef and it was the tin. Passers-by could see my jowls and maybe an ear pressed against the side window, and the windscreen was just a mass of strained shirt and eyes.

To reach the main controls, located behind the gearlever, I had to dislocate my shoulder. You need to be a T rex to turn the stereo up a notch, and getting something from the storage compartment, which is located behind your left shoulder? Forget it. I had to stop the car, get out and come in head first to retrieve my phone. And even then I put my back out.



I resolved, as I was pushed back into the driver’s seat by friends, that I must go on a diet. But then I read when I got home that in fact the new MX-5 is a little shorter than its predecessor. So that’s great. It’s not my fault that I didn’t fit. Break out the biscuits.

If you aren’t an actual giant, you will be snug, but you’ll fit just fine. And it’s the same story in the boot, which is exactly the right size for two overnight bags.

Not that you’ll want to stay the night anywhere because, ooh, this is a lovely little car to drive. Because it’s so organic and raw and simple, it feels how a sports car should. It sings and fizzes and jumps about. It always feels eager and sprightly, and that makes you feel eager and sprightly too. It’s a cure for depression, this car, it really is. You just can’t be in a bad mood when you’re driving it.

And I like the way the new model looks just a bit more serious that its predecessor. That was always a bit chumpish, really, and soft. This one looks as if it means business. It’s an attack rabbit.

Maybe, if you really, really concentrate when going round a long bend at about 60mph, you can feel a small dead spot in the steering. But why concentrate on that when there is 93 million miles of headroom and the sun’s out and Steve Harley’s on the radio and you’ve dropped it down to third on the sweetest little gearbox and now the engine is singing as well?

I tried the 2-litre version, which was excellent, but I’m told by others whose opinion I respect that the cheaper 1.5-litre is even better. Only one thing made me a bit cross. The sat nav was, I presume, designed by the electronics nerds who weren’t allowed to practise their dark arts on the suspension. So as a sort of payback they’ve designed a system that makes you lost. Do I deduct a star for that? Not really, because being lost in an MX-5 means you spend more time driving it, and that’s no hardship.



The only thing I didn’t like about the old model was a lack of personality. I drove one all the way from northern Iraq through Turkey, Syria and Jordan to Israel once, and it didn’t really worm its way into my heart. The new one, though, thanks to the styling changes that make it look more serious? It probably would.

So, yeah, by not really changing much of anything at all, and by avoiding the latest trends for more complicated electronics, Mazda has once again come up with a full-on five-star gem.


www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/the-clarkson-review-the-attack-bunny-has-hearts-thumping-3smz5mgts
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-mazda-mx-5/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Gary, son of God, v the bean-counters

Ford Focus RS

Jeremy Clarkson
May 29 2016
 


Journalists who were invited by Ford to sample the new Focus RS at its official launch in Spain have been saying that it’s certainly the greatest car yet made and that possibly it’s even more than that. Quietly, using nuance and subtle phrase-making, they’ve been hinting that perhaps it’s the new baby Jesus.

They speak of a £31,000 car that can go round corners at a million miles an hour and a five-door family hatchback that comes with a Drift mode. They say it is capable of immense speed and great comfort, and after a thousand words the reader is starting to get the picture: nobody has yet let on what form the second coming might take, so who’s to say God’s new emissary won’t arrive on earth with windscreen wipers?

Hype, however, is a dangerous thing. I was told by critics that 12 Years a Slave was an absolutely tremendous film, and it wasn’t. They did the same with Dallas Buyers Club, and halfway through I found myself thinking: “This is just a very long advertisement for whatever slimming pills Matthew McConaughey has been taking.”

I didn’t even agree with their assessment of the new Batman v Superman film. They said it was terrible, and it just isn’t. It’s way worse than that.

Hype, then, is a nuisance for film makers. Because instead of leaving the cinema thinking, “That was very enjoyable,” audiences tend to leave thinking, “That wasn’t as good as the critics said.” And on that note we arrive back at the Ford Focus RS.

I may have touched on this before, but it bears repeating here for those who can’t remember — namely, people such as me who are in their fifties. Ford has been running an advertising campaign recently urging people to “unlearn” what they know about the brand. The company is of course talking to the Mondeo Man generation. But there’s a dangerous downside to this. Because when it asks people of my age to “unlearn” all they know about Ford, that means forgetting about the Escort Mexico and the Lotus Cortina and the Essex-engined 3-litre Capri and the RS200 and the GT40 and the Sierra RS Cosworth and the Cortina 1600E and the XR3i. It means forgetting that Ford has made more truly great cars in its history than any other company. Including Ferrari.

In the early 1990s I had an Escort RS Cosworth, and that car would go into anyone’s list of all-time greats. It wasn’t so much the wallop from its turbocharged engine or the grip from its four-wheel-drive system or even the preposterousness of its enormous rear spoiler that made this car so endearing; no, it was more the fact it was a working-class hero, a blue-collar bruiser that could mix it with the bluebloods. A Ford that could keep up with, and then overtake, supercars that cost five or six times more.

After the Cossie was dropped, though, Ford rather lost its way. With the exception of the GT and the wonderful Fiesta ST, it stopped making great cars and began to believe good was good enough.

But it isn’t. Every car firm needs to make the occasional loss-leading halo. Manufacturers need to accept that not one of the designers or engineers they employ joined up so they could work on the new rear-light cluster for a hatchback. They joined up so they could get their teeth into something that would cause the world to stagger.



Oh, Ford had a couple of attempts with the Focus over the years. It put a powerful engine under the bonnet and told us four-wheel drive was unnecessary because it had developed a differential or a new type of knuckle joint in the suspension that would keep the torque steer at bay. But the cars failed to ignite any passion in the enthusiast, because we knew the real reason they didn’t have four-wheel drive. It would mean redesigning the whole underside of the vehicle, and that would mean new tooling at the factory. And that would be too expensive.

Well, with the new Focus RS, Ford has bitten the bullet. It has locked the accountants in a cupboard and bought the tooling. It has fitted four-wheel drive, and you know after about 100 yards that it has created something very special. Even at James May speeds, on a roundabout in Hounslow, this car feels cleverer than is normal. It feels like a Nissan GT-R.

That’s because it’s not just an off-the-shelf four-wheel-drive system. It’s one of the most advanced active asymmetrical systems fitted to any car at any price. Somewhere in a cupboard an accountant is screaming.

The engine is less amazing. It’s a so-called 2.3-litre EcoBoost unit, lifted from Ford’s hire-spec Mustang in America and beefed up in Europe so you get 345 brake horsepower. That isn’t as much as you get from the hot Mercedes-AMG A 45, but, remember, that thing is a lot more expensive.

And, anyway, 345bhp is enough to provide a meaty shove in the back when you accelerate and a growly 40-a-day rumble from under the bonnet. Put it in Sport mode and you get some spitting from the exhaust as well. If this car could talk, you suspect, it would sound like John Terry.

Interestingly, given the sophistication of the four-wheel- drive system, you get a straightforward six-speed manual. Old skool. And a proper handbrake lever that you can use to do bird-pulling skid turns in a car park.



Put all of this lot together and what you get is, as the critics have been saying, something really quite inspirational. A genuine half-price GT-R. However, whereas the critics on the launch went off to play with the Drift mode, which allows even those with fingers of butter and fists of ham to power-slide round corners, I started to think about what else you get with this car.

Even in Normal mode there’s a choppy vertical bouncing motion that is a bit annoying. You also get seats that are mounted on the car rather than in it — they’re far too high. Then there’s a range of only 250 miles and wipers that judder. Oh, and there’s a slot for your iPhone in the dash, which is great. But if you accelerate hard, it shoots out and goes onto the floor.



Furthermore, only one colour is available as standard. It’s a matt grey that Ford calls Stealth. Yeah, right. There is nothing stealthy about this car. It’s so loud and so festooned with spoilers that many potential customers will say, “No, thanks,” and buy the much more subtle Volkswagen Golf R instead.

That might be a wise decision, because while the Golf doesn’t have a Drift feature or quite such fearsome cornering ability, it won’t throw your phone on the floor every time you accelerate and it won’t cause your friends to call you Gary.

I like to think, then, that what I’ve provided here is a balanced review of the baby Jesus. I’ve explained that it has a few flaws and that you may be better off with something else.

Because, that way, your test drive in an RS won’t be burdened with hype, and you’ll emerge from the driver’s seat after 10 minutes thinking: “I have got to get me one of these.”

★★★★☆

Don't believe the hype. Until you drive one.

PROS
Smart four-wheel drive
Engine gives a healthy shove
Old skool handbrake and manual 'box included

CONS
Seats are too high
Preposterous styling
Your friends will call you Gary

SPECIFICATIONS
PRICE: £31,000
ENGINE: 2,261cc, 4-cylinders, turbocharged, petrol
POWER: 345bhp @ 6,000rpm
TORQUE: 346 lb ft @ 2,000rpm
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual, four-wheel drive
ACCELERATION: 0-62mph: 4.7sec
TOP SPEED: 165mph
FUEL: 36.5mpg
CO2: 175g/km
ROAD TAX BAND: H (£300 for first year, £210 thereafter)
DIMENSIONS: 4,390mm x 1,823mm x 1,472mm
RELEASE DATE: On sale now

www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/the-clarkson-review-gary-son-of-god-v-the-bean-counters-3w6rsrhp0
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-ford-focus-rs/

[RedMoon11]

Ahh, sauerkraut sushi soup. Looks delicious

Infiniti Q30

Jeremy Clarkson
5 June 2016
 


Once, when I worked for the BBC’s Midlands division, I was invited to the opening of what was billed in the promotional pamphlet as “Birmingham’s biggest restaurant”.

And I remember thinking: “Hmmm. I’ve heard of people saying they’d like to go out in the evening for an Italian or a Chinese. I’ve heard people say they’d like to eat somewhere intimate or cosy. But I have never heard anyone say, ‘What I fancy tonight is eating out in a restaurant that’s really big.’ ”

All of which brings me to the car you see in the pictures this morning: the Infiniti Q30. Which is going to be at the top of anyone’s list if they’re after a Mercedes A-class that is built in Britain, badged as an upmarket Nissan and fitted with the diesel engine from a Renault.

I’m not sure, however, I’ve met anyone who has this list of criteria when they’re choosing a new vehicle. A safe car, yes. Or a fast car. Or a car that’s green. But never has anyone ever said to me: “Jeremy. I want a Mercedes, but I’d like it to be a bit more Japanesey with a clattery French heart. Oh, and can it be built in Sunderland?”

The Infiniti sounds a complete mess: a car that’s been hurled together by the marketing and accounting departments from various companies in Yokohama, Stuttgart and Paris. And that works about as well as a starter made from sauerkraut, a few bits of sushi and some powerful bouillabaisse. But who knows? Maybe it’s brilliant.

Or maybe it isn’t ... The Infiniti brand has not been what you’d call a runaway success. It was designed as a halo for Nissan in the same way as Lexus is a halo for Toyota and Acura is a halo for Honda in many parts, and while the idea is sound, the cars have always been ho-hum and have been sold only to people in America who were too interested in food and the baby Jesus to notice that their shiny new set of wheels was a tarted-up, half-arsed Datsun.

To try to boost the name a little bit, Nissan got its partners at Renault to slap the Infiniti brand on the Red Bull Formula One car — Renault made its engine — but that was desperate and tragic. A car company advertising itself on the side of a car ... that it hadn’t designed in any way.

I really did think that, after this, Infiniti had been quietly shelved, but no. I came out of the office last week, and there in the car park was the all-new Q30. So I decided to see what it was like.

The first problem was trying to decide what it was. One magazine calls it an “active hatch”, but I don’t know what that means. And, anyway, it’s not really a hatchback at all, and even though it has the option of four-wheel drive, it’s not an off-roader or a crossover or an estate car either. What I can tell you is that it sits on the chassis from an A-class. And I think it’s fair to say that the worst thing about the A-class is ... drum roll ... its chassis.

I’m sure Infiniti has done its best to iron out the inherent problems, and for the most part it rides and handles quite well. But sometimes you run over a smallish pothole, and then you think: “No, wait — it doesn’t.”

It’s the same story with the2.2-litre diesel engine. It moves you along and it doesn’t appear to have an alarming thirst for fuel, so that’s fine. But it sounds like a canal boat when it’s cold. It’s so loud that it has to be fitted with noise-cancelling technology.

I think that’s what the engine does, in fact: turn diesel into sound. Because it sure as hell doesn’t turn it into large lumps of power. Every time I pulled out to overtake a caravan, I had to pull in again because there wasn’t quite enough grunt. So, all things considered, that’s not fine either.



The interior is a different story. In the back it’s a bit cramped and hard to get through the door if you’re bigger than an ant. But up front the picture is much more rosy. The seats are tremendously comfortable and the quality of the materials is exemplary. I know a fair bit about stitching, having sewn up Paddington Bears for 10 years, and I can tell you that the cottonwork on the dash of the Q30 is up there in Elizabeth Keckley’s* league.

The Wearsiders and their neighbours from up north may be hopeless at football these days but they really can put a car together.

This is no good either. Because who is sitting at home thinking: “I don’t care what my next car is like, just as long as it has a tasteful interior that has been stitched together by former dockers”?

But there is one thing that does cause people to lose any sense of reason and buy something that is not safe, fast, economical, green or any of the things that really matter, and that’s styling.



You don’t have to be a motoring ignoramus to fall foul of this one. You go into town, see a car you like the look of, come home, search for it on the internet, find you can afford it and buy it without stopping for a moment to wonder if it’s in any way suitable.

On that basis the Q30 is going to be a quiet success, because, ooh, it’s a looker. This is a car that is needlessly curvy and fitted with all sorts of styling touches that are in no way necessary. And yet it doesn’t look fake or idiotic at all. It looks —and there’s no other word — fantastic.

All of the alternatives are dreary and bland to behold, except the Range Rover Evoque, which is a bit common these days. The Q30 is not dreary or bland and, with only 14 dealers in the UK, it’s never going to be common either.

Which gives you a bit of a choice to make. You can drive a genuinely interesting-looking car that isn’t really very good at all. Or you can buy a good car that is a bit boring to behold. I guess you have to ask yourself a question. Do you want a mistress or a wife?.

*Keckley was an American former slave and seamstress who became the confidante and modiste of Abraham Lincoln’s wife in the White House


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-ahh-sauerkraut-sushi-soup-looks-delicious-ztdqxlrw3
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-infiniti-q30/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: I need a screensaver — and this ain’t it

Vauxhall Astra SRi

Jeremy Clarkson
19 June 2016
The Sunday Times



I’ve just had the editor on the phone, wondering why I haven’t responded to his emails and whether I’m going to send him my road-test report on the Vauxhall Astra SRi — because I’m way past the deadline.

I’m not procrastinating, I promise. I really do have a twofold problem. First of all, I can’t think of anything interesting to say about the Astra, and, second, I have spent the past two days with a mobile telephone that works perfectly, except the screen, which doesn’t work at all.

I spent most of yesterday morning holding down various buttons for various periods of time until I realised that, of course, it’s electronic, which means its problems can be resolved by turning it off and then on again.

But this made everything worse, because when an iPhone has been turned off, you can’t use a thumbprint to bring it to life: you must put in your passcode. Which I couldn’t do because the screen wasn’t working.

I decided that all would be well if I plugged it into its home laptop and ordered a system restore.

How foolish of me. The computer said it could perform the task only if I unlocked the screen. Which I couldn’t do.

That meant I had to find someone else with an iPhone 6 and copy his screen onto a piece of tracing paper, which I then laid over my own, dead screen. Clever, eh? Sadly not, because the screen needs direct human contact. It won’t work if there’s a tracing-paper interface.

So I broke out a ruler and marked where the numbers would be, using sugar granules. This simple act of genius worked. The computer hooked up with the phone, and I was about to press the Restore button when the friend whose iPhone I’d borrowed to use as a map said: “You know if you do that you’ll lose everything on your phone, don’t you?”



Actually, I’d only lose everything since the last backup, which I noticed had been in February. So that’s the number of everyone I’ve met since then and all the pictures I took in India and Jordan and Namibia and the ones of my daughter doing her first triathlon.

And all the while the incoming-email buzzer was sounding and I knew it’d be the editor, wondering why I hadn’t sent him news of the Vauxhall. “Because there are more important things in life,” I seethed inwardly. “Such as killing everyone at Apple with a shovel.”

There was another problem I had with the Vauxhall. I’d driven it only once, from Holland Park to Chiswick, in rush hour. I was supposed to have taken it to the country at the weekend, but on Friday night Richard Hammond announced that he didn’t like the colour of the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante he was supposed to be driving and went home in his own car.

I did like the colour — it was a sort of pearly metallic white — and I much preferred the idea of tooling around in a convertible Aston for the weekend to bumbling about in a mildly speedy Vauxhall. It was unprofessional, I know, but . . .

While I was in the Aston I decided I’d write about that instead, about how useless its sat nav is and how you can get your right foot stuck under the brake pedal, which makes slowing down a bit tricky, and how the steering judders at low speeds and how annoying it was to have a convertible on a beautiful sunny day and not be able to take the roof down because I’m fat and 56 and I’d look stupid.

I was going to put all this in my column. But then I discovered I’d already reviewed the Vanquish Volante and had said much the same sort of thing. So I’d have to cobble together some thoughts on the Vauxhall. Which was hard because a) I didn’t have any and b) on my laptop screen iTunes had just flashed up a message saying it had suffered a “catastrophic” failure and was closing, which meant the sync with my phone wasn’t working.

This happened six times. And on the seventh attempt at synching I decided I didn’t want to kill everyone at Apple with a shovel. I wanted to use a cocktail stick.

However, the seventh attempt was at least successful. The sync was done. So finally I could restore my phone to see if that would bring the screen back to life. However, being a cautious soul, I thought I’d just check everything had been transferred, and guess what. It hadn’t. So I had to start all over again, and I couldn’t because iTunes announced once again that it had stopped working and would be closing.



It’s incredible how all-consuming this sort of problem becomes. I knew I must write my column on the Vauxhall. I knew I must send out a tweet saying our Amazon show’s big tent was to be transported round the world by our new sponsor, DHL, and I knew I must sort out the kitchen cabinets for my cottage. And yet all those things were still sitting in the in-tray because getting my phone to work properly had become even more important than taking my next breath.

Then it rang. It actually rang. So I took a guess at where on the screen the Answer button might be and took the call. It was the editor. Wondering in a tone that was polite and pleading but also laced with a hint of menace where my column might be. “I’m doing it. I’m doing it,” I replied impatiently, before going back to the telephone issue.

They say a Dutch bargee can swear without hesitation, repetition or deviation for two minutes and that no other language offers such a rich vein of opportunity for fans of the expletive. Well, that’s rubbish. When the iTunes program shut down for, I think, the 12th time, I swore constantly for 36 minutes and at such a volume that the walls of my office were bulging.

Fearing I might be on the verge of a sizeable coronary — I’d love to know how many heart attacks have been caused by malfunctioning mobile phones — the office staff broke off from their important work to call for assistance. And half an hour later a man arrived to make everything better.

I felt for him. Because, as a mobile phone consultant, he never in his working life meets anyone who’s calm and rational. Nobody thinks: “Hmm. It’s a lovely day. I think I’ll call Gary at Ezee iPhone Solutions to see how he is.” The only people he meets are bright red and shouting.

Anyway, he’s in a nearby office now, sorting everything out, which means finally I can get on with my review of the Astra.

It had a 4G wi-fi hotspot facility, which would have been useful if my phone had been working. But, as I may have mentioned, it wasn’t.

Other than that, it was red and turbocharged and would be fine for anyone who needs four wheels and a place to sit down when moving about. And now I’m out of space, which is probably a good thing, because I have nothing else to say about it, really.


www.thetimes.co.uk/my-articles/the-clarkson-review-i-need-a-screensaver-and-this-aint-it-5903j7z2q
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/the-clarkson-review-2016-vauxhall-astra-sri/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Raving in slippers with General Franco

Seat Ibiza Cupra

Jeremy Clarkson
July 3 2016
The Sunday Times


ILLUSTRATION BY DAN BIDDULPH

Most of the world’s car companies were started by someone who had a vision. Sir Henry Royce, Sir William Lyons, Louis Chevrolet, Nicola Romeo, Soichiro Honda, Enzo Ferrari, Brian Hyundai. I may have made that last one up.

All these men saw what everyone else was doing and decided they could do something different, something better. They had a dream and they decided to live it. Seat, however, is different.

Shortly after the Spanish Civil War had reduced Spain to a smouldering ruin, a committee of serious-faced bankers and industrialists was formed, and after a couple of meetings these men decided that if their country was to be hauled out of the mire, the population would need cars. And to stop people spending what little money they had on imports, they reckoned the country should make its own. Siat was born.

At the time, the Spanish were extremely good at shooting one another and throwing donkeys off tower blocks but extremely not good at making anything as complicated as a car. They would therefore need a foreign partner, and they set off into Europe to find one.

Sadly it was 1942, and the rest of Europe was a bit too busy with other things to worry about how the Spanish might make a small and inexpensive family saloon. So they had to wait until 1948, when Fiat came along, explaining that no one in the world was quite so good at making sub-12bhp cars for the downtrodden masses. The Italian company was given the gig and just five years later produced a Barcelona-made family saloon that was very luxurious and expensive. It flopped.

What’s more, General Franco had decided that the “i” in the company name, which stood for Iberica, should really be an “e”, for Española. Which meant the firm wasn’t thinking about exporting to any English-speaking country. Because who in their right mind would buy a car called a Seat?

Actually, strike that. In Britain we had the Humber, which was named after a sludgy brown river of turd and effluent. And in America they had the Oldsmobile. And in Russia they had the Pantry. So, in the grand scheme of things, driving around in a chair wouldn’t have been the end of the world.



The new Spanish operation had bigger problems anyway. Many years of strikes, floods and industrial shenanigans followed, during which no cars of any note were made. Seriously, can you picture a Seat from the 1970s? Nope. Me neither.

At the beginning of the 1980s, though, there was a disaster. Fiat pulled out. Seat was thus forced to go it alone, and in 1982 there was a great deal of trumpetry when it announced it had made a car, all by itself. With no help from Fiat at all. None, d’you hear? None.

Yeah, right. Even people with terrible conjunctivitis could see the Seat Ronda was nothing more than a Fiat Ritmo with a new nose. Happily, however, the people at the arbitration court in Paris plainly did have terrible conjunctivitis, because when Fiat sued, they sided with Seat. Which, to celebrate this important legal victory, started making Volkswagens.

On the face of it, this didn’t sound a good idea. When you buy a Jaguar today, you like to feel it’s shot through with the DNA of Sir William Lyons. It’s the same story when you buy a Honda or a Ferrari. Each of these cars, even today, reflects the passion and dreams of the person who founded the company. But when you bought a Seat, you’d be getting a Volkswagen garnished with a bit of Franco, a layer of social engineering and some tiresome lawsuits.

And, anyway, who in their right mind would wake up one day and say, “Yes. I’d like a Volkswagen, but I’d rather it weren’t built by those efficient Germans. I’d like it to have been made by a Spaniard”?

Lots of people, as it turned out, because Seat later hit on the clever idea of naming its Volkswagens after pretty Mediterranean holiday hotspots. You might not get many takers for a Spanish Polo. But call it an Ibiza and every drug-loving twentysomething from Arbroath to Zurich is going to be queuing round the block.

Which brings me shuddering this morning to the door of the Seat Ibiza Cupra, a racy-looking little three-door hatchback with fat tyres, black wheels and a turbocharged 1.8-litre engine. That’s quite a lump in a car that’s not much bigger than an insect.

I was expecting all sorts of dawn-on-the-beach histrionics. As it has 189 brake horsepower under the bonnet, I reckoned there’d be a pulsating beat and a Eurotrash DJ endlessly inviting the party people to spray one another with foam. But no. It was more chillout than house. It was quiet and restrained and surprisingly grown up.


For a hatchback with 189bhp under the bonnet, the Seat Ibiza Cupra is surprisingly restrained

It’s the same story with the ride. This is a hot hatch built to draw your attention to Seat’s effortsin various touring car championships. It has a manual gearbox and is aimed at people who enjoy discomfort so much, they walk around with their trousers done up under their bottoms. And yet it simply glides over potholes and speed humps.

A chintzy interior, then? Something as colourful as the cocktails in Pacha? Nope. It’s grey with added grey. I’ve seen snazzier slippers.

It is up to date, though. When you accelerate hard out of a bend, it will brake the inside wheel to stop it whirring round pointlessly, and there are adjustable dampers. More important in this day and age, it comes as standard with the ability to connect to just about every interface known to man. There’s Apple CarPlay on offer and something called Android Auto. I think this means it’s capable of sending pictures of your private parts to the ether, possibly through voice command.

It’s a strange car, this. Make no mistake: it’s very fast and it looks good in a tight, iPoddy sort of way — white paint and black wheels is a combination that works well.

Yet it’s like climbing into a pair of gardening trousers. The Volkswagen Polo GTI — its identical twin mechanically — is far more lively to behold and sit in. And that’s odd, because you’d expect to find that the VW was dour and sensible and the Seat was the hallucinatory alternative.

I’m not sure which I prefer, and I can’t be bothered to work it out, because while both are fine, neither is anything like as good as Ford’s Fiesta ST. That car is a gem. You sense Henry Ford’s pile-’em- high-and-sell-’em-cheap mass production, but you can feel Ford’s racing pedigree as well.

The Seat, by comparison, is just somewhere to sit down and relax while it moves you about.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-raving-in-slippers-with-general-franco-z7lf02tc8
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-seat-ibiza-cupra/

[RedMoon11]

Merci, Bono, it’s just what I’m looking for

Vauxhall Zafira Tourer

Jeremy Clarkson
July 10 2016
 

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE THOMPSON


Even by my own slightly weird view of what’s normal, last Sunday was a bit odd. I was on a boat — a big one — and we’d anchored off the south of France when half the people on board suddenly took leave of their senses and decided they’d like to walk up the Nietzsche path to the village of Eze for a drink.

The Nietzsche path, I should explain, is a walk the philosopher liked to do when he needed to think, but all anyone else can think when they’re on it is: “Christ, my thighs hurt.” And: “Oh no, one of my lungs has just come out.” Steep doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s bloody nearly vertical and it goes on and on, up to 85,000ft, and every one of the gravelly, ankle- breaking hairpins is festooned with one of the old man’s pearls of wisdom about how there was nothing he couldn’t teach ya about the raising of the wrist.

As you can imagine, I thought this was very stupid but I quite liked the idea of having a drink in the Golden Goat on top of the mountain. So I said I’d use a car.

Happily, one of the people on the boat — and you need to be awake for this bit — said he knew someone who lived on the beach and that I could probably borrow a car from him. And the person he knew? Well, of course, it was Bono out of U2. Someone I met only briefly at a small dinner with the King of Jordan.

Anyway, I was taken to the shore in a little speedboat and after a lengthy and tricky walk along a slippery shingle beach, I arrived at Mr Bono’s house with a bright red face and noticeably sweaty moobs. He wasn’t at home so I was greeted by a shabby-looking individual who I thought must be the gardener. But he turned out to be John F Kennedy’s nephew. Only Adrian Gill can drop more names before he’s started talking about what he had for supper. But that’s the last, I promise.

JFK’s nephew was a bit stand-offish. He’d had a garbled call from someone saying that someone else was maybe coming round to pick up some wheels but he was nervous about letting the sweaty tramp who’d arrived drive off into the evening in Bono’s car. Especially as I was accompanied by a woman who looked like she’d arrived, in a time warp, from a 1967 surfing party in California.

Tentatively, he handed over a set of keys, and with a stern face, said: “I just want to make this clear: if you bend it, you mend it.” And with that I was in the driveway, with surfer woman, clutching the keys to a car that belongs to, let’s be honest, one of the coolest people on the planet.

There’s no flowery way of putting this so I’ll just come straight out with it. Bono drives a Vauxhall Zafira diesel.

I was quite impressed with this little seven-seater when it first came out, but then the old model tarnished its reputation somewhat by bursting into flames for no obvious reason pretty much constantly. Google “Zafira” and “fire” and you’ll see what I mean.

I wasn’t thinking about those things, though. It’s quite a tricky drive and it was even trickier that night. Partly because I knew that if I had a crash, the embarrassment and the shame would live with me for ever but also because my head was spinning. Bono. Has. A. Vauxhall. Zafira. With. A. Diesel. Engine.



In my mind he’d have had something fast and expensive but not showy or vulgar. A Maserati Quattroporte. Or a BMW M6 Gran Coupé perhaps. Once, I was in a military helicopter flying over southern Iraq when someone fired a heat-seeking missile at it. I was listening to Vertigo by U2 at the time, and as we ducked and weaved in a shower of our own flares, I remember thinking how the music and the moment were so well matched. If only I’d known then that the man who actually co-wrote Vertigo has a diesel Vauxhall. I’d have had a trouser accident, that’s for sure.

As we climbed up the mountain, the Zafira was very roly-poly but I found it surprisingly easy to moderate the pitching by turning the wheel gently and braking as though the pedal were made of an egg. Then I noticed how brilliant the engine was. It’s an all- aluminium, turbocharged 1.6-litre unit that can apparently do more than 60mpg on a cruise and 120mph when you’re in a hurry.

And then I went over a speed hump and I simply didn’t feel a thing. Never in all my years in this business have I encountered any car — including the Rolls-Royce Phantom — that’s quite so good at refusing to transmit road surface irregularities into the cabin. Which makes it the most comfortable car — pause — in the world.

That night, after I’d safely returned the Vauxhall to Bono’s house, I looked it up online and found that Autocar magazine disagreed with my findings. It said that the Renault Grand Scénic rides more smoothly.



Fearful that Bono had bought a special Zafira with marshmallow shock absorbers and suspension units made from eiderdown, I came back to England, hired a Zafira and went for a drive. And I’m sorry, Autocar, but I’m right about this. The car’s extraordinary.

If you have a bad back or you just want to be comfortable as you move about, you need look no further. But don’t worry, because it’s also very good-looking and it has a windscreen that is bigger than the one you get on a National Express coach. It’s so big that from behind the wheel you can’t see any pillars or a roofline, so it feels as if you are floating along, powered only by magic.

The interior’s top-notch as well; nicely styled, well put-together and festooned with all sorts of stuff you wouldn’t expect for this kind of money. I drove a FordS-Max later, which I’ve always thought was pretty good, and it felt like something from 50 years ago. Diesely. Lacklustre. Old.



It seems that after my visit, Bono telephoned JFK’s nephew who explained that a tramp had come round to the house and borrowed the Zafira. Bono was apparently a bit surprised by this: “You gave Jeremy Clarkson the Vauxhall!” It turns out I was supposed to have borrowed his BMW 6-series convertible.

But I’m glad I didn’t because I would never have experienced something that’s unique. A miserable diesel seven-seater Vauxhall that you would actually want to buy. And not only so you could tell your mates: “Bono’s got one, you know.”


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-merci-bono-its-just-what-im-looking-for-6rhf8lzzf
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson-review-2015-vauxhall-zafira-tourer/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Joie de vivre? Not in this Brexit poster boy

Wolseley 1500 Mk 1

Jeremy Clarkson
July 17 2016




I feel such an idiot. For 20-odd years I have been coming here and — foolishly, as it’s turned out — talking about cars from exotic places such as Germany and Japan. I’ve spoken breathlessly about turbocharging and exciting new lightweight materials. And I’ve tried to bring to life what it’s like to drive a 700bhp Ferrari on the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania.

Stupidly, I believed that you might be interested. I thought that, thanks to social media and easyJet and exotic new takeaway restaurants that can deliver exciting dishes to your door in a matter of moments, I was speaking to an audience that was sophisticated and international. Broad-minded. Global.

But it seems I was wrong. The Brexit vote has shown me and everyone else in the sneering metropolitan elite that, actually, you want to live in a black-and- white world with Terry and June on the television, pints in glasses with handles on the side, prawn cocktail crisps, powdered coffee, pineapple juice for a starter, ruddy-faced police constables, red phone boxes and no one speaking bloody Polish on the bus.

You weren’t remotely interested in torque-vectoring differentials or sat nav systems, because you only go to Bridlington once a year and you know the way already. So you don’t need some electronic German barking orders at every roundabout and T-junction. You want it to be the 1950s all over again, because Britain was great then, apart from the lung diseases.

You certainly weren’t interested in buying a Renault, because it’s bloody French. And you were never going to buy a Fiat, because you need at least one of the gears in the box to not be reverse. What you’ve always wanted is the car I’ve been driving recently. The post-Brexit poster boy. The Wolseley 1500.

Compared with the modern-day equivalents from abroad, it’s not very fast. It goes from 0 to 60mph in a leisurely 24.4 seconds, but the top speed is 78mph, and that’s plenty because 70mph is as fast as you need to go here on this, our fair and sceptred isle.



Obviously, this kind of performance means the Wolseley would be a bit out of its depth on the German autobahn, but you don’t care about that because you aren’t going to Germany any time soon. Because you can’t stand the buggers. The Blitz. Hitler. Battle of Britain. Best film ever made. And so on.

It must also be said that by modern standards the handling is extremely poor. The steering wheel is connected to the front wheels by what feels like a bucket full of rapidly setting cement, and there are some alarming levels of lean in the bends.

Of course, if you are bothered by such things — and why would you be, because having fun in a car is flamboyant and therefore almost certainly foreign? — you could buy the Riley One Point Five, which is basically the same car but with sportier suspension and two carburettors. Which are French, and therefore disgusting.

I began my journey with the Wolseley in Wales, which is just about all right. Certainly it’s better than Scotland, which is full of people who are possibly communist. I stayed in a hotelthat served British poached eggs on toast that had been madefrom proper bread, which is like a wet vest and not all full of fancy bits.

Opposite, there was a dress shop selling some rather fetching one-piece bathing suits. Seeing them on the mannequins in the window made me a bit aroused, I’m sorry to say.

So I hurried to the car, which was painted in a fetching shade of grey, and climbed aboard. The seats were made from leather and the dashboard from wood, which is entirely right and proper. Around the doors were strips of red velvet, which gave a very regal feel, and that’s what you want, of course, not some plastic, which is republican and therefore untrustworthy.

The car smelt of home. By which I mean it had the aroma of a headmaster’s wood-panelled study. There was that familiar fustiness, caused possibly by the carpets gently rotting after they’d soaked up the tears of all those abused pupils. Those were the days. Damp days. Dismal days. Wonderful days.

The visibility all round was excellent, there was space for two children in the back , which is the number parents should have. Not 17, like the bloody Catholics seem to think is sensible. Bloody Pope.

I eased the MG gearbox into first, and off we set into theBrecon Beacons, which are more beautiful than anywhere else in the world. Apart from Bridlington, obviously. And soon, in my wake, there was a lengthy traffic jam, made up of various foreign vehicles such as Fendt tractors and a dustbin lorry or two.

The Wolseley is not even on nodding terms with speedy, as I’ve said, but that’s OK, because why do you need to get anywhere quickly? That’s the language of big business and global activity. Download speeds. Coffee to go. A third runway. That’s not what you want at all.

And, anyway, there’s so much to enjoy from behind the enormous wheel of this fine British motoring car. There’s an indicator stalk with a green blinker light on the end. Not sure that green is the right colour, mind. It’s a bit Muslim.



But the switchgear had that reassuring feel we crave. The wiper knob, you just know, was attached by a man with a Birmingham accent who was wearing a brown store coat and loved Harry Worth. Which is probably why it came off in my hand.

I was going to say that the1.5-litre engine pulled well in a high gear (fourth), suggesting that it had good torque. But torque sounds French and is therefore not a word that we should be using any more.

After a couple of miles I triedto pull over in a lay-by to admire the view, but the weakness of the brakes — which are basically milk bottle tops — meant I missed it completely and ended up in a Costa Coffee car park several miles further down the road.

There I enjoyed some proper sandwiches and a sausage roll made from proper sausage meat; none of that foreign muck with la-di-bloody-da herbs in it. And then I finished off with a banana that was bent. Like a proper British banana should be.

I wanted to listen to the Jeremy Vine show, because I agree with all its callers, but, sadly, although the Wolseley had a speaker in the middle of the dash, there was no radio. Nor was there much of a heater, come to that.

This is how life’s going to be now. It’s what more than half the voting public want. The country as it used to be.

And I’m sorry to have to say this, but what I wanted was what the country could have been. Which is why, next week, I shall be reviewing the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

If you’re not happy about that, buy the bloody Sunday Express instead. Apparently it’s reviewing the new Hillman.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-joie-de-vivre-not-in-this-brexit-poster-boy-f0lx03rtr
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson-review-wolseley-1500-mk-1/

 

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: foot down, I’m in clover

Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde

Jeremy Clarkson
July 24 2016


Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde: “On a sweeping A-road you can steer, really, by thought”

I’VE WAITED nearly three decades for this car. The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde. An Alfa Romeo that isn’t just a rebadged Fiat. An Alfa Romeo that has rear-wheel drive and serious power. An Alfa Romeo that you would actually want to buy.

Or would you? Well, for the purposes of this test I’m going to set aside my love of Alfas, which is profound. It’s so profound that I even manage to love the 4C, a car so riddled with faults, it should have been called the San Andreas.

I will even defend the old 75, even though its handbrake cut your fingers off every time you used it, the electric window switches were in the roof and it had been styled by someone who had only a ruler.

Here, however, there will be no misty-eyed ramblings about Dustin Hoffman, or the engine note of the GTV6, or the days when Alfa’s racing cars tore around those hay bales, making their driver’s face all oily. No. I’m going to review the Giulia Quadrifoglio (four-leaf clover) in the same way as I’d review a BMW or a Mercedes. I’m going to review it simply as a car. A tool. A thing.
We shall start with its faults. And that brings us directly to the driver’s door, which is either too small or in the wrong place. I can’t work out which, but, whatever, getting out is like getting out of a postbox. The only way you can do it with any dignity is by pushing the steering wheel as far forward as it will go, and that’s a nuisance.

This brings us on to the steering wheel, which, as is usual these days, is festooned with buttons, none of which is lit at night. So when you want to turn up the volume on the stereo, as often as not you engage the cruise control. Which you then cannot turn off without reaching for your phone and turning on the torch feature.

By which time you’ll have run out of petrol. It’s not an uneconomical car, especially, but it’s fitted with a 58-litre tank. And 58 litres is known in scientific circles as “not quite big enough”.

Other things? Well, for a car that’ll cost just shy of £60,000, the quality of the interior fittings is not as good as you might expect. The green and white stitching is wonderful to behold, but the plastics are a bit airline cutlery and the sat-nav screen is about the size of a stamp. Also, the knobs and buttons are a bit cheap. You’d have to say this doesn’t feel the sort of top-quality item you’d get from, say, Audi. The engine, for example, wobbles when you slam the door.

So it’s hard to get out of, it’s poorly finished, it has a smallish range and the engine is mounted to the car with Blu-Tack. Those are the drawbacks. That’s what you’d have to put up with if you bought one. But don’t worry, because there are some upsides as well, most of which are stratospheric.

Let’s start with the headline. This car, this four-door saloon, which is priced to take on BMW’s 155mph M3, has a top speed of 191mph. That’s possible because of the Alfa’s smooth and magnificently sonorous 2.9-litre V6 turbo engine.



Ferrari — which is controlled by the Agnelli family behind Fiat, the owner of Alfa — is adamant that it’s not the same unit it fits to the California, with two cylinders lopped off. The fact that the two engines have the same bore, stroke and V angle is a coincidence, it says. As is the fact that in both the twin-scroll turbo is in the V of the engine, providing instant punch whenever the driver so much as twitches his little toe.

You are perhaps aware that some of the time it’s not the torquiest engine in the world, which means you have to fish around rather more than you’d imagine in the clever eight-speed automatic gearbox. But to compensate, you get 503 horsepowers. This means you need to be careful when you’re fishing, because, God, this car is quick. Laugh-out-loud quick.

And it’s an absolute joy to drive. The steering is fast — there are only two turns lock to lock, which means you need almost no input at all to go round a roundabout. And on a sweeping A-road you can steer, really, by thought.

Then there are the brakes. My car was fitted with £5,000-worth of carbon-ceramic discs, which were tuned perfectly. You can press the pedal much harder than you think is realistic before the antilock system cuts in, and, of course, fade won’t be a problem.

Naturally, there’s a button that makes the car even fizzier and even a setting called Race, which turns the traction control off. I’d leave that alone on the road if I were you. On a track I had a play and was sideways constantly. A feat made ever so easy because the Quadrifogliettore has what amounts to a limited-slip differential.

The man who project-managed the Quattroformaggio cut his teeth on the Ferrari 458 Speciale. And it shows. It’s not just the big flappy paddles that are fixed to the column, as they should be, or the moving spoiler at the front; it’s the whole DNA of the car. If Ferrari made a mid-sized, four-door car, you suspect it would feel and go exactly like this.

Do not think, however, that it’s uncivilised in any way. Even though it sits on tiny wheels and rides close to the ground, and even if you have the suspension in “bumpy” mode, it is remarkably smooth. Its ability to deal with potholes is uncanny. And while it makes a racket, with added gunfire on the upshifts, it is extremely quiet when you’re inside.

Space? Well, the boot is fine, but the back is a squash, chiefly because my car was fitted with optional carbon front seats, which were enormous. That said, they were very comfortable. So comfortable that after a three-hour schlepp to Wales, I got out — after a bit of a struggle, I admit — and felt as though I’d just popped to the shops.
Then I went for some fun in the Brecon Beacons, and it was sublime. The fast throttle response, the fast steering and the preposterous rate at which the speedometer climbs combine to make this car feel extremely special. Maybe an M3 would last longer, and maybe fewer knobs would fall off. But the M3 has wonky steering and feels heavy compared with the Alfa and . . . I can’t believe I’ve just written that.

What I’m saying here, in this straight, no-cocking-about road test, is that Alfa Romeo has made a car dynamically better than the BMW. And it has. It really has. This is Iceland beating England. And I couldn’t be more pleased.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-foot-down-im-in-clover-xptdj5zs0
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson-review-alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio-verde/

[RedMoon11]

The Porter Review: As modern as scurvy but still the coolest

Land Rover Defender

Richard Porter
July 31 2016




You may have seen the recent Sunday Times story about the chemicals billionaire who wants to put the Land Rover Defender back into production. The idea was swiftly rejected by the manufacturer itself — and quite rightly so. It’s a stupid suggestion.

The Defender is an outdated, archaic piece of postwar agricultural equipment that has lived well past its sell-by date. By modern standards it is slow, noisy, bouncy and cursed with an idiotically large turning circle. I can say all this with conviction since, shortly before production ended, I bought one.

Mine is not just any Defender, though. It’s the Heritage edition, which comes in a nice retro green that Farrow & Ball would probably call Badger’s Gangrene. On the front wing is a sticker that says HUE 166. It’s the registration of the first Land Rover, built in 1948.

Sticker aside, there are a few touches exclusive to the Heritage version, such as a retro grille badge and coloured trims around the gearlever, and some features that came as standard on all Defenders, including wonky riveting and a body that isn’t lined up straight on the chassis.

The Heritage edition was created to celebrate the end of Defender production, and when it was announced last year, I placed an order the next day. My wife was supportive until she realised it came with no airbags, no Isofix child-seat mounts and no air-conditioning and was patently not going to be our next family car.

“This is a toy for you, isn’t it?” she suggested flatly. Later she asked if I was having a midlife crisis, with, I like to think, an air of relief that I had swerved the blonde beautician 20 years my junior and was now preparing to run off with a piece of 1950s farm machinery.

My wife’s scepticism didn’t improve when the Defender finally arrived. On anything but a smooth road it’s idiotically bumpy, the noise inside makes conversation hard at much above strolling speed and she struggles to get into it unless she brings a stepladder. I can tell she doesn’t like it and wishes I’d bought something lower and sportier, such as an old Porsche 911. This is a bit of a problem for me, because I absolutely and utterly adore it.

It’s quite hard to explain the appeal, but bear with me. First of all, I love it because it feels like no other brand-new car. In fact it’s more like something vintage, but with a warranty and a lovely, freshly minted smell that is pure, rubbery eau de Solihull. And, like a car from the past, it has a heavy clutch, slow steering and positively Victorian gearchange.

This means you really have to drive a Defender. You don’t sit back and relax; you roll your sleeves up and muck in. There is no slacking off from the task of guiding it along the road, which I like. There’s no help from the car: part of its appeal is the lack of electronic assistance. Rain sensors? Those are your eyes. Distance-judging cruise control? Also your eyes. Parking sensors? Again, your eyes. And maybe your ears.

It’s a very basic car. Mine didn’t even come with a radio, and though I have had one installed, it’s often quite hard to hear. But that’s OK. Sometimes I just hum to myself. It depends on the mood I’m in. And the mood I’m in also governs how the vehicle feels.

When I’m cheerful and relaxed, it bumbles along in a jaunty way. When I’m tired and crotchety, it feels heavy and indolent. On sunny days it’s more cheery and the gearchange definitely seems smoother. On cold days it can feel bleak and harsh, at least until it’s warmed up, at which point you can fiddle with the two settings on the heater, which are “Off” and “Heart of the sun”. It’s sort of like having an Aga in the dashboard.

Electronics and engineering have massaged away the peaks and troughs of modern cars. The Defender’s charm is that it’s resolutely analogue, so it can feel entirely different depending on whether it’s raining or sunny or Thursday. You wouldn’t tolerate this in a Honda Civic.



I live in London, and you’d think having a Defender in the city would feel silly. You’re taking something built for a specific purpose then wilfully using it incorrectly, and such folly should look as daft as popping to the supermarket in a wetsuit.

But it doesn’t, because, as my wife will admit when pressed,the Defender is probably the coolest car in the world. It’s certainly the only 4x4 in which you get let out of junctions.

Most important, for me at least, is the effect it has on my two-year-old son, who thinks it’s brilliant. I like to imagine that one day I can pass it on to him. Obviously he might splutter with indignation at this outdated nonsense and wonder why I didn’t go the whole hog by bequeathing him a mangle and some scurvy.

But I hope he will treasure it as I have, keeping it going and treating it like an heirloom, because that’s what people do with Defenders. As a new car, the Defender is silly and flawed and insanely outdated, but it’s also as lovable and useful and charismatic as it’s always been, something that has been thrown into sharp relief by the end of production.

Let it stay out of production and let us reflect on what it continues to be in the afterlife, as it was in life. That is to say, a national treasure.

Richard Porter is script editor for The Grand Tour, which starts on Amazon Prime later this year. Jeremy Clarkson is away

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-porter-review-as-modern-as-scurvy-but-still-the-coolest-sg0k9xd8h
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/2016-land-rover-defender-90-heritage-edition-review/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Mr Quirky, I’m here to burst your bubble wrap
Citroën C4 Cactus

Jeremy Clarkson
7 August 2016
 



I always thought that the letters “CV” used by Citroën for the hateful 2CV stood for Chevaux. But I learnt last week that, actually, CV stands for Chevaux-Vapeur. Which so far as I can tell means “vaporised horses”.

And I wonder if the weird-beard vegetablist nutters who made this stupid little car their own knew that. I suspect they didn’t. Because a vaporised horse is not the sort of thing that goes down well at a peace-and-love bong festival. It’d be like turning up in a Ford Mashed Badger.

The 2CV was originally designed, so the story goes, so that the French peasantry could drive across a ploughed field without breaking any eggs that happened to be on the passenger seat. It was cheap and comfortable, and with its folding roof, good fun. It was a French Fiat 500, an onionised Mini, with a stripy jumper.

Until the eco-loonies started using it as a statement to show the world they didn’t believe in oil or beefburgers, I always rather liked it, with its silly gearlever sticking out of the dashboard and its golden-wedding-anniversary-at-the-village-hall seating.

It was typically Citroën, a company that had always looked at what the rest of the world was doing and then did the complete opposite. It was belligerence, really, but often it produced some truly brilliant ideas that everyone else then had to copy. Using the body as the chassis is a pretty good example of this. Swivelling headlights is another.

This sort of thinking made Citroën a uniform for people who were a bit odd. Poets and art historians drove them. The brilliant boy who excelled at school and then became a plumber. He would have one too. Stockbrokers, accountants, bank managers — they didn’t. Citroën was a haven for those who were going through life the same as everyone else, but not quite.

One of my all-time favourite cars is the old Citroën CX Safari. It had a one-spoke steering wheel because every other car had two, three or four, and it had a cassette player mounted vertically between the seats because . . . why not? Actually, I’ll tell you why not; because after about a month the cassette slot would be jammed up with the bits of Double Decker chocolate bar that hadn’t fallen into a fold of your shirt.

Underneath, the Citroën was very different because it rode on a puddle of magic that meant no road-surface irregularities would be transmitted to the cabin. The downside of this system was a steering setup that had a mind of its own and brakes that worked like a switch. They were either fully off or fully on.

Once you became used to having a cassette player full of chocolate and a bruised nose from bumping your head into the windscreen every time you slowed down — oh, and indicators that didn’t self-cancel, as they weren’t operated from a stalk, because that would be too normal — you could genuinely fall in love with this car. It was just so weird.

At one point Citroën bought Maserati and made the beautiful and beguiling Bora, a supercar that mated a ton and a half of French oddballery to a healthy dollop of Italian unreliability. I’m told that when it worked — which was pretty much never — it was brilliant.

But then, bit by bit, Citroën started to be absorbed into the Peugeot empire. The silliness was phased out and the cars became nothing more than rebadged Pugs. They became boring and normal, and the only way Citroën managed to sell any at all was through the power of breathy and frantic special-offer advertising campaigns. “Get 100% off and a chance to sleep with the wife of the boss on a Tuesday.” That sort of thing.

That’s why I was a little bit pleased to see it had launched a car called the C4 Cactus that had waded into the marketplace with a slab of what appeared to be bubble wrap down each side. “Yes,” I thought. “It’s gone belligerent and stupid again.”

The news gets better when you climb inside because this really doesn’t feel like any car you’ve seen before. The glass roof is one thing but the dash is something else. Principally because it doesn’t really have one. There’s a small box that tells you how fast you’re going and then there’s a sort of infotainment sat nav arrangement that does everything else. And I do mean everything. If you want to change any aspect of the car, you have to go into a sub-menu first. I’m amazed the company hasn’t put the indicator controls inthere. That’d have been a very Citroëny thing to do.

It would also have been Citroëny to design a suspension system made from sewage. But we live in straitened times where the other bottom line is king so the C4 Cactus runs on exactly the same sort of suspension that you find in every other car. However, it is tuned to give a flavour of the past. This is a comfortable car — not as comfortable as the Vauxhall Zafira — but it’s a pretty nice place to be if you have a bad back.



But not if you are tall. If you are tall, you will hit your head a lot. This is because Citroën has fitted a low roof lining to house the passenger airbag. Which means you are forever banging your head into what is essentially a bomb. Not sure about that.

And then you will be infuriated by the glovebox, which is styled to look like a steamer trunk but isn’t as big as a pencil case, and then you will want to turn the temperature up or change the radio channel and that will take you half an hour because you can’t be bothered to read the instruction manual.

I must now moan about the driving position, which is fine if your arms and legs are exactly the same length. But mine aren’t and neither are yours, which means you’ll have to drive with your legs wide apart. This makes the car unsuitable for those who enjoy wearing short skirts.

At some point you will put your foot down — to join a motorway, for example. And you will be extremely surprised by what happens next. Because what happens next is nothing at all. I once drove a supertanker and it took three minutes to increase its speed from 13.8 to 13.9 knots. These are figures the C4 Cactus driver can only dream about.

Which caused me to wonder for a little while what sort of car this actually is. Underneath, it’s a supermini but to look at, it’s more a sort of crossover. So your eyes are telling you it’ll be a snazzy performer with perhaps a soupçon of off-road ability while the rest of your head is saying that it’s just a school-run ’n’ supermarket car.

You can’t even get much of an idea from the price because that’s always 80% less than Citroën says it is, thanks to that week’s “everything must go” sale.

I really was hoping that the C4 Cactus would be quirky and odd and endearing but after a week with it, I’m afraid, it’s nothing more than a hatchback with bubble wrap on the side. Pity.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-mr-quirky-im-here-to-burst-your-bubble-wrap-h78j86chh
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-citroen-c4-cactus/

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson’s top 10 drives of the past year
To be more than just a tool, a car must make your spine tingle, your eyes pop and your heart race. Our famous motoring writer reveals his star cars

Jeremy Clarkson
14 August 2016



My colleague James May calls it “the fizz”. He says that when he is driving a really good car, its excellence manifests itself with a fizzing sensation in the root of his manhood. I have not experienced this myself, and it’s likely you haven’t either. But I sort of know what he means.

When you drive a Ferrari 488 GTB round a corner on a racetrack, it doesn’t feel like a tool that you’re operating. Or even a comfy, well-fitting glove. It feels like an extension of your very self.

It’s said that a blindfolded human being, sitting in pitch darkness, can sense the moment when a lion enters the room. He can’t see or smell or hear it but somehow he knows it’s there. Well, that’s the connection you get when you’re driving a Ferrari 488. You don’t know how you know when the front tyres are about to start sliding but you know nevertheless.

And then you know what to do to solve the problem. It’s instinctive. And then you’re sweeping through the corner, on the raggedy edge, and it’s a rush. James May feels that in his underpants. I feel it at the back of my neck. Sometimes a Ferrari can make me shiver involuntarily.

Of course you would expect this from Ferrari. Because the company’s engineers are like the best chefs. They use the same ingredients as everyone else but somehow they are able to make those ingredients work in perfect harmony.

Here’s the funny thing, though. If you put me in Heston Blumenthal’s kitchen and gave me the same produce and the same tools that he uses to make his chicken liver pâté, the chances are that I’d make a terrible mess of it and everyone in the restaurant would be sick. But. It is statistically possible, if all the stars were aligned, that I’d do just as good a job as him.

You have eyes. You have hands. So it is possible that you could paint a masterpiece to rival anything by JMW Turner, or create a sculpture that was better than any of Henry Moore’s efforts.

Which brings me on to the Ford Fiesta ST. Ford’s engineers cannot have known when they bought in the suspension components and the braking system and the tyres from outside suppliers that the end product would be anything other than normal. But somehow, when they put them all together, the end result was spectacular. We see the same thing with the BMW M2. Even when you’re turning left at a busy junction in a town centre, you know that you’re at the wheel of something that is way, way better than the sum of its parts; something that would cause James May’s genital root to vibrate so alarmingly that his whole sausage might fall off.

When you look at a building and think, “That’s pretty”, an architect can use maths to explain why. It’s all to do with proportions. But no one can explain why some cars work and some don’t. Fords and Volkswagens use the same layout and the same basic components from the same suppliers, so why is the Fiesta ST better than the Volkswagen Polo GTI?

That’s like trying to explain why, when humans are all made of the same basic ingredients, you can end up with Nelson Mandela or Adolf Hitler.

I could not buy a car that did not have this innate goodness. That didn’t cause the shiver. Unless, of course, it was extremely good-looking. Again, this is a human trait. What Leonardo DiCaprio needs is a good woman with child-bearing hips who will take care of him. But what he chooses instead is an endless succession of stick-thin underwear models.

Which brings me to the Lamborghini Aventador. This is a car that doesn’t feel like an extension of your very self. It feels like a big, excitable dog, endlessly tugging at its lead. Its brakes are not good and the only way you know you’ve exceeded its limits of adhesion is when you crash into a tree.

And yet it is such a spectacular thing to behold that you will forgive it anything. I have a similar issue with the Jaguar F-type. It has a horrid interior and not much tech to swoon about, but ooh, it’s a looker.

But this is the point. A car must have something to elevate it from the norm. It may be speed, or cleverness, or the fizz, or styling to die for. But there must be something. Something that makes you excited every time you climb inside. Because if it doesn’t, then it’s just a tool. And if it’s just a tool, you may as well use the bus.


Jeremy Clarkson's Star Cars 2015/16

Mazda MX-5 2.0 Sport Recaro

 

Gravity didn’t come from a meeting. Neither did the Spitfire. But most cars today come from meetings, and as a result they’re almost all yawn-mobiles. Not so the Mazda MX-5.

The old model has been the world’s bestselling sports car for about 25 years, thanks to its combination of low price, ease of use and a smile-a-minute factor that’s up there alongside a game of naked Twister with Scarlett Johansson and Cameron Diaz.

The new one is better than ever. Because it’s so organic and raw and simple, it feels how a sports car should. It sings and fizzes and jumps about. It always feels eager and sprightly, and that makes you feel eager and sprightly too.

It’s a cure for depression, this car, it really is. You just can’t be in a bad mood when you’re driving it.

Full review The attack bunny has hearts thumping
Price at the time £24,295 (May 2016)
Engine / Power 1998cc, 4 cylinders, petrol / 158bhp @ 6000rpm
Acceleration / Top speed 0-62mph: 7.3sec / 133mph
Clarkson’s rating ★★★★★
Clarkson’s verdict Blows the blues away

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jeremy-clarksons-star-cars-cll92sj99
Read more at www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/jeremy-clarksons-star-cars-201516/

[RedMoon11]

Jeremy Clarkson’s 10 worst cars of the past year

Last week our critic revealed his favourite cars of the year. But for every top trump there has been a turkey, a box on wheels devoid of passion. Here are the 10 stinkers

Jeremy Clarkson    August 21 2016



Zenos E10 S



In the olden days, when you had an actual bank manager and he drove a Humber, motoring journalism had a serious point. Back then Triumph would sell you a car with handling that would put you in a ditch if you tried to go round any corner at any speed. Volvo would sell you a car that wouldn’t move at all. Rover would sell you one that wouldn’t start in the first place.

Some cars were quite dangerous. Others were absolutely lethal. Some used a lot of fuel; others gulped it down like Oliver Reed after a bar fight. Cars were massively different, and it was a motoring journalist’s job to steer the uninitiated through what was a minefield.

Remember those early turbo cars from Saab and BMW and Porsche? This was a new thing, and there was a message that only an experienced road tester could deliver. “Beware.”

Everything has changed. Because of government targets, all cars are economical and all have five-star safety ratings. And, thanks to the economy of scale, all are made from the same bits. The brakes, for instance, on your car are the same as the brakes on everyone else’s car. So is the suspension. So is the airbag.

I’m still asked, “What’s a good first car for my daughter?” or, “What’s a good car for £15,000?”, and the answer is: “The Volkswagen Golf.”

You love driving and you want something really fast? A Volkswagen Golf R. You are a teacher and you need something reliable and cheap to run? A Volkswagen Golf diesel. You are a student and you have only a thousand pounds to spend? A second-hand Volkswagen Golf. You need five seats? You need a big boot? You need the latest technology? Ask me anything, and if I have my sensible hat on, you’ll get the same answer: “The Volkswagen Golf.”

You might imagine that in the Volkswagen Group the best engineers were sent to work at Bugatti or Bentley or Lamborghini. But you’d be wrong. The best are sent to work on the one car that pays for all the tinsel. They’re sent to work on the Golf.

Other car makers know this. They know that the Golf is to the world of cars what the number 42 is to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So you’d imagine that they beavered into the night to make something better.

But most of the time they don’t. They just assemble the components and build a factory where the labour is cheap, and that’s it. Flair? Nah. And all this means that when you drive up the motorway today, it’s as if you’re stuck in that Pete Seeger song Little Boxes.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes, all the same
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.

I truly despise boring cars. I hate the lack of imagination. It causes me heartache when I’m in a car that goes and stops and steers and does nothing else. Cars can, and should, be so much more than transportation devices, and if the car makers themselves continue to think they can’t, they are ultimately bringing about their own demise.

One day Google and Uber and Apple will launch driverless machines that will get us from place to place cheaply and safely. They will be the easyJets of the road, and everyone will climb aboard unless the established carriers can find a way to thrill and excite and dazzle us. That glass of champagne when you take your seat on a BA flight. That’s what the car makers need to install.

Currently, though, if you drive a Renault crossover or a Hyundai saloon or a Vauxhall hatchback, what you’ve got is a box. A tool you buy by the yard; a tool with no personality, no character, no soul. And if that’s all you want, why didn’t you buy a Golf?




www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jeremy-clarksons-10-worst-cars-of-the-past-year-r0rznhzm3

Read more at www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/jeremy-clarksons-stinkers-2015-16/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Yo, homey, it’s an iDinosaur

Bentley Continental GT Speed

Jeremy Clarkson
28 August 2016



I met someone the other day who uses an old Nokia mobile telephone. “I can make and receive calls”, he said, “and I can send texts, and the battery lasts for days. What more could you want?” I couldn’t be bothered to answer.

Using a phone that can’t receive photographs or dispatch emails or store music is like living in a cave. Yes, it’s dry and it’s warm and it needs very little maintenance, but you’d rather live in a house with central heating and a cooker. No, don’t argue. You just would.

Yes, I admit that whenever there’s a week in the month, Apple drives me mad. I don’t like the way I buy a film from it and then it doesn’t let me watch it unless I find some wi-fi and select a new password — “No, that’s not good enough.” “And that isn’t either.” — and give my credit card details and accept its terms and conditions, which basically say it owns my soul until the end of time.

I also hate the latest music storage system, which won’t let me put the damn thing on random and have it flip from the Bee Gees to the Clash. And the iCloud makes me fall to my knees and howl at the moon. Because as far as I can tell it’s just an intangible soup full of nothing but poor old Jennifer Lawrence’s breasts.

But despite all this I’d rather lose a lung than lose my iPhone. I’m more likely to remember to take it with me in the morning than my trousers. And every day, someone shows me a new feature or a new app that makes my life even more amazing, easy and enjoyable. If I couldn’t have Snapseed to adjust my photographs, or Instagram to peek into the perfect lives of friends, or a map to show me just how much traffic is on the Oxford ring road, I’d have to commit suicide.

And that brings me neatly to the mildly tweaked Bentley Continental GT Speed I’ve been driving. It’s been mildly tweaked because the design is getting on for 15 years old. But it still doesn’t have a USB port. My Volkswagen Golf has one. A Fiat 500 has one. But this £168,900 über-grand tourer does not. Sure, it has Bluetooth, which Bentley probably thinks does the job just as well. But it doesn’t, and, anyway, it didn’t work.

My phone just sat there saying it was searching for devices with me bouncing up and down in the seat, waving it at the dashboard and shouting: “How can you not find a Bentley, you stupid piece of junk? It’s huge.” Until eventually it delivered a photograph of Jennifer Lawrence with no clothes on.

Even more amazingly, while conducting a fingertip search for the hole into which I could plug my cable, I opened the glovebox, and in there was a meaningless flex that would connect to nothing from this century, and a CD autochanger. Which, in terms of technology, is up there with a Garrard SP25 turntable.

We all know the problem, of course. To fit the Continental with a USB port would require the whole infotainment system and the entire dash to be redesigned. That would mean refitting the production line, and that would cost about a hundred and ten hundred eleventy billion pounds.

And, you may think, what would be the point? Bentley is almost duty-bound to fit its cars with a gramophone and with a wood-burning stove instead of a heater, because the people who buy such things are old and stuck in their ways.



But in fact the average age of Bentley’s customers these days is about six. The Continental has become the weapon of choice for absolutely everyone who’s made it in the world of rap. Urge your fans to kill a policeman on Saturday and you’re in leather-lined luxury on Monday.

“Homey, you can catch me swooping. Bentley coupé switching lanes, ha-ha!” So sang 50 Pence, apparently.

In America, Bentley is now so synonymous with the rap culture that when I went to pick up a New Yorker from the airport the other day, she climbed into the Continental and said: “Oooh. An MFB.” In a family newspaper I can only tell you that the B stands for Bentley. You’ll have to work the rest out for yourself.

But the point is clear. This is now a youthful car. A cool car. But could I drive a car that doesn’t have a USB port? I guess the answer is yes, just as I could write this column on a typewriter and then send it to The Sunday Times in the post. I could do that. But I wouldn’t want to.

There are some other issues with the car as well. It started out in life with a body that managed to be vulgar and bland at the same time. But a couple of years ago some very small styling tweaks made it extremely attractive. And now the company has gone backwards again, especially at the rear, with a boot lid that puts me in mind of a Sunbeam Rapier.

The biggest problem, though, is the enormous 6-litre twin-turbocharged W12 engine. There’s nothing wrong with the power, which is immense, or the torque, which is planetary, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with the noise, which is a muted, slightly frightening rumble that rises to a muted, very frightening rumble when you open the taps.

I’m not going to grumble either about the incredible speeds it can achieve, and neither am I overly fussed by the fuel consumption. No, my beef is twofold. First of all, this W12 engine simply isn’t as good as the V8 that Bentley offers as a cheaper alternative. Yes, you get a dribble more oomph and a slightly higher top speed, but the downsides are pronounced. It makes the car heavy. Which means you are aware when you go round a corner that the suspension and the tyres are having to work harder than is necessary. The problem is even more obvious when you brake. It feels sometimes as if you are trying to halt the tide.

Genuinely, the less you pay for a Continental GT, the better off you are. The V8 S still feels how a Bentley should — grand and opulent — but it feels weighty without actually being heavy. And that means it’s nicer to drive and more chuckable and more economical than the Speed.

It comes with pretty much the same interior and pretty much the same level of equipment. Which means it doesn’t have a USB port either. This is something Bentley is going to have to deal with, whatever the cost may be.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-yo-homey-its-an-idinosaur-h5f5l32cb
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/the-clarkson-review-2016-bentley-continental-gt-speed/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Tusk, tusk. It’s like an elephant on a unicycle

Fiat 124 Spider

Jeremy Clarkson

September 11, 2016




First things first. The car you see in the picture this morning is not a Fiat 124 Spider. It has a Fiat engine and it says Fiat on the back, and it takes a couple of styling cues from the achingly pretty 124 Sport Spider from 1966. But, underneath, it’s a Mazda MX-5.

When I heard a few years ago that Fiat had approached Mazda about making a He-Man version of the world’s bestselling — and best — sports car, I was so excited I had to have a bit of a lie-down.

Here’s why. Making a sports car should be simple. But then making a poached egg on toast should be too. And yet almost every hotel in the world gets it wrong. They cook the egg for too long, or they put it on the toast before they’ve drained the water away properly, or they smother it in weeds such as parsley, which is unnecessary.

This is what happens when car companies try to design a sports car these days. They optimise it for track use rather than the road, or they put the engine in the middle and you’re left thinking: “Look, you imbeciles. I want the engine at the front, rear-wheel drive and a canvas hood that can be thrown away when the sun’s out. Don’t complicate it. Just do that well.”

And that’s what Mazda has got so right with the MX-5: it is simple and perfectly executed. The best poached egg on toast the world’s seen. It’s the perfect size. It’s the perfect price. It has the right-sized engine and is fitted with only the toys you actually need. I love it.

However, there’s no getting round the fact it’s a bit . . . how can I put this? Light in its loafers? You don’t see many sarf London gangsters in Mazdas. Guy Ritchie hasn’t got one. It’s not a car that would be used by the Terminator.

Which is why I was so excited about this Fiat business. The idea was simple. It would take the Mazda’s architecture, which would save a fortune in development costs, and add its own styling and engine, which I figured would turn a finger of Baileys into a gallon of bloody mary with all the trimmings.




Hmmm. The problem is that the old 124’s most distinctive and attractive feature was the way its rear wings flicked up like a frigatebird’s wings from the horizontal boot lid. Fiat has tried to copy that on the new version, but the Mazda’s boot lid isn’t horizontal, so the result looks awkward, like amateur taxidermy.

There’s more, I’m afraid, because while it’s all very well making your vehicle’s body bigger and more butch, it’s no good if you plonk it on the underpinnings of a car that’s more dainty. You end up with what looks like an elephant sitting on a unicycle. A big car with little-car wheels lost in the arches.

The front’s not bad, but even here I have issues because of the twin power bulges in the bonnet. The original 124 had them because the extra clearance was needed for its twin-cam engine. Now, though, they are there for effect, like the stupid fake gills on the Range Rover, and that annoys me.

I’ve spent more time than usual discussing the way this car looks because that’s the whole point of it. The main reason you’d buy one is that you find the MX-5 a bit weedy and you want something a bit more hirsute.

The other reason is that you want some Italian flair, and that brings me on to the engine, which in the version I tested was Fiat’s 1.4-litre turbo. It’s not a bad little unit, but I was hoping in the 124 Fiat might have made it sound more zingy. And it hasn’t.

That’s not good enough. When you are in a sports car and the sun’s out and the roof is stowed away, you want to hear some induction roar and a crackle from the exhaust. Whereas what you get from the 124 is a missionary-position noise from the front and a vanilla exhaust note. It’s a pity.



I have argued in the past that when the roof is down, all cars, from a super-modern Rolls-Royce Dawn to an ancient Sunbeam Alpine, feel exactly the same. There’s so much noise and wind and buffeting that trying to concentrate on the finer points of the handling and exhaust note is like trying to concentrate on your surroundings when you are being eaten by a bear. But it’s nice to know that if you did concentrate on such things, they’d be right.

So . . . to drive, the Fiat is softer than an MX-5, which is sort of fine, but somehow the squidginess means you get a bit of what feels like old-fashioned scuttle shake. A sense that the whole car is sort of wobbling. And that’s not so fine.

And to further distance the 124 from peppier Mazdas, most versions lack a limited-slip differential, so you won’t be doing any smoky drifts. It’s odd. You’d expect the Fiat, being Italian and all, to be sportier and more manic than the MX-5, but actually it’s quieter and less fun.

I’m told by my colleague Richard Hammond that the Abarth version — which does have a limited-slip diff — is a different kettle of fish, but I haven’t tried it yet. And, anyway, it’s a lot pricier. And, speaking of money, I’m afraid the news is not good. Because the Fiat I drove is more than £1,000 more expensive than the entry-level MX-5.

It sounds as if I have a downer on the 124, and I have, really, mainly because I was expecting it to be something that it isn’t. But, that said, it’s still a nice place to be. The roof really can be lowered and raised with one hand, without you getting out of the driver’s seat. And I love that it’s not electric.

I also love the brown leather seats and the equipment levels. I can connect up my iPhone and play Genesis, I have a sat nav and electric windows and, er, that’s it. But there is a decent-sized boot. Probably because the lid’s not flat, as it should have been.

Most important of all, though, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that outside my house right now is a two-seat Italian sports car. What makes me feel a bit cold and prickly, however, is that it’s simply not as good as its Japanese brother.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-tusk-tusk-its-like-an-elephant-on-a-unicycle-x6d2zm3lv
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/the-clarkson-review-2016-fiat-124-spider/

[RedMoon11]

Tweaked, but still a funometer-buster

Ford Fiesta ST200

JEREMY CLARKSON   18 September 2016




According to the Mail Online, I’ve been very busy. While filming for my new Grand Tour series I flouted all sorts of bird- related by-laws on Beachy Head in East Sussex by flying a drone and then, when there were no more breeding peregrine falcons to mince, I headed off to a Hampshire hotel to gatecrash the wedding of someone called Danny Dyer from EastEnders.

A couple of things need straightening out there. I wasn’t filming for The Grand Tour. I didn’t fly a drone. It isn’t falcon-breeding season. No one flouted any by-laws. I wasn’t in Hampshire. I didn’t gatecrash a wedding and I have no idea who Danny Dyer is because I’ve never seen EastEnders.

It got one thing right, though. I was at a hotel. And like all swanky, country-house getaway spa retreats, the menu offered all sorts of vertical food prepared by a chef who’d trained in Southampton and could do wonderful things with weeds and seeds. But all I wanted was a prawn cocktail. In a glass, with a twist of lemon.

This often happens. I’m on my way to a restaurant, having spent the day gatecrashing weddings and sparking general fury, and I know it will offer me a choice of sautéed sheep’s brains and the barely formed areola of a lightly salted baby pig, and suddenly I become overwhelmed by the urgent need for a poached egg on toast.

It’s not just food, either, where I crave the simple things. Throughout the summer my Instagram feed was topped up every half-hour by friends posting pictures of themselves on beaches in Greece and on boats off Italy and in hot springs in Colorado. And then one day there was a photograph of a friend’s wife and kids playing at Daymer Bay in Cornwall and I almost vomited with envy.

So it goes with cars. I spend most of my life whizzing hither and thither in exotica made from platinum and rhodium and fitted with engines that roar and bellow and spit fire. And all I want on the way home is a Ford Fiesta ST.

Over the past 40 years there have been many hot versions of the Fiesta and largely they were tremendous little things — blue-collar buzz bombs with puppy-dog enthusiasm and raspy back ends. The XR2, for instance, was perfect for those whose Thames estuary vowel sounds and rust-round-the-optics drinking dens precluded them from having a slightly superior and slightly more expensive Volkswagen.

But then, four years ago, Ford gave us a hot version of the then current Fiesta. It had a turbocharged 1.6-litre engine, bucket seats and breathed-on suspension, and everyone thought it was going to be more of the same. A cheeky chappie. Up the Junction. Up the Chels. Do you want some, etc, etc, etc.



In fact it was a game-changer; the most endearing and brilliant hot hatchback the world had seen. We get all misty-eyed about the original Golf GTI and the 1.9-litre Peugeot 205 GTI, and rightly so. They were very excellent. But the little Ford Fiesta ST? That was in a different league.

On a day-to-day basis, no car —not one — was as much of a laugh. It was propelled down the road by telepathy. You thought about the corner ahead and it went round, gripping when you wanted it to and slithering about when you didn’t. If there were such a thing as a funometer this little car would break it. And now Ford has tried to make it even better by launching something called the ST200.

Let me talk you through the headlines. It’s a little bit more powerful than the standard car, which means it’s a little bit faster. A very little bit. In fact it’s only 0.2 of a second faster from 0-62mph. But it feels more urgent because it has a shorter final drive. Not good for the fuel economy. Not good for Johnny polar bear. But tremendous for putting a smile on your face.

You need to dart into the next lane on a slow-moving motorway. No car does it better. Any gear. Any revs. And in a blink, the move is made. I’ve seen less nippy water boatmen. And then there’s the noise. You expect, in a car of this type, to have the “wheee” of a catherine wheel. But instead you get something deep and bassy. It sounds like a faraway battle. It’s wonderful.

Underneath, the rear twist beam is stiffer and at the front there’s a bigger anti-roll bar. This means the platform is more solid and that means Ford has been able to soften the springs and dampers. Which means you get all the composure you need, and a decent ride.

The only trouble is that the tweaks have been so successful, Ford has applied them to the standard ST as well. Which means you are paying a £4,850 premium for the ST200 to shave 0.2 seconds off the cheapest ST’s 0-62mph time. Hmmm.

Oh and you also get a little plaque on the centre console that says ST200 on it. If it were made from gold, or myrrh, maybe the price hike would be justified. But it isn’t. It’s just a fridge magnet.

Other than this, the interior is standard ST, which means you get Recaro seats that are too high and so big they reduce legroom in the rear to the point where only Douglas Bader would fit. And a dashboard of unrivalled complexity.

I assumed when I first tried to use it that my inability to change the radio station or engage the sat nav, let alone read it — the screen is the size of a stamp — was because I’m old. But no. I recently bought a standard ST for my eldest daughter and like all young people she plunged in, pushing buttons hither and thither until she, because she’s a she, said: “I’ll have to read the handbook.”

We then set off and . . . disaster. One of the clever things in the ST is the MyKey feature. It means you have one key for yourself and a spare that you hand out when you are lending your car to, say, your teenage kids, or, in my daughter’s case, her brother.



The idea is that you program the spare so that when it’s used to start the car, the engine produces reduced power. And the stereo has a maximum volume of about two decibels. It’s actually a very, very good idea, but such is the complexity of the dash that even my tech-literate daughter somehow managed to set it up so that both keys prevent her from listening to her drum and bass at anything more than a whisper.

Anyway, back to the ST200. And . . . I’m not sure, if I’m honest. Apart from the shorter final drive, and that grown-up exhaust boom, it’s pretty much the same as the standard car, only more expensive.

I would therefore buy the base model instead. And I don’t mean instead of the ST200. Or instead of another hot hatchback. I mean instead of just about anything else on the road.


www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-sunday-times-magazine/the-clarkson-review-tweaked-but-still-a-funometer-buster-d9mhcq3gp
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-ford-fiesta-st200/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: A lesson from Audi to laptop makers

Audi S8

Jeremy Clarkson    October 9, 2016
 




I’m writing this on a six-year-old laptop. It has been around the world umpteen times and is used to churn out five or six thousand words a week. The screen is fogged with spatters of coffee and mucus, the keypad is full of ash, the “A” button has worn to a stump and the cooling fan often has hysterics. But I am in no mood to swap it for a newer model, because it would be different.

I hate different. Which means I hate Macs. You need the fingers of a gynaecologist to operate their stupid keypads, there’s no right-click and nothing’s where it’s supposed to be.

It is of course the same story with my telephone. It’s very old and sometimes it forgets what it’s for. But I can’t upgrade to the latest model, with a Hubble telescope for a camera and 9G capability, because it’d mean sitting down with an instruction book, and I couldn’t do that, because I’m a man, so I’d just plunge straight in. Which means within an hour I’d have put a very private post on Twitter by mistake.

Strangely, however, I have no problem at all using a different car every week. They all come with different sat nav systems — some are good and some are bad — but I can operate them all.

It’s the same with the electric seat controls. Some companies put them in the door, some on the transmission tunnel and some down the side of the seat itself, where they can be reached only if you have fingers like a conductor’s baton. But, despite this, I never squash myself against the wheel by mistake, or end up in the back, where I can’t reach the pedals.

Car firms have intuitiveness down to a fine art. The Audi S8 Plus I’ve been driving had a head-up display that had been set up by someone who was 4in tall. I needed to lower it on the screen, so I reached out and my hand immediately alighted on the button that did just that.

It was the same with the map. It had been set by the delivery driver to rotate every time I went round a corner, and I find that annoying. So I pushed the correct button, twiddled a knob the correct number of times and pushed OK to confirm. The job was done. If the man who designed the Audi’s dashboard worked for Boeing, everyone on earth could land a 747 with no problem at all.

And then things get even more impressive, because while I was driving down the M1 at 50mph, because someone in a box had decided that was the highest speed a human being could possibly manage on a road where everyone was going in the same direction, my mind started to drift off and I found myself wondering how on earth Audi managed to fit all the stuff into the car.

Many years ago, when we were allowed to do 70mph — and usually a bit more — I went to interview a chap at Rover who had a dashboard in bits on his desk and a worried look on his face. “Not that long from now,” he said, “people are going to want air- conditioning and CD players as standard in even the cheapest cars. And where the hell am I going to put it all?”

He did appear to have a point. The dashboard of a car is not like the inside of an aircraft hangar, and even then, in the days of the Rover 216, it was pretty much jammed full with tubes and looms and relays. So how, I wondered as I crawled along at 50mph for yet more miles, has Audi managed?



Quite apart from the head-up display and the climate control and the sat nav and the passenger airbag, there were buttons to stop the engine shutting down at the lights, buttons to alter the interior lighting, buttons to turn off the traction control, buttons in fact to turn off a million things that hadn’t even been invented when Johnny Rover Man was pulling his hair out.

And because I was still doing 50mph, to “protect the workforce” that wasn’t bloody there, I started to wonder about more things. The engine, for example, is a dirty great V8 that’s fitted with two turbochargers. How does that go under the bonnet?

And then there’s the four-wheel-drive system and the antilock braking system and the bouncy castle that inflates when you have a bump, and the parking sensors and the cameras and the system that steers the car by itself and the forward-facing radar. Why, I wondered, isn’t this car bigger than the USS Dwight D Eisenhower?

And then the man in the control box decided that, actually, 50mph was way too fast for this day and age, so he changed the dot-matrix signs to say we could do only 40mph. And then I began to wonder why on earth anyone in their right mind would buy a car such as the 155mph Audi.

That didn’t take long to answer. Because it can do 155mph, it is barely awake at 40, which means it is supremely quiet and, if you put the suspension in Comfort mode, dreamily smooth. Honestly, I’ve been in noisier and less comfortable beds.

You may imagine that a car this squidgy is incapable of being exciting. And you’d be right. Even if you put everything in Sport mode — that’s something else you can do — and turn off the traction control, it is stubbornly understeery. It’s almost as though it’s saying: “What on earth are you playing at?”



The Audi S8

A fair point. Driving a car such as this as though your hair’s on fire is like playing rugby in a £400 pair of loafers. And that brings me on to the question of price. I don’t know what it costs and I can’t be bothered to look it up. This is not a car anyone will buy. It’ll be leased. And the monthly bill will depend on who you are, how many A4s you’re buying for your sales staff and whether the dealer is struggling to meet his yearly quotas. All I do know is that it’ll be a lot less than you imagine.

Of course, exactly the same applies if you are thinking of buying a Mercedes S-class, or the Jaguar XJ, or a BMW 7-series, which are pretty much identical to the big Audi. They’re all quiet and comfortable and loaded up with stuff you’ll never use and power reserves you’ll never need. The S8 Plus I had developed 84bhp more than the A8 on which it’s based. Which meant ... absolutely nothing at all.

What does matter is that I liked it. I’ve always said the 7-series is the best of the big barges. But I don’t think it is any more. I think the A8 is a nicer place to be. When you’re doing 40. Which you will be.

The only problem is: you currently use a Merc, don’t you? And you’re used it to it. And you’re frightened to change. Don’t be.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-a-lesson-from-audi-to-laptop-makers-jzgds09m8
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/the-clarkson-review-2016-audi-s8-plus/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Take it away – I’m just not ready to grow up

Citroën Grand C4 Picasso

Jeremy Clarkson 23 October 2016
 



I had a bit of a discussion the other day about when men grow up. A friend explained that when he used to work in a clothes shop he would fill quieter parts of the day by carefully unwrapping the underwear. He’d then use a chocolate bar to create authentic-looking skid marks before wrapping it up again and putting it back on the shelves. “The beauty was”, he said, “that no one would ever bring it back to complain.”

I won’t tell you his name, obviously, save to say that it begins with an A and ends in A Gill. What I will tell you is that today he’s in his sixties but, given the chance, he said with a big smile, he’d do the exact same thing again.

I fear I’m just as bad. When I’m told by a passport person to stand behind the line, I simply cannot bring myself to do it. I always, always, always position myself so that at least some of one foot is in the forbidden zone. It’s pathetic but I can’t help myself.

It’s why I loathe average-speed cameras. With a normal Gatso you can roar up to the box, brake as late as possible and then roar off again when the damn thing is out of range. That’s sticking one to The Man. But when you are being monitored constantly, there is absolutely nothing you can do. You are forced to just sit there being obedient, and that causes me actual physical pain.

Neatly stacked tins in a supermarket make me ill as well. I become dizzy and faint when I walk past them because the urge to knock them over is so unbelievably strong. It’s one of the few things left on my bucket list.

However, I’ll need to hurry up about it because I can feel myself getting old. I can sense the rebel in my soul quietening down. It’s not just because I now enjoy a “nice sit-down” more than almost anything. It’s worse. It’s because I can’t be bothered half the time to make a nuisance of myself.

This brings me on to the business of renting a car. It’s a chore. It’s up there with trying on trousers or rubbing suncream into James May’s back. You stand for hours in a queue full of terrible people, and when you finally get to the front of it, you are made to stand there while the woman behind the counter writes War and Peace on her computer.

Why do they always do this? I have the money and they have the car, so what’s the complication? Why the need to tap away on a keyboard for three hours? They don’t do that in a sweetshop or at a petrol station. But they do at the airport rental desk. And the only upside is that when the interminable wait is over, you are given the keys to the fastest car in the world.

I have always driven hire cars as though my hair were on fire. It’s just so liberating when you arrive at a road where a sign says “Unsuitable for motors” and you think, as you floor it, “Yes, but it’s suitable for this one, because ... yee-haw ... it isn’t mine.”

This year I rented a house in Mallorca that sat at the top of what was easily the narrowest and longest and most challenging drive in all of the world. In the past it wouldn’t have bothered me one bit. I’d have simply ricocheted up it in the rental car, bouncing off the trees and the walls as though I was a large-scale demonstration of Brownian motion.



However, this year I found myself taking care. And amazingly at the end of the 10-day break the hire car was handed back without a scratch. It was a first, and it made me think: “Oh sh*t. At the age of 56 I’ve become an adult.”

The panic, though, is over, because last week Citroën sent round the same car as I’d been using in Mallorca. It’s a Grand C4 Picasso and it had the most extraordinary effect on me. I drove about the place, agreeing with all the callers on the Jeremy Vine show and missing Nigel Farage.

I scoffed at girls in ripped jeans, tutted at men with earrings and engaged the handbrake when stationary. This is a car that can accelerate from 0 to 62mph in 10.1 seconds and thunder onwards to a speed of nearly 130mph. But I never did either of those things.

What I did instead was admire some of the features, such as the comfy headrests and the passenger seat that comes with an electrically operated footrest for when the floor is just too uncomfortable. Then there are the sun visors that fold up and away to reveal a windscreen big enough for a National Express coach, and, further back, an all-glass roof.

Further back still, there’s a third row of seats, and everywhere you look there are cubbyholes and storage bins. This is one of those cars that are hard to resist in the showroom. It really is jam-packed with stuff you’ll want as soon as you see it.

Driving it is a different story, because there is some quirkiness. The gearlever, for instance, is a flimsy little stalk on the steering column. And just about everything else is operated by a screen in the middle of the car. That’s fiddly and annoying.

Well, it would be, but you’ll be too busy sticking to the speed limit to be overly worried about how you turn off the engine stop-start function. Not that you’d want to turn it off, because it saves fuel and that saves money. And saving money is the single most important thing in life. It’s why Grand C4 Picasso owners do all their shopping in the sales and only go to restaurants with all-you-can-eat buffets for £4.99.

It’s why they have Citroëns in the first place. Because they are cheap, long before you get to the endless everything-must-go special offers.

This is not a criticism of Citroën’s customers. Each to his or her own. And it certainly isn’t a criticism of the car, because if you want a seven-seater, it makes a deal of sense. You just have to remember that behind the clever design touches there’s a car that’s not inspiring to drive and will break down more than, say, a Toyota. And that sounds like the incoming-torpedo alert on a submarine if you leave the lights on or open the door when the engine’s running.

On the upside, though, you’ll never crash it. Because you’ll never be going fast enough. Because a Grand C4 Picasso brings out the adult that lives in us all.

That said, just before the delivery driver came to take it away, I was tempted to create some chocolate skid marks on the seat. And say it was like that when it was delivered.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-take-it-away-im-just-not-ready-to-grow-up-l3pzr7txb

www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-citroen-grand-c4-picasso/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: The moor the merrier in our hot hatch rally
VW Golf GTI Clubsport

Jeremy Clarkson   6 November 2016


ILLUSTRATION BY NATE KITCH



My television colleagues and I had to visit Whitby recently, which meant there was a debate in the office about how we’d get to North Yorkshire. If we chose something comfortable and quiet, to deal with the massively over-policed M1, it’d be no fun at all once we got past Malton and said: “Have some of that.”

Whereas if we chose something that would be fun on that truly glorious road over Fylingdales Moor, it’d be a chore in the stop- start hell that is the M1.

In the end we decided to cheat and use a train from London to York, which is more expensive than going on a golden elephant but takes about three minutes these days. And then we’d use a car for the final leg.

But what car? The temptation, obviously, was to select something idiotic — a Lamborghini Aventador, perhaps, or the new and really rather beautiful Ferrari GTC4Lusso. But the truth is, show-off cars such as those are designed to work, mostly, in cities.

So quite quickly all three of us decided that hot hatchbacks would be perfect for the job. And this caused another debate. There’s no doubt at all that the best of the bunch is the little Ford Fiesta ST. But I’d driven that, and anyway it was shotgunned immediately by Mr Hammond.

And before I could draw breath to say, “Well, I’ll have a Ford Focus RS, then”, James May put down his pipe, adjusted his slippers and shotgunned that. So I had a good long think and remembered that Volkswagen had recently smashed the front-wheel-drive lap record at the Nürburgring with a car called the Golf GTI Clubsport S.

In essence it’s a GTI, but, thanks to a lot of electrical jiggery-pokery under the bonnet, it produces a colossal 306bhp. And there’s more. The ride has been made priapic. The body shell has been stiffened. The back seats and the parcel shelf and various bits of carpet have been removed. And as a result it’s hard and tight and light and, as we saw when it broke that lap record, very, very fast.

This is exactly the sort of car that would be terrible to live with day to day but perfect for an afternoon assault on the North York Moors. I was very happy with my choice until I received word that the Clubsport S is a limited-edition special, and that none was available.

Instead I ended up with a car built to celebrate the GTI’s 40th birthday. Called the Clubsport Edition 40, it looks like a Clubsport S but it has carpets and back seats and all the luxuries you’d expect. You can even have it with four doors, which is a very un-Clubsporty thing.

All of which means it’s a GTI with some spoilers and a small amount of electrical jiggery- pokery under the bonnet. And that in turn means it’s nothing more than a slightly pricier version of a car I already own.

It did have a nicer steering wheel — I’ll admit that. And lovely seats. But it had a manual gearbox, which was a nuisance in York, where the traffic lights are red for about six years and then flash green in the same way as the sun does when it sinks into the sea. It took longer to get out of the city than it had taken to get there from London.

By the time I finally found the A64 to Pickering and the glory of the moors, I was far behind Hammond in his little Fiesta, but it’s always possible to catch May. Even if you’re on a mule with a hurty leg.



So off I set, and straight away I could tell the Clubsport Edition 40 is more than VW’s present to itself. The figures suggest it has only 35 more brake horsepower than the standard GTI, but if your right foot comes into contact with the firewall, there’s an overboost facility that gives you 286bhp. This makes the front wheels spin, which makes the traction control go into busybody mode. Which means that if you want this sort of power for this sort of money, you’re better off with the all-wheel-drive Golf R.

However. And it’s a big however. In my standard GTI — chosen because I can’t be bothered to explain to people at parties what an R is — there’s a definite hole in the power delivery. When you just want to go slightly faster, you put your foot down a bit and ... nothing happens.

It’s almost certainly some kind of ludicrous emission program in the engine control unit, but it feels like turbo lag and it’s annoying. However, in the Clubsport Edition 40 it doesn’t happen. The movement of your foot is translated instantly into a change of pace. It makes the whole car feel more alert and alive.

I’d love to tell you that the chassis is crisper too, because it probably is. But the truth is that this car feels exactly the same as the standard GTI. Which means it is extremely clever at riding the bumps and then gripping as if it’s on spikes in the corners.

VW even says that the bigger rear spoiler and the splitter at the front create actual downforce once you’re going above 75mph. So in order to not crash, you just need to speed up.

Hammond will tell you — and he’s right — the Fiesta ST is more fun, and May will tell you that the Focus RS is better in extremis. But as a blend of all you need, the VW is in a class of its own.

It’s the same story with the interior. Everything has a top-quality feel that you just don’t get in the two Fords, plus there’s a lot of standard equipment provided as standard.

Of course it’s not as good as the Golf R. That’s a remarkable car. A brilliant car. But if you want a GTI because, well, you want a GTI, this Clubsport Edition 40 makes a deal of sense. It’s my own car, with a couple of neat styling touches and the performance hole caused by bureaucrats in Brussels filled in.

Richard disagreed with this. And so did James when he finally arrived at the hotel. And we argued about that into the night. It’s good to be back.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-the-moor-the-merrier-in-our-hot-hatch-rally-7mf2hk7dv

www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-volkswagen-golf-gti-clubsport-edition-40/

[RedMoon11]

Engineers — give it everything you’ve got

Audi SQ7

Jeremy Clarkson  13 November 2016
 



James May has decided he doesn’t like Audis. I recently had to transport him in the back of the new SQ7 and he chuntered away constantly like a speedboat on tickover. Obviously, I can’t be bothered to listen to his specific gripes but the thrust of his argument seems to be there’s too much design and not enough engineering.

As usual, he’s wrong. Because the SQ7 — the hot version of Audi’s biggest SUV — is actually a lumpen-looking thing that hasn’t been designed enough. But oh my God. There’s more engineering in this 2¼-ton, 16½ft road rocket than you find in that giant arch they’re building over reactor 4 at Chernobyl. This car? It’s like the spirits of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Steve Jobs have come together to create a mind-boggling orgy of brute force and chips.

We shall start with the engine. You’d expect, in a car that goes from 0 to 62mph in less than five seconds, and onwards to a top speed of about a million, that it’d be a monstrous V12 with petrol coursing through its injectors. But to make it even more annoying for the world’s ecomentalists, it’s a 4-litre V8 forced-induction diesel.

I say “forced induction” rather than “turbocharged” because Audi has invented a whole new way of ramming air into the cylinders. You get two turbochargers, as you’d expect these days, but downstream of the intercooler and close to the engine itself there’s something the no-nonsense Germans have called an “electrically powered compressor” (EPC). What it is is a compressor that’s powered by electricity rather than exhaust gases. And it can go from rest to 70,000rpm in less than 250 milliseconds. Which is, as near as dammit, instantaneous.

In a normal turbocharged car there is always a gap between you putting your foot down and the engine delivering its full potential. This is because the turbochargers take time to spool up. In the SQ7 that gap is filled by the EPC.

What I love about this is that it’s a massively complicated solution to a problem that today exists only in books about algebra. Turbo lag — as the gap is called — was pronounced and annoying when turbocharged road cars came along in the Seventies. But today it’s noticeable only if you concentrate very, very hard. Which means Audi has spent a fortune exorcising something that exists only in theory. It is to be commended for this in the same way as a top-flight chef is to be commended for going the extra mile with his truffle sauce. Almost none of his customers will notice, but ...

And that brings me on to the engine itself, specifically the cam shafts, which are profiled so that they vary the amount of valve movement. This is advanced mechanics, but what it means, Audi says, is that you get torque when you want it and economy the rest of the time. Again, you won’t notice, but ...

What you will notice in the SQ7 is that when you go round a corner it doesn’t seem to roll very much. This is a big car that sits on stilts, so you’d expect its door handles to be scraping along the asphalt when you give it the beans, and yet they aren’t.

This is because of yet more engineering. An electric motor and a three-stage planetary gearbox are used to operate an anti-roll system. It’s designed to disengage when you’re off road, so you don’t get jolted too much, and then engage when you’re on the road, going quickly. And when it does, it effectively props up the side of the car that should be leaning over. This is technology that was tried, and then banned, in Formula One.

I’d love to say it does all its cleverness without affecting the ride comfort, but that would be a lie. You do feel the bumps — a bit — but again I admire the way the engineers have been allowed to experiment with the boundaries. They could have just painted some snazzy stripes down the side and fitted big tyres, but they’ve gone further, and I like that. The SQ7 even has mild four-wheel steering.

I could go on and on about other innovations — Audi has come up with a new way of combining lightness with strength in the construction, so you get better economy from a car that doesn’t fall to pieces when it hits a tree — but it’s probably time now to move inside, where you get two rows of seats, plus a temporary row that rises electrically from the boot floor. You’re never going to get your grandmother back there, but children will be fine.

Move further forward and you start to get to the bits that annoy May. As we know, James is a man who enjoys mending Bakelite telephones, so obviously he is going to be irritated by what he’d call unnecessary blue downlighting and what Audi calls “horizontal” design.

I have no idea what horizontal design is, or why it’s better than vertical design, but I do like the finished product. The Audi, slightly bumpy ride aside, is a nice place to be. And even though it is burdened with a million new engineering solutions, it’s not like the cockpit of an experimental spaceship. It’s simple and straightforward, and you’re never left looking at a button, thinking: “What the bloody hell does that thing do?”

You press a button, engage a driving mode on the surprisingly old-fashioned torque converter automatic gearbox and drive about. It’s as demanding as taking a bath.

So it’s fast, strong, safe, clever, innovative, interesting, spacious, very well made and, so far as I can see, completely pointless.

I’ve tried all week to imagine the sort of person who might want to buy such a thing — and I can’t. I know people who like to drive fast cars, and certainly they will enjoy the bassy and slightly rough sound of that big diesel V8. But nobody who enjoys a car such as that will want it to have seven seats.

Then there are people who do need the practicality of seven seats for the school run. Yes, the Audi’s anti-roll system will stop them being carsick, and that’s good, but who needs 663 torques and half a billion horsepowers to get a bunch of kids to the playground?

It’s the same story with the off- road abilities. Yes, the Audi can hoist itself up to give good ground clearance and it has four-wheel drive. But it sits on performance tyres, so if you try to get it to your peg on a shoot, it’ll get stuck. So it isn’t an off-road car at all, really.

This is the trouble. It’s not an off-roader. It’s not a sports car. It’s not a sumptuous long-distance luxury car and it certainly isn’t a looker. The only element likely to raise a pensive eyebrow is the price. It’s less than £71,000, which is good value for this much engineering. It’s actually £12,380 cheaper than a slower and less practical V8 Range Rover.

The trouble is, £71,000 is a lot for a car that you neither need nor want.




www.thetimes.co.uk/article/engineers-give-it-everything-youve-got-vztg89k9q
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2017-audi-sq7/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Torque of the town, but quiet as a mouse

Bentley Mulsanne Speed

Published 20 November 2016
By Jeremy Clarkson




People who live near a busy road often moan about traffic noise, and they have my sympathy. I’d rather listen to a wounded hare than a motorway. And I’d rather live in Svalbard than near a busy roundabout.

There are many reasons why traffic makes such a din. Motorbikes are a big source, and so far as I can tell from my vantage point in west London, they’re getting even louder. When I come to power, the banishment of these hideous and ugly machines from the roads will be near the top of my “to do” list.

Buses are noisy too, and I think it would make sense to get rid of them as well. This would force poor people to use bicycles instead, and that would cause them to be less fat. Which would mean there’d be less of a drain on the National Health Service. Speaking of which — ambulances. Do they really need sirens that can be heard 20 miles away?

With cars it’s a different story. With the exception of some found in extremely expensive supercars that you never really encounter, modern-day engines and exhaust systems are pretty much silent.

Bob Seger once sang about being on tour — “You can listen to the engine moanin’ out his one-note song” — but he’s wide of the mark. Because in fact between 75% and 90% of the noise made by a car on a motorway comes from the tyres.

It’s not just the sound of the rubber gripping the road; it’s the sound of the air in the tread pattern being compressed, and it’s all amplified because a tyre is basically a big echo chamber.

And that brings us to the Bentley Mulsanne Speed that you see photographed this morning. It was delivered to my office by two earnest chaps, who were at pains to point out the various interesting features. But the one that stopped me in my tracks was the Dunlop rubber, which, they said, had been tuned for quietness.

They weren’t kidding. At 70mph this car is as near as makes no difference silent. It’s a huge thing, with the aerodynamic properties — and weight — of a house, but it barges its way through, and over, the elements with all the aural fuss of a butterfly alighting on a buddleia petal.

It’s not just quiet for the occupants. It’s quiet for everyone. So quiet that after just 30 miles on the M4 I made a mental note to make sure that when I take control of No 10 those tyres become compulsory for all cars. They’re brilliant.

And so, for exactly the same reason, is the 6.75-litre V8 engine in this automotive leviathan. Amazingly, it was designed before I was born. And, on paper, you can tell. Words such as “single camshaft” and “pushrod” are from a time of rationing and diphtheria.

Eighteen years ago, when Volkswagen took control of Bentley, it said this venerable old V8 would have to be discontinued in the near future because it simply couldn’t be tuned to meet various emission regulations. But it was wrong.

It has fitted a couple of Mitsubishi turbochargers to provide forced induction and added a system that shuts down half the cylinders when they’re not needed to save fuel. And you’d imagine that all this tweakery would cause it to become feeble and weak. But it doesn’t.

The numbers are incredible: you get 530 brake horsepower and, at just 1750rpm, a truly colossal 811 torques. There are bulldozers with less than that — 811 lb ft is planetary force. It’s hysterical force. And you’d imagine that its creation would cause an almighty din. But astonishingly it doesn’t.

If you really stab the throttle deep into the inch-thick carpet, there is a barely discernible hum. But at all other times it’s as silent as a sleeping nun.

So this is a quiet car. And no matter what setting you choose for the air suspension, it’s a comfortable car too. It’s also good-looking. The aggressive new front end is especially impressive.

And it is extremely well equipped with all manner of things that you didn’t even know were possible. The rear touchscreens, for instance, rise silently from the back of the front seats. And then there’s the 2,200-watt stereo. That’s not a misprint. The manufacturer has fitted this completely silent car with a sound system that could blow your head clean off.

However, it’s precisely because of all this equipment and allthese toys that I would buy a Rolls-Royce Ghost instead.

Someone at Bentley obviously believes that luxury can be measured in the number of buttons. They think that a house is palatial if you can run a bath from the garage and open the front gate using your television remote. And that is probably true — if you are a footballer. But I’m not.

I have criticised Bentleys in the past for being a bit “last week” when it comes to electronics. The Continental GT Speed, for example, doesn’t have a USB port, and that, in this day and age, is obviously nuts.

The problem is that with the Mulsanne Speed Bentley’s gone berserk. So you now have two satellite navigation screens in the front that can be operated from the dash or the steering wheel or by touching the screen itself or by using your voice.

Eventually, I’m sure, you could machete your way through the operational complexity that results, but I suspect it would take many years.

Happily, there is a USB port. But it’s in a little drawer that can’t be shut if you’re using it. Then there’s the charging point, under the central armrest, which also can’t be shut if it’s in use.



You get the sense that asking Bentley to fit modern-day electronics is a bit like asking David Linley to reprogram your iPhone. Or Bill Gates to make a chest of drawers.

The result is daunting. You sit there, behind the wheel, confronted by hundreds and hundreds of buttons and switches, and you can’t help thinking how much better this car would be if only it were less complicated.

And maybe a tiny bit smaller. On the A40 in west London, where there are narrow lanes to “protect the workforce” — that’s never there — I was recently unable to pass a coach for miles. Which was a bore.

It’s annoying. I like the idea of a Bentley more than the idea of a Rolls-Royce. My grandfather had a Bentley R Type, and it was the first car I drove. I like the idea too of telling people I drive an “MFB”.

But I never once drove this car as a Bentley could and should be driven. I never felt obliged to put the suspension in its Sport setting and unleash all those torques. I just wafted about in it. And if I want a large and luxurious car in which to waft, I’d rather have the simpler, airier, more tasteful Ghost.

Because when you sink into one of those, you say: “Aaaah.” Whereas when you sink into the Mulsanne Speed, you think: “Oh, for God’s sake. Where’s the button that shuts the bloody sat nav woman up?”


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-bentley-mulsanne-speed-qstf7q9hk
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-bentley-mulsanne-speed/

[RedMoon11]

Drop this one in the bin, please, robot

Once, Honda attempted “the impossible dream” with its slightly weird, slightly fabulous cars. The new Jazz, however, is a nightmare

2016 HONDA JAZZ

Published 4 December 2016
By Jeremy Clarkson



NOT THAT long ago we all used to look forward to the car ads on commercial television. We had Paula Hamilton ditching her fur coat but keeping the Volkswagen Golf GTI. We had burning cornfields, and Geoffrey Palmer dolefully talking about beating the Germans to the beach, and dancing robots and Gene Kelly, and Skodas made from cake, and “Isn’t it nice when things just work?”

Car ads were almost always better than the programmes they funded. They were cleverer. They made you want a certain type of vehicle when you had been told almost nothing about it. But then, all of a sudden, everything changed.

Today even BMW, which only used to say it made the “ultimate driving machine”, fills its commercials with all the finance deals that are available. It really is a case of: “Here’s 14ft of car which you can have for £9.99 a week with 2% APR and the value of your house could go up as well as down.”

It saddens me that cars have gone the way of takeaway food. Nobody cares about the quality or the health benefits or the company’s history any more. Just how much you can get for how little.
I think the last truly great car commercial was Honda’s The Power of Dreams ad. Filmed in New Zealand, Argentina and Japan, it featured a magnificent-looking chap with a huge moustache and sideburns setting out from his beachside caravan on a small Honda motorcycle, and then, to the backdrop of Andy Williams crooning The Impossible Dream, he is seen singing along as he flies though the scenery in just about every important product Honda has made. Racing bikes, Formula One cars, speedboats, sports cars, touring bikes, quads — the lot. It is a true epic, and you’re left at the end thinking: “I have got to have one.”



It was updated several years later, with an extended ending in which we saw Mr Moustache at the controls of a Honda jet, and in the hydrogen fuel-cell car and then arriving at a house on the coast to find the Honda robot had got the hot tub ready. It was brilliant.

But I can’t help wondering: if Honda updates it again, what the bloody hell will it feature to say that the dream goes on? The current F1 campaign? Not sure that’s completely on message, as the only impossible dream is finishing anywhere other than nearly last. So what about the cars? Er …

I once described Hondas as Alfa Romeos that start, because, really, that’s what they were. This is a company that did reliable better than anyone, but it never did dull. Everything it made was a bit weird, a bit odd. A bit fabulous. The Jazz I was using last week, however, is none of those things.

Finished in what Honda calls Brilliant Sporty Blue and what everyone else calls “blue”, it was the version called the Ex Navi. I’m not sure that name works here, because ex-navvies in my experience are something completely different.

Priced £16,755, it came with a driver’s seat pocket, electric windows and a cigarette lighter socket. But no actual cigarette lighter. On the outside, Honda lists the highlights as fog lights and wheels. There is absolutely nothing to make you think: “Wow.”

Until you put your foot down, hard, in second gear. You’ll certainly say, “Wow,” at this point because nothing of any consequence happens. This is a small car with a 101bhp 1.3-litre i-VTec engine. It should be quite peppy, and yet somehow it is the complete opposite.

If you’re not really concentrating when you are driving the Jazz, you may find that your forward progress is being undone by tectonic drift. You set off to go to the shops and end up, three thousand years later, drifting backwards into Norway.

You may imagine the engine is tuned this way so that it’s kind to your wallet and Johnny Polar Bear, but I’m afraid not. Compared with various other engines of this size that are available from rival manufacturers, it’s uneconomical and produces quite a lot of carbon dioxides.

One of the extraordinary things is that it doesn’t produce its peak torque until it’s turning at 5,000rpm. So to get the best out of it, you have to rev the nuts off it at all times.

I used to love Honda’s engines. They were always so sweet and willing. They were like small but very well-trained Jack Russells. But the engine in that Jazz? The only dog to which it can be likened is one that’s dead.

At this point I’d like to tell you about the handling, but I can’t because the car won’t go quickly enough for any deficiencies to be uncovered. And if we’re honest, the average Jazz driver doesn’t care two hoots about understeer or lift-off oversteer; they’re happy just so long as there’s somewhere to store their bingo pencils.



On that front, it’s not bad. There are four doors, which means Peggy and Maureen will be able to get into and out of the back easily.

And there’s a boot that’s big enough for two tartan shopping trolleys. But then we get to the infotainment centre, which is good and clear and clever if you are nine. But completely baffling if you grew up with rationing.

My mother used to say that all she ever wanted from a car was a heater and Classic FM. She had a first-generation Jazz and loved it because it had both things. But in this new one I guarantee she’d be flummoxed on the radio front. Partly this is because if you don’t touch the screen in exactly the right place it does nothing at all.

There’s more, I’m afraid. It’s not a good looking car. The wheels are 16-inchers but they look lost in the arches, and there are some swooping styling details that are unnecessary and odd.

The only good things, really, are the quality of the materials in the cabin and the space in the back, which is much greater than you’d expect from a car of this type.
If the other people in your bridge four are extremely fat, this might be enough to convince you the Jazz is a worthwhile buy, but if they aren’t, you’d be better off with a Ford Fiesta or a Volkswagen Polo or a Skoda Fabia. Or an Uber app.

I can’t believe I’m saying that. I can’t believe Honda has sunk this low. Six years ago it was making cars and television commercials that made you dizzy with desire. And now it’s making cars with engines that turn a lot of fuel into nothing at all.

As I said at the beginning, Honda used to ask in its commercials: “Isn’t it nice when things just work?”

To which the answer is: “Yes. It was.”



www.thetimes.co.uk/article/drop-this-one-in-the-bin-please-robot-dxsjkf7vn

www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson/clarkson-review-2016-honda-jazz/

[RedMoon11]

The Clarkson Review: Honda Civic Type R

It’s dressed to thrill with nowhere to go

Published 11 December 2016
By Jeremy Clarkson


 
In one of the upcoming Grand Tour television programmes I have a bit of a rant, saying that the world’s car makers seem to have shifted into neutral and to be simply biding their time making dreary boxes until they are consumed by Uber.

I single out the Renault Kadjar SUV, which I hate very much, and I say that it will never be a poster on a young boy’s bedroom wall and that no one will ever dream of the day they can buy one. I argue loudly that it is just some car, on which Renault can make a couple of quid from the finance deals.

I fear, however, I may have been a trifle hasty, because I’ve come to realise car makers are swimming against a tide that will eventually consume them, no matter what rabbits they pull from the hat.

There have always been people who say, “I’m not interested in cars”, but today it’s not just the occasional old lady with a twin set, pearls and a Mrs Queen haircut. It’s pretty much everyone, especially if they are under 25.

I sit down at a party and immediately I’m told by everyone at the table that they do not wish to talk about cars. It’s annoying. Because I can’t imagine many of them are very interested in accountancy, but they never say to an accountant when he sits down: “We don’t want to talk about Ebit and CGT.”

I actually know a proctologist, and I’ve never heard anyone say to him: “We don’t want to talk about anuses.” Which has led me to believe that today people are more interested in rectums than they are in the new Ferrari GTC4Lusso.

I can see why. For 20 years they have been brainwashed by the liberal elite — the people who are now getting their arses kicked in every single election — that cars are bad for the environment and if we keep on using them to go to work and the shops, Planet Earth III will have to be about wasps and cockroaches because everything else will be extinct.

The constant drip-feed of eco-mental nonsense affects politicians especially. They respond by worrying about the constituent parts of the upper atmosphere and think they can sort everything out if they reduce speed limits. And then reduce them again and then stick up average-speed cameras to ensure the limits are obeyed.

Then they dig up the roads for years so they can be made narrower, and they put in speed humps and cycle lanes, and another speed camera just for good measure. The effect has been profound.

When I was growing up, I dreamt of the open road, because we had such a thing back then. Cars were something you could barely afford, but, boy, they were worth it because they represented freedom and glamour and excitement. They were something you needed, for sure. But they were something you wanted as well.

Today kids look out of the back window of the Volvo on the school run, and they see the jams and the cycle lanes and the speed cameras and think: “Well, this isn’t very exciting, is it?” So when they reach the age of 17 and they are allowed a licence, they think: “What’s the point?”

As my son said: “Why do I need to drive? I can use a coach to get to London for a couple of quid, even when I’ve had a drink, and it has wi-fi.”

It’s a good point, and that’s before we get to Uber, which has realised that we don’t need a car. But that we do need one at 4.15am on Tuesday.

People have started to realise that for 90% of the time their car just sits on the street doing nothing except costing money. So why not get rid of it and use a man in a Toyota Prius for the 10% of the time when they need to go somewhere?

Now, I know I reviewed a Honda only last week, but I then drove the car pictured here and realised it quite neatly sums up my point. A number of years ago Honda made a car called the Civic Type R that revved as if it were running on nitrous, handled as though its tyres were made from glue and roared and snarled as if it were very angry about something. To this day that car is revered in some quarters as a deity.

But then, one day, Honda pulled the plug and decided to make cars exclusively for pensioners and Americans, which are the same thing.

Now, though, the Type R is back, and as you can see in the picture, it’s no shrinking violet. Nor does it follow the age-old hot-hatchback recipe of taking one ordinary cooking car and adding a bigger engine and bucket seats. It’s way more complicated than that.



It’s so complicated, in fact, that really it isn’t a Civic at all. The rear suspension is different, and at the front it has a system like that of no other car at all. It’s slightly similar to the RevoKnuckle arrangement on a Ford Focus RS, but better, apparently. Cleverer. More able to deal with sudden gobs of torque from the engine.

Which is necessary, because the engine in the old Civic Type R produced almost 200bhp. In the latest one you get a colossal 306bhp. That’s 306 brake horsepower from a 2-litre engine. And you get 150 more torques. Crikey.

But the most striking thing about this car is the way it looks. Honda says that all the wings and the splitters have an aerodynamic point. It says that without them the Type R would not have been able to hold the front-wheel-drive Nürburgring lap record. (Until Volkswagen took it away recently with a stripped-out Golf GTI.)

Ten years ago you could have driven this car down the street, and young boys would have jumped up and down and grabbed at their tinkles. Youths would have swooned. Dads would have become wistful. Not any more. Now, pretty much everyone stands with their hands on their hips and slowly shakes their heads. It’s the look you give a naughty dog.

So you need thick skin to drive a Type R. But is it worth it? Hmmm. Not sure. The engine, though undoubtedly powerful, lacks much in the way of aural excitement and is patchy in the way it delivers the grunt. Honda is a newcomer to turbocharging and it sort of shows. And the chassis is so good, it makes the car feel a little bit dull. A hot hatch should put a smile on your face. It should be like a puppy. This feels a bit serious.

Of course, if you are a serious helmsman, you will admire its ability to grip and go. And you’ll love the lap times it can produce at a track. But if you are a serious helmsman, why would you buy a car with front-wheel drive?

And whoever you are, you will certainly tire very quickly of getting out of the seat when you reach journey’s end. The bucket is so pronounced and the side bolsters so high, it’s nigh-on impossible. I also found the interior a bit clever-clever.

Overall, then, it’s not Honda’s best effort. But that’s OK, because the company has already announced that next year it will replace the car with a new Type R.

I’m glad that Honda is still trying. But I fear it is chasing a market that doesn’t really exist any more.


www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-clarkson-review-its-dressed-to-thrill-with-nowhere-to-go-xt3j79mpv
www.driving.co.uk/car-reviews/clarkson-review-2016-honda-civic-type-r/