The Jaguar F-type may be beautiful, but...

THE other day I ticked off another entry from my car lover’s bucket list. I have, after what feels like an eternity, finally driven the Jaguar F-type.

While there’s a full Life On Cars review on the way – and therefore powder to be kept dry – it was a truly special set of wheels which I loved and hated in almost equal measure. I loved it because it’s a lucid, loveable celebration of what talented British engineers achieve when the money men actually get behind their vision for a change, and because it’s those increasingly rare new cars which genuinely feel like an event to drive.

Yet I hate it because – in the words of Joe Jacobs, the boxing manager – we wuz robbed. Robbed of the car, I’ve long reckoned, should have been the F-type all along.

That’s right; 14 years ago the world was shown another F-type and – in much the same way as the original E-type did back in ’61 – collectively gawped at what was a truly mesmerising vision of a Jaguar sports car. Even though I was only 13-years-old at the time, I’d already decided what car I’d be getting once I was finally old enough to appear on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

 In much the same way the E-type was sired by the Le Mans-winning D-type of the 1950s, I loved the way that the F-type presented at the 2000 Geneva Motor Show was directly inspired by an even wilder Jaguar show car – the wonderfully bonkers XK180 from two years earlier. The difference was that while 1998’s offering was always presented as being a bit too unhinged for wider public consumption, the F-type watered down the XK180’s excesses just enough that Jaguar said that maybe – just maybe – there would be a road-going version. It even went to the trouble of setting up a hotline simply so car nuts could pester them about putting it into production.

The F-type as Jaguar originally intended it would not only have been clearer in its objectives, taking on the Boxster directly rather than sitting above it at the expense of Jaguar’s own (and now killed off) XK model, but it was so much more beautiful than the current car. It’s a good thing I was too young at the time to ring that hotline, otherwise Jaguar’s management would have a restraining order against me.

Don’t get me wrong – getting a go in the new F-type is as a fabulous as being offered a date with Michelle Keegan. It’s just I was still secretly hoping for Keira Knightley’s number instead.

Fiat 500 range gets freshened up

A BLINK-and-you’ll-miss-it update of the Fiat 500 range has just gone on sale across the UK.

Sensibly, Fiat has chosen not to mess with the city car’s biggest selling point – its retro styling inspired by the original Nuova 500 of the 1950s – but it has treated the range to some new technology instead, including a digital instrument display and a new version of the company’s award-winning TwinAir engine.

The updated Fiat 500, which starts at £10,600, is available to buy now.

SMMT Test Day 2014 - Plenty of car reviews on the way!

IT’S not every day you get to drive not only Britain’s cheapest new car, but also one of Britain’s most expensive.

They’re just two of the new motors I’ve managed to get behind the wheel of at the Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, where I’ve joined fellow automotive hacks at the SMMT’s annual test day. In all, I managed to find out whether 16 new cars are worth your hard-earned cash, and over the next few months I’m looking forward to letting you know my findings in full both on here and in The Champion.

Until then, however, I can share the follow nuggets of automotive enlightenment which I picked up from a packed day of road testing:

• The Rolls-Royce Phantom Series II is not, as you might imagine given the prices, fifty times better than the entry-level Dacia Sandero. The rest of my life, however, will feel slightly poorer as a result of having briefly sampled the height of four-wheeled opulence.  

• The Suzuki Swift Sport, even though it’s getting on a bit, is still one of the best hot hatches out there. Find out which flimsy excuse I’ve used to roadtest it again in a few weeks’ time… 

• As I’ve suggested after previous visits to Millbrook, the electric offerings are getting better every year, especially if the evidence presented by Volkswagen’s e-up and BMW’s i3 are anything to go by. 

• I can completely understand why the learned scholars who make up the European Car Of The Year panel opted for the latest Peugeot 308 as their choice this year.

• Lexus should put the original LS400 back into production, if the popularity of their early example at Millbrook was anything to go by. 

• The Jaguar F-type’s price might raise your eyebrows, but the noise it makes will definitely lower your jaw. 

• MG’s latest offerings aren’t as bad as their critics make out, but nor as they good as some of the marque’s defenders would have you believe. 

• Without wanting to sound like Jeremy Clarkson, what the Ford Fiesta could definitely do with is a bit more power. 

While the recurring theme with too many of this year’s offerings was a sense of being accomplished at the expensive of character, there were plenty of gems among the 160 cars brought along by the world’s car manufacturers to this year’s Millbrook event.

I’m looking forward to letting you know over the next weeks which ones I really rate.

BMW's i3 is among the electric car entries showing the eco-friendly contenders are getting better every year

The day marked the first chance for many UK journalists to try out the new Alfa Romeo 4C

 

Lexus showed off the LS400 alongside its modern day equivalent, the LS600h

The F-type was among the most sought-after entrants - it's a good thing Jaguar brought five along!

McLaren's P1 supercar was only a static display, but the 650S had plenty of takers

MG Motor UK brought along a quartet of MG3 hatchbacks for journalists to assess

THIS is the new Nissan Pulsar. Will it succeed?

SADLY Nissan's official pictures of its new Pulsar weren't released in time for this week's Champion column, but here is the company's new hatchback hopeful in all its glory.

What can you expect? Well, it's an all-new hatchback using an entirely turbocharged range of engines - a 1.2 litre petrol lump, good for 115bhp, a 1.5 litre turbodiesel which thumps out 110bhp, and - most excitingly of all - a 190bhp 1.6 litre which lands beneath the Pulsar's bonnet early next year.

There's no word yet on prices, but Nissan reckon they can conquer what your fleet manager unceremoniously calls ‘the C-Segment’ - as in the hotly-contested territory currently fought over by the likes of the Focus, Golf and Astra - by blending gadgets on the inside with nifty design detailing on the outside. In the company's own words, Nissan is taking over where the Almera left off six years ago by "using the same design approach and original thinking that produced the Qashqai, X-Trail and Note".

  
Will it work, or will the Pulsar end up stealing sales from Nissan's own Juke and Qashqai models? Only time will tell, but I'm looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the firm's family-friendly contender.

Tatton Park gets set for classic car spectacular

CAR lovers from across the North West will be converging on a stately home in Cheshire for one of the region’s biggest car shows next weekend.

The Classic and Performance Car Spectacular, which takes place at Tatton Park, is set to attract more than 2,000 classic cars, and this year features a special celebration of Triumph’s sports cars, particularly the TR7 and TR8 models.

The show, which is now is in its 28th year, will feature displays from more than 90 car clubs and individual entrants, and a well-established autojumble will give showgoers the chance to pick up a bargain from hundreds of parts and accessories on offer.

For more information about the show, which takes place on 31 May and 1 June, visit www.cheshireautopromotions.co.uk

Clarkson column splits opinion

PERHAPS not unsurprisingly, last week's article about the Jeremy Clarkson N-word row has prompted some pretty strong reactions.

The piece, defending the Top Gear presenter over a clip which was never actually broadcast in its controversial form in the first place, has neatly divided Life On Cars readers between those who think he's some sort of automotive Ron Atkinson and those who think his apology was heartfelt and that he deserved to keep his job at the helm of the world's most-widely watched motoring show.

John Kade was one of the readers who got in touch after reading my piece in last week's Champion, and wrote: 

"Firstly can I say that I found this very offensive. Does Mr Simister know Jeremy personally, his article also falls short of describing how indecent Mr Clarkson's behaviour was. It appears that Mr Simister is minimising Mr Clarkson's behaviour. How many celebrities have lost their jobs in broadcasting due to this sort of clandestine racism? After all Jeremy Clarkson is in the public eye and arena, his behaviour should reflect that."


However, I also had plenty of readers lining up to agree with the article, including fellow Champion columnist Jim Sharpe, who wrote not a letter, but an entire column of his own on the subject:

I appreciate it's a hugely sensitive subject, but it's good to see that Jeremy appears to be getting on with what he does best - filming a new series of Top Gear, which I'm really looking forward to. Whichever side of the fence you're on, however, it's clear that the whole saga has prompted some strongly-worded feedback.  


Then again, that's nothing compared to the letter I had earlier today, entitled simply David Simister is an idiot and knows nothing, in which one reader questions my right to be a motoring journalist simply because I think Giorgetto Giugiaro made the Daewoo Matiz far more interesting than it could have been.

Each to their own, and all that...

Liverpool car show axed

A new classic car show set to take place later this month has been axed.

The Liverpool Motor Show was set to attract a wide variety of classics and modern sports cars to Croxteth Hall Park on 25 May, but organisers Aintree Circuit Club said the event had been cancelled due to operational difficulties.

The afternoon event was due to feature a mix of the latest supercars, an extensive display of classic cars and a showing of historic fire engines among its attractions, and would have raised funds for the Woodlands Hospice Charitable Trust.



The club is now continuing with efforts to organise its flagship event, the Ormskirk Motorfest, which takes place on 24 August.

Why I nearly ended up buying a Daewoo Matiz

THERE may have been a few Cumberland Ales involved in my attempt to snap up an Italian-designed oddity for next to nothing.

It all started the other night, when I ended up brewing the potent cocktail that is an idle browse through eBay’s listings, a sense of automotive optimism encouraged by Jennings’ finest, and a car-loving mate who’s all too eager to egg you on. That and a premise which I’ll happily accept most of you will struggle to stomach; the Daewoo Matiz is one of the most interesting cars the great Italian designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, has ever concocted.

Yes, the Daewoo Matiz. Here’s why.

You might not have heard of Giorgetto Giugiaro or ItalDesign – the car styling consultancy he founded – but you’ll almost certainly have admired his creations. Ever wondered why the original Volkswagen Golf looked so crisp, or looked longingly at a Lotus Esprit at a car show? They’re both among his extensive back catalogue, as are the Saab 9000, the Alfa Romeo 159 and the DeLorean. That’s before you get to all the bedroom poster supercars he’s sculpted over the past half-century.

The thing is, all these cars are heralded by people in the know as design classics, and coveted accordingly, whereas it’s almost universally accepted that the Matiz is an asthmatic, dynamically-challenged city car built by a faceless Korean company that went bust over a decade ago. Yet thanks to Giugiaro – and I reckon that I might be the first person to opine this publicly – it’s so much more than that.

 For starters, the Matiz was never originally meant to be a Daewoo – the design was originally one of the ideas for the Fiat Cinquecento (another Giugiaro effort, incidentally). Yet the idea’s trip to South Korea meant it lifted a company better known then for reheating Vauxhall’s 1980s range in the microwave, as anyone familiar with the utterly appalling Nexia will testify. Look at the Matiz from that perspective and it suddenly makes sense – yes, it’s narrow and gawky, but it was the first Korean car to arrive in Britain postively brimming with personality. It’s the Fiat 500, Gangnam Style!

But the best bit about the Matiz being almost universally accepted as being a bit rubbish is that the classifieds are full of unloved examples knocking around for next to nothing, and I reckon I’d have been quids in if I’d picked up the nicely run-in early example being largely ignored online. In the end, I got outbid by just £20, but my fellow Matiz-ist has got themselves a dirt cheap car with a vaguely interesting design for just £170.

I quite like the idea of having a dirt cheap Daewoo Matiz, particularly as it’d be perfect for someone with a brace of two-seater sports cars to ferry his long-suffering friends about in. I’ll get my coat.

Why this special edition BMW M5 will be one to remember

BMW has celebrated the 30th anniversary of a performance car institution by unveiling its most powerful production model ever.

The BMW M5 30 Jahre – roughly translated into English as 30 Years of the BMW M5 – is a special edition of the flagship saloon which offers up 600bhp from its 4.4 litre V8 engine, 40bhp more than the standard model.

While that might not sound much in an era when the world's fastest production car, the Hennessey Venom GT, pumps out more than twice that, but it's worth remembering that the M5's V8 now produces just 27bhp less than the BMW Motorsport V12 used to propel the McLaren F1 to 241mph. It also means the new special-edition M5 can haul you, three of your closest petrolhead friends and their luggage to 60mph in just 3.9 seconds - yes, the Nissan GT-R is faster, but it's nowhere near as practical.

Just 30 of them, costing £91,890 each, will be imported into the UK It's also fairly safe to assume this extremely-limited edition M5 will become one of the more sought after offerings from BMW's Motorsport Division, joining the likes of the E30 M3 Evolution and the E46 M3 CSL as one of those Munich performance machines which attracts a cult following among fans of BMW's ballsier offerings.

Since the car’s introduction in 1984 there have been five generations of the M5, which are all versions of the regular 5-Series saloon tuned by BMW’s Motorsport division.

Champion columnist scoops top award

Originally printed in the 7 May, 2014 edition of The Champion newspaper. For an online version of the article click here.

Jeremy Clarkson a racist? No chance

THERE are, I’ve worked out, only three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and controversies involving Jeremy Clarkson.

That’s why I’m sure I can’t be the only person in Britain who felt strangely blasé when they saw THAT headline the other day. CLARKSON’S N-WORD SHAME. It just makes you want to release all that pent-up Clarkson hatred The Daily Mirror bet you’ve been bottling up for months, doesn’t it?

Or rather it would, but these days Top Gear controversies and scandals occur with such cloying regularity that they might as well be episodes of Friends. Was it The One With The Mexican Jokes which offended most? Or perhaps The One With The Staged Caravan Inferno? The One With The Lorry Driver Insults?

On each and every occasion, a tabloid newspaper demands at least one of the Top Gear trio be sacked. Then, a fortnight later, everyone’s forgotten about it and the juggernaut that is the world’s most widely watched motoring show thunders a little further up the Beeb’s ratings.

This time, however, Jeremy has apparently been given a final warning. A final warning about a word which was never actually broadcast and which only appears in a clip which the tabloids have dug up to prompt your sense of disgust. A clip which – even if you listen to it repeatedly on YouTube – features Clarkson mumbling in an outtake so slurred it wouldn’t have been useable in the final cut anyway. Anyone who actually watches Top Gear – whether they love or loathe it – will know the idea of Jeremy Clarkson being a racist is absurd.

I watched that original N-word clip when it was broadcast, heard absolutely nothing of offence whatsoever, and absorbed it with no emotion other than a slight sense of smugness through learning that TV’s Jeremy Clarkson agreed with me on how brilliant the Toyota GT-86 is. I also watched the supposedly notorious bit of the Burma special, observed that the bridge the team had cobbled together was leaning one side, and only learned how outrageously offended I should have been by reading about it on The Daily Mail’s website the following morning.

I’m not asking you to like Jeremy Clarkson – that’s a bit like asking you to vote Nigel Farage – but I am suggesting that most of the people moaning about Top Gear have no interest in it. I have no interest in The Only Way Is Essex, but I don’t spend every night watching it, looking out for things to be upset about.

Happily, there’s someone out there who’s happy to stick their head above the parapet and tell it like it is. To paraphrase the direct quote from Twitter in a way that’s printable in a family newspaper, Jeremy Clarkson is many things, including a monumental pillock, but he definitely isn’t a racist.

Thank you for being the voice of reason, James May.