We all know the problem, of course. To fit the Continental with a USB port would require the whole infotainment system and the entire dash to be redesigned. That would mean refitting the production line, and that would cost about a hundred and ten hundred eleventy billion pounds.
And, you may think, what would be the point? Bentley is almost duty-bound to fit its cars with a gramophone and with a wood-burning stove instead of a heater, because the people who buy such things are old and stuck in their ways.
But in fact the average age of Bentley’s customers these days is about six. The Continental has become the weapon of choice for absolutely everyone who’s made it in the world of rap. Urge your fans to kill a policeman on Saturday and you’re in leather-lined luxury on Monday.
‘Homey, you can catch me swooping. Bentley coupé switching lanes, ha-ha!’ So sang 50 Pence, apparently.
In America, Bentley is now so synonymous with the rap culture that when I went to pick up a New Yorker from the airport the other day, she climbed into the Continental and said: ‘Oooh. An MFB.’ In a family newspaper I can only tell you that the B stands for Bentley. You’ll have to work the rest out for yourself.
But the point is clear. This is now a youthful car. A cool car. But could I drive a car that doesn’t have a USB port? I guess the answer is yes, just as I could write this column on a typewriter and then send it to the Sunday Times in the post. I could do that. But I wouldn’t want to.
There are some other issues with the car as well. It started out in life with a body that managed to be vulgar and bland at the same time. But a couple of years ago some very small styling tweaks made it extremely attractive. And now the company has gone backwards again, especially at the rear, with a boot lid that puts me in mind of a Sunbeam Rapier.
The biggest problem, though, is the enormous 6-litre twin-turbocharged W12 engine. There’s nothing wrong with the power, which is immense, or the torque, which is planetary, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with the noise, which is a muted, slightly frightening rumble that rises to a muted, very frightening rumble when you open the taps.
I’m not going to grumble either about the incredible speeds it can achieve, and neither am I overly fussed by the fuel consumption. No, my beef is twofold. First of all, this W12 engine simply isn’t as good as the V8 that Bentley offers as a cheaper alternative. Yes, you get a dribble more oomph and a slightly higher top speed, but the downsides are pronounced. It makes the car heavy. Which means you are aware when you go round a corner that the suspension and the tyres are having to work harder than is necessary. The problem is even more obvious when you brake. It feels sometimes as if you are trying to halt the tide.
Genuinely, the less you pay for a Continental GT, the better off you are. The V8 S still feels how a Bentley should – grand and opulent – but it feels weighty without actually being heavy. And that means it’s nicer to drive and more chuckable and more economical than the Speed.
It comes with pretty much the same interior and pretty much the same level of equipment. Which means it doesn’t have a USB port either. This is something Bentley is going to have to deal with, whatever the cost may be.
28 August 2016
Tusk, tusk. It’s like an elephant on a unicycle
Fiat 124 Spider
First things first. The Fiat 124 Spider has a Fiat engine and it says Fiat on the back, and it takes a couple of styling cues from the achingly pretty 124 Sport Spider from 1966. But, underneath, it’s a Mazda MX-5.
When I heard a few years ago that Fiat had approached Mazda about making a He-Man version of the world’s bestselling – and best – sports car, I was so excited I had to have a bit of a lie-down.
Here’s why. Making a sports car should be simple. But then making a poached egg on toast should be too. And yet almost every hotel in the world gets it wrong. They cook the egg for too long, or they put it on the toast before they’ve drained the water away properly, or they smother it in weeds such as parsley, which is unnecessary.
This is what happens when car companies try to design a sports car these days. They optimize it for track use rather than the road, or they put the engine in the middle and you’re left thinking: ‘Look, you imbeciles. I want the engine at the front, rear-wheel drive and a canvas hood that can be thrown away when the sun’s out. Don’t complicate it. Just do that well.’
And that’s what Mazda has got so right with the MX-5: it is simple and perfectly executed. The best poached egg on toast the world’s seen. It’s the perfect size. It’s the perfect price. It has the right-sized engine and is fitted with only the toys you actually need. I love it.
However, there’s no getting round the fact it’s a bit … how can I put this? Light in its loafers? You don’t see many Sarf London gangsters in Mazdas. Guy Ritchie hasn’t got one. It’s not a car that would be used by the Terminator.
Which is why I was so excited about this Fiat business. The idea was simple. It would take the Mazda’s architecture, which would save a fortune in development costs, and add its own styling and engine, which I figured would turn a finger of Baileys into a gallon of Bloody Mary with all the trimmings.
Hmmm. The problem is that the old 124’s most distinctive and attractive feature was the way its rear wings flicked up like a frigatebird’s wings from the horizontal boot lid. Fiat has tried to copy that on the new version, but the Mazda’s boot lid isn’t horizontal, so the result looks awkward, like amateur taxidermy.
There’s more, I’m afraid, because while it’s all very well making your vehicle’s body bigger and more butch, it’s no good if you plonk it on the underpinnings of a car that’s more dainty. You end up with what looks like an elephant sitting on a unicycle. A big car with little-car wheels lost in the arches.
The front’s not bad, but even here I have issues because of the twin power bulges in the bonnet. The original 124 had them because the extra clearance was needed for its twin-cam engine. Now, though, they are there for effect, like the stupid fake gills on the Range Rover, and that annoys me.
I’ve spent more time than usual discussing the way this car looks because that’s the whole point of it. The main reason you’d buy one is that you find the MX-5 a bit weedy and you want something a bit more hirsute.
The other reason is that you want some Italian flair, and that brings me on to the engine, which in the version I tested was Fiat’s 1.4-litre turbo. It’s not a bad little unit, but I was hoping in the 124 Fiat might have made it sound more zingy. And it hasn’t.
That’s not good enough. When you are in a sports car and the sun’s out and the roof is stowed away, you want to hear some induction roar and a crackle from the exhaust. Whereas what you get from the 124 is a missionary-position noise from the front and a vanilla exhaust note. It’s a pity.
I have argued in the past that when the roof is down, all cars, from a super-modern Rolls-Royce Dawn to an ancient Sunbeam Alpine, feel exactly the same. There’s so much noise and wind and buffeting that trying to concentrate on the finer points of the handling and exhaust note is like trying to concentrate on your surroundings when you are being eaten by a bear. But it’s nice to know that if you did concentrate on such things, they’d be right.
So … to drive, the Fiat is softer than an MX-5, which is sort of fine, but somehow the squidginess means you get a bit of what feels like old-fashioned scuttle shake. A sense that the whole car is sort of wobbling. And that’s not so fine.
And to further distance the 124 from peppier Mazdas, most versions lack a limited-slip differential, so you won’t be doing any smoky drifts. It’s odd. You’d expect the Fiat, being Italian and all, to be sportier and more manic than the MX-5, but actually it’s quieter and less fun.
I’m told by my colleague Richard Hammond that the Abarth version – which does have a limited-slip diff – is a different kettle of fish, but I haven’t tried it yet. And, anyway, it’s a lot pricier. And, speaking of money, I’m afraid the news is not good. Because the Fiat I drove is
more than £1,000 more expensive than the entry-level MX-5.
It sounds as if I have a downer on the 124, and I have, really, mainly because I was expecting it to be something that it isn’t. But, that said, it’s still a nice place to be. The roof really can be lowered and raised with one hand, without you getting out of the driver’s seat. And I love that it’s not electric.
I also love the brown leather seats and the equipment levels. I can connect up my iPhone and play Genesis, I have a satnav and electric windows and, er, that’s it. But there is a decent-sized boot. Probably because the lid’s not flat, as it should have been.
Most important of all, though, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that outside my house right now is a two-seat Italian sports car. What makes me feel a bit cold and prickly, however, is that it’s simply not as good as its Japanese brother.
11 September 2016
Tweaked, but still a funometer-buster
Ford Fiesta ST200
According to the Mail Online, I’ve been very busy. While filming for my new Grand Tour series I flouted all sorts of bird-related by-laws on Beachy Head in East Sussex by flying a drone and then, when there were no more breeding peregrine falcons to mince, I headed off to a Hampshire hotel to gatecrash the wedding of someone called Danny Dyer from EastEnders.
A couple of things need straightening out there. I wasn’t filming for The Grand Tour. I didn’t fly a drone. It isn’t falcon-breeding season. No one flouted any by-laws. I wasn’t in Hampshire. I didn’t gatecrash a wedding and I have no idea who Danny Dyer is because I’ve never seen EastEnders.
It got one thing right, though. I was at a hotel. And as at all swanky, country-house getaway spa retreats, the menu offered all sorts of vertical food prepared by a chef who’d trained in Southampton and could do wonderful things with weeds and seeds. But all I wanted was a prawn cocktail. In a glass, with a twist of lemon.
This often happens. I’m on my way to a restaurant, having spent the day gatecrashing weddings and sparking general fury, and I know it will offer me a choice of sautéed sheep’s brains and the barely formed areola of a lightly salted baby pig, and suddenly I become overwhelmed by the urgent need for a poached egg on toast.
It’s not just food, either, where I crave the simple things. Throughout the summer my Instagram feed was topped up every half-hour by friends posting pictures of themselves on beaches in Greece and on boats off Italy and in hot springs in Colorado. And then one day there was a photograph of a friend’s wife and kids playing at Daymer Bay in Cornwall and I almost vomited with envy.
So it goes with cars. I spend most of my life whizzing hither and thither in exotica made from platinum and rhodium and fitted with engines that roar and bellow and spit fire. And all I want on the way home is a Ford Fiesta ST.
Over the past forty years there have been many hot versions of the Fiesta and largely they were tremendous little things – blue-collar buzz bombs with puppy-dog enthusiasm and raspy back ends. The XR2, for instance, was perfect for those whose Thames estuary vowel sounds and rust-round-the-optics drinking dens precluded them from having a slightly superior and slightly more expensive Volkswagen.
But then, four years ago, Ford gave us a hot version of the then current Fiesta. It had a turbocharged 1.6-litre engine, bucket seats and breathed-on suspension, and everyone thought it was going to be more of the same. A cheeky chappie. Up the Junction. Up the Chels. Do you want some, etc., etc., etc.
In fact it was a game-changer; the most endearing and brilliant hot hatchback the world had seen. We get all misty-eyed about the original Golf GTI and the 1.9-litre Peugeot 205 GTI, and rightly so. They were very excellent. But the little Ford Fiesta ST? That was in a different league.
On a day-to-day basis, no car – not one – was as much of a laugh. It was propelled down the road by telepathy. You thought about the corner ahead and it went round, gripping when you wanted it to and slithering about when you didn’t. If there were such a thing as a funometer this little car would break it. And now Ford has tried to make it even better by launching something called the ST200.
Let me talk you through the headlines. It’s a little bit more powerful than the standard car, which means it’s a little bit faster. A very little bit. In fact it’s only 0.2 of a second faster from 0-62mph. But it feels more urgent because it has a shorter final drive. Not good for the fuel economy. Not good for Johnny Polar Bear. But tremendous for putting a smile on your face.
You need to dart into the next lane on a slow-moving motorway. No car does it better. Any gear. Any revs. And in a blink, the move is made. I’ve seen less nippy water boatmen. And then there’s the noise. You expect, in a car of this type, to have the ‘wheee’ of a Catherine wheel. But instead you get something deep and bassy. It sounds like a faraway battle. It’s wonderful.
Underneath, the rear twist beam is stiffer and at the front there’s a bigger anti-roll bar. This means the platform is more solid and that means Ford has been able to soften the springs and dampers. Which means you get all the composure you need, and a decent ride.
The only trouble is that the tweaks have been so successful, Ford has applied them to the standard ST as well. Which means you are paying a £4,850 premium for the ST200 to shave 0.2 seconds off the cheapest ST’s 0-62mph time. Hmmm.
Oh and you also get a little plaque on the centre console that says ST200 on it. If it were made from gold, or myrrh, maybe the price hike would be justified. But it isn’t. It’s just a fridge magnet.
Other than this, the interior is standard ST, which means you get Recaro seats that are too high and so big they reduce legroom in the rear to the point where only Douglas Bader would fit. And a dashboard of unrivalled complexity.
I assumed when I first tried to use it that my inability to change the radio station or engage the satnav, let alone read it – the screen is the size of a stamp – was because I’m old. But no. I recently bought a standard ST for my eldest daughter and like all young people she plunged in, pushing buttons hither and thither until she, because she’s a she, said: ‘I’ll have to read the handbook.’
We then set off and … disaster. One of the clever things in the ST is the MyKey feature. It means you have one key for yourself and a spare that you hand out when you are lending your car to, say, your teenage kids, or, in my daughter’s case, her brother.
The idea is that you programme the spare so that when it’s used to start the car, the engine produces reduced power. And the stereo has a maximum volume of about two decibels. It’s actually a very, very good idea, but such is the complexity of the dash that even my tech-literate daughter somehow managed to set it up so that both keys prevent her from listening to her drum and bass at anything more than a whisper.
Anyway, back to the ST200. And … I’m not sure, if I’m honest. Apart from the shorter final drive, and that grown-up exhaust boom, it’s pretty much the same as the standard car, only more expensive.
I would therefore buy the base model instead. And I don’t mean instead of the ST200. Or instead of another hot hatchback. I mean instead of just about anything else on the road.
18 September 2016
A lesson from Audi to laptop makers
Audi S8
I’m writing this on a six-year-old laptop. It has been around the world umpteen times and is used to churn out five or six thousand words a week. The screen is fogged with spatters of coffee and mucus, the keypad is full of ash, the ‘A’ button has worn to a stump and the cooling fan often has hysterics. But I am in no mood to swap it for a newer model, because it would be different.
I hate different. Which means I hate Macs. You need the fingers of a gynaecologist to operate their stupid keypads, there’s no right-click and nothing’s where it’s supposed to be.
It is of course the same story with my telephone. It’s very old and sometimes it forgets what it’s for. But I can’t upgrade to the latest model, with a Hubble telescope for a camera and 9G capability, because it’d mean sitting dow
n with an instruction book, and I couldn’t do that, because I’m a man, so I’d just plunge straight in. Which means within an hour I’d have put a very private post on Twitter by mistake.
Strangely, however, I have no problem at all using a different car every week. They all come with different satnav systems – some are good and some are bad – but I can operate them all.
It’s the same with the electric seat controls. Some companies put them in the door, some on the transmission tunnel and some down the side of the seat itself, where they can be reached only if you have fingers like a conductor’s baton. But, despite this, I never squash myself against the wheel by mistake, or end up in the back, where I can’t reach the pedals.
Car firms have intuitiveness down to a fine art. The Audi S8 Plus I’ve been driving had a head-up display that had been set up by someone who was 4in tall. I needed to lower it on the screen, so I reached out and my hand immediately alighted on the button that did just that.
It was the same with the map. It had been set by the delivery driver to rotate every time I went round a corner, and I find that annoying. So I pushed the correct button, twiddled a knob the correct number of times and pushed OK to confirm. The job was done. If the man who designed the Audi’s dashboard worked for Boeing, everyone on earth could land a 747 with no problem at all.
And then things get even more impressive, because while I was driving down the M1 at 50mph, because someone in a box had decided that was the highest speed a human being could possibly manage on a road where everyone was going in the same direction, my mind started to drift off and I found myself wondering how on earth Audi managed to fit all the stuff into the car.
Many years ago, when we were allowed to do 70mph – and usually a bit more – I went to interview a chap at Rover who had a dashboard in bits on his desk and a worried look on his face. ‘Not that long from now,’ he said, ‘people are going to want air-conditioning and CD players as standard in even the cheapest cars. And where the hell am I going to put it all?’
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