Wow! It’s a Peugeot Focus 318i RS VXR!

I’m very rarely surprised these days, I seem to have contracted a  state of mind that has grown over my psyche, encompassing it in a hard shell of cynicism and grudging acceptance. Sex, violence and swearing on TV hardly raise an eyebrow, but I remember back in the 1980′s when Channel 4 tried to advise the viewer that their late night movie might contain a flash of breast or the odd profanity, by putting a little red triangle in the upper corner of the screen. You can imagine how the ratings soared when that little symbol flashed up. I am even more accepting of other peoples terrible driving and terrible car choices because I really dont think its their fault. I think its just acceptance of the inevitable. Channel 4 took away their triangle as tv got more and more ‘edgy’ and boobs and swearing gradually became acceptable.

I was driving along the other day, minding my own business, when I noticed in my rear view mirror I was being tailgated by a black car. Thinking (foolishly) that he was up for a little fun I sped up slightly and flicked the car nicely through a rather jolly set of ‘S’ bends. Nothing fast, nothing dangerous, all under control and under the speed limit. A glance in the mirror shows our friend had fallen way behind so I thought better of it and fell back to my relaxed way of driving, right up until we hit another straight bit where Mr Black Car resumes its position 3/4 of an inch off of my bumper. I looked at my speed, thinking I was inconveniencing the poor guy by driving at 28MPH in a 60 zone (this will be punishable by public flogging when I run the country) but no, I was chugging along at 55. More bends come up so a nice swoop, linking them together and another glance in the mirror shows Black car way off in the distance. I’m by far not the best driver in the world, but I love to drive, this guy seemed to be perfectly capable of welding his foot to the floor in a straight line but totally fell to bits when presented with a set of curves. Any idiot can go fast in a straight line, when I went to Japan the plane I was on did over 500MPH for 12 hours straight!

Now I am really puzzled. The problem is not that the driver cannot take a corner unless he is doing 3mph. The problem is I cannot tell what the car is.

I remember a time when I could tell you what a car was, and probably what level of trim it was with just a glance, but now I am wracking my brains and loosing concentration on the road ahead because of this totally new emotion of surprise. Is it a Renault? Well it looks like a smallish hatchback but the headlights are not quite right. By this time, my passenger has roused himself from staring gormlessly out of the window,you know the look, the one only a teenager could muster, and realises that something is going on. “Whats the car behind us?” I ask, “Pug I fink” comes the muted reply. Its not a Peugeot, and this worries me even more. if  the young and trendy don’t know their cars or don’t see cars as interesting then the future of motoring looks very bleak indeed, and cars slip into the same value level as a biro.

The agony of not being able to identify the badly driven black hatch was solved moments later when the road straightened out and it bowled by me, valve gear screaming in submission, revealing that it was indeed a 2010 Fiesta Zetec S (and we all know what Zetec means, right? ) I was pretty amazed that I had totally failed to recognise who even made it, but very happy to see a nice Mk2 Golf GTi pass me on the other side of the road and give the Polo a big thumbs up.

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