Speeding into the New Year

PREVIOUSLY unpublished information about the nation's speed cameras could be made available to drivers from next April under plans unveiled by the Coalition Government.

Road Safety Minister Mike Penning said this week that he wanted more information about all safety cameras to be made public, and suggested details such as accident rates and the options offered to motorists caught speeding should be made available as early as next April.

“Public bodies should be accountable and if taxpayers' money is being spent on speed cameras then it is right that information about their effectiveness is available to the public,” he said.

“The proposals I have announced today will help show what impact cameras are having on accident and casualty rates and also how the police are dealing with offenders.

This is in line with our commitment to improve transparency of government data so that the public are able to make more informed judgements about the work of local and central government.”

The Association of British Drivers said it welcomed the Government's announcements, which if fully approved will force road safety partnerships to publish more information, but said the scope of the information should go further.

“The ABD have years of experience attempting to get raw data out of elusive partnerships without success. Any data grudgingly released is invariably missing vital information or spun in a misleading fashion. This cannot continue,” said ABD Chairman Brian Gregory.

“Only when armed with the full information can the public see exactly what effect an individual camera has had. Of course, the raw data will also need to be ‘trend adjusted' i.e. casualties will have fallen everywhere over any recent ten year period due to huge advances in vehicle design.”

The Department for Transport said it will be working with police and local authority representatives as well as the Highways Agency to discuss the details of what should be published and how. The final requirements will then be confirmed in time for publication in April 2011.

Anyone expecting a New Year round up of the best cars, roads and things from 2010 should click here.

Fire up the... Mitsubishi ASX

ONE of the best things about driving new cars, I wager, is knowing that you're never going to come across a bad one.

Think about it; no matter what you make of the scores of models on sale right now, not one of them is going to fail to start up on a cold morning, make strange clicking noises when you do eventually set off or - worst of all - shed vital components when you're on the move. All things that have happened on the older machines I've actually owned, so you have to conclude that they just don't make ‘em like they used to. They make them much better.

This what I ended up pondering after driving Mitsubishi's ASX, because it occured to me that all cars, without a whisper of exception are now so startingly good that in fact anything less than class-leadingly excellent is in fact the new bad.

The ASX, particularly the 1.6 petrol version I've driven, is very, very good in all that areas that actually matter to motorists, particularly in how well it's screwed together and the utter sense of dependability it always gives you. The Japanese company's newest model, which comes with two or four wheel drive and blends Golf-esque size and dynamics with off-roader styling cues and practicality, is the kind of car you'd comfortably expect to survive a small nuclear blast.

It's also exceptionally practical, with plenty of room both up front and in the back, a big boot to carry all the things you don't need to hand, and lots of little storage bins and cubby holes for the things you do. It handles nicely too, keeping up with spirited driving whether you're on country lanes or dicing through gaps in busier traffic.

The particular engine I tried goes well enough and is refined enough for longer runs, but in many instances I found it lacked the mid-range punch I would have liked for overtaking, meaning the ASX is one of the few instances where I'd recommend the punchier, torquier diesel version.

But the problem with this car is not that it's bad, but that it's boring, with very little in the conservative styling outside and the unremitting dark grey of the dashboard to inspire you. The ASX is something you'd buy with your head, and it is a clever choice if you're looking for a solid, dependable crossover of a car.

But buy it with your heart? Not a chance.

More true grit from the Germans

THE radio news bulletin in the car on the way into Solingen was entirely in German, but I knew it was about the snowy conditions. I understood just two words; “London Heathrow”.

What you see above is a residential street in downtown Solingen, a German city where I'm currently on holiday, in the middle of the same snowy winter we Brits are going through. Don't be fooled by the massive mounds of the white stuff surrounding the parked cars; both the roads and the pavements have not only been gritted, but cleared as well. Something we don't seem to be able to manage in Sefton or West Lancashire.


When it snows in Germany the roads are cleared, the pavements gritted and shoppers put their gloves on and carry on. In Britain the public transport system is paralysed, entire airports shut down, cars crash on icy roads and pensioners slip on the frozen pavements. It’s bizarre, but we Brits as a nation just can’t cope with snow!

Last year I saw first hand how the entire region was caught out by an unusually high amount of snow. Searching questions were asked of the Government and the local councils, who promised that the scenario where entire towns were left ungritted wouldn’t happen again. It just has!

In England I’ve seen buses and trains cancelled, roads which look more like ice rinks, and even milk deliveries being carried out by tractor. Here, the most dramatic things I've seen are a Smart buried nose-deep into the snow, and a very elderly Citroen 2CV going about its business on snow chains.

The way everyone in Germany gets the roads cleared and just carries on, completely unfazed, never ceases to amaze me.

Compared to the chaos we’ve got, the Germans don’t know how lucky they are.

Fire up the... Abarth Punto

WHAT'S red and white and travels around Britain at breakneck speed? Nope, it's not Father Christmas, but Abarth's go-faster treatment of one of Fiat's best sellers.

This pimped-out Punto isn't, the marketing men insist, a Fiat at all, but an exciting and sporty hot hatch from Abarth, who if you reach for the history books have actually notched up quite a bit of motorsport heritage. It's just a shame that Fiat, who took over the motorsport outfit, then squandered its significance by using the name for sad cosmetic kits for Seicentos and Stilos, but since then it's made a bit of a comeback with the near-universally praised Abarth 500.

The question for this racy-looking road rocket, then, is really rather simple; is it the perfect Christmas present for the hot hatch fan, or is it an Abarth in name only?

The good news starts even before you step inside; like the little 500, it has one of the best bodykits I've seen on any of today's sportier superminis, having go-faster stripes where you'd want them, black alloy wheels, and nothing at all in the way of silly spoilers or big wings. There's something very Seventies about the big ABARTH logos running down the side, and the company's famed Scorpion badge will allow at least some bragging rights in the pub car park.

But even that doesn't get you past this car's biggest problem; whichever way you look at it the Fiat Punto, which the Abarth's based on, it's a car that's showing its age. Sure, it's still stylish, roomy and practical, but you get the sense, particularly when you're inside, that it's lost the edge to newer rivals.

It's also something you sense behind the wheel, because while the Abarth has a delightful scrabbly feel off the line, you always get the suspicion that its 180bhp isn't quite enough in a hot hatch market obsessed with horsepower. I'd buy it over the Abarth offerings of old, but over a Citroen DS3 or Renaultsport Clio? Sadly, I suspect I probably wouldn't.

And anyway; Abarth already makes a hatchback that really is worth every penny. The Abarth 500.

As published in The Champion on December 22, 2010

It's snow joke when you're not actually a rally driver

MY apologies to the annoyed-looking man across the road.

Regular readers will be delighted to know that my battle to get my No Claims Bonus recognised by the Rover's insurers has finally been won, after they finally accepted the mountain of paperwork I'd sent through as proof of me being a careful driver.

A reputation hard earned and very nearly ruined by tonight's weather.

Regular readers will also know that the idea of driving on snow doesn't terrify me as much as it probably should; in fact, I actually relish the challenge of ploughing through it, because it's a great excuse to practise your car control skills. That and secretly pretend you're about to win the Rally Sweden.

The old Life On Cars Mini was, as you'd expect, utterly brilliant on the white stuff, being light and nimble and perfectly balanced, which in turn meant when you did lose grip at surprisingly slow speeds it was an easy slide to catch. This could, I wager, be part of the reason why the original Mini Cooper S was a three-times Monte Carlo rally winner.

You might have forgotten the Renault 5's got rally pedigree too; true, all the high-profile victories might have gone to the mid-engined 5 Turbo but the front-engined one, which is far more closely related to my old £100 banger, actually proved quite a capable hot hatch in the handling stakes. While it was never as nimble as the Mini, it was a lot more reassuring.

So it's a shame the Rover 214, a bigger, heavier car which focuses more on opulent trim than opposite lock, hasn't quite passed the snow test. It's comfy, don't get me wrong, but it's also not a six-year-old schoolchild of car that wants to come out and play whenever it snows.

Put simply, I spun it. Sorry...

A special Christmas present for both our readers

THIS time last Christmas Toyota's tiniest offering got robbed of a not-at-all prestigious award, and it's all my fault.

Regular readers might recall that last year I offered up some honours to the good, the bad and the ugly of 2009, and that Toyota's radical little IQ got pipped to the post by Ford's Fiesta at the very last minute, largely because I wimped out and said the oriental city car's boot was too small.

Yep, it's time to revive the Life On Cars Awards, in a time-honoured tradition dating back to, oooh, this time last year. Only this time the job of working out what this year's best car was is even harder, because there's no less than five motors to mull over.

For starters, there's the Citroen DS3, which not only got shortlisted for the official European Car of the Year award but was also named by Stuff Magazine as the nation's trendiest car. I still think the clutch is a little lighter than I'd like but in every version I've tried is fabulously crisp through the corners, the interior gives off an air of quality and it looks great. It is that rare thing; a Citroen that's cool.

But it's got competition in the surprising shape of the Suzuki Swift, which I wasn't expecting to be anything Earth-shattering but it bowled me over by being a small sports car in disguise. I still think it's not quite as funky as its predecessor and that the boot lip's too high, but everything from its slick gearchange to its sense of fun when you drive it proved hugely impressive.

The car, I reckon, everyone at The Champion offices loved was Skoda's Yeti, which offers much more than just distinctive styling. It's like a Land Rover Discovery, but usefully smaller and much, much cheaper. If you like taking your dog for walks in the countryside, I cannot think of a better car for the job.

Certainly its roomier than the Honda's CR-Z, a sporty and slightly cramped coupe I drove and fell in love with on a couple of occasions this year. It achieves the historic feat of being the first hybrid car you'd actually want to buy because it's a nice car, and not as an eco-friendly statement. Good looking, revvy and fun to drive, it's a real contender.

It's only matched in the style stakes by our final contender, the Peugeot RCZ, which I've already had several arguments with readers over because I reckon it is truly beautiful. Striking, sporty and surprisingly practical, I'm not surprised Peugeot has had such a hit on its hands with this coupe.

It's a special treat for Champion-reading car lovers, and my way of saying Merry Christmas.

Open publication - Free publishing - More automotive

Volkswagen's black cab

EVER wondered what the iconic black cab would look like if a group of German engineers went about redesigning it?

That's the question Volkswagen have put to the public with its Taxi Concept Car, which it launched in London this week complete with a raft of what it calls “tongue-in-cheek” design touches.

Naturally, it's black and has a sign with the word TAXI written on it in large, luminous letters, but the rest of the details are either a) a tad fatuous or b) not really taxi-esque enough. The stylised Union Flag on the roof, for instance, would be fine as a sort of cheeky style statement atop a Mini Cooper, but unless you've somehow landed at Heathrow and made it to the exit without working out which country you're now in, I can't see it being much use on Volkswagen's reinvention of the cab.

What about, for instance, fitting a stereo that only plays MOR and Easy Listening? I have, for instance, only encountered these genres being played on sound systems in taxis, which in the happy haze of a drunken hour sound like a cross between an Enya cover of Fleetwood Mac's back catalogue and a blue whale giving birth. You can also never trace these mysterious radio stations the following morning.

Taxis, too, are usually equipped with a cheap, nasty faux leather you'd never see in any normal car; I know it's a cover designed to make it easy to clean a reveller's kebab/Smirnoff Ice vomit cocktail, but it's not a feature VW's mentioned on its taxi, which makes me think they haven't thought of it.

And don't forget the piece de resistance: the drivers themselves, who are more often than not lovely, intelligent people but on the very odd occasion seem to be opinionated chaps you'd be forgiven for assuming are practising for a BNP pre-entry oral exam. In the past friends and I have been forced into all sorts of conversations you thought had been left behind at Bernard Manning gigs, circa 1980.

Volkswagen misses out on these quintessentially British details, you see...

Why I'm still not charged up by electric cars

IF you make it as far as the motors section in tomorrow's Champion, you'll probably be bored with all the stories about the Coalition Government cutting things. But what if they gave you £5,000 off your next new car?

That's right; David Cuts Cameron and his Lib Dem sidekick, Nasty Nick Clegg, actually announced yesterday that they're going to give you a whopping £5,000 off the price of your next car. Naturally, there's a slight snag to this nugget of good news - it has to run on electricity.

When the scheme starts in January, there will be just three cars on sale in British showrooms which run solely on electricity, which admittedly is three more than this time last year. The Mitsubishi iMiev, the the Smart Fortwo electric drive and the Peugeot iOn. Yet as much as I'd like to save the Earth, I'm yet to be convinced electric cars actually work properly yet.

I base this on my limited experience of driving just one electric car, the zero-emissions MINI E which BMW trialled in the South East earlier this year. I've driven and enjoyed the petrol-powered Cooper on a couple of occasions, but the MINI of the volt-powered variety was - and I choose my words carefully - one of the worst cars I've driven this year.

Sure, with all the power available at precisely no revs at all it got off the line like a greyhound, but the engine braking in particular was appalling; one on occasion, I pulled up safely at a roundabout without touching the brakes. It also had no back seats and a range of less than 150 miles and as much as BMW stressed it was an experiment and not a finished product, I really couldn't recommend it.

I've every hope that the similarly electric Nissan Leaf, which has just been voted European Car of the Year, and Citroen's C-Zero, which has just achieved the not-at-all-impressive feat of being the first car to successfully use the Eurotunnel, prove better buys. But there's still one real price you'll have to pay, and that's the price itself.

With the iMiev - a tiny city car - on sale at £24,000 and the Leaf due to cost about the same when it eventually goes on sale, I just can't see why you'd pay the price of a 3 Series or Golf GTi for a tiny and not terribly inspiring hatchback just because it runs on electricity.

I can't wait to be proven wrong, of course, but at the end of 2010 and even with the temptation of a tasty £5,000 discount, I just can't get charged up about electric cars yet.

A problem that'll take two years to solve

I HAVE a revelation which will shock number-crunchers everywhere; 24 months is no longer the same length as two years!

With the house gaily decorated, presents underneath the tree and the weather outside on the wintry side I know it's that special time of year again; the time when I get annoyed with the car insurance industry. This year, it's over the idea that 24 months and two years aren't the same thing.

I insured my Rover knowing I have one full year of No Claims Bonus from 2009 on the old Mini, 11 months on the Renault 5 this year and another six on another policy covering the Mini, which overall, is more than two years' worth of driving, during which time I haven't made a single claim.

Fairly enough, the Rover's insurers wanted proof of this, and although I haven't had all the paperwork to hand I've sent details of the NCB proof I have to hand right now - the two from this year - which both they and the previous company agree counts as one years' NCB between them. I am also in the process of sending the policy on the Mini which I had in 2009, which when it arrives in the post, will confirm a second 12 months of not claiming.

What I'm worried about is that the Rover's insurers won't see it that way, in which case I owe them £115 for the privilege of redefining how long 24 months is.

What's worse, the warning letter they sent to me on November 28th gave me ten days to sort my affairs out, which I would have done had one of my relatives not decided it was his post, ignored it, come back to it and then told me more than a week after he'd got it that I "might want to sort it out". So essentially I'm running the risk of being penalised to the tune of £115 because someone else had picked up my post and neglected to mention it.

I'm not the stereotypical Yoof who cost the car insurance industry millions by just not bothering at all; I insure all my cars fairly, squarely and honestly, I drive safely, I pay their ridiculously high premiums on the dot and - most importantly for them - I don't ring them up with those bothersome "claims" they're always moaning about. Yes, I'm a petrolhead, but I'm one who doesn't break the law.

Maybe, when I'm older and wiser, I'll share this story with my children in 20 years' time. Oh no, wait, make that 240 months...

Britain's most exclusive sports car

WANT a nice, sporty car nobody else has got? Then - unlikely as it seems - you'll have to get yourself one of these.

Earlier this year I praised Volkswagen's Phaeton as being one of Britain's most exclusive motors, but it seems after looking through official figures released this week which tell you who's bought what in 2010 so far I'm going to retract my reccomendation. For true exclusivity, you'd be much better off with the Daihatsu Copen.

Consider this; so far this year Daihatsu has sold 170 cars in the UK. That's not just the stat for the two-seater, really rather pretty little Copen, but the entire brand. That's less than one a day, and the company sells four different models over here. Ford sell 115 times that number in a single month!

To make more sense of the shocking statistic you've also got to consider the handful of companies that sold even fewer cars, which include soon to axed SUV masters Hummer (who sold four cars), European luxury car sales flop Cadillac (24 cars), Chevrolet's Corvette sub-brand (two cars), and deleted upmarket Jaguar maker Daimler (two cars).

Almost all of these badges come on cars that are obsolete, irrelevant or, let's face it, rubbish.

But to brand the Daihatsu, er, brand in the same way is missing out on some entertaining little motors, not least the fizzy Copen sports car, which only put British buyers off because it's so tiny. Anyone who recalls Jeremy Clarkson escaping a pack of hounds while at the helm of the Terios will know it's a surprisingly capable off-roader, and even the Sirion supermini has a quirky charm. In fact, the only model I'd actively avoid is the ugly, too-tall-for-its-boots Materia MPV.

I also reckon the days of driving a Daihatsu and having people laugh at you are finally gone, partly because it doesn't make the ridiculous Move city car anymore and partly because nobody has ever seen any of the new models. You're more likely to get quizzical looks from bystanders, genuinely curious as to what that strange little sports car you're driving actually is.

So go on, buy a Daihatsu before the company's UK importers get put off and delete it from the country's showrooms altogether.

It'll be more exclusive than any of Aston Martin's models, and that's a fact.

Swiss and cheesy

FORGET the Ferrari 458 Spider, the BMW 650i Convertible and even the new MINI Roadster. Next year's ultimate open top car will be made in Switzerland from bits of bamboo.

Chances are you're too busy scraping the ice off your windscreen to contemplate going anywhere near a convertible, but even in the middle of deepest winter a slightly bonkers concept car from a company based about 20 minutes' drive, from Zurich, is being hailed as one of next year's unlikely motorshow stars.

Switzerland as a nation has never really taken the car to its heart - motorsport, for instance, is banned altogether - and I've already reckoned Rinspeed, this new car's creator, is the result of all the latent enthusiasm left to boil over among the country's few petrolhead residents.

In previous years they've given us the Splash, the world's first and as far as I know only hydrofoil car, the Presto, which can stretch in size at the touch of a button, and the X-Trem, which is what a Mercedes M Class would look like if you asked a small child to redesign it as a yellow pickup truck with a hovercraft on the back. As a car company, they're ingenious and insane in equal measure.

So it's not at all surprising to discover the Rinspeed Bamboo has an interior lined with - you guessed it - bamboo - and an exterior painted in gold and topped off with some poles and a bit of black fabric. Apparently, it's meant to remind you of St Tropez at some point in the Seventies, with Brigitte Bardot behind the wheel with playboy Gunther Sachs at her side. That's the company's description, not mine!

It is, particularly from the viewpoint of a frosty British person, possibly about the most pointless vehicle I've ever seen, unless you're actually convinced you're a character from the Roger Moore era of James Bond films and have Boney M's greatest hits on standby. Even if Seventies fashion makes a comeback next spring you've still got remember what it is; a beach buggy lined with bamboo and crafted by lunatics in a shed in Switzerland.

I still want one though.

Fire up the... Nissan Cube

GET a six-year-old child to scribble a picture of a car for you and chances are their creation would look like something like this.

Nissan's Cube is cute and curious in equal measure, with its deliberately, defiantly boxy stance being the first thing that hits you when you come across it. Paint one red and you're letting yourself in for Postman Pat jokes, but get the colours, wheels and spec right on what's a very Oriental automobile and you'll have an intruigingly different bit of motoring on your hands.

There's no getting around the decidedly high-rise styling - you either love it or hate it, and given that the entire car's named in its honour, it's not going to be changing any time soon. It's particularly sensitive to colours, with pastel shades and white - national colour of Japan, the Cube's home country - being the best bet.

Step inside and it reminds you more of a Tokyo flat than the inside of a car, with more in the way of colour schemes shipped in straight from the Far East, thin, bench-like seats and lots of storage nets, which are not only handy for smaller items but actually lift the ambience of the entire car, adding to the very airy feel created by the expansive window space. With masses of head and legroom, it's about as far removed from the Micra as you can possibly get. You could spend hours marvelling at the ornate netting covering the sunroof in particular, because it honestly looks like the papery walls you imagine line every flat and hotel room in the whole of Japan.

Where it falls down is in the dynamics created by that tall, boxy body, suffering from vague steering and straight-line performance that's nowhere near gutless but not class-leadingly brilliant either, so keen drivers are better advised to look elsewhere. It's still worthy sacrifice to pay for the style and clever packaging, but it's not a car to reward on quiet country roads.

The starting price of £14,000 might put budget-conscious buyers off too, putting it straight into the sight of Volkswagen's Golf and the MINI, but where it scores highly is in providing a car that dares to be different that'll be endlessly reliable.

It's not for everyone but if you're smitten with the style it's well worth a look.

As published in The Champion on December 8, 2010