Jeremy Clarkson
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG …
Contents
For pity’s sake, Fritz, please stop fiddling
MINI Countryman Cooper S ALL4
No nasty surprises in this gooey confection
Audi A7 Sportback 3.0 TDI quattro SE
Oh yes, take me now, Lady Marmalade
Citroën DS3 Racing
It’s hardly British but learn to haggle
Mitsubishi Outlander 2.2 DI-D GX4, 7 seats
Try this moose suit for size, Mr Top Gun
Saab 9-3 SportWagon Aero TtiD 180PS
Titter ye not, it’s built for the clown about town
Nissan Juke 1.6 DIG-T Tekna
Those yurt dwellers have got it right
Land Rover Freelander 2 eD4 HSE 2WD
Little Luigi’s turbo boost
Fiat 500 0.9 TwinAir Lounge
I don’t fancy Helga von Gargoyle … Can’t think why
Porsche Panamera 3.6 V6 PDK
Damn it, Spock, we can’t shake off Arthur Daley
Jaguar XJ 5.0 Supercharged Supersport LWB 4dr
Bruce’s bonzer duck-billed koala
Ford Falcon FPV Boss 335 GT
Botox and a bikini wax and I’m ready to roll
Jensen Interceptor S
Oh, barman, my pint of pitbull has gone all warm and fluffy
Ford Focus Titanium 1.6 Ecoboost
Pointless but fun – what a good wheeze
Renault Wind Roadster GT Line 1.6 VVT
Prepare your moobs for a workout
Aston Martin Virage
The old duffer trots out in boy-racer colours
Skoda Faiba vRS1.4 TSI DSG
What’s the Swedish-Chinese for I can’t see?
Volvo V60 T5 R-Design
I love you now I’m all grown up, Helga
Porsche 911 GTS
Oh, miss, you turn me into a raging despot
Mercedes CLS 63 AMG
From 0 to 40 winks in the blink of an eye
BMW 640i SE convertible
Oh, Shrek, squeeze me till it hurts
Nissan GT-R
A world first – the Ferrari 4 × what for?
Ferrari FF
Work harder, boy, or it will be you in here
VW Jetta 2.0 TDI Sport
Too tame for the special flair service
Audi RS 3
An asthmatic accountant in lumberjack clothing
Mazda CX-7
Someone please check I haven’t left my spleen back there
BAC Mono
I thought it looked humdrum. But wow!
Honda Accord Type S
You vill never handle zis torture
Mercedes-Benz G 350 Bluetec
Strip out all the tricks and it’s still a wizard
Audi A6 SE 3.0 TDI
Open up them pearly gates …
Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Spyder Performante
Oh, grunting frump, you looked so fine on the catwalk
Jaguar XF 2.2 Diesel Premium Luxury
Now we’re flying
Mercedes-Benz SLS Roadster
The topless tease luring men to ridicule
VW Golf Cabriolet GT
I’m sold, Mrs Beckham – I want your baby
Range Rover Evoque Prestige SD4 auto
Morgan Three Wheeler
Beach beauties love my bucking bronto
Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4
Hop in, Charles, it’s a Luddite’s dream
Mercedes C 63 AMG coupé Black Series
It’s no cruiser but it can doggy-paddle
Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 CRD V6 Overland
Uh-oh, some fool’s hit the panic button
Chevrolet Orlando 1.8 LTZ
Simply no use for taking the kids to see Granny
Audi R8 GT
Amazing where bottle tops and string will get you
Hyundai i40 1.7 CRDi 136PS Style
Bong! I won’t let you go until you love me
BMW M5
A heart transplant sexes up Wayne’s pet moose
Bentley Continental GT V8
The arms race is over and Vera Lynn has won
Aston Martin DBS Carbon Edition
Good doggy – let’s give the bark plugs a workout
Suzuki Swift Sport 1.6
Look what oi got, Farmer Giles: diamanté wellies
Jeep Wrangler 2.8 CRD Sahara Auto 4-door
Powered by beetroot, the hand-me-down that keeps Russia rolling
Lada Riva
The yummiest of ingredients but the soufflé’s gone flat
Porsche 911 Carrera
I ran into an EU busybody and didn’t feel a thing
BMW 640d (with M Sport package)
Blimey, you’ve got this mouse to roar, Fritz
Volkswagen High Up!
Styled for mercenaries. Driven by mummy
Ford Kuga 2.0 TDCi Titanium X PowerShift
Simply the best, but so bashful buying one is verboten
BMW 328i Modern
Click away, paparazzi, I’ve got nice clean Y-fronts
Audi A8 3.0 TFSI
Get a grip – it’s only a Roller
Rolls-Royce Phantom II
I know about your frilly knickers, Butch
Mercedes SLK 55 AMG
Fritz calls it a soft-roader. I call him soft in the head
Audi Q3 2.0 TDI quattro SE S tronic
Cheer up – Napoleon got shorty shrift too
Mini Cooper S roadster
That funny noise is just Einstein hiding under the bonnet
Ford Focus 1.0 EcoBoost 125PS Titanium
Gosh, never thought I’d dump Kate Moss so fast
Citroën DS5 DSport HDi 160 automatic
Squeeze in, Queenie, there’s space next to Tom Cruise
Kia Cee-d ‘2’ 1.6 GDI
The wife’s away, so come check out my electric extremity
Mercedes-Benz ML 350 BlueTec 4Matic Sport
If I go back to Africa, will you take it away again?
Porsche 911 Carrera S cabriolet
Oh, Miss Ennis, let’s sprint to seventh heaven
Ferrari 458 Spider
Yikes! The plumber’s van has put a leak in my wallet
Citroën Berlingo
Gary the ram raider cracks Fermat’s last theorem
Vauxhall Astra VXR 2.0i Turbo
Kiss goodbye to your no-claims – Mr Fender-bender has a new toy
Peugeot 208 1.2 VTi Allure
The nip and tuck doesn’t fool anyone, Grandma
Jaguar XKR-S
Wuthering werewolves, a beast made for the moors
Lexus LFA
It’s certainly cheap … but I can’t find cheerful
Skoda Octavia vRS
Ooh, it feels good to wear my superhero outfit again
Toyota GT86
OK, Sister Maria, try tailgating me now
Audi S6 4.0 TFSI quattro
It’s Sunday, the sun is out – let’s go commando
Ferrari California 30
Yo, bruv, check out da Poundland Bentley
Chrysler 300C Executive
Out with the flower power, in with the toothbrush moustache
VW Beetle 1.4 TSI Sport
You can keep your schnapps, Heidi – I’ll have cider with Rosie
Mercedes A 250 AMG
A real stinker from Silvio, the lav attendant
Chrysler Ypsilon
Ask nicely and it’ll probably cook you dinner underwater
BMW M135i
The pretty panzer parks on Jurgen’s gol
f links
Volvo V40 D4 SE Nav
I ordered a full English but ended up with bubble and squeak
Aston Martin Vanquish
The cocaine chintz has been kept in check
Range Rover Vogue SDV8 4.4L V8 Vogue
Thanks, guys, from the heart of my bottom
Audi RS 4 Avant 4.2 FSI quattro
Just like Anne Boleyn, there’s no magic with the head off
Volkswagen Golf GTI cabriolet 2.0 TSi
Come on, caravanners, see if it will tackle the quicksand
Hyundai Santa-Fe Premium 7-seat
No one can reinvent the wheel quite like you, Fritz
VW Golf 1.4 TSI ACT GT
Great at a shooting party – for gangsters
Mercedes CLS63 AMG Shooting Brake
Yippee! It’s OK to be a Bentley boy again
Bentley Continental GT Speed
Thrusters on, Iron Man, this’ll cut through the congestion
Audi R8 5.2 FSI quattro S tronic
They’ll be flying off the shelves at Poundland
Porsche 911 Carrera 4S
So awful I wouldn’t even give it to my son
Alfa Romeo MiTo 875cc TwinAir Distinctive
Off to save the planet with my African queen
BMW528i Touring SE (1999, T-reg)
Oh, I hate the noise you make in ‘wounded cow’ mode
Toyota Corolla GX (aka the Auris but GX model not sold in UK)
That puts paid to my theory on the ascent of manual
Aston Martin Vantage V12 roadster
Oh, how you’ll giggle while strangling that polar bear
Ford Fiesta ST 1.6T EcoBoost
Another bad dream in a caravan of horrors
Honda CR-V 2.2 I-D TEC EX
Ooh, you make me go weak at the knees … and the hips and the spine
Jaguar F-Type S
Mirror, signal, skedaddle – Mr Bump’s been turbocharged
Peugeot 208 GTi
Not now, Cato – keep turning the egg whisk while I push
MG6 Magnette 1.9 DTi-Tech
No grid girls, no red trousers – it’s formula school run
Mazda CX-5 2WD SE-L
Where does Farmer Giles eat his pork pie?
Range Rover Sport SDV6 Autobiography
They only make one car. But it’s a nice colour
Porsche Cayman S with PDK
Say the magic word and the howling banshee turns sultry sorceress
McLaren 12C Spider
Take the doors off and put them back on? That’ll be £24,000, sir
BMW M6 Gran Coupé
Thunderbird and Mustang have gone, so what’ll we call it, chaps?
Vauxhall Adam
Ha! They’ll never catch me now I’m the invisible man
VW Golf GTI 2.0 TSI Performance Pack
Coo! A baby thunderclap from Merc’s OMG division
Mercedes-Benz A45 AMG
From the nation that brought you Le Mans … A tent with wheels
Citroën DS3 cabrio DSport
The fun begins once you’ve arm-wrestled Mary Poppins for control
Audi RS 5 cabriolet quattro 4.2 FSI
Gliding gently into the parking slot reserved for losers
Peugeot 2008
Where the hell did they hide the ‘keeping up with Italians’ button?
Jaguar F-type
Go and play with your flow chart, Comrade Killjoy, while I floor it
Audi RS 6 Avant
Who lent Scrooge the ninja costume?
Lexus IS 300h F Sport
Crikey, the Terminator has joined the Carry On team
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series
Grab her lead and forget all about the mess on the floor
Alfa Romeo 4C
Goodbye, Dino. It’s the age of the mosquito
McLaren P1
Watch out, pedestrians, I’m packing lasers
Mercedes-Benz S 500 L AMG Line
I can see the mankini peeking out over your waistband
BMW 435i M Sport coupé
The crisp-baked crust hides a splodge of soggy dough
Kia Pro_Cee’d GT Tech
A menace to cyclists, cars, even low-flying aircraft
Audi SQ5 3.0 BiTDI quattro
I’m sorry, Comrade. No Iron Curtain, no deal
Dacia Sandero Access 1.2
You’re off by a country mile with this soggy pudding, Subaru
Subaru Forester 2.0 Lineartronic XT
You can’t play bumper cars, but the bouncy castle’s brilliant
Volvo V40 T5 R-Design Lux
Drives on water and raises Lazarus in 4.1 seconds
Aston Martin Vanquish Volante
By the same author
Motorworld
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?
Round the Bend
The Top Gear Years
Is It Really Too Much To Ask?
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.
For pity’s sake, Fritz, please stop fiddling
MINI Countryman Cooper S ALL4
After much careful consideration over the festive season, I’ve decided that God is almost certainly a German. He created the world and festooned it with all sorts of unusual creations, none of which he liked very much. So then he killed them off and started again. Then he didn’t like that lot either, so he turned all the dinosaurs into birds and gave one of the apes opposable thumbs.
Geologically, he’s never satisfied. Originally, he placed Scotland in the south Pacific, but he obviously thought the feng shui was wrong, so he moved it to a spot in the middle of what we now call the Atlantic ocean. Then he didn’t think the world should have Scotland at all, so he buried it under what has now become South America.
And then he thought that actually England looked a bit lonely sticking out of the top of France, so he dug up Scotland again and placed it on the top of Northumberland, like a jaunty, lopsided hat. And then he decided that England shouldn’t really be joined to France any more, so he created the English Channel.
Today, he’s decided that the Himalayas should be a bit taller and that there really is no point to Greece, or any of those silly low-lying islands in the middle of the Pacific. And he’s realized that the polar bear is so ugly and vicious that it has no place in his toy box.
He fiddles with the weather, too. At first, he thought it should be a hot and steamy planet but then he thought that, actually, it ought to be extremely cold. He’s still fiddling today, which is driving all the eco-loonies insane. Just as they think it’s getting hotter, the whole of Europe gets covered in snow.
Germans are the same. Give them a country and they want the one next door as well.
There is an upside to this, though. When a German creates something excellent, he does not go home to celebrate with a glass of beer. No. He goes straight back to his office so that he can set about making improvements. In Germany, being better than everyone else isn’t good enough. You have to be better than yourself.
They even do this with their wine. Having created the liquid perfection that is Niersteiner Gutes Domtal, they went back to the drawing board and decided that the only way to make a better wine would be to add flecks of gold leaf. So they did. How brilliant’s that? Wine that glitters under the lights. Stunning.
Things are very different in Britain. Prince Charles, for instance, thinks the world would be a better place if all progress had stopped in about 1952. And every planning department is run by people wh
o want Britain to look like the front of a Dorset chocolate box. If God were English, your route to work would be blocked every morning by a brontosaurus.
Red telephone boxes were a prime example of this. They were useless and smelt of urine, and you could die of hypothermia before the pips even began. But there was a huge furore when someone – probably a German – suggested they should be updated. Change? Here? In Britain? Are you mad? We are a nation that puts The Two Ronnies on every Christmas, even though one of them is dead.
This attitude really doesn’t work and it especially doesn’t work in the car industry. When the first Range Rover came along in 1970, everyone could see that it was very excellent indeed. So the team responsible for designing it was sent home and the model soldiered on, with almost no changes at all, until 1994. By which time it was a relic.
There’s a similar problem with the Land Rover. The car you buy today is pretty much the same as the car you could have bought after the war. Can you imagine BMW doing that? Designing a car and then keeping it in production for sixty years? It’s inconceivable.
But when it comes to resting on your laurels, the crown must go to Alec Issigonis. He made the Mini, which in the late 1950s was an inspired design, and then he decided to leave it alone for ever. Occasionally someone would nail a bit of wood to the side, and they once changed the radiator grille, but, fundamentally, it just kept on rolling down the production line, powered by an engine that could trace its roots back to a time when Scotland was off the coast of South Africa. It would still be soldiering on today, had BMW not arrived on the scene and said, ‘For you, Tommy, the warhorse is over.’
Unfortunately, the Germans’ obsession with self-improvement is now starting to get a bit silly, because in addition to their original Mini, and the various derivations of that, we now have the convertible, which is fine, and the Clubman, which is fine too, providing you are impervious to its looks and don’t want to see out of the back. But sadly we also now have the Countryman. And that’s not fine at all.
First of all, it has four doors, seating inside for five and a large boot. This has been achieved by making the car much bigger. So it’s not really a Mini any more, is it? At 13½ feet in length, it’s a third longer than the Issigonis original and should really be called the Maxi. Or maybe the Twinset.
There’s another problem, though. BMW’s first effort looked good, and still does, whereas the Countryman looks absolutely stupid. It’s like a Mini that’s been putting on weight for a part. It doesn’t look cool or interesting or practical. It looks fat.
Of course, you might not care about how it looks or what it’s called. Fine. But I bet you will care about the cramp it gives you when you drive it in traffic. It’s the second Mini on the trot that has done this to me, come to think of it, and you will definitely care about how easy it is to stall, and how hard it is to get going again thanks to the stop-start eco-gadgetry that shuts down the engine whenever you’re stationary.