Don't Stop Me Now (11 page)

It’s the automotive equivalent of ginger hair. You’re going to be bullied.

Sunday 22 February 2004

I’d like to begin this morning with an apology. For the past few weeks I’ve been filling these pages with cars you might actually buy, rather than cars you dream about. It’s been a drizzle of Golfs and Civics, rather than a scarlet blaze of Gallardos and Scagliettis.

I thought this would go down well. I thought you’d appreciate some time in the real world. But it seems not. Sure, the handful of letters I used to get complaining about my love of million-horsepower, two-seater supercars has dried up, but they’ve been replaced with a flood of missives from people asking me to get back where I belong.

‘No more Hondas,’ you say, as though you think I enjoy bumbling around in the pensioners’ special. No more crummy Volkswagens. No more Fiat Pandas. It seems you’re just not interested in the bread and butter; only the jam.

So you’ll probably be jolly angry this morning to find I’m wasting your time with a 1.6-litre five-door family hatchback called the Mazda3. But look at it this way: I’m only wasting 10 of your minutes. It wasted a whole week for me.

I honestly thought it would be good. I thought it would stand head, shoulders and torso above all the competition and that we could draw a line under this hatch
back malarkey once and for all. I thought I’d conclude by saying it’s the best of them all, and then next week we could get back to the thin air out there beyond Mach 1.

Mazda has always been a left-field choice for those wanting a Jap-o-box. They were just as reliable as the equivalent Toyotas and Nissans, but somehow they were never quite as dreary. Maybe this is because they’re made in Hiroshima. Maybe there’s something in the water there.

Mazda may have been nothing more than a division of Ford for the past 25 years, but they’re the only ones to have persevered with Wankel rotary engines. They were the ones who reintroduced the sports car in the shape of the still-marvellous MX-5, and they were responsible for what I think is the best-looking Japanese car of them all – the old RX-7.

In recent months, though, they’ve gone berserk. First of all there was the Mazda6, which is certainly the most handsome and possibly the best driving mid-range four-door saloon money can buy. Then there was the Mazda2, which I’m told is pretty good. And sitting above them all, like a golden halo, was the RX-8.

It’s not perfect. It’s not as powerful as the initial projections led us to believe, and the Wankel engine uses oil and petrol in equal measure. But you have to love those backward-opening rear doors, and the price, the smoothness and the perfect front-engine, rear-drive balance. And then there’s the styling which, according to my daughter, is ‘way cool’.

So all the evidence suggested the Mazda3 would be
les genoux de la bee
. And there’s more good omen too, because
it’s based on the next-generation Ford Focus. Quite a pedigree when you remember the current Ford Focus is quite simply the best-handling hatchback of them all. The Mazda3, I figured, would be the biggest blast to come out of Hiroshima for nearly 60 years.

Well, it isn’t. And that means I have to use the strongest word in the English language: ‘disappointing’.

When I was younger, my bank manager would write from time to time saying he was ‘saddened’ to note that I hadn’t done anything about my overdraft. This was no big deal. And nor would it have mattered if he’d said he was ‘angry’, ‘livid’ or ‘incandescent with rage’.

He could have been whatever he liked, but it still wouldn’t have altered the fact that I had three thousand of his bank’s pounds and no intention of doing anything about it.

But then one day he wrote to say he was ‘disappointed’, and that changed everything.

That meant he’d had high hopes for me and that I had let him down. Suddenly it was all my fault.

Try this with your kids. Tell them you’re really cross and I guarantee it won’t make a ha’porth of difference. Tell them you’re disappointed, and they’ll immediately clean their room and take up the cello.

I’m no stranger to the concept of disappointment. There was Bob Seger’s last album, for a kick-off. And then there’s my yew hedge, which is six years old and still only six inches high. But the Mazda was something new. It’s not just worse than I was expecting, it’s worse than I’d have expected even if I wasn’t expecting anything.

I mean, why, for instance, base a car on the Ford Focus – which has independent rear suspension – and then not fit independent rear suspension? Yes, Mazda saves a pound, but I end up disappointed.

And why do the brakes have to be operated with a switch? Sometimes you just want to slow down a bit, but the Mazda can’t do that. You’re either going along normally, or you’re stationary with your face all squidged on the windscreen and blood pouring out of your ruined nose.

Yes, you get Electronic Brakeforce Distribution, Emergency Brake Assist and anti-lock, but I’d trade all of that for a bit of ‘feel’.

It’s the same deal with all the controls, actually. There’s no finesse to the gearbox, the clutch or the steering. There’s a sense, with everything, of pared-to-the-bone, penny-pinching, accountancy-driven engineering.

Then there’s the styling. Mazda says that with its long wheelbase and aggressively flared fenders it has an assertive presence, even when viewed from a distance. What are they on about? A werewolf has an assertive presence. Nelson Mandela has an assertive presence. The USS
Nimitz
has an assertive presence… but the Mazda3 is no more assertive than soil.

It’s especially unassertive at a distance because it would take such a long time to get from wherever it is to wherever you are. You can buy a 2-litre version, which is probably capable of movement, but I tried the 1.6, which isn’t.

Mazda says the 1.4 is ‘lively’, and the 2-litre ‘powerful’, but is plainly stumped with the middle-order 1.6, which
it describes as ‘highly balanced’. ‘Asthmatic’ is perhaps more accurate. ‘Strained’ is good, too. ‘Woefully short of oomph’ works as well.

Strangely, it’s not short of power. With 103 bhp on tap, it’s right in the standard 1.6-litre ballpark, but somewhere between the engine and the road it all seems to escape.

Time and again I’d gird my loins for an overtaking manoeuvre on the A44 – it’s never easy – and time and again I’d realise as I drew level with the Rover I was trying to pass, that I didn’t have enough grunt. So I’d get on the brakes and then have to spend the rest of the journey picking bits of gristle and cartilage out of the heater vents.

As far as price and equipment levels are concerned, it’s fine. My TS2 model costs
£
13,600 – about the same as a Focus 1.6 Ghia – and came with air-conditioning, curtain air bags, a CD player and traction control – a little more than you get on a Focus.

But this is not enough, I’m afraid, to swing the pendulum Mazda’s way. Last week, in the
Good Car Bad Car Guide
, I said that those wanting a car of this type should choose between the Golf, the Focus and the Renault Mégane. Nothing’s changed.

Well, one thing has. I’ve had enough of testing humdrum hatchbacks so I’m going to sign off now, ring Aston Martin and get my hands on a DB9.

Sunday 21 March 2004

I am growing bored with the Mitsubishi Evo. It may be the fastest road car money can buy, the cream of all things auto-motive in the Milky Way, and the great and wonderful grandson of the formidable Audi quattro, but we’ve had enough now, thanks.

Pretty well every day a new version comes along which is claimed by those of a downloading disposition to be better than the one before. But do you know what? It’s just more of the same. Brilliant, but eventually you tire of lobster thermidor, especially if you’re given it for breakfast.

I don’t doubt that each tweak of the dampers and each fettle of the differentials makes life a shade faster on the world’s rally stages, but shaving half a second off a 20-mile flat-out run through the Corsican hinterland is simply not noticeable when you’re popping out to buy some Rawlplugs.

I tried the Evo VIII FQ300 last week and, as expected, it offered up scramjet performance within the world of internal combustion. But then I could have said pretty much the same of the normal VIII, which in turn felt about the same as the VII, the VI and even the V.

I could say the same of the Subaru Impreza. Every month we read in the car magazines of another new
version. We’ve had the RB5, the PPP and the STi, and now we have the WRX STi Type RA Spec C Ltd. Why would anyone buy a car like that? To impress girls? I think not. So it must be to impress other men. I suppose this is logical: because as the car’s power goes backwards and forwards you end up that way inclined too.

What’s happened here is what happened to the world of rock’n’roll in the mid-1970s. Bands like Genesis and Yes started fiddling with simple concepts until they ended up with songs that lasted two weeks, presented in Roger Dean album covers with 42 gatefolds.

I liked
Seconds Out
and
Fragile
. But you need to take a deep breath before admitting to this kind of thing in public. And it’s the same story with the Evo VIII and a specced-up Subaru. They have become ‘progressive rock’ cars. Lots of smoke and light and noise and an auditorium full of really, really ugly men who have told their wives and friends they’re working late.

What’s needed is a dose of punk, a retaliation to the clever-clogs synthesiser and the technically amazing half-hour drum solo. What’s needed is something small, tight and angry. What’s needed is the Lotus Exige.

This is a car that has no active yaw control and no active diff. It has no turbocharger and does not need to be told what sort of road it’s on before setting off. If the Evo VIII, with its spray-jet intercooler, is Rick Wakeman’s
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
, then the Exige is a spitting, strutting Sex Pistol.

It costs
£
30,000, which – give or take – means it’s about the same as the Japanese toys, although you do get
rather less for your money. For a start, there are no back doors, no back seats and, while there’s a boot, it’s really only big enough for an overnight bag.

Other things you don’t get are air-conditioning, electric windows, carpets, air bags, traction control, satellite navigation… even sun visors. Yes, just about everything is an extra-cost option.

To understand this car, we need a bit of history. Lotus has enjoyed many years of success with its little Elise, but in the past 18 months or so sales have fallen sharply. This is partly due to the Vauxhall VX220, which is the same car built in the same factory but which is faster and better value. And partly it’s because the Elise had become a bit yellow around the teeth.

Lotus decided that, to keep the factory busy, it would start to sell cars in America, but sadly the Rover K-series engine doesn’t meet US legislation: apparently it smokes too much and likes a drink at lunchtime.

So Lotus decided to fit Toyota’s 1.8. This is a teetotaller that lives in a gated community, stands up for the national anthem and cries in public. It’s also a bloody good engine, with two camshafts – one for economy and then, after a little step at 5,000 rpm, another for power. Nice.

For some extraordinary reason, Lotus decided to keep going with the old Rover-engined cars here in Britain and, to make them more appealing, lopped
£
2,000 off the price. This went down well with my wife, who bought a 111S at the old price last year. ‘The ∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗,’ she said. Anyway, the Toyota engine worked so well in the Elise they decided to do a hardtop, hardcore
version, and thus the Exige was born. If you see one, here’s a tip: get out of its way.

Yes, the Toyota engine may produce only 189 bhp, which is about the same as you get from your Aga, but because it has no sun visors and no active yaw control it weighs less than a microwave oven. Put it like this: when Genesis went on tour, they needed 16 pantechnicons and a football stadium. With an Exige, you simply rock up and play.

Getting to the playground, however, can be unnerving. Because it’s so tiny, you feel dwarfed, even by people in Peugeots. After a day in London I developed small-man syndrome, squealing away from the lights and cutting people up just to assert myself.

There are other problems with the size, too. Getting in, for instance, is not something that can be achieved with any dignity. Nor should it be attempted in a skirt. But once you’re there, and you have your breath back, it’s more spacious than you might imagine.

Better still, it’s quite comfy. I was expecting a completely solid suspension set-up, but actually it’s fairly soft, bumping over potholes with a jar that’s noticeable rather than back-breaking. Don’t be fooled, though. Don’t think it’s all pose and no go, because – trust me on this – you can bring whatever you like to the party, a Ferrari, a Lambo, an Evo… anything, and the Exige will leave you gasping and bewildered in its wake. You simply will not believe how fast this car goes.

Part of the secret is downforce. Pretty well all cars rise up on their suspension as the speed increases, but the
Exige, with its low, bumper-snapping front, its flat floor and that big spoiler on the back, generates F1-style down-force. In other words, the faster you go, the heavier it becomes. By the time you’re up to 100 mph it’s like you have a baby elephant sitting on the roof, pressing the tyres into the road.

Ah yes, those tyres. These are the real jewels in the armoury. Specially made for Lotus, they’re as slick as the law allows. I’m told they can be used when it’s raining, but I would advise extreme caution. Hold back, wait till it dries up, and then you will absolutely not believe the treat they have in store.

It’s not so much the grip, which is prodigious, but the feel they provide when that grip is exceeded. You can sense the precise moment when they’re about to let go, and you know exactly what to do about it. I have never driven a car which goes through corners as well as this one. Never.

At a stroke it makes the Elise feel like Bambi on that frozen lake, and any Italian supercar like a heffalump. It’s as if you’re driving a housefly: the agility and sheer ability to get out of harm’s way beggar belief.