What Could Possibly Go Wrong. . . (9 page)

It was a normal Saturday morning and the roads were jammed with DIY enthusiasts on family trips to the local hardware store. This sort of scene is bad news if you’re in a hurry, because the sort of person who erects shelves himself is not going to drive to the shop at more than 4 mph and waste the money he’s saved.

Saturday morning is now, for me, the worst time on the roads. They’re a cocktail of the mean, the elderly and the frightened. Nobody’s quite sure where they’re going, and no one can concentrate because the kids in the back are explaining sulkily that they’d rather shoot space aliens than traipse around B&Q looking for self-tapping screws.

Happily, however, my jaunt to the Midlands last weekend wasn’t so bad because I was driving the new Ferrari FF. And all you do when a Hyundai or a Peugeot gets in the way is pull the left-hand gear-shifter paddle a couple of times and press the accelerator down – suddenly it isn’t in your way any more. In the FF you could easily overtake an Australian road train before you’d got out of your own drive.

The engine is a 6.3-litre direct injection V12 that develops a stratospheric 651 horsepower and 504 torques. And what that means is a car that gets from 0 to 62 mph in 3.7 seconds and then onwards, propelled seemingly by its own seismic shockwave, to a dizzying 208 mph.

Of course, there are other cars that can go this quickly, but none of them feels like a Ferrari. The paddles, for instance: when you pull them, they feel as if they aren’t actually connected to anything, which in reality, of course, is a fact. They aren’t.
They work the gearbox in the same way as the light switch in your kitchen works the bulb. Only a little bit faster.

Then there’s the steering. As is the way in all modern Ferraris, it is disconcertingly light. Turning the wheel requires as much effort as dusting a polished work surface. So you imagine that there can’t possibly be any feel. But there is. You know all the time exactly what those front wheels are doing, how much grip is left and what you should be doing with the throttle as a result. Ferraris these days are like Vietnamese masseuses. Soft, but acupuncture accurate. And they handle – there’s no other word – beautifully.

They are like other cars in the same way as a Mac is like a PC. In other words, they are not like other cars at all. And just as a Mac has no right-click – which drives me insane – Ferraris have irritations, too. All of the controls are on the steering wheel. Indicators, lights, wipers, the horn, the starter button, radio tuning, volume, gear-shifting and the traction control switch. The lot.

The idea is that you never have to take your hands from where they should be, and in a meeting that makes sense. It makes sense in a grand prix, too, but on the Fosse Way what it means is that you indicate left when you want to go right because the wheel is upside down at the time you hit the button. And you turn the wipers on to say hello to friends going the other way.

It’s all a bit bonkers but it does add to the sense of occasion, as do the leather and the sense of space and the howl from the engine. A modern-day Ferrari feels very, very special.

However, even though the new FF feels this way, it is not like any Ferrari I’ve driven before. Chiefly because it’s the first Fezza to be fitted with four-wheel drive.

There’s a conventional way of doing this. You take drive from the engine to a centrally mounted transfer box, which then distributes power to front and rear axles. Naturally, Ferrari decided not to do this. It says that if you send the power down shafts below the engine to the front axle, the engine must sit up high, which is bad for the handling and bad for the styling, too.

So, instead, the FF sends its power to a rear-mounted gearbox and then to the rear wheels. But then, if sensors detect that those wheels do not have enough grip, two small two-speed gearboxes being driven by the crankshaft at the front of the engine are engaged and the front wheels are asked to join the party.

It’s an idea that was first tried by Ferrari in the Eighties, but back then the electronics necessary simply weren’t available. I’m surprised they’re available now. It sounds an almost fantastically complicated solution, and I wonder if it really will work.

I drove the FF pretty hard and at no time did I sense the front wheels were being driven. And even if they were, they are never allowed to take more than 30 per cent of the engine’s power. And none at all if you go past 130 mph. At this sort of speed the front-mounted two-speed gearboxes can’t cope and shut down. The words Heath and Robinson keep springing to mind here. Followed by a simple question. Has anyone at Ferrari ever driven a Nissan GT-R?

Ferrari says that the system will be of enormous benefit to those who wish to take their Ferrari skiing. And that may be so. But, as the owner of any Bentley Continental or even Range Rover will testify, you can drive as many wheels as you like; if you don’t fit snow tyres your journey will end in Moûtiers.

Of course, you may be wondering where on earth you would put your skiing clobber in a Ferrari. Aha. Well, not only is this the company’s first four-wheel-drive car, it’s also its first hatchback. It has fold-down rear seats, and you can fit more in the boot when they are up than you can in a Renault Scénic.

So, a very special, very fast car, with a dollop of practicality and a four-wheel-drive system that may not add much. But it doesn’t take anything away, either.

However, there are a couple of problems. First of all, the FF is as big as a medium-sized US state. On a normal British B-road you really do flinch when you pass traffic going the other way, and in a town it’s next to useless.

But worse than that is the styling. It looks fantastic from the
front and wonderful, too, from the side, but I’m afraid its backside is hopeless. Bland. Dreary. Kia does a better job. You may think you could live with this but I guarantee that when the time came to sell, you’d struggle to find a like-minded soul. As a result, I expect the FF to drop in value like a hammer falling from a tower block. Be aware of that before you run amok with the comically expensive and lengthy options list. For instance, don’t have the boot lined with leather (£1,728) if you really are going to take your FF to St Moritz.

Overall, I liked this car. It was exciting when I was in the mood, but strangely docile and comfortable when I wasn’t. I like the way it feels different from everything else on the road, and I’m not bothered about the four-wheel-drive system either way. But that rear end? They really should have had a look at Pippa Middleton before they made merry with the ballpoints.

10 July 2011

I suppose I ought to come clean. The cars I review on these pages every Sunday are sometimes nothing like the cars you can actually buy. Every car company runs a fleet of press demonstrators, which motoring journalists can borrow for a week. We imagine, of course, that the cars on these fleets are plucked at random from the production lines, in the same way as a famous restaurant reviewer expects that the food he’s eating is exactly the same as the food everyone else is eating.
*
But I fear that, sometimes, they are not.

Many years ago, when cars were judged only on acceleration times, Austin Rover made all sorts of wild claims about how its new Maestro turbo could get from a standstill to 60 mph in six seconds. And indeed the press-fleet cars supplied for testing could do just that. But only once. Because then they’d blow up, causing everyone to wonder if the wastegate valves hadn’t been welded slightly shut.

There were also tales about car makers stripping down cars that would be going to the press, and then rebuilding them, very carefully and at huge expense, by hand. And I must say that the Ferraris that turn up for performance testing always seem to be noticeably faster than the cars that are supplied for photographic purposes. That could be my imagination, though (he said, aware of the laws of libel).

But even if the car supplied for testing really does come from
the production line, the experience is still a bit skewed. First of all, it’s delivered, fully taxed and insured, in an extremely clean state with a tankful of free fuel. That makes the reviewer feel very gooey about life in general and his job in particular. And when the tank is empty, a man comes with another car and takes the first one away. It’s all completely unrealistic, really.

And so are the cars. Most press-fleet managers will ensure that every demonstrator is fitted with every single optional extra. They will argue that this gives the reviewer a chance to sample all that’s available. Yes. But a layer of exciting buttons and knobs can also mask the dreariness of the product underneath. In the same way as a spicy sauce masks the fact that the curry you’ve ordered is full of dead cats.

So, in short, I spend half my life driving around in a £15,000 car that’s been hand-built at a cost of £250,000 and has been supplied with eighty quid’s worth of free fuel, free insurance, free tax and a range of optional extras that are worth twice what most people would pay for the entire car.

Not this week, though, because Volkswagen supplied a new Jetta in what can only be described as hire-car spec. I assumed that this was because the company was so proud of the actual car, it didn’t want to spoil the experience with lots of unnecessary electronic or cosmetic flimflam. I was wrong. Because this is the dreariest, most depressing car ever made in all of human history.

I am not saying this because it is an ordinary car of a type people buy. I am saying this because it really is the four-wheeled equivalent of drizzle.

In front of the gear lever are five switches, and in a standard car all of them are blanked off with plastic shrouds – little reminders that you didn’t work hard enough at school and that life’s not going as well as you’d hoped. If only you’d clinched that last deal, you could have bought the £440 parking-sensor pack. Then you’d have only four blanked-off buttons.

It’s much the same story with the central control system. Push the button marked ‘Media’ and a message flashes up saying, ‘No
medium found.’ This is not a reference to Doris Stokes. It’s another gentle dig, another reminder that you couldn’t afford to fit an iPod connection. That your whole life is going down the khazi.

So you push the button marked ‘Nav’ and you get another baleful message saying that no navigation disc has been found. You couldn’t afford it, could you? You only got three Bs and Exeter said no. You ended up at a glorified poly and your life’s gone downhill from there.

It must have done for you to have ended up in a Jetta. As we know, it’s a Golf with a boot on the back instead of a hatchback, and what’s the point of that, exactly? There was a time, when
Terry and June
was on television and people doffed their caps to aldermen, that a saloon was perceived to be more upmarket than a hatch.

There are also places in the world, in Africa mainly, where a saloon marks you out as someone special. But here? Now? No. We have come to realize that a saloon is just a hatchback that’s less practical and more boring to behold.

The Jetta is extremely boring to look at. It’s boring to think about. This is the sort of car you would buy not realizing that you already had one. It is catastrophically dull. As dull as being dead.

It is not, however, dull or boring to drive. No. It is absolutely awful. First of all there’s the suspension, which is plainly tuned to work only on a billiard table. On a road it transmits news of every crease, ripple and pebble directly to your spine, and, to make matters worse, the seats appear to have been fashioned from ebony. They are rock hard.

The backrest, which is even less forgiving than the squab, seems to have just two positions. Bolt upright and fully reclined. Only once can I remember ever being so uncomfortable, and that’s when a doctor was examining my colon with what felt like the blunt end of a road cone.

Then there’s the air-conditioning. Or, rather, there isn’t. VW
calls it semi-automatic air-con, and I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing. It doesn’t work. And as for the trip computer, it told me about oil temperature, which isn’t interesting, or it was a compass. And that’s not interesting either.

So what of the engine? Well, you’ve a choice of a 1.4-litre petrol, which comes in two states of tune, or a brace of diesels. I opted for the 2-litre, which, by diesel standards anyway, was reasonably quiet and refined. It was also reasonably powerful, clean and economical.

I must be similarly kind about the quality. The interior does appear to be well screwed together, but then the Jetta is made in Mexico – and Mexico, as I have recently learnt, is a byword for industrious attention to detail. On a personal note, I’d far rather have a VW built by Pablo in Central America than a VW built by some sloppy German who just wants to spend the day sleeping and being kidnapped.

Apparently, Volkswagen wants to sell 3,000 Jettas in the UK this year, which in the big scheme of things does not sound an ambitious target. But I cannot think of even three people who would be happy to live for more than a few seconds with this hateful, dreary, badly equipped, uncomfortable, forgettable piece of motoring-induced euthanasia.

Better alternatives include the Golf, the Passat, every other car ever made, walking, hopping and being stabbed.

17 July 2011

God made a bit of a mistake when he was designing women. He made the birth canal so narrow that babies have to be born when they are nowhere near ready for life in the outside world.

A newborn horse can run about and feed itself five seconds after emerging from the back of its mum. And it’s the same story with dogs. My labrador gave birth to a litter of nine puppies while asleep, firing them out like a Thai hooker fires ping pong balls. And within moments they were up and about, being doggish.

A human baby, though, is not capable of anything. For week after interminable week, it can’t sit up, crawl, speak or operate even rudimentary electronic equipment, and sees absolutely nothing wrong with sitting in a puddle of its own excrement. Babies are useless. Stupid, mewling, puking noise trumpets that ruin life for anyone within half a mile.

Unless, of course, the baby is yours, in which case you rejoice in its ability to grip your finger with its tiny little hand and are keen to take it on as many aeroplanes as possible. Why is this? Why is your baby so perfect and wonderful when everyone else’s is as irritating as a microlight on a peaceful summer’s evening?

We see the same problem with literature. There is a book called
Versailles: The View from Sweden
. It’s excellent in a game of charades, but as a light read I should imagine it’s not excellent at all. Unless you could get a copy signed by the author. Then you’d love it.

I have a copy of Monty Python’s
Big Red Book
that is signed by all of the Pythons and as a result it is my most treasured possession.
The one thing I would rescue if my house were to catch fire.

We see this specialness in other things too. There’s a little spot just below the village of Keld in the Yorkshire Dales. It has grass and some trees and a bit of sky, all the ingredients you would find on a roundabout in Milton Keynes. And yet the spot I’m talking about is special and a roundabout is not. Why? Dunno. It just is.

Then there’s the iPhone. As soon as I was shown some pictures and discovered you could enlarge them by moving your fingers apart on the screen, I had to have one. I treat it with great care and become very defensive when BlackBerry enthusiasts are critical.

It is just some wires and a bit of plastic. It’s not signed by Steve Jobs; I did not give birth to it and took no part in its creation. It is not unique and yet, to me, it is special. And that, in my view, is what makes the difference between a product that you want and a product that you need.

Specialness is particularly important when it comes to cars. Recently, on
Top Gear
, I drove something called the Eagle Speedster. It was a modern take on the old Jaguar E-type and in many ways it was a bit rubbish. There were no airbags or antilock brakes, and while the lowered, more steeply raked windscreen meant the car looked good, I couldn’t see where I was going. And yet, despite the shortfalls, it is the most special car I’ve driven. Do I need it? No. Do I want it? Yes. More than my left leg.

And now let us spool forwards to the Nissan Pixo. This is the cheapest new car on sale in Britain today and in many ways it is excellent. You do get power steering and antilock braking and I have no doubt that it will be a faithful and reliable servant for many years. And yet, despite all this, I want one about as much as I want a bout of herpes.

There is a similar issue with the new McLaren MP4-12C. It is a superb piece of engineering and, my God, it’s fast. But the
excitement and joy and specialness that you get from a Ferrari or a Lamborghini is missing. You sense that it’s the brainchild not of a man called Horacio or Ferruccio or Enzo, but of a man called Ron.

So what about the Audi RS 3? A roundabout? Or my special place in Swaledale?

Well, fans say that because it has a turbocharged five-cylinder engine and four-wheel drive, it harks back to the original quattro, which, in second-generation 20-valve guise, was one of the most special cars ever made. So it has good genes.

Good manners, too. Unlike the original quattro, the engine is not mounted several yards in front of the front axle, which means that the catastrophic understeer of yesteryear is gone. You just get normal understeer, which is dreary but not fatal.

The power’s good, though. And so’s the speed. And so is the noise and so is the seven-speed dual-clutch flappy-paddle gearbox. Provided you are at the Nürburgring and your family’s life depends on your lap time. If, however, you are not at the Nürburgring and your family is not being held hostage, you may find it a bit irritating.

It’s a problem with all these gearboxes. They’re good when you are travelling fast, but in town they jerk. You don’t get the creep of a normal automatic or the slip from a clutch pedal in a normal manual. I realize, of course, that flappy paddles mean better emissions, which is good news for polar bears, but for smooth driving, they’re pretty hopeless.

Now we must address comfort. There isn’t much, because, like the gearbox, the suspension is set up for fast lap times. It’s not as bad as in some cars but you do need to scour the road ahead carefully so that you don’t accidentally run over a pothole.

Inside, you are reminded that while the RS 3 is a new car, it’s based on a car that is not new at all. It feels old-fashioned. Boring. And it’s time I mentioned this: there’s a wee bit too much choice.

An example. Would you like the climate control to deliver
17.5 degrees or 18? And what would your passenger like? I’m sorry, but half-a-degree increments are plainly silly. You either want to be chilled or warmed. Two settings would do.

It’s the same story with the satnav. Yes, we like to be able to adjust the scale of the map. But in the Audi you twiddle the knob for 90 minutes and it zooms in from something like 900 metres to the centimetre to 875 metres to the centimetre. That’s not necessary.

Neither is the price. It’s just shy of £40,000, which is a lot for what, when all is said and done, is a fancy Golf. Yes, I know that it’s a limited-edition car and that, as a result, second-hand values will be good, but if I were spending that much on a car, I’d want it to feel and look and be a lot more special.

That’s a trick BMW has pulled off very well with the 1-series M coupé. It’s about the same size and price as the Audi and delivers the same sort of get-up-and-go. But while you emerge from every trip in the Beemer wearing an enormous grin, you emerge from the Audi smiling only because the trip is over.

24 July 2011