Born to Be Riled (24 page)

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.

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 lower 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.

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.

Last year, I had to sit and watch Nick Hancock take me to the cleaners on
Room 101
, a television programme where guests consign life’s little irritations to the flames of eternal hell.

Being assassinated by someone you’ve never even met is terribly disappointing, but rather than sulk I leapt at the opportunity to take part in a new series.

As is the way with programmes like this, you don’t get
the chance to meet the host beforehand, which meant I only had the hour-long recording session to convince a man I’ve always liked and admired that my head is not entirely full of acceleration figures and comparative rear-seat legroom dimensions.

It obviously didn’t work because, while promoting the show, Hancock said he was ‘allergic’ to people who like cars, and that my choices had been ‘boringly obvious’.

Fine. I tried to be reasonable, but now it’s payback time because Hancock, I know, is a huge football fan. And I loathe football fans.

I have just finished Nick Hornby’s
Fever Pitch,
and found the whole sorry saga more sad than
Born Free
.

While I hero-worship Ian McCullum and Tommy Lee Jones, whose talents are boundless, these people drool over footballers who, almost without exception, are so stupid I’m amazed they can put their shorts on the right way round.

Last week I found myself sharing a hotel with a team that, thanks to the libel laws, shall have to remain nameless. But honestly, the lobby was like Darwin’s waiting room.

They had got it into their tiny, tiny minds that I was Jeremy Beadle and, for two hours, could only say ‘Watch out. Beadle’s about.’ At least, that’s what I think they were saying, because speech was an art form they hadn’t mastered properly.

I noticed that they didn’t have conversations like normal people. One would walk up to a huddle of others and make some kind of farmyard noise. This would prompt the others to cluck or moo and then everyone would disperse.

Now, we’re dealing here with a bunch of young men who, because they can kick an inflated sheep’s pancreas some considerable distance, get paid anything up to £40,000 a week. And if you give young males that sort of money, they will be tempted to spend large chunks of it on a flash set of wheels.

Apparently, this worries Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson, who tries to veto some of the more extreme vehicular demands from his players. It seems that having paid squillions of pounds for a new player, he doesn’t sleep well at night if he thinks the guy is charging around the city centre at 180mph in a Vantage. Driving while under the influence of the Spice Girls is not illegal, but it is dangerous. And so is not being able to read STOP signs.

Obviously no such ban is enforced at Liverpool FC, where a spokesman said the car park is ‘incredible’. Apparently, there are several of those ‘upmarket Land Rover things’ (Range Rovers I presume) and the rest are all ‘sporty Porsches’ – as opposed, I guess, to the much rarer non-sporty variety.

This would indicate that the successful footballer is something of a petrol-head. And further research has proved this to be true. Alan Shearer has a Jaguar XK8, while Les Ferdinand has a sporty Porsche 911.

David Seaman (a rather unfortunate name) and Ryan Giggs (who’s Welsh) have Aston Martin DB7s, and Teddy Sheringham pootles around in a Ferrari 355 Spider. John Barnes has just picked up a Mercedes SL.

David Beckham, a man so bright he’s able to date Posh Spice, is to be found behind the wheel of a BMW M3 convertible, and Jason McAteer has a Porsche Boxster.

Now this lot would bring Hancock out in a rash, so are
there any football teams out there whose players are not interested in cars?

It was not easy finding out because I either had to ring up clubs, and speak to people who can’t or I had to graze the Internet, a process that takes so long I’d have been better off using a carrier pigeon.

However, I think I’ve found one – Stoke City. A delightful receptionist there called Lizzie, who speaks coherent English, furnished me with a list of players’ cars and it’s just horrific. Kevin Keen has a VW Polo while Fofi Nyamah has a Vauxhall Astra. Other cars that litter that Potters’ car park include a Ford Escort 1.8 LX, a Citroen, a Mazda 323 and a Mercedes C180 – by far and away the slowest car in the entire world.

Obviously, this disregard for automotive niceties endears the players enormously to their number one fan – a chap called Nick Hancock. And how do I know he supports Stoke? Because he talks about little else.

If you’re one of our more level-headed readers, you might think that when it comes to no-go areas of office conversation, cars top the list here at
Top Gear
magazine. I mean, for 16 hours a day these guys drive cars, and in the remaining eight, write about them. The last thing they want to do over a beer or in sub-zero fag breaks is to discuss the merits of a Proton over an Escort.

Well I’m going to tell you a little secret. They don’t talk about cars very much, but it has nothing to do with
overkill. They don’t talk about cars because they are too busy talking about bloody motorbikes. The Editor rides bikes. The Assistant Editor rides bikes. The Art Director rides bikes. So does the Art Editor – and she’s a girl. I’ve just been to Barbados with the Road Test Editor, and he sat on the beach every day reading
Bike
magazine. I’ve given up calling in because if I do, I always forget the rules and mention the ‘c’ word. I mean, it is a car magazine; maybe the people who work on it would be interested to hear that I’ve just driven a turbocharged Ferrari F50. So I’ll say, ‘Hey everyone, I drove a turbocharged F50 yesterday,’ and, guess what… nothing happens. So I’ll tell them again, and if I’m very lucky, one will stick his head up and mumble something about it not being as fast as the Triumph T595. Then they’re off. ‘Yeah, but the chassis on a ’Blade is better.’ ‘Oh sure, but I prefer the 43mm Showa usd teles on a 916.’ And me, I’m the pork chop in a synagogue. I’ve given up arguing. Yes, yes, yes, bikes are cheaper than cars, more fun and, providing you never encounter a corner, they’re faster too. I’ve tried pointing out that round a track, where there are bends, a car will set faster lap times, but a deathly hush descends over the office as everyone sets to work with slide rules and calculators. Three minutes later, the Managing Editor will announce that, at Thruxton, his calculations have shown a T595 would, in fact, be faster than an F50.

Well, I can now shut them up for good because I’ve just flown an F-15E, and no bike on Earth even gets close. Oh, and you’ll note I said ‘flown’ and not ‘flown in’. Even though I’ve never even held the stick in a Cessna, the US Air Force let me take the controls of a plane which cost $50 million and, in 90 minutes, used $7000-worth of fuel.
You might guess that once you’re airborne there is no real sensation of speed – but this is simply not the case, a point the pilot was keen to prove. So, at 1000 feet he hit everything to slow the plane down to something like 150mph. And then, after asking me if I was ready, he lit the afterburners. And let me tell you this, Mr Sheene and Mr Fogarty: you know nothing. I wasn’t timing it, but would guess that in ten seconds we were nudging 700mph. And then, just to show what an F-15 is all about, he stuck the plane on its tail and did a vertical climb from 1000 to 18,000 feet in exactly 11 seconds. You’ve all been in lifts which make you feel funny if they’re fast, but just think what it feels like to do a 17,000-ft vertical climb in the time it takes a Mondeo to get from 0 to 60.

There was no let-up, either, because having shown me how fast an F-15 accelerates, I was then introduced to its manoeuvrability. Put it like this – in a gentle Sunday afternoon turn it’ll dole out 10 g, and I don’t know of any bike which can do that. And nor can a bike post a 1000lb bomb through your letterbox. What’s more, in a battle between a MiG-29 and a Ducati 916, the Italian motorcycle would lose. Whereas no one has ever shot an F-15 down. Ever. But the best bit was when the pilot said, ‘You have the plane.’ I did a roll and a loop, flew in tight formation with another F-15, went for a peek at BMW’s new factory, flew over Kitty Hawk and got within a fraction of going supersonic. The plane can do Mach Two, but only over water, and my ejection training had not covered survival in such conditions.

I really didn’t mind, though. I honestly believe I’ve now experienced the ultimate; from this point on, everything will be a little bit tame.

As I see it, a bike only has one advantage over a fighter-bomber. On a bike, you don’t get sick. In the plane, you do. Twice.

I am a patient man but Vodafone should be advised that it’s run out. Either they build more of those relay towers or I’m coming down to their head office with a pickaxe handle and some friends.