Born to Be Riled (19 page)
Authors: Jeremy Clarkson
Tags: #Automobiles, #English wit and humor, #Automobile driving, #Humor / General
I should make it plain, right at the outset, that I was born in Yorkshire, but don’t worry. Because I can’t play cricket, I don’t suffer from that most hideous of diseases – Professional Yorkshireman Syndrome.
Even so, I do love the place. I think it’s hard to find scenery anywhere in the world quite so inviting as the Dales, the people are chummy and Leeds is just plain outstanding.
The best bit of the county is to be found by going to Hull and turning left; up through Driffield and on towards Scarborough and Filey.
If you removed all the people and their yellow houses from the Cotswolds, you’d be getting near the mark. It is chocolate-box pretty and you don’t even have to fight with a coachload of American tourists for the hazel nut crunch.
Now this, of course, means you can unleash the beast under your bonnet on some of the smoothest, best maintained and almost completely empty roads. East Yorkshire is petrolhead heaven.
And I was in a car to suit the mood – Porsche’s new two-seater, mid-engined convertible – the Boxster.
It was fabulous. There is a delicacy to the steering that you simply don’t find in lesser machinery, which meant that on the moorland roads north of Pickering the car was a dream.
And the roadholding is absolutely sublime. Even if I stabbed the throttle midway through a corner, the inside wheel just spun the unnecessary power away with the
careless disdain of an Australian bushman whooshing away a fly.
As far as ride comfort is concerned, it’s just unbelievable. The Boxster’s suspension is like the perfect secretary, dealing with the dross and making sure that only the really important information reaches its boss.
You can have big fun in this car, revelling in the crisp bark of that 2.5 litre, six-cylinder engine as it rasps past 5000rpm, snicking the gear lever from fourth to fifth, and then down to third for the next bend.
The brakes wash away the excess speed, the big tyres grip, the sports seat holds you firmly in place and then, as you marvel at the complete absence of scuttle shake, it’s time to nail the throttle again. And don’t worry: even if you drive like the illegitimate son of a madman, you’ll still get 25mpg.
You’ll even get home with enough energy left to press a little button and put the roof up.
A clean bill of health then for Porsche’s mainstay into the next century? All you people on the year-long waiting list can sit back, safe in the knowledge that the car you’ve chosen is spot-on? Er no, not really.
You see, it’s all very well thumping round East Yorkshire in a Boxster but don’t forget, you have to get there. And that’s not so much fun.
First of all, you’ve got to buy it, which will set you back £37,000 if you specify big wheels and leather seats. This is a lot of money, especially when you remember that an MGF VVC is less than £20,000.
And no, I’m not being silly. The MG is also a mid-engined, two-seater convertible which, in the real world… wait for it… is actually faster than the Porsche.
The Boxster’s biggest problem is that unless you drive like your hair’s on fire, it’s JCB slow. In-gear acceleration times show an ordinary Rover 620i is faster.
And to make matters worse, the Boxster has an irritating habit on the motorway of gradually slowing down. Drive any expensive car down the M1 and you’ll find it gets faster and faster. At turn off 32, you’re doing 70. By turn off 28, you’re up to 75. When you go past Leicester, you’re up to 80. And by Watford, your sonic boom is breaking people’s windows. Next stop, Hendon magistrates court. I know. I’ve been.
But in the Porsche the reverse happens. I started out at 70 and would find, ten miles later, that I was down to 50. Half-way up the M18, you would have needed a theodolite to ascertain that I was actually moving at all.
And on the M62, I think I started going backwards. It was hard to be sure, though, because the front and the back of a Boxster look like Siamese twins.
I think this licence-saving trend is the result of a wonky driving position which means your right foot is never quite comfortable on the accelerator – it tends to lift, little by little. You have to concentrate, all the time, on maintaining a single speed, and this gets wearing; so wearing, in fact, that on the way home I ended up with a headache in my back.
Overall then, the Porsche was a disappointment. On its day, it’s as much fun as an evening with Steve Coogan, but most of the time it’s as dreary and as plain as his alter ego, Alan Partridge.
The good news for Porsche fans is that it will stay in production for 20 or more years, and that in the fullness of
time they’ll up the power, fix the driving position and lose the push-me-pull-you looks.
This is great if you’re planning on buying one in the next millennium, but if you want a sports car now there’s the Mercedes SLK for pansies and the TVR Chimaera for people who like their meat still mooing.
The trouble with the TVR though, is that it’s made in Lancashire, which is on the wrong side of the Pennines, the side where they can’t play cricket and… cont. in Michael Parkinson’s column every week.
I’m thinking of having Rover’s board over for dinner and, when they’re all seated, I shall produce braised pork with apples and cider.
I shall regale them with tales of exactly how this mouthwatering concoction had been made; which tiny little specialist shops in Soho had provided the juniper berries and how I’d marinated the meat for a week. I’ll even give them the actual name of the pig that had found the truffles.
But then, just as they pick up their eating irons, I’ll whisk their plates away and produce, instead, a baked potato that hasn’t been in the microwave quite long enough.
Perhaps then they will understand the folly of producing concept cars that they have no intention of making.
Everyone knows that a new Mini is on the drawing
board, and we are sure that it will be bigger and more expensive than the current incarnation.
But we have no idea what it will look like, what sort of engine it will have or even where that engine will be. Somewhere in the car is a safe guess, though.
So Rover is teasing us. A few months ago they wheeled out a sporty-looking little thing in Monte Carlo rallying colours, and people in the specialist motoring press had to spend the entire day in the lavatory, whimpering gently.
When these guys came out some were blind, but Rover admitted the concept was just that. It will never be made. They were just fooling around.
And now they’ve done it again. At the Geneva motor show they whipped the covers off another new Mini, which they explained was a mid-engined, rear-wheel drive sportster that, in five-door form, had more space on the inside than an S Class Mercedes Benz.
‘And,’ they added, ‘it could be a production reality tomorrow.’ Everyone was impressed, right up to the point when they announced that it won’t ever happen. So what’s going on here?
It seems that Rover’s new masters at BMW were worried that the intriguing Mercedes A Class would steal all the headlines at Geneva. Here was Merc’s first-ever front-wheel drive machine, which is even smaller than a Ford Ka. It would be a big story.
So BMW decided to relieve themselves all over Merc’s bonfire by instructing the bright young designers at Rover to come up with something even cleverer. And it worked. Merc’s A Class, which is going on sale in the next few weeks, was eclipsed by a car that’s nothing more than a hallucinogenic vision.
However, I suspect Mercedes will enjoy the last laugh because in three years’ time Rover will have to stop giving us concept cars and unveil the real thing.
They’ve been showing us they can make the most amazing hollandaise sauce, but in reality they’re going to serve up a slightly underdone potato. Marvellous.
Now this is bad, but it’s worse when a manufacturer shows us a concept car that can’t be made.
My favourite was a Peugeot that did the rounds ten years ago. It was startling. Small boys were captivated by its swooping lines. But the reason they were so swoopy is because there was no room within the framework of the car for an engine.
Now I’m sorry, but if I were running a car firm and someone brought me a design which precluded the fitment of a motor I would sack him immediately. I would not instruct him to go away with several hundred thousand of my shareholder’s pounds, demanding that he builds a mock-up of the damn thing.
And even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t let the public see it because then the shareholders would sack me. A car with no engine Jezza? Great work, idiot. Now get out.
Then there’s the fascination with the rear-view mirror, a device that I think works rather well.
But no. It is almost always ditched on a concept car and replaced with an expensive television camera that feeds its signal to a screen mounted on the dash. Mmmm? I see, but what happens when the lens gets dirty? People who keep plugging away at this ludicrous idea are obviously mad and should be quietly murdered.
So what about doors? The hinge is a good idea. It was invented several years ago and works in all sorts of
different applications – your fridge, your rabbit hutch and your canal.
But car designers are obsessed with alternatives. There was a Cadillac I saw at the Detroit motor show in 1989 where the door popped away from the body, electrically, and then slid forwards to let you in. It worked… but only in the same way that you can use a urinal while doing a handstand.
There was a car at this year’s Geneva show whose name has gone from my mind. It had chunky four-wheel drive wheels and, I suspect, the running gear from a Mercedes G Wagen. But instead of a boxy, practical body it had a sleek, two-seat layout – sort of Robbie Coltraine in lace panties.
I know it’s vital that car designers keep an eye on the furthest horizon, and that it’s a good idea to constantly challenge accepted wisdom.
But can’t this be done quietly, behind the scenes? That way, when something turns out to be impossible they can forget it, and when something, like the latest Mini concept, turns out to be a goer, they just go right ahead.
I mean the old Mini has now been around for very nearly 40 years. I really don’t think anyone would accuse Rover of rushing into things.
Go on, ask me whether to buy one of the new Peugeot 406s or a Rover 600 diesel and I’ll surprise you with my answer. I haven’t driven either of them. And nor, I’m
ashamed to say, have I tried a Daewoo Espero, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, a Nissan Almera or a Hyundai Lantra. Wanna know about the Seat Cordoba? I’m not your man. So it’s a toss-up between the Toyota RAV4 and a Vauxhall Tigra. Well I’ve seen lots but, to date, neither has been to Telly Towers for evaluation. But ask me whether to fly to the USA on Virgin or Delta, and I’ll be in like a shot. Ask me how a smoker can get to Australia without eating their own seat and I’ll have a starter for ten. In the last two years I’ve been so busy making 12
Motorworld
programmes that I’ve rather lost touch with what’s what in cardom. But at 30,000 feet I’m on
Mastermind
with no passes. Did you know, for instance, that if a fresh-air fanatic sits in a smoking row on an American airline that row, under federal law, becomes no smoking?
And I have worked out why Australia failed to beat us in the rugby world cup. They’re all wimps. I know this because under state law baggage handlers are not permitted to accept any suitcase which weighs more than 32 kilos. And though you may know how to change the plugs on a 1983 Citroen CX, I know how to smoke on a Cathay Pacific 747. It’s not terribly dignified, but what you do is bury your head in the lavatory, keeping your knee on the vacuum flush button. That way, the smoke is sucked into the bowl and away from the infernal detectors. This is important stuff. Well, as vital as knowing how to turn the wiper off in an Audi Coupé, and even the road testers on this magazine can’t do that.
As far as quality is concerned, British Airways is simply head, shoulders, torso and thighs above the competition. No matter where you are, when you step on a BA jet it feels like you’re home already.
If I can liken airlines to car companies, BA has the efficiency and reliability of Mercedes Benz with the quiet dignity of Bentley. The Far Eastern carriers used to have things sewn up with their devastating stewardesses and tasty titbits. But today MAS – the Malaysian outfit – is the only one worth writing home about. If you need to get to the Far East, and British Airways is full, go via Dubai and use Emirates. I can’t say that I care very much for the tan and red uniforms, or the decor, but they have television screens for everyone; even in the back, with the cattle. If you’re going the other way, to America, the first thing you must do is ignore any US carrier. Without exception, they are brash and their stewardesses need Zimmer frames.
South Western, from Texas, has a remarkable ticketing system which makes most airports look like bus stations, but when you get on board and are served a cup of warm brown water by a woman in specs the size of a Triumph Herald, you know it’s doing it all wrong. However, even Americans are better than the Third World. In Vietnam, the pilot made a number of attempts to hit the runway in Hué, finally opting to land his jet near it instead.
In Cuba they fly planes that would be rejected by Fred Flintstone. One had no windows, and filled with smoke 15 minutes after take-off. Another had windows but was flown by a fully paid-up member of EXIT. He knew his engines were on their last legs but, even so, he flew right into the biggest thunderstorm I’ve ever seen. We went in at 2000 feet and came out through some bushes. However, while Cuba may be the FSO Polonez of airlines, it is not the worst. The Nissan Sunny award for hopelessness goes to… Qantas. They are incapable of getting a plane off the ground on time. The staff are ruder than French waiters
and the food is inedible. Even the appropriately named CAAC – China’s airline – which shows 12 hour animated kung fu films through loudspeakers, has them licked.
I’m sorry if you think you’ve been reading
Top Landing Gear
this month. However, fear not. Judging by my drive, which is now full of cars, and by my diary, which shows no trips abroad ever again, normal service will be resumed shortly.