You wait ages for a successor to the Sierra Cosworth to arrive...

TWO spiritual successors to an Eighties sports saloon icon have been by competing companies unveiled to fans of fast but affordable cars this week.

The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth was the motor of choice for touring car racers and ram raiders alike during its heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and now both Ford and Subaru reckon they've come up with the modern equivalent after launching highly-tuned versions of two very different models.

The Blue Oval has come up with the Focus RS500, a more powerful version of the existing Focus RS which will be limited to just 500 examples, and set to deliver a blistering 350bhp through its front wheels.

“We were determined to mark the end of production for the current and acclaimed Focus RS with something even more special,” said Joe Bakaj, Ford of Europe's vice president for Product Development.

“From its stunning looks to its intoxicating performance, we have no doubt that the RS500 will be appreciated and quickly snapped up by performance car enthusiasts.”

But it's their rivals at Subaru who have actually revived the revered Cosworth name as a force to be reckoned with on the roads, after the Japanese firm announced a tie-up with the tuning firm to create a turbocharged Impreza with almost 400bhp on tap.

Just 75 Cosworth Impreza STI CS400s are set to be made, in what the firm reckons is one of the most eagerly-awaited automotive collaborations.

“The result of one of the most eagerly anticipated automotive collaborations in recent times is heading fast towards Subaru dealerships,” said a spokesperson for the company.

“The Cosworth Impreza STI CS400 officially goes on sale in June, and is set to offer performance-car fans the thrill of a lifetime.”

Ram raiders and getaway drivers are advised to start saving up now.

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before

IT'S not often you get to enjoy an epiphany, but I've just had one on my lunch break. I know what the best car in the world is.

The best car in the world is like the best footballer in the world or the best song in the world; you reckon you know what it is, but some bloke in the pub always knows better. But I'm going to stick my neck out on this one, because I reckon I've found a Bohemian Rhapsody-singing George Best on four wheels.

Firstly, it's important to remember there's lots of hugely impressive cars that can't be considered candidates, because they're terrible in at least one aspect. The Peugeot 207CC I drove last week doesn't have any rear legroom. The Toyota IQ's boot is tiny. The Morgan has a confusing handbrake. The best car in the world has to be fantastic - or at least very good - absolutely everywhere.

Fifteen years ago Autocar reckoned my very own motor - the original Mini - was on the mark, as it's a masterpiece of packaging but stylish enough to be a Sixties icon. I love it, but it fails because it's too small, too slow and too unreliable. Next!

Anything covered these days by Practical Classics is out, because the best car in the world has to exude excellence every single day, and it's hard to do that if it's been rotting in a barn since 1994. If I had to prescribe one single car on the entire population of Britain, it wouldn't be something which gets from A to B via the AA.

For ages I thought the ideal candidate for the automotive equivalent of John Lennon's Imagine was actually the BMW 5-Series. I've never liked them because it's still a bit of a Filofax car, carried around by middle-aged executives on their way to causing another credit crunch. But can you think of anything a 5-Series does badly? Exactly.

In fact the one car which does most things brilliantly - and is very good at everything else - is in fact the humble Ford Focus. Exciting it isn't, but I've never driven a bad one, and it does absolutely everything you ask of it.

I invite blokes and bloke-esses from pubs everywhere to tell me I'm wrong.

What is the best car in the world? Let David Simister know he's wrong by leaving a comment...

Fire up the...Peugeot 207 CC

THE chap outside The Champion offices said it all when he cast eyes on the latest in a long line of Peugeot cabriolets; it's a girl's car.

That's the cruel preconception most people have of open-top Peugeots, no matter how meaty this particular 207 CC's mechanicals are under its pretty, posey curves. But dismissing this latest version because it seems a bit girly is a big mistake, because it's a striking surprise from behind the wheel.

If anything, I reckon this particular Pug, the snappily-named 207 CC GT THP 150, is more masculine than most give it credit for. For starters its black paintwork and big alloys set it off a treat, and the 150bhp turbo motor means it isn't exactly left wanting in the performance stakes. It's still not as immediately stylish as either the MINI Cooper Convertible or the Vauxhall Tigra, but they trade practicality for their good looks.

Unlike the tiny Tigra you get back seats - although it's not exactly roomy at the rear - and whereas MINI moguls are stuck with a traditional canvas top, in the 207 you get one of those fantastic metal roofs which folds away in a flurry of whooshing and whirring noises. It looks spectacular, which is exactly what you'd want in something as pose-worthy as this Peugeot.

For all the things you'd want a cabriolet for the 207's a massive improvement on its 206 predecessor; roomier, better built, and grown-up enough in its style to not make a man feel self-conscious driving it.

But the big surprise is when you stop showing off, put the roof up and really drive the thing, because on some truly nasty roads it forgot it was an open-top and suddenly remembered it has 150bhp, firm but not uncomfortable suspension and communicative steering at its disposal. At least once I forgot I wasn't at the wheel of a mild-mannered hot hatch.

I don't know if it's a girl's car, but I do know it's a good one.

As published in The Champion on March 31, 2010

Victory, but is it for Peugeot?

WHICH is the fastest way of getting between Settle and Carlisle: Britain’s most famous railway, or a car?

That’s the question I posed earlier this month on Life On Cars, and why I found myself in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales yesterday, with a plush Peugeot cabriolet for company. I was impressed by its fiendish clever entertainment system and the latest in a long line of the company’s folding metal roofs but more importantly, its 150bhp means it’s a quick car.

Quick enough to win, it seems.

Just to clear things up; both the Leeds to Carlisle train and the Peugeot 207 CC GT THP 150 left Settle station at exactly quarter-to-four, and there was no cheating, speeding or foul play involved. Just two very different routes, the decision to keep the Pug’s roof up, and an outcome which wasn’t nearly as close as I was expecting.

I was expecting girlfriend and snapper Conny Kaufmann to be waiting for me at the main entrance of Carlisle station, our finishing point some 72 miles to the North, when I’d finished my blast across the A65 and up the M6, but she was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t believe it, but when I asked the station staff the train was still fifteen minutes away!

It gave me plenty of time to pull up, stroll to the platform and look smug as the same train I’d seen on the platform at Settle chugged into Carlisle, but what impressed me far more than winning was the car itself. A slight blunder on Peugeot’s booking form meant I was expecting a hot hatch rather than a cabriolet, but from the way it drove it seems the French firm may have forgotten too. Firm and sporty with precise handling, with the roof up I could have sworn I was at the helm of a mild-mannered GTi.

So there you go; a car is quicker between Settle and Carlisle than the Settle to Carlisle Railway. And what a car to prove the point.

Read the full feature in the summer edition of GR8 Life magazine and check out Life On Cars later this week for more driving impressions of the Peugeot 207 CC

Fire up the....Volkswagen Scirocco

DON'T make the mistake of thinking the sultry Scirocco is just a Golf with a prettty face, as it's sportier than its origins suggest.

Volkswagen's much-delayed comeback to the coupe market might have borrowed a lot from its hatchback sister, but once you get behind the wheel you're immediately aware the German motor maker means business with its latest effort.

You might feel familiar territory if you've just stepped in from a Golf or Passat.
The swathes of dark grey plastic familiar to all Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT and Skoda owners is still there is there in abundance, but it's all very high quality, and just a touch sportier in the Scirocco.
In fact the whole car envelops you in exactly the way a coupe should, even though there's no way of escaping that big pillars and slim windows make it tricker to see out of. If you're worried about that sort of thing, buy a Golf.

There's all sorts of exciting engines and options on offer - including the racy R version, due later this year - but for the 2.0 TDI GT is my favourite, because it offers a smart way of driving a sporty car. It might not howl in the way you think a coupe should, but you'll forget that at the pumps.

In fact the only real problems with the Scirocco are its rivals, particularly the long-rumoured update to Ford's Capri, which could offer a similar package for less if it hits the showrooms.

But for now the Scirocco is no sportier Golf. It's a cut-price Audi TT instead.

Renault in fun small sports car shock!

RENAULT have pulled off a makeover even Gok Wan couldn't master by making their Twingo supermini into a stunning two-seater sports car.

The French firm have mastered making the Megane into convertibles with folding metal roofs for several years but the Wind, launched earlier this month, is the first roadster the company has come up with in a generation, and I reckon it's going to prove a hit with convertible connoisseurs who find the Mazda MX-5 too obvious and the MG TF too old.

You can see hints of the Twingo hatchback at the front, but from the windscreen backwards the style is all sports car, with the side flankings in particular making it look a little like a bonsai Lotus Elise.

Its city car origins also mean its far smaller than the likes of Vauxhall's Tigra and Peugeot's 207CC, the nearest rivals which come with the added security of having a metal roof rather than a canvas one.

“The Wind is certainly quite diddy. Just 3830mm long, in fact, putting it slap bang in Mini Convertible/Vauxhall Tigra territory. This is hardly a massive sector in the UK, General Motors flogging just 2900 Tigras each year,” said a Renault spokesman.

“That folding roof is an elegant engineering solution. At first glance, it looks like the system on the Ferrari 575 Superamerica, but closer inspection reveals the Wind's mechanism to be cleverer. If you open the boot with the roof down, the rear deck hinges up with the stowed roof in tow.”

But the driving experience is going to be more hot hatch than hot rod, with the Wind sticking to the Twingo's front-wheel-drive rather than following traditional sports cars and putting the power to the rear.

If you wanted a Smart Roadster but missed out on one, letting the Wind blow onto your driveway seems like a great way to enjoy the summer.

Italian Job Mini Run: More information

MORE information on the Mini display in Parbold to preview a cinema screeening of The Italian Job is available by clicking on the picture above, to hear my latest visit to Dune FM.

The run, in case you didn't know, takes place on May 16 and visits the Parbold Picture House, and I urge anyone interested in taking part to get in touch via either this blog or by sending me an email at david.simister@hotmail.co.uk.

I also let listeners of Live From Studio One know more about my race with a train between Settle and Carlisle, which I'm really, really excited about. I'll be posting the results up this weekend, as soon as I know the outcome.

Go on, listen to it. You know you want to...

Forget salad, what the people want are sports cars

JAWS to the floor: it’s the new Nissan Leaf. It’s an eco-friendly motor to save the environment and – if press reports are to be believed – the company’s Sunderland plant. And it’s about as exciting as lettuce.

If you’re going to save the world, at least follow Christopher Reeve’s example and do it in style, not with an electric hatchback which looks suspiciously like a Toyota Auris with larger headlights. Even the name’s unexciting; you’d want to spend a week taming a Mustang or a Celica, but calling a car Leaf makes me instantly think of salad.

Don’t get me wrong, going green is a great idea, but I wish car company executives would get it out of their head that anything with an electric engine, whether it’s got wheels or not, has to be classified as white goods. Why not stick the Leaf’s 90kw batteries into something smaller and sportier?

We British used to be brilliant at this sort of thing; the MG Midget and Lotus Elan might run on planet-killing petrol but they’re small and light enough to get around it, while looking and handling in a way which still embarrasses today’s hot hatches. They prove that small, friendly cars can still have a soul, a point lost with the Leaf.

Mazda’s MX-5 is the nearest modern equivalent but even Nissan has a history of making cars which are frugal and fun. You might dismiss the early ‘90s 100NX, pictured, as being a Sunny in a sequin dress but when you lift out the glass panels and turn it into a micro convertible, you won’t care. It’s also an acquired taste in the looks department but at least it gets an opinion, which is more than you say for the indifferent shrug you’ll give the Leaf in ten years’ time.

The small sports car thing is way overdue a revival, and there’s no better way to replace V8s with voltage. Stick the Leaf’s ‘leccy motor into the 100NX’s modern equivalent, and you’d have the perfect socially-minded sports car. You could even call it 150Z, to make it the 370Z’s smaller sister, give it some mini sports car styling, and it’d be jaw-dropping in a completely different way.

People get paid far more than I do for offering up ideas worse than this.

Brilliant but pink

COULD this be the world's girliest car? 300 brave buyers are about to find out for themselves with this latest spin on an iconic Italian supermini.

Pink and proud of it, the Fiat 500C Pink adds an open-air twist to its equally distinctive hatchback sister, adding the clever canvas roof from the convertible version of the firm's small car hit, and throwing in a raft of expensive options for free in an effort to tempt buyers.

“We reacted to customers requests earlier this year when we gave them the 500 Pink, and I believe we will find a new group of fans with the 500C version of this limited edition car,” says Elena Bernardelli, marketing director, Fiat Group Automobiles UK and Ireland.

“With all the benefits of the convertible roof this summer, coupled with the style and personality of the Pink range, I think it will be one of this year's must-have car purchases.”

Costing £13,500 - £1,200 more than the regular 500C - and including extras such as a leather steering wheel, split folding rear seats, and Fiat's Blue&Me infotainment system, the Italian firm reckons it'll build on the success of the 500, which became a small car success story last year when it moved into the top ten of the country's best selling cars.

But it'll take a brave motorist to drive something this brightly-coloured through a town centre - particularly if you're male - and as much as I'm a fan of the little Fiat, I'd stick with something a little less outlandish from the company's expansive options list. It's definitely a matter of taste.

If you're thinking of playing an extra in the next Legally Blonde film and need the motor to go with the movie, find out more about this flamingo-coloured Fiat online at www.fiat.co.uk/pink.

Still world famous, I think

THE Life On Cars Mini has this week defied physics by being in two places at once!

After my pratting about on Google Street View last week and revealing the '83 Mayfair had made a guest appearance on the Merseyside maps, I joked that by now it'd be visible from space.

It hasn't managed that impressive feat just yet but it has pulled off something else instead; a second showing, outside the offices of the North Wales Weekly News in Llandudno Junction.

Because it's hiding behind the bushes I've circled it just in case you don't spot it, but it's there all right, resting between breakdowns.

Better still, look what I found when I panned out a little...

Mini mania or what?

This beats the train any day

YOU don’t get the sort of fun I’ve just had by sticking to the motorway.

I’ve just headed home after a weekend in Carlisle but rather than being boring and sticking to the M6 I’ve had a ball blitzing the back roads. I already knew the A6 was a cracking driver's road from my student days of nursing scooters along it, but when you bring a speedy set of wheels to its sweeping curves you know you’re in for an enjoyable afternoon!

The M6, which traverses the same North/South route across the edges of the Lake District, might get you between the North West and Scotland quicker, but I urge anyone with Castrol R surging through their veins to give its older, trickier and twistier sister a try. It’s a cocktail of hairpin curves, steep drops and wide open spaces, and an instant master class in the joys of motoring. Even when the Life On Cars Renault 5 made it to Shap Summit, the highest point, I was smiling the smile of someone who loves his cars.

I love coming to Cumbria because so many of its roads make for sublime driving experiences, and that’s why I’m looking forward to answering an otherwise pointless question in my next feature for GR8 Life magazine so much. Which will get you between Settle and Carlisle faster – a car or one of Britain’s most famous railways? Discuss, using the help of Peugeot’s latest hot hatch.

You might think the Peugeot 207 GT THP 150 would walk it, but the estimate journey times are strikingly close (car: one hour, 30 minutes, train: one hour, 33 minutes). A single set of roadworks or the wrong kind of snow on the line could throw the entire race either way. The road and the railway also take completely different routes, as you can see here:

It really is anyone’s guess as to who’ll win, but I won’t be too downhearted if I lose. I’m lucky enough to have driven a Mini over the Llanberris Pass, threaded a Morgan 4/4 through the leafy lanes of West Lancashire and been scared by a V8 Cobra on the back streets of Southport, but this journey across almost every kind of road in Yorkshire and Cumbria should make a really memorable one.

So, who do you think is going to win?

David Simister will be talking about the race when he appears on Dune FM's Live From Studio One show this Friday (March 27) on Dune 107.9FM, from 6pm.

Find out who wins on Life On Cars later this month and read the full feature in the Summer edition of GR8 Life magazine, due out in July.

World famous, I think

THE Life On Cars Mini is world famous!

Welll, sort of, after it appeared on the Google Street View mapping of Merseyside, which went live this morning. If you want a closer look and to see if you can spot your own sporty machine on the world's biggest search website, click here.

Next week: Mini Mayfair visible from space. Probably.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

OUR collective efforts in The Champion office to win the Euromillions haven't been going terribly well so far.

Every week a gang of us journalist types get together in faint hope that we can win the continent's biggest prize draw, and at about half eleven each Friday night we discover we're still nowhere nearer to becoming overnight millionaires. This is a good thing because if I ever came across millions of pounds through a lottery win, I'd have no idea what to do with it.

Asking someone what they'd do with £40 million is pointless because it's such an inconceivably vast amount of money for a single person to spend (although Elton John might spend it on flowers), but given our reports last week that there's an unclaimed ticket somewhere in West Lancashire, it's a question someone's probably about to answer. Naturally, they'll need a car or two.

Fellow Champ columnist Jim Sharpe reckoned he'd buy a Bristol if his numbers came up, but unless you fancy blowing £140,000 on something that looks like a slightly melted Ford Capri I'd steer clear. Nor should you spend your millions on any of the old classics I reccomended last year in this column, because you'll end up with hundreds of the things and not one of them will work properly.

Forget any Ferrari, Porsche, Bentley or large Mercedes because it'll make you look like a footballer, running you the risk of appearing in Heat magazine by mistake.

Aston Martins are out of the running these days too; production has been ramped up so much it seems you're as likely to spot one as a Ford Focus in a traffic jam. And Rolls Phantoms are a bit too Alan Sugar.

Nor can you go for anything from the other side of the Atlantic either, because while the Cadillac Escalades and GMC Yukons are perfect for rap videos, they're just too big for Britain's roads. Same goes for the Corvette and Viper.

If it were my money I'd make a beeline straight to Blackpool and TVR, in the hope of having a hugely pretty but slightly bonkers sports car built just for me. Or at least I would if the factory hadn't shut down several years ago. In fact, I'd go for all of these:

1) TVR Griffith - A modern day E-Type, wonderful in every way
2) Aston Martin One-77 - The first extreme Aston for at least a decade
3) Ferrari 458 Italia - Because a Ferrari has to be beautiful
4) Ferrari F40 - See above
5) Jaguar XJ220 - Stunning but criminally underrated twenty years on
6) TVR Cerbera 4.5 (pictured) - Another TVR but wonderful in a weird and wacky way
7) Range Rover Vogue - But only in retro British Leyland shades, please
8) Audi Sport Quattro - Scary
9) Aston Martin Cygnet - Because a £50,000 Toyota IQ makes sense when you're a millionaire
10) Lotus Evora - A masterclass in minimalism

The problem with most millionaire motors is they make you look like a prat when you're driving them, particularly in these troubled times, so in a small way, I'm glad I'm unlikely to face the daunting prospect of buying one.

It could be you, though...

In true Life On Cars tradition, feel free to suggest your own top tens as comments.

Selling like hot brakes

Just got word from Toyota that last month was its best ever for UK sales of the Prius hybrid car.

That's the same month that many of the firm's models got caught up in the most widely publicised safety recall in years, and got residents where I live so concerned I was invited onto the local radio station to talk about how drivers might be affected.

It's the same story with Audi's TT; once that car had its stunning lines dilluted by a rear spoiler for safety's sake after horror stories about the car's stability ten years ago, it went on become a massive success story.

I don't like the Prius but I don't deny Toyota their success. If a car's good enough, no safety recall is going to stop it selling.

You can bank on the Swiss to show us some great cars

A SERIES of stunning cars destined to land in your local showroom over the next year are being showcased in Geneva this week.

The Swiss city's annual motorshow is always a hot tip for spotting the machines which will be impressing motorists in the near future, with everything from supercars to superminis - and a touch of the weird and wonderful - on on offer.

Almost every manufacturer is striving to show off something exciting at the event, and one motor that's been making waves this week is Toyota's FT-86, the Japanese giant's riposte to the 370Z, the latest in Nissan's reinvigorated range of sports coupes.

Following in the footsteps of the Celica and Supra, it's a welcome return to sports car territory, and a great way to revive interest in the carmaker after the scandal surrounding safety recalls on some of its other models earlier this year. With rear-wheel-drive, a rev-happy two litre lump and a six speed gearbox, it's definitely a GT from the old school.

But where Toyota are going back to basics, Ferrari are looking to the future, and have embraced the world of hybrid technology by fitting an electric motor to the 599 GTB supercar.

It's not quite the shock you'd expect; rather than chasing economy or trying to save the planet, the Italian company have taken a few tips from their F1 colleagues and used the system, dubbed Hy-Kers, to generate more than 100bhp on top of what the 599 GTB already generates, meaning it'll be a formidable motor if it ever makes production.

After the sucess of the DS3 hatchback, Citroen are continuing their move upmarket by naming a slinky saloon after a mens' magazine, called simply the GQbyCITROEN. I look forward to test driving the NUTSbyCITROEN and the FHMbyCITROEN sometime next year.

Yet you'll find the real star of the show hidden away on the Opel - that's Vauxhall to you and me - stand, where the tiny Meriva is being launched. Building on the success of the slightly cubist original, the firm's smallest MPV brings cuter styling and some neat touches (check out the clever rear doors) to what's bound to be a big hit for Vauxhall.

They'll be everywhere this time next year, and you can't say that about most motorshow stars.

£50 for a car stereo? Not if the car costs £100, I'm afraid

MUSICAL maestro Thomas Beecham reckoned you should try everything once except incest and folk dancing, but I'd like to add a motoring mishap to his list.

I reckon I'm fairly open to pretty much anything on four wheels, no matter how suspect the pink alloys on the Citroen C2 always parked at the end of my street seem. The classical composer's mantra, brought kicking and screaming into 2010, really ought to read: try everything once except incest, folk dancing, and buying any car stereo that's worth more than the car itself.

As a principle it means I'm loudly singing out of tune to the Max Power generation, but I'm from a world where I'd rather have Pininfarina than Pioneer painted proudly on my car, and reckon the rule applies neatly to any set of wheels, no matter how cheap, cheerful, chintzy or full of subwoofers it is. A Bang and Olufsen system is fine for an Aston Vantage because it costs a fraction of the car's price, but sticking one into a secondhand Saxo is seriously sad.

The only problem is that - like all rules - I'm running the risk of breaking it, because The £100 Car has a truly shocking stereo, being one of those tape/radio jobs from twenty years ago which only seems to pick up stations I hate listening to. It's fine to fit an MP3 system to the Mini because the car's worth enough, but even the cheapest CD player I can find for the ancient Renault 5 costs more than half the car itself.

I could do absolutely nothing and carry on listening to the radio, but it only picks up that frequency you normally find in minicabs at 2am and it's not driving music, but music to drive you mad. All I wanted was to listen to Texas on the way into work!

In the end I strayed into Currys and bought a batch of cassette tapes to end my misery, but even there the staff gave me a bemused look, as if I'd wandered in from the 1990s via an MC Hammer video in an embarrassed attempt to track down some ye olde technology. Just to rub it in the car depicted on the side of the tapes is a Jaguar XJ220, which would have been on your bedroom wall, circa 1992.

I'm getting desperate, but I can't break the car stereo taboo. If I do, I'd be forced to consider incest and folk dancing as well.

Sultry new S60 goes for coupe curves

VOLVO are hoping to banish any memories of its saloons being boxy forever after it revealed earlier this week that its newest model is covered in coupe curves.

The Swedish firm unveiled the latest generation of its S60 saloon today at this year's Geneva Motorshow, and is hoping to beat BMW, Mercedes and Audi at their own game with a blend of sensual curves and the brand's longstanding reputation for strong performances in safety tests.

“In its overall shape, the all-new S60 is a coup; sportier and more distinct than any previous Volvo. In its design, it promises excellent driving characteristics, even before you get behind the wheel,” said a spokesman for the company this week.

“To deliver the highest levels of driving enjoyment, the chassis team have refined every single detail that influences a cars driving properties and fine-tuned the driving experience to offer the most dynamic ride ever seen before on a Volvo.”

Volvo says the S60, which replaces the previous model, introduced in 2000, is a coupe rather than a saloon, and has been fine-tuned on some of Britain's oldest Roman roads to make sure the driving experiences is as capable as its sportier new styling suggests.

It also comes with the company's latest in a long line of safety innovations, including Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake, an optional system which uses radar cameras to spot pedestrians and give the driver a helping hand in emergency braking situations.

Prices for the new S60 are yet to be announced, but are expected to be at similar levels to the outgoing model when it arrives in UK showrooms later this year.