Hollywood pretensions for the down-to-earth Astra

The sixth generation Vauxhall Astra is dealership-bound from today. I attended a premiere event at GM’s Millbrook Proving Ground last weekend to see the car for myself.

It was a chance for attendees – mainly interested members of the public - to take various Astra models for a spin. Vauxhall is emphasising improvements in quality and the cabin certainly feels a step up over the old car.

Yet despite Vauxhall’s best efforts to allude to movie glamour and motorsport, most people I spoke to seemed more convinced by the Astra’s solid engineering and build quality. As one of the nation’s workhorses, perhaps that’s as it should be.  

One of our favoured tea stops when we are out filming is at Wisley in Surrey. The tea bar is located in a wooded area, and served by ample parking, arranged in bays.

Last week, there we were, sitting quietly at a picnic table, enjoying the autumn sunshine, when onto the grass drove a BMW X5, which stopped a few short feet from our table. I say ‘on the grass’ as distinct from ‘in one of the many empty parking bays’.

When the driver got out I politely pointed to the bays and asked if she wouldn’t mind using one of them, rather than park two tons of German mean-machine on the fragile chamomile- and clover-studded grass.

In reply, she suggested I do something physically impossible, then trounced off into the woods with her designer dog, which looked every bit as arrogant as its owner.

Incidentally, the BMW looked rather like the one in the photo I took at the time. I hope you can read the number.

I recently took part in the Tacheback campaign which helps to raise money and awareness for the Everyman male cancer charity by encouraging men (and perhaps women?) to grow a sponsored moustache for a month.

Feeling somewhat guilty about asking for money to merely grow a ‘tache’ while others are running half marathons and undertaking grueling treks up mountains, I decided that at the very least, I would publish regular photographs on the Tacheback site which would track my stubbly and then bristly progress, while laying myself open to a fair degree of ridicule.

Where am I going with this?

Well, as I played with the razor and reshaped my facial hair arrangement over the course of the month, I found that the results could be as dramatic, in terms of altering my appearance, as undergoing plastic surgery.

So when it comes to ‘facelifting’ cars at the mid-point in their life-cycles, could the manufacturers exercise a little more restraint, freshening the appearance of a model by mildly updating facial graphics rather than tugging and tucking skin?

Well, I think the Fiat Punto Evo may be one example of this. To me, this car, more than any other - appears moustachioed.

But if it’s a full-on goatee you’re after, SEAT’s Ibiza Cupra Bocanegra takes the crown. I put the hot hatch through its paces at the UK launch this week. Its very name translates as black mouth and that ‘bearded’ scowl distinguishes the Bocanegra from the rest of the Ibizas as the swarthy villain of the range.

If you can think of any other cars that look like they’re sporting whiskers, drop me a line and we’ll see if we can put together a top 10.

The Trabant, old and new

If you’ve been in an original Mini or Beetle, you’ll know they share nothing with their modern namesakes.

Can’t say I’ve ever ridden in a Trabant, although they were everywhere when we visited the former DDR on a family holiday in the early ‘90s. News that a company is keen to revive this car initially left me scratching my head – after all, the minute the wall came down, ‘Easterners’ couldn’t wait to get their hands on ‘Western’ cars. Pity those poor souls who had just reached the top of the Trabant’s ten-year waiting list.

Should a Trabant rise from the grave, its appeal must surely be proximate. After all, despite the times millions of people will have some happy memories: their summer holiday in a Trabi; driving the pregnant wife to the hospital in the Trabi; weekends spent polishing the, erm, cardboard bodywork of the Trabi. And so on.

After all, who doesn’t look back at old pics and remember the life of a car fondly? Even if the car itself is perhaps best forgotten.  

I live quite close to the farm in Surrey that featured recently in news stories about the outbreak of E-coli.

But during a recent trip to another part of Surrey I encountered an outbreak of another sinister visitation, namely E-bygum.  In the coach park of a famed beauty spot I noticed a Yorkshire-registered coach, the occupants of which were marveling at things we take for granted: sunshine, trees, and the whiff of rich pasture land – land that once was farmed but which now is merely owned by the rich.

This set me thinking. What kind of carbon footprint would be left by this 400-mile round-trip? And what would be the cumulative footprint of hundreds of such excursions every weekend, not only by coach, but by car as well?

We are urged to live green, and reduce our individual carbon footprints, yet we allow people to roam freely – far from home and in total disregard of the environmental costs of mere recreational travel.

Although I am a keen environmentalist (in fact, I have just sold a V12 car and replaced it with a V8) don’t get me wrong: I’m all for a weekend drive, but do we have to travel so far? I have written to George Brown and suggested that Britain could lead the way in reducing our CO2 footprint by insisting that tourists be confined to the county in which they have chosen to live and work. I appreciate that some counties have little to offer tourists however well they might know the area, so I have suggested that residents of certain counties be allowed to visit contiguous counties: for example, that Lancastrians be allowed to visit Yorkshire; or that folks from Bedfordshire might be allowed to nip into Cambridgeshire or Northants, but not Hertfordshire in case they could not be persuaded to return home.

In one fell swoop we could cut our CO2 output by millions of tonnes each year, our roads would run more freely, and in these credit-crunched times people would spend less on fuel and have more money for bingo.  Enterprising caterers could offer a form of virtual tourism; pubs in Leicestershire could serve Cornish pasties; tea shoppes in Yorkshire could serve Devon cream teas; and Surrey restaurants could serve potee chaud du Lancastre.  Indeed, with a little imagination an entirely toponymic menu could be contrived.

But to be fair, people must first be given a chance to choose the county where they must work, rest and play, so I have suggested to George the idea of a ‘transfer window’. A period of six months during which people could up sticks and move to the county of their choice. Unfortunately Surrey and Sussex are full, but I’m told that Northumbria has one or two nice spots.

A thread titled “What is the point of the X6?” has been running for a while now on a rival automotive website. Tuning into a Fifth Gear repeat the other night, I watched Tom Ford begin his review of BMW’s latest behemoth with the words “What is the point of the X6?”

In case you’ve missed it, the main vitriol directed at this car seems to come from the controversial styling (think BMW X5 crossed with a coupe), reduced utility (low roofline, it’s more of a 2+2) and firmer suspension. Adding to the conclusion that the X6 is not a ‘real’ offroader.

Arguably though, isn’t the X6 is the most honest sports utility/activity vehicle thingy so far? Despite the compromises, an X6 boot can lug the entire contents of an Argos catalogue. It is better to drive on the road than its rivals, if a reluctant Tom Ford et al are to be believed. Finally, the X6 is also utterly overwhelming to other road users – for the target audience then, I’d suggest entirely fit for purpose.

Personally I’m not in the market for a luxury 4×4, but if I were, the X6 would get my money. It’s the only luxury 4×4 with any point at all.  

As the August bank holiday approaches, no doubt the good folk of Exeter are anticipating another nightmare weekend of traffic as the Exeter by-pass grinds to s standstill under the onslaught of Brummies heading to or returning from the West Country. The same will be true of pinch-points throughout our trunk-road network.

Of course, the problem is that our roads suffer from the classic 80/20 syndrome. 80 per cent of drivers try simultaneously to occupy 20 per cent of the nation’s road network. And that happens every day.

I seldom use motorways or trunk roads. Instead I mainly use minor and unclassified roads that weave their way alongside arterial routes and are often the ‘old’ roads to the selfsame destinations but which progress has relegated to mere capillaries.

Yet they still represent some 80 per cent of our total road mileage, but occupied at most by only 20 per cent of the traffic, and, quite frequently, none at all.

OK, so using minor roads might mean a few more miles, but I would bet that my zig-zagging, traffic-free routes use less petrol. At least for every squirt of the injector I cover a few more yards, rather than merely adding another puff of CO2 to the atmosphere without any corresponding benefit.

And I would also bet that my journeys take no longer. For sure, motorways and trunk roads (A303 excepted) can at times be faster, but most times they’re not. And whereas drivers see only trucks and tail-lights, I see tall skies, open countryside and pleasant people who are not forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

You can keep your sat-navs – at least I know where I’m going. When
most of you arrive at your destination you have no idea how you got there. I dream of the day when Uncle Sam pulls the plug, and millions of British motorists suddenly find themselves with no more idea of their whereabouts than the apocryphal tribe of short people consigned to live in long grass.

Try to forget the Puma, Edward..

My NCN colleague Ed Morris is the happy owner of a Ford Puma. The Office Automotive Debating Society (TOADS) rarely agrees on much, but in considering the Puma we’re gruntingly agreeable that it’s decent, nippy and fun, distinctively styled and reliable.

Last week a low speed shunt broadsided the car, causing just enough damage to make it an insurance write-off. Luckily, no-one was hurt. The ignominy for Ed was seeing his good car destroyed by some shoulder-shrugging jerk.

However, this has chucked TOADS a new bone to fight over. Ed is keen to replace the Puma with an identical car, same spec, same everything. Describing the few he’d seen over the weekend as ‘ragged’ and ‘dogs’, this may not be that straightforward.

So might not another Ford Puma only lead to disappointment, akin to trying to throw a great party, or go on the same holiday, for a second time? Could it be that he needs to take the memories, and move on to owning a different kind of car?

Perhaps someone who has bought the same car twice can shed some light.  

The car in front is this, it\\'s seriously good. Seriously

Moving house over the weekend offered up a rare chance to play at being that bane of the road, the ‘white van man’.

My trusty hire turned out to be a Volkswagen Transporter with a 2.4 TDI under the nose, in white of course. Daily Star and Styrofoam cup on dashboard optional extras.

Returning it some 300 miles later, I’m now thinking: I actually want one of these. It’ll seat three in comfort, commanding drive, a turn of speed and draws none of the ire of other road users that large 4×4s seem to. And that TDI was almost stupidly efficient, sipping diesel as it did all the way to the south coast and back.

Great. Now I have ‘white van man envy.’