Funniest Quotes by Jeremy Clarkson...

Funniest quotes by Jeremy Clarkson

Posted Apr 16 2010, 03:49 PM by dekeman613 
Jeremy Clarkson may not be quite as loveable as Richard Hammond on our favourite TV show, Top Gear, but he is unquestionably a master of the metaphor.

One of my favourites was when he was at the wheel of a Ferrari, an F-430, I think, and described the feeling of power 'like sex with God.'

The website Ridelust put together these truly hilarious quotes.
1. “I’d like to consider Ferrari as a scaled down version of God.”

2. [On the Porsche Boxster] “It couldn’t pull a greased stick out of a pig’s bottom.”

3. [When driving the Mercedes SLR McLaren through a tunnel] “When they debate as to what the sound of the SLR engine was akin to, the British engineers from McLaren said it sounded like a Spitfire. But the German engineers from Mercedes said ‘Nein! Nein! Sounds like a Messerschmitt!’ They were both wrong. It sounds like the God of Thunder, gargling with nails.”

4. “I’m sorry, but having an Aston Martin DB9 on the drive and not driving it is a bit like having Keira Knightley in your bed and sleeping on the couch. If you’ve got even half a scrotum it’s not going to happen.”

5. “Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary… that’s what gets you.”

6. “Koenigsegg are saying that the CCX is more comfortable. More comfortable than what… being stabbed?”

7. [On Detroit] “God may have created the world in six days, but while he was resting on the seventh, Beelzebub popped up and did this place.”

8. “Owning a TVR in the past was like owning a bear. I mean it was great, until it pulled your head off, which it would.”

9. [On the Renault Clio V6] “I think the problem is that it’s French. It’s a surrendermonkey.”

10. [On the Enzo Ferrari] “I rang up Jay Kay, who’s got one, and said: “Can we borrow yours?” and he said, “Yeah, if I can borrow your daughter, because it amounts to the same thing.”

11. [On the Porsche Cayenne] “I’ve seen gangrenous wounds better looking than this!”

12. “The air conditioning in Lamborghinis used to be an asthmatic sitting in the dashboard blowing at you through a straw.”

13. “Whenever I’m suffering from insomnia, I just look at a picture of a Toyota Camry and I’m straight off.”

14. “If you were to buy a [BMW] 6-series, I recommend you select reverse when leaving friends’ houses so they don’t see its backside.”

15. “That [Pagani] Zonda, really! It’s like a lion in orange dungarees. Kind of fierce, but ridiculous all at the same time.”

16. [On a Chevrolet Corvette] “The Americans lecture the world on democracy and then won’t let me turn the traction control off!”

17. [On the Alfa Romeo Brera] “Think of it as Angelina Jolie. You’ve heard she’s mad and eats nothing but wallpaper paste. But you would, wouldn’t
you?”

18. “A turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft happens and you go faster.”

19. “This is a Renault Espace, probably the best of the people carriers. Not that that’s much to shout about. That’s like saying ‘Oh good, I’ve got syphilis, the best of the sexually transmitted diseases!’”

20. “In the olden days I always got the impression that TVR built a car, put it on sale, and then found out how it handled – usually when one of their customers wrote to the factory complaining about how dead he was.”

21. [On the Mercedes CLS55 AMG] “It sounds like Barry White eating wasps.”

22. “I’d rather go to work on my hands and knees than drive there in a Ford Galaxy. Whoever designed the Ford Galaxy upholstery had a cauliflower fixation. I would rather have a vasectomy than buy a Ford Galaxy.”

23. “Usually, a Range Rover would be beaten away from the lights by a diesel powered wheelbarrow.”

24. “Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work. It’s like making a hardcore adult film, and then editing it so that it can be shown in British hotels. You’d just end up with a sort of half hour close up of some bloke’s sweaty face.”

25. “I don’t understand bus lanes. Why do poor people have to get to places quicker than I do?”
26. On driving a Lancia Stratos kit car: “The steering wheel is perilously close to where my testes used to be before the seat belt jammed them up into my lungs.”

27. On the build quality of the Lancia Beta: “It was made of steel so thin that on a windy day it would actually change shape.”

28. On the styling of the Lancia Fulvia: “It really is as pretty as the sun setting over Charlize Theron.”
28. On women driving the Renault Scenic, a boxy four door hatchback: “It is the oddest thing, but I’ve never seen anyone driving a Scenic with whom I would like to mate. Once I saw a pretty girl in a Prius, and occasionally you see someone ageing well in a Peugeot. But Scenics are always driven by gargoyles.”

29. On women who drive fast cars: “There is nothing to warm the cockles of my tumescence more than the sight of a girl in a serious car. Emma Parker-Bowles, for instance, has a Mitsubishi Evo VIII and the thought of that, honestly, keeps me awake at night.Just yesterday I saw a middle-aged housewife in rural clothes screaming down the M40 in a Lotus Elise. I nearly grew a third leg.”

30. On his wife’s ability to multitask: “My wife can cook supper, pacify a baby and make complicated tennis arrangements with friends on the phone all at the same time. And not once has she ever put the receiver down to find she’s inadvertently cooked the baby and rocked the sausages to sleep.”
31. On the Porsche 911 GT3: “In essence, it’s a stripped out, ready-to-race version of the Carrera 2. So you get a roll cage instead of back seats and a massive fuel tank instead of a boot. You also get tyres that are nigh on slick, a spoiler big enough to serve as a landing strip for small aircraft and a ride quality with all the give and compliance of a Chechen terrorist.”

32. On the Renault Twingo Sport’s harsh ride: “On some bumps, the jolt is so bad that your lungs can come off.”
33. On the new M5: “There is only one feature in the M5’s electronic armoury that’s good; it’s a little button marked with an M on the steering wheel. Quite what M might stand for, I have no idea. Motorsport? Mohawk? Mombasa? I like to think it might be M*********** because that’s the effect it has.”

34. On the motor in the BMW X5, M version: “The results (of the M spec motor) are as dramatic as putting a furious weasel in your underpants. This car would be less annoying to ecomentalists if it ran on sliced dolphin.”
35. On Audi’s Q7, equipped with the V12 TDI motor: “The whole point of buying a diesel car is to save money. Having a V12 turbo diesel is like turning your central heating off at home and then keeping warm by burning Rembrandts.”

36. On Audi’s versus Trabants: “It wasn’t so bad when everyone had a Trabant, but in a unified Germany they were sharing the roads with Audis, and it was a mix as devastating as Baileys and lime juice. You may remember that in ‘95 an entire East German family in their Trabant was killed when it hit an A8. And the Audi driver? He went home with a broken radiator grille.”
37. On driving the Bentley Brooklands on local roads: “It gave me some sense of what it would be like to park the moon.”

38. On cars with acoustically tuned exhausts: “The noise they make is as fake as a hooker’s smile.”

39. On the Corvette Z06 as a daily driver: “At low revs, the engine sounds like it’s fueled with spanners… as something to live with every day, I’d rather have bird flu.”

THE END...

SOURCE: http://communities.canada.com/driving/blogs/driving/archive/2010/04/16/best-quotes-by-jeremy-clarkson.aspx

"You'd better off on a Bus" - Clarkson on Mazda 2

Mazda2
The Sunday Times Online (UK):

November 25, 2007


Stay out of the real world, my little beauty

Jeremy Clarkson

I do not like to be late. Actually, that’s not strictly accurate. I don’t know whether I’d like to be late because it’s never happened. And it’s never happened because I usually drive very powerful cars, which means I can always make up the time.

Last week, though, there was a disaster. I’d planned to leave at 11.45am for an appointment in Birmingham. But you know how things are. I couldn’t find my phone charger. I’d lost my house keys. One of the dogs was missing. And did I turn my computer off? I’ll just go and check and Oh Christ, now it’s 11.55.

This would mean averaging 60mph and that’s no bother in a Koenigsegg or a Caparo. But then I opened the front door to find that sitting there, all blue and useless, was a Mazda2. And for that little dollop of extra misery, it wasn’t even the 1.5 version. It was the 1.3, and 1.3 litres, in liquid terms, is barely enough to quench the thirst of a dehydrated man. At a pinch, 1.3 litres might, just, be able to power an egg whisk but for making up time on a trip to Birmingham it’s hopeless.

However, in the course of that journey, I had an epiphany. I was exposed to something cruel and unusual. Something I’ve not experienced for 20 years or more. I believe it’s called the real world.

I’ve often wondered why there are so many people out there who hate cars, who find them noisy, dangerous, antisocial and unbecoming of a civilised state. Some of these people, for sure, have frizzy hair and eat only leaves, but others are, apparently, quite normal.

I can understand they might not find driving fun but I cannot understand why they won’t accept that the car, at the very least, is a useful tool. Or rather, I could not understand until I tried that Mazda.

If you are looking for a small five-door hatchback, there are many reasons why you might be drawn to this car. Unlike anything else I can recall, it is actually smaller than its predecessor. And better still, it is lighter as well. It weighs less than a ton, in fact, which means you will get better fuel economy and more speed. I took a good long look around the cab – God knows there was time – to see if I could work out how this weight had been shed but other than the dash, which looks like it was made by John Noakes, it seems to be just as well equipped and just as robust as any other small car. And just as spacious as well.

What’s more, being a Mazda, its is likely to be reliable. And when you add this to the low group 4 insurance bracket, the £9,999 price tag and the rather cheeky looks, it’s easy to see why those who just want a tool might be tempted by such a thing. As small hatchbacks go, it’s excellent.

But here’s the problem. You see, while this may be the best of breed, it just isn’t good enough for the real world. Coming out of Chipping Norton, on the road to Shipston-on-Stour, there’s a long, slightly uphill straight on which you can overtake the dithering old fool who just spent 20 minutes in the town being confused by the double mini roundabout. And who is now in a such a state of shock, he’s doing 3mph.

Not in a 1.3 litre hatchback you can’t. You drop a cog on the five-speed box, weld your foot to the floor and pull onto the other side of the road . . . where 10 minutes later you can still be found, sweating slightly, as you wonder whether you will get past before the long straight is over, or whether it would be prudent to brake and admit defeat.

Defeat seemed like a good idea. So I eased off, slipped back into the old man’s slipstream and realised, with a heavy heart and sagging shoulders, that in a car such as this, overtaking is not on the menu. And as a result, you are forced to drive everywhere at the same speed as the slowest driver on the road. Often, this stretches the concept of “movement”.

Eventually, and happily, the man in front died – I think he’d grown weary of spending so much time in his own company – and I could open the taps on the little Mazda.

It was horrible. Because it is built to a price, for people who don’t like driving and simply want a tool, everything on it feels cheap and nasty. The electric power steering is too sudden. The suspension is too rubbery. The brakes are too sharp. So even at moderate(ish) speeds, it felt disconnected, unstable and twitchy.

Think of it as a motorway service station sandwich. It was not created to be the best sandwich in the world. The chef had nothing to prove. He simply wanted to offer some of the important food groups for the smallest possible price. There is no truffle oil. There is no homemade cheese. There is absolutely nothing to surprise and delight the enthusiastic motorist who wants something a little bit more than ham made from tyres, butter made from petroleum byproducts, and 129 carbon dioxides to the kilometre. Eventually, after what felt like several months, I reached the motorway and accelerated down the slip road. I had gravity on my side, and 85bhp. This would have been great in 1957 but it sure as hell isn’t enough in 2007 because by the time I reached the main carriageway, I was only doing 50 and that’s too slow to join the inside lane without causing the onrushing lorry to have to brake.

So there I was, sandwiched between a truck full of Polish pies and Eddie Stobart, doing 56 . . . and there was simply no possibility of getting into the middle lane at all. I didn’t have enough oomph to move out because, on the modern motorway, there is always something coming and with only 1.3 litres I couldn’t match its speed before making the manoeuvre.

Small wonder people who buy cars such as this can’t see that driving is useful or fun. It isn’t. It’s either dull or terrifying.

And it gets worse because in Birmingham my car was valet parked in the hotel’s 4m-acre car park by a chap who was a) mildly surprised to see me step from such a thing and b) not on duty when I went to collect it four days later for the journey home again.

This meant I had to find it myself and that’s pretty damn hard when you can’t remember anything about it. Most of the hotel staff came to help, with one asking what it looked like. “It’s car shaped,” I explained, “and possibly blue.”

Or red. I do believe the Mazda2 is a good small car but in the cut and thrust of modern driving, and especially on a motorway network full of BMW M3s and Romanian lorry drivers on speed, it is terrible. You would be better off on the bus or the train. Or walking on your hands and knees, while naked.

The fact is that, these days, you need power to survive and I really do think the government should stop fannying about with speed cameras and home zones and congestion charging. The cities are fine. It’s the rest of the road network that needs to be addressed.

What I propose, then, is a ban, on any derestricted road, for any car that does not have at least 150bhp under the bonnet. This way, you won’t hate me for trying to get past in my Lamborghini and I won’t hate you for being in my way. By keeping us apart, it will make Britain a kinder, more understanding place. And in addition, it will remove the single biggest danger on the roads today: big differences in speed.

We’ll all be going quickly out there and that means we’ll all have time to find our dogs and still arrive on time. The Mazda2, then, is excellent. But if I were running the Department for Transport, I’m afraid I’d have it banned.



Vital statistics

Model Mazda2 1.3 TS2 five-door
Engine 1348cc, four cylinders
Power 85bhp @ 6000rpm
Torque 90 lb ft @ 3500rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual
Fuel 52.3mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 129g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 12.9sec
Top speed 107mph
Price £9,999
Verdict Excellent, economical hatch, but it’s still completely rubbish

NOTE: This is another GIBBERISH review by Jeremy Clarkson. Typical Clarksonish review. If you didn't notice, He proposed "a ban, on any derestricted road, for any car that does not have at least 150bhp under the bonnet. This way, you won’t hate me for trying to get past in my Lamborghini and I won’t hate you for being in my way. By keeping us apart, it will make Britain a kinder, more understanding place". Here's some of his SELECTED "FANS" comments:

COMMENT 1: "Some years ago I had an Alfa Sprint with 85bhp - I could overtake in that. My current Audi A4 diesel 'only' has 140 bhp while my previous Volvo S40 had 115 bhp - I have/had no trouble in overtaking. Get yourself a diesel Jeremy and feel the turbo come in - you sure can overtake with a lot less than 150 bhp (at least that wouldn't exclude an Alfa GT diesel or a Volvo with the magnificent D5 engine)". by Ian Burgess, Bristol

COMMENT 2 (a negatively GOOD one):
"Poor Jeremy. Spends his life in Ferraris, Porches, Mercedes, Lamborghinis etc, etc. (See Top Gear). When for the first time in years he gets into the sort of car that the real world drives he can't take it. Surprised he didn't comment on the lack of paddle shifts! Maybe it's not the fastest of cars, nor the best on the motorway, but that's not it's made for!" by Mark, Cardiff, UK


COMMENT 3 (Positive one): ""Sensational provocation"....Jeremy's speciality and refreshing for it. A healthy dose of snobbery has not hurt the argument either, or for that matter his loathing of poltical correctness. I enjoyed it all because it was typically Clarkson and he is VERY good at it". by Malcolm Wright, Paignton,


COMMENT 4: (Neutral one) "Jeremy, I've been reading you for ages and as much as I usually like your views, today you've lost it completely!

The three commandments of the good driver:

1. Know how to stop the vehicle
2. Know what you're driving
3. Act accordingly

You already knew it was a 1.3 litre engine and obviously that's not meant for speeding but for fuel economy . It's a bit like trying to introduce you as a sensible and open minded chap...

Next time try and be a bit fairer to the subject of analysis using it for what it was meant for and drive in a rush with your Lambo or one of the many XC90 you seem to own!" by Alfredo Nieto, Madrid, Spain

Jeremy Clarkson on Skoda Roomster...

From The Sunday Times (UK)
September 9, 2007

Skoda Roomster

Don’t call it ugly, call it quite brilliant

by Jeremy Clarkson


I daresay we all remember the bad old days when you came back from the shops with a new and exciting electrical appliance. And found it had been sold without a plug.

Nowadays, though, thanks to the exciting Plugs and Sockets (Safety) Regulations 1994 (No 1768) any domestic appliance with a flexible cable must be fitted with a plug and the plug must be fitted with a fuse link that conforms to BS 1362.

As a result, you now come back from the shops to find that your shiny new toy has a plug. But that, unfortunately, the product itself hasn’t actually been built.

Last weekend I bought some outdoor lights for the garden. Except I didn’t. What I actually bought was a box full of pieces that could be turned into some outdoor lights for the garden. By anyone with a simple degree in mechanical and electrical engineering.

Of course, there were some poor-quality instructions which explained that all you needed to assemble your quality product was fingers like cocktail sticks and six and a half thousand tools that you do not own.

It was truly and genuinely extraordinary to find how little had been done at the factory. And this is not a one off. These days we see exactly the same thing with furniture and all children’s toys. The outdoor garden heater I bought back in May, to annoy George Monbiot, is still in its box in six bits because I simply cannot fathom how they all go together.

Of course I commend any company that can maximise its profits and quench the thirst of its shareholders. This is all excellent and makes the world go round, but implying on the box that the customer is buying a garden heater when in fact he’s buying a box of pieces: that’s flirting with fraud.

How long will it be before the box contains nothing but some iron ore, a piece of the Russian gas fields and 6,000 miles of pipeline? How long before Ikea sells you a tree in Finland and a saw? And as we edge slowly towards the meat of this morning’s missive, how long before car makers catch on to the idea that people are idiots.

At present it costs the car makers a fortune to assemble a car. The parts are made elsewhere and then nailed together by billion-dollar robots at the plant. So how long will it be before Ford notices what’s going on in the garden lamp industry and simply ships the components directly to your home. Along with a scrappy instruction book, saying, in French, that all you need to put everything together is some oxyacetylene, basic arc welding skills, and a robot.

This isn’t as far fetched as you might imagine, because already almost all the cars we buy are made in kit form. The Aston Martin DB9 is a case in point. It was specifically designed so that the basic structure could be clothed in a different body and sold as something else. The V8 Vantage, for example.

Then there’s the Rolls-Royce Phantom. It is built in the British factory like an Airfix kit, using parts that come in boxes from the BMW plant in Germany. Great. But think how much cheaper it would be to deliver those boxes straight to your door. Along, perhaps, with some walnut and 14 cows that you’ll need to skin and turn into seats. All you need is a large potato peeler and a sewing machine.

The ultimate kit car, though, is the Volkswagen Golf. Its underpinnings are used to make lots of other Volkswagens, like the Beetle, as well as by Audi, Seat and Skoda.

Sometimes I wonder why anyone actually buys the Daddy because it’s possible to buy what’s essentially an identical car. Usually for a lot less.

But then when I look at those identical cars I stop wondering. I mean, it’s all very well imagining that your new Seat is made from Golf parts but it was assembled by Spaniards. And that’s like buying a garden lamp that has been assembled by me. Yes, it’s cheap, but every time you turn it on you will be electrocuted.

Skoda, however, is different. As we know from all the excellent new houses that are being built in Britain these days, the eastern Europeans are fine engineers. It is in their culture, somehow.

So a collection of German parts made by Petr Cech: that should be pretty good. The only problem is that Skoda has never actually made something brilliant enough to overcome the Primark badge on the back. Until now . . . Ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding for the Roomster.

Ordinarily, there is nothing on God’s earth quite as depressing as a mini-MPV. Whether it’s a Renault Scénic or a Citroën Picasso or that truly terrible Toyota Yaris van, we know that you are biding your time until you are unlocked from the shackles of life by the blissful relief of death.

We know that your life has turned out to be nowhere near as successful or as happy as you’d hoped. We know that you have no imagination. And we know that you have no sense either, because a mini-MPV offers exactly the same number of seats as a normal car.

We can deduce from this that you’ve spent more money on something which comes with a bit more headroom. And what’s the point of that, unless your children are actually giraffes. And if they are giraffes, then you are plainly way too interesting to waste your life in a bloody MPV.

The only exceptions to this rule, thus far, have been the Ford S-Max and the Citroën Berlingo: two genuinely clever and appealing cars. But the Roomster is better still.

First of all there’s the price. It’s just £13,500. And for that you get – yes – a Skoda badge. But you also get alloy wheels, antilock brakes, a full-length glass roof, rear parking sensors, an alarm, cruise control, curtain and side airbags, electric windows and door mirrors, a front arm rest, an immobiliser, a stereo capable of handling an MP3 player, a delightful leather steering wheel, a trip computer and an astonishing array of potential seating positions in the back.

The rear seats, in fact, are so flexible that I managed to get three kids on them. And a full-sized trampoline in the boot.

Eventually, of course, we arrive at the styling. In the same way that you can discuss the merits of Gérard Depardieu for hours but at some point you have to discuss his nose.

Yes. It’s odd. I’ll grant you that. It looks like a cut and shut car. A mangled up blend of Postman Pat’s van, a Wendy house and a Lancia Stratos. But here’s the thing. I loved it. I thought it was unusual without being sweet. Striking without being daft.

I should also explain at this point that while most car makers offer only four colours – silver, silvery grey, greyish silver and grey – the Skoda brochure looks like it comes from Dulux. There’s a choice of five blues, two reds and two greens. Mine was olive metallic and it was great.

I’m procrastinating. And that’s because the Roomster (was it named after Marc Bolan’s lounge?) has a bit of an Achilles heel. It’s, um, not very nice to drive.

It should be fine. The front end is essentially from a VW Polo and the back from a Mark 4 Golf. But the steering is far too quick. You ease the wheel a nad and whoa, the whole thing darts left in a scuffle of tyre squeal and body roll. I liked the car so much I wanted to get used to it. But I never did.

And then there’s the engine. It’s a 1.6 litre VW unit but not one of their best. It’s rough, unwilling to rev and not that powerful. Perhaps the diesel would be better. I hope so because mechanically the only really good bit in my test car was the automatic Tiptronic gearbox.

Ordinarily this would be enough to render the whole car worthless. But sometimes the driving experience must play second fiddle to the whole ownership package.

That’s certainly the case with the Volvo XC90 diesel. It’s a dreadful car to drive, really, but it’s so clever and so well thought out we’re on our second. And about to buy a third.

The Roomster falls into this category. Yes, it’s wobbly and rough, but it’s extremely clever, well equipped and best of all it brought a great deal more light into my life than my new garden lamps. Which, incidentally, are now on eBay.

Vital statistics

Model Skoda Roomster Level 3, 1.6
Engine 1598cc, four cylinders
Power 105bhp @ 5700rpm
Torque 114 lb ft @ 3500rpm
Transmission Six-speed Tiptronic
Fuel 36.7mpg
CO2 185g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 12.1sec
Top speed 114mph
Price £13,585
Rating 4/5 stars
Verdict It shouldn’t be brilliant but it is

CASE STUDY 4: Clarkson on Audi R8, "One of the all-time greats".

Check out this Clarkson's article about the New Audi R8. Again, he spend almost half of his article talking crap. But read it word by word, this time, the crapping is HILARIOUS... This is one of the RARE article of his, Over the board praises over the car he's reviewing... SUPER RARE WORDS such as "One of the all-time greats" AND "One of the best surprises of my motoring life.". Also, for this review, I've including READER's Opinion on his article...


From The Sunday Times (UK)

June 3, 2007

Audi R8




It’s so comfortable you can run over anything up to a medium-sized fox and not even notice

by Jeremy Clarkson

"We all know what businessmen’s hotels are like. There’s a priority check-in section where you wait behind some rope, on a bit of carpet. There are staff in shiny suits who say things like “If there’s anything else at all for yourself at all”. And you are given a credit card key that makes lots of whirring noises when you put it in the lock but will not, no matter what you do, open the door.


After you’ve kicked it down, you have the room. There’s no obvious button to turn off the fan, which sounds like a Foxbat jet. The light switch by the bed turns all the lights off, except one. Which can only be extinguished by hitting the bulb with your shoe. The plug you need to charge your mobile is always behind the mini bar, and the “tea and coffee making facilities” are designed to ensure you can’t make either.
No, really: the kettle lead is never more than a foot long and the brown powder they put in the sachets is way closer on the periodic table to radium F than it is to coffee.


The restaurant, furnished in beige, is overseen by a woman who says: “Can I get any bread items for yourself at all, sir?” and then hands you over to a 14-year-old Latvian girl who arrived in Britain that morning on the underside of a Eurostar train. Beer is not a word she’s familiar with, which is annoying because it’s what you want most of all in the world.


Your fellow diners are chomping their way through their suppers, some reading books, some newspapers, and there’s always one whose reading the hotel’s smoking policy leaflet over and over again. Just killing time till they can go to their room and watch pornography.


Businessmen’s hotels, I think, are the most miserable, soul destroying, soulless, energy sapping, embarrassing, badly run and badly organised edifices in the entire world. I’d rather stay in an igloo. And that’s before we get to the food.
The menus are always written in a massively squiggly, curly-whirly typeface. And there’s much talk of jus and things being drizzled onto other things. But you know the chef is not from Paris or Rome. He’s from Darlington and he hasn’t a clue what he’s doing.


As a general rule, I order items that even I couldn’t mess up, which is why, at a businessmen’s hotel next to Manchester airport last week, I went for a lamb chump with mashed potato and cabbage. “No, lamb. Lamb,” I said to the Latvian teenager. “A baby baa baa black sheep . . .”


I was expecting something irradiated, something the colour of a camel’s dingleberry and with the texture of a cedar tree. But you know what? It was absolutely brilliant. Historic, as Michael Winner would bark.


I thought it would be impossible to be so pleasantly surprised ever again. But then, as the next day dawned, I found I had to drive back to London in a new Range Rover . . . wait for it . . . diesel.


The Range Rover is a car so ideally suited to a V8 that putting a diesel in the mix completely spoils the point. It’d be like putting diesel on your supper instead of gravy. The worst thing about a diesel is the noise it makes when you start it up. A Range Rover is elegant, dignified, luxurious. And a diesel’s rattle and clatter just don’t go with the look at all. It’s like ringing a sex chat line and being put through to the Duke of Marlborough.

Strangely, however, the Range Rover made almost no noise when I started it, and even less on the move. What’s more, the fuel gauge stayed pretty much where it was on the entire three-hour schlep back to England. That was an even bigger surprise than the hotel’s chump.

But it was nothing to the car that was waiting for me in London. The Audi R8.

I had seen pictures of this mid-engined supercar and they left me underwhelmed. I thought it looked a bit boring, like a slightly bigger version of the TT. And it wasn’t going to be a real supercar, was it? Not when you remember Audi owns Lamborghini. I mean, why make a car to compete with your own brand? That’d be stupid.


This view is reinforced when you climb inside. There are very few supercar extravagances. There’s no panic handle. No stitching made from yellowhammer feathers. No titanium machinegun triggers. It’s very grey, very Audi, very normal. And that’s fine, actually, because there are very few traditional supercar drawbacks either.
You can see out, there’s room for your head, even if you have truly enormous hair, and there’s space for briefcases and whatnot on a shelf behind the seats. It’s big in there; much bigger than you’d believe.

Then you set off and there are no histrionics. The exhaust makes a deep, meaningful rumble, but as is the way in Jaguar’s XK you can’t really hear it when you’re inside.


So it’s spookily quiet, and that’s just the start of it. Because it is also spectacularly comfortable. I don’t mean comfortable . . . for a sports car. I mean it’s so comfortable you can run over anything up to a medium-sized fox and not even notice. Couple this to the usual array of Audi in-car entertainment – sat nav, a hi-fi from Bang & Olufsen no less – and you have a car that, like the Porsche 911, you really could live with every day.


You needn’t even worry about the engine. It’s not a W16 with eight turbos and plugs that foul themselves at every set of lights. It doesn’t run on fertiliser and grated tiger chippings. Instead, it’s the 414bhp 4.2 V8 from the RS 4. I’ve described this as one of the best engines made today and a drive in the R8 has not changed my mind. It does everything, brilliantly.

Of course, you cannot really expect a quiet, comfortable car with the engine from a saloon to perform well on a track. The suspension would be too soft. The power not quite grunty enough. The track is Lambo land. The Audi belongs in a city, soothing the fevered brow of the man with the midlife crisis, while massaging his ego, all at the same time. Wrong. Very, very wrong. In fact the Audi is outstanding when there’s nothing coming the other way. It’s not blisteringly fast. From rest to 120, it goes at almost exactly the same rate as the Porsche 911 Carrera S. And flat out it’ll be out of steam before it gets to 190. But to dismiss it for this is to miss the point.


The four-wheel-drive system affords a huge level of grip, but because it’s been tuned so no more than 30% of the power is ever sent to the front wheels you don’t get the dreary understeer that’s plagued all quattro cars in the past.


You turn in, feel the grip, add power, the rear starts to slide, you apply some opposite lock, balance the throttle and then . . . and then . . . you start to realise you are driving one of the all-time greats. It’s not a hefty car. You don’t manhandle it through the bends. It flows, delicately and precisely.


I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car that works so well on both the road and the track. Even if you remove my natural prejudice against the Porsche 911, I believe the Audi has it licked on all counts. Except perhaps one . . .


The Audi is listed at just under £77,000 and that looks good, but if you want any equipment at all, that shoots up fast. The car I drove, which had a manual gearbox rather than flappy paddles, and normal brakes rather than ceramic discs, still cost a whopping £92,000. Even the leather interior was an optional extra.


But look at it this way. The R8 shares some parts and infrastructure with the Lamborghini Gallardo. And that’s £125,000. Anyone who’s just bought a baby Lambo – me – must be feeling as sick as a dog right now. Because in so many ways the R8 is better. Yes, the Lambo is more exciting, louder and harder. But on the other 363 days of the year, when you just want a nice car . . .


The only problem is that Audi cannot build the R8 fast enough. There are difficulties with making the carbon fibre panels, and as a result it can manage just 20 a day. That’s nowhere near enough to satisfy demand, especially when a more powerful V10 comes on stream next year.


In the meantime I can safely say the R8 is one of the best surprises of my motoring life. It is one of the truly great cars and the only hesitation I have in giving it five stars is that, ideally, I’d like to give it six."


Vital statistics

Model Audi R8
Engine 4163cc, eight cylinders
Power 414bhp @ 7800rpm
Torque 317 lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel 19.3mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 349g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.6sec
Top speed 187mph
Price £76,825
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Verdict Better than my Lambo


Reader review 1:

"Once in a lifetime you read something and thing Spot On! I agree entirely, they are my thoughts - symbiotic.

Oh that wasn't Mr Clarksons review, it was four years ago when I read a jouno's brief drive of an Audi Le Mans as the R8 was called then. I put a deposit down in February 2003 for the car I was so taken by it. It has been a LONG time coming, but it is due August 2007 and I cannot wait.

I drive it's competitor the Porsche 911 4S, at present and some might say it is liveable with everyday. I would have to say if you do a few miles and they include some quiet Welsh roads, then OK, but for decent mileage, you always arrive shaken, stirred and half deaf.

I cannot wait to drive this newest addition to supercars.
Look out - who will be the next mainstream manufacturer to bravely go where Audi's gone?"
Ken Murray, Manchester, UK

Reader review 2 (an American):
"14-year-old Latvian girl who arrived in Britain that morning on the underside of a Eurostar train"

"As usual, I fall over laughing at these sorts of lines.
The R8 looks wonderful, I hope it comes out in a convertible version (when in Southern California...)"

Gus, Los Angeles, USA / CA

Reader review 3:

"I have to say Mr Clarkson has hit the nail on the head once more. I had the privelidge of drving the R8 around the Boxberg proving grounds in Germany & I agree 100% this is a phenominal piece of engineering genius & by far the best car I have ever had the pleasure to experience. Not only that the build quality & fit & finish is that of large Luxury saloon not the bare bones & wabbly switch gear you'd find in many of the more exotic offerings on the market, it's just a shame I can't afford one, let's see what the V10 is like !!!"

Darren Bodilly, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire

Reader review 4 (An American:

"Still haven't decided what I want to think about the car. One the one hand, its one of the best-looking cars I've seen in person, looking like it just drove off the turntable and out onto the streets. Similarly, its a cheap option to the so-so Gallardo, that frankly makes more sense, but there is still two huge problems in my book:

The Porsche 911 and the Chevrolet Corvette. They are the defacto sports cars of choice in the US, both cost less than the Audi, and depending on what spec you opt for, faster as well. I mean, call me crazy, but I think the $110K asking price (USD) is a bit steep for what you get, Lamborghini techno doo-dads and all.

...But lets face it: When the Z06 is available for $70K, and you can get a pretty nice Carrera S for a little more than $80K, I think I'd take the two cheaper cars. Audi goodness or not.

But what do I know? I'm just some crazy American..."
Brad Y, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Michigan, USA

Last reader:

"Clarkson for King, I say. Or Prime Minister at least. Please..."

Ian Oliver, Singapore, Singapore (COUGH! COUGH!!! PUHLEEESSSEEE!!! - Jeff Lim)

CASE STUDY 3: Clarkson MAULED Kia Sorento...

Here’s an article by Jeremy Clarkson (JC) where he SCRUTINISED the car Kau Kau (badly). Note that my “Prelude to Case Studies” blog (3 blogs ago), I promised to blog about JC bad mouthed American in the Corvette C6 review. Well, It had been removed from the website probably because it’s deemed Sensitive to Anericans. Anyway, I managed to dig a SUPER NEGATIVE review by JC himself on Kia Sorento. Also, note that JC again, played down Proton, Perodua, Kia and Hyundai. Oh! At the 1st half of his article, Clarkson talked crap again, this time trying to be a "Standup comedian". "Enjoy exploring the article. If possible, do give comments on this article.


From The Sunday Times Online (UK)

March 9, 2003

Kia Sorento

Think of the dead parrot sketch, with four-wheel drive

by Jeremy Clarkson


"When I was eight I distinctly remember my father dragging me out of bed one Sunday night and telling me to watch a new show he’d found on television. It was called Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

I was tired. I had school the next day. And while there were plenty of sheep falling out of trees, there were no elephants standing on their hind legs and no clowns. But Dad wouldn’t listen to my protestations. “Son,” he said in a frowning, fatherly way, “you need to watch this. It’s going to be important.”

It turned out he was right. Ten years later I was faced with some enormous examination that would attempt to probe my knowledge of Shakespeare’s sonnets. An hour had been set aside but 10 seconds would have been enough because I knew nothing (except that they hadn’t been written by Brian Voles).

And then I thought: “Hang on a minute, I know every single Monty Python song, film, television show and book off by heart. So if I can recite, verbatim, the entire Travel Agent sketch, I can learn this old tosh.” It worked. I passed.

Monty Python was my life. My Big Red Book was signed by all the cast, the Holy Grail made me physically sick with laughter, and when people attempted to quote from the Four Yorkshiremen I would grow visibly angry when they got bits of it even slightly wrong. “No, no, no. It’s not a shoebox in middle of t’ road. In Yorkshire, you don’t pronounce a ‘the’ as a ‘t’. The whole word is substituted for a barely noticeable flick of the head. It’s why people in Leeds could never catch the The in action. They’d ring the box office and ask for tickets to see.”

So what’s funny now? Well, over lunch at Wimbledon last summer I sat between Ricky Gervais and Rob Brydon, and that was. It was verbal tennis, with moves that left the table breathless. Gervais served, Brydon sent a backhand reply down the line, Gervais scooped it up, added some Welsh abuse and sent it cross court for a winner. But the next point was won by Brydon with a devastating smash on the subject of fatness.


Strangely, however, their television programmes never raise a smile. Oh sure, I watched every episode of The Office and have the T-shirt, but it never finished with me on the floor, begging for oxygen. And as for Marion and Geoff, that’s some of the most keenly observed drama ever to worm its way into your sitting room but it isn’t even on nodding terms with comedy.

You’ve Been Framed is funnier. Especially when the host’s new boyfriend went back to his wife. I nearly laughed at that.

Maybe it’s a by-product of getting old. When I was six poo was hilarious. When I was 12 I’d howl at the Irishman on a plane with one parachute, and when I was 14 the St John Ambulance had to carry me out of Sheffield City Hall to escape from Jasper Carrott’s mole story.

But today everything’s different. I marvel at the quick-wittedness of Paul Merton on Just a Minute. I stand in silent wonder every morning at the genius of Matt. I have enormous respect for Jonathan Ross and Steve Coogan. I devour Viz and I’ve never once considered cancelling my subscription to Private Eye. But I don’t actually laugh at anything. I simply recognise that something is funny, wish that I’d thought of it and move on.

I don’t even laugh at Python material any more. But it still stands proud, because unlike any other comedy, it left an indelible mark on everything it touched. Freemasons. The Spanish Inquisition. John Stuart Mill. All were turned into jokes by Cleese, Palin et al.

They did the same thing to places as well. Bideford, for instance, is always somewhere you hike for. And, of course, you don’t want to come back from Sorrento to a dead cat.

Imagine my surprise then when I was presented last week with a car called the Sorento. I didn’t laugh, obviously, but I did say to myself: “That’s funny. It’s like calling a car the Slough. Or the Royston Vasey.”
The car in question is yet another dreary 4x4 from some godforsaken industrial conglomerate in the Far East. This one’s a Kia and in exchange for £18,000 you get nothing worth writing home about.


Let’s start by gently mauling the Sorento's 2.5 litre diesel engine. It will give you 33mpg, which isn’t bad, but the downside is that to cover 33 miles you need to set aside a fortnight. This is not slow, like a Citroën 2CV or a dustbin lorry; sometimes there’s so little power you don’t move at all.

No, really. At one point I made an uphill left turn in second gear and even with my foot mashed into the bri-nylon carpet, I ground to a noisy standstill.

I had a sense that the throttle wasn’t connected to the engine in the usual way. It felt more like the telegraph system on a ship. Putting my foot down sent a “full ahead” signal to some oily boilerman under the bonnet who put down his copy of the Sport and reluctantly shovelled some more coal on the fire.

This means you have plenty of time to admire the interior, which is a symphony of video rental box plastic with the sort of cloth normally used to make dogtooth suits for old ladies in Eastbourne. I was going to talk about the giant gear knob, too. But it fell off.

Then there was the traction. The Sorento wades into battle with big fat tyres, enough space under the prop shaft to shelter from the rain and switchable four-wheel drive. Kia itself calls it a capable and rugged workhorse. But it’s no such thing. It got completely stuck in a puddle of mud through which my four-year-old daughter had walked only moments beforehand. And she normally falls over in a light breeze.
It gets worse, because Kia says the Sorento is also aimed at the style-conscious buyer who wants presence on the road. And yet this is the very same company that urges us all to think before we drive.

It points out that a billion car journeys each year are less than a mile and even gives away a free bicycle with one of its spoon-bendingly boring saloons. So if it’s so anti-car, what in the name of all that’s holy is it doing making a dirty great off-roader? This hypocrisy isn’t my main problem with the Sorento, though. And nor is it the woeful engine or the Bambi traction. I don’t even care that it’s no more spacious inside than a normal hatchback. No, what I object to — violently — is the treacly nothingness of it all.


This car wasn’t designed to be the best 4x4 in the world or the easiest to drive, or even the most comfortable. It’s automotive KFC, a light bulb with reclining seats, a consumer good with the personality of a caravan site and the desirability of herpes.

You sense this with every Kia, and Hyundai and Proton and Perodua. They’re nothing more than reasonably well-made tools for African taxi drivers and government officials in Burma. They’re white goods that happen to be blue and red as well. So quite why we in Europe might want one I have absolutely no idea.


Value for money? Oh puh-lease. The Jeep Cherokee, the Honda CR-V, the Land Rover Freelander, the Toyota RAV4, the Mitsubishi Shogun Pinin and the excellent Nissan X-Trail all cost the same or less than the tedious Sorento.

Pathetically, Kia defends the price by saying you get a free three-year roadside assistance package which even covers you if you go to the Continent, though taking your Kia on holiday is a bit like taking your ironing board. I’d rather take the free bicycle.

Cars may be tools in the emerging markets, like Vietnam, Rwanda and America. But Europe emerged from its shell a thousand years ago so here cars are much more than mere machines. They’re engineering with a purpose, social pointers, private booths in a bustly world, and they are sculpture. But unlike any Henry Moore, their power can marshal your internal organs in a small, tingly puddle at the base of your spine. They’re Helmet Heads with added G-force.

Like television, they expand your horizons, they excite you, they amuse you, they frighten you. I’m told, though I’ve never experienced it myself, they can even arouse you.

Look at it this way. Over a period of 20 years Monty Python poked fun at philosophy, literature, class, stupidity and even Christianity. But apart from a Welshman who wanted to swap a mint condition 1927 Rolls-Royce for one exactly the same — which was more an attack on the Boyos — cars were never mentioned. Some cows are just too sacred."

VITAL STATISTICS

Model Kia Sorento 2.5 CRDi XE
Engine type four cylinder turbodiesel, 2497cc
Power 138bhp @ 3800rpm
Torque 232 lb ft @ 1850rpm
Transmission four-speed automatic
Suspension (front) double wishbone, coil springs, anti-roll bar; (rear) five-link live rear axle, coil springs and self-levelling
Tyres 245/70 R16
Dimensions 4567mm length; 1884mm width; 1804mm height
Fuel 33.2mpg (combined)
C02 226g/km
Acceleration 0 to 62mph: 14.6sec
Top speed 106mph
Insurance Group 12
Price £17,995

Verdict Woeful (1/5 star)

END OF ARTICLE.

MY HUMBLE OPINION: Kia Sorento was on sale in Malaysia since late 2003 as CBU from Korea. It was priced at RM157,000 back then. In 2005 (2 yrs later), it was Assembled in Malaysia and renamed "Naza Sorento". The price had since dropped to RM138,000. Those who bought the "Kia" before it's known as "Naza" were not amused. Why?
1) They paid RM19,000 more, 2) Resale value badly hit.

Let's talk more about #2. The resale value of "Naza" Sorento's suffered as a result of the Rebadging. It only retained 45% of its value in 3 years. As a comparison, both Honda CRV and Ssangyong Rexton both retained 63% of its value in the same period.

Kia Claimed that Germans tuned their Sorento’s ride and handling. Did I hear Porsche? Am afraid yes. If it’s really“tuned” by Porsche, then why NOT a Single EUROPEAN Car journalist mention about it?

Would I recommend this SUV to you? Am afraid NO… For the money, you are better off with a NEW Nissan X-trail 2.5 CVTC which is A LOT More fun to drive or a nearly new 2005 Ssangyong Rexton which has proven and more powerful Mercedes E-class 2.7 CDI engine, it also happened to be a TRUE 7 seater. Both have DECENT 4x4 capability, WAY BETTER Resale value (65% retained value in 3 yrs for X-trail and only 2% less for a Rexton against 45% retained value for Sorento) AND MORE Rewarding to Own and drive. Dunno about you, but if I were you, I'll AVOID KIA cars (for the time being) unless there's improvements on their Future products... Hey, the NEW KIA RIO sounds promising, well I'll wait and see when it reached Malaysia...

Clarkson's CASE STUDY 2: Volvo XC90 V8 Sport

CASE STUDY 2: This is Clarkson's typical review where he spend 2/3 of the article crapping before finally reviewing the car. This is another car review where Clarkson sang praises to the subject. He also poke fun of Americans in this review. Check the article out... Read it WORD by WORD...

From The Sunday Times (UK)

January 7, 2007

Volvo XC90 V8 Sport

Worshipping the god of hell fire

by Jeremy Clarkson



(Picture source: www.volvocars.com.my)

The three twentysomething Californians were fairly intelligent so although they’d never been to Europe before, they could take most things in their stride: the smallness of the portions, the warmness of the beer, the lowness of the ceilings, the absence of pick-up trucks and the gunlessness of the policemen.

But then I took them for dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Notting Hill where, shortly after sitting down, all three were struck dumb. “What,” stammered the first, staring at the ashtray, “is that?” If you’d asked them to list all the things they’d least expect to find on a table, in a restaurant, in a country that’s a member of Nato, an ashtray would line up alongside a child’s potty full of sick. They would have been less surprised if they’d been confronted with one of Saddam Hussein’s ears.

For all their adult life, these guys have lived in Los Angeles where you can no more smoke in a public place than stick your private parts in a cooked quail and run around shouting “I am the god of hell fire”.

Now, of course, in America, it’s very easy to enforce laws like the smoking ban because this is a nation where people make friends in lifts. So if you light a cigarette on a beach, for instance, you will be shamed into putting it out by a combination of dirty looks and threatening gestures from those in nose shot.

Here, though, we don’t like to make a fuss or cause a scene so the job of enforcing our smoking ban will fall to someone in a high visibility jacket.
We saw much the same thing on Boxing Day when 16m people climbed onto their horses and spent the day pretending not to chase foxes up hill and down dale. They were forced into the charade because each one was being monitored by someone in a high visibility jacket with a video camera.

Try selling a pound of sausages at a market stall in Britain these days. You’d last a week before the kilogram police descend on you like a ton of bricks. Or should that be a tonne? Since his Toniness was appointed supreme ruler, his government has imposed the equivalent of one new law a day. And with each new law, he’s had to employ an army to enforce it. That’s why the civil service now employs more people than live in the city of Sheffield.

Strangely, however, the American system of using dirty looks seems to be working already with the large off-road car.

It’s not banned, but a constant government-led attack on this type of vehicle, backed by a dollop of fury from the nation’s communists and cyclists, seems to be shaming everyone into buying something else. Fiona Bruce, the agonisingly gorgeous newsreader, wants to replace her Volvo with something less enormous. Davina McCall got pangs of guilt over her Range Rover.


The arguments for and against off-road cars are both fairly silly. On the one hand, you have some nitwit from Richmond council appearing on television’s Fifth Gear, saying that he doesn’t like the new Honda CR-V because it’s too tall; as though that has anything to do with it.


And on the other, you have Honda arguing that its new CR-V will cause no more damage to the planet than a toaster or a cow. Blah blah blah.
The facts of the matter, however, are irrelevant because if you drive a large SUV round a city centre these days you are almost melted by the hate. You’d get less reaction if you were caught videoing a school playground while wearing a Kiddie Fiddler T-shirt.


Even I’ve caught the bug. I look at people in Range Rover Sports, which have the same level of oikishness as Shane Warne’s hairdo, and I think: “My God, you must have a thick skin.” I’ve always wanted a proper Range Rover, but today I’m not sure I could actually buy one. It’d become wearisome, I’m sure, tuning in to the BBC news every single night and being told I was personally responsible for every single one of the world’s ills. It seems 4x4s kill polar bears, drown Indonesians, bankrupt ski resorts, vote Tory and don’t slow down for badgers.


This means the second-hand value is weak. Trying to sell a year-old Land Cruiser is like trying to sell a year-old piece of cheese. That’s why we read recently that sales of off-road cars have fallen by 5.5% in the first 10 months of 2006. Without a single piece of legislation, the bubble has been pricked.


Strangely, however, the car makers don’t seem to have noticed this. I mean, take Volvo as an example. Instead of launching a new small hybrid to quench the thirst of those who miss the Soviet Union, it has just announced the arrival in Britain of a Volvo XC90 . . . V8 Sport.


Not since Shane MacGowan last picked up a microphone have we heard anything quite so out of tune with the way of the world. But like Shane MacGowan, this thing does have a place.

Like half the school-run families in Britain today, I have an XC90 and it’s brilliant. Unlike various other alternatives, it really does seat seven, and even with a full load on board, the boot is still big enough for a couple of dogs.
Apart from all this, it’s reliable, good looking, quite well priced and it’s served on a big bed of honest to goodness common sense. The buttons, for instance, are designed so that you can operate them while wearing gloves.

The only drawback has been the choice of engines. The V6 was asthmatic and underpowered so I went for the diesel, which is noisy, as powerful as a cap gun and not all that economical either.


The V8 changes everything. I assumed that because Volvo is owned by Ford, which also owns Land Rover and Jaguar, it’d be the Jag V8, or perhaps the pig iron V8 from a Mustang. But no. It’s an all new 4.4 litre unit, designed in conjunction with Yamaha, and it’s really rather good.

It makes a nice noise, and because it develops 311bhp your big old Volvo bus will get from 0-62mph in 6.9sec and reach 130mph. You really can think of it in the same breath as the BMW X5.

Perhaps because the engine is mounted sideways, the handling is very good. The ride, too, is unchanged from the diesel and, best of all, you should get more than 20mpg. Not bad for any off-roader, leave alone a V8.


The only drawback is that the turning circle is now rubbish. You’ll make people angry by driving such a thing in the first place, but their anger will turn to a murderous blind rage when every mini roundabout requires a five-point turn.
But let’s not worry about what other people think. Let’s worry only about you and what car best suits the needs of your family.

The only seven-seat cars that are truly comparable to the V8 XC90 are the Audi Q7, which is a woeful thing with no boot and no go, and the Land Rover Discovery, which is a big and spectacularly heavy automotive V sign that chews fuel and breaks your fingernails every time you want to load a child into the back.


The Volvo, as a piece of design, has always been the best school-run car. And now, with that V8 under the bonnet, you can enjoy the run home as well. And if you are glowered at for bumbling round a city in something so seemingly vast and wasteful, simply take a leaf from the book of that great automotive thinker and motoring philosopher, Jack Dee.

Jack says he’s particularly fed up with abuse from van drivers who trundle around London in huge Mercedes Sprinters with nothing in the back but a hammer, while his Volvo XC90 is loaded to the rafters with six children. “By running a big 4x4, I’m keeping three other cars off the school run,” he argues, reasonably.
Have a great 2007, and don’t let the nonsense wear you down.

VITAL STATISTICS

Model Volvo XC90 V8 Sport
Engine 4414cc, eight cylinders
Power 311bhp @ 5850rpm
Torque 325 lb ft @ 3900rpm
Transmission six-speed Geartronic
Fuel 20.9mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 322g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 6.9sec
Top speed 130mph
Price £45,950
Rating 4/5

Verdict A fine car, brilliant on the school run

CASE STUDY 1: JC: Do the funky German!

As promised in previous post. The 1st Case study of Jeremy Clarkson (JC). As I mentioned in the previous posting, JC is well known for spending 3/4 of his car review CRAPPING (or talking c0ck) before ACTUALLY reviewing on the SUBJECT itself. But strangely, all those crapping WILL eventually LINKED or LEAD to the SUBJECT itself... Well, this is an Out of the ordinary post by him as
1) He JUMPED to the SUBJECT @ 1/2 of the article.
2) He sang praises to the CAR he reviewed (which is RARE)...
3) He talked a bit about his past in the 1st 3 paragraph (EVEN RARER)

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, lets get the ball rolling and STUDY his Article...

"DO THE FUNKY GERMAN"! by JC.

"AFTER three years of on-the-job training interspersed with block released courses at a college in Sheffield, I became a qualified journalist (supposedly) proficient in the art of Law, Public admin, shorthand and how best to make a parish council meeting zing in print.

I saw myself becoming Jon Swain, dodging bullets and bombs in the World's troublespots as I dashed hither and thither in a neverending quest for the truth. But instead, I moved to London and became a teddy-bear salesman.

I was rubbish in it. I'd drive all the way to Cwmbran or Pontefract where the usually horrid proprietor of a gift shop would listen to my spiel and then say "No thanks." I knew of course that I was supposed to talk him round but instead I'd say: "Oh Okay," and then drive back to London.

In the course of two years, I covered 100,000 miles and sold 6 Captain Beakies, 2 stuffed dogs, a tea cosy and 14 Paddingtons. It was pathetic and backs up Adam Smith's observation that in order to survive you must specialise.

Bernie Ecclestone, for instance, is a superb businessman but would not, and I'm only guessing of course, be a very good Nurse. Can you see Kate Moss running the United Nations, or Jilly Cooper taking charge of Football League? I struggle too, to imagine Teddy Wogan as a terrorist.

Tony Blair is blessed with an ability to lie through his teeth, which is a useful tool if you want to be a successful lawyer, but it makes him a hopeless prime minister. And then there’s his deputy, a fine and conscientious ship’s steward, I’m sure. But how can the ability to mix a decent gin and tonic qualify someone to run the nation’s housing? We see the same sort of problem in the world of cars. For the past 30 years BMW has specialised in expensive, well engineered sporting saloons. So unsurprisingly its attempt to make a small hatchback, as we saw recently with the introduction of the 1-series, was as successful as my attempt to be a salesman.

Then there’s Audi. Since the beginning of the 1980s it has made nicely designed, technically innovative large cars, but then one day the boss woke up and thought: “I know, let’s build a supermini.”

The result was the catastrophic A2, which cost £14,000, leading some to believe that it was made from gold. In fact, it was made from aluminium that was so light and flimsy the whole car rocked from side to side when you turned the windscreen wipers on.

More recently Volkswagen decided to forget its roots completely and introduce a £50,000 W12 super-saloon called the Phaeton. It’s a wonderful car, one of my favourites in fact. But the small number that came to Britain are now being used to ferry Jordan and Kerry McFadden to and from glittering functions in the West End.

The most disastrous attempt to switch direction, though, came from Mercedes-Benz, purveyor of solid, quiet and dignified diplomatic transport to 85% of the world’s governments.

After a hundred years, that three-pointed star became an emblematic byword for quality and engineering excellence, a symbol of what capitalism could achieve. And as a result it’s probably true to say that it has done more to bring down tyranny and end oppression than even the B-52 bomber.

Then Mercedes decided to make a hatchback and the world woke up one morning to find the A-class had arrived.

On the face of it this seemed to be a fine idea; all that Mercedes quality in a package that every man could afford. But pretty soon the whole thing fell apart.

In the course of doing a standard lane change manoeuvre — known as the elk test — a Swedish motoring journalist found the little Merc had an alarming propensity to roll over.

If you suddenly needed to swerve while travelling at more than 50mph, the little car didn’t understeer, as you would expect from such a thing. It flipped onto its roof.

The problem was, of course, that Mercedes was not Fiat or Renault. It had no real experience of small front-wheel-drive cars and consequently no deep-seated understanding of the way they might behave in extreme circumstances.

So the A-class was taken back to the drawing board and given a traction control system that cured the problem. Then it was released again with Mercedes trumpeting a safety message.

Mercedes actually argued that it had two floors — the normal one, and then another to which the seats were bolted — so that in the event of a head-on accident the engine would slide into the gap between the two, underneath the occupants rather than into their crotches.

Sounds brilliant. But the real reason that the car had a sandwich floor was rather different. You see, the A-class had been originally conceived as an electric car and the cavity had been created as somewhere to store the batteries.

It was a complete hotchpotch then — Merc’s Edsel. A Daimler-Benz Corvair. But in Britain alone 88,372 people bought one. So rather than give up on the idea and go back to making big saloons, the company has just brought out A-class 2. The Sequel.

The first thing you’ll notice when you step inside is that this doesn’t feel like a cut-price Mercedes. There’s no sense of going to Barbados’s west coast and staying in a two-star hotel. You will find that the quality of the trim and the texture of the upholstery are pretty much exactly the same as they are on a £100,000 S-class.

Then there’s the size. This new A-class is bigger in every dimension than the original, so you’d expect more space. But not this much more. The back, in particular, is hugely roomy, and if you remove the rear seats completely — well, it’s a van.

It doesn’t look like one, though. I always rather liked the style of the first A-class but the new version is in a different league. The three-door model, especially, is the funkiest thing to have come out of Germany since . . . um. Crikey. I suspect it may be the funkiest thing to come out of Germany ever.

Then there’s the list of equipment. My test car had satellite navigation, an in-built telephone, an air-conditioned glove box to stop your chocolate melting, an airbag for my thorax, and a traction control system that came down like a big steel firewall if I even thought about swerving round an elk.

Sadly, it also came with fat, ultra-low-profile tyres, which made the ride harsh and jarring. If you’re asked whether you’d like these on your car it doesn’t matter how charming the salesman is being, or how much you think they improve the looks, Just Say No.

And please, don’t try to argue that they’ll improve the handling, because that traction control will step in long before the height of the tyre’s sidewall could make any difference.

Under the bonnet I had a diesel that was . . . well, it was a diesel. So it made a din when it started but compensated for this by being economical. Same as every other diesel, in fact.

Overall, though, I have to say that the A-class was very, very good. It drives and feels just like a much bigger Mercedes, and that brings me on to the only significant drawback. It’s also priced like a much bigger Mercedes.

Oh, sure, we’re told that the base model is actually a few hundred pounds less than the base model of the outgoing version, despite a bigger engine and a longer list of standard equipment. But the car they sent me, an A200 CDI, costs a simply massive £19,995.

This is probably why the car works so well. Because it’s not a diversion for Mercedes at all. It’s exactly what Mercedes has been doing for 100 years, only a tiny bit smaller.

Before signing off, I would just like to say that Merc’s dealers seem to be improving. For the past few years they were the worst in the industry — rude and utterly incompetent. But my own experience, and a sharp drop-off in the number of letters I get on the subject, suggest that they’re back on track.

VITAL STATISTICS: Well I decided NOT TO include it in this blog as the SUBJECT Model JC's review was a DIESEL. Hence, the Specification is for Mercedes Benz A200CDI SE which is "A Turbo Diesel model" and I dared to say that is NOT AVAILABLE Officially in South East Asia.

Rating 4/5

Verdict Just as good as its bigger brothers"

END OF ARTICLE:

I only don't know the meaning of the following words:
1) "hither and thither", 2) "hotchpotch".

What do you think of this article? Feel free to comment...