May the force be with the new Honda NSX

STAR WARS fans have had it easy – they’ve only had to wait ten years for a follow-up. If you want to see real patience then spare a thought for anyone saving up for a new Honda NSX.

The chaps at Honda are insistent that their new mid-engined supercar will be landing in the showrooms sometime in the spring of 2016, meaning it’s been more than 11 years since the last original NSX rolled out of the showroom. It’s been even longer since Honda actually launched a supercar; Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister when that happened.

It’s weirder to think the new NSX’s predecessor arrived at a time when most of us were still driving Ford Sierras, which makes you realise just how far ahead of the game it was. I was lucky enough to drive one the other day, and it just didn’t compute in my petrolhead grey matter that a 1992 car developed in the late Eighties felt slicker and more modern than the 15-reg Astra I’d been piloting half an hour earlier. So I can understand why this automotive iPad would’ve made its Windows 3.1 rivals, the Ferrari 348 and the Lotus Esprit, feel a bit prehistoric.

The NSX moved performance motoring on so much that Gordon Murray used it as his benchmark when he was developing the McLaren F1 – which is why the new one has an even bigger weight of expectation than The Force Awakens did. Ferrari and Porsche upped their game after the original NSX came out and made its party trick of being exciting and easy to use their own, which is why any of you could step out of a Ford Focus and into a 488GTB without feeling too frightened. Both it and the new 911 are hugely talented acts, so unless the NSX is astonishingly good it risks floundering onto their patch looking like the car world’s Jar Jar Binks.

Thankfully the omens are good. Honda’s raided its big cupboard of motoring tech for the new NSX, which is why it’s got four-wheel-drive and a dual clutch transmission with not five, not six, but NINE gears. Oh, and a 3.7-litre V6 that’s given a helping hand by two turbochargers and three electric motors.

I’ve no idea whether that’s enough to tempt rich Champion readers out of their 911s but I’m very much looking forward to my own test. If in 23 years’ time it feels more modern than a new Astra then I can go home knowing it’s done its job.

Shortly after which I’ll probably write a Life On Cars column comparing it to the 19th Star Wars film – see you there!

All I want for Christmas is - a Triumph TR6

FATHER CHRISTMAS will be cursing my dad this year. It’s always a squeeze getting every last present onto that sleigh – so there’s no way there’s room for a Triumph TR6 too.

All twelve reindeer will be gasping for breath as they struggle to pull 1,100kg of beefy British sports car through the sky behind them on their big festive delivery, and chances are the bearded wonder himself will be reported for breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act for making his flying companions haul unreasonably heavy loads. Then there are the logistics of getting a two-seater roadster down a chimney successfully. It’s all that fault of that man who wrote in asking for a TR6 rather than a festive jumper – and that pesky Champion car bloke who encouraged him!

Luckily I don’t think my dad’s expecting the elves to do all the hard work for him – but he has been worryingly thorough in his plans to pick up a bit of classic car heritage to enjoy his retirement in. He’s already worked out, for instance, that plenty of TR6s the Americans bought new are now being repatriated - and that it’s potentially cheaper to buy one of these and have it converted to right-hand-drive than it is to pay a small fortune for a Blighty-spec original.

The thought of a TR6 is an exciting one. Most importantly, he hasn’t done the thing I dread most of all whenever I hear someone thinking about buying an old car – the idea of buying it as an investment.

Classic cars as investments belong in a sad world that forever seems to appear in the glossy supplements you get with Sunday broadsheets. The one where bottles of expensive wine and whiskey gather dust in basements full of delicious liquids destined never to be drunk, toys are unplayed with and carefully tucked away in their boxes and holiday cottages sit unoccupied for months at a time, pricing the locals out of the market. Their owners have no intention of using them for anything other than to make money – and they put the prices up for people who truly enjoy them.

There’s nothing wrong with being clever with your motoring purchases – I know one tale of a chap who bought an E-type when they cheap, enjoyed it until it outvalued his house and then used the proceeds to pay off his mortgage. Smart move, but the word ‘enjoyed’ is the most important word in that sentence. Old cars thrive on being used and enjoyed – there’s nothing sadder than seeing one carted from show to show in a trailer when you know it never does any meaningful miles.

That’s why if a Triumph TR6 does show up anytime soon I’ll insist it gets used on country lanes on sunny afternoons and appears at car shows. Otherwise I’ll have to give Lapland’s finest a ring – they’ll have to come out and take it back. Merry Christmas!

The new Top Gear presenters - why you're not one of them

AT LEAST one of my fellow motoring scribes has found out the hard way. That - perhaps rather predictably - they haven't got the job of being a Top Gear presenter.

I bet I wasn't the only one unsurprised by reports late last night that Chris Evans has signed up three already high profile petrolheads to join him on next year's revival of the world's most watched car show. David Coulthard will be instantly familiar to anyone who knows even the faintest amount about F1. Sabine Schmitz has appeared on Top Gear twice already - including the brilliant piece about lapping the Nürburgring in a Transit van - and Chris Harris is already a petrolhead phenomenom, having translated his success at evo, Autocar and Jalopnik into more than a million YouTube channel subscribers. 

Yet they've already been dismissed by the tabloids as complete 'unknowns'. Largely because, I suspect, Chris Evans didn't follow their never-ending predictions of Jodie Kidd and Philip Glenister being given the gigs. Personally, I reckon it'll have a shaky start but providing the Daily Mail doesn't strangle it at birth it'll evolve into some great petrolhead telly - three people who know their onions when it comes to cars and know how to look natural in front of a camera, led by the classic car collector who gave the world TFI Friday. It deserves to be a good show.

It's just a shame about the thing that had us all on tenterhooks - the audition process itself.

Back in June - following the rather dramatic dismantling of the old show - the Beeb announced they were looking for presenters to join CarFest organiser Chris on the 2016 series. 

'It could be you', Top Gear said in a post on its website. 'It really could'.

All you needed to be was over 17 and able to ramble on about cars, and apparently the auctions were 'not just for famous people, ex-famous people, up-and-coming famous people, but for people who are watching the show.' Yet by casting three people already famous to the petrolhead world, it's hard to believe anyone sat there at home really had a fighting chance.

Which is exactly why - despite spending my childhood wanting bad jeans, frizzy hair and a gift for a great metaphor far more than a spacesuit - I didn't send in my 30 seconds of fame to Chris' colleagues. I feel bad for the people I know in motoring journalism who did, but worse for all those 18-year-old Top Gear addicts who sent in their clips, thinking that maybe, just maybe, they'd get that phone call.

Don't get me wrong - all three presenters sound like superb choices, and the last thing I'd have wanted Chris to do was go even further down the 'it could be you' route by turning the audition into an automotive version of The X Factor.

I just wish they'd put the job ads up on LinkedIn or something. Telling the world's car fans it could have been them - when clearly it wouldn't - wasn't really on.

Big off-roaders are desperately unfashionable - until you really need them

STORM DESMOND was horrid – and I wasn’t even in it. It’s no fun flicking on Sky News and seeing somewhere you love largely underwater.

My three-year student stint in Carlisle included (quite literally) wading through the 2005 floods, which is why I went up there the other weekend to help people stuck in the same position. It’s deeply saddening to see the picturesque villages I all too often frequent – particularly Keswick and Pooley Bridge – being mauled by the savagery of the waters.

Yet I did spot one good thing – other than the sheer generosity of people pitching in to help – to come out of all the depressing news coverage. Footage of off-roaders doing useful things and helping with the rescue efforts.

Chances are if it wasn’t a commandeered canoe or a dinghy doing the rescue work, it was a Land Rover Defender or a Mitsubishi Shogun. Lots of my petrolhead pals rail against my love of off-roaders and argue they’re thirsty and expensive and don’t handle properly – and in most cases, they’re absolutely right.

But when the chips are down you’ll want a rugged off-roader – and I mean a proper one with chunky tyres and four-wheel-drive, not a supermini that thinks it’s on Countryfile – on your side.

The Defender’s still the 4x4 of choice for the rescue agencies, even in its twilight years, but don’t fret if you can’t afford the £23,100 for a new one (or even the £4-5k a decent used one costs).

On the same weekend Storm Desmond was doing its worst a mate and I went green-laning in a 1998 Range Rover – a fully working, leather lined mountain goat of a motor that cost just £1700.

If you’re scared of the Rangie’s running costs there’s the Vauxhall Frontera – all it took was a quick flick through the classifieds to find three for under a grand. It’s the same story with the petite-but-persistent Suzuki Jimny, the Isuzu Trooper and the older iterations of Jeep’s Cherokee – and don’t forget the original Land Rover Discovery either.

They’re cheap because they’re out of fashion - these days everyone wants a car that looks, rather than acts, like a big off-roader – but any of this lot will run rings around a Qashqai or a Captur should the gritters forget to call by your place over Christmas.

I know big off-roaders are thirsty and antisocial and clog up the school run far more than a Fiesta does – but I bet I know which Storm Desmond’s victims were happier to see.

New venue for Lancashire classic car New Year show

A NEW YEAR treat for classic car fans in Lancashire has been relocated to a new venue.

Traditionally the January 1 show for owners of older cars took place at Briars Hall in Lathom, but it’s now going to take place from 10.30am onwards at the Corner House pub in nearby Wrightington.

The pub’s other monthly meetings for classic car owners have been suspended for the winter until 6 March next year.

Forget Bugatti - the Fiat 124 Spider is what I'm looking forward to

IT’S ironic that 50 years after the national speed limit was introduced spy shots have emerged online of what’s likely to be the world’s fastest production car.

The Bugatti Chiron – bet on it being one of the stars at next March's Geneva motor show – will pick up where the Veyron left off by going even faster. Which means 267mph – more than twice what a Fiesta EcoBoost will do and nearly four times of our motorway limit – is its starting point.

This is the point where you’re probably about to ask the question I get punted at least four times a year – why, if we’re only allowed to do 70mph, are cars like the Chiron even allowed to exist?

I’ve no clever answer other than to point out that all manner of devices capable of causing chaos if they’re misused – kitchen knives, angle grinders, Porsche 911s and so on – are used on a daily basis by reasonable people capable of using them without getting carried away. The Chiron has as much right to trundle up the A59 as your grandad’s Triumph Herald does.

So you’re allowed to drive it – but using it as an instrument of driving enjoyment in Cameron's Britain is a bit like hiring U2 to do the entertainment at your mate’s birthday. Spectacular, but a bit much.

Anyone who really appreciates driving will know powering along a straight isn’t the fun bit – it’s the corners, where light weight, supple suspension and talkative steering count for far more than simply going fast. Which is why the Fiat 124 Spider has me more far more excited than anything Bugatti can come up with.

For starters it’s good to see Fiat’s finally realised it can make models that don’t crib off the 500 – having made its city car into a seven-seater MPV, I was half-expecting a Fiat 500-based amphibious fire engine rather than a sports car. It’s also based on the Mazda MX-5 so the 124 Spider should be a corker to drive, and with styling that’s a bit more chic than the Japanese car.

Doing a million miles an hour isn’t the point – the Fiat 124 Spider is supposed to be fun doing entirely legal speeds, which has got to be a good thing for a nation obsessed with speed cameras.

I’ve no problem with stealth bombers on wheels being used (sensibly) on Her Majesty’s highways – but I’d have a 124 Spider, money no object, over a Chiron any day.

Renault Clio - the latest model behind a spellbinding drive

HARRY POTTER has led me to some of the best roads in the British Isles.

Well, the makers of the films – and my other half’s love of tracking down their locations of choice – did. Head to Hogsmeade railway station (which I’m reliably informed appeared in the first film) and you have to go there via some of the North Yorkshire Moors’ more stunning roads. Equally magical for wizard watchers is Malham Cove, which apparently popped up in the first instalment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – and meant I had an excuse to drive across the Yorkshire Dales in an MX-5.

It’s weird. A movie franchise best known for flying Ford Anglias appears to have been filmed entirely in places car fans love. Which is how I ended up driving along Ireland’s further-flung bits of coastline in a rented Renault Clio last week.

I already knew the destination would be pretty spectacular – if the Cliffs of Moher are dramatic enough to appear in a cinema near you, chances are they’ll be even more imposing in real life – but two things left a big impression on the way there.

The first is discovering there’s a road that threads its way along the Atlantic coastline for mile after mile before twisting and turning through what feels like an eternity of hairpins on its way up to the clifftop – and that it was virtually deserted. It’s a bit of Ireland that’s wonderfully removed from our rush hour madness, but stick your car on the Liverpool ferry to Dublin tonight and you could be driving it tomorrow afternoon.

Yet the real surprise was the car – that rented Clio. It might have an interior lined with cheap feeling, scratchy plastics but there was nothing low-rent about the way it clung on in tight corners. It just got on with the job with no fuss – track day fans might look elsewhere but in supermini terms I’ve driven far worse.

It looks good too – gone are the blobby proportions of the old Clio and in are some neat bits of detailing – like those Alfa 156-esque hidden rear door handles. In fact, the only thing I could really fault it on was the lack of oomph from the 1.2-litre petrol engine – 75bhp was more than enough for Galway’s tight streets, but it definitely felt like it was made for a smaller stage than Ireland’s trickiest roads.

I suspect there Ford’s Fiesta would have been more fun, but give me the right deal and I’d be more than happy to be chucked the keys to the French offering. Renault was clearly on a roll when it reinvented the Clio.