Clarkson on Cars

by Jeremy Clarkson

  Visually, it looks pretty similar to its predecessor, the 348, but there’s now a little spoiler at the back, a completely flat undertray and some beautifully sculptured air intakes. Pininfarina has made a pretty car ravishing.

  The engine is still a V8 so you can still potter around town in fourth gear with no fuss, but it now has five valves for each of those cylinders so that it will reach 9000 rpm with absolutely no drama at all. Of course, it is nowhere near as fast as the other two – with a top speed of just 183 mph – but then it is nowhere near as expensive either. It’s yours for around 80 grand.

  The interior is trimmed in leather with all the switches on the centre console, clustered around the six-speed gear lever. And it all works just fine, though you still have to sit with your arms outstretched and your knees three feet apart.

  It’s a small price to pay though because this car just flies. Through the bends, I could see the Bugatti driver struggling to keep the turbos spinning and the Diablo was wandering around all over the road, but the Ferrari just grips and goes.

  When a bend tightens up more than you think it will, you just turn the wheel some more and there isn’t even a chirp of protest from the tyres. Floor the throttle too early, and the tail swings wide, but it’s a slow, graceful, easy-to-catch response that will not baffle even the most butterfingered driver.

  You can flip the suspension on to a sports setting but even Nikki Lauda says this is a waste of time on normal roads.

  I pushed that car with the sort of vigour I normally reserve for vegetarians at dinner parties yet, unlike the beardies who only need one prod to fight back, the Ferrari just kept on taking the punishment, hurling itself from bend to bend as though it had been fired from a steam catapult. It was dynamically perfect.

  Ordinarily, I treat supercars with a certain amount of admiration but they tend to be a bit like Chinese food. Delicious when you’re in there but perhaps a bit forgettable. I’ll never have a Diablo or a Bugatti so who cares what they’re like.

  But the Ferrari costs less than a house and is therefore realistic. It is now my only real goal in life. One day, I shall buy a 355.

  Sitting on a Porsche

  The more you pay for a car, the less reliable it will be.

  And it’s not just cars either. My old Casio watch used to be second perfect, week in and week out, but the Breitling that’s replaced it sheds nine seconds a day and sometimes stops completely in the night.

  My £8 Zippo is capable of lighting cigarettes in a hurricane but the Dunhill I take out on posh-frock nights refuses to ignite if someone on the other side of the room is waving their arms around a bit.

  I have an Umberto Ginocchietti jacket which has worn through at the elbows in less than a year, yet my Lee Cooper jeans are unburstable.

  And so it goes on. I read about a woman the other day who has enjoyed 120,000 trouble-free miles in her Daihatsu Charade, yet the new McLaren, which costs more than half a million pounds, broke down on its first-ever journalistic road test.

  Prince Charles suffered the ultimate ignominy the other day when his brand-new £150,000 Aston Martin Virage Volante conked out, rather conspicuously, on the Cromwell Road.

  We may all drool over a Ferrari but if you used one every day, its engine would go out of tune and then break altogether. You would grow to hate the steering which is more stubborn than a dog which doesn’t want to go to the vet’s, and the gearbox, which is heavier than a washing machine.

  But this is part of the appeal. You’ve got to be some kind of triangular-torsoed he-man to drive a Ferrari, and you have to be rich enough to have another car for the other six days in a week. You only take the Ferrari out on special occasions – that’s what makes it special.

  If you have a car that you can use every day, it will be an everyday car; humdrum, and tedious. Unless it’s a Porsche.

  Porsches are unique as they, like no other cars made, blend quality with sophisticated get up and go. And I have to say that some of them, these days, are pretty good value for money.

  The 968 Club Sport does not have much in the way of creature comforts but you find me a more invigorating coupe for less than £30,000. And all you lot at the back with your Mazdas and your Toyotas can put your hands down now. They are not in the same league.

  The 911 too is something of a bargain. I recently spent the weekend with an egg-yellow Carrera convertible which can haul itself from 0 to 60 in five point something seconds. It sounded great. Yobs spat at it. Taxi drivers asked if I’d swap. And yet it costs a mere £59,000 which is £20,000 less than the equivalent Ferrari.

  Now, I’m no great fan of the 911. It’s 31 years old and in some ways, you can tell. The dash was put together during a game at a children’s tea party, and a blindfold was involved. And I reckon the new suspension is a triumph of engineering skill over a flawed design. That engine simply shouldn’t be where it is.

  Furthermore, the latest version, which was launched six months ago, has a pair of headlights which make the whole car look like a startled rabbit. And it’s just too easy to drive; the steering’s too light, the clutch is no harder to depress than a member of EXIT and changing gear is no harder than stirring soup. The end result is a car that just doesn’t feel special enough even if you have just gone round a corner at 150 mph and all the girls in the street are trying to leave their phone numbers under the windscreen wipers.

  Me, I’ve always preferred the Porsche 928, the Big Daddy. At £73,000, it is reassuringly expensive and it is capable of achieving speeds far in excess of what is practically possible.

  It also has a proper engine where engines should be – at the front. Lift the bonnet and you are greeted with the sight of a huge 5.4-litre, quad-cam, 32-valve monster which sends 350 brake horsepower to the back wheels through a rear-mounted five-speed manual gearbox. Or, in my case, a four-speed automatic. This is all good beefcake stuff.

  And when you climb inside, it gets better. Whereas most cars have measly pieces of wood which aren’t big enough to make a pencil, this has two dirty great slabs, like upended coffee tables, on each door. And the massive, swooping dash is just delightful.

  There are, of course, plenty of toys but it’s what controls them all that I love – knobs the size of ice-cream cones. To turn the lights on, you grab a great fistful of rubberised plastic and give it a big old twist. Perhaps that’s why there’s no CD player – too fiddly, too high tech: not beefy enough. I’m surprised it doesn’t have an eight track.

  So far then, it’s like motorised rock music: big, honest, down to earth and heavy. That body – a familiar sight now that it’s been around for seventeen years – is just enormous; so wide that parking meter bays are too narrow by 18 inches, and long too.

  Sitting inside, you feel cocooned so you find yourself trying to squeeze into spaces that turn out to be five feet smaller than necessary. It’s a good job that bumperless front end is damage resistant because you just can’t see it, or the back, or the sides. The last time I drove a 928, I crashed it, and driving this new one, I can see why – you can’t see where its enormous body stops.

  Happily, the engine is powerful enough to make light of the resultant weight. Prod the loud pedal, and immediately, the rear wheels chirp and lose traction, only being brought back into line by the various silicon chips. A green light comes on to tell the driver when the traction-control computer has just kept him out of a hedge.

  The first time I went out for a spin, I dived into a small gap on the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout and such was the almighty leap forward, I couldn’t help whooping out loud.

  I’ve driven faster, more nimble cars but what I love about the 928 is its old-fashioned muscle.

  Fair enough, the ride is far too hard and the steering could do with a bit more ‘feel’, but when you put your foot down and that raucous engine begins to sing its good ol’ V8 song, you tend to forget about the various shortcomings.

  Who cares about the microscopic boot or the joke rear seats. The back may wel
l sing tenor but the front sings baritone.

  And though £73,000 is a lot of money, it’s important to remember that this is half what Aston Martin charge for the similar, though even more brutal, Vantage and £60,000 less than a Ferrari 512TR.

  With that in mind, I began to formulate a pretty good case for the German equivalent of Giant Haystacks, until I remembered the Corvette. Here is another 2 + 2 coupe with a big V8, a hard ride, and prodigious power which is now available with right-hand drive for £45,000.

  There’s no doubt the Porsche is built to higher standards than the Chevrolet and that, curiously enough, is where my argument falls flat on its face.

  The more you pay for a car, the less reliable it will be. Unless it’s a Porsche.

  Clarkson’s Highway Code

  The Highway Code is a very useful document but only if you accept that all other road users are friendly, cheery, obedient, Dixon of Dock Green type characters. Which they aren’t.

  So here is a Highway Code for the real world.

  A flash of the headlamps

  Confusing, this, as it could mean any of four things:

  Hello, I am a friend of yours. Please feel free to pull out in front of me. Get out of your car and let’s do pugilism. Look out, there’s a police radar trap ahead.

  The horn

  Much easier. If it’s a series of short toots, then someone friendly is trying to attract your attention. Your response is an omni-directional wave. If it’s a prolonged burst, then someone somewhere thinks you’re an onanist. Put your foot down and get out of there.

  Indicators

  When the car in front is indicating left, beware. If it’s a Datsun, with a large floppy aerial on the boot, then you are behind a mini-cab driver who is lost. A left-hand indicator could mean that he is going straight on or right or even that he is not, in fact, going anywhere at all. What it definitely means is that he is NOT going left.

  Lane discipline

  In towns, when at a multi-lane junction with traffic lights, never, ever, ever pull up behind a Nissan Micra. The driver will still be searching for his long-distance spectacles when the lights go green. Then he will forget to depress the clutch before trying to select first. Then he won’t have the strength to disengage the handbrake.

  Pedestrians

  Run them down. Pedstrians must learn that they don’t pay road tax and have no right to be milling around on something that isn’t theirs.

  Cyclists

  Run them down and to make sure, back up and run them down again. Cyclists must be taught that they should stick to the side of the road and not try to weave around in the middle of it. Some even believe they’re so fast that they’re not being an inconvenience. Run them down to prove them wrong.

  Trucks

  Always give way to any vehicle that’s larger than yours.

  Speed cameras

  When you encounter a sign saying speed cameras are in operation, you can be assured of one thing. There are no speed cameras for a hundred miles, just a few grey boxes with flash guns in them. Drive very, very fast indeed to prove to the locals that the experiment isn’t working.

  Buses

  Never follow a bus because you will be asphyxiated by the fumes from its badly maintained diesel engine. Never try to overtake a bus either because just as you’re alongside, it will lunge out and ram you. Bus drivers believe they can do this because of the tiny signs on the back of their vehicles advising other road users to let the bus go first.

  Bus lanes

  Always drive in them, even when there’s no real need.

  Mobile phones

  When a policeman apprehends you for using a phone while driving, explain that you can’t talk right now because you’re on the phone.

  Yellow cars

  Never go to bed with someone who has a yellow car. Anyone who has walked into a showroom and, from the vast range of colours available, selected yellow is not normal. For the same reason, give yellow cars a wide berth when overtaking them.

  Vans

  If, on a narrow street, a van is coming the other way, it is your responsibility to get out of the way. Right out of the way. Unless you mount the kerb on your side of the road, and then park up in someone’s garden, the van will remove your door mirror.

  If this happens, don’t get out of your car. At best, the van won’t stop in which case you’ll have wasted your time. At worst, it will stop. Then four baboons will climb out and beat you up a lot.

  Speed limits

  In town, drive around at 15 mph, ignoring the irate faces in your rear-view mirror. You’re on the moral high ground.

  On motorways, the traffic is never light enough to permit 70 mph. It was set in the days of Austin Cambridges and Dixon of Dock Greenery. Stick to 50 mph and then you’ll hear the quiet bits in the plays on Radio Four.

  Yellow lines

  It’s OK to park on these for a little while.

  Red lines

  It’s OK to park on these too, but be safe and post a look-out man.

  Tow-away lorries

  Do absolutely everything in your power to make their life as difficult as possible. When collecting your car from the pound, be abusive. Make these people feel that being on the dole is preferable to their brand of government-sponsored, legalised theft.

  Why aren’t Car Ads Aimed at Old People?

  As far as the blue-spectacled advertising copywriter is concerned, old people are simply not worth the bother. They have no disposable income and what little change is left at the bottom of their purses each week is spent on cat food and tinned salmon.

  That’s assuming, of course, their arthritic fingers are able to deal with the new money.

  Yet in recent weeks, the television has played host to Mr Werthers Original Man, resplendent in his angora home-knit cardy doing what old people do best; talking about the days when they weren’t old.

  With that sepia tint to the film and the soft burr that goes hand in hand with knackered vocal cords, you can bet that pensioners the length and breadth of the land have been dying of hypothermia, and that sales of tinned salmon have plummeted.

  This is because all of them will have been turning off their bar fires and spending their money instead down at the newsagent’s, on old-fashioned sweets for their grandchildren – who, sadly, would much rather have been given some Evo-stick.

  My mother-in-law – bless her – actually buys those commemorative plates which litter the advertisements in Sunday’s colour supplements. She swoons over the frilly dolls called Emily. She is misty eyed at the snowstorm paperweights. And it’s really only a matter of time before our new child is sent a nice packet of those sweets she saw on the bioscope.

  So that’s all well and good on the sweet front, but what about everything else? Why is Werthers Originals Man so unique? Why are all other advertisements on the television presented by people whose teeth shine so brightly it hurts? Be it for a pension or a washing powder, the images, the music, and the script are very obviously aimed at the under-forties.

  And nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of car advertising.

  In every commercial break, a huge finger leaps out of the screen and a deep, booming voice announces, ‘Hey you – yes you with the tartan shopping trolley and the stupid slippers with zips up the front. Don’t you dare buy one of our cars.’

  BMW is slightly more subtle but the message is the same. Whether they’re explaining how perfect weight-balance improves handling or how ellipsoidal headlamps let you see further at night, we are being told that BMWs are fast cars… and are therefore no earthly use if you only want to go to the post office once a week.

  Volvo has a bigger problem. In the queue for stamps every Monday morning, the talk centres around crime, osteoporosis, the Blitz and how the Volvo 340 is the best car ever made.

  There’s space in the boot of any Volvo for a tartan shopping trolley and a dozen Zimmer frames, but is this the message we get from their TV ads? No it is not.

 
Instead we have rock music, a man in a T-shirt and a sinister-looking all black T5 hurtling across the Corinthean Canal. I now have a T5 and wherever I go, young men point approvingly. Old people tut.

  Both Honda and Nissan have announced, in public, that they worry about the average age of their buyers so both are now engaged on a crash course in wooing teenagers.

  Have you seen that absurd commercial where a group of improbably tanned youths ring up a group of impossibly lithe girls, asking if they’d like to go to the beach? ‘They’re on,’ exclaims our hero.

  We’re then treated to the rather far-fetched scenario of these ridiculous people loading up their ridiculous Nissans with beach furniture. The last time we saw such a blatant attempt to woo people who still have need for Clearasil, it was called the Hitler Youth, but there is a happy ending. The average age of the Nissan Micra buyer continues to climb.

  Or how about Mazda. They ask us to video the commercial for their new 323, knowing full well that no old person in the land knows how to use a VCR.

  Then there’s Volkswagen, with its hurtful divorce campaign. You may have noticed that everyone who’s cheering on the courtroom steps is young, and that the only disapproving look for the recently unbetrothed woman comes from a pensioner.

  But all is not lost for the old people because Ford, always the first to spot an opportunity, has stepped in with the ‘Which is right for you?’ ads. No squealing tyres here. No mini drama. No cunning twist at the end where the man turns out not to be an adulterous bastard after all.

  No, Ford tells us straight how much the car costs and what features it has. And I couldn’t help noticing last night as I drove past my local dealer that it was full to overflowing with people in brown suits, asking for the price to be converted into old money.