When I’m out and about I’m asked constantly to pose for a photograph. ‘It’s for my sister who’s going on a hockey tour,’ they always say, while rummaging around for their cameraphone.
Several minutes later, after I’ve heard all about the hockey tour and how her boyfriend has a BMW M3, she has found the camera on her phone and is asking passers-by to take a shot. But they don’t know which button to press so they end up taking a picture of their own nose. Or turning it off. And by the time they’ve had a lesson, someone else has arrived. ‘Oh, my son would never forgive me if I didn’t get a picture.’
Resisting the temptation to say, ‘Well, don’t tell him you saw me then,’ I agree to a snap, only to discover he’s a bit of a David Bailey and wants me to move into the shade because the shot’s a bit too backlit. And soon my two-minute trip to the shop for a pint of milk has turned into a two-hour photoshoot.
This, of course, is a time-consuming by-product of appearing on the television. But when it happens on the road, it’s actually pretty dangerous. People brake and swerve and cut across three lanes of traffic to get a shot of me. Once, a chap in a Mini was so busy videoing me he crashed into the car in front. A car that was being driven, amusingly, by a gorilla of a man.
One of these days someone is going to be killed and that’s why I want my next car to be inconspicuous. And that’s a problem, because every single car that offers the speed and excitement I crave comes with look-at-me styling. Except one: the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
So, I’m sorry. Every week I come here and review a car for your benefit, but this morning I’m reviewing a car for mine. Because the new GTI might just be the answer to all my prayers.
When Volkswagen first created the fast Golf thirty-seven years ago, it was truly classless. I knew housewives who scrimped and saved to buy one. And I knew someone who part-exchanged his Gordon-Keeble. It was also a car that was all things to all men. It could carry five people. It had a boot with rear seats that folded down. It had body panels that cost no more to repair than those on the normal Golf but, thanks to its 108-bhp engine, it was faster and more exciting than any of the sports cars that were kicking around at the time.
The Mk 2 GTI was pretty good as well, but since then the mojo has been slipping away. You had the impression that VW was making a GTI because it felt it had to, not because it was something that excited it in any way. But for the Mk 7 the company brought in the man who did the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. And from what I’ve been hearing, the original magic is back.
The engine is a 2-litre turbo that produces 217 bhp. But for an extra £980 you can have the performance pack, which takes the output up to 227 bhp. I tried that version and after a short time knew that in the real world this car could keep up with just about anything.
Quietly. There’s no fuss with this GTI. No drama. No rorty exhaust noises. You see a gap. You put your foot down. The overtaking manoeuvre is completed. You reach a bend. The electronic front diff makes sure there’s no understeer and no unseemly tugging at the steering wheel either. You come out on the other side. It is a machine built to make speedy progress. It is German.
There’s more too. It costs just £195 more than the previous model and, thanks to a camera-based emergency braking system, it has fallen five insurance groups. And for a 150-mph-plus car it is also extremely economical.
What we have here then is a bundle of pure, undiluted common sense. Except for two things. First, you can’t buy it with optional 19-inch wheels in combination with a sunroof – no idea why. And second, you can choose between Comfort, Normal and Sport settings for the front differential, the suspension, the gearbox and the steering, so I did a test. I took the car to Top Gear’s test track, put it in Normal and asked the Stig to do a lap. He did it in 1 minute 29.6 seconds. I then put it in Sport. This time he did a lap in 1 minute 29.6 seconds. So then I put it in Comfort, which softens everything up. He did it in 1 minute 29.5 seconds.
Adjustable suspension and gearboxes are fitted to many cars these days, and I’ve long harboured a suspicion they make no difference to how fast a car goes. And here’s proof. Sport makes the ride uncomfortable but provides no benefit at all. In its Normal setting the GTI is tremendous. The sportiness is still there – the times prove that – but Comfort mode is sublime. It’s phenomenal and brilliant.
Inside, it’s as logical and as sensible as a German’s knicker drawer and you have the impression that everything will still be working perfectly in ten years’ time. Except for the radio, which broke after two days. And a bit of trim round the rear window, which fell off. But to be fair, I was testing a pre-production model. And the man responsible for these mistakes will have been shot by the time the lines start to roll for real.
Best of all, though, nobody took my picture as I drove along. I had a car that can rip holes in the physics books, that can scream to 62 mph in just over six seconds, that slices through the bends like a well-drilled monoskier and that is as comfortable as having a nice lie down. But nobody looked at it twice.
The only thing that annoyed me was the double-clutch flappy-paddle gearbox. It was impossible to set off from the lights smoothly, and by the fourth day I was being driven mad. By the seventh I was so angry my nose was beginning to itch. And then I discovered the ‘auto hold’ button.
Fitted to stop the car rolling backwards when you are doing a hill start – you can’t ride the clutch with a flappy-paddle box and there’s none of the in-built ‘creep’ you get from a traditional automatic – it applies the brake whenever you stop. And then, when you put your foot on the throttle, it takes the brake off again. But not fast enough. Hence the jerk.
I turned it off and all was well. Very well. For me this car is perfect. And if you’re honest, it’s perfect for you too.
14 July 2013
Coo! A baby thunderclap from Merc’s OMG division
Mercedes-Benz A45 AMG
For a hundred years Mercedes was a byword for solid, sensible engineering. While the rest of the world let its hair down and listened to Jimi Hendrix, the company plodded on with its doleful recipe of longevity with just a sprinkling of toughness. The men of Stuttgart built no-frills cars that were made to last. They were tortoises to counter the hares from BMW.
If you want to drive across Africa next weekend, then by all means get yourself a Toyota Land Cruiser. But if you actually want to get there, you’d be better off with the standard Mercedes from the late 1970s and early 1980s. In a world of thongs and briefs and frilly bits of nothing, this was a sturdy pair of games knickers. It was a car that simply didn’t know how to let you down. And it still doesn’t today.
But then one day the company chiefs got bored with making games knickers, so they got together with a little-known tuning company called AMG and went berserk.
The cars that resulted are stupid. They are too big, too loud, too crazy, too brash, too sideways most of the time and too scary as a result. I like them a lot.
I like the way that a BMW or a quick Audi is designed to put a fast lap time on the board, whereas an AMG Mercedes is designed to put a smile on your face, and most of its rear tyres into the atmosphere. In a world where fuel economy is king and tall poppies are frowned upon, it’s refreshing to find a range of cars built purely for blood-and-guts savagery. They are not sniper rifles. They are dirty great artillery pieces.
If I may liken all of the world’s cars to weather, you have many that are drizzle and some that are lovely sunny afternoons. You have those that are precise and fast, like lightning. And some that are just Tupperware grey as far as the eye can see. Then you have the AMG Mercs. They are cracks of thunder. They are V8 muscle cars. A blend of the American dream and German engineering. They are tremendous.
But then several months ago I drove an AMG-badged A-class Mercedes, and that wasn’t a V8, or thunderous, or even very muscly. Its AMG badge was writing cheques the car simply couldn’t cash. I gave it two stars and wondered what on earth Mercedes was thinking of. Putting that badge on t
hat car was … well, it would be like calling a small river launch HMS Ark Royal.
And now the company has done it again with this car. It is called the A45 AMG, and, to be honest, I was expecting about 14 feet of solid, chewy disappointment. However … Let’s start with the engine. It’s a turbocharged 2-litre unit that meets emissions legislation that the EU hasn’t even introduced yet. It’s quite frugal too. Despite this, it’s the most powerful four-cylinder engine in production.
The figures are fairly astonishing. You get 355 brake horsepower, which means you’re getting almost 178 bhp a litre. To put that in perspective, the V8 in a Ferrari 458 Italia can manage only 125 bhp a litre. There is some very clever engineering in here.
And because the A45 is so clever and so potent, Mercedes decided it could not solely be front-wheel drive. Because asking the front wheels to do the steering while handling 355 rampaging German horses would be like asking a man who’s on fire to solve a crossword puzzle. So it has a system that sends up to half the power to the rear wheels should those up front become a bit flustered.
On top of this, Mercedes fitted big brakes, lowered the suspension and slotted in a fast-acting, double-clutch, flappy-paddle gearbox. And the result is … quite boring.
It’s all so planted and neutral and benign that you wonder whether you’ve climbed into the diesel version by mistake. And then you look at the speedometer and what it’s saying is scarcely believable. Most of the time I was going almost exactly twice as fast as I’d guessed.
All previous AMG Mercs make you feel as if you’re going faster than you really are. This one does the exact opposite.
That said, Mercedes has tried to give it some of its big brothers’ traits. When you change up, the exhaust sounds like Rubeus Hagrid clearing his throat. And there’s a feel of great heaviness. Probably because that’s what the car is: heavy. But, whatever, you have to manhandle it through the bends as though you’re trying to get a piano up a back staircase. You have to work for your rewards.
And, boy oh boy, are they there. The engine has an uncanny knack of delivering lots of meaty torque right the way up to 5000 rpm and then, just as you think it’s game over and time for another gear, you get a frantic burst of power. And then you are going three times faster than you’d guessed. Happily, then, the brakes are immense and the handling is sublime. Obviously it won’t stick its tail out and smoke like every other AMG product. But it doesn’t understeer unduly either. It just goes round the corner in such a way that you get the impression it wasn’t really trying.
I liked it enormously. It had more character than any hatchback since the Fiat Strada Abarth, the speed was immense and there’s no getting away from the fact that it looks really rather handsome. Many Mercs are overstyled these days, but on this one the creases and the fussy little details seem to work.
However, there are a few issues. Let’s start with the little ones. It’s needlessly bumpy. This has been done simply to make it feel sporty, not for any handling benefits. The chassis is so stiff that Mercedes could easily have softened the suspension without affecting the performance at all. It was a mistake.
Then there’s the width. Certainly you do not whizz through width restrictions the way you would in a 1-series BMW. You need to breathe in and grimace first.
Other stuff? The petrol tank is too small, which means you have to fill up every few minutes. And filling up with petrol is worse than trying on trousers.
Then there’s the interior styling, which is completely over the top. Who, for instance, thought that it would be a good idea to make the air vents red? This is a Mercedes-Benz, for heaven’s sake. Not a Gillette commercial. Red air vents are like red trousers. And there’s a blog for people who wear those. (Google it.)
But the big sticking point for me is the price. It’s £37,845. Of course, for an AMG Mercedes, this is extremely good value. But it’s a shedload for what, when all is said and done, is a hot hatchback.
It’s a whopping £9,000 more than you’re asked to pay for a range-topping Volkswagen Golf GTI. Yes, the Mercedes is a better car. But £9,000 better? With that ride, that fuel tank and those stupid vents? No. I’m afraid not.
21 July 2013
From the nation that brought you Le Mans … A tent with wheels
Citroën DS3 cabrio DSport
As I write, the sun is belting down with a fury we haven’t seen for many years. Yet, after one of the coldest, most miserable springs on record, the countryside is still as green as an ecomentalist’s groin. It is truly beautiful out there and I am consumed by an overwhelming need to drive about in a sports car. But there’s a problem with that. You can’t actually buy such a thing these days.
The Mazda MX-5 comes close, but over the years it has swollen up and been given a bigger engine and a retractable metal roof, so that now, while it’s still delightful, it’s a bit too fast and a bit too sensible and a bit too grippy in the corners.
The Caterham 7 isn’t bad either. But these days it’s aimed mainly at the adenoidal track-day enthusiast rather than the chap who simply wants to slither about Oxfordshire in the sunshine. And it is extremely ugly.
The new Jaguar F-type is not ugly but it’s too expensive and too powerful. Which brings me on to the BMW Z4, a machine that is neither of those things. But it is too smooth and too polished. It’s lovely to behold and lovely to own but it’s not a sports car.
An Alfa Romeo Spider. That was a sports car. So were the Fiat 124 Spider and the MG. The Triumph TR6 was a sports car, too, as was the Sunbeam Alpine. These cars were built for fun, for a laugh, ha-ha, ha-ha. You could keep them by the racehorse that the Aga Khan bought you for Christmas. Even by the standards of the day they were not especially fast, but they were pretty and they all came with simple canvas roofs. They were like tenting but without the dysentery. And I miss them all.
I miss the days when handling mattered and grip didn’t. Today cars are built to go round a corner as quickly as possible. Which means you can’t indulge in a big four-wheel drift at 20 mph. And they have to be safe, which means they have to be heavy. And the one thing a sports car cannot be is heavy.
Sports cars are for long, warm summer afternoons. And on a long, warm summer afternoon you want a light salad. Not a dirty great meat pie. That’s why I was rather looking forward to the Citroën DS3 convertible.
I’m a big fan of the hard-top DS3, particularly the limited-edition Racing version. I’ll be honest: it isn’t much of a driver’s car; the gearing is too weird for that. On a hot lap of the Monaco Grand Prix track I stuck it in second about two seconds after the start and didn’t have cause to change gear at all until it was time to stop.
Then there is the suspension. That isn’t very good either. But all of these little issues are smothered by an interesting body, lots of natty decals and a sense of fun.
There will be a convertible version of the Racing in the months to come, but the car I tested was simply a chopped-down version of the standard model. And that’s fine by me, because who needs speed when the sun’s out and there are wildflowers to look at?
There’s more too. Before the car arrived, a chap at Citroën sent me a text saying that it was the world’s only genuine five-seat convertible – apart from the woeful Jeep Wrangler – that its boot was almost twice as big as the boot in a Mini convertible and that the roof could be opened at up to 74 mph. It all sounded good.
But when the car arrived, I discovered that, actually, it isn’t a convertible at all. It’s a normal car with a big canvas sunroof. Back in the Seventies my grandfather had a Rover 3.5 that had a Tudor Webasto sunroof. And that wasn’t a convertible either.
Then I discovered that if you push the sunroof button again, the back window flops down and the roof keeps on folding itself back. This was good news, until it stopped, completely obscuring the rear view. How can Citroën have thought this was a good idea?
Actually, scrub that. I know exactly how Citroën thought it was a good idea. Because its last attempt at ma
king a convertible was the C3 Pluriel. And it came with a roof that detached all right, but only after half an hour of swearing and broken fingernails. And then, when it was off, there was nowhere to put it. You had to leave it where it was and hope it didn’t rain while you were out. It was the stupidest piece of design since the Ronco Buttoneer.
I think the problem is that in all of automotive history the total number of sports cars made in France is, let’s see … um … exactly none.
For a country where motoring is a demonstration of nonchalance and cheapness is king, it seems odd that they never combined the two things. And it’s doubly odd when you look at their love of motor sport. Their engines dominate Formula One. A Peugeot has just smashed the record up Pikey’s Peak in Colorado. They rule the roost in international rallying. And yet, despite all this, they have never made a sports car. And on the evidence this far, the DS3 convertible doesn’t exactly change things.
But let us plough on. Let us treat it as a pretty hatchback that comes with a big sunroof. Then what? Well, it will cost you some money but not much. Because whatever price is quoted in the brochure, you can be assured that, being a Citroën, it will come with 0 per cent finance, £1,000 cashback, no VAT, an offer of an evening out with the dealer principal’s daughter and £5,000 to spend on a holiday. You may need an incentive such as this because as a car it’s not very good.
First of all there’s the driving position. The steering wheel is mounted pretty much directly above the pedals, which means the only person who can get comfortable is someone whose arms and legs are the same length. To make matters worse, the seats were lined with a fabric that had the grip of KY Jelly.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . Page 40
