Finding myself more than somewhat short of the odd £65,000 to spend on my next motor car, I find it hard to credit that those who do have said sums sloshing to and fro in the petty cash tin should be overmuch concerned with such piffling trivia as running costs. However, with UK market perceptions …
It is, perhaps, appropriate that these three up-market down-sizer SUVs should all be here presented in assorted hues clipped from some dubious permatan salon colour chart. What better way to inadvertently reinforce their gently reassuring Made for Chelsea credentials? Mercedes’ new GLA enters a segment more crowded than the stern rail of RMS Titanic at …
MUD SLINGING It’s highly unlikely -even if you find yourself in the market for one- that any of these denizens of the Dorking driveway will get your heart going like a stolen moped. Fact is, though, these four C-SUVs represent one of the few automotive markets that still records regular growth, which makes the (deep …
SIX OF THE BEST. Sensible of Socrates to guzzle hemlock, it transpires; the alternative exit route in 399BC Athens being almost too grizzly to contemplate… Those found guilty of treason were force fed a muscle relaxant and strapped to something uncomfortable in a public square. The executioner would then insert his hand in the victim’s, …
C-CLASS GROUPIE ‘I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner; I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm’s Cortina.’ Substitute the Cortina with any of these five premium D-segment offerings and, despite being penned 40 years ago, the first two lines of Sir John Betjeman’s poem Executive still strike a …
BRIDGE OF SIZE (assuming the shot of the cars on the little bridge is the opener!) What price perfection? Fork out £83,755 for a Maserati Quattroporte S, £97,895 for a Range Rover TD V6 Autobiography, £90,810 for a Mercedes-Benz S 350 L or a whopping £172,730 for Bentley’s Flying Spur Mulliner, and you certainly have …
Column, May 2008. Having spent the last week adopting the at-ease stance of a stout moth and the walking style of one John Wayne, nothing would please me more than 15 minutes in a sound-proofed room with the smug bastard responsible for coining the glib onomatopoeia ‘snip’ to describe the hilariously unpleasant experience of …
COLUMN – JULY 2012 Huntin’, shootin’ ‘n’ fishin’ emporia the size of an out-of-town Sainsbury’s and the odd, immaculate Dodge Charger aside, some of the finest diversions punctuating any languid drive through America’s Bible Belt take the form of church signs. Often dwarfing the pristine clapboard edifices they cheer for, said signs employ …
Column July 2009. When Aston Martin boss Dr. Ulrich Bez first stood up in the dining room of the achingly beautiful and astonishingly haunted Chateau de Mercues on the outskirts of Cahors to make his DBS launch introductory speech, he said, and did, absolutely nothing. No impassioned pleas to quell the claret-fuelled hubbub, no …
Whisper who dares, but the trouble with most classic cars is that they have a nasty habit of metamorphosing from object of desire to utter rubbish the instant you actually get behind the wheel. A few years back, finally sating my impacted molar-strength ache to drive a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona –a car which, …
COLUMN April 2014 Good job the animal kingdom’s a tad more sensible about evolutionary diversification than the motor industry. You don’t find bees suddenly deciding they’d work better if they were the size of tennis balls, or cheetahs thinking ‘Hmmm… Fins… Now that’s a pretty neat idea, and clearly a hit with dolphins, I …