Tester’s notes

Anyone for a Nissan Pixo RS?

2009-07-03T14:30:03Z

Spent the evening in one of my favourite cars last night and it got me thinking. It’s one of the cheapest hot hatches on the market, and in fact one of the cheaper new cars you can buy today.

The car in question is the Renaultsport Twingo 133, fitted with the optional Cup pack. First of all it looks fantastic in my opinion with its chunky wheel arches and sporty interior. Lairy, unique and looking far faster than it actually is, with possibly one of the nicest set of alloys around for any price.

The devil is in the detail with the Twingo RS, or rather the lack of it. I’m fascinated by the little touches that I’m guessing keep the price down to around £12K, which should be less if you ask nicely. There’s no auto electric windows, a hard plastic dashboard, and the usual two flashing indicator lights on the dashboard – one for both right and left – are replaced by a single one.

It’s not very fast the Twingo, but it is incredible fun and testament to the fact that all you need to make a great hot hatch is a peppy engine, a sorted chassis and some good tyres.

So how low could you go with this hot hatch business? Take the Nissan Pixo or Hyundai i10 for example (stay with me on this one). They are both good cars to drive, with nimble, fun handling, decent steering and, in the Hyundai’s case, discs all round.

Now you need to find a slightly larger engine from the ranges that would fit, and if not maybe a new exhaust, air filter and ECU tweak – anything that is a cheap way of squeezing out a bit more power.

Then fit some harder springs, a slightly larger set of wheels, some plastic wheel arches and a few bits of chintz inside. The end result should be a fun hot hatch for peanuts. Should.

So can you really make a viable Pixo RS for less than £10K or am I spending too much time daydreaming and not enough time enjoying the Twingo? Answers on a postcard…

Technorati Tags: Nissan, Pixo, Hyundai, i10, Renault, Renaultsport, Twingo, 133

The fight to keep our Mazda white

2009-07-03T12:01:52Z

Before I became custodian of our Mazda 6, I must admit to having had doubts about whether I really wanted to drive around in a white car.

For all the hype a couple of years back about white being set to replace silver as the number one car colour, it's still very much a minority taste unless you either pilot a van or routinely say "hello" three times at the beginning of every sentence. Even after three months in the 6, I still feel like I'm standing out like an iceberg in the fast lane.

That said, I've become a huge fan of the way the 6 looks with its optional Crystal White Pearl Mica. It shows the car's muscular contours off far better than the dark hues that most of its brethren seem to run around in. And, let's face it, I'm never going to lose it in a car park.

But the summer has also revealed an issue with running something this bright and white. However often I clean the Mazda, within a couple of hours the front end always looks like an insect version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This picture was taken after a three-hour motorway run: if I don't clean it for another couple of days, it will pretty much turn red.

Of course, all cars get bombarded by bugs at this time of the year, but the 6 does seem to attract them like nothing else - and there's no hiding the kill tally. If you're considering buying a metallic white car yourself, make sure you factor the extra cost of washing into the equation. I'm on first name terms with the guys who scrub cars at my local supermarket.

Technorati Tags: Mazda 6, white car, silver car

Porsche GT2 v Corvette ZR1 - how the film was made

2009-07-02T11:10:00Z

Controversial things drag races. So here's a bit of background info on our latest pairing of the ZR1 and GT2.

Firstly, the number of test tracks in the UK that a) have a suitably long straight and b) allow side by side running is limited. And on this occasion Bruntingthorpe worked best with our schedule. Trouble is Brunters, great though it is, doesn't have the world's best surface for standing starts. If we'd gone to Santa Pod for instance, I reckon there's a good chance both cars (and almost certainly the Vette) would have gone quicker. But we couldn't.

Watch the Porsche GT2 versus Corvette ZR1 drag race on video

It's also worth knowing how we go about filming these drag races. Although in the finished vid you see one single race, we're a tiny bit more scientific about it. In this case, before we filmed anything both Matt and I had a go at figuring both cars, and without the weight of Andy the camera man. Then when we were satisfied we'd got the best from both we filmed the race to fit the numbers.

Sorry if that takes away any of the 'magic', but hopefully it gives a better, more representative result, and to the extent possible removes the driver and fluke element from the end result.

There's no doubt that the ZR-1 is fractionally quicker once underway and in gear. But at Brunters the GT2 gets a cleaner start and requires less time to change gear. And although ZR-1 is quicker, it's not by much, so even after a mile it has only just about caught up. Another mile and it would have been ahead, but unfortunately also in Leicester.

Technorati Tags: Porsche 911 GT2, Corvette ZR1, Bruntingthorpe, drag race

Goodwood or bust

2009-07-02T09:04:21Z

I'm on the last leg of a three-day dash from Ferrari's Maranello factory to the Festival of Speed at Goodwood. Ferrari wanted to demonstrate the California and F430 Scuderia Spider 16M on the Goodwood hillclimb this weekend, and thought it might be a good idea to let journalists act as delivery drivers.

I'm not the most prolific trans-continentall driver, so this has been something of an experience.

See all the latest Ferrari reviews, news and video

Despite its reputation, the Scuderia is neither a handful or an uncouth beast. In fact, it has been a surprisingly civilised companion even on long motorway drags across central France.

So now I'm off for Calais and the Eurotunnel, before taking on the M25 and getting the Ferrari to Goodwood in pristine condition.

There's no doubt, though, this has been the delivery drive of a lifetime.

And you can read about it in next week's magazine.

Technorati Tags: Ferrari, Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M, Eurotunnel, Hilton Holloway, Goodwood Festival of Speed

What car am I driving? Here's a few clues...

2009-06-25T12:44:00Z

Seems like quite a few of you are on the right track, so to speak, when it comes to guessing what the car is in our latest video. But if you’re still wondering, here are a few more clues.

Watch the video here

It has 620bhp, it weighs 940kg, its top speed is 180mph. Before I was allowed to drive it we had to have quite a long conversation with a man from an insurance company, during which he had to be persuaded that a) I am not a lunatic and b) that his company would hand over £2.5 million pounds if, for some awful reason, I stacked it into the shrubs. Eventually he said yes, which means he is a lunatic as well (although I didn’t, thank the Lord, go anywhere near the undergrowth as it transpired. Which was what you might call a relief.)

When I drove into Chobham town centre in it later in the day, all the traffic, and most of the pedestrians, stopped stone dead in their tracks. Because it’s a road car, not a racing car, although at one time it did compete at Le Mans.

To get the full effect from the video, it’s best to get hold of a pair of earphones and then turn the volume up to max. This may well hurt your ears a bit, but only by doing this will you get an idea of how loud, and how violent, this car feels at 7000rpm. Quite what it must have been like to drive one of these things for one whole day and night I can’t imagine.

And now the rest, as they say, is up to you.

Good luck.

Technorati Tags: Steve Sutcliffe, Chobam, 620bhp, 180mph, Le Mans

Taking the eco-driving challenge

2009-06-19T12:07:00Z

I’ve always been a bit sceptical about the whole eco-driving process. Crawling away from traffic lights and driving around without the air-con on don’t ever feature highly on my list of journey “must dos”.

Today, however, armed with an open mind and an unusually light right foot, I took part in the BP Ultimate GB Fuel Efficiency Challenge in a Ford Focus 1.6-litre ECOnetic.

For half an hour, I drove around a set course in mid-morning London traffic to see if BP and Anthony from Millbrook’s Proving Ground could teach me to be a more fuel-efficient driver.

Anthony told me that there are three main driving techniques you can use to become a more fuel efficient driver and, in turn, save up to 30 per cent on you fuel bills.

First, make sure you don’t over rev the engine before changing gear. As a rough guide, it’s time to change up when you see 2000rpm on your diesel’s rev counter, and 2500rpm on your petrol’s.

Second, don’t over accelerate, as hard acceleration can seriously dent your fuel economy and in turn your wallet.

And finally, always try to keep the car moving. Sounds a bit obvious, but plan ahead when you reach a junction and anticipate what’s going to happen, and this too will gave a noticeable boost to your fuel consumption.

Other things too can make a difference – removing excess weight, keeping your air-con off around town, using the correct tyre pressures – but if you stick to the three main rules, Anthony reckons you could save more than £600 at the pumps each year.

And how did I do? Well, I managed 54.34mpg over the course, but Anthony said more than 60 would be achievable if you were really being eco-friendly.

My right foot was still a bit heavy at the start, and I did tend to go above 2000rpm before changing gear, but by the end I was enjoying creeping up to junctions and trying to keep my momentum going. Whether the queue behind me enjoyed it as much is a different question, however.

Technorati Tags: Millbrook, Ford, Eco drive, environment, Ford Focus Econetic, BP, Ford Focus

The Skoda Yeti is brilliant, but will it sell?

2009-06-19T08:58:00Z

Skoda’s done it again. This is a brand that doesn’t have one model in its entire range (Roomster Scout excepted and gratefully forgotten) that I wouldn’t recommend to my nearest and dearest, and the new Yeti continues the trend.

It has a ride and handling combination that should have every mainstream rival sitting up and paying attention, a functional, high-quality interior, some class-leading engines and the ability to go further off road than any sane person would choose to go without a winch and a satellite phone.

But I don’t think you’ll see many leave the showroom. Even Skoda only predicts around 3000 sales in the UK in the first year. The problem is that this car’s design makes it a niche product despite the fact that actually, given that pricing is likely to start at £14k, it is more talented and versatile than most of the more conventional big sellers in its price range.

Associate ed Hilton Holloway drove a pre-production Yeti and described it as “the all-terrain vehicle that 95 per cent of people need.”

Read Hilton Holloway’s Skoda Yeti review here

Having driven it I think he’s right. But I disagree with his suggestion that the Yeti could sell more than predicted.

Read Vicky Parrott’s Skoda Yeti drive here

I have never experienced such a good car that is so restricted by its niche market placement. Your average car buyer looking for a practical hatch is going to go straight to the household names, and it won’t even occur to them that the cheap SUV with the silly name is all they want and need.

That’s a shame because I believe that this is one of the best real-world cars on sale. Though I hope I’m wrong, I’m going to get my fill of the Yeti now because it could end up being just as rare as its namesake.

Technorati Tags: Skoda Yeti, Skoda, Yeti

The Citroen C3 Pluriel Charleston - as good (and bad) as ever

2009-06-18T16:03:55Z

Sometimes, as cars mature, they become a whole lot better than they were when they were pre-production test models on the starry-eyed press launch. And the Pluriel has certainly improved from the very early edition, in that it doesn’t fill with water every time it rains, it’s stopped rattling and long ago started to feel like a car that was finished. That was years back.

A chance to drive the latest limited edition Pluriel was a chance to see whether this flawed but not unappealing convertible had developed any more. And the wrapping it comes with is fun. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember the Citroen 2CV Charleston, of which this a reprise.

The central theme to both is a black, maroon and grey colour scheme that, in the case of the tin snail, looked like it had been devised by a workshop more used to painting horse-drawn carriages by appointment to the queen, and it suited the twin cylinder struggler to a tee what with its separate wings and chromed headlamp bowls.

The same scheme on the near-monoform Pluriel looks more contrived, but it’s not a bad effort given the limitations faced by Citroen’s colouring-in department. The interior is a disappointment though – instead of the wonderful quilted cloth of the 2CV there’s conventional leather, a rather bizarre ruby-red gearlever *** that looks as if it escaped from a hot rod and more pleasingly, chrome-plated interior doorhandles. Most of the rest of the Pluriel Charleston’s interior is stock, which means doors trims with the texture of a plucked chicken , more cheap mouldings than you’ll find in a novelty shop and a barely legal level of instrumentation.

And to drive? It’s much the same as before. Bumps still trigger seismic floor quiver. The ride is slightly too firm for a car with a character this benign. The 1.4i petrol struggles to push the tacho needle along its strip-shaped scale, and the brakes are dully unprogressive.

You can make this Citroen go quite briskly, and it has the grip to round corners with a bit of pace, but a Berlingo Multispace will pull a tidier line through twists. So most of your Pluriel pleasure will stem from its troubled roofing arrangements, which, you may recall, allow the fabric roof to fold back like a sunroof – it can be rolled far enough rearwards that it blocks the rear window, in fact - or you can remove the longitudinal roof bars altogether for the full alfresco experience. But because you have to leave these at home, you need to be sure that it won’t rain. In Britain.

So all is much as before with this troubled but not unappealing car. The one thing that has improved is the steering, the feel generated by its electric assistant a whole lot more consistent than before.

But neither this improvement nor a nostalgic, limited-edition paint job are enough to save the Pluriel from being a rather dull, cheaply fashioned car with an interesting roof. Especially at £14,495.

Toyota's take on plug-in technology

2009-06-12T02:25:00Z

Very interesting chat yesterday with Tadashi Arashima, the President and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe at the launch of the much improved Prius.

The conversation concerned plug-in hybrids, the cars many including me have presumed to hold to the key to achieving medium-term emissions reductions, bridging the gap between current hybrids and high efficiency diesels and the fuel cell cars that may (or may not) spell the future of motoring.

The good news is the Prius plug-in is not far away at all – indeed 500 will have been leased by the end of this year with an unspecified but significant number coming to the UK. So far so good.

The bad news is that Arashima-san is not in a position to say when the car might be generally available on sale because ‘the cost of the technology is considerably greater than we first thought.’

The technology he is talking about are the lithium ion batteries (as already available in the vastly expensive Tesla roadster) the plug-in Prius uses.

And if the largest, canniest and, until recently, most profitable car company in the world with 30 years hybrid experience behind it can’t make the plug-in equation add up, it is fair to wonder who can. Arashima doesn’t doubt they’ll get there in the end, but the fact he cannot yet say when should be cause for concern.

As an interesting aside, he confirmed that when the plug-in Prius does arrive, its range on electric power alone will be in the region of 12 miles or about a third of what Chevrolet is claiming for its Volt plug-in.

Apparently research has shown Toyota that 70 per cent of customers have a requirement for only six miles-worth of electric power, while a 12 mile range will accommodate the needs of over 95 per cent.

At Toyota, adding extra cost and weight to provide an extended range that only a tiny proportion of customers will need is seen as counter-productive.

Technorati Tags: Toyota Prius, Toyota, Priud, plug-in, Tadashi Arashima, Tesla roadster, Tesla, Chevrolet Volt

At the wheel of a Ferrari F40

2009-06-10T08:27:00Z

They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes; the potential for disappointment such that it could undo years of admiration. But even knowing this, when Andrew Frankel called to say he was filming a ‘Meet the Ancestors’ video, and would I like help out by pedalling a Ferrari F40 for an afternoon, I couldn’t help but say yes.

Having grown up with posters of the F40 on my bedroom wall, the chance to drive one is about as exciting as it gets.

Before the driving though there was a lot of looking and listening to do, examining the detail in the Kevlar construction, feeling the lightness of the doors and discovering how weirdly appealing a felt dashboard can be.

But it was when I first heard it run, that I really started to lose the plot. Even with a completely standard exhaust, the ripping, popping mechanical shriek is so loud it would have you ejected from most track days. I could have listened to it running up and down that runway all day.

But that would have meant passing up on the opportunity to get behind the wheel. The last thing Andrew said before pushing the door shut, was “It’s easily binnable in a straight line, in the dry, and we’ve insured it for £260,000”

This is what happens when you put together the following: Very wide straight piece of runway, old hard tyres, second gear and full throttle. At 2000rpm the rushing noise starts, but all remains calm. At 3000rpm things start to fizzle, the speed already building yet still relatively slowly. At 4000rpm the boost gauge flutters. Then bang, the world goes upside down.

The engine seemingly misses about 2000rpm, jumping straight to 6500rpm. At first I think the rear tyres have lost traction, which I pretty sure they did for a bit, but a quick squint at the speedo shows we’ve just added mucho mph in the time it takes to say… Well I won’t repeat what I said, but it wasn’t a particularly long word.

As it happens I’d figured a Nissan GT-R only days before, but the way the F40 accelerates on boost makes the Nissan feel pedestrian. It is just so raw, unforgiving, brutal, and brilliantly, addictively fast. What is must be like to drive one on a wet B road doesn’t bear thinking about.

So having met a hero, I’m even more in awe. It takes something serious to relegate a 430 Scuderia (which we had along to represent the modern context) to second best, but then the F40 is a proper piece of kit.

Why isn't my living room more like an S-class?

2009-06-03T14:33:00Z

You may have read our first drive of the new S-class, and been amazed at the array of new safety gadgets. What the word count prevented me from talking about was something called ‘Splitview’ technology.

Sounds like a very clever and almost entirely pointless gimmick? That’s what I thought initially, but seeing it is something altogether more impressive.

Splitview allows the passenger to listen and watch something different to the driver on the same infotainment screen. The high-definition picture is sharp and fuzz-free from both angles, and it is truly surreal to find that as a passenger you can watch a movie on the same screen that is displaying the sat-nav and playing the radio for the driver.

Read Autocar's verdict on the new S-class S350 CDI

Even the controls are separate. The passenger gets a remote control that, when set to split-screen mode, will only control their view of the screen so they can’t inadvertently change the sat-nav destination whilst searching for the BBC news.

So the technology works brilliantly and has enough wow factor that it should sell well despite a price tag that is yet to be confirmed but will undoubtedly be four figures long. Yet is this really something that will get used in a car for anything other than showing off to your friends? I doubt it.

However, if the same technology could work on a bigger scale – say a 42-inch screen – then the potential is clear. This means I could be watching Desperate Housewives on my high-def TV from the comfort of my sofa whilst my boyfriend plays Grand Theft Auto on the X-Box on the same screen (he’ll get the armchair and the headphones, obviously).

Now that sounds like technology worth investing in. Shares anyone?

Technorati Tags: Mercedes, Splitview, S-class, S350 CDI

Aston V12 Vantage - an unusually great car

2009-05-21T09:45:00Z

There are all sorts of reasons why the new Aston V12 Vantage is an unusually great car – its thumping acceleration, the noise it makes, the way it goes round corners, the way it looks. But for me the best thing about it is that I just wasn’t expecting it to be so good, not after the DBS.

When Aston Martin unleashed its masterplan unto the world in the form of the DBS, most observers cringed at how gauche the interior looked and how relatively underwhelming it was to drive. Given that the V12 Vanatge uses the exact same engine and gearbox and, somewhat disappointingly, weighs within 15kg of its big brother, you’d expect it to offer a pretty similar kind of driving experience.

But no. What the Vantage V12 turns out to be is as close a car in character as you’ll currently get to a Porsche 911 GT3. Which means it is way better than the DBS in every respect. Fact is, it achieves much more of what it sets out to achieve than the DBS, even if it is quite different in personality.

Read the Aston Martin V12 Vantage first drive here

Watch the Aston Martin V12 Vantage video here

The other area in which the Vantage goes one up, not just on the DBS but on the GT3 as well, is the message it sends out to his great unwashedness, the general public. Drive a DBS and people tend to react in two ways; they do their utmost to ignore you because you are very obviously driving a very flashy big car, or they cut you up. In a GT3 they just cut you up.

But in the smaller, more handsome, less ostentatious Vantage the reaction is much more friendly. It’s similar to the way you get treated when driving a Lamborghini, in fact. People smile and let you into the traffic. They seem to enjoy just watching the thing rumble by. And the world rotates at a slightly less manic pace as a result.

Until you weld the accelerator open, that is, at which point your audience either tends to dive into the nearest hedge to take cover, or they just stand there motionless, wondering what on earth it is that just happened.

Technorati Tags: Aston Martin, V12 Vantage, DBS, Porsche GT3, Steve Sutcliffe

The Focus RS - why all you need is £25K

2009-05-21T09:00:00Z

As a kid I used to scan through the back pages of Autocar comparing 0-60mph times and using this information to assess which car I would rather have.

Of course such figures don’t tell the whole story and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Ford Focus RS that I was lucky enough to grab last night.

To put it simply, gun an RS and the fact that a Mitsubishi Evo X FQ360 will reach 60mph around 1.7 seconds quicker is so pointless it is almost laughable.

The RS makes such a rich noise, coupled to an unrelenting wave of torque forcing you into the back of the seat, you really don’t give a monkeys if the Evo, with its anodyne-note and dull four-pot, is faster.

Read Autocar's verdict on the Focus RS

The Ford is so exciting and engaging all of the time – not to mentioning feeling faster - and in an instant has made hot Subarus and Mitsubishis suddenly seem a bit dated. What the Ford has, and the Japanese rally-reps don’t, is character, and bags of it.

It feels intrinsically special and more importantly, painfully desirable. There are few cars that I really, really want, and one of them is a RS. I can’t imagine ever growing tired of the turbo-whistling, induction-roaring, Audi Quattro-sounding noise that is being fed into the cabin by Ford’s Sound Symposer.

At first glimpse the cockpit makes you think Ford could have tried a bit harder to make it special. But this is the endearing point about this car, it’s a bog-standard Ford that has been tweaked and fettled to become a working class hero, just like they did almost forty years ago to MK1 Escorts.
Take the good bits of a model and make them better.

The only thing that might put you off the RS is the looks, but I think they are spot on. Too long have manufacturers been toning down their hot products in case they offend someone, but the RS is unashamedly lairy. Quite simply for £25k there is nothing else like it.

Nissan could pay the price for the Pixo's extra £1000

2009-05-20T12:27:00Z

Having spent a weekend with a Nissan Pixo, I was baffled as to how this car could ever go on sale for just £5995. Then of course it didn’t.

The reason given by Nissan for raising the price by £1000 just before the car goes to market is the weakness of the pound, and definitely not the scrappage scheme.

But this is not a £20,000 car going up £1000, it is a car publicised on the fact that it was to be the cheapest car in Britain, bar the Kia Picanto and Perodua Kelisa.

The last-minute goal shifting is bit of a shame really, because the Pixo is actually a pretty good car and £6,995 seems like a perfectly reasonable price anyway.

Nissan Pixo prices up £1000

Firstly, Nissan has managed to make the car, which is based on the Suzuki Alto, look bigger than it actually is thanks to some grown-up frontal styling.

It has a hard-working three-pot engine with 67bhp that always sounds like you are going faster than you actually are, and the Pixo even has a decent turn of speed on the motorway.

The inside is well built and stylish and there are enough toys for such a cheap car.

It even handles too, giving you that low-speed grin factor that you don’t get from more capable cars. There is admirable body control and a good balance between grip and power.

All these things combined made me question the pricing, and more often than not I thought I’d misheard the figure. But the Pixo is, or was, a £6K car.

By hoiking the price up at the last-minute, Nissan has made a good-value £7K car seem like it is overpriced - and all before it has even gone on sale.

Technorati Tags: Nissan, Pixo, Suzuki, Alto, scrappage

The ultimate Mercedes W124

2009-05-19T09:00:01Z

Tracking down old and obscure cars for stories gives a chance to play detective, but it can sometimes feel like trying to find a needle in a long row of haystacks.

So when we decided that we wanted an original Mercedes 500E for our latest Meet the Ancestors video, I suspected that – as a rare groove car that came here in tiny numbers two decades ago – I was going to have my work cut out.

But as it turned out, it couldn’t have been easier, thanks to Mercedes uber-fan Talbir Bains. He’s a man who has pretty much assembled his own heritage collection of the brawniest products produced by Merc and its various tuners in the Eighties and Nineties.

Indeed, his response to my first tentative question as to whether we could turn his 500E into a film star was tellingly simple: “Which one?”

Because in addition to two 500Es, Talbir has a fleet of tuned SEC Coupes, a 1987 V12 SEL Brabus, a W124 560E ‘Hammer’ that used to belong to George Harrison and – my personal favourite – a 1992 5.6-litre W124 Brabus estate that could well be the world’s greatest Q-car.

As for the 500E, what can I say? It was the first time I had driven one and, as a confirmed W124 fetishist, I wasn’t disappointed. It couldn’t muster anything like the toys or even the cabin quality of the modern CLS we compared it against – but even after two decades, it still felt properly quick once that big V8 got wound up.

No question, it’s straight at the top of my Nineties exec wishlist.

Technorati Tags: Mercedes 500E, SEC Coupe, V12 SEL Brabus, W124 560E Hammer, W124 Brabus estate, George Harrison, Talbir Bains, CLS, AMG