What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . (26 page)

I spent a few days up north recently. And, at the risk of provoking howls of protest, I came home wondering if the region’s love affair with value for money might be a bit overrated. In restaurants the waiter would not tell us what the food was, or how it had been cooked, or where the ingredients had come from – only how much it would cost. Up north, people like all they can eat for £2.99.

So let’s take this to its logical conclusion. If I were to open a restaurant serving nothing but horse manure and grass clippings, the prices would be very low indeed. But would people eat there? No. This means that at least some emphasis must be placed on quality. And that’s the problem. Quality costs. So, if dinner looks like it could be cheap, there’s a reason. It’s rubbish.

As I’ve said before, there is no such thing as cheap and cheerful. There is cheap and disgusting. Or expensive and cheerful. There is no third way.

We see this with everything. Near where I live a firm of developers recently built a row of terraced houses. They are for sale now at extremely low prices and there’s a very good reason for this. I watched them being built. So I know they are made from old cardboard boxes and dust. I suspect most of the structural integrity comes from the wallpaper.

In short, there is no such thing as a bargain. Something is cheap because it’s cracked, broken or hideous. If you buy cheap garden furniture, it will rot. If you buy cheap pots and pans, they will melt, and if you buy cheap antiques, you will get home to discover they were made yesterday in Korea.

However, where all of this gets blurry is when you introduce the concept of a badge. A pair of sunglasses made by Scrotum & Goldfish would sell for £14.99. Stick a Prada badge on exactly the same glasses, though, and all of a sudden the decimal point heads east.

This makes me froth with rage. I look sometimes at a T-shirt and I think, That cannot possibly cost more than 40p. But because it has a horse or a fox or some other knowing smudge on the left breast, the shopkeeper is allowed by law to charge me £40. Often I’m consumed by an uncontrollable urge to stab her.

All of which brings me neatly to the door of the swanky Audi A3. It costs more than a Volkswagen Golf and you are going to say, ‘Of course it does – it’s an Audi.’ But, actually, it isn’t. Underneath, it is virtually identical to the Golf. They just have different bodies.

You are paying more just so you can go down to the Harvester and tell your friends you have an Audi. And that in turn brings me on to the Skoda Octavia. That costs less than a Golf and you’re going to nod sagely and say, ‘Well, yes. Stands to reason. It’s a Skoda.’ But it isn’t. Underneath, it is also identical to a Golf.

So why would anyone buy a Golf, or an Audi A3, when they could buy exactly the same car for less? Simple answer: badges make people stupid.

In recent years every single Skoda I’ve ever tested has been enormously impressive. There was the Yeti, as good an all-rounder as I’ve ever driven, and the Roomster, which is a blend of practicality, VW engineering and some wondrous styling details. And there was also the Octavia Scout – a perfect farmer’s car with four-wheel drive, low running costs, a boot big enough for a sheep and a fine ride.

I was therefore very much looking forward to a drive last week in the Octavia vRS, because here we have a large five-door hatchback that costs £20,440. That makes it £5,210 less than the Golf GTI. Even though, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, they’re the same car.

That means you get a 16-valve turbocharged direct-injection 2-litre engine, which equates to 0 to 62 mph in 7.2 seconds and a top speed of 150 mph. You also get big brakes, lowered suspension and a six-speed gearbox.

Apart from the big wheels, though, the Octavia doesn’t look especially racy. But neither does the Golf. However, it is extremely racy when you put your foot down. There’s an almost diesely clatter to the engine, and a hint of lag, and then you’re off in a blizzard of face ache and rush.

The ride is firm without being alarming, and the handling is neutral. There are no fireworks, just a solid, sure-footed ability to deal with any input even the most sabre-toothed driver cares to make. It put me in mind of the Golf GTI, weirdly. Only it’s bigger and more practical and, as I’ve said, £5,210 less.

Of course, you might imagine that a car made on the wrong side of what used to be the Iron Curtain will not be crafted with the same ruthless zeal as a car made in Germany. Well, sorry, but a robot doesn’t know what territory it’s in. Skodas? Volkswagens? Exactly the same Taiwanese robots help to build the two.

I was feeling particularly pleased with myself at this point, and was very much looking forward to giving yet another Skoda a tip-top review. But then I started to notice a few things.

I thought at first the brakes were a bit sharp but that I’d get used to them. I didn’t. Then I noticed that despite the many buttons, almost no toys – such as rear parking sensors or Bluetooth – are fitted as standard. You get cruise control, which is just about useless in Britain. And that’s more or less it.

Later, in traffic, I tried to rest my arm on the door, but it wasn’t possible because the seat, which is too high up, is mounted right next to the B pillar. Once I’d noticed this, it was hard to think about anything else. I began to feel as though I was sitting in the back.

Then there was a funny noise. And, as with all funny noises, once I’d heard it, I couldn’t think about or hear anything else. I even forgot after a while that I might be in the back. It sounded
as if a fly was in its death throes in the air-conditioning system, so I decided to put it out of my misery by turning the fan up full. This made the noise stop. Then I turned it down low and it came back. The fan was broken. So I turned it off. And heard another funny noise. A jangling sound. A rattle. Two faults? In a Volkswagen? Not possible. And I was right.

It turned out to be an empty Red Bull can in the door pocket. A door pocket that I noticed was unlined. What’s the point of that? Door pockets are invariably full of stuff that rattles – coins, keys, lighters and so on. If they are made from hard plastic, the driver will quickly go mad. Buck your ideas up on that one, Skoda.

With all the noises sorted out, I started looking for other things and quickly I found one. The speedometer has no display for 90 mph. It jumps from 80 mph to 100 mph. Does this mean the car cannot do 90 mph? And if so, how does it miss it out? How would such a thing be possible? It’s madness.

The Octavia vRS, then, is the exception to the rule that Skodas are the exception to the rule that everything cheap is rubbish.

16 September 2012

In the olden days, when people had diphtheria and children were covered in soot, cars had skinny little tyres so that enthusiastic drivers could have fun making them slither about on roundabouts.

Nowadays, though, it’s all about grip. Fast Fords are fitted with front differentials to ensure you can keep a tight line, even when you are doing 1,000 mph through a mountain hairpin. Then you have the Nissan GT-R, which uses the computing power of a stock exchange to make the same mountain hairpin doable at the speed of sound.

In fact, all modern cars cling to the road like a frightened toddler clings onto its mother’s hand. In some ways this is no bad thing. It means the befuddled and the weak are less likely to spin off and hit a tree. And it means the helmsmen among us can post faster lap times on track days.

But is that what you want? Really? Because when the grip does run out, you will be travelling at such a rate that you will have neither the talent nor the time to get everything back in order before you slam into a telegraph pole. If you are trying to win a race, high cornering speeds are important. But if you are not, they’re frightening.

For the business of going fast, a Nissan GT-R is unbeatable. But for fun – and I am not exaggerating here – you would be better off in a Morris Minor on cross-plies.

Which brings me neatly to the door of this week’s test car. It’s called the Toyota GT86 and it’s been built in a collaboration with Subaru, which is selling an almost identical machine called the BRZ.

Unlike most coupés, such as the Ford Capri, Volkswagen Scirocco and Vauxhall Calibra, the GT86 is not a hatchback in a party frock. It is not a marketing exercise designed to relieve the style-conscious of their surplus cash. It isn’t even very good-looking.

Or practical. The boot is large enough for things, but you can forget about putting anyone in the back, even children. Unless they’ve no legs or heads.

Power? Well, it has a 2-litre boxer engine – Subaru’s contribution – which delivers 197 brake horsepower. That’s not very much. But because the car weighs just 1,275 kg and the engine is so revvy, you’ll hit 62 mph in 7.6 seconds and a top speed of 140 mph. It could almost be mistaken for a hot hatch.

But there’s no mistaking the noise. This car is loud, and not in a particularly nice way. There’s no crisp exhaust note, no induction wheezing. It’s just the sound of petrol exploding in a metal box.

The interior is nothing to write home about, either. You get what you need by way of equipment – air-conditioning, stereo, cupholders and so on – but there’s no sense of style or beauty. Apart from a bit of red stitching here and there, it all feels utilitarian, the product of a bean counter’s lowest-bidder wet dream.

So, there is nothing about this car, either on paper or in the showroom, that is going to tickle the tickly bits of Clint Thrust, the lantern-jawed hero from the planet Oversteer. And yet there is, because, unlike most cars of its type, the GT86 is rear-wheel drive.

Rear drive in a car is like a roux in cooking. Yes, you can use cheap’n’easy cornflour front-wheel drive, but if you want the best results you have to go the extra mile. You have to fit a prop shaft. And a differential.

In a rear-drive car the front wheels are left to get on with the job of steering while those at the back handle the business of propulsion. It’s expensive to make a car this way, and complicated, but the end result will be better, more balanced.

And now we get to the nub of Toyota’s genius. The company fitted the GT86 with the same skinny little tyres it uses on the Prius. And what this means is that there is very little grip. You turn into a corner at what by modern standards is a pedestrian speed, and immediately you feel the tail start to slide.

So you let it go a little bit, and when the angle is just so, you find a throttle position that keeps it there. For ever. You are power-sliding, you are grinning like an ape and you are doing about 13 mph. Which means that if you do make a mess of it and you’re heading for a tree, you can open the door and get out.

You won’t make a mess of it, though, because the steering is perfectly weighted and full of juicy feel. I promise. The GT86 will unlock a talent you didn’t know you had. It will unleash your hero gene and you will never want to drive any other sort of car ever again.

No, really. Put some cotton wool in your ears, snick the old-feeling snick-snick box down into second, stand hard on the astoundingly good brakes, wish you’d used more cotton wool as the boxer engine roars, turn the wheel, feel the back start to go and it’s like being back in the time of the Mk 1 Ford Escort.

I’m sure that at this point many non-enthusiasts are wondering whether I’ve taken leave of my senses. Why, they will ask, would anyone want a noisy, impractical car that won’t go round corners properly? Simple answer: if you’re asking the question, the GT86 is not for you.

I suppose I could raise a safety question. Because, while its antics are a massive giggle on a track, I do wonder what will happen when it’s raining and your head is full of other things and you try to go round a roundabout at 25 mph. There’s a time and a place for oversteer and I’m not sure 5.30 p.m. in suburbia is it. Best in these circumstances, then, to turn the traction control on.

There’s another issue, too. I’m willing to bet that some people will decide that the styling of the GT86 could be improved by fitting larger wheels and fatter tyres. Do not do this. Because while it may make the car more meaty to behold, it will ruin the
recipe as surely as you would ruin a plate of cauliflower cheese by vomiting on it.

Frankly, I wouldn’t change a thing about the GT86. Because it’s so bland, it doesn’t attract too much attention. You can therefore have fun without being marked out by passers-by as an anorak.

And now we get to the clincher. The GT86 costs less than £25,000 with manual transmission. That makes it cheaper than a Vauxhall Astra VXR. It makes it a Tiffany diamond for the price of a fairground lucky-dip prize.

It’s strange. We thought purpose-designed coupés had gone. We thought wayward handling had gone. And we sure as hell thought genuinely good value had gone. But all three things are now back in one astonishing car. Perhaps the most interesting car to be launched since the original Mazda MX-5. I’m giving it five stars only because it’s not possible to hand out more.

23 September 2012

The results of a continent-wide survey are in and it’s been announced that the Italians are the worst drivers in Europe. Apparently this is largely due to a strong showing from the Italians themselves, 28 per cent of whom said, ‘Yup. Nobody does it worse than us.’

Well, I’m sorry, but I’m incredulous about this, because the Italians are in fact the best drivers, not just in Europe but anywhere. They get to where they’re going more quickly, and they have more fun on the way. They also look good in the process.

Just last week I was driving from Turin to Milan in a car that develops 662 horsepower. It was plainly very fast and I was plainly in a big hurry. But that didn’t stop every single Italian I encountered trying to get past. The Italian driver must overtake the car in front. This is a rule. Even if the car in front is an F-15E Strike Eagle and you are in a seventeen-year-old Fiat with a two-stroke under the bonnet, you must get past or you are not a man.

They say that you never feel more alive than you do when you are staring death in the face. Which is why my drive though Rome last year in a Lamborghini Aventador was such an unparalleled joy. You can’t daydream there; you can’t take in the views. Many Roman drivers have no idea the Colosseum is still upright: they’re so busy concentrating on getting past the car in front, they’ve never even noticed it.

You can’t help but notice, though, the weeping American tourists, marooned on traffic islands, wondering through heaving
sobs why no car will stop at the pedestrian crossing. Because they’re racing, you witless idiots.

However, what makes it different from any race you’ve ever seen is that no one knows where the finish line is or where the other competitors are going. That’s what adds to the sparkle.

I was once on the autostrada outside Pisa when the car behind indicated it wished to get past by nudging my rear bumper. It was quite a hefty nudge, if I’m honest. Which is why I was so surprised to note the vehicle in question was being driven by a nun. I promise I’m not making this up. I was rammed out of the way by a nun in an Alfa Romeo.

What fascinates me is that when you drive to Italy through France, you have mile after mile of belligerence and arrogance and big Citroëns being in both lanes at once. Then you go through a tunnel and on the other side everyone is stark, staring bonkers. Rude on one side of a hill. Mad on the other. It’s strange.

Other nations to do badly in the survey are the Greeks, who drive very much like the Italians, only without the panache, skill or style, and the Germans. Ah, the Germans. I don’t think they are necessarily bad, but it is the only country in the world where I sometimes feel intimidated. As if the man coming the other way really would rather die in a huge head-on smash than pull over a bit.

Apparently, the best drivers in Europe are the Finns. How can we be sure? I’m the only person I’ve ever met who’s been to Finland. The Brits come eighth, and there can be only one reason for such a poor showing: the sheer number of Audis you see whizzing about these days.

There was a time when Audis were driven by cement salesmen, but in recent years they have become the must-have accessory for squash- and golf-playing ‘winners’. And squash- and golf-playing winners don’t have the time or the inclination to let you out of a side turning, that’s for sure. Also, Audi drivers have it in their heads that the stopping distances in the Highway
Code are given in millimetres. You check next time you’re being tailgated. I bet you any money the culprit is in an Audi.

This used to be a BMW problem but today BMWs are rather too restrained and tasteful for the world’s winners. The slight flashiness of an Audi goes better with the pillars outside their houses.

That said, the new S6 is really rather good-looking. The wheels are especially handsome and overall it has the look of a BMW, the look of a car whose body has been stretched to the absolute limits to cover the wheels; the look, in short, of a car that can barely contain its muscle.

The muscle in question is actually smaller than it used to be. In the old S6 you had the Lamborghini V10 but that’s gone now, a victim of the relentless drive for better emissions and improved fuel economy. So instead you get a twin-turbo V8, the same unit Bentley is using in the basic Continental GT these days.

It’s a clever engine because when you are just pootling about, four of the cylinders close down – if you really, really concentrate, you can sense that happening – which means you are using far less fuel. And then at the lights everything stops, which means you are using none at all. The upshot is about 29 mpg, and that’s pretty damn good for a car of this type.

Obviously the power is down a tad from the old V10. But you still get a colossal shove in the back when you floor it, and a sense that even with four-wheel drive the tyres are scrabbling for grip, like a girl in a horror film running away from the monster in the wood.

Sometimes you think there may even be too much power, because this is not a sports saloon. It may look like one, with its silver mirrors and its fancy wheels and its V8 badges on the front wings. But the steering is not sporty at all. And neither is the ride.

Gone are the days when Audis jiggled on rough roads. Some were so bad, I often thought I was going to have an aneurysm. The new models, though, even the fast ones such as this, are extremely good at isolating occupants from the slovenliness of
the British roadwork Johnny. Doubtless there will be a harder, more focused RS6 in due course, but for now what we have here is a comfortable, economical, fast and good-looking cruiser.

Inside, you get quilted seats. And I’d like to say at this point how much I hate their vulgarity. But sadly I can’t. Because they look great. The equipment levels are pretty impressive too. Put it this way: if there’s a gadget you’ve seen in another car of this type, you can be assured it’s available in the S6.

It’s a silly John Lewis-style price-promise game played by Audi, BMW and Mercedes. When one of them introduces a new toy such as a head-up display, the others follow suit. In the S6 I notice that Audi allows you to choose how long you would like voice commands to be. The others will have that feature in a year.

Jaguar should play a joke on the Germans and say its next car will have a ski jump in the boot. Or an aquarium in the glove box.

Until then, though, the S6 is a good, well-judged car that would make a great deal of sense in Italy. Here in Britain, however, it will be bought and driven extremely badly by people you wouldn’t want round for dinner. For that reason, I still slightly prefer the BMW 5-series.

30 September 2012