Mazda6 handbrake access is awkward - but fair

OK, so we’ve gotten used to car makers designing primarily for left-hand drive (LHD) markets and then making revisions to accommodate the conversion for right-hand drive (RHD) markets. We don’t like it, but it makes commercial sense so we can understand the logic.

However, I must admit I’m getting fed up with having to make do with some design features which seem to have been carried over from the LHD version without a single consideration or modification for RHD versions.

Apart from MINI’s ‘Club door’ which encourages you to spill your kids into the traffic rather than onto the pavement, I recently found myself reaching across two occupied cupholders to grasp the handbrake on the new Mazda6 - not good.

I’ve since discovered that in the case of the Mazda6, this detail has been mirrored from the LHD versions - which makes it even more baffling.

In any case MINI is by no means the only culprit so let me know if you’d like to name and shame a few more.

Change out of £190.

Never mind the price of petrol, what about the price of oil?

I have just picked up the Range Rover we use when we are filming our road-test videos.  All I wanted was an oil change yet the Land Rover dealer (in Sussex, not central London) presented me with a bill for £250 – and that was for the labour alone. The oil itself was another £73. Add on the VAT, and the bottom line came to £380.

And since the Range Rover’s oil capacity is about two gallons, that makes the present price of oil around £190 a gallon.

When I started driving, you could buy an entire garage for less than that.

Chic and cheerful - the bargain Citroen C2

I am often asked for car buying advice by friends and users of the site.

Today, the conversation turned to a first car for a ‘designer-type’ with a budget of around £2,500. The car needs to be cheap to run and insure, yet not appear so utterly naff as to make the owner an object of ridicule in the company of his friends.

In terms of what’s cool and reasonably sensible, he could do a lot worse than one of his colleagues who’s recently become the proud owner of a Ford Puma. The fact that his friend has just bought one now makes the Puma out of the question so I instead suggested the evergreen Ford Ka, which soldiers on pretty much unchanged until its replacement arrives within the next 12 months or so. An excellent car with a unique style; its ubiquity hasn’t diminished its coolness.

Another car which has just about dropped into the £2.5K price-bracket is the Fiat Panda. Charismatic and practical, this car is a little belter.

Sticking with the practical hatch brigade, but searching for that little extra je ne sais quoi, I would take a long hard look at the Citroen C2. Panache and parsimony go hand in hand with this petite French number.

There’s a nice metallic blue one right now on Auto Trader for £2550. I reckon the private seller would drop a hundred quid or two for a cash buyer.

If you’ve got any tips or suggestions on stylish motoring on a budget, drop me a line.

New Lancia Delta is UK-bound at last

It was way back in 2002 when we began our campaign to get Lancia back into the UK after what was already a lengthy absence of some 8 or 9 years.

Our campaign took the form of a website quite simply titled Bring Back Lancia, and it celebrated the illustrious history of the great Italian marque that had brought us a series of automotive masterpieces over the years such as the Lambda, the Stratos and, of course, the Delta Integrale.

The website was a labour of love for our design team and included some excellent and engaging content including a Lancia Trumps game featuring historical models and a fun Quiz which sorts out the true cognoscenti from the boys.

Graham Whyte wrote a history of the marque while I put my energy into researching the brand’s then current line-up and key concept cars to try to tap into where its future lay.

A return to right-hand drive markets seemed a logical decision, given that Lancia bosses were forecasting massive increases in volumes over the next 5-10 years, but many poo-pooed our suggestion as folly.

In May 2004, Richard Gadeselli, Chairman and CEO of Fiat UK, very politely told me by email “I can confirm that there are no plans whatsoever to manufacture Lancia vehicles in right hand drive format.”

Was he towing the corporate line? Probably. But no matter - what’s important is that Lancia is coming back to the UK with their new Delta and hopefully it will be good enough to convince buyers so that the marque can lay solid foundations for a prosperous future.

Take a look at the BBL website if you have 5 minutes. It’s a bit of a time capsule as it’s never been updated but a few positive comments could push it up the agenda…

Aside from the peanut shaped headlights - Aygo by BYD

One of the less glamorous stands at the recent Geneva Show belonged to the Chinese manufacturer, BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams.

It would appear that BYD is convinced that car buyers are dreaming of Toyota Aygos since the small silver ‘F1′ city car tucked away at the back of its stand bore quite a striking resemblance to the Japanese original.

What do you think?

What's wrong with an orange car?

I gather from recently published statistics that blue is now the UK’s most popular car colour, having nudged silver into second place. But together, these two colours account for almost 50 per cent of the cars on Britain’s roads, and four times the number of red cars, which nonetheless occupy third place in the colour league-table.

What I find sad is the fact that bright, solid, ‘Smartie’ colours account for so few cars. Yellow and orange cars, for example, together make up less than one per cent of the total. Green fares a little better, which I find odd, as a lot of people think of green cars as being ‘unlucky’. (This seems to stem from pre-war days, long before Armco barriers - when green cars that ran off the road could remain in the undergrowth for days, without being spotted.)

Mauve and purple are, nowadays, almost non-existent. That is a good thing. As the light fades in the open country, the landscape turns purple – as all painters know – and any car of a similar colour disappears into the background, which is why I have always described such colours as ‘deadly night shade’.

I have never understood why people buy silver or dull-coloured cars – mine are anything but – so perhaps a reader could explain to me the attraction of these particular shades.

Two toners (from top): Granada Ghia, Ford Ka, MINI, Skoda Fabia, Audi TT Quattro Sport, Alfa SZ

As the BBC wheels out another classic car (Audi Quattro) to co-star in yet another retro cop show (Ashes to Ashes), I wanted to take a little look at another trend which has been making a comeback of late - ‘two tone’.

No, I don’t mean the Ska-style of music purveyed by some great bands in the late seventies and early eighties including The Beat and The Specials, I’m referring quite simply to paintwork.

The first applications of contrasting paint colours to automotive bodywork probably date back to the turn of the 20th Century, but I recall that in the late 1970s and early ’80s , Ford was offering the Granada Ghia X in a blue over silver two tone finish. A similar graphic effect was also achieved with a popular extra-cost option of the time - the vinyl roof. Cortinas, Granadas, Capris , Escorts and even Fiestas, were offered with a choice of black or (if memory serves) a fetching speckled brown known as Tobacco. Some of you may even recall that in LWT’s The Professionals, Martin Shaw’s character, ‘Doyle’, drove a white RS2000 fitted with a black vinyl roof.

Recently, the blue oval has been promoting a limited edition Ka known, unashamedly, as the Two Tone, but it’s surely MINI that has really made the contrasting paint finish (and bold stripes) fashionable once again since the launch of the ‘new’ model in 2001.

That car’s tremendous sales figures have clearly inspired others to follow suit: Audi’s first generation TT in Quattro Sport guise featured a special black roof; Skoda offers the new Fabia with a contrasting white one (icing sugar?) while Alfa Romeo’s Limited Edition 147 Collezione may be specified with a gloss black version (prefer my SZ’s personally).

And now the encumbent Car of the Year, the Fiat 500, looks set to continue the trend with a vast array of graphics and stripework available to allow you to customise and personalise the car to your taste.

Have I missed out any of your favourite two tone cars?

Johnny. Remember me?

I hear through the grapevine that Top Gear is to have its wings clipped. Trips to the North Pole are on hold, trashing caravans is now verbotten, and there’s to be no more splashing out on power boat trips up the Thames.

Worse still. I hear that Stig is to be replaced. There’s no longer enough money to pay a professional racing driver, so the rumour goes, and therefore the Top Gear producers are casting around for a member of the public who will fit into a small Nomex suit and look lively round Dunsfold. I would like to suggest my Uncle Charlie. As a market trader, he’s used to cutting corners, and the bends are no problem - he hasn’t been on the straight and narrow for years.

Perhaps when the present Stig leaves, we shall find out who he is (or she?). I have my own theory based on Stig’s size and the apparent fact that he is available all the year round and so is unlikely to be involved in F1 testing. Having met him a few times, my instinct tells me it’s Johnny Herbert. If you have a better idea, why not air it here?

Surrey's latest traffic car.

I got a tug last weekend. A police incident car followed me for several miles then eventually pulled me over with a quite unnecessary surfeit of blues and twos.

At the time I was driving ‘Old Bill’, my 1947 MG TC police car, which was once a proud upholder of the Road Traffic Act in distant Yorkshire and still decked out in its original livery. That is to say, it has a sort of number plate on t’back reading ‘Police’.

The young constable was eager to demonstrate that I was committing the offence, as he put it, of “…impersonating a police car.” Quite right: you could easily be fooled by the fabric roof and wire wheels.

Then he noticed that, according to the car’s road-fund licence, the fee paid was zero. This struck him as mysterious and possibly the source of another offence. And when his PNC check revealed the elderly MG to be an ‘Historic Vehicle’ he seemed unaware of such a taxation class.

Suspecting a ruse, he used his mobile ‘phone to engage the services of a traffic inspector, by way of a consultant. The conversation was fairly short, and as far as I could gather, quite pointed. A number of “Sirs” were appended at our end.

We left shortly after that, and on the way home I booked a couple of Beema drivers for speeding.

Fiat 500 is a flyer

Just back from the UK press launch of the Fiat 500 (lots more copy, pictures and video to follow), and caught a glimpse of the baby Fiat being inserted into its pod in the London Eye (does that make it an eye-pod?), ready for the public launch on Monday. My lens wasn’t long enough for a pin-sharp shot across a choppy Thames, but I thought I’d share my scoop with you nonetheless.