What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . .

by Jeremy Clarkson

  Anyway, sticking with the air-conditioning system, I can tell you that its innards are filled with dried coconut shells that absorb not just some of the world’s more unpleasant gases but, with the help of the ionization, many of the world’s viruses. This, then, is a car in which you cannot catch smallpox, cholera or even ebola. Which, as a safety feature, beats the crap out of a collapsible steering column, if you ask me.

  Before we move away from the air-conditioning system, I should explain that different levels can be set for each part of the car. So if you have a passenger whose company you do not enjoy, you can make him hot, fire lightning into his face and give him the bubonic plague.

  I’m aware I have now spent a long time covering the air-conditioning, so let’s take a deep breath and move on to the seats. As you would expect, they can all deliver a ‘hot stone’ massage, the armrests are heated and in the long-wheelbase model those in the back can recline until they are pretty much flat. Pillows are provided, naturally, and they are not just heated but also air-conditioned. This … (That’s enough air-conditioning stuff. Ed.)

  There’s more, of course, but we must move on at this point to the optional thermal-imaging camera. When engaged at night, it projects a greyscale image of the road ahead to a screen on the dash, and – get this – when it detects a pedestrian, the person in question is highlighted in red.

  This is fantastic. Because when you drive down Baker Street you feel as if you are commanding an Apache gunship and that all the people are targets.

  They are as well. Because if one of them does something that appears to be threatening, such as, say, stepping into the road, the Mercedes fires a laser into his eyes to warn him you’re coming. I know you think I’m making this all up. But I promise I’m not.

  Mercedes says the equipment is so sophisticated, it can tell the difference between a person and an animal. But this isn’t so. Because when I reached my London flat late last Sunday night, the camera detected what it thought was a human hiding in the bushes, and a little red square highlighted his exact position. I could see nothing with the naked eye, so I drove over to find it was a paparazzo. Not a human at all.

  Sadly I was not able to run him over because the Mercedes has a system that applies the brakes even if you don’t. The same system allows you to engage the cruise control in stop-start traffic and sit back while the car quite literally drives itself, maintaining a safe distance between itself and the car in front.

  But that is nothing compared with the cameras that guide what’s called the Magic Body Control. I kid you not. When they see a speed hump or a pothole approaching, they don’t just soften the suspension to minimize the jolt, they actually lift the wheel clear. So there’s absolutely no jolt at all.

  Oh, heavens. I’ve forgotten the interior lighting. You can choose from a vast array of colours and then choose how bright you’d like it all to be. And then, with a swivel of the knob, you can turn on the wi-fi. You then input the seventeen-digit code into your phone – don’t worry about drifting onto the other side of the road while you do this because the Mercedes knows when you’re about to cross the white line – and, if you haven’t indicated, it will steer you back again.

  Did I mention the fridge? Or the larder? Or the availability of TV screens that fold out of the centre armrest? Nope? Well, what about the button that allows you to choose just how high you’d like the electric boot lid to rise?

  Some are saying that all of this stuff is ridiculous and the S-class is no longer sitting at the prow of motoring innovation. Others say – and I have some sympathy with this argument – that true luxury is achieved with a clever use of space, light and silence, and that a billion gadgets is no match for the sheer opulence you find in a Rolls-Royce.

  And yet. My inner man loved foraging about in the Merc, finding solutions to problems that no one knew existed. It also comes with an engine.

  27 October 2013

  I can see the mankini peeking out over your waistband

  BMW 435i M Sport coupé

  When I first moved to London, during the war – with Argentina, that is – Knightsbridge was a quite genteel place full of old ladies and sausage dogs. It was an oasis of calm in the centre of that magnificent 1980s whirlwind. It isn’t any more. Now it’s one of the noisiest places on earth.

  This is because it has been bought, pretty much completely, by gentlemen from the Middle East, all of whom drive extremely loud supercars. You can hear them start up from three streets away, and you can hear them leaving the lights from back in Qatar. A Ferrari drove past me last night fitted with exhausts like 120-mm guns being played through the Grateful Dead’s sound system. And then there was a Lamborghini with a bark so loud it could frighten an old lady’s sausage dog to death.

  There are rules on how much noise a car can make, but because they are rules they can be broken. Many supercar makers have worked out how. They have noted that the EU noise inspectors, who test a car before it is allowed to go on sale, take their reading when the engine is turning at 3000 rpm. So the manufacturer fits a valve in the exhaust system that opens at 3001 rpm. This means all is lovely and quiet for the men with clipboards. But then, just after they’ve smiled and put ticks in the right boxes, all hell breaks loose.

  Today most fast cars make a racket. Jaguar even fits a discreet little button that enables you to turn the silencer into a trumpet. So when an F-type goes down your street, it feels as if the Royal Artillery has just opened up with everything it’s got. I shall be honest. I like a car to make a noise. I loved the muscle-car rumble you got from AMG Mercedeses before the turbochargers came along. I love the melancholy howl of a Ferrari F12. And the shriek from the Lexus LFA was up there with Roger Daltrey’s scream towards the end of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.

  So I was surprised and, yes, a little bit disappointed when I put my foot down for the first time in BMW’s new 435i coupé. This is the sporty two-door version of the 3-series. In the past it would have been called the 3-series coupé but BMW has decided to give it a name of its own, which has allowed the stylists to have a freer hand. A much freer hand, as it turns out, because the only panel this car shares with its four-door stablemate is the bonnet.

  The rest is all different and all new and nowhere near as dramatic as I’d been expecting. Yes, it’s lower and wider than the saloon – the rear wheels are about 3 inches further apart – but it lacks visual presence. And on the face of it, that doesn’t sound such a good idea.

  When someone buys the two-door version of a four-door car, they are spending more money and getting less practicality. And the only reason they would want to do this is: they want more style. And with the 4-series I’m not sure they’re getting it.

  Which brings me back to the noise. Floor the throttle and all you get is a gentle hum, the sound of an engine that is doing a spot of gardening or maybe popping down the road for a pint of milk. It doesn’t really sound as though it’s making much of an effort at all.

  Maybe it isn’t. Because even though it’s a 3-litre turbocharged straight six, it’s producing only 302 brake horsepower. That’s 14 bhp less than you get from the 3-litre turbocharged straight six in the smaller BMW M135i. What we have, then, is a car that is more expensive than the more practical 3-series and slower than the 1-series. A bad start.

  But here’s the thing. While it is extremely enjoyable to put your foot down in an F-type Jag and listen to all those pops and bangs as you lift it off again, I have a sneaking suspicion that after a while it might become wearisome. Certainly if I’m arriving at an adult’s house in my AMG Mercedes I do everything in my power to stop the engine from sounding as if a yobbo is pulling up outside.

  So, in the long run, a car that hums rather than shouts might be a more rewarding companion. And a car that is quietly stylish without being tartan might be burgled and vandalized less often. We see this a lot with BMW these days. There was a time when they were brash and driven an inch from your tailgate by men with inadequate sexual organs.
But not any more. BMWs have become … gentle.

  With the 435i you still have the near-perfect weight distribution and an extremely low centre of gravity. The engineers have worked their traditional magic to make everything balanced and just so. It may not be the fastest car in the world but it is extremely rewarding to feel it turn one way as you go round a roundabout and then the other as you leave. Some cars wobble about; some lurch. A BMW just does as it’s told.

  A BMW also has extremely impressive antilock braking. Many good cars these days are fitted with a system that cuts in too early. It thinks you’re panicking and about to crash when you are not. A BMW waits for you to be an inch from the tree before it says, ‘Excuse me, sir. Can I be of any assistance in these troubling times?’

  A BMW accepts that you are not a nincompoop. It accepts that you may be a very good driver, and that you may want to have some fun before the electronic nanny tells you to come inside and wash your hands before dinner.

  Let me put it this way. If you have an Audi or a Mercedes or a Jaguar, you are telling the world that life is treating you well. If you have a BMW these days you’re not really saying much of anything at all. You’re like the quiet, grey man on the bus. Nobody notices you. And certainly nobody would guess that under your dignified, grown-up clothes, you’re wearing a lime-green mankini.

  In the 435i you really are, thanks to a little button that changes the characteristics of everything. Most of the time it’ll be set to Comfort, but you can go to Sport+, which sharpens up all the important stuff. It’s nice. I loved driving this car. I loved being in it as well.

  As with all BMWs, there’s no unnecessary detailing, no silly fuss and no superfluous gadgetry. You have a little readout at the bottom of the rev counter that is unintelligible and has something to do with polar bears, but everything else is A* common sense. I even found myself thinking that the optional head-up display was a good idea.

  Let’s be in no doubt. The 435i is not for everyone. It is not good value and it is no use for showing off. But if you miss the way Knightsbridge was. Or if you want a getaway car that no one will notice. Or if you are a grown-up. I can’t really think of any car that is better.

  17 November 2013

  The crisp-baked crust hides a splodge of soggy dough

  Kia Pro_Cee’d GT Tech

  Peter Mandelson has been responsible for many important initiatives over the years. Though for the life of me I can’t actually recall off the top of my head what any of them were. Er … he had a moustache, and is reputed to have once mistaken mushy peas in a Hartlepool chip shop for guacamole. Oh, and without him the snazzy car I’m going to discuss might never have happened.

  Mandelson was business secretary in the aftermath of the global economic crash and decided that what the British car industry needed to help it through the ensuing recession was a bit of government support. He therefore came up with the scrappage scheme.

  The idea was simple. If you bought a new car, you’d get £2,000 for your old one, no matter how asthmatic and rusty it had become – well, as long as it had an MoT. The effect was instant. Sales of new cars rocketed by 30 per cent, airfields filled up with old bangers that would go to the crusher and everyone was very happy.

  Those of a green disposition were pleased because old cars produce a lot more carbon dioxides than new ones. Shiny-suited car salesmen were happy because they didn’t have to spend all day at work playing solitaire. You were happy because you got £2,000 for a car that was worth just shy of £7.50, and even the taxpayer was happy because, thanks to VAT, the government was earning more than it was giving away in subsidies. But the people wearing the biggest smiles of all were the Korean car makers: Kia and Hyundai.

  You see, people were not exchanging their old cars for BMWs or Audis or Range Rovers. No. They were going for cheap runabouts. The scrappage scheme – not just here but in Germany and France as well – took Korean car dealerships from small lots on industrial estates in towns you’ve never heard of to centre stage in the cities. Let me put it this way: 98.8 per cent of all the cars Kia sold under the scrappage scheme were to people who had never owned a Kia before. Frankly, Mandelson should be given the freedom of Seoul. Certainly he should be adopted as a bonnet mascot for Kia. Especially as the name is derived – and I’m not making this up – from the Korean word ‘to come out’.

  Kia did not begin making cars properly until 1986. And even then only in very small numbers. In fact, it made just twenty-six. But the following year its numbers were up to more than 95,000. And all of them were extremely horrible. They continued to be extremely horrible even as the 21st century dawned.

  I still maintain the worst car I have driven is the Kia Rooney. Or was it Rio? And the second-worst is the equally Korean Hyundai Accent with a three-cylinder diesel. Both still make me shiver. I’d rather sit in a bucket of vomit.

  Had people bought one of these under the scrappage scheme, they’d have been breaking into the airfields and the scrapyards to get their old bangers back.

  Today, though, things are very different. The Kia Sportage SUV is charismatic. The latest Kia Cee’d is verging on excellent, as is the coupé version, the Pro_Cee’d, and then there’s the hot version of that. A hot Kia. A vehicle to rival the Volkswagen Golf GTI and the Ford Focus ST. Who’d have thought it?

  First of all, the Pro_Cee’d GT is extremely good-looking. Sporty without being brash. It hints at its potential with discreet nudges, such as the red brake callipers, the deep sills and the little red stripe across the radiator grille. The lines are exquisite.

  Then you get inside and it’s much the same story. Yes, legroom in the back is tight, and after you’ve tilted and slid the front seats forwards to let someone in, they return to a position that would suit only Richard Hammond. But we see this idiocy in many cars these days. What we don’t usually see is quite so many buttons.

  I was driving the high-spec Tech version and it was festooned with switches. And equipment. You get a tremendous satnav system, and a button that changes the look of the instrument panel. You get voice activation and iPod connectivity. You get far more than you would get on a Golf GTI, that’s for sure.

  After you set off, it continues to impress. It’s quiet and comfortable, and the driving position is perfect. There are lots of places to put your stuff, and nothing is rattling around in the enormous boot because a cargo net is holding everything in place. I especially liked the position of the gear lever in relation to the wheel, and was deeply impressed by the tiny gate through which it moves. First, third and fifth are no more than a few millimetres apart. It’s as if Kia has taken the best bit of every hot hatch that’s yet been made and put them all in the Pro_Cee’d GT.

  Then the company has given it a seven-year warranty and a price tag of £22,495 – about £3,600 less than VW charges for an entry-level GTI. So that’s all great and tremendous …

  Unfortunately after about half an hour you realize that the whole car is a sham. A matrix. A veneer of excellence draped over a lot of pile-’em-high-and-sell-’em-cheap rubbish.

  And it isn’t hard to see why. Mothers Pride is a brand of sliced bread, and if all you want is a base on which you can serve a helping of baked beans, that’s absolutely fine. But what Kia has done with the Pro_Cee’d GT is wrap a slice of what my grandfather used to call ‘wet vest bread’ in a faux crusty exterior with bits of nut sprinkled here and there.

  The electric power steering and the brakes feel cheap. So does the gear-change action, and so especially does the 1.6-litre turbo engine. It’s so lacking in torque that you often stall when trying to dribble away in second. And at the top end it sounds like a cement mixer full of gravel. Speed? Well, there’s some, but nowhere near as much as the red brake callipers and all those buttons would have you believe.

  Then there’s the weight. If Kia had been serious about making a proper hot hatch, the GT wouldn’t weigh more than the Pacific Ocean. And it’s a heaviness you can sense when you are cornering, accelerating an
d braking.

  Kia needs to understand that the real hot hatches from Ford and Volkswagen are designed by engineers who care, and signed off by accountants who really wish they didn’t. The Pro_Cee’d GT? It’s just a half-witted attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. It’s not cheap just because it costs less than a Golf GTI. It is, in fact, expensive, because it costs so much more than it should.

  In the Seventies various long-forgotten electronics companies made music systems that appeared to offer the same level of performance as Wharfedale, Marsden Hall and Garrard. They had many bells and whistles and they were cheap, but to anyone with ears they sounded dreadful. Well, that’s exactly what’s going on with the hot Kia. It’s a good-looking, well-equipped bag of Virgin Cola. I hated it.

  24 November 2013

  A menace to cyclists, cars, even low-flying aircraft

  Audi SQ5 3.0 BiTDI quattro

  Every lunchtime on Radio 2 Jeremy Vine hosts a topical news and discussion show in which the ‘motorist’ is always portrayed as a swivel-eyed, testosterone-fuelled speed freak with the social conscience of a tiger and a total disregard for the wellbeing of others.

  This always strikes me as odd because just about everyone over the age of seventeen is a motorist. Which leads us to the conclusion that in Vineworld all adults are men, and we are all mad or murderers or a worrying mix of the two.

  There was a debate recently on the show about pelican crossings and how elderly people are not given enough time to reach the other side of the road before the lights go green. I know, I know. It was a slow news day. Apart from the tornados in America, the typhoon in the Philippines and the floods in Sardinia.