Round the Bend Read online

  Sadly, however, people believe preposterous mpg figures like this are possible. And that the official government figures are accurate too. Only the other day, I received a letter from a Mr Disgruntled of Kent, who had bought a Mercedes Smart car, expecting to drive for several years between trips to the pumps. And then found to his horror that it was doing only twenty-something miles to the gallon.

  He has taken his car back to the garage, which says there is nothing wrong with it. But the garage is wrong, too. There is, I’m afraid. It’s called ‘the person behind the wheel’.

  Unlike Bomber Jacket Man’s Vectra, a Smart car is capable of 70mpg but only if you drive it with extreme care. And plainly, Mr Disgruntled, you are not doing this.

  It’s not easy, and it’s not pleasant, indulging in what the Americans call ‘hypermiling’, but the effect on your wallet can be profound. If, for instance, you have a BMW 5-series and you get twenty-five to the gallon, I reckon you could pretty much double that. Without your journeys becoming appreciably longer.

  It’s all to do with how you brake and how you accelerate. It’s about finesse, reading the road ahead, anticipating, treating the pedals and the steering wheel as though they are made from stained glass. It’s about the shoes you wear, and turning the air-conditioning off.

  Maybe it would be a good idea to make all this a part of the driving test. At present you are told how to stop and how to reverse round a corner, but at no point will an instructor tell you to accelerate briskly, and to build up speed when going down a hill so you can ease off the throttle when going up the next one.

  You may be tempted by all of this, but I’ll warn you. It is extremely boring and unbelievably tiring. Popping into town for a pint of milk can become more exhausting than trying to hop there on one leg. And for what? So that you achieve 50mpg, which is still twenty less than Bomber Jacket Man claims to get from his old Vectra without really trying.

  It’s probably better, then, if you want to save money – and we do – to choose a car, and then see if another manufacturer can sell you something similar for much less.

  And that brings me, briefly, to the BMW M5. It’s a little bit complicated, perhaps, with all its various settings, but provided you have the time to set it up properly, it goes, stops and steers with a panache and a zest that are extremely rare among four-door saloons. Lovely, except it costs £65,890, and these days you could buy an island for less.

  So now we arrive at the Cadillac CTS-V, which you can buy, in the UK, for about £47,000. That’s a saving of roughly £19,000. And that equates to approximately 3,800 gallons of fuel. You could drive an M5 as though it were made from bits of your children from now to the end of time and you’d never make up the difference.

  So what, then, are the drawbacks to the Cadillac? Well, first of all, it’s a Cadillac, so everyone will think you are a Wilmslow pimp. And second, this hot version will be available with only left-hand drive.

  Depreciation? Yes, a Cadillac will plummet as though it’s being fuelled by melted-down Bradford & Bingley executives. But the M5 is not exactly a ten-year government bond, is it?

  So make no mistake: financially, the Cadillac smashes the M5, completely and utterly. And here’s the next part. Round the Nürburgring, it smashes it again. With an ordinary part-time racing driver at the wheel, an automatic version of the hottest ever Caddy went round in seven minutes fifty-nine seconds – a record for any four-door saloon.

  Part of the reason is its 6.2-litre supercharged V8, which develops a dizzying 556bhp. That’s forty-nine more than you get from an M5. The Cadillac is mind-bogglingly fast. The manual version I drove will hit 191mph. And it accelerates with a verve that truly leaves you breathless. It also makes an utterly irresistible growl. Like an AMG Mercedes but more refined. More muted.

  And now you are expecting the ‘but’. But there isn’t one. Maybe the steering is a bit too light, but other than this it handles beautifully when you have the Ferrari-style magnetic dampers in ‘sport’, and rides soothingly when you switch the knob to ‘comfort’. This is unusual for an American car, which usually can do neither thing properly.

  Even more surprising is the interior. Trimmed by the people who do the Bugatti Veyron, it is – and you won’t believe this – a nice place to be. The seats are by Recaro, the leather is hand-stitched and the graphics don’t appear to have come from Amstrad circa 1984. You would swear you were sitting in something European.

  Of course, you’d expect the illusion to be gone when you look at the exterior. It isn’t. There are no badges written in the typeface used on northern wedding invitations. There’s no onyx. Maybe the chicken-wire radiator grille is a bit sudden, but then again, have you seen the front of a Bentley recently? No. I’m sorry but it’s a good-looking car, this.

  As you may have gathered, then, I like it. I believe that ultimately an M5 would be more satisfying, a touch more crisp. But if you had an M5 you’d have to drive it carefully, to save fuel. With the Cadillac, you can blast through the recession at 191mph, knowing you made the savings when you bought it.

  12 October 2008

  Misery, thy name is Vespa

  Vespa GTV Navy 125

  Recently, various newspapers ran a photograph of me on a small motorcycle. They all pointed out that I hate motorbikes and that by riding one I had exposed myself as a hypocrite who should commit suicide immediately.

  Hmmm. Had I been photographed riding the local postmistress, then, yes, I’d have been shamed into making some kind of apology. But it was a motorcycle. And I don’t think it even remotely peculiar that a motoring journalist should ride such a thing. Not when there is a problem with the economy and many people are wondering if they should make a switch from four wheels to two.

  Unfortunately, you cannot make this switch on a whim, because this is Britain and there are rules. Which means that before climbing on board you must go to a car park, put on a high-visibility jacket and spend the morning driving round some cones while a man called Dave – all motorcycle instructors are called Dave – explains which lever does what.

  Afterwards, you will be taken on the road, where you will drive about for several hours in a state of abject fear and misery, and then you will go home and vow never to get on a motorcycle ever again.

  This is called compulsory basic training and it allows you to ride any bike up to 125cc. If you want to ride something bigger, you must take a proper test. But, of course, being human, you will not want a bigger bike, because then you will be killed immediately while wearing clothing from the Ann Summers ‘Dungeon’ range.

  Right, first things first. The motorbike is not like a car. It will not stand up when left to its own devices. So, when you are not riding it, it must be leant against a wall or a fence. I’m told some bikes come with footstools which can be lowered to keep them upright. But then you have to lift the bike onto this footstool, and that’s like trying to lift up an American.

  Next: the controls. Unlike with a car, there seems to be no standardization in the world of motorcycling. Some have gear levers on the steering wheel. Some have them on the floor, which means you have to shift with your feet – how stupid is that? – and some are automatic.

  Then we get to the brakes. Because bikes are designed by bikers – and bikers, as we all know, are extremely dim – they haven’t worked out how the front and back brake can be applied at the same time. So, to stop the front wheel, you pull a lever on the steering wheel, and to stop the one at the back, you press on a lever with one of your feet.

  A word of warning, though. If you use only the front brake, you will fly over the steering wheel and be killed. If you try to use the back one, you will use the wrong foot and change into third gear instead of stopping. So you’ll hit the obstacle you were trying to avoid, and you’ll be killed.

  Then there is the steering. The steering wheel comes in the shape of what can only be described as handlebars, but if you turn them – even slightly – while riding along, you will fall off and be
killed. What you have to do is lean into the corner, fix your gaze on the course you wish to follow, and then you will fall off and be killed.

  As far as the minor controls are concerned, well … you get a horn and lights and indicators, all of which are operated by various switches and buttons on the steering wheel, but if you look down to see which one does what, a truck will hit you and you will be killed. Oh, and for some extraordinary reason, the indicators do not self-cancel, which means you will drive with one of them on permanently, which will lead following traffic to think you are turning right. It will then undertake just as you turn left, and you will be killed.

  What I’m trying to say here is that, yes, bikes and cars are both forms of transport, but they have nothing in common. Imagining that you can ride a bike because you can drive a car is like imagining you can swallow-dive off a 90-foot cliff because you can play table tennis.

  However, many people are making the switch because they imagine that having a small motorcycle will be cheap. It isn’t. Sure, the 125cc Vespa I tried can be bought for £3,499, but then you will need a helmet (£300), a jacket (£500), some Freddie Mercury trousers (£100), shoes (£130), a pair of Kevlar gloves (£90), a coffin (£1,000), a headstone (£750), a cremation (£380) and flowers in the church (£200).

  In other words, your small 125cc motorcycle, which has no boot, no electric windows, no stereo and no bloody heater even, will end up costing more than a Volkswagen Golf. That said, a bike is much cheaper to run than a car. In fact, it takes only half a litre of fuel to get from your house to the scene of your first fatal accident. Which means that the lifetime cost of running your new bike is just 50p.

  So, once you have decided that you would like a bike, the next problem is choosing which one. And the simple answer is that, whatever you select, you will be a laughing stock. Motorbiking has always been a hobby rather than an alternative to proper transport, and as with all hobbies, the people who partake are extremely knowledgeable. It often amazes me that in their short lives bikers manage to learn as much about biking as people who angle, or those who watch trains pull into railway stations.

  Whatever. Because they are so knowledgeable, they will know precisely why the bike you select is rubbish and why theirs is superb. Mostly, this has something to do with ‘getting your knee down’, which is a practice undertaken by bikers moments before the crash that ends their life.

  You, of course, being normal, will not be interested in getting your knee down; only in getting to work and most of the way home again before you die. That’s why I chose to test the Vespa, which is much loathed by trainspotting bikers because they say it is a scooter. This is racism. Picking on a machine because it has no crossbar is like picking on a person because he has slitty eyes or brown skin. Frankly, I liked the idea of a bike that has no crossbar, because you can simply walk up to the seat and sit down. Useful if you are Scottish and go about your daily business in a skirt.

  I also liked the idea of a Vespa because most bikes are Japanese. This means they are extremely reliable so you cannot avoid a fatal crash by simply breaking down. This is entirely possible on a Vespa because it is made in Italy.

  Mind you, there are some drawbacks you might like to consider. The Vespa is not driven by a chain. Instead, the engine is mounted to the side of the rear wheel for reasons that are lost in the mists of time and unimportant anyway. However, it means the bike is wider and fitted with bodywork like a car, to shroud the moving hot bits. That makes it extremely heavy. Trying to pick it up after you’ve fallen off it is impossible.

  What’s more, because the heavy engine is on the right, the bike likes turning right much more than it likes turning left. This means that in all left-handed bends, you will be killed.

  Unless you’ve been blown off by the sheer speed of the thing. At one point I hit 40mph and it was as though my chest was being battered by a freezing-cold hurricane. It was all I could do to keep a grip on the steering wheel with my frostbitten fingers.

  I therefore hated my experience of motorcycling and would not recommend it to anyone.

  19 October 2008

  A trolley’s the better bet

  Renault Twingo Renaultsport 133

  Not that long ago, so many people had Ford Sierras that they formed an army large enough to shape the outcome of general elections. And now? They’re gone. All of them. You’re more likely to see a Model T.

  It is the same with all cars. They come. They provide a frisson of excitement for the new owner, they get sold to a minicab driver and when they are so full of hen-night sick that their wheels stop going round properly, they are dismantled and turned into toasters.

  The speed at which this process happens is astonishing. In fact, I’ve just worked out that it takes longer to design and engineer a new car than it does for that car to go from being someone’s pride and joy to being the handle on a Morphy Richards kettle.

  Just last week I sold my Volvo XC90 because it was getting a bit tired. There was a sense that soon it would start to cost money and that we’d be better off handing that problem onto a minicab driver and getting a shiny new one instead. It was sad to see the old girl go, but hey, within a couple of years, I’ll be drinking some fizzy pop from its rear wing and keeping my vegetables crisp and fresh in what used to be its bonnet.

  I think, however, that soon this is going to have to stop. In the good times, it’s all very well replacing your car because it’s got a bit of asthma, but when a burly man from Northern Rock is outside with a removals lorry and an eviction notice, people are going to keep their cars for years after the ‘best before’ date has expired.

  The question is: how long can you reasonably keep a car before it oxidizes, explodes, disintegrates or kills you and everyone within a thirty-mile radius? And the answer is: pretty much for ever.

  When the trade embargo slammed shut on Cuba in 1962, it became impossible to get spare parts. So, if the windscreen wiper motor packed up on your Buick, you couldn’t go to a dealer and get a new one. Nor could you replace the car. You had to fix it as best you could.

  They even worked out that when brake fluid became manky and useless, it could be replaced with a concoction made from shampoo, sugar and alcohol. And to invigorate a dead battery, they simply shinned up a telegraph pole and attached it to the overhead power lines. Only some people were killed doing this.

  I saw similar feats in Vietnam back in the early 1990s. One chap had cleverly replaced the suspension on his ancient Chevrolet with scaffolding poles. It wasn’t a desperately elegant, or comfortable, solution but it did mean he had a car. Which, as we discovered last week, is infinitely better than the alternative. A stupid motorcycle.

  Poverty is the mother of ingenuity … unless you were born like me with fists of ham, fingers of butter and a complete inability to fathom how anything that is broken can be repaired. If I’d been living in Cuba in 1962 and my washing machine had broken down, I’d still be wearing the same underpants today.

  And if the suspension had collapsed on my 1971 Chevrolet, I would have sat down at the side of the road and wept solidly until communism went away. So I fear the hard times that lie ahead because when my new Volvo starts to make a knocking noise I will have absolutely no clue what is causing it and no chance of making it go away.

  The underside of a car to me is a strange and frightening place full of limitless possibilities for ending up with a dire need for a blood transfusion. None of the bolts can be worked loose and even if you do have the muscles of Samson, there is still an overwhelming fear that what you are about to undo will cause the entire car to collapse in such a way that no man will ever be able to put it back together again.

  Once I did take the engine in my old Ford Cortina to pieces in a bold but ultimately unrewarding attempt to see how it worked. And I was never able to enjoy the car again because I knew that I’d rebuilt its beating heart and that there had been one important-looking nut and bolt left over when I’d finished.

  I dare say many
of you are in the same boat. Which means that you will not be able to mend your car in the hard times. So you will have to replace it. And because money is tight, and you’ve already eaten all the family pets, your new car is going to have to be much smaller and much more economical than anything you’ve driven since you were a student.

  There are many small cars from which you could choose, but most have got ‘cheapskate’ written all over them. No. You’ll be wanting something with a bit of style, a bit of pizzazz. And that will lead you inexorably to the door of the Fiat 500 Abarth, a turbocharged shoe of a thing that looks good, goes extremely quickly and has just as many seats as a Range Rover Vogue.

  In many ways, it reminds me of the original Golf GTI. A car you would buy even if you could afford a Maserati Quattroporte. It really is extremely appealing with just the right blend of cuddly cutesiness and naked growling aggression. A sabre-toothed labradoodle, if you will.

  It is excellent. But before you sign on the dotted line, I thought it might be a good idea to check out the Fiat’s only real competitor: Renault’s equally tiny Twingo Renaultsport 133.

  At first glance, it looks like a normal run-of-the-mill micro-hatchback. The sort of thing your geography teacher might drive. That’s bad. But look again. Note the big wheels, the wider track, the get-out-my-way frontal styling: hints that if it were to get into a fight with Alien and Predator it might just emerge victorious. And you can buy it with the cross of St George painted on the wings, which is eye-catching, if not very French.

  Under the bonnet, there’s a 1.6-litre engine that delivers 133bhp to the sole of your right foot. That sounds rather mouth-watering in a car that weighs about the same as a Lotus Elise. And it is. It’ll do 0 to 60mph in 8.5 seconds and hit 125mph, and that’s lovely. But the Fiat is considerably faster, and more economical, and it produces less carbon dioxide, which the government thinks is relevant in some way to the amount of tax you pay.