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Saturday 30 January 2016

The Land Rover Defender is one car none of us wanted to lose


IT’S FINALLY happened. A car that’s spent the best part of two decades dodging the Grim Reaper has finally been offered a final parting drink and ordered out to face the music. The Land Rover Defender is no more.

Yesterday the whole of the motoring world seemed to sigh reflectively as the last of the traditional Land Rovers rolled off the Solihull production line, bringing 68 years of production to an end. Not bad for something only ever intended as a stopgap to increase the number of cars the old Rover Car Company (remember them?) could export in the late 1940s.

The petrolhead parts of Facebook and Twitter lit up with misty-eyed tributes to the Land Rover, and footage of the final Defender even made it onto the BBC’s news bulletins. It’s hard to think of any other car that’d provoke such an emotional response – people are genuinely sad to see it go, just as they were when the last Mini was finished off 16 years ago.

Yes, I know a big, boxy four-wheel-drive is hardly moving with these eco-conscious times and that EU safety rules were the final nails in its coffin. I’m also aware that the Defender is fairly terrible to drive on the road, has no shoulder room whatsoever and handles corners like it’s drunk, but in tricky situations on tough terrain it was the Ray Mears type you wanted by your side. Having grown up with them it was like a family friend, a sort of Labrador with locking differentials and transfer boxes.

My parents had a One Ten so I spent virtually all my childhood holidays, shopping trips, school runs and – shock, horror – off road outings in the back of one. Inevitably I’d end up getting taken to places like North Wales and the Lake District, where every farmer and mountain rescue team had one trundling around doing useful things. There aren’t many cars you can genuinely count as being British motoring institutions, but the Land Rover is definitely one of them.

That’s before I mention all the foreign battlefields, remote African villages and Outback farms they’ve been serving in for generations. It has one heck of a CV, which is why I’m hardly surprised Land Rover hasn’t yet lined up something to replace it.

Farewell, old friend. I’m sure I can’t be the only one saddened that one of Britain’s best known exports is no more.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

James May is proof you don't need explosions to make great car TV

ABOUT A YEAR ago I had confirmation of something most car nuts suspect. Given the choice of a quiet evening, your local pub and any of the former Top Gear trio to go for a drink with, chances are you’d pick James May.

It was at a press conference in London where he was announcing a display bringing together his favourite pioneering automobiles, but being a busy TV presenter he had time to field just two questions from the assembled journalists. I can’t recall what the first question was but I definitely remember holding my hand up like a teacher’s pet with the second on the tip of my tongue – if he was going to do it again in ten years’ time, would his choices have changed?

I was looking forward to hearing him contemplate whether the car industry had stopped belting game-changing cars, but instead his PR man picked someone who genuinely asked ‘Did you get back from Argentina alright?’

There was a brief awkward silence at the stupidity of the question, but the Top Gear presenter who’d clearly made it back Buenos Aires just fine just smiled politely and gave a thoughtful intelligent answer that took the mickey out of Jeremy Clarkson. More often than not he’s motoring’s voice of reason.

That’s why seeing his Cars of the People back on the air last Sunday was such a breath of fresh air, particularly at a time when the tabloids are photographing every car Chris Evans gets in or out of.

Given he’d rounded off the last series by neatly supposing the ultimate car of the people is the Volkswagen Golf I had been wondering what ground hadn’t already been covered, but last Sunday’s episode was a genuinely fascinating bit of social history, exploring how Japan had swiped the car market from right under America’s nose. The journey with three Detroit car experts discussing the city’s downfall from a Ford Mustang II was genuinely educational stuff.

Best of all was the gentle ribbing of the car usually fĂȘted as everything wrong with our own car industry. James could have done with the Austin Allegro what he did with the 2CV in the last series – pummelled it with machine gun fire, in the name of TV entertainment – but he didn’t.

Cars of the People is proof you can make great motoring telly without massive egos and explosions – which is why I’ll definitely tuning in for this Sunday’s episode. I’m glad James made it back from Argentina alright.

Tuesday 26 January 2016

This Southport motoring event is one you won't want to miss

SOUTHPORT is finally getting its moment in the motoring spotlight.

Anyone up on their local history will know the town actually does pretty well on automotive heritage – and that Red Rum isn’t the only sort of horsepower our part of the world can be proud of. A century ago we were building Vulcan cars here, followed by Corgi scooters well into the 1950s, and when the beach wasn’t being used to hone future Grand National winners it was being used as a race circuit for blokes in Minis and Hillman Imps. We’re also home to the oldest Morgan dealership in the world (which has been selling Malvern’s finest since 1926) and just up the road in Banks there’s a chap who’s made more than 400 re-creations of the Lotus Europa.

Yet our finest automotive hour has been all but forgotten. Five years ago I remember writing for The Champion that the day Sir Henry Segrave set the world land speed record right here in the North West – March 16, 1926 – was marked only by the name of the town’s branch of JD Wetherspoon. The resort’s stint as the fastest place on earth had been all but forgotten - until now.

Organisers The Atkinson and Aintree Circuit Club – the people behind the Ormskirk MotorFest – have vowed to mark the 90th anniversary in style. I’ve seen the plans for the event and it’s exciting stuff; they could have parked some classic cars outside The Atkinson and left it at that, but they haven’t. They’re planning an entire week of events, topped off by a re-creation of the actual run on 16 March using a Sunbeam Tiger (the V12-engined vintage monster, not the 1960s roadster) just like Sir Henry did.

That means it’ll be the second land speed record re-enactment in a year, following the return of Sir Malcolm Campbell’s Blue Bird to Pendine Sands in Wales. To have something like that happen right on my doorstep is hugely exciting, which is why I can’t wait to see this event getting off the ground and witnessing a 1920s racer capable of more than 150mph fire into action on the very beach it wowed the world.

The event’s called The Southport Festival of Speed and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more on it The Champion in the coming weeks. See you there!

Friday 8 January 2016

Bentley goes back to the stone age

NORMALLY it’d take a couple of days for some robots to bolt your next new car together – but they do things differently at Bentley.

Order the latest version of the Continental GT or Mulsanne and it turns out the production process actually started about 200 million years ago, in a part of the world that’s now at the bottom of an Indian quarry. That’s how long it’s taken for a type of stone to become just about good enough for the luxury car boffins to use as it as a new kind of dashboard veneer.

Yes, you read that correctly. As part of a new service being offered by Mulliner – Bentley’s in-house coachbuilding service – your nearest Premiership footballer can have their new car offered up with what’s effectively a stone dashboard. About time!

I genuinely find it hard to believe that in the era of Grand Designs and iPads that the vast majority of cars come with a choice of two interior finishes – grey plastic, or black plastic. Materials matter, which is why I’m surprised it’s taken the car world so long to realise that stone is a wonderful material to work with (and light too, given Bentley’s is just a tenth of a millimetre thick).


I’d love the idea of a car’s dashboard being trimmed with a dark, brooding slab of stone straight out of the Honister Slate Mine. Having been tempted by the gift shop right outside its front door I’ve seen firsthand how it’s possible to make everything from chopping boards to garden tables out of the stuff. Surely a bit on a car’s dashboard to replace the horrid wood-effect plastic on some of today’s hatchbacks can’t be too far a stretch? Marble would look magnificent too, if the front of most high street banks are anything to go by.

Nor should imaginative interiors stop at stone either. You only have to look at the body coloured flourish streaking across a Fiat Coupe’s dashboard to know the effect exposed metal can have in the right colour. It looks wonderful but very few manufacturers (take a bow, Volkswagen) actually do it.

For now I’ll have to stick to wood-trimmed classic cars to get an exciting interior, but if I go get a sudden windfall I know where I’ll be going. Back to the stone age, courtesy of Bentley!

Thursday 7 January 2016

Volkswagen gets generous with its New Year update

VOLKSWAGEN has clearly made kitting its cars out more generously one of its New Year resolutions if a quick update of its Polo, Golf and Passat models is anything to go by.

The Polo SE has been replaced by the Polo Match, which might cost £100 more but throws in normally optional extras worth £900. There are also upgrades for the Golf, with the R-Line and GT replaced by the R-Line Edition and GT Edition models, and the SE Business version of the Passat has also been updated.

To find out more about the offers - and the rest of the current VW range - have a look at the manufacturer's website.

Friday 1 January 2016

New classic car show for Lancashire in 2016


CLASSIC car owners across the North West are being encouraged to get their entries in for a new show being held in May.

Mawdeseley Cricket Club has teamed up with car clubs based in the county to put together the new Mawdesley Classic Car and Motorbike Show, being held at the cricket club's ground on Bank Holiday Monday, 30 May. The show takes place between 1pm and 4pm, and is free for classic owners to enter. There's also a classic car run through the Lancashire countryside immediately before the show, which starts at 9.30am and costs £10 to enter.

To download an entry form head to Mawdesley Cricket Club's website. All the funds raised by the show will go towards the club paying for its newly-installed pavilion.