What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . (27 page)

I suppose we all harbour a secret longing to buy a little sports car – a Triumph TR6, perhaps, that we can use for lunchtime trips to the pub on sunny Sundays. You can picture the scene, can’t you, as you sit outside the Dog and Feather: a pint of Old Crusty Moorhen, a hunk of Cheddar and a car park full of people cooing over your wheels. Lovely.

Well, it’d never happen. First of all, there were no sunny Sundays, either this year or last. Which means your little TR6 would now be sitting in the garage with four flat tyres and an equally flat battery. You’re going to get round to fixing it as soon as you have a spare moment. But you won’t.

And even if you do, and even if next summer is lovely, your problems are far from over because you can be assured that, moments before you set off, your wife will invite a friend along. So, with a need for three seats, you’ll end up taking the Vauxhall Astra instead.

Or she won’t invite a friend along and you can take the little Triumph. But then you will have one too many Crusty Moorhens and you won’t be able to drive it home. Which means you will have to pop round to the pub after work on Monday to pick it up, and it won’t start and the tyres will be flat again. And so it’ll sit there till next autumn.

There’s another problem, too. On the once-in-a-blue-moon occasion when you do drive your Triumph, it will be horrible and you will hate every minute of it. You will hate the heavy steering, the useless brakes and being overtaken by vans, because what passed for power in the 1970s doesn’t cut the mustard
today. Driving an old car is like watching an old black-and-white television. And you wouldn’t do that for fun, would you?

The truth is that none of us really drives for fun any more. The roads are too full; the cost is too painful. So keeping a car in the garage for high days and holidays is like keeping a fun pair of scissors. It’s stupid and pointless.

Which brings me on to Ferraris. Over the years, I’ve occasionally entertained the notion that you can use a mid-engined supercar as an everyday commuter tool. But, of course, you can’t. You’re always worried that it’ll be scratched, and it won’t go over speed bumps, and it’s always noisy, especially when you’ve had a hard day at work, and there’s precious little luggage space, and in large parts of the country it makes you look as if you have a first-class honours degree in onanism, and it chews fuel, and you can never use the power, and pretty soon you are twisted into a jealous rage every time you see someone in a diesel-powered BMW 5-series.

A Ferrari is for high days and holidays. It is a special-occasion car. Which means you need another car as well. And if you have something else, that will always be more comfortable and more practical, which means your beloved Ferrari will sit in the garage for month after month, chewing its way through your finances and then not starting on the one day you decide it would be suitable. That’s why the second-hand columns are always rammed full of ten-year-old Ferraris that have only ever done 650 miles. Every one of them is a shattered dream.

You sense that Ferrari is trying to address this. Its cars now come with 200-year warranties and e-zee financing for the servicing costs. Plus, except in the case of the 458, the company has stopped putting the engine in the middle. It has given up on the high-day-and-holiday supercar and is making GT cars you can actually use to take the dog to the vet when it has diarrhoea.

Or can you? Well, I’ve just spent a few days with what is the cheapest of all the Ferraris. It’s the California and it’s yours for
£152,116. Unless, of course, you decide to spend a little more on a few extras, in which case it’s £258,972.

I particularly liked the ‘handy’ fire extinguisher that was fitted in my car. It came in a little suede fire extinguisher cosy and cost £494. I like the way Ferrari makes it so precise. If it charged £500, you’d think it was taking the mick, but because it’s £494, it looks as if it has been carefully worked out. And it’s the same story with the Ferrari badges on the front wings. They are not £1,000. They are £1,013. Of course they are.

Then there’s the new handling pack. At £4,320, this gives you faster steering and a more aggressive feel. In theory. Mainly it’s been made available to convince those who bought a California a year ago that they really should do a part-exchange deal (I wouldn’t bother).

Anyway, while the price list may be daft, the car is not. There’s a V8 engine at the front and a boot at the back into which the metal roof folds away. In terms of layout, it’s the same as a Mercedes SL. Except that in the Ferrari the rear parcel shelf can be disguised to look like a seat. It isn’t. Unless you are an amoeba.

It also goes like a Mercedes SL. Recent power upgrades mean you now get 483 brake horsepower. Which is a lot. But it’s not stupid.

Inside, it’s straightforward too. This is one model in the Ferrari line-up that has conventional controls for the wipers and lights. The steering wheel is used to house only the simple three-way mode selector, the starter button and, in my test car, a series of red lights warning you that it might be time for a gear change (an amusingly priced £4,321 option).

It has a satnav you can understand and a Bluetooth system that can play your music. There’s no lunacy at all in the way this car works, and once you’re out of town, the flappy-paddle gearbox is an utter delight.

Don’t be fooled, though, because, despite everything, this is still not an everyday car. And not just because the exhaust is like a dog that has to have the last word. It never, ever, shuts up.

No. The main reason you wouldn’t want to use a California every day is that it feels so incredibly special. It doesn’t feel like any other car. It communicates with you in a different way. It feels … like a Ferrari, which means it feels lighter, more darty and more aggressive than even the lightest, dartiest and most aggressive of its rivals.

It’s a mistress, not a wife. You know that it could cook and sew but you wouldn’t want it to do those things. It would be all wrong. If this car knew what underwear was, it wouldn’t wear any.

I loved it massively. I’d love to have one. But if I were going to buy a car I’d never use, I’d rather go the whole hog and have a mid-engined, high-day 458 Spider. Granted, it’s more expensive than a California, but there’s a reason for that: it’s better to drive, and as you walk past it every morning to get into your Range Rover, you’ll note it’s quite a lot better-looking as well.

7 October 2012

Some people can go into any clothes shop and buy any item from any shelf, knowing that when they put it on, they will look good. I am not one of those people. I’ve never even been able to find a pair of socks that don’t look ridiculous once I’ve put my feet into them.

It’s the same story with hats. Partly because my head is the same size as a Hallowe’en pumpkin, and partly because my hair looks as though it could be used to descale a ship’s boiler, it doesn’t matter what titfer I select, it ends up looking like an atom on an ocean of seaweed.

Trousers, though, are the worst. Because my stomach is similar in size, colour and texture to the moon, it’s difficult to know whether strides should be worn above or below the waist. Both ways look stupid.

I’m told the problem can be masked with a well-tailored jacket, but this simply isn’t true. Attempting to mask my physical shortcomings with carefully cut cloth is like attempting to mask the shortcomings of a boring play by serving really nice ice cream in the interval.

This is why I have cultivated my own look over the years. It’s the look of a man who has simply got dressed in whatever happened to be lying by the end of the bed that morning. I pull it off very well. Mainly because that’s what I actually do.

I’m not alone, of course. Many people obviously struggle to find clothes that work, but, unlike me, they continue to make an effort. Pointlessly. That’s why you see fat girls in miniskirts, and men in Pringle jumpers, and Jon Snow’s socks.

We see the same problem with cars: people drive around in stuff that is really and truly wrong. Yesterday, for example, I saw a very small woman getting into an Audi RS5. And when I say small, I mean microscopic. It’s entirely possible that while her mum may have been diminutive, her dad was an amoeba. And she was getting into a super-fast Audi. A car that only really works if you look like the chisel-jawed centrepiece of a watch advert.

Let’s take Nicholas Soames as a case in point. He is a somewhat large – and larger-than-life – Conservative MP with very little time for … anyone, really. Can you see him in a Nissan Micra? Or even a Volkswagen Golf? No. It would be all wrong.

Can you see Stella McCartney in a Kia Rio or Mick Jagger in a van? James May drives around in a Ferrari, and I’m sorry, but that’s as hysterical as the notion of Prince Philip turning up to open a community centre in a Mazda MX-5. With Jay-Z on the stereo.

It’s strange, isn’t it? We all pretend that we pay attention to the cost of running a car and how much fuel it will consume. We tell friends that we made our choice on our particular needs and the needs of our family. But the truth is that we buy a car as we buy clothing. With scant regard for how it was made, or by whom, because we’re too busy looking in a mirror thinking, Would this suit me?

I, for example, like small sports cars. But I know that driving around in such a thing would be like driving around in a PVC catsuit. It would be absurd. I also like the BMW M3. As a car, it ticks every box that I can think of. But I could not have one because Beemers have not quite managed to shake off an image that is at odds with the one I’d like to portray.

Ever wondered why you see so few big Jaguar XJs on the road? Is there something wrong with them? Not that I know of. Except that, among the people old enough to be interested in such a car, the memory of Arthur Daley is still vivid. They don’t want a Jag for the same reason they don’t want a sheepskin coat.

And all of this brings me nicely to the door of the Chrysler 300C that is parked outside my house. And my neighbour’s house, too. And the one after that. Other places that it is parked include Hammersmith, Swindon, Bristol and the eastern bits of Cardiff. It is very big. More than 16½ feet long and almost 6 feet 3 inches wide, in fact.

Naturally, it is also extremely large on the inside, which would make it ideal for anyone with many children. A Catholic, for example. Or with children who are very fat. An American, perhaps.

And yet, despite its size, prices currently start at less than £30,000. About half what you’d be asked to pay for a similarly large and well-equipped Mercedes S-class.

A bargain, then? Well, yes, but every single thing you touch in a Mercedes feels as if it has been hewn from rock and assembled in such a way that it will last for a thousand years. Whereas everything you touch in the Chrysler feels like a bin bag full of discarded packaging.

It feels American. But actually it’s made in Canada, and on the Continent, thanks to a flip-chart-and-PowerPoint meeting somewhere, it’s sold as a Lancia Thema.

Under the bonnet you have a choice of engines. One is a 3-litre V6 diesel and the other is a 3-litre V6 diesel. They produce the same power, though it’s not what you’d call quite enough. And you can’t expect eye-widening fuel economy either – not from a car that weighs more than Wales.

The old 300C handled terribly. And I’m here to report that the new one handles terribly as well. It responds to all inputs from the wheel with what feels like casual indifference. Imagine asking a French policeman in a rural town for help. Can you picture his uninterested face? His nonchalant shrug? Well, that’s how the big Chrysler responds when you ask it to go round a corner.

But there is an upside to this. Because it sits on tall, non-sporty tyres, it is extremely comfortable. And despite the diesel flowing
through its arteries, it’s very quiet as well. And it is fitted as standard with every single thing you could dream of.

I can think of hundreds of people – probably thousands – who would love a car such as this. People who are not bothered about handling or driving along as though they are on fire. People who just want a quiet, comfortable, gadget-laden cruiser. At an amazingly low price.

But there is a problem that takes me right back to the gentlemen’s changing rooms. It’s a very showy car, very brash. And who would that suit?

I have seen several people in American gangster movies who could pull it off, but here in Britain? Hmmm. A rapper, perhaps, but in my experience most like a bit of Bentley & Gabbana. They like a brand name, and Chrysler’s a bit Poundland. Beyond rap-land … I can’t think of anyone.

It is, then, like the perfect pair of trousers. They are keenly priced and made ethically and well by adults in a clean factory with many fire escapes and wheelchair ramps. They are exactly what you need and they fit like a glove. Lovely. Except they are purple.

14 October 2012

Enzo Ferrari once described the E-type Jaguar as the most beautiful car ever made. And even today, fifty-one years after it first sent a fizz down everyone’s trousers, you can still turn more heads by driving down the street in an E-type than you could if you rode into town on the back of a diplodocus.

The E-type has transcended fashion, and even Marilyn Monroe hasn’t been able to pull that one off. Back in the day she was considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world and she died before age wearied her. Today, though, most young boys would describe her as ‘a bit fat’.

Buildings? Nope. I guarantee that all of those über-modern, über-cool houses you see on Grand Designs will, in twenty years’ time, look absolutely ridiculous. As stupid then as a 1970s house looks now. But a hundred years after that they will all be listed and revered and people will come from Japan to photograph them.

Our taste changes constantly. Sunglasses have to be round. Then they don’t. Trousers are worn high. Then they are not. But through loon pants and punk and new Labour, the E-type has soldiered on, winning every single poll to find the best-looking car ever made. It was considered pretty at launch. It was still thought to be pretty when it went out of production. And it still causes people to swoon and faint today.

So it must have at least crossed the mind of Jaguar’s board to make next year’s F-type look like some kind of modern interpretation. An E-type with a 21st-century twist. But no. It’s not curvy or small. It doesn’t have especially pronounced haunches or an oval radiator grille. As I see it, there is not one single detail
that’s been carried over, not a single nod of acknowledgment. And I think that is very, very weird.

The new car is good-looking, make no mistake about that. I don’t doubt it will be fast, and will oversteer so controllably that the helmsmen at
Autocar
magazine will be tempted to rub warm oils into the gentleman bag of its chassis engineer.

We hear that in terms of size it fits neatly between the Porsche Boxster and the 911. We hear that prices will start at around £55,000, that there’s a choice of V6 or V8 power plant and that, while it will be launched as a convertible, a coupé is in the pipeline. It all sounds very well thought out and lovely.

But what in the name of all that’s holy caused Jaguar’s board to say, ‘Yes. We have the legal and moral right to make it look like an E-type. But we won’t’?

It’s not as though there isn’t a taste for retro designs right now. Fiat has the 500, which, in London at least, seems to have taken a 75 per cent share of the market. You also have the Mini, which is bought by everyone else. Ford has unveiled images of what it thinks a modern-day Cortina might look like, and then, of course, until recently we had the Chrysler PT Cruiser … which shows, I suppose, that things don’t always work out as well as the company hoped.

Speaking of which. The Volkswagen Beetle. When I was first introduced to the reincarnated version, I was much taken by it. I thought it was a great idea to clothe the VW Golf in some Wehrmacht clobber and fit a vase. I even considered buying one.

I’m glad I didn’t, because quite quickly it became clear VW had somehow missed the mark. Part of the problem is the Bug looked a bit too friendly. And friendly-looking cars – the Nissan Micra is another – always seem a bit gormless. Cars need to have at least a hint of aggression – and the Beetle didn’t.

I thought VW would give up, but it hasn’t. It has come back with another Beetle, which is lower and more purposeful. It has spooky wheels, a menacing spoiler and a hint of the night about it. Think of it as Herbie’s bank-robber cousin.

Inside, the flower-power vase is gone, and in its place you have a dash to match the colour you’ve chosen for the body, an odd glovebox, modern-day electronic equipment and the biggest fuel gauge ever fitted to any car in all of history. It’s the size of the moon. It’s so big you get the sense that you could drive for 3,000 miles in the red zone.

So – drum roll – has it worked?

Well, I hate to be a party pooper but I don’t think it has. It looks like a hippie in a Rambo suit. The Beetle may have been a by-product of war but it became a symbol of peace. And the new aggression? I don’t know. Imagine a CND symbol picked out in razor wire. A dove with machineguns.

I suppose you could soften things up with some stickers. The Mini and the Fiat 500 are available with a great many adhesive options designed to conjure up images of Mary Quant or Rome on a sunny day. But what stickers would you put on a Beetle to put you in mind of its origins? Second thoughts, best leave the stickers out of it.

And, anyway, there is no doubt some people like the design as it is. So let’s move on to see what it’s like as a car.

Not bad, is the answer. There’s a 2-litre 197-brake-horsepower version on the market, but I tried the clever 1.4 Sport, which has good fuel economy and, thanks to two turbochargers, 158 bhp as well. You have to work the six-speed gearbox hard to get at the power but it’s nice to know it’s there if you can be bothered.

The handling’s good, which is due in no small part to what is basically an electronic differential that tames the driven front wheels and allows you to drive like an ape, stamping on the throttle when really you shouldn’t.

Mostly, though, it is a comfortable and quiet, easy and relaxing cruising machine with some genuinely nice touches. The big glass sunroof is one, and the optional Fender sound system is another, partly because it glows at night, partly because the sound is good but mostly because it’s a Fender. And who wouldn’t want that in their life?

In essence it feels very like a Golf, and that’s not surprising because, of course, under the Hitler suit that’s what it is. You don’t get the practicality of a Golf – it’s quite cramped in the back – but at least the boot is bigger than it was on the last Beetle. You do, however, get a much higher standard of fit and finish, because the Golf is made in slovenly Germany, while the Beetle is made in Mexico – a byword for fastidious attention to detail, as we know.

So. The nub. The price. The Beetle costs about the same as the VW Scirocco, which, of course, has the same engine. And that seems to be rather clever. You choose. Retro or modern? Maybe that’s what Jag should have done with its new car. F-type or G-spot?

28 October 2012