The delicate sound of inefficiency.

I realised yesterday that my car doesn’t sound particularly great.

That’s not to say it doesn’t sound good, because it does – it’s not particularly characterful but it does have a rough edged rumbly charm, coupled with a pleasant turbocharged descant when you give it the beans. It’s just that you wouldn’t be able to pick it blindfolded from a lineup, which is perhaps to be expected with the proliferation of shared platform engineering from which this particular car sprang. It’s basically a functional four-pot with a party trick, and that’s fine.  This set me thinking about the truly great engine sounds from history, and it occurred to me that they were all flawed in a very specific way.

Bashing the boondocks

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with off-road vehicles.

Mud plugging monsters such as the Unimog, the Viking and anything by Oshkosh are cool because they’re so brutal and single minded, but the more road going variety seem to be conspicuously out-of-place – more so as they adopt a widening range of shiny trinkets. There’s one vehicle that until recently seemed to buck this trend, and that’s the humble Land Rover Defender. It may be ugly and extremely spartan inside but it has character and grit and that’s something I always appreciate.

As as result I was extremely happy to be given the chance to take one of these beasties off road at All Terrain Services‘ training centre in Rutland. This is a custom made facility sharing land with a golf club in this tiny county to the east of Leicestershire, catering for fun stuff as well as more serious driver training. Even the approach along a very broken driveway suggests that one is not in for a gentle ride – something the assorted golfists would doubtless find amusing, although their choice of apparel always led me to question their sense of humour anyway, but I digress.

A directionless waffle on the topic of automotive sustainability

Following a few pieces of work I’ve had done on my car recently, I’ve been thinking a bit about the subject of the ease of maintenance of modern cars.. and not just in the ‘everything’s covered in plastic and computerised’ sense.

I remember a couple of years ago, helping a friend to change a blown main beam bulb in his car and having an absolute pig of a time. You couldn’t possibly get your hand in there because of a series of important hoses, so the only answer seemed to be to take the entire light unit out.. only you couldn’t easily do that either because the lower screws were obcured by the aforementioned hoses and part of the wiring loom. If you did manage to get the light out you’d realise it would be completely out of alignment when you put it back in because it used the mounting screws to adjust the aim. I remember a similar feature on a TV show where an AA man was called in to change the bulb on a particular Megane and took almost three quarters of an hour to do it. You could take it back to the garage, but then you’d be paying the garage labour rate and that’ll turn out to be a very expensive bulb change.

Tyres – a cautionary tale

Seems like a while since I’ve been here, so it’s unfortunate that on my return I have to be the bearer of grumpy tidings. This time, it’s all about tyres.. or specifically about tyres you should avoid.

When I picked up the Octavia RS at the top of the page I was pleased to see that the back tyres were nearly new, the spare was just as good and the front tyres only had a couple of hundred miles on them. Decent tyres for this thing run at about a hundred quid per corner so it’s not an expense you want on top of the purchase. The tyres fitted to the front were a brand and model I hadn’t heard of before – Nankang NS-2 – although I was informed that they’re made by Yokohama. They certainly appeared to have a performance oriented tread pattern and seemed impressively grippy on the trip home.

Rat, or Rubbish?

Just a very brief post based on something I saw on the road earlier today.

This is a rat rod..

This is NOT a rat rod..

You can’t pick ‘n’ mix cool. Now stop being silly.

How to cause a jam on the M25

I was heading down the M1 through to the M25 anticlockwise a couple of days ago for the first time since the widening scheme around Luton, and was only mildly surprised to see that stretch plastered in digital information signs and speed cameras. At approximately 3pm, on a clear sunny afternoon, and with only moderate amounts of (quite well behaved) traffic the speed limit reduced to 60mph.. then 50.. then 40. ‘Queues ahead’ said the signs – queues that were clearly created by the 40mph limit. Without warning and with no visible changes in the traffic the limit lifted back to 70mph.

These bizarre fluctuations continued for the next 20 miles, by which point people had started to ignore them because they were clearly ridiculous. Those who didn’t ignore them were driving less carefully than normal because of all the panic braking – especially when the limit signs suddenly dropped from 50 to 40 before our eyes with only 20 metres left to go until the associated cameras. On the return journey the limit went 70 > 60  > 40 > 50 > 40 on a single stretch on motorway between junctions, where absolutely nothing changed, and then the next few signs were blank rather than continuing the previous limit clearly or cancelling the restriction.

If anyone still has any doubts that the UK government’s traffic policies are only designed to raise money, and actually cause more congestion and dangerous driving than they solve, take that particular route for yourself and see how long it takes you to either change your mind or gnaw through your steering wheel in frustration.

Pixar does Tokyo Drift

As previously mentioned, I’m a huge fan of the Fast & Furious movies, and I also love Pixar animations – I was impressed with their early stuff when I was first getting into computer graphics in the very late 80s. This is why ‘Cars’ is one of my all time favourite animated films, and also why today’s discovery made me a very happy camper indeed..

Pixar are creating Cars 2 at the moment, and have released a short promo film poking fun at Tokyo Drift. I reckon it’s absolutely brilliant and bodes well for the sequel. See what you think..

Hybrid vigour?

I was reading a post on Top Gear earlier about Lexus’ plan to bring a new Hybrid to the UK to take on BMW’s generally-not-very-good 1 series, and that set me thinking about the current wave of hybrid cars and whether they actually have a point at this stage of their life cycle.

Most hybrid cars are keen to ram their eco-credentials down your throat at every opportunity, and so tend to have quite weedy internal combustion engines supported by electric motors to make up the numbers. You get more or less the same performance you’d expect from comparably sized cars, but you pay a lot more for the privilege and you can look forward to some quite expensive battery replacement bills in the future along with a lot more technology on board to go wrong.  Hybrid cars have to maintain a strong brand image and be recognisable for their sometimes questionable economy figures in order to justify their cost (which is why the Honda Insight doesn’t sell as well as the ugly Prius) and this presents UK consumers with an issue when we come to Lexus.

Cool redefined

I’ve always been undecided about the coolest car ever built, and tend to change my choices at least as often as I change my socks.. sometimes more so. In time of drought I usually return to the series 1 Jaguar E-Type coupe, and the Ferrari 250 GTO, but I’ll often throw in  various Alfas and even modern fare like the Citroen C6.

Thank to an article in Jalopnik today, there’s now a new contender – the Mobsteel Heavy Hitter.

The petrolhead’s dilemma

I few months ago I found myself in the position of having a couple of grand kicking about, and wanting to pick up a used car. A pleasant afternoon spent trawling the hallowed pages of Autotrader revealed quite a few surprises – it was now possible to buy cars I hadn’t considered previously simply because I felt they’d be out of my price range. I’d been looking at swift hatchbacks up until that point and the Seat Leon Cupra was leading the race because I’d wanted one since the day they were originally released, but the lure of the cool sports saloon was waiting to pounce within that innocent little magazine. I discovered that the E39 5 series, a car I’ve always loved,  was fair game and the Jaguar S-Type was creeping into the sights too. There were a few fully loaded Volvo S60s, the turbocharged ones, and if I stretched a little bit I could even be looking at an Alfa 166. Argh.