And this is even though you are forced to stop every twenty minutes because the view, which you thought couldn’t possibly get any more extraordinary, just did. And then a moment later you have to stop again because you want to photograph the dashboard, which shows two things. The time is 6.30 p.m. And the outside temperature is 47ºC.
I must confess that as the time came to leave, I wasn’t much looking forward to driving in England, where every journey takes twice as long as you’d expected and there are mealy-mouthed Peugeot drivers who won’t let you by and every road is closed so that traffic officers can safely retrieve a sweet wrapper from the carriageway and potholes are repaired by people who are being deliberately stupid and you can’t reason with law enforcement because it’s all done by cameras and petrol costs more than myrrh and it’s raining.
But then, just twenty-four hours after leaving Nevada, I found myself on top of a moor in Yorkshire, in the drizzle, about to get inside a Lexus LFA.
A couple of years ago a friend called about this car. He’d been offered one instead of payment for a job and was wondering if it was worth it. Embarrassed to admit I had no idea what he was talking about, I said, ‘Er, no.’ So he took the money and bought a Ferrari instead.
So intense was my lack of interest in a Lexus sports car that when the time came to test it on Top Gear, I hid under the sofa and let Richard Hammond do it instead.
Why? Lexus doesn’t engineer its cars for Britain. They’re engineered for fatties in Texas. For the long, straight roads of Nevada. For show-off eco-mentalists in Hollywood. The SC 430 is one of the most disgusting pieces of automotive crap I’ve encountered. So why should I imagine for a moment that the LFA would be any different?
This was a car that took nine years to develop. Some would say that demonstrates a fastidious attention to detail. To me it demonstrates that the company hadn’t a clue what it was doing. There’s some evidence to suggest I’m right, because after five years, when the prototype was nearly ready, Lexus decided to scrap the aluminium body and make it instead from carbon fibre.
That took so long that by the time the finished product was ready, Formula One racing had switched to V8 engines, making the LFA’s V10 look like a dinosaur. Only not a very big one.
It develops 552 brake horsepower, which is about 200 bhp less than the current going rate, and it sends this dribble of power to a flappy-paddle gearbox that has half as many clutches as, say, a Golf GTI. On paper, then, the LFA looks to be the dinner of a dog. In the flesh, however …
Some say it looks too similar to a Toyota Celica, or a Toyota Supra, but because it’s so wide and low it actually looks like neither of those. It looks very, very special. And inside, it’s even better. Unlike Ferrari, which fits buttons wherever it can find a bit of space, Lexus has thought everything out beautifully in this car. Apart from the switch that engages reverse – which is behind the mileometer – there’s a Spock-like logic to everything. And when you push or pull or engage anything, there’s a sense that it will continue to work for about a thousand years. It’s the nicest car interior I’ve ever encountered. And I would never, ever, tire of the tool that moves all the dials around.
Then you fire up the engine, snick it into first, move off and … whoa! The noise beggars belief. This is not a car that shouts or barks or growls. It howls. Up there, on the moors, it sounded otherworldly. Like a werewolf that had put its foot in a gin trap. And while it isn’t as fast as you may have been expecting, you quickly realize on damp moorland roads that 552 bhp is perfect. Any more and you’re going to be picking heather out of the grille for a month.
The LFA inspires tremendous confidence. Then, up ahead, you see a dip. Gouge marks in the tarmac show clearly that, over the years, many a sump has clattered into the road, and you brace for an impact that never comes. The LFA may be lower to the ground than a worm’s navel, but so successful is the suspension, it never bottoms out.
I have to say I loved it. It’s an intelligent car, built by intelligent people. In some ways it’s raw and visceral; in others it’s a lesson in common sense. Engine at the front, two seats in the middle and a boot you can use. And yet, despite this, there’s a sense that you’re in a real, full-on racer.
If cruise control was invented for Nevada, Yorkshire was invented for the LFA. It’s a car that reminds you every few seconds why we have corners.
The trouble is that only 500 are being made. And the reason only 500 are being made is that only 500 can be sold. And the reason for that is that each one costs £336,000. An idiotic price. Still, it’s not the end of the world, because you can have a Nissan GT-R. It’s nine-tenths as good. But costs almost five times less.
9 September 2012
It’s certainly cheap … but I can’t find cheerful
Skoda Octavia vRS
I spent a few days up north recently. And, at the risk of provoking howls of protest, I came home wondering if the region’s love affair with value for money might be a bit overrated. In restaurants the waiter would not tell us what the food was, or how it had been cooked, or where the ingredients had come from – only how much it would cost. Up north, people like all they can eat for £2.99.
So let’s take this to its logical conclusion. If I were to open a restaurant serving nothing but horse manure and grass clippings, the prices would be very low indeed. But would people eat there? No. This means that at least some emphasis must be placed on quality. And that’s the problem. Quality costs. So, if dinner looks like it could be cheap, there’s a reason. It’s rubbish.
As I’ve said before, there is no such thing as cheap and cheerful. There is cheap and disgusting. Or expensive and cheerful. There is no third way.
We see this with everything. Near where I live a firm of developers recently built a row of terraced houses. They are for sale now at extremely low prices and there’s a very good reason for this. I watched them being built. So I know they are made from old cardboard boxes and dust. I suspect most of the structural integrity comes from the wallpaper.
In short, there is no such thing as a bargain. Something is cheap because it’s cracked, broken or hideous. If you buy cheap garden furniture, it will rot. If you buy cheap pots and pans, they will melt, and if you buy cheap antiques, you will get home to discover they were made yesterday in Korea.
However, where all of this gets blurry is when you introduce the concept of a badge. A pair of sunglasses made by Scrotum & Goldfish would sell for £14.99. Stick a Prada badge on exactly the same glasses, though, and all of a sudden the decimal point heads east.
This makes me froth with rage. I look sometimes at a T-shirt and I think, That cannot possibly cost more than 40p. But because it has a horse or a fox or some other knowing smudge on the left breast, the shopkeeper is allowed by law to charge me £40. Often I’m consumed by an uncontrollable urge to stab her.
All of which brings me neatly to the door of the swanky Audi A3. It costs more than a Volkswagen Golf and you are going to say, ‘Of course it does – it’s an Audi.’ But, actually, it isn’t. Underneath, it is virtually identical to the Golf. They just have different bodies.
You are paying more just so you can go down to the Harvester and tell your friends you have an Audi. And that in turn brings me on to the Skoda Octavia. That costs less than a Golf and you’re going to nod sagely and say, ‘Well, yes. Stands to reason. It’s a Skoda.’ But it isn’t. Underneath, it is also identical to a Golf.
So why would anyone buy a Golf, or an Audi A3, when they could buy exactly the same car for less? Simple answer: badges make people stupid.
In recent years every single Skoda I’ve ever tested has been enormously impressive. There was the Yeti, as good an all-rounder as I’ve ever driven, and the Roomster, which is a blend of practicality, VW engineering and some wondrous styling details. And there was also the Octavia Scout – a perfect farmer’s car with four-wheel drive, low running costs, a boot big enough for a sheep and a fine ride.
I was therefore very much looki
ng forward to a drive last week in the Octavia vRS, because here we have a large five-door hatchback that costs £20,440. That makes it £5,210 less than the Golf GTI. Even though, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, they’re the same car.
That means you get a 16-valve turbocharged direct-injection 2-litre engine, which equates to 0 to 62 mph in 7.2 seconds and a top speed of 150 mph. You also get big brakes, lowered suspension and a six-speed gearbox.
Apart from the big wheels, though, the Octavia doesn’t look especially racy. But neither does the Golf. However, it is extremely racy when you put your foot down. There’s an almost diesely clatter to the engine, and a hint of lag, and then you’re off in a blizzard of face ache and rush.
The ride is firm without being alarming, and the handling is neutral. There are no fireworks, just a solid, sure-footed ability to deal with any input even the most sabre-toothed driver cares to make. It put me in mind of the Golf GTI, weirdly. Only it’s bigger and more practical and, as I’ve said, £5,210 less.
Of course, you might imagine that a car made on the wrong side of what used to be the Iron Curtain will not be crafted with the same ruthless zeal as a car made in Germany. Well, sorry, but a robot doesn’t know what territory it’s in. Skodas? Volkswagens? Exactly the same Taiwanese robots help to build the two.
I was feeling particularly pleased with myself at this point, and was very much looking forward to giving yet another Skoda a tip-top review. But then I started to notice a few things.
I thought at first the brakes were a bit sharp but that I’d get used to them. I didn’t. Then I noticed that despite the many buttons, almost no toys – such as rear parking sensors or Bluetooth – are fitted as standard. You get cruise control, which is just about useless in Britain. And that’s more or less it.
Later, in traffic, I tried to rest my arm on the door, but it wasn’t possible because the seat, which is too high up, is mounted right next to the B pillar. Once I’d noticed this, it was hard to think about anything else. I began to feel as though I was sitting in the back.
Then there was a funny noise. And, as with all funny noises, once I’d heard it, I couldn’t think about or hear anything else. I even forgot after a while that I might be in the back. It sounded as if a fly was in its death throes in the air-conditioning system, so I decided to put it out of my misery by turning the fan up full. This made the noise stop. Then I turned it down low and it came back. The fan was broken. So I turned it off. And heard another funny noise. A jangling sound. A rattle. Two faults? In a Volkswagen? Not possible. And I was right.
It turned out to be an empty Red Bull can in the door pocket. A door pocket that I noticed was unlined. What’s the point of that? Door pockets are invariably full of stuff that rattles – coins, keys, lighters and so on. If they are made from hard plastic, the driver will quickly go mad. Buck your ideas up on that one, Skoda.
With all the noises sorted out, I started looking for other things and quickly I found one. The speedometer has no display for 90 mph. It jumps from 80 mph to 100 mph. Does this mean the car cannot do 90 mph? And if so, how does it miss it out? How would such a thing be possible? It’s madness.
The Octavia vRS, then, is the exception to the rule that Skodas are the exception to the rule that everything cheap is rubbish.
16 September 2012
Ooh, it feels good to wear my superhero outfit again
Toyota GT86
In the olden days, when people had diphtheria and children were covered in soot, cars had skinny little tyres so that enthusiastic drivers could have fun making them slither about on roundabouts.
Nowadays, though, it’s all about grip. Fast Fords are fitted with front differentials to ensure you can keep a tight line, even when you are doing 1,000 mph through a mountain hairpin. Then you have the Nissan GT-R, which uses the computing power of a stock exchange to make the same mountain hairpin doable at the speed of sound.
In fact, all modern cars cling to the road like a frightened toddler clings onto its mother’s hand. In some ways this is no bad thing. It means the befuddled and the weak are less likely to spin off and hit a tree. And it means the helmsmen among us can post faster lap times on track days.
But is that what you want? Really? Because when the grip does run out, you will be travelling at such a rate that you will have neither the talent nor the time to get everything back in order before you slam into a telegraph pole. If you are trying to win a race, high cornering speeds are important. But if you are not, they’re frightening.
For the business of going fast, a Nissan GT-R is unbeatable. But for fun – and I am not exaggerating here – you would be better off in a Morris Minor on cross-plies.
Which brings me neatly to the door of this week’s test car. It’s called the Toyota GT86 and it’s been built in a collaboration with Subaru, which is selling an almost identical machine called the BRZ.
Unlike most coupés, such as the Ford Capri, Volkswagen Scirocco and Vauxhall Calibra, the GT86 is not a hatchback in a party frock. It is not a marketing exercise designed to relieve the style-conscious of their surplus cash. It isn’t even very good-looking.
Or practical. The boot is large enough for things, but you can forget about putting anyone in the back, even children. Unless they’ve no legs or heads.
Power? Well, it has a 2-litre boxer engine – Subaru’s contribution – which delivers 197 brake horsepower. That’s not very much. But because the car weighs just 1,275 kg and the engine is so revvy, you’ll hit 62 mph in 7.6 seconds and a top speed of 140 mph. It could almost be mistaken for a hot hatch.
But there’s no mistaking the noise. This car is loud, and not in a particularly nice way. There’s no crisp exhaust note, no induction wheezing. It’s just the sound of petrol exploding in a metal box.
The interior is nothing to write home about, either. You get what you need by way of equipment – air-conditioning, stereo, cupholders and so on – but there’s no sense of style or beauty. Apart from a bit of red stitching here and there, it all feels utilitarian, the product of a bean counter’s lowest-bidder wet dream.
So, there is nothing about this car, either on paper or in the showroom, that is going to tickle the tickly bits of Clint Thrust, the lantern-jawed hero from the planet Oversteer. And yet there is, because, unlike most cars of its type, the GT86 is rear-wheel drive.
Rear drive in a car is like a roux in cooking. Yes, you can use cheap’n’easy cornflour front-wheel drive, but if you want the best results you have to go the extra mile. You have to fit a prop shaft. And a differential.
In a rear-drive car the front wheels are left to get on with the job of steering while those at the back handle the business of propulsion. It’s expensive to make a car this way, and complicated, but the end result will be better, more balanced.
And now we get to the nub of Toyota’s genius. The company fitted the GT86 with the same skinny little tyres it uses on the Prius. And what this means is that there is very little grip. You turn into a corner at what by modern standards is a pedestrian speed, and immediately you feel the tail start to slide.
So you let it go a little bit, and when the angle is just so, you find a throttle position that keeps it there. For ever. You are power-sliding, you are grinning like an ape and you are doing about 13 mph. Which means that if you do make a mess of it and you’re heading for a tree, you can open the door and get out.
You won’t make a mess of it, though, because the steering is perfectly weighted and full of juicy feel. I promise. The GT86 will unlock a talent you didn’t know you had. It will unleash your hero gene and you will never want to drive any other sort of car ever again.
No, really. Put some cotton wool in your ears, snick the old-feeling snick-snick box down into second, stand hard on the astoundingly good brakes, wish you’d used more cotton wool as the boxer engine roars, turn the wheel, feel the back start to go and it’s like being back in the time of the Mk 1 Ford Escort.
I’m sure that at this poin
t many non-enthusiasts are wondering whether I’ve taken leave of my senses. Why, they will ask, would anyone want a noisy, impractical car that won’t go round corners properly? Simple answer: if you’re asking the question, the GT86 is not for you.
I suppose I could raise a safety question. Because, while its antics are a massive giggle on a track, I do wonder what will happen when it’s raining and your head is full of other things and you try to go round a roundabout at 25 mph. There’s a time and a place for oversteer and I’m not sure 5.30 p.m. in suburbia is it. Best in these circumstances, then, to turn the traction control on.
There’s another issue, too. I’m willing to bet that some people will decide that the styling of the GT86 could be improved by fitting larger wheels and fatter tyres. Do not do this. Because while it may make the car more meaty to behold, it will ruin the recipe as surely as you would ruin a plate of cauliflower cheese by vomiting on it.
Frankly, I wouldn’t change a thing about the GT86. Because it’s so bland, it doesn’t attract too much attention. You can therefore have fun without being marked out by passers-by as an anorak.
And now we get to the clincher. The GT86 costs less than £25,000 with manual transmission. That makes it cheaper than a Vauxhall Astra VXR. It makes it a Tiffany diamond for the price of a fairground lucky-dip prize.
It’s strange. We thought purpose-designed coupés had gone. We thought wayward handling had gone. And we sure as hell thought genuinely good value had gone. But all three things are now back in one astonishing car. Perhaps the most interesting car to be launched since the original Mazda MX-5. I’m giving it five stars only because it’s not possible to hand out more.
23 September 2012
OK, Sister Maria, try tailgating me now
Audi S6 4.0 TFSI quattro
What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . Page 27
