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  You may think that Volkswagen puts its brightest and its best engineers into the boutique, high-profile companies that it owns: Bugatti, Lamborghini and Bentley. But it doesn’t. It uses its absolute geniuses on the Golf, because that’s the bread and butter of its operations. The Golf has to be right.

  And it is right. I drive a lot of cars and every single one of them does at least one little thing that is annoying. The Golf doesn’t. The way the seats slide about, the feel of the buttons, the weight of the steering, everything: it’s all absolutely spot on. As long as you ignore the dashboard ‘eco driving’ tips.

  And then, sitting on top of this nest of perfection, we have the GTI version, which comes with more power than you were expecting – a lot more – and an amusing gear knob in the shape of a golf ball. Das ist fun, ja?

  I drove a Porsche 911 GTS the other day and I thought it was pretty damn good. I was also very taken with the Bentley Continental GT V8 S. But the Yorkshireman in me says, ‘What’s the point?’ Because neither of those cars is better in any way than the GTI.

  Sure, they have more power, but, come on, be realistic. When does that do anything apart from use more fuel? Most versions of the GTI will average more than 40mpg and you’d have to be extremely committed in your Porsche or your Bentley to get away from it on anything other than a road through Monument Valley.

  On a Welsh mountain road, in the rain, the VW would be faster. Much faster. So the conclusion is this. No matter what you can afford, buy a Golf GTI instead. It’s that simple.

  Or is it? Because for about £9,000 less than a Golf GTI you could have a Ford Fiesta ST, which, if anything, is even more fun to drive. It’s more fun to drive, in fact, than almost anything that’s been fitted with four wheels. It’s a little gem, that car.

  Of course, it’s a little smaller than a Golf, but how often does that matter? Do you really go everywhere with a couple of prop forwards in the back, and a St Bernard in the boot? No. For most of the time, a small, unpretentious car such as this is handier than a bigger, flashier one.

  If you have a Bentley, the day will come when you say, ‘If only this damn thing were a bit smaller, I’d be able to fit into that parking space, but now I’ve got to waste a further hour of my life looking for another.’

  It’s the same story with the Porsche 911. There will come a day when you come out of a meeting to find some worthless layabout has keyed the flanks and carved rude words into the roof. Then you will think, ‘If only I’d bought something a bit less showy.’

  I cannot think of a single thing, however, that would cause the owner of a Ford Fiesta ST to say, ‘If only’. Unless, of course, they happen to try out the Fiesta Zetec S Red Edition that I took for a spin last week. Then they are going to say, ‘If only I had one of these.’

  On the face of it, it’s a ridiculous car. It’s called Red because it’s red. There’s a black one called the Black Edition. I know. Mad. And it gets sillier because it costs only £1,250 less than the super-fast ST but comes with a 3-cylinder 1-litre engine that’s so small it could easily be mistaken for a pencil sharpener. The block – and this is a true fact – would sit comfortably on a piece of A4 paper.

  Do not imagine, however, that because it’s physically small, it is weedy. Because as any flyweight boxer will tell you, that’s a mistake. In fact, this little engine produces 138bhp. That’s not a misprint. Ford has managed to extract 138 brake horsepower from an engine that has the same capacity as two cans of beer.

  I remember the song and dance Daihatsu made when it developed a 1-litre engine for the Charade GTti that developed 100bhp. ‘We have made a hundred horsepower from just 1 litre,’ the company said at the launch, moments before I stuffed its test car into a ditch and knocked the front off.

  And now Ford has upped that to 138bhp. You might imagine that it’s a mass of turbo lag and torque holes and strange noises. But no. It makes a sort of ‘brrrrr’ noise and is like having a West Highland terrier under the bonnet. I completely loved it. I loved the speed as well. It gets from 0 to 60mph in nine seconds and will eventually reach 125mph. And yet because it’s a 1-litre car the insurance is cheap and it is said you’ll get more than 60mpg.

  I haven’t even got to the best bit yet: it’s a Fiesta, which means it has an absolutely stupendous chassis. Maybe the chassis in a Porsche 918 Spyder is a bit better. And there’s no doubt the Ferrari 458 Italia has a peach too. But the little Ford is in the same league – it really is.

  It absorbs bumps as though they’re not there, it has a tenaciously grippy front and a waggly tail, and above all it makes you feel – even at half-speed – very happy. It is a car filled with joy, and that’s a rare thing these days.

  Maybe the controls are fiddly, and if you specify some of the electronic extras, you will find them extremely complicated to use, but you can solve that by not bothering. Who needs DAB radio anyway? Only those who enjoy long and sustained periods of silence.

  The only real problem with this car is where you live, which is in Britain. Because if you sell your Audi or your Bentley or your Ferrari to buy one – which, if you had any sense, you would – all your friends and neighbours would assume that things were going badly in your life and not talk to you any more.

  That’s because we live in the First World. And we’re all mad.

  1 March 2015

  The Hottest Hatch Bar None Streaks out of the Last Chintz Saloon

  Mercedes GLA AMG 4Matic

  As we know, there are far fewer blockbuster films being made these days than at any time in cinema’s peacetime history. When I was growing up, there was a constant supply, and they were varied. There were westerns and historical dramas and war films and huge, sweeping epics involving Julie Christie. I’d see Lawrence of Arabia one weekend, Where Eagles Dare the next and Young Winston after that.

  Then I’d see Young Winston again because it was the first time I’d copped a pair of breasts on the silver screen. Then I’d claim I’d lost my bus fare home and watch it again.

  Today, it’s a very different story. You have Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3. Then you have Iron Man teaming up with Captain America and Thor, and Wolverine versus Jaws.

  It’s the same story with monsters. You had Alien and Aliens, and Predator and Predator 2. And later you had Alien versus Predator. And soon you just know it will be Alien and Predator versus Iron Man and Wolverine and an Old Etonian in a cape, or a suit, or a spaceship – or maybe an Old Harrovian. Whatever; it’ll definitely be some kind of thin-lipped Brit.

  I don’t really mind any of this. I like Robert Downey Jr, I loved Avengers Assemble and I’ll watch almost anything if it features Scarlett Johansson in a pair of rather too tight trousers. But I am a bit sad that every single big-bucks film these days is about someone with metal bones or a massive hammer.

  We see pretty much the same sort of thing going on with cars. It’s not that we’ve lost brands such as Humber and Wolseley and Hillman; that happened back in the mists of time. No, it’s that what’s left is all a bit samey.

  The Škoda Octavia is a VW Golf. So’s the Audi A3 and so is the Seat Leon. And anything that isn’t a Golf is either a VW Polo or a Fiat 500. Except the Fiat 500X, which is an Alfa Romeo.

  Rolls-Royce has done a magnificent job with the Ghost of disguising the fact that, underneath, it shares many components with the BMW 7-series. You absolutely cannot tell, but you know. And that spoils the experience a bit.

  It’s the same story with the Bentley Continental GT. As I may have mentioned about 700 times in the past few months, I currently have a big fan-boy crush on that car. But if I were to own one, I’d always know, every time I climbed into it, that, actually, I was climbing into a Volkswagen Phaeton.

  You might imagine that the solution to all this is to buy a Mercedes-Benz, because what you’re getting underneath is a Mercedes-Benz. Unfortunately, Mercedes has gone completely bonkers in the past couple of years, which means that the Mercedes you buy could well be based on a Mercedes
you don’t like.

  There was a time when the company’s range was very simple. You had medium-sized cars, large cars and very large cars. All of them were functional, restrained, beautifully made and tasteful. But Mercedes has gone all Hollywood and is now making a million versions of the same thing. There is now a Mercedes for every single person on the planet.

  And all of them are a bit – how can I put this tactfully? – chintzy. Mercs used to be styled by a man called Brown Bag. I’m not joking. That was his name. Oh, he said it in Italian to make it sound more interesting, but there’s no getting round the fact that Bruno Sacco means Brown Bag.

  Anyway, Brown Bag was brilliant. He had no time for jewellery and glitter. But he’s gone, and in his place is the sort of man who would describe Elton John’s spectacles as a bit understated. Just look at the front of a Merc these days. It has about a million styling details. It’s a sensory overload. A Cheshire IT man’s front room with headlamp washers.

  All of which brings me on to the car I’ve been using for the past week. It’s the Mercedes GLA 45 AMG 4Matic, which means it’s a four-wheel-drive A-class that’s been slightly raised to give it a bit of off-road credibility and then lowered again to make it sporty. The end result is a car that’s just 3 inches taller than the standard hatchback but includes roof bars. So really it’s not taller at all.

  And then we get to the styling, and, ooh, there’s a lot of it. At the back there are vents and kick plates picked out in aluminium, plus there’s a spoiler, and if you want, there’s the option of having another spoiler mounted over the one that’s already there. There are also many chromed badges, plus lights that look as if they belong on top of an American police car, and the net effect is: there’s more stuff here than you would find in your granny’s sitting room.

  Look at the front for too long and you start to go cross-eyed. Then you have power bulges on the bonnet – obviously – and picked out on the front wings the legend ‘turbo’.

  You don’t need to be reminded of it because, crikey, this thing is fast. Lots of hot hatches have a 2-litre turbocharged engine, but none produces quite so much get-up-and-go as Merc’s one. Put your foot down hard and 4.8 seconds later you’re doing 62mph.

  The Golf R is often cited as the best and the fastest of the hot hatches, but in a drag race with this Merc the VW wouldn’t know where it had gone. Well, it would. Because you can see the glare of all the chrome from space. But you know what I mean. So it’s very, very fast and it handles nicely too. Even when it’s raining and the roads are slippery, you can bomb along, allowing the four-wheel-drive system to keep you on the tarmac.

  Inside are some lovely touches. You get brilliant seats and a seatbelt that works out how fat you are by strangling you before you set off – it’s surprisingly reassuring in a BDSM kind of way. You also get a very Germanic satnav system that knows – precisely – where the jams are. Because of this I saved myself a two-hour hold-up outside Guildford last week.

  The only real drawback to the way this car works is the throttle. It’s a problem with all GLA cars. The accelerator doesn’t send a request for more power from the engine until about a second after you’ve asked for it, which on a busy roundabout is an age.

  That would drive me a bit potty. But not as potty as the styling. I simply couldn’t live with it. And I’m not even sure what this car is supposed to be: a high-riding hot hatch? A low-riding SUV? A crossover with attitude?

  In all honesty, I wouldn’t bother working it out. I’d simply save my money and buy the standard A-class instead.

  8 March 2015

  Persuasion’s perfect, Miss Austen. Don’t go trying Perversion

  Ford Mondeo EcoBoost 1.5 Titanium

  Given the choice of buying a BMW or a Ford, almost everyone would choose a BMW, which makes everything I’m going to say in this article wearisomely irrelevant. I could tell you that if you buy the Ford you get free myrrh for life and an evening out with the dealer’s extremely accommodating young wife, and you’d still say, ‘Nah. I’ll take the Bee Em, thanks.’

  Working for Ford must be a bit like being Jeffrey Archer. You slave for years and years on a project, and you’re proud of it, and it’s very good, but when it emerges into the marketplace, everyone says, ‘Yes. But you’re Jeffrey Archer.’

  Or working in public relations for Blackpool Pleasure Beach. ‘Yes, very nice. But it’s not Disney World, is it?’

  When I first started writing about cars, Ford had developed a cunning solution to the problem of badge snobbery. It worked out that for £20,000 BMW would sell you four wheels and a seat. Everything else was a very expensive option. ‘Oh, you’d like a windscreen? Well, that’ll be £17 million, sir.’

  So a £20,000 Ford came with absolutely everything as standard. I remember once driving a Ford Granada estate and it was kitted out with electric seats, an electric sunroof, air-conditioning and a million other things that would have made a BMW cost more than a house on Venice Beach.

  This trinketry was a bit like filling an average book with a sex scene every few pages. You get a couple of pudendas here and some buttocks like ostrich eggs there, and pretty soon people begin to forget that the plot’s a bit shaky and the characters aren’t fully formed. Except, you know, down there.

  Unfortunately, this doesn’t work any more, because today BMW is filling its cars with sex scenes as well. They are no longer boxes with wind-down windows. They come with climate control and satnavs and electric windows as standard.

  Which means Ford has had to go mad, and explains why the Ford Mondeo EcoBoost Titanium I’ve been testing for the past week came with more standard equipment than you would find on the bridge of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. The steering wheel was festooned with buttons, and woe betide anyone who delved into the submenus on the central command and control system. Let me put it this way. It comes with voice-activated texting. As standard.

  So let me say this loud and clear. This is a big car, a five-seater with a truly gigantic boot. It is fitted with every conceivable luxury. And it costs £22,245. I cannot think of any car yet made that offers better value for money than that.

  Frankly, it wouldn’t matter if it had the engine from a cement mixer and suspension made from scaffolding: £22,245 for a car this size and this well equipped is crazily low. It is the McMeal of motoring.

  Let’s look first of all at the drawbacks. Perhaps because it was developed mainly in America, it is wilfully unsporty. Ford of Europe is responsible for some of the sportiest cars built: the Escort Mexico, the Escort RS Cosworth, the Sierra RS Cosworth, the Fiesta XR2, the Lotus Cortina, the Escort RS2000 … the list goes on and on.

  Ford in America is different. It did the Mustang, which came with leaf-spring suspension and a live rear axle such as you would find on an ox cart, and that’s it. It has the same sporting heritage as I do.

  Ford of Europe spent three years trying to fix the American car. It had to make the suspension function and fit an interior trim that didn’t look like it had been made from melted-down cassette boxes. But you can take the boy out of Texas, send him to Eton and dress him up in tweed and you’ll still be able to tell that he’s not from round here.

  So it goes with the Mondeo. It’s not slow, by any means. Its 1.5-litre engine will zoom you to 62mph in less than ten seconds and propel you on a wave of pleasant noises to a top speed in the region of 140mph. It’s got nicely weighted steering too, and my test car had a sweet, six-speed manual gearbox that felt very old-school. But the suspension is set up, to the exclusion of everything else, for comfort.

  It’s not what I was expecting but it could be quite a clever idea. There are many cars that offer a sporty, taut and connected-to-the-road feel, but very few that offer a comfy place to sit down after a long day at work. If that’s what you want, then you’ll be wanting the Mondeo.

  Just don’t drive it at night. Recent research suggests that the average driver uses full beam for only 2 per cent of the time behind the wheel, but t
his is no excuse for fitting glow-worms instead of actual lightbulbs. Because when it’s dark and you’re on a country lane you really can’t see where you’re going. I bloody nearly piled into a car that was parked at the side of the road.

  Also, don’t bother trying to use some of the more exotic toys. Because they don’t really work. You push the voice-activation button and say in your best RP, ‘Radio 4’. And the one thing you can guarantee is that what happens next will not be the selection of Radio 4.

  This makes me worry a little bit about the inflatable seatbelts that are fitted in the back. The idea is that, if you crash, the belt turns into a bouncy castle and spreads the impact over a much wider area of your children’s fragile bodies. In theory, it sounds a very good idea. But will it work like the voice activation? Or the full-beam headlights? My children elected not to find out.

  It sounds here as if I’m having a downer on this car, and I’m really not. As the week crawled by in a tangle of dreary journeys from London to Guildford and a Saturday-afternoon trudge up the M1, I really did start to appreciate the Mondeo’s extraordinary comfort. And there’s no getting away from the fact that it is extremely large and extremely good value for money.

  So, really, who cares if the voice activation is a bit wonky? Jane Austen’s sex scenes aren’t much cop either, but everyone seems to like her books.

  And I liked the Mondeo. Maybe the diesel version would be better – its economy would be – but the model that intrigues me most comes with a 3-cylinder 1-litre petrol engine. I shall try it as soon as possible and report back.

  In the meantime, you go and buy yourself a BMW. It’ll hurt your back and won’t come with inflatable rear seatbelts so it might end up hurting your children as well. But, hey, the most important thing is impressing the neighbours and, on that score, the Ford won’t do at all.