February 2009 Archives

More and more Brits are holidaying at home. This is bad news for Mr Ryanair and Mr easyJet but bodes well for Doris Landlady of Blackpool who for the first time in many years will be able to show off the generosity of her free condiments.

What is the price of diesel down your way this morning, still hovering around the quid is it? Yesterday my wife, instead of wringing a dishcloth of fuel into it, filled the tank of her petrol 4x4 for £10 less than the last time the needle went hard to port.
When we bought it I had reservations but Class A petrol addiction is hard to crack. Even my Hilux, which is fitted with anti-insugency tyres, runs on petrol and therefore does less to the gallon than Concorde.
Yet despite the best efforts of myself and other octane obsessives diesel sales rocketed. Which is why now and possibly for ever, a litre of paraffin will be the stuff of pound shops.
Incredible. The human animal, a being advanced enough to invent wine, is incapable of spotting the obvious. We did not, for instance, see that populating the investment banking sector with people who made Lord Lucan's gambling habits look like shove ha'penny, we would put Britain on a losing streak at the lucky strike casino.
Similarly by taxing cars on their co2 emissions, putting the more efficient diesel models in lower bands, the inflationary result is that we just don't have the refining capacity to keep up with demand.
And now for the really bad news. Someone at a used car guide has worked out that if you buy a BMW 318 diesel it could take 28 years to become cost effective. Think about it. Buy one tomorrow and your unborn child could be working for Lehman's before you are in pocket. Even a Mondeo diesel takes six years to hit pay dirt. And by that time it's a Wolverhampton taxi.
Bringing us, without any hint of a sarcastic rattle, to the £23,545 two-litre Peugeot 407 SW HDi 170bhp. In sport trim.
It has plenty of room in an attractive non-industrial body shape which is finished inside to a much higher standard than PSA stablemate Citroen's models. Quality soft-touch plastics and tasteful inserts are supported by half-leather upholstery. Very nice.
Equipment includes electrically adjustable heated seats, automatic lights and wipers, auto folding mirrors, parking sensor and a panoramic glass roof
For ease of access the tailgate is split.
On the road this is no slouch. 62mph comes up in nine seconds and the top speed is 137mph. Heavier than predecessors, like just about all cars today, it may be but there is a pretty good chassis at work here and scope for enthusiasm backed up by ESP and a five-star NCAP score. On the motorway the 407 is like driving around in a rather polite middle-aged gentleman.
That, however, is not why you chose it. Only 165g/km of carbon puts the SW in tax band D and it is possible to hope for over 50mpg.
I may have given you the impression that I would rather run my car on glue and even though diesel emits less co2 it pumps out particulates the size of house bricks. But you are probably a convert and as such should understand that if you want a reasonably priced, quality family 'estate' the 407 fits the bill. No matter how long it takes to pay it.

So poor Geoff Dornan is hauled before the beak for riding his roller skates in the pedestrian areas of 'classic' resort, Southport.

In these straightened times when one scarcely dare test drive anything more decadent than a kipper box and pram wheels kart, good news for those looking to downsize or, indeed, vanish off the radar altogether.

There may well be an air around that the world has ended for the motor industry but fear not, it'll be back.
Nothing can stop the development of new and better products and here is news of one from Nissan, going on show in the vibrant atmosphere of the Geneva chocolate and cuckoo clock show.

Surely it is the ultimate slap in the face for the rainbow worriers. A Toyota Hilux has reached the south pole.
Imagine the consternation as little penguin tells mummy penguin insurgents from the Middle East have turned up to shoot daddy because he smells of fish.

A quick glance throughthe deadwood of recent press releases suggests that topping our worry list should be the threat posed to emperor penguins by melting antarctic ice, subsequent hot feet and inappropriate nun jokes. Soon Scholl foot powder will replace krill at the top of the penguin shopping list. Have you ever had athlete's foot? I once enjoyed a really good pig's trotter.
Sorry but I am with Darwin on this one. Having evolved into a flightless duck with poor personal hygiene the species will no doubt cope in time with less ice underfoot. In support of this notion I would point out that these birds were doing rather well when I visited a Manx animal sanctuary, an island noted more for its deformed cats than glacial activity.
To further confuse things, on Question Time last week a woman from Dorking, or it could have been Mars, insisted that global warming will bring with it more snowstorms, yet this morning's newspaper says that by 2030 children will only know snow in the colloquial recreational drugs sense and that anyone going outdoors in Spain will burst into flames.
Better, then, to keep an open mind which is what took me to a crisp and even West Yorkshire where Honda had lined up a range of cars designed to travel to South Georgia and back on just the oil extracted from a kipper. There was even an economy challenge to emphasise this.
And here is the result. I was denied bottom spot only by the man from the Yorkshire Post who, as one glance at his hair will confirm, is a werewolf and therefore disqualified.
Better, I think, to draw attention away from the clear evidence that I have a touch like a shire horse by examining the forbidden pleasures of the VW Passat R36.
Racing to 62mph in 5.6 seconds and on to 155mph, the R36 looks as restrianed as puritan speed dating, giving little visual indication that under the bonnet is a 295bhp 3.6-litre V6 linked to a six-speed DSG gearbox. It is the quickest VW ever and yet, despite some trim changes and bigger tail pipes, looks no more threatening than a career in soft furnishings.
So, is there any point in paying £30,600, suffering band G taxation and hoping against hope to manage 30mpg if people in the street think you are driving a taxi?
Well, yes. For one thing when you hit the loud pedal no one will be left in any doubt about the R36's libido. Handling is aided by the 4Motion all-wheel-drive system and suspension stiffened to almost Audi levels. The result is entertaining and safe
Move inside and you soon see what makes the R36 the car for grown up enthusiasts. Fully kitted out as you would expect for the price, it has heated seats with 12-way driver adjustment, multi-function steering wheel with paddle shifts, every sensible electronic addition. There are many things to like and just the clumsy parking brake bell-push to dislike.
Not a car for those who feel they should be able to store a week's fuel in a damp dishcloth but definitely right for drivers who want to enjoy power and comfort without standing out like a penguin in a sauna.

IN times of adversity the human animal is inclined to look towards the stars. During a particularly bad outbreak of cat flu, for instance, the Egyptians discovered that by building a large pyramid and leaving a slit in one wall they could line up the sun and Venus to produce the world's first ophthalmic laser.
Later, faced with a cataclysmic collapse of the Central American cocaine market Maya Indians amused themselves by plotting the skies and drawing up the long count calendar.
Now I have news to distracted from the current snow shock horror commuter road chaos.
The moon is back to front.
No, really. Scientists at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics say long, long ago, even before Bruce Forsythe, an asteroid struck our neighbour and flipped it through 180 degrees.
To be absolutely certain we really need to revisit the lunar landscape. The trouble is President Borat can't afford to tax the space shuttle. Leaving a gap in the market for scientists at Cambridge University who have developed a string so strong it could be harnessed to carry a space elevator. As Led Zeppelin could have sung, a kind of stair lift to heaven.
Such a development would put Britain back in the vanguard of invention but I foresee trouble with government funding unless the elevator is suitably 'inclusive' having a kebab dumped in it every Friday night and being regularly sprayed with distinctive human fragrances.
To the best of my knowlege Nissan does not have a celestial lift programme but there is a space issue with the new seven-seat Qashqai. As in there isn't any for luggage with all the seats up.
In fact the Qashqai+2dCi Acenta is something of a paradox. A bulky seven seater which has only 148bhp to play with but as a two-litre diesel, develops 260lb ft of torque promising much as a vehicle for towing caravans and horse boxes off muddy fields. Except that the test car was a two-wheel drive version.
Which is deserving of a closer look.
Firstly those fold flat extra seats. Given that the Acenta will do up to 50mg they makes it a guilt-free trip to school for your own and the neighbour's kids. But make no mistake, even though Nissan increased the car's length, you won't be offering the same service to football on a Saturday morning with their kit.
What then are the advantages? Well, seats folded there is more space and height than in the standard model which I always felt was something of a crossover on a hot wash.
On the road the two-wheel driver ver5sion is quick enough at 9.6 seconds to 60 and smooth with a pretty faultless six-speed gearbox. An excellent cruiser it also has a capable chassis and handles well.
We already now about the Qashqai's high-spec and clever storage ideas, the reversing camera , safety features like ESP and brake assist along with looks improved by the extra inches.
Buy one now and you will pay £21,500. Great news when you consider that the warranty will run out just as the Maya calendar reaches its end date in 2012. The year the sky falls in.