Don't Stop Me Now (15 page)

If they wanted something that sounds like a fast fish, why not go for a Turbo T?

I changed my mind because of Ford’s new viral advertising campaign. Every day, millions of people send millions of other people e-pictures of people sitting on the lavatory. They take half an hour to download and are never funny. But it doesn’t stop the recipients sending them on to millions of other people until, by the end of the day, everyone from the Falkland Islands to Falkirk is looking at the same picture of the same man on the bog.

Ford tapped into this, making a film that got on to the web. Bingo. An ad everyone would see, because downloading something from a friend is always more interesting than doing some work. What made the Ford ad stand out was that it was funny. What made it memorable was Ford’s insistence that it reached the internet by accident. What? You went to all the trouble of filming a cat having its head chopped off by the electric sunroof in a Sportka… for fun? Yeah, right.

The ad really is worth a watch and can be found by typing ‘Ford’, ‘Sport’, ‘Ka’ and ‘cat’ into your Google. Then, when you’ve done that, you will see the car in a different light. I did, so a couple of weeks ago, before I forgot how to drive, I borrowed one and went for a spin.

It’s not fast, but for
£
11,120 the SE version is well equipped with air-conditioning and anti-lock brakes provided as standard. There are lots of extras available, too, including a ‘smokers’ pack’ for
£
15. I wonder what that is. Seems a lot for a packet of fags. Maybe they throw in a nice lighter and an onyx ashtray as well.

I doubt it, though, because the interior is not what you’d call luxurious. The glovebox is like a
£
4.99 swingtop bin from Argos, and there are acres of painted metal.

But boy, oh boy, is it fun. Because you have to work the gearbox like you’re beating eggs to get any sort of go from the strangulated 1950s engine, you feel like you’re part of the performance package, like you’re the organic part of a machine. That means you feel involved.

And you are. This car has fabulous, wheel-at-each-corner unflappability, which makes spirited progress an absolute hoot. The steering is weighted just so, and the handling is truly joyful.

Remember the old Mini and how it could always put a smile on your face, even if you were used to a Ferrari or a Bentley? Well, the little Ka is just the same. It’s like a Pitts biplane compared with a jumbo jet. And I know which most 747 pilots would prefer to fly. More importantly, it can defeat the black dog. For 3,000 years man has been trying to explain the reason why we have bad moods. Now, Ford has come up with a way to make them go away.

Sunday 4 July 2004

A new type of disfigurement has come to Britain’s towns and villages. It’s worse than illegal fly-tipping, and worse than those Styrofoam takeaway containers that carpet every provincial city centre at three in the morning. It’s even worse than stone cladding. And it’s all the fault of your local authority.

Many years ago I remember taking a mock advanced driving test, during which the examiner asked, out of the blue, if I could describe the last road sign I’d passed. It was easy then… but not any more, because now you go past a road sign every 1.3 seconds.

I first noticed it last week, coming into London on the A3, and now it’s driving me to distraction. Every lamp post, every telegraph pole and every branch in every tree is festooned with instructions about what the motorist may or may not do at that particular moment.

You’re on a red route so you have a sign, then another, and then another explaining exactly what that means. But you know what it means, and you know you’re on a red route because there, at the side of the road, painted clearly on the orange of the bus lane, or the green of the cycle path, are two red lines.

If there’s a bus lane, then there will be signs telling you what that means too. And then things really start to get
stupid. You’re told that the central London congestion-charging zone is five miles away. Why? Lots of things are five miles away. You’re also told that there’s a speed camera ahead, that there are bus lane cameras, that you’re near a library, that there’s no left turn into Acacia Grove… and what’s this? Oh, that you’re entering a ‘drinking controlled zone’.

It’s got to the point now where there are so many signs that they blur into a background hiss of white noise. It’s a bit like the warnings you get before a film on television. In the olden days, when the announcer said in a solemn BBC-ish tone that the film about to start contained violence, you knew you were in for a 90-minute bloodbath with many severed heads. And so you sat a little more upright in your Parker Knoll Recliner.

But now, when they say the film contains mild violence and strong nipples, you just go into a trance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you’re surprised and horrified when the movie starts with a shot of Al Pacino having his arms sawn off.

This is what’s happening on the roads. They can put up a sign saying there are speed bumps ahead, and even if it isn’t blocked by another sign saying the road to the left has children running around on it, it really doesn’t register. So you hit the sleeping policeman doing about 80 mph. And your back snaps.

The reason, of course, for all the signs is… lawyers. After your back has been broken the council can send its legal team round to the quadriplegic department of the local hospital to explain to your relatives that,
unfortunately, no claim for damages can be made because there was a sign warning motorists that there were humps ahead.

That’s why you get those idiotic messages on the motorway matrix boards these days; if they tell you it’s windy, you can’t sue anyone for being blown into a bridge parapet. And you won’t be able to argue, of course, partly because they’re right and partly because you’ll have lots of tubes coming out of your nose.

The upshot is that every single street is now a Technicolor blaze of legal disclaimers and nonsense. Not only is this ugly, but it’s dangerous too, because not that long ago, when you ran off the road, the chances of hitting a sign were slim. Now, though, you’re almost certain to hit something thanking you for driving carefully through the village.

Sadly, I can only imagine that things will get worse, because soon the sign advising you that you’re entering a nuclear-free zone will have to be translated into 14 languages, and there will have to be some sort of mushroom-cloud pictogram as well, for the educationally challenged.

Then, of course, there will be signs telling you not to smoke within 250 yards of any inhabitable structure, and more signs explaining that the town centre you’re entering is off limits to off-road vehicles.

I can smell this one coming. There is such a palpable sense of hate and bile among ordinary road users that if big 4×4s were to be banned from built-up areas the roads would doubtless immediately unjam themselves. I agree with you all. I too think these school-run mums in auto-
motive leviathans should be horse-whipped to within an inch of their lives. And I’m speaking as someone who actually owns one.

But the trouble is that 4×4s are like nuclear weapons. Because you’ve got one, I can’t put my kids in a normal hatchback, because if we were to crash into one another yours would survive and mine wouldn’t. So I have to have one too.

The only solution is for the bosses of GM and Ford and Toyota to meet in Reykjavik and come up with a Salt treaty of their own.

But then what will we do? We’ve become accustomed to the rough-and-tumble interiors and the vast acreage of space. So how could we go back to a simple Golf after that? Happily, there’s no need, because while you weren’t looking the car makers introduced a new breed of car that is no bigger than a normal saloon, so it won’t clog up the roads like the fat in David Bowie’s artery, and yet inside there are seven proper seats with seven proper seat belts.

Vauxhall was first out of the trap with its Zafira – which I’ve written about many times before. It’s rather good, and now it has been joined by the Renault Grand Scénic – which is ugly and made from tracing paper – by the Volkswagen Touran – which is like the Black Hole of Calcutta – and by the Toyota Corolla Verso, which is excellent.

I know, I know. You can’t conceive of the insanity that would have to blow through your head before you’d consider changing your Range Rover for a Toyota Corolla, but bear with me here.

According to the boffins at Euro NCAP, the independent body that tests cars for safety, the Corolla has a top-notch five-star rating, whereas the Range Rover has to make do with just four. Yes, in a head-on accident between the two, you’d be better off in the off-roader, but if you run into an enormous warning sign, amazingly, you’d be better off in the little Toyota. What’s more, if you go for the Corolla, it means your sex life can be more carefree.

You see, with those seats that pop up out of the boot floor, you don’t need to worry about condoms, or intra-uterine devices, or going into reverse at the last moment. Thrash away. If the resultant baby paste hits the bull’s eye and you end up with another child, at least you won’t have to buy a new car.

The best thing about the Corolla Verso, though, is the quality. There’s a robustness which you simply don’t find in any of its rivals. This car looks like it was designed by someone who actually knows how destructive children can be.

Kids never understand that their feet are going to be further away than they were the week before. So they break stuff. Mine smashed a Renault Scénic to pieces the other day in about 15 minutes.

I have to say at this point that the Corolla is not that pleasant to drive, with roly-poly handling and a cement mixer of an engine, but come on: with the possible exception of the Porsche Cayenne, your average off-roader isn’t exactly a Ferrari, is it? Finally there’s the question of money. A top-of-the-range 1.8-litre Verso is
£
18,795, a
little more than its main rivals, but three times less than you’re asked to pay for a less practical, less safe and more antisocial Range Rover.

I’d like to think, then, that this review is a signpost to a better and less congested future. But unlike the council signposts it doesn’t mess with the view, and if you don’t agree with what it says you can at least use it to light the barbecue.

Sunday 18 July 2004

It’s a new day, so obviously we have a new version of Mitsubishi’s turbocharged road rocket to slobber over. This one’s the Lancer Evo VIII MR FQ-340, and don’t worry, my dog hasn’t just walked across the computer’s keyboard. That really is its name.

Let me try to decipher it for you. Evo VIII means this is the eighth evolution on an original theme. Comparing this, then, to the first high-performance Lancer is a bit like comparing Stephen Fry to Judy, the chimp in
Daktari
. It’s much, much cleverer.

MR stands for Mitsubishi Racing, which signifies that it’s had a hand in its development, and FQ for f∗∗∗∗∗∗ quick. But then it would be because 340 is how many horse powers the 2-litre engine develops.

This is remarkable. Not even 15 years have elapsed since Daihatsu put a turbocharged 1-litre engine in its little Charade and in so doing created the first road car to offer up 100 bhp per litre. Today the Ferrari 360 CS produces 116 bhp per litre and that’s staggering. So what’s to be made of the Evo, which churns out a mind-boggling 170 bhp per litre?

Of course, you may ask why they’ve gone to so much trouble. Why not simply fit a bigger engine?

Well, the problem is that the Evo is built primarily as a
machine to compete in international rallying, and the rules of the sport stipulate that 2,000 cc is the max. The big worry I have is that while a 2-litre engine could be coaxed into handing over a thousand horsepower if that’s what you wanted, it would do 0 to 60… once. Then it would explode.

You have to trade power for longevity, and I suspect that 340 bhp is right on the edge of everyday practicality. I note with some surprise that the engine still comes with Mitsubishi’s three-year warranty, but then I see also that it must be serviced once every 10 minutes or so.

I’m tempted therefore to steer you away from this top-of-the-range machine and into something a little more sensible. Obviously we can ignore the 260 version, because, while it’s just
£
24,000, it takes about two years to get from 0 to 60. But can we ignore the FQ-300 for
£
28,000 or the
£
30,000 FQ-320? These are very nearly as fast as the
£
33,000, full-blooded 340 but are almost certain to last a little longer.

The simple answer, after no thought at all, is yes, of course we can ignore the less powerful options. Going for a 320 is like going all the way to Paris and staying in the outskirts. It’s like getting into bed with Uma Thurman and falling asleep. Buying a 320 is a sign that you’re sensible and grown up and worried about practicalities, in which case why don’t you buy a canal boat and go away.

If you’re going to buy a road-going rally car, you have to have the best, you have to have the fastest. And that’s the 340.

It’s not just faster than the other Evos, either. It’s also faster than its Subaru rival.

In fact I’m struggling to think of anything that could keep up.

Off the line, even the best four-wheel-drive cars bog down as the wheels refuse to spin, but not the VIII. You give it a bellyful of revs, dump the clutch, and there’s no lag, no chasm. You’re off like you’ve been fired at the horizon by one of Dick Dastardly’s cartoon catapults.

A mere 4.4 seconds later you’re past 60 mph and that means all but the most exotic rivals are left far behind. This car – and remember, it only costs
£
33,000 – can be mentioned in the same breath as the Porsche Carrera GT and the McLaren Mercedes.

Mitsubishi says it’s limited the top speed to 157 mph, but why? I can hardly see Officer Brunstrom or Jonathon Porritt nodding sagely at their public-spiritedness. I suspect the real reason is that at 158 the sit-up-and-beg front-end styling would lose its war with the air and the car would run out of puff anyway.