And it’s not just the satnav. Turning the heated seats on, shutting down the traction control, tightening the suspension, adjusting the dashboard brightness, choosing a radio station: in every single car every single thing you do is different.
All of which brings me on to the new Ferrari California T. This is the cheapest, or should I say least expensive, Ferrari and is the company’s first foray into the mainstream market. It’s a cruising car, a convertible 2+2 (yeah, right) in the mould of the Mercedes SL.
This means it will be used every day by people who play golf and live in suburbia. So it needs to be a Ferrari, or else what’s the point? And yet at the same time it needs to be benign and easy. And if it’s going to appeal to the Bobby Ewings of this world, it needs all the toys you get in a Mercedes, all the hi-techery.
As a result, the California comes with the Apple CarPlay system, which pairs the vehicle with every single thing on your iPhone. This means you can, for example, speak a text and the car sends it.
And here’s the most amazing thing. It works. Not once did it mistakenly send the head of the army a message saying, ‘Send three and fourpence – we’re going to a dance.’
However, the rest of the electronic systems were an unfathomable tangle of swearwords and frustration. I couldn’t make the satnav work at all. I can get my head round the system in a Subaru, which takes a while, and even the one in a Jeep, which was set up by a madman, but this flummoxed me, and I don’t know why. I can’t work out whether it’s Ferrari just being obtuse or whether it was suffering from some kind of electronic hiccup. This seems unlikely, though, in a car from the country that invented electricity … he said, with just a hint of a smile.
There’s another issue too. The California comes with the same sort of steering wheel as the 458 Italia. That is definitely Ferrari being obtuse, because it must know by now that putting the buttons for the indicators, headlamps and windscreen wipers on the wheel – which moves about – is galactically idiotic. And yet Ferrari continues to insist it isn’t. I would not buy a Ferrari these days simply because of this.
And because of the beeping. It beeps when you are reversing. It beeps when it thinks you are too close to another car. It beeps when you haven’t done up your seatbelts. It beeps constantly.
And we haven’t even got on to the sheer size of the thing. It’s a problem that affects all Ferraris these days – the F12 is about the same size as a Canadian combine – and in London it’s a menace. After a couple of days I gave up using the narrow rat runs, because I’d spent most of the time reversing.
Which meant I’d had to suffer the beeping. I know I’m going backwards, for God’s sake. I am a sentient being. And as a result I know I wouldn’t have to go backwards if this bloody car weren’t so bloody wide.
So there is much to annoy you in a California T. And only some of it is down to the fact that I’m trying to judge its systems while on the inevitable learning curve. And yet …
Every week I have to drive to the Top Gear test track in Surrey. It’s always rush hour. It’s always drizzling. The traffic’s always awful. There are roadworks every few yards, so it takes fifty minutes to cover the 2 miles from Holland Park to Hammersmith Bridge and, frankly, this is motoring at its worst.
In a normal Ferrari life in these circumstances is intolerable, and I usually end up looking longingly at people on buses. But in the California I was quite content just to sit there listening to the radio. It wasn’t uncomfortable or noisy or show-offy in any way.
Later, it sat on the A3 at a steady 50mph, and it didn’t feel as if I was having to hold back some kind of deranged stallion.
On the face of it, then, what we have here is a car that’s like a Mercedes SL, only a bit harder to live with because of its size and the complexity of its controls. And a bit more expensive.
Yes, but underneath it all it’s still a Ferrari. Oh, sure, the engine is turbocharged now to meet emissions regulations, but you don’t notice that. What you do notice is the feel through the steering and the immediacy of the gear changes. No Mercedes feels quite so – what’s the word? – sharp. And no Mercedes comes with an adjustable speed limiter.
If you’ve always hankered after a Ferrari and you really can’t afford to buy a second car for driving round town in the rain, the California T is a godsend. Yes, its command and control stuff is bonkers and the steering wheel is so stupid I’m not tempted. But I quite understand if you are.
1 February 2015
With this many 911s, they were bound to make a good one
Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS
A colleague of mine noted recently that there are 154 options you can have on a Porsche 911, and as a result there are a staggering 9.6 trillion possible combinations. That, said my meticulous friend, works out at 1,371 versions of the car for every man, woman and child on earth.
But he’s wrong. It’s way more than that. And it gets worse, because the options list is only the beginning. Before that you have to choose what sort of 911 you want. There are many. You can have a 993 series or a 997 or a 991. You can have two-wheel drive, or a two-wheel-drive with more power, and you can have either of those with a hard roof, with a Targa roof or as a cabriolet. Then you can have the exact same set of choices with the four-wheel-drive option. Or you can have a GT3. Or a GT3 RS. Or a Turbo with four-wheel drive or two-wheel drive and a choice of roof arrangements.
It’s all completely mad because all of them look pretty much exactly the same and all of them have broadly the same engine and all of them are driven by people whose penises are about to break.
As I may have mentioned about 200 times over the years, I’ve never been a fan of the 911, whichever one of the 270 million models you happen to be talking about. My prejudice was born back in the early 1990s, when I wasn’t much of a helmsman.
Back then the 911 was a pig. It would understeer when you turned into a corner and, as I didn’t really know what I was doing, I’d take my foot off the accelerator as quickly as possible, which would then cause the car to start oversteering. Which meant I had to undo my seatbelt and cower in the back until it hit something and stopped.
And what really used to annoy me was that on the next lap you’d do pretty much the exact same thing at pretty much the exact same speed and it would respond in a completely different way.
More experienced colleagues would tell me that this was because the 911 was engineered and designed for people who knew what they were doing, and that minute adjustments to the steering and the throttle would cause it to behave in a completely different way: just what the serious opposite-locksmith wants, they would argue. Since then, of course, I’ve had a lot of practice at driving round corners too quickly and now the 911 doesn’t frighten me at all. I can handle it and its silly little foible with ease.
‘Yes,’ say the experts, in their annoying adenoidal way, ‘but that’s because it doesn’t have any foibles any more. It’s been softened.’ The engine, which used to sit right at the back, where it would act as a pendulum in extreme circumstances, has been moved forwards, and it is now cooled with water rather than air. And the steering is now done with electricity rather than hydraulics. And because of all this the 911 is a big pussycat. This is seen in adenoid-land as the end of days.
Not to you and me it isn’t. Because the 911 stands out as a very real way of experiencing a little bit of genuine sports motoring for a fraction of the cost of buying a Ferrari and with far fewer histrionics. And, these days, less of a tendency to end up in a hedge.
But which model should you choose? Well, to make life even more difficult, Porsche has now introduced a new version called the GTS. It sits in the range between the Carrera S and the GT3. Yes, I know. I didn’t realize there was a gap there either, but apparently there was and the GTS has filled it.
The idea is simple. You get more horsepower than you do from the Carrera S, and a wider body, but it’s less raw than the GT3 and cheaper. It’s good value because, unusually for a Porsche, it com
es with quite a bit of kit as standard.
If I were in the market for a 911 – and if I hadn’t been quite so vocal about its awfulness over the past few years, I might be – I’d go for a two-wheel-drive GTS. It seems to offer the best of all worlds. Sadly, though, the car I drove last week was the four-wheel-drive alternative.
I know that a four-wheel-drive 911 is less pure than a model that is driven only from the rear, but as I set off on a long rush-hour journey from London to Rugby I didn’t really care about that. And I was positively grateful when just past Northampton it started to snow.
There was something else to be grateful for too. Every car has a cruising speed, a speed at which it settles when you are on a quiet motorway and you’re thinking about other stuff. This has something to do with resonance and noise and gearing. In a Mini it’s a worrying 110mph, which means that with the new speed cameras you could lose your licence – twice – in one lap of the M25.
In the GTS it’s 59mph. I have no idea why, but I think the throttle pedal is to blame. It has quite a strong spring, so to go any faster you have to make a conscious effort with your foot. This is a small point, but it’s important because, if you’re daydreaming, you at least know you won’t get nicked.
I’m not going to beat about the bush. This is an excellent car. It is fast without being stupid, even if you’re running it in Sport Plus mode, which makes it uncomfortable, noisy and uneconomical. Best to leave that facility alone.
It’s not as though you’re short of other things to play with. The satnav system is as good as anything you’ll find in any car, and there’s a computer that tells you all sorts of things, such as how much G-force you are generating and when you will arrive at your destination. It’s German. It knows this stuff.
And then there’s the driving position. Ooh, it’s good. Nearly as good, in fact, as the flappy-paddle gearbox. The only trouble is that, while I liked the GTS a lot, and marvelled at its ability to be fast, sensible, comfy and quiet all at the same time, I couldn’t really love it. At no point did I think, ‘I have got to get me one of these.’
There’s a magazine called Autocar that provides us Top Gear boys with a massive laugh every Wednesday because its road testers always look so serious when they’re driving a car. When we are power-sliding a Lamborghini round a hairpin bend in the Alps we bounce around and squeak like schoolboys – well, two of us do – but at Autocar they always look as if they’re in a meeting.
And that’s the face you find yourself pulling in a Porsche. You never think, ‘Wow.’ It’s all very – what’s the word? Clinical. But if you’re going to buy a 911, the GTS is definitely the version to go for.
8 February 2015
Perfect for Jimi’s hairdo, but no good for crosstown traffic
Land Rover Discovery Sport
Upon returning from my holidays earlier this year, I decided that I should become less fat. So I made some inquiries and discovered there were two ways of doing this. And since one was ‘doing exercise’, there was in fact only one way of doing this: not drinking any more.
The effects have been remarkable. In just a month I’ve lost six chins and can get into my suit again. But there has been a downside: instead of using taxis when I go out in the evening I now use the car.
In some ways it’s a joy. You feel when you’re driving in London at night that you can jump red lights, break the speed limit and knock down anyone who gets in your way, because if you are stopped by the police, you can put your hand on your heart and say, ‘Nope. I haven’t even had a sniff.’ And they’ll be forced to let you go with a cheery wave.
But it doesn’t work out quite like that, because what you actually do when you take the car is sit in a traffic jam, and then, when you arrive, an hour late, spend an hour looking for somewhere to park. I realize that sobriety will add many years to my life, but I’m wasting so much time in traffic these days I wonder if the maths adds up.
Last week, for instance, I had to go from Holland Park to something called Bloomsbury, and London was in a bad mood. Every single road was a tangle of frayed tempers, red lights and the sirens of stuck ambulances. So I wiggled about the back streets and was doing quite well until a diversion put me on a collision course with the Crossrail works at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road.
These have been snarling up the capital since 1951 and there seems to be no sign of progress. Hoardings around the site tell us that one day the scheme will bring an extra 1.5 million people within forty-five minutes of central London, but as you sit in the endless jam, with all the Humbers and Hillmans that have been queuing there since the road was closed, you can’t help wondering if more people is quite what London wants.
The traffic lights go from red to green endlessly and nothing moves because everyone at the head of the queue died in 1973. And still the workmen dig, creating an underground superhighway that will link west London, where people live and work, to the east, where there are a few fishmongers and that’s about it. They may as well build a tunnel from Hull to Dogger Bank.
Then you have the roadworks on the New King’s Road that turn SW6 into an island every time Chelsea play at home. The Fulham Road is closed as well. I’d like to meet the man who thought this was an acceptable plan. Perhaps someone could send me the address of the home where he’s living and the name of his nurse.
What’s made all this congestion worse is that I’ve been trying to get about in Land Rover’s new Discovery Sport, which feels a great deal bigger than it actually is. This is because it has a vast amount of headroom. Jimi Hendrix would be able to drive this car – if he were still alive, obviously – without flattening his hairdo at all. It’s like sitting in a cathedral. And when you are in St Paul’s you don’t even attempt to drive through gaps that actually are easily wide enough.
It’s a strange car, this: billed as a replacement for the solid, no-nonsense Freelander, it is badged as a Discovery and sits on the same running gear as a Range Rover Evoque. Confused? Mmm. I was too. So let me put it to you this way. It’s a seven-seat alternative to the rather too mumsy Volvo XC90. And a better-looking alternative to the standard Discovery, which, as we know, is mostly driven by murderers.
It’s also very comfortable. Around town it isolates you from roads that have been mended by people who think ‘good enough’ is pedantry, and on a motorway it glides along like a hovercraft. Only with better steering. And it’s not just the suspension that warrants praise. The seats are comfortable too, and if you push the back bench backwards there is acres of space for kids. I haven’t seen so much legroom in the back of a car since Citroën stopped making the CX Prestige.
Yes, the seats that rise up out of the boot floor are not ideal for the aged, the infirm, the fat or even the fully formed, but for a short school run it’s better to have them than not. Even if it does mean you have to do without a full-sized spare wheel.
All of this – the nice ride, the school-run stuff and indeed the extremely sharp and precise steering – would lead us to think Land Rover had given up with its core values and that the Disco Sport would be flummoxed by any sort of weather or rough terrain. But no. It still comes with all the fancy off-road programs. You tell it what sort of ground you want to cover – mud, sand, a bog or whatever – and it sorts out its differentials and its four-wheel-drive system for you.
So far, then, everything is good. And it gets better, because at long last Land Rover has updated its satellite navigation and central command system. It’s still touchscreen, which is the wrong way of doing things, especially when the display in question is a hell of a stretch even for me, but it’s much better than it was.
However, things go a bit wrong with the engine. Only one is on offer and – how can I put this? – it’s a bit old now, and a bit tractory. The power it produces is fine – it’ll get the car from 0 to 62mph in 8.9 seconds, which is brisk – but I couldn’t really live with the roughness.
I hear Land Rover is currently working on a new powerplant that will b
e ready and available in the Discovery Sport later this year, so if the car appeals, best to wait until then.
And start saving, because it’s not cheap. The basic price of the version I tested is £42,995 and, yes, this is quite good compared with the price of a Volvo XC90. It’s quite good also for a luxurious, attractive and spacious seven-seater. And yet …
I dunno. It’s hard to get your head round a price such as this for a car that is billed as a replacement for the much cheaper Freelander.
And then there’s the biggest problem of them all. It’s going to get nicked. Land Rovers and Range Rovers are popular with gangs that ship them out to Africa before you’ve even noticed they’ve gone. And I’m told that, to make matters worse, the keyless entry system, which is on higher-spec versions of the Discovery Sport, is not that hard to crack. In certain parts of London now, new Range Rovers are routinely stopped by the police because there’s a good chance the driver won’t be the actual owner.
That’s not such a problem for me, of course, because I’m not drinking. You, on the other hand …
22 February 2015
No need for Supercar when Clutch Kent’s here
Ford Fiesta Zetec S Red Edition
I wonder if in the First World we have all become mad. Because when we are buying something we always choose the most expensive option. Rather than the best. We have somehow got it into our heads that a £200 set of kitchen knives will last longer and do more cutting than a £100 set of kitchen knives. We think that a £4 million house will suit us better than a house for £250,000. We assume the food in a restaurant with big numbers on the menu is bound to be better and tastier and nicer than a Big Mac meal. But is any of this true?
Well, it’s probably not true with the McMeal and it’s definitely not true when it comes to cars. I know this because I have spent yet another week with the Volkswagen Golf GTI and it’s completely perfect. You can spend ten times more on a car and it will be worse. This is a fact. There is no room for debate.
Really? Page 3