What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . (3 page)

Alarming news from among the potted plants at your local plate-glass car dealership. It seems that six out of ten people who buy a new set of wheels these days don’t bother to haggle over the price.

I should explain that I’m one of them. Mostly, if I’m honest, it’s because I have to pay the full sticker price or the
Daily Mail
will run a story saying that I’m on the take and cannot be trusted. But you do not have the
Mail
breathing down your neck every time you eat food or go to the lavatory, and so you really should try to beat down the man with the cheap suit and the boy-band hair.

If you pay cash, even a Ferrari salesman will give you free door mats. Whereas with something like Citroën, he’ll probably give you a 100 per cent discount, £1,000 cashback, 0 per cent finance for 300 years and an evening with his girlfriend and one of her better-looking friends.

I realize, of course, that you are not an Egyptian market trader and that you find haggling completely revolting. You don’t try for a discount when you are buying a stamp or a box of cornflakes, so why would you try for one when you are buying a car? It would be ghastly. If you are English, you would rather vomit on a salesman than negotiate with him face to face over money. But come on. The whole process of buying a car is so unpleasant, a bit of toing and froing over price is nothing.

You’ve already dealt with the balloons. This is just one example of what the car dealer thinks of you. He reckons that you are so moronic that if he hangs a few colourful balloons outside his
showroom, you will think there is some kind of ‘do’ on, so you’ll be unable to drive by.

Then there’s the decor. A car showroom, even the fancy ones on Park Lane in London, has all the visual appeal of a railway station’s lavatories. You want to get out as soon as possible. But you can’t because the man with boy-band hair is on his way over with the handshake of a dead haddock and a silly earring. And he’s got lots of impertinent questions about where you live and what you do and your credit rating. As a general rule, it should also be noted he knows less about the cars he’s selling than you do about the moons of Jupiter.

Then there’s the worst bit. When he grabs a form and steps outside to tell you what the car you wish to part exchange is worth. In short, it’s worth about an eighth of what you thought. This is because the man from Take That has found a scratch, and it’s grey and grey’s not very popular at the moment. Except for the fact that 75 per cent of all cars sold in Britain are one shade of grey or another.

Then, of course, it’s time to sit down and choose some options for the car you’re buying. And this is a terrifying place to be because when you are spending £25,000 on the car, £200 sounds like nothing. So yes, you decide you’ll spend £200 on a DVD player and another £200 on metallic paint and another £200 on a sunroof, and pretty soon you notice Jason Orange has grown a third leg. By the time you’ve finished, the money you’re spending would be enough to clear up a medium-sized oil spill.

All of this, however, assumes you’ve been able to choose what sort of car you’d like to buy in the first place. Obviously, some people are swayed by balloons, or dealers would stop using them as a marketing tool. And many simply buy an updated version of what they have now. But some people insist on buying the car that best suits their needs. This is like being thrown, naked, into an acacia tree. You’re going to end up thrashing around for a while. And then you are going to become dead.

Let’s say, for instance, that you have a family. Many people do.
So you’d think it might be a good idea to buy something practical. Obviously, you cannot have a Citroën Picasso or a Renault Scénic because nothing says you’ve given up on life quite so succinctly as a mini MPV.

Then you decide that the mini MPV would be all right if it had some Tonka toy styling, a raised ride height and perhaps four-wheel drive. Four-wheel drive implies that you go hunting for bears at the weekend, and besides, it will be useful should the snow come back.

So, you want lots of space, four-wheel drive and chunky styling. That’s narrowed your choice down to pretty well every single car maker in the world. And to make matters even more complicated, many of the cars that appear to be different … aren’t. Take the Citroën Cross-Dresser, for example, or the Peugeot 4007. Underneath, they are Mitsubishi Outlanders. They’re even built by Mitsubishi. So which do you pick?

Well, if you are suffering from rabies, forget the French offerings and go for the recently updated Japanese original. There are many symptoms of this debilitating ailment – agony and frothing at the mouth are two – but so is an extreme thirst. And on this front the Outlander scores well because it comes, in the front alone, with no fewer than five cupholders.

What’s more, in the back, there’s seating for five on two rows of seats. Though a word of warning here. Anyone volunteering to sit in the boot should remove their head and legs first.

Mitsubishi says there’s another reason for picking its offering. In the blurb, it claims the Outlander has a distinctive ‘jet fighter’ grille. Well, I’ve studied the front end for quite some time, and I don’t think this is quite correct, mainly because jet fighters don’t have grilles.

Perhaps the best reason for choosing the Itchy Pussy is because, unlike the rivals from Peugeot and Citroën, its 2.2-litre diesel engine comes with variable valve technology. That means fewer emissions, better power and more miles to the gallon. Absolutely, but it also means a very narrow power band and the
consequent need to change gear every one and a half seconds. There’s even a light on the dash instructing you to shift up, constantly.

Other problems? Well, it’s boring to look at, boring to sit in and extremely boring to drive. It feels like the suspension and steering are made from cardboard. Apart from a few joke cars from the former Soviet Union, I cannot think of any other car that feels quite so inert.

Of course, if you are not an enthusiastic driver, this will not matter. You will be far more interested in the promise of great reliability, a genuinely good satellite navigation system and all those cupholders, in case you are bitten by a French dog.

But really, are you better off with this, or the Peugeot, or the Citroën, or the Land Rover Freelander, or the Nissan Kumquat or Honda CR-V, or a Ford or a Jeep or a Volkswagen? The answer, with cars of this type, is very simple. Since they are all largely the same, simply telephone the dealers, ask for their best price and buy whichever is the cheapest.

If you end up with the Outlander, it’s not the end of the world. But don’t expect the earth to move, either.

23 January 2011

In the days of the cold war we knew we had four minutes to respond to the Soviet threat and we developed the hugely powerful English Electric Lightning fighter to deal with that. But up in the frozen north, Sweden had its face pressed against the Iron Curtain and needed even faster reactions. Which is why it came up with the Saab Viggen.

This was the most powerful single-engined fighter in the world. For a while it held the international speed record and it remains the only fighter to get a missile lock on an SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. It also packed the most powerful cannon and a very advanced radar. But it was a bit more than brute force and a big fist.

Because Sweden covered the West’s northern flank against the Soviet Union, the Scandawegians reckoned that if the balloon went up, their airfields would be destroyed in short order. So, when a Viggen’s nose wheel hit the deck, reverse thrust was triggered instantly, allowing the plane to stop in little more than 500 yards. This meant it could be operated from roads, frozen lakes, even school sports pitches. It was also extremely economical.

Unfortunately, the Swedish government refused to sell military hardware to any country it considered to be undemocratic. Which meant that the Swedish air force had to buy every Viggen that rolled off the production line. And that’s why, for a while, it was the fourth-largest air force in the world.

Still, at least there was one accounting upside, because here in Britain everyone thought that if they bought a Saab car, they
were actually getting a Viggen with a tax disc. That still holds true today. But actually this hasn’t been entirely accurate for some time. And not only because the Viggen’s engine was made by Volvo.

In the early days, it’s true, the aircraft designers were employed to work on the car’s aerodynamics, but that stopped years back. The car is not a jet. It’s a Vauxhall Vectra in a moose suit.

Oh, Saab is still banging on about the aircraft connection. It fits a button that turns off all the dashboard lights at night, so you can feel like a night fighter pilot. But you don’t really. You just feel as if you might be running out of petrol.

Other features? Well, Saab says, ‘A wide range of functions can be pre-set according to personal preference.’ Sounds good. But one of the things listed is the clock. Yes. You can set it to whatever time you like! And another is the air-conditioning system. Wow! So it has a heater that can deliver a range of temperatures.

It seems, then, that I was dissing it unfairly when I said it was just a Vauxhall Vectra in an antler suit. In fact, it’s a Vauxhall Vectra with a heater and a clock. And a diesel engine that produces no torque at all. Technically, this isn’t possible. But somehow Saab seems to have managed it.

If you dribble up to a roundabout in second gear at 5 mph, spot a gap and put your foot down, you will roll into the gap you spotted, still doing 5 mph, only now the van driver you pulled out in front of is leaning on his horn, mouthing obscenities and wondering why you don’t get a bloody move on.

Once you’re moving, and provided you keep it in the right gear, the power is not too bad. But when the turbocharging is on song, the steering wheel does protest mightily, writhing about as though it’s in physical pain. And guess how much you’re expected to pay for all this. Yes, £29,000. That’s more than BMW asks for the 318 diesel estate.

To make matters worse, there was recently a great disturbance in Saab’s force. General Motors had bought half the company in
1989 and the rest in 2000, but realized last year it didn’t want it any more. The production lines stopped and for a while it looked as though the company would be gone. But then it was rescued by a Dutch outfit that makes the Spyker supercar.

In many ways this is a bit like Mr Patel from your local corner shop deciding to buy Harrods. It sounds terribly romantic, but if you’re going to take on the big boys, you need to have deep pockets. A billion won’t cut it. Toyota probably spends that on pot plants.

But here’s the thing. I do not want Saab to go. I’m glad that in Britain 6,000 architects decided to buy one last year and I hope that number continues to grow. Which is why I have a tip for the new company.

The 9-3 is old. It has a nasty engine. And, while I acknowledge the standard fitment of both an adjustable heater and a clock, it is also quite expensive. But it does have one feature that sets it aside from almost every other car on the market. It’s comfortable.

Today all car makers have got it into their heads that, despite the traffic and the price of fuel and the war on speeding, what motorists want is sportiness. A hard ride. Nervous steering. Bucket seats. Big power. There was a time when Volvo sold itself on safety and VW on reliability and Mercedes on quality. Not any more. Now, they all make racing cars.

Before a new model goes on sale it is taken to the Nürburgring, where final tweaks are made to the suspension to make sure that it can get round the 14-mile track as fast as possible. This is fine, of course, if you live in the Eifel mountains and you use the Ring on the way to work. But it’s not fine at all if you live in Esher and your office is in Leatherhead. And it’s also not fine if you ever encounter a pothole or have a bad back.

I know that people in a focus group will tell the inquisitors in the polo-neck jumpers that they would like their next car to be ‘sporty’ because that’s the motoring dream and has been since
Christopher Plummer roared away from the battle of Britain in his zesty MG. But in reality, sportiness is a pain in the backside.

Recently, I bought a new sofa because it looked good. Sharp. Modern. Crisp. It’s an aesthetic masterpiece, but after a hard day at work, when I just want to slob out in front of the television, I’d be better off sitting on the floor.

At my age I crave comfort, and that’s why I have enjoyed my week with the Saab so enormously. It’s dreary to drive and underpinned by one of the worst car platforms in modern history, but the seats are superb, and the suspension is capable of keeping the pothole bomb blasts to nothing more than a shudder.

Plus. And this is the really good bit. As I cruised about, with the adjustable heater providing me with just the right amount of heat, and the clock telling me precisely the right time, everyone else – apart from the occasional van driver – was looking at me and thinking, Ooh, look. It’s Chuck Yeager.

30 January 2011

To this day, I remain baffled by the Ford Scorpio because at some point someone must have walked into an important board meeting and said, ‘Well, everyone. This is what it’s going to look like.’

Why did no one present say, ‘Are you joking?’ or, ‘Have you gone mad?’ or, ‘Take some gardening leave, you imbecile’? They obviously just sat there thinking, Yes, we have had cars in the past that were designed to look like sharks and cars that were designed to look like big cats. So why should we not now have a car that looks like a wide-mouthed frog?

It’s strange. I know who designed almost every single car in recent times. I know who did the Lamborghini Countach, VW Golf and Volvo 850. I know several people who claim to have done the Aston Martin DB9. But nobody in all my years has ever put their hand up and said, ‘Yes. It was me. I did the Scorpio.’

I bet you would have a similar struggle if you set out to find the man who did the Toyota Yaris Verso – the only car ever made that is five times taller than it is long. I pulled up alongside one yesterday and studied the driver for some time. Do you realize, I wondered, how utterly ridiculous you look in that?

Then there’s the Pontiac Aztek, which was unusual in that it managed to look wrong from every single angle. Normally, even the most hopeless designer gets one tiny feature right by accident – the rear tail-lights or the C pillar, for instance. Even the Triumph TR7 had a nice steering wheel. But the Aztek looked like one of those cardboard cities you find beneath underpasses in Mexico.

And let’s not forget the SsangYong Rodius. Plainly, they set out to build a coupé and then decided at the last minute that what they actually wanted was a removal van. And then, when those two concepts had been nailed together in the most unholy merger since Caligula fell in love with his horse, they realized that the only wheels they could afford were the size of Smarties.

It’s easy, when you look at a SsangYong, to imagine that the designer simply doesn’t know what he’s doing. But that ain’t necessarily so. Remember the Musso? That was as awful to behold as a frostbitten penis and yet, amazingly, it was styled by the same man who designed that old warhorse the Aston Martin Vantage and the Bentley Continental R.

The problem is that there’s a language to car design. Some of the language is written down. Ideally, the wheels should be half the height of the car, for example. But mostly, it’s a dark art. All I know is that the car must look like it’s capable of great speed, or else it looks wrong.

Look at the kink at the bottom of every BMW’s rearmost pillar. The one between the back window and the back door. It’s got a little kink and that makes the car look like it’s pushing forwards, straining at the leash. BMW is also very good at making the body look like it’s been stretched to fit over the wheels. As if there’s barely enough skin to contain all the muscle.

This doesn’t just apply to sporty cars, either. Look at the new Vauxhall Astra. It’s a handsome thing because it’s all straight lines and sharp angles. There’s a whiff of the fast patrol boat. And that gives a sense of howling turbochargers and sea spray – even if the engine under the bonnet is a miserable diesel.

This brings me on to Nissan. A few years ago, it decided to try to make a car that didn’t look fast. The company reckoned that in a world of road rage, traffic and simmering rage, it would be good to have a car that was friendly and unthreatening. So it produced the Micra.

I hated that car. It had the sort of face you wanted to punch.
And because it was ‘happy’, it was bought by the sort of people who were never in much of a hurry. I’d love to know how much of my life has been stolen by Nissan and its Micra experiment. One day, I may send it a bill.

But in the meantime, the company has changed tack again and come up with the Juke. It’s not ugly by any means but it is, without any question or shadow of doubt, the stupidest-looking machine to see the light of day since the Ronco Buttoneer.

What were they thinking of? Why, for instance, are its rear wheel arches bigger than those you would find on a modern tractor, even though the wheels are the size of Polo mints? And why are the front lights mounted on top of the bonnet? It’s all completely ridiculous.

I first encountered it at Heathrow airport early one Monday morning. The office said it would leave a car for me in the valet parking bay and so there it was, sitting among the Maseratis and the Mercs, like a big comedy hat at a funeral.

At first, I assumed it was some kind of electric car, and that filled me with horror and dread as a busy week lay ahead and I really didn’t have the time to spend eight hours a day looking for somewhere to charge it up and then another eight hours drinking coffee while the batteries replenished themselves with juicy electricity. Made from burning Russian gas.

Happily, as I turned the key, I was greeted with the welcome sound of internal combustion. So why, I wondered, have they made it look so mad? Perhaps, I thought, it’s a four-wheel-drive crossover vehicle. Well, for sure, there is an all-wheel-drive version but the model I had was based on a front-drive Micra.

So maybe, then, it has the silly body because it’s somehow capable of doubling up as a bus. Nope. It has seating for just five and a boot that is surprisingly small.

Then I noticed something odd. In the middle of the dash is quite the most baffling onboard computer I’ve ever seen. It tells you every single thing you don’t need to know, including, wait for it, how much g you are experiencing at any given moment. So
this idiotic high-riding car with its small wheels, street lighting and arches from a Massey Ferguson thinks it’s a jet fighter.

It really isn’t. Yes, the engine’s a turbocharged 1.6 that produces 187 horsepower, but it doesn’t ever feel fast. Or exciting in any way. I’m not suggesting that it is nasty to drive or that it kept crashing into trees, but it’s not good, either. It is just some car.

And that means I’m stuck. Normally I can tell what sort of person might be interested in a particular car and I try to tailor my conclusion to meet their specific requirements. But I’ve trawled my memory banks and I can’t remember ever meeting anyone who might be interested in buying a car that looks absolutely stupid.

The best I can come up with, therefore, is this: if you just want a normal five-seat hatchback, buy a Golf or a Ford Focus. If, on the other hand, you want a normal five-seat hatchback but you enjoy people pointing at you and laughing, then the Juke is ideal.

6 February 2011