What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . .

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What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . Page 38

by Jeremy Clarkson


  This is one of the most important things about ‘doing’ Monaco for the grand prix. Yes, you need to spend all day smoking cigars the size of telegraph poles and wearing red trousers. That’s important, of course. But mostly you must be festooned with so many passes that you are in danger of slipping a disc. A lot of passes shows a lot of connections. None means you are paying another €20 to go back to your boat.

  Then the race starts. And even though the boat on which I was staying was about the height of Nelson’s Column, and even though I climbed right up to the radar mast, all I could see was the top of the cars’ air intakes, momentarily, as they sped past the swimming pool.

  So I went into the cabin to watch it on TV, which was fine except I couldn’t hear what Martin Brundle was saying because of the din outside. It’s strange. Most sports are perfectly watchable without someone explaining what’s going on. But with motor racing you really do need Mr Brundle to tell you why no one is attempting to overtake the car in front. Or else it just looks like twenty-two thin young men driving around a town.

  I’ll let you into a secret. Not one of the people on any of those boats saw the race. Nobody in the council blocks did either. In fact, the only people who could see more than a few feet of track were the real fans who’d arrived by train that morning in their branded Vodafone shirts and climbed the hill beneath the palace. They may have found it wasn’t worth the effort.

  And increasingly that’s what I’m starting to think about F1. I love the idea of watching men race cars. But more and more I sense that, really, F1 is now merely televised science. It’s just earnest chaps staring at laptops. And then lodging protests against one another for the tiniest of things. And in Monaco, which is supposed to be the highlight of the season, it’s simply science in a big, daft wedding cake. I’d prefer to see a street race in Wakefield.

  And there’s more. There was a time when we were told that F1 was the launch pad for new technology and new ideas that one day would filter down into our road cars. But I suspect it doesn’t even do that any more.

  Which brings me to the Mazda CX-5. There are plenty of cars such as this on the market today. They’re called crossovers or soft-roaders and they are very popular with school-run mums and caravanners. And I struggle to think of a single thing they have in common with F1 racers.

  In Britain the bestseller of the breed is the Nissan Kumquat – it’s not actually called that and I can’t be bothered to look up its real name. But the only reason it’s the biggest seller here is … that it’s built here.

  On paper the best is the Mazda. It’s cheaper to buy, cheaper to insure, cheaper to fuel and cheaper to tax than most of its main rivals. It’s faster and more powerful than lots of them, too. On paper it’s a no-brainer. The winner.

  And it’s not bad on the road either. The ride is very good. The steering wheel is connected to the front wheels, and when you change up, the 2.2-litre diesel engine becomes a little more quiet. This, I suppose, is its chief drawback. It’s a little boring. Actually, scratch that. It’s catastrophically boring. It’s Jane Austen with cruise control.

  There’s no pomp at all. There’s no kinetic energy recovery system. No paddle-operated gearbox. No carbon fibre. No aero. It’s a thing for the real world. The Monaco Grand Prix, on the other hand, really, really isn’t.

  2 June 2013

  Where does Farmer Giles eat his pork pie?

  Range Rover Sport SDV6 Autobiography

  In the olden days, when it was possible to make a few shillings from cultivating the land, farmers could afford two cars. They had a Land Rover, on which they could lean while gnawing on a pork pie. And perhaps a Humber for nights out at the Berni Inn.

  But then consumers got it into their heads that the correct price for a pint of milk was about 6p less than it costs to make. They also reckoned that bread should be 1p a loaf, and meat should be pretty much free. This meant farmers couldn’t afford two cars any more.

  Happily, Land Rover came to the rescue in 1970 with something called the Range Rover. It was quite brilliant. The world’s first dual-purpose vehicle. For just £2,000 you had a car that would bumble about quite happily with some pigs in the back, and then, after work, you could simply hose down the interior and use it as a comfortable limousine for a trip with Mrs Farmer to the theatre.

  The last Range Rover Sport was also a dual-purpose vehicle. It worked in Wilmslow just as well as it worked in Alderley Edge. It suited both footballers and their wives. You could use it to distribute pharmaceuticals during the day, and then in the evening it was a stable gun platform should a drive-by shooting be necessary.

  I know lots of people who have what I call the proper Range Rover. In fact, I’m struggling to think of any friend in the country who doesn’t have one. But I know only one chap who has a Sport. And there’s no other way of putting this: he’s called Gary. A point made plain by his registration plate.

  The main problem, however, with the Range Rover Sport was that it wasn’t a Range Rover. Underneath, it was actually based on the Discovery, which meant it came with a complex double chassis system. That made it heavy. And that meant it wasn’t a Sport either.

  Then there was the problem of its tailgate. In a proper Range Rover it splits, and you can use the bottom half as a seat when you are at a point-to-point. The Sport didn’t have this feature. It just had a normal hatchback, like a Volkswagen Golf.

  I was never a fan. I thought it was more of a marketing exercise than a genuine piece of engineering. And I harboured similar worries about the new model, which has just gone on sale. The problem is simple. For forty-three years Land Rover has been demonstrating that you can make a car that works extremely well off road and is still comfortable and quiet and refined on the road. But if you try to make it into a triple-purpose car by attempting to put some sportiness into the mix as well, you’re going to come a cropper.

  Think of it as a stout brogue. You can use such a thing on a ruddy-faced country walk. And you can use it while window shopping in St James’s. But you cannot use it in a 100-metre race, unless you want to lose. And that’s what the Range Rover Sport is attempting to be: a brogue that works on the moors and in central London … and on a squash court.

  A sports car must have direct, quick steering. But if you do that with a Range Rover, you will find the steering wheel bucks and writhes about on rough ground. A sports car must have firm suspension too, but that’s precisely what you don’t want on a ploughed field. Or on the M40, actually.

  I therefore approached the new Range Rover Sport with a sense of dread. But I emerged a bit astounded because somehow Land Rover’s engineers seem to have pulled off the impossible.

  It’s not sporty. Let’s be very clear about that. The throttle response is too slow, and the engine in my test car was too dieselly, and the steering, though quicker than I was expecting, is not as quick as it is on, say, a Ferrari F12. But it does have a sporty feel, which is quite good.

  In Dynamic mode the ride comfort is seriously compromised, but I have to say, for a big car, you really can hustle it very, very hard. How hard? Well, through the Craner Curves at Donington, how does 100 mph sound? Sure, you could probably get a proper Range Rover to achieve a similar speed, but it would be extremely scary.

  Later I went to have a look round the charitable institution I laughably call a farm, and here, I’ll be honest, it felt pretty much identical to its proper brother. It had the same push-button system that lets you tell the car what sort of tricky terrain lies ahead, so that it can work out which differential should be locked and what range the automatic gearbox should select.

  Then, afterwards, it was back to London, where the sporting brogue became as comfortable and as quiet as your favourite armchair. Some of the fixtures and fittings are not quite as satisfying as they are on its proper brother, but the architecture is great: the high centre console put me in mind of a Porsche 928, and there’s no getting away from the fact that there are many toys to play with. Possibly be
cause I had an Autobiography-spec car.

  DAB radio was one of those toys, and I’m sorry but it’s about time people stopped jumping up and down with excitement about the quality of the sound, because most of the time there isn’t any. When the signal is a bit weak, normal radio goes hissy for a moment or two. But when the digital signal is a bit weak, you get silence. For mile after mile after mile. It may work in your kitchen, but in a car you would be better off with a record player.

  Still, because there was no radio, I did notice the fuel gauge, which, after many miles, was still resolutely stuck on full. And this really is the ace up the new Sport’s sleeve. You see, underneath, this is not a Discovery. It shares much of its basic architecture with the new Range Rover, and that makes it light. And that in turn means massively improved fuel consumption. I swear my car wasn’t using any at all.

  It’s where the sportiness comes from too, and the sometimes vivid acceleration. Even the six-cylinder diesel can do 0 to 60 in around eight seconds. The supercharged V8 will do 0 to 60 in around five seconds.

  This, then, is a massive improvement on the old car. It is a Range Rover, it does have a sporty feel, it does work off road and it is comfortable and well equipped. But it doesn’t have a split, folding tailgate. That’s why my eye is still on its more expensive bigger brother.

  It seems unfair now to call it the proper model. Because the Sport’s proper too. Gary has already ordered one.

  9 June 2013

  They only make one car. But it’s a nice colour

  Porsche Cayman S with PDK

  Porsche’s biggest problem is that it doesn’t seem to employ any stylists. The 911 was created after someone accidentally sat on a clay model of the Volkswagen Beetle, and every single version that has come along since has looked exactly the same.

  Enthusiasts of the breed point at new door handles and headlamp clusters and say these subtle changes alter the whole appearance of the car. But that’s like saying Tom Cruise’s eyebrow wax makes him look completely different. It just doesn’t. It makes him look like Tom Cruise with new eyebrows.

  My colleagues on Top Gear always refer to the various 911 incarnations by their model numbers and say the type 993 wasn’t as good-looking as the 996, and the 997 doesn’t have quite the right stance. To me it’s like looking at a field full of babies. No matter where in the world they come from, they are all the same.

  Porsche’s designers had a stab at something new and different with the Boxster but, having created a front end, they were so exhausted by the effort that they simply fitted exactly the same thing to the back. Were it not for the colour of the rear lights, this car would look exactly the same going forwards as it does in reverse.

  And then we have the Cayenne, the big off-roader. This has the nose of a 911 and the rest of it looks as if it’s melted.

  I suppose the trouble is that when you are a small company, and you can afford to launch a new car only every 300 years, you can’t really employ a big styling division full of bright young things in polo neck jumpers and thin glasses. Because most of the time they’d have nothing to do. Except apply for a job with General Motors. We see the same problem with Aston Martin, which designed one car back in the 14th century and is still making the same sort of thing today. At least that first car was pretty – which is emphatically not the case with Porsche’s squashed Beetle.

  All of this brings me on to the Cayman, which, in essence, is a Boxster coupé. The first effort looked, as you may have guessed, like a Boxster with a roof. It looked as though I’d designed it. And anyone who bought it was saying one thing very clearly, ‘Hey. I can’t afford a 911.’

  But now there’s a new Cayman and it no longer looks like a Boxster with a roof. It looks like a 911. Still, at least passers-by will no longer clock you as a man hanging to the bottom rung of the ladder. Only very keen Porsche enthusiasts will spot that it isn’t a 911, and you don’t want to be talking to those people anyway.

  I have to, in a professional capacity, and what they’re saying is interesting. They’re saying that the latest 911 has lost some of the brand magic. That it’s no longer as sporty or as involving as it should be. And that actually the much cheaper lookalike Cayman is much closer in spirit to the original dream.

  I don’t know about any of that, but what I can tell you is that my test car, an S version, really was the most lovely colour. It was a deep, rich metallic blue. It’s the best colour I’ve seen on any car.

  I can also tell you that, as a sports car, the Cayman S is simply spectacular. It seems to flow down the road the way honey would flow over the naked form of Cameron Diaz. Only faster.

  The steering and the brakes and the feel through the seat of your pants are all exactly as they should be. And then there’s the engine: a 3.4-litre flat six mounted just behind the cockpit. Not over the rear bumper, as it is in a 911.

  This creates not just an innate sense of balance but also a surprisingly large amount of oomph. And it’s all accompanied by a noise that’s never intrusive or showy but is always there, in a deep, quiet, reassuring way. It’s like driving along with Richard Burton in the boot, endlessly complimenting you on your clothes and your hair and your driving style.

  We can wax lyrical as much as we like about the sporting prowess of cars such as the Jaguar F-type and the Lotus Elise and the Mitsubishi Evo. But all of them are left shivering in the cold, hard shadow of the Cayman’s magnificence. It really is that good.

  Which of course is all very well when you are on the road from Davos to Cortina and the sun’s just coming up and everyone else in the world is in bed. But what about when you’re in Rotherham and it’s rush hour and you’re knackered and you just want to get down the M1 as comfortably as possible?

  Things begin well. The Cayman has two boots, which means it can swallow a surprisingly large amount of luggage. It has a roomy cockpit too, full of nice touches. The satellite navigation is easy to program, the air-conditioning works nicely and, joy of joys, there isn’t a single button on the steering wheel. It all feels simple and unthreatening. As long as you stay away from the G-meter and the idiotic lap timer.

  It also has surprisingly compliant suspension. Yes, it crashes a bit at low speeds on a badly maintained town centre high street. But once you’re above 30, it’s like a limo.

  There’s a lesson here for every car maker. If you make the chassis stiff, the suspension doesn’t have to spend half its time masking deficiencies. It can concentrate on isolating occupants from potholes. Of which, in Rotherham, there are many.

  Of course, you can ruin everything by engaging Sport mode, but if you leave that alone, and avoid the 20-inch wheel option, you’ll be fine. And you’ll be doing 30 mpg in a car that costs just £48,783.

  However. I’m afraid I arrived back in London in some discomfort, which is the British way of saying ‘screaming agony’, because of the bloody seats. The shoulder bolsters are too close together, which means you get some idea of what it might be like to be a letter inside an envelope. Even this morning, after eight hours of deep sleep, my neck feels as though it’s spasming.

  There are other irritations too. The cupholder system is needlessly complicated and, no matter what you do, tins entrusted to the receptacles always rattle. And then there’s the gearbox. I had the double-clutch system, which costs an extra £2,000, and for the most part it’s very good. But at slow speeds, in Auto mode, you sense that a computer program is keeping you going, rather than neat mechanical design. In a sports car as pure as the Cayman, I think a manual is more in keeping.

  That really is a tiny criticism, though. And I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it at all if my neck didn’t hurt so much.

  Which brings me on to the final point. When I have finished writing this, I must drive the Cayman to Oxfordshire. With decent seats, that would be something I’d relish. But it doesn’t have decent seats, so I’m rather dreading it.

  16 June 2013

  Say the magic word and the howling banshee tur
ns sultry sorceress

  McLaren 12C Spider

  When I first reviewed the idiotically named McLaren MP4-12C, I said it was better in every measurable way than the Ferrari 458 Italia, but that it lacked sparkle, panache, zing. That it was too technical and too soulless. And that, given the choice, I’d take the Ferrari.

  Other reviewers came to the same conclusions, and as a result McLaren acted fast to address the situation. The company made its car more noisy and tuned the exhaust to make it sound dirtier. It gave the car even more power. And it fitted door handles that actually worked. Very nice. And, most of all, it cut the roof off to create the more sensibly named 12C Spider.

  The effect of this amputation has been dramatic. It’s like one of those stern-looking girls you sometimes find in adult films who simply by letting their hair down are transformed into complete sex bombs.

  Britain loves convertibles. We buy more of them than almost any other country in Europe, and it’s easy to see why. Because the sun on these islands is a rare visitor, we don’t want to waste the days when it’s here by sitting under a metal roof. We want to savour it, because we know tomorrow it’ll be gone.

  I know the rules, of course. No man over the age of thirty-eight can drive a car with the roof down when he can be seen by other people, as it sends out all the wrong messages. You think you look good on the high street, sitting in the sun. You think you come across as suave yet carefree. But to other people it looks as if your gentleman sausage no longer works properly.

  I don’t care, though. I love to drive a car with the roof down. I love the noise and the sense that it’s just you hurtling through time and space; that you’re not actually in a car. In fact, when you’re in a convertible and the roof is down, the sensations are so vivid, it doesn’t matter what the car’s like at all. Worrying about handling when your hair is being torn out is like worrying about your ingrowing toenails when you are being attacked by a swarm of killer bees.

 

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