Born to Be Riled Page 19

  Cars are like friends. I have many, many acquaintances, but friends are people whom I’ve known for years and years. ‘Soulful’ friendships are forged when you’ve been drunk together, arrested together. That said, there are short cuts. I’d be pretty matey with someone who gave me a million pounds. And I wouldn’t slam the phone down if Princess Diana rang, feeling a bit horny. The Nissan Skyline GT-R is just such a short cut. Nissan accepted they could never match European finesse and style, so decided to go where Europe can’t follow – into the auto cyber zone where silicone is God and Mr Pininfarina is the doormat. It worked. The Skyline is not a facsimile of something European. It is as Japanese as my Nintendo Gameboy, only more fun. I was smitten by the old model, but now there is a new version which, after a week-long orgy of big numbers and lurid tailslides, has left me in no doubt. Forget the Ferrari 355. Forget the Lotus Elise. For people who want their car to be the last word in ball-breaking ability and to hell with style and comfort, the Skyline is Mr Emperor Penguin. King of the hill. The biggest cheese in Stiltonshire. Whether its ability is down to the four-wheel drive system or the four-wheel steering or the peculiar diffs and electronic whiz-bangs, I don’t know, I don’t care.

  The Skyline goes around corners faster than anything else. And when it does get a bit skew-whiff, it’s a doddle to rein in again. Unfortunately, the price tag has gone right above the skyline: from £25,000 for the old model to a stratospheric £50,000 for this one. But the biggest problem is not the price, it’s bloody Nissan GB. As before, they won’t import the Skyline officially, saying it would cost a million quid to make it Euro-legal; they add that if a hundred people show real interest, they may take the plunge. A miserable hundred people. For heaven’s sake, thousands spend a fortune every year on golfing trousers and thousands more spend every surplus penny in their bank account on model aeroplanes. Surely, there are a paltry hundred people out there who would make the very sensible decision to buy a Skyline instead of a Porsche, or an M3 or even a Ferrari.

  I fully understand that the Nissan badge is a turn-off, but the Volvo badge wasn’t something you shouted about until the T5 came along. Once a few people have a Skyline and word gets out, you will be seen as a wise and thoughtful person with immense driving skill. Women, almost certainly, will want to spend the night with you. At the same time, your customers will see you as a restrained person with no need for frills. They will double their orders, enabling you to spend even more money with Andy Middlehurst, taking the motor up to perhaps 420bhp. Including the cost of replacement turbos – the ceramic ones can’t cope – this will set you back £3200 – beer money in Porsche land.

  As far as reliability is concerned, I understand that there are no real problems. The Marquess of Blandford says that his old model with 390bhp never went wrong in 40,000 miles. He points out that there is no other comparable car that can handle the snow in Verbier, a family and the need to maintain a low profile. All that and a top speed of 180mph.

  I know I go on about this car, but every time I drive it I can’t wait to get to a computer to write about it. Wordsworth was moved by flowers, I get all foamy about the Nissan.

  Henry Ford in stockings and suspenders

  It’s a glorious summer’s evening and what started out as a quick tincture after work now looks set to become a drinking marathon that’ll last until your liver explodes.

  I used to be able to cope with this quite well. There’d be a hangover the following morning, of course, and maybe a little chat with God on the great white telephone, but by lunch time the next day, all would be well again.

  However, today, hangovers arrive like a tropical storm and for days afterwards send regular 4000 volt lightning bolts to every far-flung outpost of my body.

  I have therefore learned to spot the moment when a quick drink after work becomes the start of a rock ’n’ roll frenzy. When one of the party says, ‘Oh dear, I seem to have my drinking trousers on tonight,’ I get up from the table and go in search of a burger.

  Fast-food joints exist for this purpose – to let a potential drunk line his stomach with something spongy before the next round is delivered. A fast-food burger is therefore not food as such. It is preventative medicine.

  I’m a Big Mac man myself, but I can, at a pinch, wolf down a Whopper. I have, however, always tried to steer clear of a Wimpy. The name ‘Wimpy’ is all wrong – it smacks of nasty little houses with purple up-and-over garage doors. It says Avon Lady. It says you’d be better off eating the carton.

  So, of course, I fully understand why middle England chooses a 3 Series BMW or an Audi A4 instead of a Ford Mondeo. The name ‘Ford’ is all wrong. It smacks of DIY superstores and salesmen in cardigans chatting over the garden fence.

  But look. I actually had a Wimpy burger the other day and it was jolly nice – well, as nice as medicine can be – and that made me start thinking…

  Here’s the deal. Give BMW £20,000 and you get meat and bread. The 318i may have a great badge but it’s drearily slow and equipped by the prison service.

  Give Ford £20,000 and you’ll be going home in a top spec Mondeo which comes with electrically adjustable leather sports seats, an electric sun roof, four electric windows, central locking, traction control, a sophisticated stereo and air conditioning.

  Under the bonnet of a £20,000 BMW there’s a four-cylinder, 1.8 litre engine while the £20,000 Ford has a 24 valve, 2.5 litre V6 with cheese and pickles. So having gone from 0 to 60 in seven seconds, Mondeo man is at home in front of the television, after a lovely dinner, before Bee Em man is into third.

  To ram the message home the Ford is available in Super Touring guise, which means the car is bedecked in a party frock. There are skirts, big fat alloy wheels and the sort of wire mesh grille you might find fronting a rabbit hutch. Or a Bentley.

  In fact, it couldn’t look more menacing even if it had turned up carrying a Thomson sub-machine gun, which is why my first trip was something of a disappointment. Oh no, I thought. This is going to be like a Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep film. The ingredients are all there but the end result, somehow, is weapons-grade drivel.

  Because this was a Super Touring – named after the Touring Car race series – I was expecting a hard ride and twitchy steering, but what I had was a pinstripe suit and table manners to shame the Queen. It was sensible and civilized… right up to the moment when I decided to go stark staring mad.

  Then it ripped off its Saville Row garb to reveal it was wearing stockings, suspenders and, if I’m not very much mistaken, split-crotch panties. And, boy oh boy, did I have fun with it.

  I’d driven the old Mondeo V6 before and was impressed, but this one rode more quietly, leaving me free to enjoy the power and the grip – both of which were delivered by the bucketload. The only fly in the ointment was a tendency to pull to the left, which was cured by adopting the time-honoured fashion of keeping my hands on the wheel.

  Without any question or shadow of doubt, this car is vastly superior to any similarly priced offering from Germany, but before rushing out there with your hair on fire you must be made aware of the downsides.

  I know it looks very good and I know it’s fast and exceptional value for money, but it is a Ford, and the blue oval does not cut much mustard at the golf club. Another reason why I like it.

  Furthermore, it isn’t just your colleagues and neighbours who’ll sneer. Whereas BMW and Audi dealerships are quite happy to provide a heart donor should your own ticker give up the ghost, most Ford salesmen think private customers are only one step up the evolutionary ladder from dog dirt.

  There are good Ford garages, of course, but I have a catalogue of letters from people saying that the vast majority are a complete and utter waste of everybody’s afternoon.

  So, as you wander into the showroom, brandishing a banker’s draft for £20,000, don’t expect the red carpet treatment. Expect a punch in the mouth and an apple-pie bed that night and you won’t be too wide of the mark. But if you can live with that, and
further punches in the mouth each time the car goes in for a service, you will have what I consider to be the best mid-range saloon on the market today.

  NSX – the invisible supercar

  If you want to know whether a car is going to be popular or not, ask Kylie Minogue, who, I feel sure, has more of a clue than me.

  In 1992, I described the Ford Escort as a dog and it went on to become Britain’s best-selling car. A year later, I reached out into 95 million homes around the planet and said the Toyota Corolla was so dull it should be supplied with a cardigan, and ever since it’s been the world’s best-selling car.

  Undaunted, I went out there again and argued vehemently that the Renault A610 was a masterpiece and that it represented truly unmatched value for money. In its first year in Britain, they sold six.

  But the biggest puzzler to date has been the Honda NSX. In 1994, I showered it with literary rose petals saying that Jesus had come among us once more. They sold 19.

  Things were a little better in 1995 when 55 found homes in Britain, but in 1996 a new targa-roofed version came along which could be specified with push-button gear changing. The future looked so good for Japan’s first supercar that I took the corporate shilling and sang its praises in a showroom video. Sales fell to 38. And they’re still falling.

  These numbers are seriously small, but the picture becomes even more bleak when you remember that some of these cars must have been registered to Honda themselves as demonstrators. If you could peek inside the computer in Swansea you might come up with something startling – in 1996, not one single person in the whole of Britain actually bought a new Honda NSX.

  And I bet Honda simply can’t understand what on earth they’ve done wrong. They gave the world an all-aluminium supercar with one of the most technically advanced engines seen outside a sci-fi movie. They made it reliable and no harder to drive than a pram. They kept the price in BMW land and placed one with Mr Wolf in Pulp Fiction. And they were rewarded by people staying away in droves.

  Well, to try and put some zest into what was already a vindaloo, they’ve beefed up the engine, added electric power steering and garnished the finished product with a six-speed gearbox. And now I’m going to ensure it’s a spectacular failure by telling you that it’s one seriously impressive motor car.

  I spent a day with it at the Mallory Park race track in Leicestershire, and can safely say that round the fearsome Gerard’s Corner it is a match for even the Ferrari 550.

  This is a truly nasty bend: a long, long 180 degree right-hander that tightens up right at the very end. You need to lift off the power a bit but you can’t, because at the very same point there’s a slight crest which causes the car to go light.

  Back off and you’ll go backwards into the crash barrier. Keep going and you’ll go forwards into the crash barrier. Be in an NSX and you’ll make it, sweating a bit and promising you’ll go to church next Sunday, but you’ll make it and that’s all that matters.

  The electric steering is a bit of a gimmick but the grip and the ‘feel’ is awesome. And the grunt is capable of making you best mates with the horizon in ten seconds flat.

  You still have a V6 with variable valve timing – whatever the hell that means – but it now displaces 3.2 litres so you get from 0 to 60 in a whisker over five seconds, on your way to a maximum of 170mph.

  Not that you’ll ever want to get there. What you’ll want to do is go through the gears endlessly, because from inside the snuggy cabin that engine makes a noise that could curdle mud. After five laps my soul was so stirred you could have served it up as soup. I never thought it was possible to be in love with a noise, but take an NSX up to 8000rpm and you’ll be heading for the registry office.

  It would be a good partner too, because unlike a Ferrari, it is a perfectly serviceable everyday car. And it is so damn easy to drive. Even my granny could manage it, excepting the fact that she’s dead of course.

  My only real worry is the styling. Even Honda would admit in a quiet moment that they copied Ferrari, but that’s like asking a nine-year-old boy to copy the Haywain. It won’t really work, and it especially won’t work if he tries to improve on the original.

  Honda thought it would be a good idea to give their supercar a boot, so the rear overhang is rather larger than it should be. And they felt it should have headlamp washers, which means the smooth front end is sullied with plastic protuberances, like Claudia Schiffer with blackheads.

  Now I’ve always subscribed to the theory that you should judge a book by its cover. I will, for instance, never buy any novel unless it has a fighter plane or a submarine on the front, but I do urge you to ignore the Honda’s skin and study its meat.

  It is not a match for the Ferrari 355, but then it’s £20,000 less expensive. And if you scour the secondhand columns of this paper you’ll probably be able to find one for £40,000, which, for a machine like this, is car-boot sale money.

  I bet you’re going to have a look right now, aren’t you? And you’ll keep looking right up to the moment when you buy a Porsche.

  Corvette lacks the Right Stuff

  So, underachiever, how do you feel today? Let me guess: you got up, went to work, flirted with the secretaries, came home and watched telly. Now, Newsnight is on and you’re reading this, yawning and wondering why you’ve got nipples. It’s OK, I do pretty much the same sort of thing most days and that’s why I know Hoot Gibson will gall you as much as he galled me.

  Here is an all-American dude with Paul Newman eyes who learned his art in Vietnam, flying F-4 Phantoms and shooting down MiGs which may, or may not, have been piloted by top-flight Russians. He was so adept at blowing things out of the sky, they sent him to the Top Gun Academy, where he became a better instructor than Kelly McGillis. And after that he found himself stationed at Pax River, flying all the new, experimental fast jets. When his navy flying career was over, instead of a desk, the services gave him a space shuttle – something he’s used to visit space on no fewer than five occasions.

  So what then, does Mr All-American Hero choose to drive when he’s back on Texan earth, and restricted to 55mph? A Viper? A Jag? A Bimmer? Er, no. Mr Gibson has a Toyota Camry, finished in aubergine with a matching interior. I pointed out that this was a terrible car, and he agreed but said it was, at least, reliable – ‘something that’s important to me’. OK, I can understand that, but in The Right Stuff – the best book in the world, incidentally – Tom Wolfe says all the early test pilots and astronauts hurtled into town in Corvettes – the first American sports car. Why, I suggested, do you not have one of those? ‘Because,’ he said, ‘it is a piece of junk.’

  Whoa there, boy. Mr Pumping Pecs calling his auto equivalent ‘junk’? This needed exploring and so, two days later, in Nevada, I hired myself an egg-yellow convertible with a slushmatic box. I slithered elegantly into the vibrantly shiny cockpit, the 5.7 litre V8 burbled into life and the sleek nose edged its way onto Las Vegas Boulevard. I felt good. The Corvette is dangerously handsome and my views on US V8s are well documented. The steering was quick, the stereo was sound and I began to suspect Hoot should stick to sounding off about planes. But then I ran over a piece of chewing gum. Jesus H. Christ, did you know the ’Vette has no suspension travel at all? The wheels are connected directly to your buttocks. I suspected that there was something wrong with it, and then, that night, it broke down altogether. But the red replacement was just as bad.

  OK, I’ll let you in on a secret. The Corvette is a slow motor car which does not handle at all. Because there’s no suspension to absorb the roll the car just slides, which must be why it has traction control. But this comes in so viciously and so early that I decided to turn it off and… whoops eek and wahay, guys and gals, we’re going backwards. It was fun right up to the moment when I saw the guardrail approaching. Here’s another secret. Anti-lock brakes don’t work when you’re going sideways. But it was OK – I ground to a halt with a good 5 inches to spare. I was doing that post-trauma bit where you breathe out and low
er your shoulders by five yards when an officer of the law arrived. The guy knew his cars and, pretty quickly, conversation turned to the Corvette that had nearly killed me. ‘You know the big problem with the ’Vette?’ he said. ‘It’s the worst goddamn car in the whole world.’ He hadn’t actually seen my spin but said he wouldn’t even think of writing out a ticket for speeding because he knew just how easy it is to lose control of Detroit’s biggest balls-up. ‘Goddamn ’Vette spins so easy, you can park one outside a store and when you come out, it’ll be facing the other way,’ he added. As he climbed back into his cruiser, he gave me some advice. ‘Tonight, leave the roof down and the keys in. With luck, someone’ll steal it.’

  I’ve always liked the Corvette, and once toyed with the idea of buying one. But I’m better now. It’s simple, really. The Americans are good at space shuttles. And we’re good at cars.

  Footballers check in to Room 101

  Making a living from writing about cars may seem like the Holy Grail to anyone who’s intrigued by the niceties of internal combustion.

  But there are downsides, chief among which is a constant need to reassure people that I won’t waste their entire evening by talking about the track rod ends on a Triumph TR5. When I walk into a room, non-car people dive behind the sofa or, if I catch them by surprise, pretend to be deaf and mad. I’m always prejudged to the point where women will jump through the French windows, screaming, rather than talk to me.