What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . .

by Jeremy Clarkson

  It’s actually quite a childish car. It makes a range of extremely childish noises, especially if you engage the Sports Exhaust setting, which makes the back end snort like a hippo when you change up, and bang and crackle when you lift off. I did this a lot in the tunnels.

  The styling is quite childish as well. It’s pretty in the same way as a child’s fridge-door drawing of a princess is pretty. It’s simple and clean, and I stand by my earlier claim that it is one of the best-looking cars yet made. Precisely because it isn’t trying to be all grown-up and German.

  But there are a lot of things that are not childish at all. The gearbox stands out. There are flappy paddles behind the wheel, but it isn’t a boy-racer double-clutch affair that works well on a racetrack but falls to pieces in town. It’s a conventional eight-speed automatic and it’s a delight.

  15 September 2013

  Go and play with your flow chart, Comrade Killjoy, while I floor it

  Audi RS 6 Avant

  The Sunday-evening crawl back into London is enough to make most sentient beings wonder if they should pull onto the hard shoulder and shoot themselves in the head. The weekend is over. There is nothing but drudgery ahead. The kids are tired and crotchety. And the traffic is dreadful.

  It was always thus. But now, on the M1, the government has found a way to make everything much, much worse. Because every few hundred yards there is an overhead gantry that informs motorists the speed limit has been lowered to, say, 50 mph. And that speed cameras are on hand to catch those who think that’s stupid. This means that everyone drops down to the new limit. And there’s a word for this: communism.

  I don’t doubt for a moment that many people with interesting hair and degrees in advanced mathematics have spent several weeks working with the principle of flow dynamics and have decided that when x number of cars are using the motorway, pi equals MC2 and that the speed limit should be lowered to ensure a smooth passage for everyone. Certainly we know their arguments took in the former transport secretary, John Prescott, who announced that the slower you go, the faster you’ll get there.

  Unfortunately, human beings are not molecules. We cannot be likened to water flowing down a hosepipe, because we’re all different. Some people are pushy and dynamic. Some are mice. It is a fact that if you gave everyone in the country £100 today, tomorrow some people would have £1,000 and some would have nothing. And that’s what the mathematicians don’t seem to understand.

  When Russia experimented with the idea of making everyone the same, it wasn’t long before it needed a secret police force to keep the system going. Gatso. KGB. Same thing, really.

  I came down the M1 last Sunday evening, and I think I’m right in saying that I have never been in a situation on any road anywhere in the world that was quite so dangerous. Because all of a sudden the pushy, dynamic people were stuck, and the car in front could neither speed up, because it was being driven by a mouse, nor pull over, because everyone was doing 50, so all three lanes were clogged.

  This sort of thing makes the alpha male mad, so he starts to tailgate and undertake, using gaps that aren’t really there. And that causes the mice to panic-brake. Then you’re in a world of squealing tyres and tortured metal, and pretty soon you have the headline: ‘Dozens die in juggernaut dance of death’.

  I suppose I should explain that by far the worst offender that night was me. This is because I was in a rage at the politicians who allowed this system to be implemented. I was in a rage at the lightly dented Ford Galaxy in front that would not pull over, even when its driver had the chance. I was in a rage at the mathematicians who were responsible for the 50-mph limit. But most of all I was in a rage because I was in an Audi. A big, twin-turbo RS 6 that was the colour of a dog’s lipstick.

  We all know that Audi drivers are by far the most aggressive you encounter, and I’ve often wondered which comes first: the temper or the car.

  Well, now I have the answer. Most of the time I’m pretty calm behind the wheel. I occasionally mutter the odd profanity at another motorist’s idiocy, but I don’t tailgate, I don’t shake my fist and I don’t arrive at my destination with a face the colour of a plum and armpits like Lake Superior. And yet in that Audi I did all those things. I think the company put testosterone in the air-conditioning system.

  Or maybe it’s the small-man syndrome at work. We all know that people who can’t reach things on high shelves (no names here, Richard) have a bad temper because they are not as tall as all their friends. Well, could it be that Audi drivers are in a permanent state of fury because they do not have a BMW or a Mercedes?

  Either way, I was a menace that night, getting far too close to the car in front in a stupid and dangerous attempt to scare the f****** b****** into getting out of my f****** way.

  And while engaging in this idiotic pursuit I noticed something strange. The Audi was fitted with a radar in its nose that warned you when you were travelling too close to the car in front. This is available in many cars these days, and normally it errs on the side of caution. Not in the Audi, it doesn’t. It issues a red alert only when you are precisely 1 inch from the car ahead. And even in my deranged state I thought that was a bit silly.

  And I suppose while we’re looking at the negative points we should examine some of the other things that are wrong with the new RS 6.

  No 1: it’s not that nice to drive. You have a four-wheel-drive system that uses a mechanical centre differential to apportion power between the front and the back. You have adaptive air suspension. Then you have more diffs that send the power from side to side. And you have a steering system developed after more than a century of trial and error. But most of the time it’s uninvolving, and then very occasionally, when you are really tanking along, it all gets overwhelmed by the torque and goes a bit wobbly. If you really do want a large estate car that feels like a Ferrari in wellies, an AMG Mercedes is better.

  That said, the Audi’s engine is a peach. The last RS 6 was propelled by a big 5-litre V10, but for this one the company has fitted the twin-turbo 4-litre V8 that Bentley is now using in the Continental GT.

  There’s less power than before but there is also less weight. A fifth of the car’s body is now made from aluminium. The wiring is as thin as possible. The soundproofing is chosen for its similarity to helium. And as a result the performance is still somewhere between electric and mind-blowing. This is a car that will take two children back to boarding school after the summer holidays – and yet it will get you from 0 to 62 mph in less than four seconds. And it has a top speed of 155 mph.

  It’s not just brute force and ignorance, either, because when you are just pootling along, four of the eight cylinders shut themselves down. And to make sure the car doesn’t shake itself to pieces as a result, the ‘active engine mounts’ are fitted with ‘electromagnetic oscillation coil actuators [that] induce phase-offset counter-oscillations which largely cancel engine vibration’. You can tell it’s German, can’t you?

  But this is exactly the sort of engineering that is missing from the Jaguar F-type V8 S, which I wrote about last week. The sort of stuff that makes you go, ‘Huh?’ The entire RS 6 is riddled with it. Clever solutions to problems you simply didn’t know existed. Some of it has to do with weight. Some with delivering music from the entertainment system. You sense all the time that you are driving not so much a car as an engineer’s homework.

  Maybe that’s why it feels a bit detached. A bit uninvolving. Because, unlike the Jag, it wasn’t built with passion; it was built with maths. And maths, as we know from the Stalinist cameras on the M1, doesn’t always work.

  22 September 2013

  Who lent Scrooge the ninja costume?

  Lexus IS 300h F Sport

  Over the millennia, man has been consumed by a need for speed. In the Stone Age the fastest runners would catch the best food, and that made them the kings of the hill. Then came the horse, and it was the same story here. Genghis Khan was successful because his cavalry soldiers wore silk armour, and t
hat made them faster.

  In the days of steam, engine drivers would compete to see who could wrest the best times out of their locomotives, and at sea, liners would stage races across the Atlantic. Then, in the Cold War, whoever had the fastest jets was deemed to be winning.

  When I started driving, it was all my friends and I talked about. Which one of us had the fastest car? I would spend hours scouring the auto-porn magazines for evidence that my Volkswagen Scirocco GLi was faster than Andy Scott’s Vauxhall Chevette HS. And when we were out and about he would do everything in his power to demonstrate that it was not.

  But now something strange has happened. Speed no longer seems to matter. Concorde has been replaced by the fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner. HS2 is being questioned because of the cost and the impact it will have on ‘communities’. And on the roads everything possible is being done to slow us down. Not that long ago Frank Beard, the drummer with ZZ Top, said he had a Ferrari because that way ‘I can leave for the party later, get there first, stay longer and still be in bed with someone before anyone else’.

  Today, though, I listen to teenage boys discussing their first cars, and all they ever seem to talk about is fuel consumption. My son is extremely proud of his Fiat Punto TwinAir, not because of the snazzy wheels or the turbocharger, but because it can do more than 60 mpg. Which means he gets to the party after everyone else but has more money to spend on beer. Which means he can’t drive home afterwards and has to sleep on the floor.

  These, then, are strange times, which brings us to a strange car. The new Lexus IS 300h F Sport. It looks extremely aggressive. There are fat alloys, sharp daytime running lights, a lean-forward stance and a grille so big I’m surprised it doesn’t have its own moon. This is a car that trumpets a very clear message to the rear-view mirror of drivers in front: ‘Get out of my way.’

  It’s the same story on the inside. The dash is a direct copy of the cockpit in the brilliant Lexus LFA supercar. You have dials that move about, information you didn’t know you needed, a mouse to operate the command and control system and a device that coughs discreetly, like a butler, when you are approaching a speed camera. You can turn this off. Not sure why you’d want to, though. The seats are body-hugging and superb. There is space for many, and you get a large, sensible boot into which you can put things.

  So, what we have here appears to be an interesting alternative to the BMW 3-series. A front-engined, rear-wheel-drive sports saloon car with the added benefit of Japanese electronics and Lexus quality. However … it takes about four seconds for you to realize that this is not a sports saloon at all. Instead it is a car tailored for today and our new-found desire to save money. This is a car built for one thing: economy. This is a hybrid.

  The four-cylinder petrol engine is designed not to produce as much power as possible but as little friction. Then you have the electric motor, which cuts in and out seamlessly. And then there’s the electronic gearbox …

  It simply doesn’t feel or sound like any car you’ve driven. The revs rise and fall instantly. There are no gear changes as such. And because the noise it makes has nothing to do with the speed you’re going, you do tend to arrive at corners either far too quickly or nowhere near fast enough.

  Meanwhile, on the dash you get read-outs telling you all sorts of things that you don’t really understand. You can learn, for instance, which motor is driving the wheels at any given moment and when momentum is being used to make electricity. Drive lightly and you are told you are being economical. Mash your foot into the carpet and you are told you are using energy. I know that already. My foot’s halfway through the bloody firewall.

  They say it will get from standstill to 62 mph in 8.4 seconds, which is respectable enough, but at no time does it feel even remotely sprightly. You put your foot down on the motorway and it’s as though something is broken. There’s more noise but no more speed. Not until you’re going past Penrith, at least.

  You can put it in Sport S+ mode, if you like, which brings up a rev counter but precious little else. So although the front end is barking orders at the car ahead, you’d better hope it doesn’t pull over, because you sure as hell aren’t going past. The IS 300h feels like a car. It looks like a car. But it doesn’t behave like one, and I’m afraid I just found it annoying.

  But I’m being a dinosaur, aren’t I? I’m judging the baby Lexus on speed, which these days is bit like judging a dog on its ability to write poetry. I care about speed. Frank Beard cares about it. But everyone else? No. Not really.

  Which brings us on to the important news. If you go for the non-F Sport model on skinny tyres you get an output of just 99 carbon dioxides. A meaningless figure to the likes of me, but if you’re a higher-rate-tax-paying company-car driver, that low, low figure is going to save you a fair amount.

  Then there’s the question of fuel consumption. Well, officially, you’re going to get about 60 mpg, which sounds almost unbelievable. And that’s because in the real world it is. In town, where the hybrid system really works for a living, the Lexus will be massively more economical than all its rivals. But on the motorway or the open road you will have to work that throttle hard to keep up, and that will bring the economy figures way down.

  Which raises a question. Why did Lexus not do what every other car maker does and fit a diesel? Why go to all the bother of fitting two motors? Why have all that extra weight? Why make it all feel so different? Simple answer, apparently. Lexus doesn’t do diesels. Doesn’t know how.

  I make no bones about this at all. If I were in the market for a mid-size executive saloon car and I had one eye on the fuel bills, I’d buy a BMW 3-series with a diesel engine. It would be torquey, fast, cheap to run, smooth and conventional.

  The Lexus is the future: of that we can be fairly sure. But I’m not sure we’re ready for it yet, because the dinosaurs have their petrol engines and the new youth have their diesels. Which means hybrids are catering for a market that doesn’t yet exist.

  29 September 2013

  Crikey, the Terminator has joined the Carry On team

  Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series

  At present your car’s annual tax bill is based on how much carbon dioxide is emitted from its rear. And not since William III’s window tax have we seen anything quite so stupid. You might as well levy people on how many armpit hairs they have.

  My problem with taxing a gas is that to cut down emissions of it, cars are being ruined. Hopeless electric power steering is now replacing the ‘feelsome’ hydraulic systems of old because it is less of a drain on the engine. Double-clutch gearboxes are replacing smooth slushmatics because without a torque converter the economy is better. Which means less CO2.

  It’s probable that fairly soon the last V8 will roll off a production line somewhere in the world. I like V8s. They are inherently unbalanced, which is what makes them sound all gruff and rumbly. But each cylinder has to be fed with fuel and why feed eight when technology means you can now get as much power from feeding six?

  This means the turbocharger is back with a vengeance. And while many of these blown engines are incredibly good, and remarkably free of noticeable lag, you know as you sit there that the throttle response has to be dulled. Which is the same as giving a connoisseur of fine food a plate of Smash. It’s nearly mashed potato, and yet it just isn’t.

  And it’s all going to get worse. Because every year the madmen in charge insist on less and less carbon dioxide, and the only way to achieve that is for cars to burn less and less fuel. Which, to start with, will mean more hybrids, and then as the lunatics keep on going, cars that are purely electric.

  I have nothing against electric power at all, except for the total impracticality and the fact the emissions are simply being made at power stations rather than under the bonnet, but I do suspect that when we are all humming around the place in near silence we shall miss the good old days of crackling exhausts and instant responses and limitless range.

  And that’s why I’ve been thin
king: is there another way of taxing cars that keeps both the ecomentalists and the petrolheads happy? And I believe there is – tax weight instead.

  Weight is the enemy of everyone except for the gun-toting, attack-dog enthusiast in a few Southern states of pick-up-truck America. But despite this, cars keep on getting heavier and heavier. It’s our fault. We demand more space on the inside, more luxury equipment and more rigid safety cells, all of which makes a car fatter.

  But if engineers can make an engine produce 130 bhp per litre of capacity – and Mercedes has done just that – then surely they can build a safe, big, well-equipped car that needs mooring ropes to stop it floating away at the lights.

  Dragging extra pounds around means spending more pounds at the pumps. And that means more emissions, which is bad news – if you believe that sort of thing – for Johnny Polar Bear. So tax it. I certainly won’t complain because weight also blunts a car’s performance – not just its acceleration but its ability to go round corners. A heavy car will never be as much fun to drive as a light car.

  I am particularly keen to have a go in the new Alfa Romeo 4C, which on the face of it sounds a bit hopeless. It costs around £45,000 yet it only comes with a four-cylinder 1742 cc engine. That’s white-collar money for blue-collar power. And yet this is a car that tips the scales at just 895 kg – about half what the vehicle on your drive weighs.

  It therefore doesn’t need a big engine: 237 bhp – the stuff of hatchbacks – will give it a power-to-weight ratio of 268 bhp per tonne. And that’s the stuff of full-blooded supercars. Along with more than 40 mpg, which you’re lucky to get from a Toyota Prius. Frankly, if I were in charge, the 4C would be tax-free.

  To get the weight this far down, Alfa Romeo has gone the extra mile and then it’s gone round the corner and kept right on going. The wiring, for instance, is made as thin as possible. And the chassis is a carbon-fibre tub that weighs about the same as a loaf of bread. It’s going to be good, this car. I can feel it in my bones.