Motors
07 Sep 2022
First, an apology. The car you see in the pictures before you is not quite the same as the car I drove recently. However, I can explain.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Porsche Boxster, and Porsche have built a special edition – the car you see in the pictures – to celebrate the occasion. Well, they haven’t built just one, they’ve built a limited run of 1,250 which will be...
31 Oct 2021
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.
It’s perhaps...
03 Oct 2021
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...
08 Aug 2021
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 who’s always...
09 Jun 2021
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 to appeal...
09 May 2021
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 - one that dances...
05 Mar 2021
By the time 2030 arrives, you won’t be able to buy a brand new car that’s powered solely by either petrol or diesel. Although in what Mr Johnson calls his "green industrial revolution", certain hybrids will still be allowed. It’s no wonder then, that my inbox is being constantly bombarded by press releases extoling the virtues of the soon to be released plug-in this, and the all-new all-...
02 Feb 2021
If I were to ask you what you thought the best-selling French car of all time was, what would your answer be? The Citroen 2CV perhaps, the Peugeot 205? And what about the Renault 4, or the Renault 5 for that matter? All surely are contenders.
The correct answer? The best-selling French car of all time is actually the Renault Clio. In fact, since its launch, the Clio has become the first...
22 Dec 2020
How would you cope if you had a really, genuinely famous relative? I’m talking proper A-lister; instantly recognisable, known the world over, and popular with nearly everyone, regardless of their age or class.
That (albeit perhaps a tad tenuously) is the situation that SEAT’s Leon has always found itself in: The Leon’s famous relative you see, just happens to be the Volkswagen Golf...
17 Nov 2020
Let’s see now… First is over and down, and Second is up, across, and up. Third, that’s opposite Second. Fourth is up, across, and up again, and opposite Fourth is Fifth. Sixth is up, across, and up once more. Then there’s Seventh, that’s next to me, straight down, opposite Sixth. When required, Reverse is all the way over to the left and up, directly opposite First. This is going to take...
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23 Mar 2023
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