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.

Car Prejudice, its just not right.

What comes to mind when you think of a Vauxhall Corsa?

Or how about a Citroen Saxo? For my more mature readers, a Ford Escort or Fiesta? For my REALLY old readers a Ford Capri or Cortina E? These cars are linked together by one thing. Prejudice. They are linked to spotty teenagers who get moist at the thought of big exhausts, loud stereos and cardboard rollcages. They are driven badly, with no concern or thought for others, often covered in garish paint jobs and comedy bodykits. Later on, when spotty teen can manage to stay in a job for more than five minutes he might graduate to a Subaru, Evo or BMW transplanting the huge 1,000,000 watt stereo and any bits of the comedy bodykit that will fit on it, but still drive like a moron, not looking where he is going just watching to see if he is being noticed.

If our friend cannot afford to upgrade his ratty old Fiesta, he has an option of a small crimewave to fund it,sell some grass clippings to a few 15 year olds or maybe stick up the local post office with a BB gun and see if the old dear behind the counter will come over with the goods. Unfortunately for our hapless hero, the post office has brilliant security and the local Rozzers arrive in under a minute and our man is now face down in the back of a van in handcuffs crying for his mummy, peeing his pants. Some time later he is sent down, and his assets seized.

OK so you are wondering where this is going right? Well the first thing that strikes me is that all of the above cars, through no fault of there own are prejudiced against because of the type of people that drive them. Its not the cars fault. It has nothing to do with what sort of car they are, how they handle or how much power they have, its all to do with the fact they are cheap and readily available. Normal people will steer clear because even if you mention to your friends that you are going to look at a Saxo or 106, your friend will smile and nod but will think all sorts of nasty things. Or if he is blunt and to the point, will laugh loudly and call you names. Its hard to find a car from this genre that has not been driven round Halfords a few times, then had its engine thrashed to oblivion with only Tesco 20W/50 multigrade tractor oil for protection. But if you do find one you will be so pleasantly surprised. Saxos are fun, Corsas are fun and with a tweek or two suspension wise you can have big grins for absolute peanuts. I spent a fantastic weekend recently in the company of a lot of Evo owners who knew their cars inside and out, loved them and drove them to the limit, just how nature intended. There wasn’t a part on the cars that were not there for a reason, and not a chavvy between them, just good, dedicated drivers that loved driving. So look past the predudice, and look at the cars not the moron behind the wheel.

The second point stems from something I watched on TV last night. Top Gear destroyed a perfectly good Evo because it was an asset of a drug dealer and the Judge ruled that it was to be destroyed. James May, one of the presenters, made a very valid point that was ignored by most. He said that he felt a bit rotten, and it wasn’t the cars fault that its owner was a drug dealing scumbag, so why take it out on the car? Well I can see the point that the car is a direct result of the dirty money made on the misery of others (but if I’m honest I have no time for drug users either, they deserve all they get) and should be taken away from the criminal, but to destroy something like that is just stupid. Sell it, get it re registered and let it bring a smile to someone who appreciates it for what it is rather than what it represents.

Hmm… quite a serious and grown up blog this time, I need to rectify that! Anyone selling a Corsa or Saxo?

New cars are toasters.

There are many things you can blame your parents for.

Unmanageable hair, being forced to wear unfashionable tank tops, annoying little sisters. I have to blame my parents for my disinterest in new cars. My dad used to be a biker, and had many of the British greats. Vincent, BSA, Ariel and so on and I can remember him lovingly fiddling and caressing these things as if they were alive. Then we had cars, a green Mini that made a lot of noise, an old blue Vauxhall who’s suspension collapsed and door handle fell off on a trip to the Isle of Sheppey (its not a romantic, golden sandy paradise, its a windswept desolate place with a prison in the middle) and more, but none of that mattered because he bought these cars himself and all the care and maintenance to make them last another week was up to him.

Then dear old dad did something monumentally stupid.

He got a good job, that paid well and supplied him with a company car.

Looking back, this was a mistake, it took away the importance of the car, not only for him but for his very impressionable young son. Gone were the Saturday morning oil changes, gone were the addition of gauges and tinsel from the local motorfactors (a place that smelled so good, a mixture of oily wood and paraffin) If the car blew up or something fell off he got another one, or it was driven to a garage and fixed, to hell with the cost, the company was paying. If the tyres wore out then Kwik-Fit’s finest could change them and not a penny of his money or hour of his labour was spent. This turned the car from something interesting and something worthwhile knowing about, into the automotive equivalent of a toaster.
Dad had a number of company cars, all of them dull, most of them Vauxhalls. A few stood out, the huge Cortina estate that we slept in all the way down the M4 to out Devonshire holidays, the red Mk1 Astra with alloy wheels was nice but sadly it was a mish-mash of Cavaliers and the odd Rover 214.
What this did to me was make me loose sight that new cars could be exciting and interesting, hot Golfs and Peugeot’s passed me by, Honda’s type R was just a civic with big wheels, and as to even thinking about tuning the engine, uprating the suspension or even bothering with better tyres was lost on me, I mean, would you try and improve the toaster? make the washing machine wash faster by changing its bushes to polycarbonate? Lower the fridge so it chilled lettuces better? No of course not and I saw new cars in the same light.
When it was my turn to buy a car I looked backwards, partly because a £40 Escort Mk1 was all I could afford, but partly because I had no idea that anything modern could be remotely interesting. This view can be laid firmly again at Pop’s feet as he then, just as I bought my first VW Beetle (sourced by him, rusty as hell and totally knackered BUT I had the time of my life fixing it, and received a HUGE feeling of satisfaction when it passed its MOT) Daddy went out and bought a 1974 VW Camper, orange and white.This re ignighted his passion for tinkering and could be found most weekends either under it  trying to fix it, trying to make it start or adding some ingenious ‘thing’ to it that made it more funky, so of course I was inspired to get the beetle done, but it drove home the message that old cars=worth playing with new cars=frankly, no.

Its funny how things change in your life, it was not until I met the good friend I keep mentioning, who showed me how with a few bolt ons, a tweek here and there a new Civic can be improved on and even more so can be safe, more fun and indeed faster than the old rattleboxes that I nostalgically pine for and imagined to be better because they were not the ‘throwaway appliance’ that I had been taught . Old cars are wonderful, Dad taught me a lot about the importance of maintaining and caring for what you have when its your money.

The company, forcing beige repmobiles onto its workforce has a lot to answer for, but thankfully at last I realise, all cars are just brilliant.

Geeked out on speed

Last week I kind of geeked out.

Writing this blog is teaching me a lot, and getting your point across in 1000 or so words is something I am learning is not easy to do. The point was to show how driving games can help in the real world, to show how different parts effect the car, how different lines give different results and what’s good and not so good about tuning. So there you have it, last weeks blog, that I agonized trying to get under 1000 words, condensed into a few lines. This points out a big weakness in my writing, I tend to go on a bit.

Well, I intend to continue going on a bit this week, because I think its high time for a good old fashioned rant.

If you have a puncture and are forced to use one of those skinny space saver wheels, if you have just had your front brake pads fall out or if you are just taking  your pet goldfish for a spin in the car and don’t want to spill his water, then its perfectly acceptable to drive through a 60mph speed limit at 28. I bet that one of the above doesn’t happen very often. Unfortunately, there are people out there who drive at 28mph no matter what the limit is, and this happens very often, normally when I have just found a nice stretch of smooth and twisty tarmac and the car is running well. For the life of me I cant think why they do it unless one of the reasons above or they are scared stiff of third gear.

When I become King it will be punishable by firing squad to drive slower than 5mph off the limit, people under this speed will have their cars crushed and be forced to use the bus. I simply cannot understand it  unless there is a darker reason. They get off on it. They get a sexual thrill of having the knowledge that they are holding people up, they have, for a little while in their tiny mean screwed up little minds power over all the people behind them. Caravanners have a similar mentality, but they get punished enough by having to spend two weeks in a field, living in a tin box and pooping in a bucket, oh and yes while Im on the subject, this goes out to the bloke who tried to smugly tell me through the medium of the bumper sticker that ‘I may be slow, but I have more holidays than you’, listen mate, I would rather never go on holiday again if I had to spend five minutes either towing a caravan or sitting in a field in one.
Now don’t get the wrong idea, I think speed limits are important and to be honest on the whole sensible, with the exception of motorways, but Ill get on to them in a minute. 30mph in town is  a good idea, 40 out of town is not too bad and 60 through the lanes is a right laugh, unless you meet a train of cars in the wake of a caravan or buffoon in a Bee Em doing 30, or even worse, a horse. What is the damn problem with horse owners? for god sake ride the bloody thing in a field! “The horse was here before the car” they wail and glare at us dissaprovingly as we trundle by, well its not the poor horses fault that some middle class moron wants to wear stupid trousers and try to relive Imperial England, yes and we used to think the earth was flat, but technology proved it wasn’t, progress happens, get off the road and ride that walking Pritt Stick in the woods! But watch out for Land Rovers with big v8s ‘greenlane-ing’…

Maximum speed is good but when was the last time you saw minimum speed? I looked it up, its in the Highway Code, its a round blue sign with a number in it, normally a very low number like 5 or 10, and in all my driving life I have only seen it once, on the Dartford Tunnel, and as that hardly moves its just doesn’t count. No in my Britain there would be fines that made your pee blood if you didn’t go fast enough. The thing is, they already do it in America, America for goodness sake!
All of this makes me sound like a speed hungry, reckless hooligan, but honestly I just like driving, even if its just to work I cant get enough, the best bit about working (apart from the pay packet) is the fact I have to drive home. Now look there are some of you out there who will work in the city and whinge and moan and go on about how awful it is sitting in a jam waiting to get through Blackwall then sitting again waiting all along Commercial Street. Look chaps think of this, yes you are sitting still but look where you are, you are comfortable, dry, warm and entertained (if you think a bit ahead and you know you are going to be stuck, why not bring along some favorite cds? or for as little as £10 you can get a celebrity to read a story to you on one of those audio books) but the best bit is you are in your own space, you can stretch out, pick your nose, talk to yourself and no one cares. 2 hours in a car or 1 hour standing crushed under someones armpit in a train? no contest! It annoys me so much when on the way home, I have taken a detour along a really nice bit of road, with some swoopy bends and great tarmac I get stuck behind some guy doing 28 and the limit is 60. Im not asking for everyone to drive like I do (ie badly) but come on, look in your mirror, if there is a huge train of cars behind you and nothing in front, surely that tells you something? It should tell you to drive faster, move over or take the bus.

Oh and the subject of motorways is simple up the limit to 80, as everyone does 80 anyway, there are no bends and everyone is going the same way so its a safe number, but boring as hell to drive along. When it rains or is foggy, drop the limit, now where do they do this already?

Videogames. A way to a clean license?

Games

I have been an avid gamer for more years than I can remember and at time of writing I cannot see me stopping. I know this is a car column but I think driving games of today are of use to us when we drive for real.

This really is a golden age for games, the consoles that we have available to us cost absolutely nothing in comparison to what we had at the start of the home videogame era. 1080p HD graphics, 5.1 Dolby stereo, superfast processors bring to us a realm of virtual reality that can make us jump out of our skin when playing Silent Hill or wince in pain as we take a bullet in  Call of Duty 4. We didn’t experience that sort of thing back on the ol’ Atari 2600 where, to quote Grand Theft Auto Vice City, ‘The red square chases the green square, or for variety, the green square chases the red. That is NOT to say these early consoles were rubbish, they were far from it. I cannot tell you how many hours I lost playing Crystal Castles or Yars Revenge, but by comparison the only way we could get anywhere near realism would be to visit an Arcade.

Oh how I mourn the loss of the Videogame Arcade! For any of you that were born after about 1975 and have not experienced the smoky, dark cavern that thumped to the sounds of Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet in the very early ’80s have missed out on somthing special. How cool was it to climb into the cabinet of the Star Wars machine, slip in 10p and hear ‘Red Five Standing By’  in your ears as you gripped the controls that had been lifted straight from an X-Wing? Or wandered down row upon row of Jamma cabinets (Game geeks will know what this is, so dont worry) All running different games, all glowing with amazing cabinet art just to get you to put in your 10p. So many firsts in the 80’s, Gauntlet gave us 4 player simultaneous gaming, if the Elf shot the food, the player got a dead arm from the Warrior.

The cabinets that got my attention were released in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Things were still woefully un realistic back home, my Sinclair Spectrum (48k, rubber keys and I still have it!) was good, and to be fair all I ever played on it was ‘Elite’ (remember ‘LensLok’?)But it was a long long way from actually ‘being there’ but luckily something happened to me in 1986 that changed all that, I discovered ‘OutRun‘. Now here was a game that had it all, amazing colour graphics, a killer sound track that you could choose by tuning the radio (HOW cool was that??) but by far the best bit was the fact that the whole cabinet, that was shaped like a car, moved. It was SO awesome that you could almost smell the sea and feel the warmth from the sun and you sped along increasingly difficult tracks, tracks that YOU chose depending on the route you took in your bright red Testerossa, oops sorry I mean Red Sports Car (Sega sort of forgot to ask Ferrari if they could use the car in the game, Ferrari went nuts until it saw how popular the game was and how well it showed the car off, don’t forget this was also the decade for ‘Miami Vice‘ so we all walked around with our suit jacket sleeves rolled up, wore deck shoes with no socks (dear lord I did too…) and LUSTED after a white Ferrari Testarossa with only one wing mirror (don’t believe me about the mirror? look it up! its true) Ferrari forgot to be cross and jumped on the bandwagon, check out the line up in the latest Outrun on Xbox 360 and PS3. These new cabinets were amazing. They moved they were bigger so you sat and became part of the game, rather than standing and just playing. Some, like G-loc in the R360 cabinet, a flying/shooting game, strapped you in so you could do a full 360 loop!
By this time though the new gen home consoles were really getting going, I don’t want to bore you with the history of  videogames (I could write a darn book on it, yes, I’m THAT geeky) but we are at a point now where realism, proper physics and ‘feel’ are almost achievable at home.
Gran Turismo was released in 1997 for the PS1 and it caused a sensation. 10 million copies were sold and we couldn’t get enough. I bet none of you out there in Blogland knew what an R32 Skyline was until you played this game and built the 1000hp monster (in green livery) The Skyline is one of the most desirable cars on the planet to the ‘Playstation Generation’ which I am proud to be part of. Not only did it introduce such interesting cars like the Chaser, Soarer, Cyborg etc it also introduced the concept of  tuning. Not the usual ‘bung a Webber on it and add  a sunstrip’ that used to adorn most Escorts, but real tuning from  exotic sounding companies, Mugen, Nismo, Ralliart and so on. Physics were not bad either for the time, and the replays, wow!

We are now at a point where using force feedback controllers and steering wheels we can adjust the tiniest thing on our virtual car. Thanks to software like ‘Forza 2‘ we can tweak the anti-roll bars so it will corner flatter,
soften the suspension or adjust the boost so we can get round Nurburgring in under 7 minutes, its got to such a stage that there are virtual tuners out there that will tune your car, tweak and fiddle until its perfect, for a price of course. So how does this relate to driving a real car?  I am convinced theory can be learned from games like this, how to place yourself on the approach to a corner, how power affects handling etc.

But the main difference is, that if you screw it up on the Nurburgring while playing Forza, you can just hit reset.