Holiday Photos

I've been on my holidays!

 

Did anyone notice that I hadn't posted anything for over two weeks?

 

Why not?

 

Anyway, I went to Gran Canaria.

 

Whilst there I read two books and the September issue of Top Gear Magazine.

 

The two books were "Me Of Little Faith" by Lewis Black which had nothing to do with cars whatsoever and "Back Story" by David Mitchell (the comedy actor/writer not the author).  This had almost nothing to do with cars apart from the revelation that when he tried to learn to drive at the age of 17, his instructor stopped the car and told the young Mitchell how he had seen an alien spacecraft land.

 

David Mitchell never went on to get a licence.

 

I've been meaning to mention Top Gear Magazine for a while now - they "refreshed" it again a couple of months ago.

 

This is a term used by marketing people and Tesco Store managers for moving stuff around.

 

In Tescos this means you can't find anything so I stop going there. The Top Gear Magazine refresh wasn't too bad and they've introduced a couple of new features like "Ask Uncle TopGear" and "James May's Almanac" that are quite amusing.

 

Now for the photos I took while I was there:

A fine example of an elderly Fiat 500 - the original one.  You can really see just how small it is when parked in a car park amongst ordinary vehicles. 

Talking of small, here is a Renault Twizy.  I saw one here in Britain once but it was covered in the car-dealer's logos and travelling in the opposite direction to me so it was a fleeting glimpse.  I actually got to take a peek inside this one.  When I posted on this car a while back I implied that I didn't like it.  Now, having seen one close up, I still think it's horrible. 

Talking of horrible, that is a word I would never use to describe this Volkswagen Kharmann Ghia. 

I might use it to describe the Dacia Logan (or budget brand Renault - I think it's based on an earlier shape Clio but don't hold me to that).  This car is probably quite common-place if you are in Southern or Eastern Europe but they don't sell them here so I took a photo of it. 

Talking of "they don't sell them here so I took a photo of it" - here's a Mark 2 (I think) Ford Mustang.

 

 

...and the weather was nice and I got a bit of a tan.

Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

You're not in Britain, that's for sure.  Back in December, Top Gear had the story that Subaru were, due to dwindling sales, ceasing the sale of the WRX boy-racer special in the UK.  To mark this passing, the February edition of Top Gear Magazine had an interesting potted history of the model including its many forms dating back into the last century when it was better known as The Impreza.

Your average boy-racer who wanted a rally-inspired 4WD saloon always had two choices, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo or the Subaru Impreza.  They were always very evenly matched so it became more a brand loyalty issue or just a case of going by the looks.

Not being a boy-racer, I never really considered either car but I did think that some of the Imprezas (like the one Richard Hammond took to find the source of The Nile) were very visually challenging.

Today, Autoguide have the unveiling of a new WRX Concept at the New York Motor Show - a foretaste of a car we won't be seeing on British roads until the importers catch on.

Autoguide claim it looks quite Jaguar-ish but I can see quite a bit of this car in it...

Quite an evolution.

I Don't Want a Porsche

If you were offering to give me one, I wouldn't say no. And I don't dislike Porsches - in fact I quite like some of them. In fact I quite like a lot of them.

But I've never really wanted one.

I've always been a bit scared of the 911 with its engine-sticking-out-the-back-which-really-screws-with-the-handling design which was fine for the Beetle but dodgy for anything that can achieve motorway speeds. Now I know that Porsche have added loads of stability trickery and suspension cleverness over the last 150 years that the 911 has been evolving and it is allegedly a lot tamer and safer to drive nowadays but why not just move the engine?

I have never liked the Boxster - it looks like two fronts of the same car welded back-to-back. Especially the early ones - especially with the hood up.

Yuk!

The Cayenne is just an SUV with a 911 front and the Panamera looks like a 911 stretched-limo.

So, if I was forced to pick - I'd go for the Cayman - the halfway-house between the Boxster and the 911. It looks good - it looks fun - and the engine is in a sensible mid position.

Top Gear Magazine and most of the motoring websites have been making a fuss of the new 2014 (what happened to 2013!?) Cayman as presented at the LA Auto Show lately. Here's the story from my favourite site. It includes a video presented by a Loyd Grossman soundalike.

OK, so maybe, just maybe, I nearly want a Porsche.

A Real Sports Wagon?

This looks a lot more exciting than the Kia Cee'd Sportswagon I was reading about in my latest Top Gear Magazine this morning. Kia's car is the latest in a series of estate cars from various manufacturers made to appear more exciting by being given slight variations on the spelling of "Sportswagon" as a sobriquet.

The photo comes from today's Autoguide story about a Volvo Racing Estate Show-car.

I'm seriously hoping that this is a pre-cursor to a Volvo entry in next year's British Touring Cars Championship - following in the footsteps of MG as a Chinese-owned European car-maker wanting a bit of sporting publicity. We need more manufacturer teams in the BTCC and the paint-job chosen for this car pays homage to the Volvo 850 estates that competed in the BTCC during the BTCC hey-day of the '90s.

The show-car has a 2-litre engine so sticking a turbo on there would fit in perfectly with the NGTC Regulations currently used in the BTCC.
So come on Volvo, let's see those wagons roll!

X Marks The Ugly Spot

I was following a BMW X6 the other day.

I still think they look stupid.

And when I say "following" - I was behind it in traffic - I don't associate myself with anyone daft enough to own one.

Maybe it's something about cars that have names beginning with "X".

Autoguide today have this story about the Volkswagen XL1 testing in Spain. They use this still from a spy-video:

It is a diesel hybrid with a 2-cylinder engine so it sounds absolutely awful in their video but it looks beautiful in the picture.

So what about my argument about X cars being ugly?

Well, I give you how the car is meant to look:

That is pig-ugly and the only real difference is the covering of the rear wheels - a bit like the McLaren X-1 which features on the cover of this month's Top Gear Magazine.

Note the X name. It was built by McLaren as a one-off for a very rich, and presumably blind, customer.

Which brings us back, rather neatly, to BMW and their X1:

Quite ugly, although the earlier incarnation looks OK in this Top Gear story from 2009...

...although that may have something to do with the bikini.

Now, regular readers of my Blog will know that I, myself, drive an X car - a Jaguar X-Type.

This is clearly the exception that proves the rule.

If I was on television right now, I would turn to a side-camera, shrug, and say, "No, I don't understand that saying either."

As a child of the '70s, I like my cars to be big and square and I love the looks of my car even if some people think the X-Type boring. Mind you, designer Paul Smith (turn to side-camera and shrug in an "I've never heard of him, either" sort of way) was obviously inspired (or commissioned) to come up with this:

Enough said, I think.

Car Review - Vauxhall Corsa SXi

This shiny vehicle that I have lived with for the past few days is a Vauxhall Corsa SXi in sovereign silver.

Sovereign Silver!? – well that’s wrong for a start, sovereigns aren’t silver are they? - they’re gold.

Anyway, when I saw “SXi” on the key fob, I was looking forward to a reasonably sporty experience. Maybe not a VXR or even an SRi but an “X” must mean something good mustn’t it?

Then I also spotted “1.2” on there. The figures in the back of Top Gear Magazine suggest 85bhp and also 85 torques with a top speed of 107mph and a 0-60 time of 12.7 seconds. Oh well – I’ve got a shopping car.

So I took it shopping.I’m not too sure about the side profile and what’s with those little windows in front of the door-mirrors? Who is ever going to look out of them?This is my favourite view, though - it shows the new corporate Vauxhall face and I think it has an attractively aggressive stance.

The boot, although it looks small, (but then again – I usually drive a Jag estate) coped adequately with a week’s worth of Tesco products. But to illustrate it better, and in the true spirit of car reviews, I have photographed it with just one item in it – an item that everyone immediately knows the size of – a box of 6 Askey’s Brandy Snap Baskets:The interior is very grey with shiny piano-black trim and red stitching which I guess is what makes it sporty enough to be called an SXi.No fancy infotainment unit but what there is plays Radio 2 just fine so no complaints in that department.

The steering wheel is fully adjustable but the position that is most comfortable for me means that I can’t see the top of the dials so I have to guess how fast I’m going and how much fuel I have unless I duck my head down to see under the rim. This gets quite irritating at speed cameras although may mean that if I get caught by a speed trap, they mightn’t be able to prove from the photo that it was me driving.Unlike all other car reviewers, I am not 6 foot 2. Consequently I have no size issues with the back of this car and I can also categorically state that there is plenty of room for a nine-year-old boy to be driven to school back there without complaining – well, complaining about the car anyway.

So what’s it like to drive?

It’s got the usual irritating Vauxhall quirks that I had forgotten about since I once drove a Vectra about 5 years ago. Apparently, if you want to learn how to fly a helicopter, you move the joystick and see what the helicopter does – so if you want it to do that again, move the joystick in the same way again. The same method works with training sheepdogs. It doesn’t work, however, with figuring out the indicator and wiper controls on Vauxhalls. Even reading the manual doesn’t help.

So, assuming you’ve got a road with no turns on a rain-free day, I’ll ask the question again, what’s it like to drive?

I know that the sweep of the bonnet is important for aero-dynamics and not killing pedestrians but it means that you can’t actually see from the driver’s seat where the car begins – that’s just daft in a small car.

It copes well with my motorway and A-Road commute, albeit a bit engine-noisy on the motorway when cruising at 70 to 75 at a bit over 3000revs. Maybe a sixth gear would fix that but it would also give the car an extra excuse to nag you to change up with a green “SHIFT UP” symbol that appears in the rev-counter when it decides that you need to. If it was moved to near the top of the rev-counter, then I wouldn’t be able to see it – so a suggestion for Vauxhall there.

A smaller engine than I’m used to means that you have to downshift (or “drop it down a cog” to use car-reviewer speak) to get past lorries and old people that I’m more accustomed to sailing past. To make up for this, I’m getting better fuel economy. Top Gear suggest 53.3mpg is achievable but my town and country mix of driving is currently giving about 40 – a figure I could only dream about in my own car.

The fact that this car only has 300 miles on the clock means that the engine still needs a bit of time to loosen up or bed in or whatever it is that new engines have to do - so I can’t be too critical.

So, what is my final verdict?

A competent small car. Comfortable and copes well, if noisily, at motorway speeds. Not enough room in the boot for a set of golf clubs – but then again, I don’t play golf. Talking of golf, does this car score a birdie or a bogey?

Well, overall, I think I’d have to say that it’s par for the Corsa.

Film Review

This weekend, as Barry Norman would say, I have been mostly watching DVDs. We had three Blockbuster vouchers to use up before the end of March so got out three films accordingly - two of them were meant to be motoring related.

The first film, Senna, was definitely motoring-related.

Some of my favourite films have been documentaries, usually involving Morgan Spurlock or Michael Moore and this was no exception. It certainly brought back a few memories including Martin Donnelly, a driver whom I had completely forgotten the existance of. Then there was the time when Senna crashed out in the lead at Monaco in 1988 - I had also forgotten about that but had been reminded of it coincidentally just a few days ago when Jeremy Clarkson used it in his Top Gear Magazine column as an example of why speed limits should be seriously increased on Britain's roads.

Despite being a documentary, it had everything a more usual film had - a compelling story from Senna's start in F1 driving for Toleman, through to his tragic death - it also had the heroes (well, hero) and villains - to a certain extent Alain Prost but more-so Jean Marie Balestre - the forerunner to Bernie Ecclestone. Not to mention the drama of the Japanese Grand Prixs (what's the correct plural of that?) and the aftermaths of the famous incidents where Prost then Senna won World Drivers Championships after causing "accidents" that took them both out of the race.

A very dramatic, educational and emotional film - I have to admit to more than a damp eye when Roland Ratzenburger and Ayrton Senna were killed at the end - even though I knew that this was going to happen - documentaries are worse than other films - because they are based on fact. Difficult but worth the watch.

As film number 2, we were meant to be having that excellent, motoring-related film, Cars 2, but my children changed their minds and got a Scooby Doo one out instead - so I didn't watch it. Although Sarah Michelle-Geller was probably in it so maybe I should have.

The third film was Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law and an actress who reminded me of a young Joan Collins.

There weren't any cars in it.

A Kind-Hearted Traffic Warden

That can't be right!

But it is. He took pity on a Falcon.No, not a Ford Falcon - the bird of prey type of falcon. He rescued it on New Year's Day in Birkenhead when it was knackered after being blown about in the gales. The story is covered here on the Liverpool Echo site with a nice comment added by a reader at the end. Being Birkenhead, it could be the same git who booked my wife a few years back when she was three minutes late getting back to her car with a load of shopping and two bickering children. I appealed against a £60 fine for three minutes but the Council weren't interested - and they wonder why traffic wardens need stories like this to try and boost their image. Here is the bird-loving one, his name is Lee Gallagher and he is releasing the bird back into the grey skies at Hamilton Square:
The BBC also had that story, but since I posted last month about how I am finished with the BBC - I can't really link to them now, can I?

Then, on Monday, I finally picked up the new copy of Top Gear Magazine which was delivered last week but I haven't had chance to look at, what with Christmas and everything, and I saw that the new series of Top Gear TV starts on January 29th. Yippee! Well, maybe not "yippee", maybe more "I'll quite look forward to that"

The Christmas special didn't grab me the way Top Gear usually does and I'm finding I'm enjoying Fifth Gear a lot more than TG nowadays - is my disillusionment with Auntie Beeb affecting my motoring televisual enjoyment - or am I just getting bored with TG? I don't know - I'll let you know after the new series.

Then, yesterday, I got my annual letter from Richard & James extolling to me the virtues of subscribing to my next year with Top Gear Magazine - they really ought to change that letter - it's getting very stale. Anyway, could this be a good chance to show my displeasure with The Beeb?

Damn it, I still really enjoy the magazine and I pay for it with Tesco Clubcard Reward tokens so they'll not be making much out of that so a new subscription it is.

I've given up on their blogs though now - I've found like-minded people (and so far no trolls) on Facebook which leads me, rather neatly, to the fact I've joined Facebook!

I've set up a Metro's Car Blog page but I'll just monitor how that goes along and see whether or not it's worth keeping it going. I've put my two favoutite pictures of Vicki Butler-Henderson on there for starters.

And, while we're on the subject of social networking, I think I finally understand why anyone who isn't Stephen Fry might want to Tweet on Twitter. "Friends" are actually interested and comment when you add stuff to your Facebook wall so it's the same logic. I've not played with Twitter yet - maybe a job for next New-Years but someone who does is NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne.

I'll leave you with this story from last week from Autoguide.com

Au Revoir Arnoux Clochend

This month's Top Gear Magazine arrived yesterday and I was sorry to see the news that Arnoux Clochend is now undergoing a course of residential therapy after being removed from his post of European Junior Deputy Under manager of Design at the Hang-Su Motor System.

According to my Blog Stats, I get quite a few hits from Google through him. This is because when you type in "Arnoux Clochend", it is my earlier piece, "All-New" Top Gear Magazine that leads the search results. Today's post may be nothing more than a shameless attempt to get some more hits.

I guess it had to come to an end soon, because his writings have been about preparing a concept for the Frankfurt Motor Show which starts on Tuesday.

One concept that may be there, although I am still sceptical, is the Eterniti Hemera as reported by Autocar today. It looks like a real car but could be a photoshop job but is obviously a modified Porsche Cayenne - certainly not like the Peugeot in their original drawings. Plus, the name sounds too much like Haemorrhoid.

Anyway, I'm going to miss old Arnoux and his seriously undervisited Facebook Page.

Oh yes, and I DO KNOW HE WAS NEVER REAL!

Hyundai Veloster

What do you call a donkey with three legs?A Wonkey!

What do you call a car with three side-doors?

A Mini Clubman.

Or, now, a Hyundai Veloster.

There is a first drive report in the latest Top Gear Magazine which again sports a Seat ad on the back cover - normal service has been resumed.

So how does that work then?

Well, if you take a look at the driver's side...... you will see a quite attractive coupe. Hyundai have a history of providing cheap, attractive coupes amongst its range of cheap, unnattractive runabouts.

But look at the other side of the same car......and you see what looks like a compact five-door hatch. Even with the hidden Alfa 156-style door handles, it is obviously equipped with normal-sized, normally-hinged front and rear doors.

The car goes on sale here in the UK in November and should cost between £17000 and £20000 and, unlike the Mini Clubman, will not expect us to deposit our children into the path of traffic as the door configuration will be reversed for right-hand-drive markets.

It shouldn't really matter that either side will look different because, unless you park next to a big mirror, you will never see both sides at the same time - (this was also useful if you lost two wheel trims - you only ever had to buy two new ones even if they didn't match the existing ones because as long as they were on the same side of the car, nobody would be any the wiser)

This car will appeal to yummy mummies on a budget who like the idea of a coupe but want the practicality of a car they can get the children in and out of easily - it is a very good idea that could also have worked on the Range-Rover Evoque of which it has already been commented upon that the three-door is difficult to get in and out of the back of.

Now they just need to sort out the name - Veloster - are they trying to imply velocity? It will be starting with a 1.6 petrol engine which, although fast enough for any town-coupe, isn't a sporting tool. And "velo" to me implies bicycle. Will they call it that in France?

How about they call it The Hyundai Trois-Pattes-âne?

Sat Naff

Yet another story from my new Aussie source www.caradvice.com.au.

Only trouble is - I don't think it's true.

I don't like being let down by my news sources. This comes in the wake of the shock of this month's Top Gear magazine NOT having an advert for Seat on the back page. This must be the first time in many, many years that this has happened. Certainly the All Old Top Gear Magazine from 2004 had a Seat ad on the back. An even older copy I have from 1999 has a Mazda ad on the back but we're talking a minimum of 7-years worth of Seat ads here.

And what have they put there instead? - a flamin' perfume or after-shave ad! I don't take any notice of them - the TV versions are particularly grating. Usually black-and-white and full of very pretentious people you really wouldn't want to meet. Anyone fooled by these ads must be very shallow and very gullible.

Anyway, as Ronnie Corbett would say - I digress.

The story that led me to start wittering on here is about three women who let one of these thingslead them into a lake where they nearly drowned.

It seems far-fetched that even a woman driver (only joking!) would drive into a lake. Even at night, the headlights would show up a large mass of water where a road should be.

The other suspicious thing is that this is supposed to have happened in Washington, Tyne-and-Wear. And yet there is absolutely zero mention of it on the BBC North-East Website, nor on the sites of the Sunderland Echo or Newcastle Chronicle - nor anywhere else on the Global Interweb so how on Earth did a reporter in Oz get hold of the story?

I suppose it does reinforce the need not to blindly rely on Sat-Navs though. It's not as though we haven't been warned...

Not that everyone follows such warnings...
Anyway, what's wrong with good old-fashioned maps and following signs?

All Old Top Gear Magazine

My wife found this Top Gear mag from October 2004 yesterday. The front cover had a picture of Jeremy at the wheel of an MGSV-R flanked by a Noble M400 and a TVR 350T. Sadly only Noble survive today in the same glory as of then.

Lord knows where it has been hiding all these years but it is a good opportunity to compare it with the "All New Top Gear Magazine"...

The News was then "Metal"
Planet Top Gear was spilt into "Metal" and "Faces"
First Drives was then simply "Drives"
Gear and Gadgets was then "Top Gear"
and "Top Gear Garage" didn't exist but they did have "Top Gear 2" which had a page of news, a buyers guide for a chosen used car and a car dealer's perspective described as "The ultimate guide to this month's deals and steals"

One thing I liked about TG Mag in those days was that they would take a particular genre of car each month and do a thorough three-way test on them. This particular issue was looking at £15K Sports Cabrios with the Mini Cooper Convertible beating the Smart Roadster-Coupe into second place and the ugly-but-not-as-ugly-as-the-original Vauxhall Tiga Sport languishing in third (ie last) place.

The other big news in October 2004 was the "All-New" Ford Focus. The general concensus was that Ford had done a good job and produced an excellently handling car but hadn't been bold as they had when the original Focus appeared.

Where have I heard that before?

Oh yes - Here!

"All-New" Top Gear Magazine

My "All-new" Top Gear magazine plopped through my letterbox yesterday afternoon - whatever happened to morning mail deliveries? And why do I keep putting "All-new" in quotes like that? I can't answer the first question but as to the second, well, that is how Top Gear are describing it. A letter from editor-in-chief Charlie Turner (anyone know why the full-time editor resigned suddenly for no apparent reason this year?) came with it and there's a short bit from Saint Jeremy on page 11 extolling the bravery of the magazine team as opposed to the TV Team for changing winning formulas (winning formulae?).

Apart from a slightly smaller logo and us who get it delivered getting our own cover with SUBSCRIBERS' EDITION written on it (nice to see the correct use of the apostrophe there) they have mostly just renamed the sections inside:

Metal is now "The News"
Front End is now "Planet Top Gear"
Drives is now "First Drives"
Top gear is now "Gear and Gadgets"
and Lifers is now "Top Gear Garage"

The new car guide has been revamped a bit and now, under each manufacturer, they list "if the brand were music" so Audi is Kraftwerk, Saab is Abba and Volvo is Coldplay. I thought I'd like to come up with better ones but I don't think I actually could.

They have also resurrected the fake column with "Arnoux Clochend - the diary of a struggling genius car designer". So far - mildly amusing but not in the league of The Bugatti Veyron Diary and The Simon Moistbourne Column - come to think of it, there is an amazing resemblance between Simon and Arnoux - or maybe it's another case of an attack of the clones. He also looks quite a bit like Stephen Merchant.

So, is it a change for the worse?
No.
Is it a change for the better?
Dunno.
Is it change for change's sake?
Maybe.
Can you spare some change?
Go away.