Clarkson on Cars (8 page)

Similarly, when a lift at the company headquarters refused to leave the basement, thus forcing some of my colleagues to use the stairs, you could see they were close to tears. Some had to be helped from the building when they heard the lift operator plunge a sword into her belly.

I think we ate her that night for supper. And the liftmaker. And his wife.

Not only are they more polite than any Westerner I’ve ever met, they’re also more weird. Their tables and chairs don’t have legs which, if you ask me, is a bit silly.

Also, one of the things that didn’t feature in my hotel room was a bed. Some of the things it did feature were five pairs of slippers, one for the hallway, one for the bedroom, one for the loo, one for the washroom, and one for the bathroom.

I just wore my brogues all the time.

This though was not allowed at supper time when a geisha girl spent the entire meal cooking each mouthful of lift operator individually and dropping it between my ever-ready lips. She even dabbed my battered, time-worn face with a warm flannel in between chews.

Now, you might imagine that I’ve returned from my visit a fully converted Japophile but I haven’t, because I simply can’t work out what makes them tick. Trying to fathom them out is like trying to contemplate the infinity of space or how Seat sell any cars. It just can’t be done.

I’ve had business dealings with Japan in the past and have emerged from every meeting staggered at their intransigence. They simply will not take no for an answer and will, if needs be, scheme and connive way into the night until their opponent is a pulsating wreck beyond argument.

This feature was evident in various conversations I had with Daihatsu’s engineers. ‘Why don’t you buy SCS brakes from Lucas?’ ‘Because we’re making our own.’ ‘Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy them now?’ ‘We’d rather develop our own.’ ‘Don’t you think it would help create a favourable impression of Daihatsu in Europe if you bought some European equipment?’ ‘We’ve got some Pirelli tyres and anyway we can do better than SCS.’ End of story.

Language was always a stumbling block but the stock answer to everything was always, ‘We’re working on it’ and they probably are.

It’s easy to be working on lots of things when 1500 members of your 11,000 strong workforce are in the R&D department.

I suspect there are two reasons why they are working on everything. One is because of that indigenous Japanese trait called nationalism and the other is because that was the only phrase these guys have licked. Even the translators were about as good at English as I am at French.

I know things like ‘
Et maintenant, comme le chien
’ and ‘
Vous avez des idées an dessus de votre gare
’. But a full-scale technical press conference would, I fear, leave me floundering.

It seems strange that having gone to what were obviously enormous lengths to make sure our stay was totally trouble free, they didn’t find bilingual chappies who know how to say ‘three-speed automatic gearbox’ in Japanese and English.

Maybe they could and weren’t letting on. Maybe I’m a cynical old sod.

Certainly, it seems at first that they’re being more open than any industry chappy you’ve ever encountered; not once, for instance, did anyone say ‘no comment’ or ‘I can’t tell you that’ and they did show us a top secret prototype, but I do get the impression that half the time they don’t understand your question and the other half, they just tell you what they think you want to hear. Maybe again.

While touring their Shiga factory, I was desperate to see what measures were incorporated to make their damned cars so reliable. There were none. The plant was no more automated than European equivalents, quality control no more strident.

There were just a few guys working on machines the size of Coventry that churn out a completed 1.3-litre engine every 28 seconds. There were big digital scoreboards announcing how close to target they were and there was an air of cleanliness. In short, the only thing that stood out as being special were the workers, who behave rather differently from those I’ve encountered in Europe. They didn’t flick V signs at us. Perhaps it’s because they were too busy bowing.

Then there was the rendition of Johnny Mathis’s ‘When A Child Is Born’ which was playing over the loudspeaker system to commemorate our visit.

We were shown every engine being tested to 4500 rpm, and we were shown the camshaft machine which must have breathed a sigh of relief when the engineers announced the new 16-valve engine wouldn’t be a twin-cam and we were shown the tropical fish aquarium. No, I don’t know why either.

We also saw an MR2 being tested and Bertone’s name in a visitors’ book but still they maintained a sports car is not in the offing. ‘We’re working on the idea,’ said one of the translators.

Maybe the reliability just comes because of the workers’ devotion to duty. My personal guide hasn’t taken a holiday in ten years and is currently owed 130 days off. ‘I’m just too busy to go away but I’m working on it,’ he says.

Maybe it is as a result of there being no women on the factory floor. I dunno but I do know there is no obvious reason why the average Daihatsu is a whole lot more reliable than the average Eurobox.

‘We don’t have hooligans,’ suggested one hopeful individual who helps make the cars, but I hardly think that all Rover SDIs broke down because they were vandalised on the production line.

After the factory tour it was back onto the bus for a lesson in why Japanese interiors are so universally awful – have you seen the interior of the new Toyota Landcruiser? It’s disgusting.

But it’s nothing when stacked up against that bus, which in turn was positively tasteful compared with the innards of a Japanese taxi – I’ve been in a Nissan Cedric and let me tell you that if it were fitted with a tachograph, the damned thing would blow up.

They actually
like
crushed velour seats, antimacassars with scenes of Japan on them, swinging things on the rear-view mirror and gaudy striping to go with the fake stitching. And chrome. Oh boy, they can’t get enough of it.

To complicate matters, they simply couldn’t understand why we all clutched our mouths and went green when presented with this sort of addenda.

A problem here is that while they realise the British and the Japanese have different tastes, they seem to think we are like the Americans. I haven’t heard such a loud chorus of ‘Oh no we’re not’ since I was at a pantomime back in 1968.

Funnily enough, Daihatsu are one of the better interior stylists. God knows how they do it.

It’s hard, as I said earlier, to form cast-iron opinions after two days of fact finding, but certainly, the Japanese cannot be underestimated.

We already know that a great many Japanese cars are equal, if not superior, to their European equivalents but this is not the issue here for a couple of reasons. Firstly, such discussions are getting boring now and secondly, Britain, at least, is protected by import quotas.

It’s the latter point which is what I’m most concerned about and not just because every Japanese company, including relative minnows like Daihatsu, have either established some kind of assembly base in Europe or are about to do so.

No, come 1992 when internal borders between member states of the EEC are broken down, the gentlemen’s agreement that currently limits Japanese imports to 11 per cent of the UK market will be worth less than a Lira.

Daihatsu admit they expect to sell more cars in Britain after 1992.

One day, someone is going to have to get round a table with the Japanese manufacturers to see what can be done; and I don’t envy whoever gets this job.

He’ll feel honoured with all the bowing, he’ll be overawed at the politeness, particularly if he’s French, he might even feel sorry for them. Certainly, long periods of sitting on the floor will make him uncomfortable and, thus, he might concede more than he might otherwise.

One thing, though: he must never be rude. I learned this by telling the driver of a Toyota Crown Royale that his car was very nasty. Luckily, we moved off before his verbal abuse turned into a full-scale kung fu demonstration.

We must face facts. In ten years’ time, I shall be driving a Daihatsu Charade.

If it’s the GTti, I won’t mind an iota.

If the Queen were to have a sex change, one of your eyebrows might shift inadvertently upwards an inch or two. If Mike Tyson were to be exposed as a closet ballet dancer, the other would surely join it.

If I announced I had bought myself a bicycle you would faint and probably die.

The bicycle was not invented for people with beer bellies like barrage balloons and lungs like Swiss cheese. People like me in other words.

Nevertheless, two weeks ago, in a moment of unparalleled rashness, I decided to invest in a three-speed Raleigh Wayfarer.

This is why.

Platform boots may come and lamps with oily bubbles in them may go, but the White Horse is here to stay.

This drinking establishment situated in the heart of Sloanedom, on Parsons Green in south-west London, regularly takes in excess of £4000 a day. And much of this income is my personal responsibility.

Since it became fashionable to drink there some six or seven years ago, a host of competitors have opened up, ranging from champagne bars to riverside inns to spit and sawdust pubs resonating with some of that renowned London character.

But they’ve failed and you still can’t get a drink in the White Horse without queuing up for hours. Days even.

Since I moved to Fulham back in 1984 I have lived within an easy stroll of this cultural oasis, this spiritual haven. And it has therefore been no hardship to drive home from work, abandon the wheels, and sally forth on foot for an evening spent expanding the girth. I do it a lot.

The trouble is, though, that I recently moved to a new flat which is simply too far away. I once tried walking but ended up in an oxygen tent. I’ve tried driving, but tomato juice gets to be as dull as wallpaper paste after 23 pints of the stuff – no matter how much Tabasco they put in it. I’ve even tried finding a new pub but there isn’t one.

So I bought the Wayfarer.

There is a veritable and unplumbed ocean of reasons why no one should ever use one of these antiquated deathtraps for getting around, but the fact remains that, when you’re blind drunk, they make a deal of sense. For a kick off, you can’t lose your driving licence; but, more importantly, you can’t do much damage when you accidentally run into something.

In fact, for drunkards, the bicycle is bettered by only two other forms of transport: the pram and the sedan chair.

Sure, I considered both these, but was forced to discount the pram idea when I couldn’t find one seven feet long, and the sedan chair when my staff inexplicably declined to carry me around in it.

So I went into a second-hand shop with £30 and emerged a few minutes later with the Wayfarer in tow.

Now before you dismiss me as a damned traitor to the cause of performance motoring, I must stress that I will continue to drive as I always have done: in other words, with no regard whatsoever for those who use the roads without paying tax.

I am fully aware every time I mount the mighty Raleigh that I am a guest in the motor vehicle’s territory and must learn to get out of its way.

So do not expect a barrage of whinges and moans about how the Mamito Honi lot in their rusty Jap boxes couldn’t judge the width of their cars if you gave them a theodolite, a computer, a tape measure and six weeks.

Nor should you think that this is to be a stream of abuse directed in the general direction of lightly warmed hatchback scramblers, who seem to think that they’re going backwards unless movement is accompanied by large quantities of wailing rubber.

And I am not about to criticise the Archies and the Sids in their Maggie-wagon taxis who are too busy haranguing their fares about how ‘there are too many A-rabs in the country’ and how ‘Mrs Thatcher – Gawd bless ’er – has set the country on its feet again’ to notice cyclists – even when they’re 200 feet tall and 60 feet wide like me.

I was going to lambast London Regional Transport for their inability to make a bus work without it leaving the sort of smoke screen the navy use in the heat of battle, but what the hell, they’ve got a job to do. And, like I said, the road is for motor vehicles, not for cyclists on an Alpen trip.

I’m not all that bothered, either, about the drivers of artics who need an area the size of Wales to turn left. No, the breed I hate most while astride the Wayfarer are the breed I hate most when I’m driving my car. People in vans.

There are always three of them in the front, and while I am an active campaigner for the abolition of all speed limits, I really do have to concede that they travel far too quickly.

It seems sensible to make them forfeit one limb for every wing mirror they smash. The fifth offence should lead them straight to the guillotine. I mean, if they can’t steer their van through a gap without removing the mirrors from whatever it is they’re going between then they should either slow down or get spectacles.

Do they not realise that little old me on the Wayfarer is a good deal less stable than a nuclear power station with Ray Charles at the controls? Can they not see that my centre of gravity is higher up than the tip of the CB aerial on their Transit and that, as a result, a sudden breeze or a momentary lapse in concentration could have me veering wildly from side to side like an SDP MP or, as has happened on six occasions to date, falling off?

What I’ve learned to do when I hear the unmistakable sounds that herald the imminent arrival of a Garymobile – megabel stereo, graunching gears and 94-zillion-rpm engine – is to dismount and walk along the pavement for a while.

Trouble is, if I encounter six vans in my mile-long journey, then I may as well not bother taking the Wayfarer out in the first place because I’ll spend most of the time pushing it.

Anyway, all this is of no moment now because, last week, I came out from the pub and found two padlocks securing my steed to the railings. Since I’d put just the one on, it means that someone out there has a finely honed sense of humour.