Is It Just Me...

Or is the decision to absolve councils of responsibility for gritting roads looking pretty short-sighted and remarkably stupid? I'd say that this was a benefit of perfect hindsight, however a number of people pointed this out at the time, myself included...

Wonderful that our integrated transport system has coped with the strain... oh, or perhaps not.

End Of The Road For 4Car

Channel 4 has announced that a fall-off in advertising revenue is going to mean that its 4Car website is going to close at the end of the year. That's a sign of how the credit crunch has hit the motoring industry and the knock-on effect its now having.

Yet another thing that we have to thank our scumbag banking community for. (Hi to any scumbag bankers reading this!)

Eking Out That Last Gallon

Want to know the secret of getting the absolute best economy out of your car in these times of unfeasibly high petrol prices? Cornering quickly.

Now I don't mean the sort of cornering quickly that you'll see at a race track on a Sunday (or outside your local Mcdonalds drive-thru on a Saturday night) which combines late hard braking with vicious acceleration because that isn't really going to boost your mileage one bit.

The sort of cornering I'm talking about involves carrying as much as speed as possible all the way through the corner - whether it be a roundabout or road deviation - to minimise braking and acceleration either side of the said corner.

The trick is to come off the gas at a point approaching the corner where the impact of friction and drag will cause the car to slow gently to the fastest possible speed that is safe to negotiate the corner. The more speed you carry through the corner, the less you have to accelerate out of it, the better your mileage. In an ideal world you'd be cornering right on the limit of the adhesion of your tyres, but in the real world safety considerations will temper your entry speed - especially on a blind corner.

Nevertheless turning in a 5-10% improvement in your mileage should be relatively easy to do if you use this technique ruthlessly.

The Sad State Of Car Magazine

Its many years since I last bought a copy of Car Magazine, even so I was shocked to see how the once mighty tome has fallen from its once loft perch. The magazine that hosted such automotive journalism as LJK Setright, George Bishop, Phil Llewellyn and Russell Bulgin now hosts a weak selection with little of interest to say.

The magazine as a genre is dying, along with other print media - although the death throes will take at least another generation. Car Magazine, however, appears to have died many years ago.

Original Golf Finally Dies

Yes, you're probably thinking that the original Golf has been dead for a quarter of a century. Not so. This is the South African built Citi Golf, a Mark 1 Golf that wouldn't die.

Now VWSA has to terminate production to make room for newer, more profitable lines to be exported for valuable currency. The Mark 1 Golf will finally have to die.

It will go out with a bang however, with a 1600cc, 99bhp version (called the Mk1) which will sport part leather interior alloy wheels and near Mk1 GTI performance.

The car that invented the hot hatch we salute you.

Cars That Should Never Have Been: Suzuki X-90

There are some cars that are seminal, their very existence moves motoring on in some way. The Mini, the Alfasud and the Golf GTI are good examples.

The flipside are the cars that should not only never have made it to market but their design teams should have been incarcerated and never allowed into the motor industry ever again.

I'm not talking about bad, Cheap cars here. After all its hardly surprising that, for example, the Lada Riva, Proton Satria or FSO Polonez were dreadful but here we're going to transcend that definition to look at some cars with no redeeming factors.

So we come to the Suzuki X90 a car so mixed up that its appeal was limited to a few mentally unstable people in a very small niche.

What exactly is it? Nominally its a four wheel drive off roader. But then it has only two seats, a small boot and a wobbly chassis. So its a sportscar then? Except that its jacked up like an off roader, has crossover tyres and handles like a bowl of semolina. Well maybe it looks good then? Have you seen the pictures? Premium branding? Suzuki? I don't think so. Economy? No. Comfort? Not really. Good re-sale? Hardly.

I can't see any reason why any person would drive one of these - unless you were being well-paid for the suffering.

They Said What? Vauxhall Motors In Fantasy- land

I'm not a big fan of Vauxhalls. They exemplify the low-mark of mediocrity that manufacturers think can be passed off on the general public. Ford inhabited this same area for much of the eighties but have since moved on.

For some reason Vauxhall sends me its magazine, the latest issue of which makes special mention of the new Astra and, in a (futile) attempt to drum up some ill-deserved nostalgia, looks back at the first British Astra.

The piece contains the line 'the Mk 1 also saw the birth of the Astra GTE... that quickly stole the Golf GTI's thunder'. I kid you not!

Now I'm not sure what planet this copywriter was living on in the 1980s but it sure wasn't this one. The GTE was about as close to stealing the GTI's thunder as it was to beating Concorde across the Atlantic. Contemporary road testers never even considered it in the same league as the Golf and you can look as hard as you like but you won't find a road test that says otherwise.

The arrival of the Mk 2 and its headline 126 MPH did nothing to trouble the GTI either. In fact that car's chronic understeer was a topic of much amusement in the performance and racing scenes.

In terms of eighties hot hatches the Astra comes last behind just about anything else in terms of credibility.

No amount of history rewriting will ever change that. Despite what Vauxhall's copywriters seem to think.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty, But Always Liable

Intending to defend yourself against a motoring charge of which you are innocent? Soon it will be a pointless exercise as the Government is planning to make drivers liable for their court costs whether they are found guilty or not.

Ignoring even the most basic principle of justice - that the loser pays - the Government intends to save themselves £20m a year but not reimbursing the court costs of drivers found innocent of the charge against them.

This gives the Police free reign to prosecute innocent drivers in ever increasing numbers - especially as targets are tied to their salaries.

Whilst they're at it they might as well do away with the right to a fair trial and bring back the hanging judges.

It's looking like the collective nonsense which amounts to a British Transport policy, plus the legal minefield which awaits drivers the minute they set forth on the road may finally be enough to drive us all off the road...

Four Wheel Drive Doesn't Make You Invulnerable

Snow is great fun to drive on, honing your car control at speeds only otherwise available on a skid pan. Snow on top of sheet ice is a different matter and should be treated with the utmost of respect.

In the eighties London used to get regular snowfalls in the winter - nothing that would be noticed by any self-respecting Scandinavian but enough to bring the Capital city grinding to a halt more often than not. On this particular occasion the roads were relatively deserted and I was being very cautious indeed piloting my Alfasud through the morning's new snowfall over what I knew to be ice.

The guy in the Suzuki SJ410 however was putting absolute faith in the four-wheel drive of his ride and the smug look on his face as he came sailing past me was matched only by his ridiculous eighties perm and bleach hairstyle.

Payback was to be swift however, as he reached the bottom of the incline and totally failed to negotiate the gentle corner located there, presumably courtesy of the ice under all that enticing snow. The little Suzuki ploughed straight-on, crossed to the other side of the road and crunched - at relatively low speed it has to be said - into the bus shelter located there all but demolishing it.

Laugh? I nearly coughed a lung up.

So remember folks, four-wheel drive is only of use for traction - putting power down to the road. It won't give you an ounce of improved cornering or stopping ability. A particularly important message as we approach Winter, I feel.

There's A Crossing, Use It

Does it annoy you when pedestrians cross the road just a short walk away from a controlled crossing? Drives me up the wall, especially when its parents with kids or slow moving old people. I remember seeing some research that showed a phenomenally high percentage of pedestrian fatalities happened within 50 yards of a recognised crossing but not actually on one. These people are throwing their lives away on the back of pure laziness.

Our councils are heavily strapped for cash, so if they made an effort to put a crossing in for pity's sake use it. You'll save my sanity, get some exercise and probably live longer too.

Exeo, Spanish For Rebadged

Sharing major components is a way of life for modern motor manufacturers, its not uncommon for the same car to come out, with varying degrees of customisation, from a number of manufacturers. Think Grande Punto, Alfa Mito and Vauxhall Corsa for example.

Whilst its not ideal, its something we can live with if it means that some old names continue to live on past what would have been their final moments.

What VW has done with the new Seat Exeo has been to exhume the recently deceased Audi A4, spit on a tissue and wipe its face; before sending it out of the door in unfamiliar clothes. Not that the old car was bad, just outdated. And at the price of a year old A4 not bad value either. But lets be honest, would you rather park a year-old Audi or a brand new Seat on your drive if you were spending your own money?

Bond Isn't Much Of A Driver

Cars in films don't often end up making for great entertainment if you're a petrolhead.

For example Quantum Of Solace, the most recent Bond film. The opening credits get a plus one for skipping the ludicrous Hollywood explosions whenever there is a car crash, but minus several hundred for allowing Bond's Aston Martin to be pegged by an Alfa 159 (unfeasible) and then a Land Rover Defender (beyond fantasy) leading us to surmise that the World's leading secret agent has all the driving talent of an arthritic pensioner from Southport.

Not good enough Bond. Do better next time.

How Things Have Changed: Rush Hour Traffic

I guess one of the things I wanted to record here were some of the epic journeys that driving has lost forever, with the advent of speed cameras, traffic calming and the increase in the sheer weight of traffic. This is one of those journeys which I suspect will never be possible again.

The first car I had was a Fiat 128. It was very green, very tempremental and indecently fast for a 1300cc engined car - especially in the hands of an equally green seventeen year-old with no understanding of speed limits and an absolute belief that the road was a racetrack with extra obstacles. At the time the Government had barely begun its drink driving campaign, so speed and speeding weren't that big a deal. For most traffic officers pulling over a young driver was essentially an opportunity to check your documents or issue a 'producer' if you didn't have them with you.

One of the regular journeys that car undertook was a run from Acton Town in West London, down to the Target Pub Roundabout, via Hangar Lane and the Western Avenue. A journey of seven miles. And whilst traffic wasn't anything like as bad as today, it will still a pretty sticky place to be come rush hour.

On the day in question, that little Fiat grew wings and despite being loaded with four strapping apprentices and not having seen the inside of a workshop since the day it was bought, managed to despatch those seven miles in a little under seven minutes. Rules of the road weren't just broken, they were annihilated; in modern Britain I'd have been locked away and the key not just thrown away, it would have been melted down and recycled into modern art.

That's a better than 60mph average speed through the streets of West London in rush hour in an underpowered Italian econobox. That particular feat will never be achieved again - not on four wheels anyway...

Is This The Ugliest Car Ever?

Porsche's history of universally glorious cars has been torn up over the last few years. First the Cayenne, which is a bit, ermm, strange looking, with its '911 being humped by a Range Rover' styling and despite its astonishing popularity - no doubt down to the badge on the nose - it still hasn't grown on me. But whilst the Cayenne is bizarre this thing is seven shades of ugly.

The Panamera (for such is the name of the beast) packs Porsche performance into the bastard offspring of a 911 and a AMC Pacer. It will carry you and three of your friends in speed and comfort with the added bonus of not being able to see the outside whilst you are sat inside.

I'm guessing that over in Italy they'll be ramping up production of the Maserati Quattroporte in response to the extra demand they'll see from people wanting to get as far away from this thing as possible.

Mclaren MP4-12C 'Woking'

So Mclaren is going to become a serious road car company? The MP4-12C (too much of a mouthful and so I'm going to call this thing the Woking as suggested by Car Magazine's Chris Chilton) is an interesting choice to take that ambition forward.

Unlike the amazing F1, which was the fruit of Gordon Murray's no compromise school of design, the Woking looks pretty bland for a supercar. The nose and canopy are pure Ferrari, the front mounted air intakes and grill are comical and the rear is very generic. In fact comparison with the new Ferrari Italia below shows astonishing similarities. Now its hard to start a design language with your first car and as Mclaren delivers stablemates this will probably fit the line-up well. Nonetheless Mclaren are looking to ship around 1000 of these annually - and charge people more than the Ferrari Italia for the privilege - which it will probably achieve despite its looks rather than because of them.

Competition is hotting up for what was only a sub 30,000 car market worldwide in 2007 (and probably less now, post credit-crunch) and with new Ferraris and Lamborghinis, plus the entry of Audi's R8 and Mercedes' SLS Mclaren probably won't find it a walk in the park joining the car making elite.

Ultima Sets New Nurburgring Record

The Nordschleife, Green Hell. The ultimate test of man and machine. For many years these 13 miles of hundreds of corners, blind entries and punishing gradients has been the final proving ground for manufacturers looking to boost the credibility of their performance models.

In recent years Nissan and Porsche have battled for bragging rights. There's a new kid in town though, Ultima, little more than a kit car company selling road legal race cars for track day use.

Michael Vergers took the Ultima around the 'Ring in significantly less than seven minutes - an astounding achievement which takes the record for the fastest ever lap.

I shouldn't imagine that the big two will take this lying down so I'm expecting it to be a busy time as they try to regain their crown.

Video of Verger's lap is available at EVO magazine, http://www.evo.co.uk

It's An Emotional Thing

There is a Mercedes advert which sums up the human-car relationship perfectly. A stream if pictures if ordinary people posing with their cars (all Mercs in this case obviously) is shown over a backing soundtrack. At the end of the sequence the strap line is 'Nobody poses with their toaster'.

I think it sums up our relationship with cars perfectly.

Everything about the car we drive in some way points to our make-up and the events which have shaped our lives up until this point.

And so it goes with our love of marques and models. Go to any old car show and you'll find clubs of people venerating some of the most dreadful pieces of tat - usually because it's old.

Who would imagine that in the depths of BL's industrial problems of the seventies that three decades later there would be people going misty-eyed over rubbish like the Allegro and Princess?

Or more bizarrely that the MGB, out of date from the late sixties would have continued to find buyers right into the eighties and be the cornerstone of several clubs with hundreds of thousands od members?

Whilst these people will tell you that they love their cars in fact it is the emotional attachment which they have to the image of that car which snares them. Perhaps the it's the car their parents owned, or the cool teacher in he school or maybe just some implied nostalgia for a Life not experienced, just seen on TV.

So what car do you drive and what emotional baggage does the badge on the nose carry for you?

My Driving Passion?

I guess before anything else there were cars in my life. Whether they were the toys that raced around my bedroom, the shiny new models that appeared at the London Motor Show or the racing cars that screamed around the circuits of the world for what seemed like interminable hours to a impatient young 'un. Before girls or football or technology or alcohol it was definitely cars. I'm going to try and tell you about my formative (driving) years, discuss some of my cars and car prejudices and reveal some of the 'epic' journeys only possible in the days before speed cameras and draconian driving penalties. I hope you enjoy...