Being Popular.

The Trabant, as cool as it gets.

Did you know its been almost a year since we started on this journey into motoring?

A quick look at the stats tell me that readership is growing and people searching for porn still find this blog because of some clever meta tagging (thats a computer geek thing that makes what you type into Google find this column, neat eh? Who says sex doesn’t sell anymore!) Popularity is important. I write this stuff for a number of reasons but one of the main ones is to see peoples reactions to what I write. If the blog is crap and boring then no one will read it and  the hate mail dries up.

So what makes you popular? Being different I think is one of the main reasons, people look at you and are interested because of the different spin on life or laugh at you because you are doing something out of the ordinary. Popularity then has to be fresh and new, but user friendly and acceptable.  The Detroit motor show threw up some very interesting new designs including a hyper cool electric three-wheeler called the ZAP Alias that if painted matt black would not be out of place in the Batcave, but will it be popular? I doubt it. It will generate interest at the show and loads of people will take pictures of it and discuss it over a plastic cup of beer, but would they buy one? No, they head for Toyota and buy a Prius. Middle ground needs to be found and the Prius is a good example of that. It’s quirky enough with its Star Trek dashboard and weird, hybrid engine that can silently sneak up on pedestrians in urban situations, to be interesting; and because it claims to be green, give you high MPG (It doesn’t really, its 48MPG average is the same as a Golf TDi, but the Golf is £5,000 cheaper much cooler and faster) and celebrities drive it, its popular. But would you buy one? Drive one? Be seen in one? Didn’t think so.

Soon it is new car time for me and as I am still waiting for the editor to call me and offer that lucrative column, I am forced to buying another 10 year old ‘a bit past it’ car. The popular choices are uninspiring and have galactic milages on them with several owners, and all of them are dull. A while ago I was looking at Audi, Honda and Alfas, now as poverty tightens its grip I am looking smaller. I am looking at a Suzuki Wagon R.

Mk 1 Wagon R

Ok Ok settle down, stop the hoots of laughter and the old man jokes and listen to my reasoning. This is a very overlooked car, and the joker at the back who just said ‘I wonder why?’ can bugger off. Here is a quirky and interesting little car that just oozes Japanese charm. Its a tiny MPV thing with a tiny 1000cc cam chain driven  engine that redlines at 8000rpm (even tinier in Japan!) and is classed as a ‘Kei’ (click here to see an earlier post on this) its bought and driven by old people who only go to the shops for cat meat and service it at dealerships. Consequently they are cheap, well maintained, cost nothing to run and in very good condition.

Wagon R with added hot sauce!

With a little imagination they can be made to look and behave like a mini hooligan. I doubt if I will increase my popularity or street cred (whatever that is) as I drive my little Suzuki, and know it will never go round the ‘Ring, and I am not cool and hip, but you know what? I don’t care because I will be different, and as you will see in future posts, it will bring some fun and discourse to this funky little column, and who knows? we might just make the little guy popular AND acceptable!

I have found a nice selection of custom kei cars if you are interested, click here

Snow. The white menace…

Snow, the silent demon

Water is life. Over 70% of our planet is covered in it and if starved of it for a few days you will drop dead. Water is fun! You can swim in it, float on it, ride jetskis on it and best of all if you mix it with some sand and sunshine it makes girls take off all their clothes and wear bikinis.

But in its solid form or even worse its crystalised, fluffy floaty form, its another story. Ice and snow have magical and evil powers, they conspire to remove all the bread and milk from the shops, make grim faced policemen come on the news and tell us there is ‘chaos’ and order us all to stay in bed. Ice and snow remove your wheels and replace them with castors and then cut your brake lines. We are all afraid of it, we all hate it. Unless you are under 16 and its an excuse for the adults to panic and you to get a free day off school.

All of this makes me so damn angry.

What the hell is wrong with people? Why on earth, as soon as there is a little bit of a change from the norm, a little bit of interesting weather, do you all panic and hide under the duvet? The ‘best’ excuse I have heard is “We are not used to driving in the snow because it doesn’t happen very often” This of course to anyone with common sense its just plain stupid. If the conditions are rare, isn’t it better to experience them when you can? learn how to adapt your driving when the road and the car will feel different? Become more aware of the limitations of grip and safe distances?

I phoned a driving instructor, a decent and sensible chap, and asked him if advice for snow driving was available. “Sure” he said “Just call and I will be happy to advise, or we can book a lesson if you want and I can show you how best to do it” It seems that we view instructors as a way to pass the driving test so we can all ‘drive’, because of course, as soon as we pass we are all experts! And as the years roll by our expertise gets better and better…right? We wouldn’t need a trained professional to advise us or sharpen our skills, because we are all brilliant! Right? WRONG!

It snows. All of Britain stops, or crashes into eachother, or breaks down, or gets stuck because they didn’t have the brains to maintain their car, carry a blanket or a shovel, or the common sense to change the way they drive or even check their tyres are ok and not looking like Kojak. Driving is a skill that is unique because it constantly changes. You can drive the same bit of tarmac every day for a year and nothing out of the ordinary will happen. You get in the car, you move leavers, push pedals and turn things and the car moves. Same day in and day out, right up until the tyre blows, or a child runs out or a cyclist wobbles out in front or even worse, it snows, rains, hails or is foggy.

I have found the real reason for Mr Grim Faced Policeman/Council Worker/AA Bloke coming on the TV and telling us all to stay at home, its because he knows just how rubbish the average motorist is at dealing with something out of the ordinary, because there are not enough people in Britain who actually LOVE TO DRIVE and LOVE THEIR CARS. Its THESE people you see adapting and enjoying their drive. These people see it as a challenge to their skill, and get on and do it. They won’t need to be charging about like a Finnish rally driver, but they will be calm, confident and ready to take on whatever is thrown at them. It THESE types, people who go for a drive for the sheer hell of it, people who take a detour if it means a good ‘B’ road rather than a dull motorway, people who turn off the damn radio to hear that roar from 3rd to 4th as they negotiate that neat right hander. Drivers (and there are a few left, I know names!) will check their cars, maintain them, monitor tyre pressures, fluid levels and such stuff so if they are caught out in changing conditions, they are confident the car can deal with it and they adapt their driving to it. There are too many people that see the car as a thing to fill with stuff and take the kids to school with. They treat the car and the skill of driving like doing laundry, the worst that can happen is a wet floor if the washer fails or pink Y fronts if you screw it up.  When it goes wrong in a car you can kill yourself or someone else.

Moving away from cars just for a second, lets talk about ‘Frozen Britain’ as they announced it on the news. I wasn’t alive in 1963, but I’m told that the winter there was pretty nasty, and indeed prior to that there have been some pretty snowy times for the UK. Back then there was no mobile phone, no Internet, no ASDA or Iceland home delivery, we all had Austin A40’s or motorbikes and sidecars, no one had even heard of a Land Cruiser. Land Rovers and Jeeps were for the rosy cheeked farmer and military; articulated trucks had to have a drivers mate to help brake the trailer on the tricky bits. People got to work ok, maybe they had to get up a bit earlier or take a bit more care but  the world turned and we just got on with it. So how on earth did we, a nation the survived the Blitz, turn into a bunch of namby pamby bed wetting losers that are the joke of the world? A little snow and Britain stops, seems like all the terrorists need to do is wait for winter then they will have the UK on its knees. Everyone knows you can’t stop a Toyota pickup.

One final thought. None of the above will make any difference, because of all these people mooching about taking their kids back and forward to school and shopping, Global Warming will really kick in and in a few years we will all look forward to December as it will be a bit cooler than the 40 degree summers the are predicting!

That’s it, rant over. Please be careful out there, I hate seeing cars damaged.

Christmas with a BMW

Christmas has been and gone, leaving in its expensive wake a raft of shattered and mauled parents with drained and red bank accounts.

As I get older Christmas gets less like a Dickensian Post card and more like a Dickensian Workhouse. Months before the fateful day we squirrel money away, and still find on the 26th the account is more than empty. Just so the evil putrid slugs that run the banks can afford a better set of golf clubs for next year, yeah I’m talking to YOU Abbey National or Santander or whatever you are called, give me my bank charges back!

But surely this time of year can bring great joy to the motorist? He has all sorts of humorous gifts that distant relatives can shower on him. Homer Simpson Ice scrapers come to mind, or a nice AA book of the road. One of those car care kits, with an air freshener and a sponge you wouldn’t use on your dishes, let alone near the paintwork of your car. No one thinks to get him a new set of shocks, a service or even a tank of fuel, all things that would be greeted with sage nods and deep thanks. Or if you are feeling like splashing out, how about getting his chassis and suspension set up? buy him tickets to a track day, new set of decent tyres anything but another pair of driving gloves.

Well, Christmas aside, lets plunge into the red meat of this entry, yes I know its been a while coming and I realise that in order to keep you readers happy I need to be fresh and throw out new material all the time, but have you ever considered just how hard it is to write about the act of motoring? Let me tell you it’s not easy finding new things to talk about, so I spend a lot of time thinking about other things and relating them to motoring. This is mainly because what I really want to do is write about cars. The only one I can talk to you about is mine, because thats the only car I have access to. No one has been crazy enough to let me drive off with their brand new set of wheels and not make a squeak about it. Even Honda told me to ‘bugger off’ when they discovered the real reason I wanted to test drive the new Civic. Yup no one has been nuts enough to hand me the keys to anything… until now!

This is not a review, as I didn’t have the car long enough so it’s a rambling impression of it

BMW make reasonably good cars, thats a well-known fact. For a while they made terrible cars and relied on the badge to sell it, they created a compact and dropped the price and the quality until BMW almost had the exclusivity of a branch of Tescos. That said, most people will be impressed when the blue and white propeller pulls up outside and you step out (even if it has a comedy bodykit on it) The badge still screams ‘German’ and that means ‘well built’ and ’solid’ and ‘reliable’ and ‘boring’.

A crazy man let me loose in his nearly new BMW 1 series 2008 model with a 2.0 Diesel engine. I wont tell you who he is as he uses his car for his business, and it would terrify his clients to know that the car he was teaching in could tailslide like that… oops did I say too much? Anyway, I was given a chance to play with this on what could only be described as the wettest day in history, it was as if God himself was bailing out his cellar with a bucket, but undeterred, I fired it up and headed out.
Being a man, the first thing I did was turn off the traction control, its runflat tyres gripped the road as we pootled around in urban mode, not going over 40, no sharp turns and no sudden drama, the only thing that threw me was the ecomentalist computer that turned the engine off every time I stopped at a set of lights, but you get used to it and it can be turned off. Soon we left the town behind and hit the A roads. Because it was raining a bit, every other driver was panicking and driving at 3mph down the center of the road, eyes bulging, knuckles white on the wheel. eventually, after about three seconds of this I decided I had had enough so dropped it into third and went for it, only to find the engine totally out of puff and lights on the dash demanding what the bloody hell I was playing at.

This was a big shock to me, this car is full of clever electronics, designed to help you along. It has lights to suggest what gear you really should be in, it has automatic wipers, lights and what not, all things that blokes would, like me ignore or turn off. I know what is best not some German technician in castle BMW so I found I was fighting the car and not driving it. The gent that had given me the keys had foolishly (or sensibly) decided to come along for the ride, and so far he had not said a word (probably out of fear or loathing) but he suggested, as we struggled to over take that I should let the car help out, and do as it suggests. So, at the next nice twisty bit of road, traction control on, I went for it.
The car handles well for what it is. It’s forgiving and responsive, it tells you through your backside what it’s doing, you can ‘feel’ it. I was expecting the electronics to be brutal with me as the road was wet and I was pushing, but help from the abs and the traction control came in a gentle curve,only stamping its foot when I got a bit too lairy. I think this is the point of the car, it’s not designed to be a race car out of the box, its not designed to be belted round every corner, but if you ask it to it will. No, it’s designed for a family to pootle about in comfort and safety. Have a crash in this and if all its airbags go off you can use it as a raft. Leave the kids behind and you can have a little fun with it but being a little BMW and a diesel, it’s going to be  wholesome, sensible fun.

This is all far to nice for me, the car feels like it will be as reliable as a sunrise, and as safe as mothers arms. The only time this car will get out of hand is if you blind it by turning all the safety devices off and weld your foot to the floor. It’s like that nice girl, you know the one, who wears big pants to keep the cold out and always has a pen. Personally I prefer it to break now and again and threaten to throw us both into a ditch if I get it a tiny bit wrong, like that girl that doesn’t bother with underwear and has an emotional meltdown every time it rains.

Also known as an Alfa Romeo.

Let’s Scrap!

I think its high time we talked about the scrappage scheme.

Personally I think it’s a great idea, I have said before that new cars are so much better than old ones in almost every way. It gives the car industry a big shot in the arm as car sales for July 2009 rose by some 3%. All those old wrecks with ageing braking systems 100000 mile, soggy suspension and pedestrian unfriendly zones are heading for the crusher to become cans, photocopiers and the like. Once a car is doomed to the scheme, it can never legally be used on the road again, unlike some insurance write-offs that I have seen pootling about, once the paper is signed thats it.
I have an ancient Civic that id love to chop in to my local dealer and drive away in something new, so being brave and doing some creative maths to see if I could actually afford the monthly payments I duly went to my local dealership. I looked at a very nice Jazz, it’s the darling of the over 60’s but it’s not the cars fault! It’s a great car, zippy and packed with technology but this entry is not a car review, Ill do that later. Anyway, I make interesting noises and start matching carpet to paint, over comes Mr Salesman with a smile and a spring in his step. We go through a few features on the Jazz and talk about test drives and insurance and all other technical car selling stuff, I ask him about finance. Out comes the Honda branded calculator and a few punched keys later we have a figure, which my maths say I can stretch to (if I sell a few stories or get a paid regular column, come on editors! all this talent is going to waste!)

And here lies the problem that I think will face most people who the scrappage scheme should really help. The reason I drive a 1994 Civic is because thats all I can afford right now. The reason people drive 1995 Escorts is not because they want too, it’s all they could afford. When something breaks its cheap to replace and Halfords have most of the bits in stock. These people, MY people can’t afford a new or nearly new car for whatever reason, mostly because they trip up at the finance stage either because of their low-income, crappy credit rating because they had to choose food over paying the credit card one month back in 1989. My credit fail was probably a combination of these and other factors, as soon as the big no-no flashed on the screen, Mr Salesman couldnt get me out of the showroom fast enough and back into my rusty Civic.

So us normal everyday people will continue to drive around in ancient cars until it fails the MOT for the final time and we are forced to find another to replace it. But here is the problem. All the cars we used to be able to get hold of for a couple of hundred quid are now all saving the planet as recycled tin cans, their former owners whizzing about in a nice shiny new car safe in the knowledge that they have done their bit. And good luck to them! Heck I would if i could, but I am part of the proletariat and must continue to strive for my toehold on the ladder.
Like I said earlier I still think the scheme is a good thing, but could be improved on. Its my cynical view that the scheme was put in place to show the government actually doing something, reacting to the ‘crisis’ (I have my own thoughts on the financial ‘crisis’ that we were ‘gripped’ by, I think it’s all industrial-strength crapola, dished out to make the rich richer but thats not for here…) The taxes and income recouped by the treasury will re fill the coffers nicely. An improvement could be a government backed purchase scheme, still scrapping the old cars but financially helping the rest of the populus that just can’t make it happen.

There is another criticism I have heard people discuss, and this seems to be circulating a lot on some of the ‘classic’ owners clubs. People are up in arms saying that Mk2 Jags, Sunbeams, Healys and the like will be chopped in and chopped up in favor of a nice new Vauxhall Zafira. Now this I think is stupid thinking, a classic car enthusiast is not going to watch his pride and joy get smashed to bits in favor of a clever Vauxhall. There is an interesting thread on the ZXOC, an owners club that caters to 1980s performance Nissans, Silvia, Bluebird Turbos and the like and the guys there are purple with rage over a 1.6 Bluebird that is due to be scrapped but is in superb condition and I can sympathise, but to the normal everyday man in the street a Nissan Bluebird is either a Minicab or a Banger racer, and no more worth saving than an old Nova, but then mention that to the Nova owners club and they will go bananas. Its unlikely that enthusiasts will scrap their cars, and will probably do their very best to save any they come across.

It’s impossible to please everyone all the time, and only some of the people some of the time but it would be nice to change the people who get the break once in a while. Maybe when the election comes things might change…

Wait, the Tories look like winning? oh Bugger…

Electric Dreams from Tokyo

I have just returned from Tokyo, for the second time in two years very nice to once again see  the land of the rising sun. Obviously I had an excellent time, its hard not to have fun in Japan whatever you are into. Cars and motoring play a large part of my interest so I was keen to see how things have moved on since my last adventure there.
Visiting any foreign shore throws up differences in their  motoring habbits. For example, when I was in Germany, playing on the Nurburgring, the German marques outnumbered the rest two to one, lowly Golfs stealing the limelight as they overtook just about everything! Japan is no different. There are a wide diversity of cars that you will never see unless you visit the country, from mundane stuff like small trucks zipping around the narrow streets of the suburbs, to the crazily priced Toyota Century, that looks like it was designed in 1980 but sports a V12 engine and a 12,000,000 Yen price tag (yes, thats twelve million yen…)

From what I saw in the Toyota showroom it seems Hybrid engines really are the future, big 3 litre v6 both in front wheel and rear wheel drive transmission sporting an electric motor in its gearbox. I am not sure on the performance of this arrangement but the way its pitched and the majority way of thinking about motoring it Japan this really doesnt matter.

From my observations, the Japanese driver doesnt want to be bothered too much about 0-100km speed, he isnt too fussed about cornering ability or redline noise (which is odd from a country that gave us the Honda B series and Toyota 4AGE engine) No, the average Japanese motorist wants a gentle soothing ride, his emissions low,  his engine economical and his cogs swapped for him. He wants a decent cup holder rather than a snappy gearbox. From the outside it’s nice to watch, on an average day at Shibuya crossing, cars, vans and trucks glide quietly on super smooth tarmac almost as if they were already fully electrically powered.

It’s all very nice, but the question kept nagging me, ‘what happens when it all goes horribly wrong?’ When the computer goes wobbly or the electric motor refuses to switch over to petrol? Who is going to fix it? Not your home mechanic, indeed it’s almost impossible to do any real home repairs on modern cars these days, even changing a headlamp bulb involves removing half the front of the car, something most people would rather leave to the dealers. Then it struck me, these are Japanese cars that are as reliable as a sunrise, added to the fact that the Japanese tend to change their cars every week due to stupidly expensive testing, like our MOT on steroids, they dont really have to worry that much as warranties cover most of the really pricey bits.

We get all of their cast offs, the Skylines and Chasers that are just too expensive to fix, which is great for us now, and probably for a few years to come but soon there will come a time they will dry up and the only hot import you will get from Japan is a Toyota thats half milk-float. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. The rebellious spirit is still very much alive, take a stroll along Harajuku bridge any given Sunday and see cosplayers in all sorts of strange clothes, a little further on guys dressed in 1950’s leather and sporting huge, gravity defying quiffs dance to Rock and Roll. Wait there longer and you will see the odd Mustang burble by. Let it get a bit darker and then the modifieds come out, Skylines, Soarers, Hachi-Roku, Mercedes and Civics making an ominous growling from under their bonnets, mingled with the roar of customised motorbikes straight out of an Akira anime, and the ragged edge of Japanese sub culture pokes a finger at that most polite of societies.

The whole truth

Japanese cars. I love em. I have a soft spot in my heart that you could drive a Skyline through.

Here is the thing tho, they have no soul whatsoever.

Hell they are good! Fast, safe and very exciting to drive (well, some are) a few are even stylish too, but you really cannot get passionate about them. They are a bit like the fridge when you go on holiday, Michael Macintire said that the fridge is the one appliance you put total trust in, and he is right. You go around just before you are due to go to the airport and make sure everything is unplugged, just in case the tv, hifi and Playstation go into electrical meltdown while you are away and conspire to burn your house to the ground. But the fridge? No, we are safe in the knowledge that it will sit there quietly keeping the cheese cold, humming to itself while you are gone, just like any Japanese car, total reliability.

So heres the thing, I have had a sort of ultimatum thrust upon me and I need some help. The wife (long suffering) Is off to do some studies to be come a Midwife (Lord knows why, child birth and the movie ‘Alien’ are much the same to me, although Alien has less yelling…) So she has to quit working at the hospital in the next year and become a student once more, and that means student pay, and that means cold baked beans until she qualifies, so no more splurging unless I get that motoring column (Editors take note! Employ me!).

Now I have been told by beloved that as she is getting what she wants out of life its only fair that I get something too (she is a wife and a half eh!?) So I have the choice of getting a new car, nothing stupidly expensive (if I want it quickly) but then again not a knackered 15 year old wreck. This is wonderful news but puts me in a weird position, do I go for a Civic type R? Very expensive, and at the top, if not over the budget, but fridge like reliability? Civic R is a nice car, fast, sporty and has that wonderful k20 engine. Add to that its a hoot to drive and will never break down and you think we have a winner! But its as a soulless as a hoover, and the price I’m looking at they will have had 10 owners that have wanted to hear Vtec over and over again at 8000 rpm (Vtec is HIGHLY addictive, a dear friend of mine had the addiction so bad he had to ’see’ if he could ‘hit Vtec’ whilst being loaded onto the Eurostar…) So that wonderful engine will be more than a little battered. There is however another choice, a choice that given I had loads of cash I wouldnt even think about.

I’m talking about an Alfa Romeo.

Regular readers will know of my kink for Alfa Romeo, its like a dirty little secret that everyone who has a whiff of  petrol in their blood has, but wont act upon because like me, they are absolutely bloody terrified of owning one. Alfa owners are so brave, so square jawed and manly (even the girls) That they make the SAS look like the Tufty Club. And I’m not talking about all the namby pamby slack wristed company car drivers out there who have fleet cars, you guys are just big pansies, as soon as the Alfa throws a fit you are on the phone to your fleet manager, telling him how he should have given you that v6 Mondeo so you could have been at the meeting on time and sold more copier toner, but secretly you want the damn Alfa fixed because you have a nice cozy date with that little blonde from data processing…
Owning an Alfa must be like being married to the most beautiful woman in the world, expensive to run, and everyone wants a go!  You have no idea when she (The car!) is going to throw a major Italian wobbly and you have to go on bended knee to the bank or put more hours in at that terrible day job just to keep her on the road. But owning one, opening the bonnet and seeing that Alfa badge stamped on everything, even if it doesnt move makes it all worth it.

But is it true?

If Alfas were really that bad then why would people buy them? Why would fleet managers choose them over BMW or Audi? I think that its down to care and attention, and the good folk over at the Alfa Drivers Club seem to agree. For some reason you can screw the bonnet shut on a Honda and it will run for years, but an Alfa needs a little care, regular service and maybe (gulp) weekly checks of oil and water. But Im not even sure that the Honda thing is accurate either, I know of Hondas that have sat and refused to move for weeks because of some undiagnosed reason. Even my own Civic had a weird problem that no matter what, I couldn’t figure out. It took a load of money and time and irritatingly it turned out to be something cheap and simple. I think the same will be with the Alfa. It doesnt have an engine made from glass, it just needs looking after, just like we used to years ago before cars became throwaway items like biros. Alfa Romeo can trace its history back almost to the dawn of the 20th century, it was one of the first marques and one of the best racers ever, so a little good ol’ fashioned TLC isnt too much to ask.

I have driven a few Alfas, and have to report they are really very nice indeed, but is it enough? Is buying a slice of automotive history enough? Is having that ‘I drive an Alfa’ feeling when everyone else is in Escorts enough? My brain tells me there is no smoke without fire, and it will explode one day, but my heart tells me to shut the hell up and buy an Alfa.

There is a third choice, the Ford Puma looks nice…

The Air Facts

Years ago, accessories for cars were limited to what you could bolt or stick on.

Some of the more memorable and comical ones have disappeared, who can forget that rubber stick that used to hang down from the back of every Ford Cortina to stop static electrical shocks everytime you touched anything vaguely metallic. Removing the vinyl seats and nylon trousers would have been more effective, my Dad tells me that it also cured travel sickness too, but I think that was a ruse to stop me throwing up all over his Beige Estate. What about those blue or green plastic stick on sunstrips, remember them? There was never a more informed time on who was driving the car (Gaz) and who his current girl was (Shaz, Mand, Tray, Sheil etc…)

Car accessories are huge business and always will be, as innovative marketing men come up with new and better ways to part us from our hard earned cash, and we will be more than happy to part with it too as some of the population have more love for their cars than they do people (I have to admit I am teetering on that group ) If its yours and you have had to pay for it, your car becomes very personal to you and you want to do the best for it, and make it your own. Some go to extremes and add comedy bodykits, spoilers and huge stereo’s to their poor car in the view to becoming unique and a one off, but they end up looking like everyone else. The middle lot will do it subtlety, maybe just a set of alloys and a de badge but there once again it fades to obscurity. But at least they have tried, the very worst lot is the people who see their cars as tools and don’t care a jot what colour it is. So with all the glue on, bolt on, tie on and weld on items in your local shop how on earth can they possibly get more cash out of your pocket?

The answer is simple. Years ago, F1, rally, touring cars and the like were in some ways showcases for ordinary cars. If you went and watched touring cars back in the 60’s and 70’s you could see cars rubbing the paint of eachother as they hurled round Paddock Bend, the same cars that you could walk in to any showroom and buy. Rally was better, you could grab yourself a nice RS Escort that you had just watched pelting round a forest in Wales and drive it round your housing estate in Doncaster. It would have a more powerful engine and suspension lifted from the rally car. F1 was said to develop technologies that would be bred in to the car you bought at the showroom. But we are all grown up now and don’t belive a word of it, and besides the cars on the Touring car and Rally circuits are light years from what we can get our hands on these days. But F1 can still sell us stuff.

The Nissan GTR R35 is an amazing thing. Hand built and matched engines and gearboxes, sloshing over in computers, four wheel this and active steer that, oh and its got Nitrogen in its tyres, just like a race car! (or a jumbo jet) Now there is probably a very good reason to put Nitrogen in the tyres of a race car, holding pressure under extreme variations of heat is one, being inert and therefore not a fire risk is another. If you buy a GTR and use it to go to the shops everyday, which is totally your choice and the car will happily do it, it’s a Nissan after all. The risk of a tyre fire or low pressures causing you to spin off at that nasty corner in Sainsbury’s car park is quite small. But the GTR was born to be used on the track, it’s well known that the GPS inside it disables the electronic nanny that restricts this that and the other when it detects its on a track, and all hell breaks loose.

However (Yep, here it comes) There are companies out there that will happily fill the tyres of whatever you decide to drive on their ramps with Nitrogen, and be very happy to charge you for it. So there you are, your 1986 Mk2 Fiesta, tyres filled with Nitro, ready to take on the cut and thrust of the M25, safe in the knowledge that the pressures wont change, and they won’t ignite. The clever lot you are will no doubt be shouting at the screen now, and saying ‘Yeah! but the bloody local garage has charged us 20p to use the airline for years, and besides one 20p is never enough because it always cuts out just as you reach the last wheel! so what?’ I can accept a charge of 20 (or 40!) pence to cover the costs of maintaining and running costs of the airline, and even better (so a little O level science and a bit of Googleing tells me) the air thats squeezed into the tyres from the humble bicycle pump, through the Halfords foot pump, up to the lofty heights of the forecourt airline is 70% nitrogen. Indeed, the air you are breathing now is 70% Nitrogen, the stuff in my Civics tyres are 70% Nitrogen and i squirted that in all by myself for nothing.

Now I am not arguing that Nitrogen filled tyres are a bad or good thing, Ill show you some quotes for and against at the end of the blog, but what irritates me is that some tyre companies (I won’t name names, but you know who you are) Will charge  for it and people will pay through the nose for it because of marketing, not because it will make the car run better. Still, it makes for a good debate over a few pints, personally I think that filling your tyres with Helium would be a better idea, it’s inert and would make your wheels lighter than air.

Here’s a quote from the Kwik-fit website

“Filling your tyres with nitrogen may seem odd but that’s exactly what motor sport and aviation professionals have been doing for years. Nitrogen is completely safe. And by using it in a mixture with oxygen to inflate your tyres the theory is that it’s possible to negate the issue of slow deflation, which is caused by oxygen slowly infusing through the tyre wall from the atmosphere.

Having a tyre that does not deflate means you will improve fuel consumption and will probably improve safety standards too. It’s not yet standard practice but Nitrogen could well be here to stay as a result.”

Here is a link to the other side of the argument: TyreSave.co.uk

Makes you think eh?

Recycle this.

OK I have been very good so far. I have not mentioned them at all.

By now, regular readers will know a few things about me, but for the benefit of some late comers or new readers (welcome!) here are a few facts.

* I love driving
* I dislike some types of drivers…
* Driving in front of me at 28mph in a 60 zone will make me tear off my steering wheel and beat you to death with it.
* People who drive cars while wearing hats are suspicious at best and really should be avoided.
* Caravanner’s should be outlawed.
* All cars are brilliant.

There, a brief summary of my messed up and skewed view of motoring. You will notice I have left out the obvious natural enemy of drivers, such as speed cameras, the Police, traffic wardens, farmers and the Green Party; all of which should fill any driver with bowel loosening dread.

But I have been silent about group of people (I use the term loosely) because I realise that that a few of my readers could be in this group and that might be a bad thing. But something happened to me today that has to break my silence, shoot my self in the foot, encourage hate mail and enrage my audience. Never let it be said that I am scared of controversial journalism.

I’m talking about Cyclists.

Right, now, before all you green lot run in circles and yell at me on how much better the humble 10 speed is and how the environment isn’t damaged by the gentle swish of pedal, or the summery ting of a bell as a lady in a big straw hat swoops past a buttercup meadow in a haze of sunshine, let me tell you something. The bicycle is directly responsible for two of the worst contributors of greenhouse gases, co2, soot, acid rain, plagues, frogs, locusts and anything else that’s supposed to kill buttercuppy meadows.

Don’t believe me? Well what was the day job of the blokes that invented powered flight for the first time? Want more? OK what did Mr Peugeot do before he made exciting little hatchbacks? Or Honda-san, what did he cut his teeth on prior to making some of the best and most popular cars ever known? That’s right they all made (or STILL MAKE) Bicycles.

Kids on bikes are just fine. Normally they are on the path anyway and more interested in doing wheelies or (if they are a bit older) riding them over bits of street furniture and causing a nuisance to the park keeper. Mum or old guy on a bike are fine, Mum has little one on the baby seat, so wont even think of doing anything stupid. Old man is in top gear, pushing laboriously on each pedal stroke. He is moving so slowly that it really would be quicker to walk as continental drift is starting to catch him up. Nope, my fury is with the multi coloured blokes that really, truly, actually believe they are in the tour-de-France. They dress up in skin tight, multicoloured clothes, shave all their body hair off , put on a streamlined helmet and biff about on the road believing that they can keep up with traffic.

It gets worse when they bring a friend, and they ride side by side totally ignoring the poor sod behind him that is trying to get past without causing offence or inconvenience to them as they have the moral high ground and he is murdering the planet, and therefore a son of Satan.

But it doesn’t stop there, oh no…

Today (a Sunday) I had to go and get my wife from work, a not bad run of some 15 miles of twisty bits and some long straights. 60Mph is the speed limit over about 90% all of it just single lane, but at 7am it would be clear of traffic so a nice sunny run to get the missus. Or so I thought.

The local bicycle clubbery had decided to hold a ‘Cycle Event’ I found this out by reading the sign pinned to the back of a bloke with a beard wearing a high vis jacket. I then saw a swarm of brightly coloured spandex for the next 15 miles and had to spend my time over taking time and time again, trying not to hit the driver coming the other way head on as he did the same. I’m not going to say it was a race, even though there were timers, and even a chequered flag, and event is an event. Safety was paramount, but safety and cycling are very hard to have in the same sentence, so maybe that’s why cyclists ignore safety for the most part and just don a polystyrene hat and put the blame firmly on the motorist if there is an accident (remember, motorists are planet killers) This probably explains why I watched these event participants ride the wrong way up the road in places, fix their bikes in the road in other places, ride in a pack sometimes three abreast, causing other road users to continually overtake them on the wrong side of the road, now, add to the fact this was happening on BOTH sides, and it forced a ton of metal at 60mph to drive at each other head on time after time. If you were to put forward an ‘event’ like this to any sane person he would reach for the phone and find out if the local loony bin had a break out!

Me, you and every other motorist pays through the nose in petrol tax, road tax insurance premiums, etc, but it costs the cyclist nothing to use all of the roads that we pay for. If I got a bunch of 50 of my mates to have a timed ‘event’ from here to Basingstoke and back, then every beard in 5 miles would ring the police, the air force and the SAS to put a stop to it. Even when a group of like minded car freaks get together in a car park for a chat and some appreciation of other car nuts hard work, the beardies get sniffy. As soon as an engine is revved up it goes from a cruise to a rave, someone is having some fun.

And that’s just not allowed

A Question of Style…

Men in flip flops and three quarter length shorts are just wrong.

I cannot believe these people wake up in the morning, pull on a pair of these ridiculous trousers, slide into a pair of between toed, rubber soled pool shoes and think “Damn I look good..” because they just look plain stupid. I on the other hand look great as I slide on my knackered Dunlop Green Flash tennis pumps and ‘weekend jeans’ (aka full of holes) But it seems I am in a minority as I see hundreds of men, shoulders back and chests out, strutting about with a quarter of hairy leg being shown and yellowing nailed feet proudly shod in split toed glory without a care in the world. While its a pleasant discovery to see someone stride by in a pair of Dunlops.

Style means different things to different people, sure we all need to wear shoes (well, some women with short hair and beards who drink warm vegetable juice and breastfeed sheep don’t) but its nice to have shoes that make us feel good as well as keeping out the rain. Same with cars, there are some cars out there that I wouldn’t be seen dead in. Mark 5 Escort, anything with seven seats, anything that even resembles a Land Rover, anything with a Rover badge etc etc, but they will all drive along, keep me dry and (unless its a Rover) get me to my destination. These cars leave me stone cold, yes I would get there but I would have to drive with a bag over my head, and the list is not complete there are hundreds of cars out there that I think have been designed by a mad, blind chimpanzee, honestly you would have been better giving a few crayons to class 2B of St Mary’s Primary, to design the look of some of these cars rather than massively overpaid designers with mechanical pencils, at least you would get a few machine guns on the bumper.

But I am in a minority again, the design teams of these companies really do know a thing or two because these cars sell (except the Rovers) People are buying them in droves, the roads are filled with Chevrolets and family orientated Vauxhalls, all in various shades of brown, but I wonder if they are buying it on looks, I bet that looks and styling are the last thing on their minds because they are British and British people have no passion for cars whatsoever.
Need proof? well look at the facts, Ford, Vauxhall, Honda, Toyota, BMW, Audi, VW, Citroen, Peugeot. Notice a connection? yup all of these are top selling car brands in the UK, and not one of them is British (nope, Ford isnt, nor is Vauxhall. Both are American) and all of them are dull, with the very odd exception in the range, the cars are so boring that you need to be prodded with a stick whilst driving them, where as cars from our heritage,  Lotus, Mclaren, AC, Caterham, TVR, Healy, MG, All British, all hairy arsed, grin making, fuel drinking fun machines that break down, kill the environment and upset the odd sheep, either don’t exist or have been sold to Johnnie Foreigner, or only manage to shift 3 cars every decade to some rich bloke to do track days with. I have said before that its the fault of the Company Car, that beige fourwheel box that sits in the driveway waiting to be used like a screwdriver, a means to an end.
But I think its worse than that. Somewhere, somehow the British have had all  the petrol syphoned from their blood. Show your new car to anyone and the first thing they will say is ‘Whats its MPG?’ or ‘Bet thats a lot to insure’ Wind the clock back, and it will be ‘How fast does it go?’ or ‘Bet it wont beat mine from the Cafe to the bottom of the hill’ But that sort of thinking nowadays is seemed to be not ‘PC’ not ‘Green’ (bloody hell I hate environmentalists) and too hooligan.
Thank god then for the Italians, they dont give a stuff about practicality, as long as it looks good and you look good in it then they have done their job. Which is why when anything that comes from Alfa Romeo rolls by it stands out and you can’t help but look, but be warned! the new 8c Spider is so beautiful, it makes your eyes bleed.

Driven to Distraction…

How many times have you driven along and thought to yourself  ‘I don’t remember getting here!’ because you were miles away, thinking of something else?

Distractions while driving are so common its laughable, you may even be reading this on a mobile phone right now waiting in a traffic jam, maybe I’ll hang on and write some boring stuff so you give up and concentrate on the road. If you get caught drink driving, driving under the influence of drugs or using a mobile then you are in serious risk of not only killing yourself, your passengers and anyone you hit, but more importantly you could damage your car and loose your license! But there are so many more distractions that are not directly punishable, but are equally as dangerous if not more.

Sausage rolls, Cornish Pasties, Cheese and Ham Slices, all have been designed with the motorist in mind. All conceal a delicious filling in a crumbly pastry that no matter what you do, bits will fall down the crack between the seat and center console, and you will look and tut, taking your eye off the road for a second. That’s even if you have it out of the packet, because if not, and you are already driving away from the garage, probably steering with your knees and the car is in first gear doing 10,000rpm while you attempt to open it. How about fast food?  Who hasn’t eaten a tasty box of Mc Donalds finest fries, the cheery red box wedged between your legs, your wedding vegetables protected only by a thin bit of printed card from the potato sticks at 500 degrees?

We have all seen a few lady drivers (and a few men!) using the mirror to check the makeup or hair, none of us are innocent, I bet there has been a time where you have driven with a headache, busting for a pee, in an argument with the passenger/wife, looked at a pretty girl, tried to tune the radio at 40mph, had the glowy bit of the cigarette fall off into your lap which results in some frantic flapping as your genitals catch fire and not noticed the red traffic/brake light/old lady until you are 4 inches from it, slammed on the brakes and by some miracle missed hitting the car/person/wall.

But the worse, the very very worse has to be children in the car. Little junior is trying to bite the head off his little sisters dolly and little sister is screaming at the top of her sweet little lungs, soccer mum turns around to yell back and dish out a good old fasioned  box to the ears and bang! her Range Rover has just squashed another victim.

We can’t stop people having children (secretly I wish some people were not permitted to breed, but that also falls under my ‘When I become King’ rules) So I put the blame for this firmly at the feet of Volvo and Mercedes.

Safety in cars is a bad thing. If you have a monumental crash in a car made back in the days when football players were all called ‘Nobby’ and everything cost tuppence ha’penny, you died. Painfully. Pointy bits of car would stick in you, hard bits would squash you, and hot bits would burn you. If you were lucky you ended up playing a harp, if unlucky you would leak a bit first, so you tended to pay a lot of attention to what you were doing. In these days of side impact bars, three point seat belts, anti-lock, carbon brakes, crumple zones and the like, its made us complacent. The Mercedes E class has a bonnet with shock absorbers, that make it pop up if the car thinks its about to run some one over, its a bit like driving around with a trampoline strapped to the front of the car. All very clever stuff, but the bloke behind the wheel now believes that he can snow plough his way through bus queues awarding points to the old ladies that perform triple somersaults with a tuck as they boing off his pedestrian safety device.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not for one second saying safety in cars is a bad thing, but its the false sense of security it gives you,as you drive your Volvo that has so many airbags, that in an impact the kids can be amused using it as a bouncy castle while waiting for the tow truck to arrive. These devices are very clever, there are cars that can detect if you wander over the white line, a sure sign that you are getting drowsy, there is even a car that can sense that its just about to have a crash and applies its brakes. All this stuff is brilliant and forward thinking, but the weak link as always is the driver. If we could instill a tiny bit of fear, say a mild electric shock rather than the gentle vibration his seat gives him when he wanders over the line, or maybe a spike, about chest height reminding him to stop relying on the fact that he will walk away after doing something stupid, because he is in the Volvo and the other poor sod isn’t.