The Jeremy Clarkson debacle is what Top Gear needed

THIS IS a wonderful time for Top Gear.

Over the past few weeks it’s almost been impossible to visit the loo without someone venturing an opinion on what Jeremy Clarkson did or didn’t do in a North Yorkshire hotel, which is why – until now – I've refrained from weighing in with mine.

Watching the whole Jeremy Clarkson thing unfold has been like watching – perhaps aptly – a car crash in slow motion, made all the worse by the fact I’ve grown up alongside his televisual career. So standing on the edge of the huge abyss his sacking has ripped through the motoring landscape has been like seeing a close relative getting nicked.

It's made worse - especially for the BBC - by the fact there is no clear cut answer. As at least one Champion colleague pointed out, to defend Jeremy would be to defend someone who punches a colleague at work. To agree with casting out would be to disagree with Top Gear's army of fans and to rob the Beeb of one of its biggest stars.

The Corporation has made the only call it realistically could, but it's a sorry end for Jeremy's long career there, A career that not only included some brilliant Top Gear moments, but the wonderfully nostalgic Clarkson's Car Years, the tongue-in-cheek Jeremy Clarkson Meets The Neighbours and the passionate case he made for Brunel to be recognised as Britain's greatest person.

  

Jeremy looks back at the Lamborghini Countach in Clarkson's Car Years back in 2000

I spent my childhood watching the fuzzy-haired progenitor of dodgy faded denim carefully crafting his metaphors on Motorworld. I laughed when his description of how the Ford Probe was so good looking it could snap knicker elastic earned him a mention on Points of View, and yes, I remember the ripples of derision his televised destruction of the Vauxhall Vectra sent through the motoring world back in 1995. Clarkson, both back in the Nineties when I got hooked on Top Gear and in his mega successful Noughties incarnation, is still compulsive viewing.

Yet everyone who loves Top Gear – and that includes you – will be just fine, because the show’s now been forced into the rethink nobody was prepared to admit it needed.

Top Gear of right now reminds me of Roger Moore donning a space suit in Moonraker – it was brilliant in parts, but proof positive that bigger budget doesn’t always bring better results. Stung by the criticism of a Bond film that tried – and failed – to mimic Star Wars, the producers went back to basics and came back two years later with the excellent For Your Eyes Only.

The BBC – as Doctor Who, Have I Got News For You and, erm, a 2002 series called Top Gear prove – is brilliant at rescuing hit shows from the brink and making them brilliant again. As much as it hurts to admit it, Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear are not one and the same. Now is the opportunity to reboot it and get back to the basics of the show. The cars.

Jeremy's infamous 1995 Top Gear road test of the Vauxhall Vectra

For all the punches, BBC inquiries, sackings, death threats, wild speculation and newspaper columnists seriously suggesting Piers Morgan should be at the helm of the word’s biggest motoring show despite having no experience of car reviewing, everyone will be fine.

Jeremy will be fine because he’ll either retire and enjoy the contents of his garage or find an equally lucrative job. Top Gear will be fine because the Beeb’s best brains are already onto the job, and you’ll be fine because in the long run you’re not going to deprived of motoring telly.

In fact, the only people who lose are The Daily Mail because they’ll have lost something to irritate the public about. Result!

Nobody understands the motoring terminology these days

EVERY SO OFTEN someone makes the mistake of asking me what car they should go out and buy.

It’s a futile exercise, because every time anyone’s asked me whether they should buy the Nissan Pulsar they’ve got their heart set on I’ll ask them if they’ve considered, say, a Golf or a Focus instead. They’ll politely listen to whatever suggestions I’ve come up, file it away in the bit of their brain normally reserved for memories of that childhood holiday in France they’d rather forget and then buy the car they originally wanted anyway. They’ll also, nine times out of ten, declare it wonderful in every way.

However, there’s another reason why I increasingly dread dealing any sort of automotive wisdom. Nobody actually understands the terminology any more. Cack-handed acronyms in the used car classifieds are fair game – flog people like me a Sierra with FSH, PAS and E/W and I’ll be able to deduce it’s a 1980s Ford which has some power steering, electric windows and a couple of studious previous owners in its favour. In the wider world of buying new cars, 99% of people don’t do initials.

So – unless you’re the sort of person who spends an unhealthy amount of time buried in Auto Express each week – you won’t have a clue what an X5 PHEV is. All the manufacturers are guilty of it to some extent, which means you won’t have a clue what any of it actually means. Did you know that an Active Tourer is a people carrier in BMW parlance, or that KESSY is a keyless entry system on the new Skoda Superb? Of course you didn’t.

It’s as though the car industry has approached the Campaign for Plain English and told it to take a hike. But the term I really hate having to explain to people who aren’t versed in Petrolhead English’s more obscure terminology is ‘crossover’. The term immediately conjures up thoughts of someone midway through gender realignment surgery or something a chicken does to get across a road, but as a phrase to describe the Vauxhall Mokka it’s marvellously inelegant.

Crossover, to borrow from George Orwell, is effectively Newspeak, because it masks the phrase masks the fact it’s a hatchback pretending to be an off-roader. Layman’s English is long overdue a comeback as the preferred lingo of the automotive world.

Until then, you’ll just to continue using KESSY to activate the infotainment on your crossover. It all makes perfect sense!

Entries now open for 2015 Ormskirk MotorFest

A NEW concours d’elegance event bringing together the finest cars from across the North West will be one of big draws of this year’s Ormskirk MotorFest.

Entries are now open for classic car and sports car owners keen to take part in the August 30 event, which brings together static displays and parades around the town’s one-way system.

Find out more about how to apply on the event's website.

Petrolheads rejoice - the Honda Civic Type-R is back!

HONDA’S hottest hatchback is being revived after a five year absence, with the first cars arriving in its UK showrooms in July.

The Civic Type-R uses a turbocharged 2.0-litre VTEC engine to produce 300bhp, which helps it get to 60mph in 5.7 seconds and on to a top speed of 167mph.

 It’ll cost £29,995, with a more luxurious GT-badged version costing £32,295.

Classic cars sought for Liverpool heritage festival

ENTRIES are now open for the classic car cavalcade and motoring-themed display at Liverpool’s Transatlantic 175 festival on July 5.

While the parade through the city centre is limited to 175 vehicles, the accompanying Vintage On The Docks display will be open to classic owners across Sefton and West Lancashire. Classic cars which tie in with the event's transatlantic theme - particularly US icons - are particularly sought after by the show organisers.

Go to the event's website to find out how to get your application in.

In response to yet another Top Gear controversy...

ALL anyone wants to know at the moment is what I think about Top Gear.

It’s been brought up by people tapping my shoulder at the bar and my mobile’s been beeping away incessantly with Facebook and Twitter chatter on the matter. Rightly so, people want to know what The Champion’s motoring correspondent makes of one of the most controversial moments of the biggest motoring show the world has ever seen.

Yep, you’ve sussed it. Why does Mr Simister drive a Peugeot?

You might have seen the clip in question. A couple of weeks ago, Jeremy Clarkson and James May took a sideswipe at the Peugeot-driving masses, and – via several crashes in a garden centre car park – insisted they should be given a wide berth on Britain’s roads. As a result, quite a few of my fellow petrolheads have poked merciless fun at me because I’ve got one.

Regular readers will probably know the Pug in question – it’s a bottom-of-the-range diesel 306, which I picked up back in November as a workhorse to entrust all the mucky motorway jobs with. I bought it primarily because it cost less than what some of my mates spend on shirts, but there’s another thing I’ve come to really love about it. It’s something applicable to all old Peugeots, and you have to go somewhere really remote to appreciate it.

Aberdeen, for instance. I was up there the other day in a borrowed Astra, and connecting the airport and the final destination of a business trip were some utterly astonishing roads. Quiet, twisty roads that threaded their way for mile after beautiful mile over the desolate Scottish moors, and yet the brand new Vauxhall felt a bit underwhelming tackling them. It was safe, comfortable and thoroughly competent, but the hint of dynamic sparkle I crave on all the cars I love was nowhere to be seen. It was the sort of disappointment that’d make some people want to punch a colleague in the face out of sheer frustration.

Yet my 15-year-old Peugeot, I discovered on not entirely dissimilar roads in Yorkshire the following day, has that sparkle in spades. Look back at motoring mags from its day and you’ll see road testers raving about the 306 GTi-6, but peel away the hot hatch garnishings and you’ll find all 306s, even bottom-of-the-range diesel ones, ride and handle beautifully. The steering talks to you. You get the sort of mid-corner updates most modern day hatchbacks would you rather you didn’t have. It’s something all old Peugeots, from the 205 GTi to the 406 estate, revel in.

Jeremy and James made that exact point eloquently before moving on to the comedy car crashes, but the message which seems to have been picked up by the wider populace is that all Peugeots are terrible to drive and commandeered by people who have a predilection for light crashes.

Old Peugeots can still deliver a real punch. Which, for reasons I’m still not sure of, seems weirdly topical.

Miss the Austin Metro? Don't worry, you can still commute, British Leyland style

A CAR NUT somewhere has just bought the entire set of development blueprints for the Austin Metro off the internet.

On the one hand, I’m a tiny bit envious of whoever’s just snapped up this intriguing bit of British Leyland history – imagine being able to go to a car show and tell your chums you own all the diagrams necessary to put an entire car back into production. In a way, you’d own an entire national motoring institution, but don’t even think about using the blueprints to bring the poor old Metro back from the dead. Largely because nobody in their right mind would buy one.

It was a great car in its day, but even if Princess Diana’s supermini of choice did somehow sneak past the Euro NCAP safety boffins into today's showrooms you’d immediately dismiss it because it’d be 30 years out of date. None of British Leyland’s offerings are being used en-masse any more.

Unless, of course, you get the train into work. If you ever use the Wigan to Southport or Kirkby to Southport lines, then chances are you’ll be all too familiar with BL’s handiwork.

You might not know it but the Class 142 Pacer is the Austin Metro’s distant cousin, because both were developed by the then state-run motor manufacturer. Like its four-wheeled relative, the Pacer wasn’t bad in its 1980s heyday – it actually replaced some truly ancient railway relics dating back to the 1950s. The difference is that while the Metro was pensioned off 17 years ago, the now utterly outdated Pacer is still chugging its way around the British rail network every single day, making commuters miserable.

My colleagues at the sharp end of The Champion’s news pages have for the last couple of weeks have been calling for the Pacer to be given its marching orders, echoing calls already made by Southport MP John Pugh. I’d agree, because if the powers-that-be are serious about convincing petrolheads like me to give up cars even for a single trip to Manchester they’re going to have do better than a wheezy, clattery, uncomfortable old jalopy of a train badly wrapped up in bodywork stolen from a Leyland National bus.

The Austin Metro is a car we Brits should be proud of, but if I told you to give up your brand new Fiesta for one you’d tell me where to get off. It’s the same with trains. You’re not going to convince a single motorist to change tack if the best you’ve got are those infernal Pacers.

Why the Transatlantic 175 classic car cavalcade will be a celebration of Scouse motoring

HERE’S a pub quiz question to test your motoring knowledge. What does the Range Rover Evoque have in common with the Triumph TR7, the BAC Mono and the Ford Anglia?

The answer – should you wish to try this one on your petrolhead pals – is they’ve all been bolted together just down the road in Liverpool. As were the Jaguar X-Type, the Land Rover Freelander, the Ford Escort and the Triumph Toledo for that matter.

We’ve been mass-producing motors on Merseyside since the 1960s, and yet these great industrial achievements have gone uncelebrated for decades. That’s why I was delighted to learn the other day that one of the star draws of Liverpool’s Transatlantic 175 festival in July is a cavalcade through the city centre of 175 classic cars and motorbikes, accompanied by a static display of motoring’s greatest hits on the Albert Dock. I can’t wait to see how this one pans out, because Merseyside’s been overdue a really big car event for decades.

The event’s organisers told me they’re looking for cars from across the North West which are either British or American and have “great stories to tell” –prototypes, one-offs, early models, that sort of thing – for the 5 July parade through the centre. While it’s still early days and applications have only just opened for the event, I reckon it’s got the potential to be a real hit because there are so many wonderful cars being enjoyed by car nuts across the North West.

Wouldn’t it be great to see one of the first Ford Anglias ever to roll off the Halewood production line take part in that parade, followed by a couple of the Formula One cars which fans of the Ormskirk MotorFest will be familiar with? You could stretch it out beyond Liverpool’s borders too; I’d love to see a Southport-crafted Vulcan, one of the Lotus Europas lovingly built in Banks or one of Ellesmere Port’s earliest Vauxhall Vivas winding their way past Liverpool’s landmarks.

That’s before I get onto the land speed record set in Southport by Sir Henry Segrave or the fact that Aintree is about so much more than horse racing – it’s where Sir Stirling Moss became the first Englishman to win a British Grand Prix! The North West has a wonderful motoring heritage and the Transatlantic 175 festival is the perfect occasion to share that with the world.

I’m really looking forward to hearing the noise of those 175 cars and bikes starting up as they get ready for the parade. See you there!