JEREMY CLARKSON
Round the Bend
MICHAEL JOSEPH
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
Just a couple of tweaks and it’s an iPhone on wheels
Daihatsu Materia
It’s far too cool for you, Mr Footballer
Mazda MX-5 Roadster Coupé 2.0i
Tailor-made for the hard of thinking
Subaru Impreza WRX STi
Clarkson on road safety
Jeremy’s wit and wisdom
The rubbish, brilliant saviour of Jaguar
Jaguar XF SV8
David Dimbleby made me wet myself
Mercedes-Benz CLK Black Series
Look, you traffic wombles, I’ve had enough
Renaultsport Clio 197 Cup
No, princess, you may not have my Fiat
Fiat 500 1.2 Pop
A mainstay of the car-washing classes
Renault Laguna Sport Tourer Dynamique 2.0
Lovely to drive, awful to live with
Porsche Cayenne GTS
The aristo ruined by the devil’s brew
Subaru Legacy Outback TD RE
A beauty cursed by travel sickness
Callaway Corvette C6
… catch me if you can
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X FQ-360 GSR
Look, mums – a 4×4 planet saver
Mitsubishi Outlander 2.2 DI-DC Diamond
Press a button and pray it’s the right one
Citroën C5 2.7 HDi V6 Exclusive
Face lifted, clanger dropped
Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG
So awful even the maker tells you to walk
Kia Sedona 2.9 CRDi TS
The problem is … it’s out of this world
Nissan GT-R
Fair Porsche, my sweet Italian lover
Boxster RS 60 Spyder
Mr Weedy comes up with the goods
Mercedes-Benz SL 350
Herr Thruster’s gone all limp and lost
BMW M3 convertible
It takes you to the edge … and shoves
Porsche 911 Carrera GT2
The Devil’s done a fruity one
Mercedes SLR McLaren Roadster
Eat my dust, Little England
Jaguar XKR-S Coupé
Calm yourselves, campers
Ford Kuga 2.0 TDCi Titanium
Très bien – a plumber in a tux
Citroën Berlingo Multispace
This is an epic car. Every single atom of every single component is designed only to make your life as quiet and as comfortable as possible. Dreaming of a …
Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé
Oh, tell me it’s not too late
Aston Martin Vantage
An old flame returns to relight my fire
Volkswagen Scirocco
A one-armed man with a twitch can go fast in a Gallardo
Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4
Oh no, this is the world’s worst car
Chrysler Sebring Cabriolet 2.7 V6
A Wilmslow pimp with class
Cadillac CTS-V
Misery, thy name is Vespa
Vespa GTV Navy 125
A trolley’s the better bet
Renault Twingo Renaultsport 133
Don’t go breaking my bones, baby
Alfa Romeo Brera S 3.2 JTS V6
Well, I did ask for a growlier exhaust
Racing Green Jaguar XKR 475
Just take your big antlers and rut off
Audi RS6 Avant
Look, a cow running in the Grand National
Infiniti FX50S
Watch out, this nipper’s tooled up
Ford Fiesta Titanium 1.6
An adequate way to drive to hell
Vauxhall Insignia 2.8 V6 4x4 Elite Nav
Safety first, then rough and tumble
Volvo XC60 T6 SE Lux
Fritz forgot the little things
BMW 330d M Sport
Out of nowhere, my car of the year
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1
What bright spark thought of this?
Tesla Roadster
This is by far the best of all the school-run-mobiles. There really is room for seven people, fourteen legs and two dogs in the boot as well
Volvo XC90 D5 SE R-Design
I’m scared of the dark in this doom buggy
Ford Ka Zetec 1.2
Never mind, Daphne, at least you’re pretty
Volkswagen Passat CC GT V6
The sinister …
BMW 730d SE
A smart, thrifty choice
Toyota iQ2 1.0 VVT-i
Perfect, the car for all seasons
Range Rover TDV8 Vogue SE
Flawed but fun
Alfa MiTo 1.4 TB 155bhp Veloce
Problem is, I don’t think I ever met anyone who would buy a Mazda 6 – and also it’s pretty hopeless
Mazda 6 2.2 five-door Sport Diesel
Trying to break the speed limit in this car would be like trying to break the speed limit while riding a cow
Fiat Qubo 1.3 16v MultiJet Dynamic
I raised my knife, snarled … and fell in love
Jaguar XKR convertible
The car adds up
Lotus Evora 2+2
No, fatty, you do not give me the horn
Citroën C3 Picasso 1.6HDi 110 Exclusive
It’s the eco-nut’s roughest, itchiest hair shirt
Honda Insight 1.3 IMA SE Hybrid
Enough power to restart a planet
Audi Q7 V12 TDI Quattro
Ghastly but lovable, the Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst S is vulgar, terrible but ridiculously exciting
Vauxhall VXR8 Bathurst S
Oh please, angel, Daddy wants a go now
Toyota Urban Cruiser 1.33 VVT-i
You’ll really stand out – for paying too much
Mini Cooper S Convertible
The ultimate driving machine, or so I thought
BMW Z4 sDrive35i
Strip poker in the …
Ford Focus RS
Hey, Hans – don’t squeeze my bulls
Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SV
They’ve blown the saloon’s last chance
Mercedes E 500 Sport
The fastest pair of comfy slippers around
Jaguar XF 3.0 Diesel S Portfolio
Oops, this drunken driver is off to Brazil
Argo Avenger 700 8x8
Cheer yourself up in a …
Mazda MX-5 2.0i Sport Tech
The perfect supercar
Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder
Oh dear, it thinks it’s going to save the world
Lexus RX 450h SE-L
… a great car, but who will buy it?
Ferrari California
Excuse me while I park my aircraft carrier
Ford Flex 3.5L EcoBoost AWD
We have ways of being a killjoy
BMW 135i M Sport convertible
Love is blind, thunder thighs
Audi TT RS Coupé
Comfort for all the family in a …
Skoda Octavia Scout 1.8 TSI
A car even its mother couldn’t love
Porsche Panamera 4.8 V8 Turbo
Turnip boy has softened its black heart
Mercedes-Benz CLK Black
Jack of all trades
Toyota RAV4 SR 2.2 D-4D
Land Rover leaves behind the murderers
Land Rover Discovery 4 3.0 TDV6 HSE
Ye gods, it’s smashed through the apple cart
Audi A4 Allroad 3.0 TDI Quattro
It’s fresh, it’s funky – and it freaks my kids out
Kia Soul 1.6 CRDi Shaker
J
ust one trip and I was a mellow fellow
Saab 9-3X 2.0 Turbo XWD
Oh yes, this is why Wakefield trumps Dubai
Aston Martin DBS Volante
By the same author
Jeremy Clarkson’s Hot 100
Jeremy Clarkson’s Planet Dagenham
Born to be Riled
Clarkson on Cars
The World According to Clarkson
I Know You Got Soul
And Another Thing
Don’t Stop Me Now
For Crying Out Loud!
Driven to Distraction
How Hard Can It Be?
For my children
The contents of this book first appeared in Jeremy Clarkson’s Sunday Times column. Read more about the world according to Clarkson every week in the Sunday Times.
Just a couple of tweaks and it’s an iPhone on wheels
Daihatsu Materia
By now, you will have heard all about the new Apple iPhone. You will have been told its battery has the life expectancy of a veal calf, and that if you want to take a photograph, you’d be better off setting up an easel and breaking out the oils.
What’s more, you’ll have been told – by people who haven’t got one – that it works only on O2, that it can’t receive pictures via the text service and that it jams a lot.
There’s something else as well. It is able to deliver the weather forecast from San Diego and clips from YouTube of young Asian men falling off motorcycles, because it can be connected to the internet. This, however, is not easy. Certainly, you won’t be able to do it. So you’re going to need a ‘little man’.
It used to be that wealthy families in rural idylls would have a ‘little man’ in the village who could be called upon to come round at a moment’s notice and remove dead pigeons from the chimney pot. Or start the car. Or free the satellite dish from the clematis.
He was the most vital cog in the community. But not any more. Because today he’s been surpassed by someone far more important. The ‘little man’ who will come round to fix your broken laptop.
Unfortunately, my little man, who is called Hugo, recently met with some success and is now busy installing vast intranets on industrial estates. So asking him to come round to unblock a stubborn wireless network is a bit like asking Led Zeppelin to come round and be the turn at your four-year-old’s birthday party.
This is a disaster because Hugo is the only man alive who knows how my house works. He knows the systems that prevent reporters from sitting in the road outside and reading my e-mails. He knows the codes that allow my daughter’s laptop to speak to my phone. He knows the DNA of every socket and every inch of cable. And now he is gone.
So when my iPhone asks for an APN and a username and a password before it can hook up to something called the Edge, I have no idea what it’s on about. Nor do I know if I want the VPN on or off because I don’t know what a VPN is. Or data roaming. And then I have to tell it whether I am WEP, WPA or WPA2.
And, of course, my new little man can’t help either because all the information is locked in the mind of my old little man.
The upshot is that I can’t access the internet when I’m out and about, and do you know what? That is not the end of the world, because when I’m on location I rarely have the time or the inclination to think, ‘What I’d like to do now is watch a Korean explode, and then maybe I’ll watch a plump lady in Houston playing with herself.’
Nor can I access my e-mails, which is also a good thing because nothing has ever been said in an e-mail that needed to be said at all.
And anyway, even without these facilities, the iPhone sits in the pantheon of great inventions alongside the wheel, fire and Sky+. It’s one of those things that come into your life and you think, ‘How in the name of God did I ever manage without it?’
Sure, the camera, as has been suggested, can’t take pictures if it’s too dark, too bright or something in between, but everything else is brilliant. You type out texts on a proper qwerty keyboard, and even if you make a mistake it uses witchcraft to correct the error. And then there’s the telephone, which comes with big, special-needs numbers that you can’t miss even if you have fingers like burst sausages. And on top of this, it’s an iPod.
Problems? Honestly, there aren’t any. I’ve had mine hacked so it works on Vodafone, and I’m sorry, but the battery is fine. It lasts for four days. Though this might have something to do with the fact that I’m a man, and therefore only think to use a phone when I’m on a cliff, clinging to a branch, in a howling gale. And only then as a last resort.
This brings me on to an interesting idea. Why doesn’t Apple make a car?
The fact of the matter is that the established car makers are timid and afraid of change. They think the mini MPV is a revolution and that the Smart car can be mentioned in the same breath as penicillin. This means they never think outside the box.
Why, for instance, does a car have a steering wheel? Or pedals? Or a dashboard? No, really. As anyone under the age of fifteen will tell you, the handset for a PlayStation can be used to steer, accelerate and brake a car. And there are still spare buttons on the handset that can be used to fire machine guns.
And, of course, without a steering wheel or a dashboard, there’d be a lot more space in the cabin, and no need for expensive, weighty airbags. And that’s just me, thinking off the top of my head.
I feel fairly sure that if Apple were asked to make a car, it would come up with an automotive iPod, and within weeks we’d view the current alternatives in the same way that we now view the cassette tape, the LP and the 8-track. Until then, however, we will have to make do with the Daihatsu Materia.
In essence, this is a small, five-door hatchback that you can buy for £10,995. But as you can see from the pictures, it doesn’t look like a small five-door hatchback. It looks like the Johnny Cab Arnold Schwarzenegger used when he was on Mars.
You may not care for the styling very much, in the same way that you may think an iPod is no match for the gloss and the joy of an album cover. But there is one big advantage. And I do mean big. Inside, the Materia is absolutely vast.
On the outside, then, you have a car that is as easy to park as a small Volkswagen. But inside, five adults can luxuriate.
It’s a nice place to be, too. The dashboard doesn’t look like it was designed to a price – which, because they’ve put the instruments in the middle so they don’t have to be changed for left-hand-drive markets, it was. However, precisely because the instruments are in the middle, it looks like it’s all been styled by someone with a vision, and a polo-neck jumper.
The Materia is well equipped, too. You get a CD changer – wow – air-conditioning, rear parking sensors, electric bits and bobs and, if you fork out £800 more, an automatic gearbox.
Under the bonnet there’s a 1.5-litre engine that produces – just – enough get-up-and-go to mean the Materia can be used on a motorway. It’s not like today’s Euro-smalls that have too much weight and too little oomph to get out of the inside lane.
To drive? Well, it’s fairly terrible, if I’m honest. Any attempt to make it dance is resisted with lots of bouncing around, and because the front seats are so utterly lacking in side support you tend to fall out of them if you are even remotely spirited.
It doesn’t matter, though. Criticizing the little Daihatsu for not being sporty is a bit like criticizing Postman Pat’s van for not being any good at making mashed potatoes.
The only thing I will criticize is the fuel consumption. Maybe because the body has the aerodynamic properties of a warehouse, or maybe because the engine’s bigger than is normal, it isn’t the pound stretcher you might imagine: around 35mpg will be the norm.
This will add a few pounds to your annual motoring bill but I think it’s worth it. I liked this car very much. You will, too, whether you’re a school-run mum, an old lady or a surfer dude who wants a boxy replacement for your recently expired VW Microbus.
Ho
wever, there is a long way to go. Daihatsu has wandered off the well-worn path with this one, and come up with what the motor industry would call radical and daring. But imagine what might be possible if the Materia were now handed over to the computer industry. We’d get a properly amazing car. And little men everywhere would be in work for the rest of time.
6 January 2008
It’s far too cool for you, Mr Footballer
Mazda MX-5 Roadster Coupé 2.0i
As the reputation of all the most exquisite cars continues to be embrowned by the nation’s footballers, those who try to combine extreme wealth with a splash of discretion and good taste find themselves in a bit of a quandary.
In the olden days, if you were to turn up at a party in a Ferrari or a Maserati, women might imagine that you were the Aga Khan. Today, however, they will cower in a cupboard all night, fearful that if they come out they will be roasted in front of a jeering mob who’ll record the event on their mobile phones and, in the morning, upload it all to the internet. ‘I have a Ferrari,’ is code for ‘I am a rapist.’ Or, worse, ‘I am Kerry Katona.’
The solution, then, for wealthy people who are not rapists or Kerry Katona is to buy a car that simply isn’t on a footballer’s radar. A car that manages to be expensive and comfortable, and possibly even quite fast, without shouting, ‘Look at me.’ A fatboy car.
The Bristol Blenheim is a fatboy car. So is the Mercedes SL. Then you have the Rolls-Royce Phantom, the Bentley Continental Flying Spur, the Jaguar XJR, the Range Rover – but emphatically not the Sport – the BMW 7-series, and the car I was given for Christmas. A thirty-seven-year-old Mercedes 600 Grosser.
Launched in 1963, it was by far and away the most expensive car in the world, with a price tag, in America, of $20,000. In its eighteen-year production run only 2,677 were made and almost all were bought by people who did not play football. Idi Amin, Louis Winthorpe from the film Trading Places and Leonid Brezhnev. Mao Tse-tung was said to be very fond of his, and it’s easy to see why.
Today we marvel at the power-operated boot lids on cars such as the Lexus LS 600h but the Mercedes Grosser had this feature forty-five years ago. And yes, while it does without such luxuries as a heated rear window, and the dim/dip light switch is on the floor, it does have power-operated seats, windows, sunroof and even doors. And the power does not come from a fickle electric motor either. Oh no. Everything that moves on the Grosser is powered by hydraulics. Small wonder it weighs three tons.