It’s not as if it’s a very good diesel engine. It clatters like a canal boat at tickover, and it’s even less powerful than the Liberal Democrats.
Volvo will naturally have to reverse its ‘diesel only’ decision very soon. There’s a petrol-electric hybrid in the pipeline, which will make the S90 worth considering, because, ooh, it’s a nice car to use in these speed-conscious days.
Handling? No idea. Doesn’t matter. Steering feel? Irrelevant. All I can tell you is that when you turn the wheel, the car goes round the corner. Is front-wheel drive a handicap? At the sort of speed you’ll be going, you’ll never notice.
What I can tell you is that it rides nicely. It’s very comfortable. And it’s big on the outside. Nearly too big. But that’s OK, because the size translates into acres of space on the inside. And it’s space full of light and air, thanks to cleverly chosen materials.
Sitting in a Beemer or a Merc is like being in a well-groomed man’s washbag. It’s all leather and stripes and secret pockets for condoms and what-have-you. Sitting in an S90 is like sitting in a field. It’s probably the best interior of any mainstream car on sale today.
One of the reasons is that just about everything is controlled from a generous iPad-type screen on the dash. Often I’m baffled by tech of this nature, but after just two days I was skipping round it without even having to take my eyes off the road for more than a couple of minutes.
And that’s OK, because the S90 is fitted with all sorts of radar-guided this and satellite-guided that to ensure you can’t veer out of your lane and you can’t crash into the car in front. And even if all of that breaks and you have climbed into the back for a snooze, it’s still no bother, because the woeful diesel will have ensured you were going at only 2mph when you hit the bridge parapet. You’ll probably just grunt a bit, turn over and go back to sleep.
The other good thing about driving the S90 is that it makes you feel more grown-up than the BMW Lynx and the Mercedes Brut. It’s a car for the man or woman who’s confident about themselves, their age and whatever physical deformities have been visited upon them by the passage of time.
No one who buys a car such as this – saloon or estate – will have had a teeth-whitening trip to the dentist or a tummy tuck or a breast enlargement.
Obviously you cannot buy one now. Its diesel engine is nasty, and because of various government taxation proposals on what it has labelled the fuel of Satan, the S90 will have a resale value, after two days, of about £0.
But it’s worth waiting for Volvo Sponsors Sky Atlantic to launch the hybrid and start offering petrol-powered options. Because this a good-looking, comfortable and pleasant car that’s just waiting for a heart transplant.
21 May 2017
Fat and silent, like a biscuit-loving ninja
Mercedes E-class coupé
At around this time of year my colleagues and I sit down in our television production company and try to work out which cars will be subjected to a sideways, smoking-tyres track test in the next series. Normally this begins with Richard Hammond saying: ‘Well, there’s a new 911 …’
That is followed by my shoulders sagging to a point just below my navel, because what can you say about a Porsche 911 that hasn’t been said a billion times already? ‘The engine’s in the wrong place. It drives well. No one will let you out of side turnings. The end.’
Oh, sure, Porsche will explain in great detail that the new model is 4.5 per cent stiffer than the previous one and 5.8 grams lighter because it has titanium wheel nuts, but those are not the sorts of fact that work well when you are competing for viewers with House of Cards and Billions and a lot of grunting sex on Sky Atlantic.
I’m afraid it’s the same story with any AMG Mercedes. It may be a tiny bit quicker from zero to 62mph than the previous model, and the Comand system may allow you to check how economically you’ve driven over the past 30.8 miles. But all of this is overshadowed by the thunderous noise and the massive wiggly back end. Points you’ve made several thousand times. Honestly, reviewing a car such as this is like being in Groundhog Day.
And so it was with some despair that I looked on the wall chart the other day and noted that a new Mercedes would be arriving for me to write about. Oh no, I thought. It’ll be an AMG and I’ll have to think of another long-winded simile to describe the noise it makes. ‘God gargling with gravel.’ Done that. ‘Thor treading on a bit of Lego.’ Done that. ‘Tom Jones bending over to pick up the soap in a Strangeways shower.’ A. A. Gill did that. And it’ll never be beaten. Apart from when he described the wet V8 burble of a TVR as sounding like two lesbians in a bucket.
As it turned out I needn’t have worried, because the car that turned up was not a thundering AMG (don’t be fooled by the ‘AMG Line’ trim, which denotes sporty seats and floor mats with ‘AMG’ on them, not a snorting engine souped up by Mercedes’ skunkworks department). It was something called an E 400 4Matic coupé. Which in English means that it’s a four-wheel-drive, two-door version of your luxury Uber driver’s E-class saloon.
Mercedes has gone down this route because it fancied having a pop at BMW’s fabulous 6-series coupé. It explains, with a serious face, that its car has 14mm more rear legroom than you get in the Beemer and that it’s also available with a four-cylinder engine. And then it sits back like a smug lawyer who’s delivered his killer point. But, I’m sorry, Mercedes is missing the point.
Nobody cares two hoots about rear legroom in a coupé. If they did, they’d buy the four-door saloon. The whole point of a coupé is its looks, and on that front BMW has the market covered because, ooh, that’s a handsome car. And the E 400 isn’t. It looks as if it used to be good-looking before it found the biscuit tin. It looks, and there’s no kind way of saying this, a bit fat. And was it beyond the wit of man to do away with that funny-looking rear quarterlight?
Inside, things are much better. You get air vents that resemble the plasma drive systems from a spaceship and, in the version I tested, a giant council-house flatscreen TV that tells you where you are, where you’re going and how quickly you’ll get there. As well as how much fuel there is in the tank and everything else in between.
And, yes, it does allow you to choose the colour of the interior lighting. I went for purple. Even though it clashed badly with the exterior, which was the exact same colour as a placenta.
To drive? Well, the friend who was using it to pick me up from the airport had a few choice words to say about that. As I landed, I noticed on my Find My Friends app that she was still in Chelsea, so I called to ask why. There was a lot of swearing, but the gist of it went: ‘How do I make the engine begin?’
And then, after I’d explained there was a button hidden away behind the steering wheel, another call to say: ‘Where’s the effing gear lever?’ I had to explain that it sticks out of the steering column and looks like the stalk that would operate the wipers on a normal car.
So it doesn’t begin or get going like a normal car, and this, it turns out, is the E-class coupé’s party piece. Because it doesn’t feel normal when you’re driving along either. You have a nine-speed gearbox, but you’d never know that it’s constantly swapping cogs and that the power from the engine is being sent to whichever of the four wheels is best able to handle it.
Ah, yes, the engine. It’s a 3-litre V6 that produces hundreds of horsepower and a mountain of torque. And yet somehow it makes no noise at all. Unusually for a Mercedes, then, I’m having to think of a whole new simile. It’s like a Trappist monk who’s dead in a room made entirely from kapok. Only quieter.
The drawback is that when you look down at the council-house flatscreen, you’ll note you are doing 130mph. Which is against the law.
You’re not even being jiggled around that much. Well, not by the suspension, at least. You could drive this thing through the broken streets of Palmyra and it’d feel as if you were in Austria at the end of a national competition to find the country’s best roadworker.
However, there are many el
ectrical systems on hand to stop you crashing, and they are a bit panicky. Time and time again, the car’s on-board brain decided I was definitely on the verge of a huge accident and took control of the brakes and the steering.
This is a heart-stopping surprise, and I was tempted to turn the systems off. But if you do that and you get a text and crash, and you have to spend the rest of your life communicating with a head wand, you’re going to feel a right Charlie.
Mercedes needs to turn the intervention down a bit. To make it gentler and less alarming. Because, as it stands, it’s a good-enough reason not to buy this car. So is the styling.
I know BMW’s 6-series is more expensive and has 14mm less legroom in the back and can’t be ordered with four-wheel drive. But turning that down and buying the Mercedes instead is like turning down Uma Thurman for the woman at the post office. Because she’s so good at ironing.
4 June 2017
They say it’s new, but thank heavens it’s not
Volkswagen Golf GTI
One of the problems with running a car company is that no department actually finishes what it’s working on. Which makes launching a new car extremely difficult.
Think about it. You’re the boss and you call the styling department. You ask if it has completed the way the new car will look and it says: ‘Give us two more weeks.’ So you give it two more weeks and then you call the engine department, which says it wants another week. So you agree to that, which causes the styling department to embark on the set of changes that somehow takes three weeks to implement. And when that’s done, the suspension people call to say: ‘Look, give us twenty-four hours.’
And so it goes on until eventually you, as the boss, have to turn on the factory PA system and say: ‘All of you. Step away from the Cad-Cam equipment. Give us what you have now and we will build that.’ Which means the car you and I buy is invariably made up completely of parts that aren’t quite as good as they could have been if only there’d been a bit more time.
The problem for Volkswagen is doubly difficult because of Dieselgate. So much money has been put aside to compensate customers who were sold a better car than would have been the case if it had complied with the regulations, that there is only £2.75 left in the petty cash tin for research and development.
Which brings us on to the new Golf GTI. Well, VW says it’s new – in reality it’s a facelift of the current Mk 7 – in the hope that existing owners will feel compelled to sell their old model and sign on the dotted line of whatever nonsensical finance arrangement the beancounters have come up with this time.
I am one of these existing owners. The Golf GTI is what I use as my daily driver. It is an extremely good car, apart from the fact it’s permanently convinced it has a puncture when it hasn’t. I get in it in the morning, start it up and it says: ‘You have a puncture.’ So I push the button saying: ‘No, I haven’t.’ And then, when I get back into it to go home from work it says: ‘You have a puncture.’ And I start to foam at the mouth.
I’ve taken it to a dealership, which reset the computer. And ensured all the tyres contained exactly the same amount of air. And the next morning it says: ‘You have a puncture.’
Today I have solved the problem by sticking duct tape to the dash so I can no longer see the message. Oh, and a flannel between the passenger seat and centre console to solve the rattle it somehow doesn’t seem to know it’s got.
Apart from these things, it’s a wonderful car. It’s equipped like a Bentley, it goes like a Ferrari and in traffic, because it’s just a Golf and it’s grey, no one takes my picture. Which is what happens, constantly, when I’m in anything more flash. Which is everything.
Anyway, my car has done only 15,000 miles so it’d take quite a lot to convince me I should take the resale hit and buy the new model. But I’m open to suggestion so VW dropped one off at the office.
I looked at it for a very long time. Then I looked at my car. And then I looked at the new one again and after a lot of doing this I realized that while my car was a sort of gunmetal grey the new one was definitely white. I also noticed after a lot more looking that the new model had slightly different trim in the headlights and some styling tweaks to the wheels. I then stepped inside and straight away saw that the rather attractive speedometer and rev counter in the old model had been replaced by some less attractive instruments in the new one.
Also, instead of a button to start the car, I had to put the key in a slot and twist it. I haven’t had to do that since someone worked out that in an accident an ignition key protruding from the steering column can play havoc with a driver’s kneecaps.
And then I noticed the gear lever. And the clutch pedal. And I thought: ‘No. I’m sorry. It’s pouring with rain. The traffic is going to be dreadful and life is too short to be using my left leg every time I want to set off.’ So I climbed out of the new car and into my own, which has a flappy paddle system. ‘You have a puncture,’ it said from behind the duct tape.
It’s strange. Not that long ago, I was very much in the manuals-are-for-men camp. I saw the automatic and the double-clutch alternatives as a sign of weakness. In my mind they were a way of saying that you were a functionary, that you were willing to relinquish control to an algorithm. ‘Alexander the Great would never have ordered a car with an automatic gearbox,’ I would thunder at people who had.
Now, though, I reckon buying a manual is like buying a television that has no remote control. Who says: ‘I like getting out of my chair to change the channel’?
Maybe it’s because I’m getting old. But more likely it’s because the modern flappy paddle can change cogs far more quickly than any human being. And your left leg is free to tap along to the radio.
Much later in the week, of course, I had to park my prejudice and my bone idleness and take the new car for a drive. I’d been told its 2-litre turbocharged engine had 10bhp more than the old model and that this equated to a top speed that’s 2mph higher. Which sounded great. But actually all VW has done is fitted the old performance pack as standard. Which means that the updated car has exactly the same amount of power and performance as mine.
Everything else. The steering. The suspension. And even the option of a clever limited-slip front differential is the same as well. And that’s a good thing, if I’m honest. Because the old Golf GTI was the world’s best hot hatch. And the new one is as well. Partly because it isn’t new at all. But mainly it doesn’t think it has a puncture.
11 June 2017
An SUV poster boy at last. Yes, it’s Italian
Alfa Romeo Stelvio
I have driven the latest Audi Q5 and can think of absolutely nothing interesting to say about it. It’s a well-made box that costs some money and produces some emissions and, frankly, I’d rather use Uber.
No, really. Who’s going to wake up in the morning, sweating like a dyslexic in a spelling test, because their new Q5 is arriving that day? What child is going to stick a poster of a car such as this on its bedroom wall? Who’s going to think how hard they’ll have to work to pay for the damn thing and reckon it’s worth the sweat? No one is. You buy a car like this in the way you buy washing-up liquid. And who wants to read 1,200 words about a mildly updated bottle of Fairy Liquid?
What I can tell you before I move on is that I hated its engine. Volkswagen’s post-Dieselgate 2-litre turbo is possibly the most boring power unit fitted to any car at any time. It’s about as exciting as the motor in your washing machine. By which I mean, you only really notice it if it goes wrong. Which you hope it will in the Audi, because then you can call an Uber. At least that’ll smell interesting. And come with some unusual opinions.
I’ll be honest with you. I loathe all the current crop of so-called SUVs, except those I dislike intensely. I cannot see the point of driving around in a car that’s slower, more expensive and thirstier than a normal saloon or estate. It just seems idiotic.
But then I had to make a brief trip to Tuscany recently, and once I’d negotiated a path through
Alan Yentob and Polly Toynbee and Melvyn Bragg and emerged into Pisa airport’s car park, I found a man offering me the keys to Alfa Romeo’s new Stelvio.
Named after a remote Alpine pass in northern Italy, this is a direct rival of the Q5 and all the other mid-range jacked-up estates whose names I can’t be bothered to remember. In short, it’s a Giulia saloon on stilts, and I was determined to hate every bit of it.
The man was very keen to have his photograph taken with me and to say how much he enjoyed a programme called Top Gear, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking: ‘What in the name of all that’s holy was Alfa Romeo thinking of?’
If you have a heritage as glamorous and as achingly cool as Alfa’s, why would you want to make a bloody school-run car? That is like Armani deciding to make carrier bags.
Alfa’s engineers are at pains to explain that, while it may look like an SUV, it doesn’t feel like one to drive. They say all the power from the engine is sent to the rear wheels, but then, if traction is lost, up to half the power is sent instantly to the front. They also speak about carbon-fibre prop shafts and much lightweight aluminium in the body, and I stood there thinking: ‘Yes, but it’s still a bloody carrier bag.’
I had much the same sense of teeth-gnashing rage when I first encountered Maserati’s Levante, and that turned out to be just as bad as I’d feared. But as the man brought over more friends for more selfies, I started to gaze more carefully at the Stelvio, and there was no getting round the fact that, actually, it’s quite good-looking.
Eventually, after I’d posed with all the police force, everyone in border security and 3,000 taxi drivers, all of whom loved Top Gear, it was time to step into the Stelvio, and there was also no getting round the fact it was a nice place to sit. Way, way nicer than the Audi.
Really? Page 31
