Really? Read online

  It’s called the Ford Focus ST and it’s wilfully set in about 1984. There are extra dials above the dashboard to keep you informed about temperatures and pressures, which is important in a 1940s fighter plane but less so in a modern car; there are illuminated Essex disco motifs in the kick plates, body-hugging seats and – what’s this? – yes, it’s a manual gearbox that you operate with a stick on the floor.

  Oh, and let’s not forget the name. ST. Doubtless, Ford will tell you this stands for ‘Sports Technologies’, but we all know what it really means, don’t we, ladies? And now it’s available as a diesel. So that’s an STD. Excellent. I haven’t been able to make jokes along those lines since Citroën’s Project VD.

  I’m trying at the moment to work out who would want to buy a practical estate car that’s named after a feminine hygiene product and comes with Wayne and Kev styling, a Dickensian gearbox and enough power to put you on a speed-awareness course every time you go into third. Nobody is springing to mind at the moment. Is there someone perhaps from Dexys Midnight Runners who has a dog that’s only really happy when it’s doing 150mph?

  I’ll be honest: I’m partial to a fast Ford. I go all gooey about a 3-litre Capri, I spent most of the 1990s in an Escort RS Cosworth, my first car was a Cortina 1600E, I adore the GT40 and there’s no doubt in my mind that for sheer fun there is no better car on the market today than the Fiesta ST. But I dunno – this Focus ST estate seems a bit weird.

  Partly this is because I know it’s a fluffer designed to warm us up for the all-wheel-drive 345bhp Focus RS. And partly it’s because I was in London most of last week and the manual gearbox made my teeth itch with rage. Using your leg to change gear in 2015 feels as old-fashioned as using the phone on the hall table.

  However, I must say that when I got out of London it did what all fast Fords do: it put a big smile on my face. Yes, there is a huge amount of torque steer when you accelerate hard in second or third gear – you don’t drive this car so much as hang on for dear life. But the engine is a gem, the ride is nicely judged, the seats are epic and my dogs appreciated all that space in the back. It covers a lot of bases, this car. And it appears to be good value as well.

  But while it comes with a lot of toys, many don’t work as well as you might hope. There is the option of headlights, for instance, that dip automatically when a car is coming the other way, which is handy. But they also dip when you are approaching a reflective warning sign, which means you are suddenly no longer able to see either the sign or whatever it was warning you about.

  Then there’s the satnav screen. Mostly, it all works very well, except that in an effort to look snazzy Ford has completely overdone the amount of information that’s being conveyed. At any given point you have thirty-three features on the screen, and that’s not including the map.

  This has always been a Ford thing. Its kit is a bit like supermarket own-brand baked beans. It looks the same as the real thing. But it isn’t.

  And that’s never really bothered me because, all things considered, fast Fords were bloody good fun. They still are. But, because of the jackbooted Tory Stasi with their surveillance cameras, you struggle to enjoy that fun on the road any more.

  Which means that, today, this car only really works as a wistful cameo on the Antiques Roadshow. Not as something you’d realistically want to buy.

  1 November 2015

  So smooth, Hank could perform eye surgery in the back

  Lincoln Town Car

  Because I now have my own production company, I have had to learn how to behave like a businessman when travelling. It’s the little things that set them apart: the wheeled suitcase that fits precisely into the overhead locker, the laptop that never runs out of battery. And the maroon polo shirt that’s tucked into a pair of bad jeans.

  When travelling, a businessman deliberately wears jeans that don’t fit properly because it tells everyone that he spends most of his life in meetings or on a golf course, where the denim trouser is frowned upon. It is important, therefore, when wearing jeans to look as uncomfortable and as stupid as possible. Like a fish in a hat.

  A businessman never uses any of the business facilities in an airport lounge because hooking up to the airline’s services implies that he does not have the right equipment to do this for himself and, worse, that his business is so unimportant he doesn’t mind if his conversations are broadcast over an unsecure server.

  You see someone in one of those airline lounge business booths and you can be assured he is a business foetus. A new boy. And you are thus at liberty to pull his hair.

  On the aeroplane, a businessman never has a drink because this suggests to other people in this cabin that he is an alcoholic. No true businessman drinks. Ever. Neither does he watch any of the films that are on offer because he gets all the stimulation he needs from a spreadsheet. He is in his in-flight pyjamas, horizontal and fast asleep six seconds after the seatbelt light is turned off. Eating? That’s for wimps. Relaxing? That’s what you do when you’re dead – something he hopes to become when he is fifty-seven.

  When the seatbelt light comes back on, he is immediately bolt upright and dressed in the suit that was somehow concealed in his locker-sized suitcase. He then either whips out his laptop that’s been on for six years and still has 42 per cent of its battery life remaining. Or he watches a businessmen-friendly half-hour episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, just to show everyone else in the cabin that he is so well organized he doesn’t need to check the spreadsheets one more time.

  Four minutes after the wheels chirp into the runway, he’s outside the airport, in the back of the Mercedes S-class and on his way to grease the wheels of the world.

  I have to admit I’m pretty hopeless at all of this. I watch films on planes, my suitcase is too big and I don’t have a suit. But I do have a grasp of the wheels you need at journey’s end. And I know that the S-class is wrong. It would be the correct choice in Europe or Asia, but any businessmen on a trip to one of those places is saying that he’s second tier.

  Really, the only place to do proper business is America and, if you’re going there, you don’t want to be picked up in a Kraut-Tank. Which is why last weekend, on a quick trip to Seattle, I was picked up in a Lincoln Town Car.

  Sadly, this will soon be a problem because Ford stopped making it four years ago, which means that, eventually, the current crop being used to transfer businessmen to their downtown hotels will sigh for one last time, then die. And then what? Because there is simply no other car quite like it on sale today.

  First of all, it is enormous. Until 2003, in fact, it was the largest car in the western hemisphere. If you could make a Town Car float – and you can’t because it’s made from the heaviest metals known to man – you could use it as an aircraft carrier.

  Happily, this size means the interior is slightly larger than most branches of Walmart. Fitted with bench seating, it can handle a driver and five businessmen (or three Americans), and the boot is so vast that not even the Beckhams would be able to fill it with luggage. Apparently, it will take four sets of golf clubs, which I understand is impressive. And a golf buggy as well, probably.

  But the best thing about a Town Car is not the size, or the loungeability of the rear quarters, it’s the comfort.

  European and Japanese cars are always made with one eye on the Nürburgring. We can’t help ourselves. Deep down, we think that handling is more important than safety, price, fuel consumption, world peace, the global economy or God Himself. But the problem is that, if you build a car that’s designed to cling and scrabble on a high Alpine pass, comfort will inevitably play second fiddle.

  In America, it’s different. Many think the steering wheel is nothing more than a handy place to rest a laptop. Going round a corner at more than 2mph would cause your bucket of coffee to fall over. So why bother?

  Lincoln definitely understood this when it was designing the Town Car back in 1876. Of course, it’s changed since then – it now has a cigarette lighter and th
e leather is ruched – but the recipe is basically the same. You get a body bolted on to a chassis, a live rear axle and a V8 engine that produces 7 horsepower but lasts for 1,000 million years.

  Then there’s the suspension, which can iron out, completely, even the most savage pothole in New York. You could drive a Town Car through a recently bombed city while doing eye surgery and the patient would be fine. I once parked a 1980s Town Car outside a shop in Detroit and when I returned an hour later it was still rocking. It’s probably still rocking now.

  Of course, this does have an effect on the way it goes round corners. And we know how it does this because the Lincoln’s sister car – the Ford Crown Victoria – is used by many of America’s police forces. And we’ve all seen what happens when they get involved in a chase. Even though they have beefed-up suspension they usually end up in a ditch, with hilarious consequences.

  But here’s the thing. When you emerge into the world after nine hours in an air-free, overheated tube, which would you rather have transport you through the inevitable jams and into the city centre: a car that can get round Silverstone in ninety seconds? Or something comfy?

  There are other things too. Because the interior of a Town Car is made from DVD-box plastic and DFS furniture, and because it has nineteenth-century railroad underpinnings, it cost, when it went out of production, 16p. And because the engine turns over at no more than 2rpm, it only has to be serviced once every million years.

  The Town Car was everything a limo should be. Spacious, well equipped, comfortable and cheap for its operator to buy and run. Apart from the lemon-fresh smell from the inevitable air freshener, it was a lovely place to be. A little taste of America before you actually got there, if you see what I mean.

  But now it’s been replaced by something called the MKT, which looks like a Citroën. No businessman would be seen dead in it. Which is why you won’t be reading a review of it from me any time soon.

  8 November 2015

  Ahoy, Captain Ahab – they’ve put quad exhausts on Moby-Dick

  Volkswagen Golf R Estate

  Choosing what car you are going to buy is always ten times more enjoyable than actually buying it. So when I decided I needed a Volkswagen Golf GTI in my life, I spent many hours on the company’s configurator, examining colours and options and working out whether the aesthetic appeal of the bigger wheels would compensate for the inevitable loss of comfort.

  Eventually, of course, I had to give up the delicious procrastination and place my order. It wasn’t easy. One dealer laughed in my face and said I’d have to wait six months. Another said I’d never get the car I wanted at all but he had a very nice Scirocco R that I could have instead. ‘I’m sure you also have a potted plant,’ I said, ‘but I don’t want that either.’

  In the end, I gave up with the telephone and drove to my nearest dealership, which, it turned out, is shut on a Saturday. How did it make that one work in a business plan? And then it turned out not to be a dealership at all.

  I could have given up and bought something else, but my heart was set on a GTI. I’d had enough of driving flash cars because they cause other motorists to take pictures on their cameraphones. Constantly. I wanted something that would attract no attention. Something grey. And I’d always wanted a GTI, ever since 1980. It was a dull, unfulfilled ache, but when the Mk 7 version came along a few years ago it became an all-consuming need. It’s really, really good, that car, and I wanted one a lot.

  My persistence was eventually rewarded – though when I say ‘persistence’, what I actually mean is ‘contacts at VW’s head office’ – and in September a brand-new car arrived at my house on the back of a lorry. I was very excited and was tempted to jump up and down clutching my tinkle, until I noticed that the car had five doors. Two more than I’d wanted. With a five-door car you can’t drive along with your arm out of the window because the B-pillar is in the way. I’d thought about that a lot while choosing the car. But then I’d forgotten to tick the right box on the form, and that was that.

  There was another problem too. On holiday in France this year I used a Golf R, which is a bit like the GTI only it has 78 more brake horsepower and four-wheel drive and the wheels look less lost in the arches. I liked it enormously. And you would too. I don’t care what you drive now: I can pretty much guarantee that, if you took an R out for a test drive, you’d want it in your life immediately.

  However, to convince myself that the GTI is still better, I’ve told myself over and over that the R is a bit knowing, a bit anoraky, a bit Subaru-ish. And then last week an R estate came to my house …

  Commentators have observed that this is a silly car because in basic rental spec it costs upwards of £33,000 and that is too much for a Golf. I sympathize with this argument because I’m well aware you should never buy the most expensive house in the street.

  However, let’s just look for a moment at what you’re getting. First, it is an estate car and so, with the back seats folded down, there’s space in the back for a small horse and all the paraphernalia that goes with it.

  And then at the front you have the GTI engine, which has better pistons and valves and a whizzier turbocharger, so it churns out as near as makes no difference 300bhp. This is allied to a double-clutch gearbox that features a launch-control system, though I strongly advise you not to use this facility if you do in fact have a small horse in the back because it will fall over. Ooh, it’s brisk.

  In between the horse and the horsepower, you have the bit where you live, and this is perhaps the best part because not only is it all screwed together to a standard way beyond what you could reasonably expect, but also, if you choose your options carefully, you want for nothing at all.

  This is a car that can read out text messages, help you stay in lane on the motorway, apply the brakes if it thinks you’re going to crash and a million other things.

  What we have here, then, is a commodious, fast, comfortable, quiet and very well-equipped four-wheel-drive car. Which brings me on to the Range Rover.

  Round where I live in Chipping Norton, my friends all used to have Range Rovers. But now you get the impression that absolutely everybody has one. I was at the local farm shop last weekend and in the car park I counted thirty-seven of the damn things. And I’m not talking about Evoques. I’m talking about the big, 100-grand jobs.

  The Range Rover has become a uniform, and I’m sorry, but when I’m presented with a dress code, I’m consumed by an overwhelming need to wear something else. I love the Range Rover. It’s magnificent, but here’s the thing: is it better than a Golf R estate? Look at the figures. No, actually, don’t bother, because of course they come from Volkswagen, which means they’re probably plucked from the sky. Ja, it does 1 million miles an hour und 40,000 miles to ze gallon.

  It doesn’t, but it is very, very fast and very beautiful to drive. The compromise between ride and handling is judged perfectly, and so’s the noise. It’s quiet most of the time, but when you accelerate hard it produces a snarly bark that makes you go all tingly. And, best of all, if you crash into a tree it’s cheap to repair because most of the panels are the same as they are on a Golf diesel.

  All things considered, then, this is a five-star car – except for one rather enormous problem. The styling. VW decided R-spec cars should not be showy in any way. They wouldn’t even get the little red flashes that you find on a GTI. They’d look to the untrained eye like a run-of-the-mill model. I approve of that. I like a Q-car.

  It’s a philosophy that works well for the hatch because that’s a good-looking vehicle in the first place. The estate, however, isn’t. It’s dumpy and bulbous. And in the R spec it looks stupid because it’s dumpy and bulbous but there are four exhaust pipes sticking out of the back. Which make it look like some kind of weird turbocharged whale.

  So there we are. A very impressive car. Ruined.

  15 November 2015

  When the traffic stops, the love-life turbocharger starts to whir

  Fiat 500


  If you are thinking of coming to London for some festive shopping, I have a suggestion: have you thought about going to Peterborough instead? Or Swindon?

  I’ve wondered for many years how a city that wasn’t designed at all hundreds of years ago manages to cope with the demands placed on it today. Because asking it to deal with the daily transport needs of more than 8 million inhabitants is a bit like asking your landline telephone to take a photograph.

  Somehow, though, it has always just about managed to cling on, like a grand old battleship: shot to pieces, with a broken rudder, but still in the fight.

  Today, though, the bridge seems to have been taken over by a bunch of slightly panicky monkeys. Of course, London’s transport system has always been managed by idealists and lunatics, because how else would you arrive at the concept of a bus lane? ‘Right, comrades. London’s streets are higgledy-piggledy and were designed as gaps in which people could leave a dead horse. They are not wide enough for the motorcar, so let’s take half the available space and turn it into a special lane so that old ladies can get to the post office more easily.’

  Then along came the bicycle. ‘Right, comrades. Let’s make special lanes for these wheezing old communists. And better still, let’s make a little space for them to sit in front of the cars when the traffic lights are red.’

  Someone in the meeting must have put his hand up at this point and said: ‘But cyclists don’t stop for red lights.’ And? Well, your guess is as good as mine. He’s probably in a correctional facility now, in a wing for the mentally impaired.

  And there’s more. When Ken Livingstone was in the hot seat, he put down his newts for a moment and decided to model the phasing of the traffic lights on the passage of the sun. Red and orange for fourteen hours, with a brief green flash in the evening.

  And then there’s the issue with parking. They decided that cars causing an obstruction should be clamped. So they continued to cause an obstruction for many more hours. Or that they should be towed away by a fleet of lorries that would cause even more of an obstruction in the process.