This week, Steve had a 'wheely' good time in the new Q4 Sportback, reflects on an extremely cordial interview with JLR's new boss - Thierry Bollore - and ponders the past and future of Ariel.
Tuesday
What’s this? A car with a square steering wheel? Nipped over to Audi’s Milton Keynes HQ to try the new Q4 Sportback E-tron 50 and discovered a spacious, complete, well-made but otherwise somewhat unexceptional machine, despite its two electric motors (boggo versions have one) and quattro system that feeds torque very intelligently to all four wheels.
The amusing standout for me was its nearrectangular steering wheel – flat top and bottom – which took me back quite a few decades to the pioneering ‘Quartic’ wheel of the Austin Allegro, so shaped to provide extra leg room underneath. The Quartic wheel drew such withering criticism – as did quite a few of the car’s other attributes – that it was rapidly withdrawn. In the Audi, it works perfectly. The steering is high geared, so even in town driving you hardly ever need to change your grip on the wheel. Amusing to think that back in the 1970s, BL wasn’t actually wrong, it just cocked up the execution.
Wednesday
What a pleasure to spend some time with Jaguar Land Rover’s somewhat elusive CEO, Thierry Bolloré, who turned out to be an extremely cordial bloke, clearly well on top of his brief and relishing the task of putting Jaguar back on the profit-earning rails. It made me even more impatient to see what Bolloré, chief creative officer Gerry McGovern and the now-united JLR design team make of New Jaguar, even if it sounds a fiendishly daunting task.
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