I'm Liam Bird, a freelance Motoring Writer based in the South Shropshire Marches. I currently write car reviews and road tests for a number of regional lifestyle magazines and newspapers which are distributed throughout Cheshire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, most of Wales and beyond.
As a member of the Welsh Group of Motoring Writers I'm as happy behind the wheel of a super-mini as I am in the latest super-car. I have press accreditation with most of the major motor manufacturers, meaning that as well as always being on the look out for further commissions, I always have a number of cars arriving each month ready to review.
It’s not often that you get the chance the really test a vehicle. A McLaren 720S for instance: I know it’ll do 0-62mph in little more than the blink of an eye, and on occasion I’ve been able to reaffirm such things. However the 720S’s claimed 212mph top speed is something I’ll probably never have either the space – in the correct facility of course - or perhaps the nerve, to prove....
I know, I’ve said it before: If only every car manufacturer made seats like Volvo does. After what quickly became a 12-hour day after a poor night’s sleep, spent at The Goodwood 78th Member’s Meeting, the soft leather front seats of Volvo’s latest version of their XC60 were a very welcome site indeed - and especially-so with the seat heaters set to their maximum. By the time, we’d...
There’s a list on my desk, of cars I’m trying book from various manufacturer’s press fleets, for review purposes over the coming months. My scribblings run to nine cars currently -no doubt I’ll add more - and with the exception of one electric city car and one slinky supercar (I’m a sucker for both), everything else I’ve written down, from Bentaygas to Qashqais, is SUV shaped.
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A quick Google search this evening seems to cast a doubt over whether the letters CR-V, as in Honda CR-V, stand for Compact Recreation Vehicle, or Comfortable Runabout Vehicle. Apparently, according to wikpedia (so perhaps we’ll never know for sure), Honda say it’s the latter: Comfortable Runabout Vehicle. Whereas the term Compact Recreation Vehicle was first used in a British car review...
I’ve been driving Land Rovers since way before it was actually legal for me to do so. I’ve towed trailers all over the North West with them, I’ve driven to parties in them, I’ve driven to work and then worked out of them back of them, I’ve done the weekly shop in them. And long before I could even reach the pedals in them, I’ve spent what must account for months of my life sat in the...
Funny, isn’t it, how certain cars begin to grow on you? When Citroen’s new C4 first arrived here I’m ashamed to admit that my inner car snob dismissed it as just another hatchback; it was nothing to get excited about. The promise of just 3-cylinders, between them displacing a meagre 1,199cc and producing a modest 129bhp was hardly something to set the pulse racing. And as someone...
It’s sounds almost rude, I know, but I turned downed my first opportunity to drive the new Rolls-Royce Ghost. I postponed my second opportunity too. It was very much a conscious thing on my part, and fortunately, Emma, Roll-Royce’s very nice PR fully understood my quandary. You see, Rolls-Royce offered me not one, but two long weekends in their new Ghost right in the middle of a...
Not so long ago we used to consider Kia as very much a budget brand, their cars the kind of things you would buy simply because you needed (rather than wanted) a cheap run-around – albeit always a cheerful and reliable one. Kia though had other ideas. They headhunted their now chief designer from Audi, and moved their design centre from their home in Korea to central Europe, so as...
Fiesta, Corsa, Polo, Swift, Fabia, Ibiza, Yaris, Clio… The list of hatchbacks with funky sounding names continues to grow, and all are very good too. Surely though, the hatchback with funkiest sounding name is the Jazz? The reality on the other hand…
Like the music it takes its name from, Honda’s Jazz has, shall we say, a particular, a discerning, a mature, fan base -...
If you passed your driving test in the late ‘80s / early ‘90s, I’m willing to bet that you did-so a Fiesta. On the other hand, was it a Micra, a Corsa, or a Clio? I used to teach people to drive in a Corsa: BSM pyramid, phone number on the side… Anyway as I was saying, back then Lancia Deltas, and Toyota Corollas fought over World Rally Championships, the Sierra Cosworth dominated...
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