Don't Stop Me Now Part 1

Don't Stop Me Now.

by Jeremy Clarkson.

Peugeot 206 GTiLook, can we get one thing clear this morning? Your butcher is no better than my butcher. Your local branch of Morrison's is no better than my local Tesco and your favourite village in France is no better than my favourite village in France. It's very rare these days that you find one product that is demonstrably better than its compet.i.tion: Pepsi and c.o.ke, O2 and Vodaphone, Miyake and Armani, Eton and Harrow, Tory and Labour.And if you do find something that has a clear advantage over its rivals, I'll wager that there's something wrong with it. Skiing in America is a cla.s.sic case in point.Sure, the runs are less busy and more varied than the runs you get in Europe. There are shorter queues too. But don't think this means you spend less time standing in them.It's not that Americans won't fit through the turnstiles their skiers are actually like twigs: it's the politeness.'Hey, buddy, after you.' 'No way, friend, you were here first.' 'I sure was not.' 'I'm in no rush.' 'Me neither. Say, you on vacation?' 'Sure am. Soaking up some rays.' 'You know it.' 'Hey.' 'Say.' And so it goes on.In the time it takes two Americans to decide who should get into the chairlift first you could have got half of Germany up the Matterhorn.Living in the south-east is another example: it's better in every way.But then you do get more for your money up north. And all the best countryside's up there.So, you see, things are never so clear-cut.Except when it comes to the new Mini. First, everyone likes it. This is Michael Palin and David Attenborough rolled into one cutesy bite-size package. Even non-car people are drawn to it like vegetarians to a bacon sandwich.The looks and the cheeky chappiness would have been enough to win it many, many friends, but it's also fabulous fun to drive. The basic One is a hoot, the Cooper is hysterical and the Cooper S is a riot.They're even doing a 200-bhp Works version these days. And that is the motoring equivalent of fish and chips at the Ivy: it appeals on every single conceivable level.Maybe, if I'm hypercritical, the back of the Mini's a bit cramped and maybe the image has been tarnished a bit in London by an estate agency that has bought thousands. But if you don't live in the capital and you don't have children who are 15 feet tall, I can't think of a single reason why you would consider, even for a moment, buying anything else. Think of it as the Yorks.h.i.+re Dales with Liverpool house prices in Chelsea. Or Vail run by the Swiss.That's exactly what I was thinking on Monday morning as I peered out of my bedroom window at the 180-bhp Peugeot 206 GTi that was being delivered. It seemed so pointless. No, really. Why would anyone be interested in such a thing when for a little bit less money they could have a slightly more accelerative Mini Cooper S? By the time I'd finished my coffee and was ready to leave for the week in London I'd pretty much decided to leave it where it was and use the Mercedes instead. Well, it was a lovely day and I saw no point in spending time in a hot box.I don't know why I changed my mind. Guilt perhaps? A sense that I have to drive everything, no matter how stupid or pointless it might seem? Or maybe it's because I spotted the air-conditioning b.u.t.ton on the Pug's dash and thought: 'Oh, it won't be that bad.'Whatever, I loaded my suitcases in the back and with the temperature nudging 75F headed for London.After half a mile I was suspicious. After a mile I was angry. It may have an air-conditioning b.u.t.ton but it sure as h.e.l.l doesn't have air-conditioning. The Rolls-Royce system works with the power of 30 domestic refrigerators. Peugeot's works with the power of an asthmatic in Bangladesh blowing at you through a straw.There are some other issues, too. For instance, the hand-st.i.tched instrument binnacle. Imagine one of those 14-year-old boys who hang around provincial bus stops at two in the morning. That's what the interior of the Pug looks like. Now imagine him in a pair of hand-made Church's shoes. And that's what a hand-st.i.tched instrument binnacle looks like in there. Like it's been nicked.Plus, I'm blessed with stupidly tiny feet. For someone so tall, it's absurd that I have to totter around on a pair of size nines. However, they were too big to fit on the clutch properly. And G.o.ddam, it's hot in here. It's noisy, too, because now I'm having to drive down the d.a.m.n motorway with the d.a.m.n window down. Why the h.e.l.l didn't I take the Mercedes? In some ways this was all a bit depressing. I used to love hot hatchbacks because they did two jobs for the price of one. They were cheap to buy, cheap to run and as practical as the shopping trolleys on which they were based. But, then, on the right road, at the right time, they could set fire to pa.s.sing woodland.I'm getting old, though. I don't want a practical shopping trolley and I don't much want to set fire to the woods either. Furthermore, those who are young enough to want both things could not possibly afford to insure this car. Anyway, who'd want to when they could have a better-made, better-equipped, faster, cheaper and cheekier Mini? With air-con-b.l.o.o.d.y-ditioning.The next day the Pug drove me even madder. Have you tried to drive through London in a car with a manual gearbox while talking on the phone? It's like rubbing your head and patting your tummy while defusing a bomb.On Wednesday I used the 206 to go to the Top Gear base and, I have to admit, on a quiet country road it was quite good fun. Nothing like the hot hatches of yesteryear that sang soprano; it was more a torquey tenor. But that's okay when you're 43; it means you don't have to stir the gearbox so much.It wasn't the speed that impressed most, though, it was the handling. It would sail round corners at velocities I would deem silly or even suicidal in other cars, some of which cost an awful lot more than 14,995.I must confess, I found myself driving this little pocket rocket much faster than was entirely sensible. And I loved it. By the time I arrived I felt 18 years old again.All day, as we made the show, I kept walking past the 206 and thinking: 'Actually, that's a very pretty little car.' And it is. Less cute than a Mini but prettier, certainly, and, with those huge alloys and fat tyres, more businesslike.On Thursday I drove it round the Top Gear track and it was simply staggering. I'm loath to use the word perfect, but the combined effect of variable-a.s.sistance power steering, dual-rate springs, sharp dampers and truly magnificent front seats that nail you in place is that you can absolutely fly.The Mini's good but the Peugeot's in a different cla.s.s. It's like comparing Iron Maiden to Led Zep.And part of the difference is down to weight. The Mini really is an Iron Maiden and the Peugeot really is a hot-air balloon.Sadly, on Thursday night I went to a party where I quaffed champagne until I didn't know my name any more. This meant that when I woke up in Chipping Norton today I couldn't for the life of me remember where the Peugeot was. I miss it.Sunday 15 June 2003Don't Stop Me Now

Volvo S60 RHave you ever wondered what happened to all the engineers? Two hundred years ago, the world must have been full of men in frock coats inventing new ways of doing everything.Conversation at the pub now is terribly dull. 'What did you do at work today?''Oh, nothing much. Tried to look up the secretary's skirt for a bit, then did some filing.'Imagine, however, what it must have been like in 1750.'What did you do at work today?''Well, I invented a steam engine and then this afternoon I developed a new way of keeping time. You?''Oh, same old same old. I came up with a new way of tunnelling and then I designed the pressure cooker.'All over the world there were people saying, 'See how that sparrow makes its nest, using its beak to intertwine the twigs? It has given me an idea for something I shall call a was.h.i.+ng machine.'I've been watching Adam Hart-Davis's new series on BBC2. It's called What the Tudors and Stuarts Did for Us and it's been going on, unnecessarily, for weeks. It seems the answer could have been given in two seconds: 'Everything.'In the s.p.a.ce of a gnat's blink, we went from a species that ate mud to full-on civilisation, with blast furnaces, steam engines and new ways of making sure the roof on your house didn't fall down.It must have been easy when the Victorians came along to look at what had already been achieved and think: 'Well, there's nothing left for us to invent.' But, unbelievably, they kept on going with their railway engines and their iron s.h.i.+ps and their electricity.Even as the twentieth century trundled into life, you couldn't go for a walk on any cliff top without b.u.mping into someone who was muttering and making notes. John Logie Baird, for instance. He started out by inventing self-warming socks, then he developed jam before, on a stroll through Hastings, deciding to come up with radiovision or television, as we now call it.To us that seems incomprehensible. I mean, I went for a stroll this morning and decided to design a time machine, but I have no clue how I might go about it. Baird, on the other hand, went into a shop, bought a hat box and two knitting needles and, hey presto, the next thing you know we have Robert Kilroy-Silk.Those were exciting times. The Victorians had the Great Exhibition of 1851 to showcase their wares and their brilliance. They saw mechanical engineering as the future of the world, the one thing that separated us from the beasts and the flies.Now we have electronic engineering, which is not only stratospherically dull but also fills us with fear and dread. Ever since 1968, when Hal went bonkers and ate the crew of Discovery One, we've been brought up to be frightened of it.Computers, we were told by James Cameron in The Terminator, would one day finish mankind, and Prince Charles agrees. He sees a time when nano-robots will learn to push b.u.t.tons and end the world in a nuclear holocaust.I'm not so sure. In fact, I have no fears at all about a robot the size of a human hair climbing on to a table how, exactly? and pus.h.i.+ng the erase key, because we can be guaranteed that either the robot or the computer will have broken long before the bomb ever goes boom.Think about it. Paddington station is still as beautiful and as functional as it was when Brunel built it, almost 150 years ago. Now compare that with the mobile phone you bought last September. Ugly, isn't it? And where's the camera and the electronic diary and the video facility? Not that it matters, because it started out by not working in Fulham and now it doesn't work at all.Have you still got the video recorder you bought back in 1985, or the camera? Of course not. They went wrong years ago. And it's the same story with DVDs. I bought one of the first portable players for a monstrous 850, and already it's fit only for the bin.And this brings me to the new Volvo S60 R. Apparently it's a four-wheel-drive, four-door answer to BMW's M3. Hmm. A slightly optimistic boast when you look under the bonnet and find the 2.5-litre turbo engine develops 300 bhp. That's a lot, for sure, but if the M3 is your Gare du Nord, 300 is only halfway through the Channel tunnel.And I'm sorry, but turbocharging is positively James Watt.Volvo ploughs on, however, saying the S60 R has, and I quote, 'the most advanced cha.s.sis of any road car'. It's called the Skyhook system because in comfort and sport modes it feels as though the car is suspended from above rather than propped up on such crudities as the wheels and suspension.There's more, too, in the shape of active yaw control, two traction controls and a setting called advanced that, we're told, turns the S60 into a pure racing car.It all sounded too good to be true. And it was. I borrowed one, drove it to the Top Gear test track and selected the advanced setting that unhooks the car from the sky. But way before I had a chance to decide whether I liked it or not, in fact way before I'd got round the first corner, the whole thing broke. A message on the dash said simply: 'Cha.s.sis settings. Service.'Another car was duly delivered and I spent a day pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons so that now I have a definitive verdict for you. Comfort makes the car comfortable. Sport makes the car less comfortable. And advanced makes it uncomfortable.So far as handling's concerned, it didn't seem to make any difference what setting I selected so, after much careful deliberation (three seconds), I put the whole thing in comfort and went home.That said, I rather liked the Volvo. In the past I've never really seen the point of the S60. Buying one was like deliberately sleeping with the plain, boring girl rather than her bubbly, pretty German friend, but the R version with its new nose and big alloy wheels is pretty too.Strangely, it doesn't feel that fast. Oh, I've read the figures and I'm sure they're right, but this is not a rip-snorting terrier, constantly surging up to corners faster than you'd like.All cars have a motorway cruising speed at which they settle when you're not really concentrating. Mostly, it's 80 or so, though when you get up to something like the Mercedes S 600 it's more like 110. In the Volvo, however, I kept finding myself doing 60.On country roads I'd remind myself that I was at the wheel of a turbocharged four-wheel-drive sports saloon and overtake the car in front, with consummate ease, it must be said. But then, a mile or so later, it'd be up behind me, its driver wondering why I was suddenly going so slowly.As a result, it's a relaxing car to drive. Certainly you have no need to worry about being ambushed by a speed camera. Either you're concentrating, in which case you'll see it, or you're not, in which case you'll be doing 3 mph.I loved the interior too. The seats are fabulously comfortable, the stereo is as good as you'll find in any car, and I would never tire of watching the sat nav screen slide out of the dash, as if installed by Q. It'll break, obviously, but while it's working it's wonderful.What we have then is a comfortable, safe, well-equipped, well-priced car that, if you can really be bothered, is quite fast as well.As a thriller it misses the BMW by a mile, but as an owners.h.i.+p experience I'd take the Volvo over the M3 every time. It's so much less how can I put this politely? plonkerish.More importantly, however, it also misses the Audi S4. Like the Volvo, this has a turbo motor, four doors and four-wheel drive. Like the Volvo, it's quiet, comfortable and una.s.suming when you just want to get home. Unlike the Volvo, when conditions are right, the Audi picks up its lederhosen and absolutely flies.Even though it's a couple of grand more expensive, I'd buy the Audi; it's more mechanical somehow. But if you want the Bill Gates Volvo, don't worry, you are not getting a bad car.Sunday 29 June 2003Don't Stop Me Now

Koenigsegg CCJeremy Paxman. Very much the embodiment of twenty-first-century man. Civilised, urbane, well read and quick-witted. Yet underneath the polished veneer of sophistication pulsates the brain of a tree shrew. Yup. Underneath that 50 haircut Paxman is no different from the ba.s.s guitarist with AC/DC or your dog or even the brontosaurus.Last week he rolled up at the Top Gear Karting Challenge wearing the sort of disdainful sneer that makes him such a terrifying adversary on Newsnight. 'I've never even seen a go-kart before,' he drawled before the race.By rights he should have hated every moment of it. Here, after all, was one of the most respectable and respected men on television, all dolled up in a stupid racing suit and squeezed into a noisy, pointless bee of a thing.But no, he loved it. Karting is cold, uncomfortable and a little bit dangerous. Uncultured, uncouth and yobbish, it is the diametric opposite of University Challenge. But it is guaranteed to send a s.h.i.+ver up the spine of even the most donnish romantic because, sitting down there, close to the ground, it feels fast.Speed, we're forever being told, kills. Slow down, say the advertis.e.m.e.nts on television and the digital boards on motorways. Flash flash go the speed cameras. The message is clear and constant, but I'm afraid you might as well try to teach a lamp post how to tie shoelaces.We need speed like we need air and food and water.And I'm not talking about the usefulness of going quickly either. Obviously, the faster you travel, the sooner you get to where you're going. So you can see more and do more and learn more. Speed, as I've said many times before, makes you cleverer.Nor am I being flippant. Though, yes, speed does mean you can now go to see your mother-in-law but you don't have to stay the night.What I'm being is scientific. Thousands of years ago, what caused man to come out of his cave and think: 'I wonder what's in the next valley'? The risks of going to find out were immense, but obviously he went ahead or we'd all still be living in Ethiopia.More recently, what caused Christopher Columbus to sail across the Atlantic, or Neil Armstrong to fly to the moon? Why do people bungee jump? Well, it's simple: we like risk.Deep at the root of any brain in the animal kingdom is the limbic system, a sort of slug-like sticky thing that controls our instincts.When we do something dangerous, it dumps a load of dopamine into our heads that makes us euphoric. You see the effects of this on the face of a footballer after he's scored a goal. He's taken a chance, got away with it, and for a moment or two he is completely out of control, lost in a sea of pure ecstasy.When you take cocaine, the drug causes dopamine to be released. It's why people become so addicted, why it's so moreish. But you don't need to clog up your nose and become a cras.h.i.+ng bore to get exactly the same effect. All you need to do is get out there and put your foot down.Next weekend is the Festival of Speed, an event where some of the best cars in the world drive past huge crowds of spectators in the grounds of Goodwood House.If you're able to pop along, I urge you to go to the start line, where you will see all sorts of respectable middle-aged men from the world of rock music and big business. They always say, before they set off, that it's not a race and that they won't be trying hard.But the instant the visor snaps shut on their helmets, the brain screams: 'Give me some dopamine,' the red mist comes down and they shoot off in a whirl of smoke and noise.So what do the spectators get out of it? Well, the same deal, really. When the car comes roaring towards you, bellowing the V8 bellow, your body is thinking: 'h.e.l.lo.'And when the unseeing limbic system senses danger it goes berserk. When you hear a noise in the house in the middle of the night you remain stock still, just like a springbok when it thinks it senses a predator. Blood is fed to the muscles, which is why your face goes white.Next time you see Paxman, then, having a ding-dong on Newsnight, consider this: his outer human brain is thinking of an intelligent response, but his inner tree-shrew brain is thinking, 'Where's the nearest tree?' His blood is a ma.s.s of endorphins and adrenalin that make him strong and awake; and so is yours as the Ferrari GTO barrels towards you at 120.And so was mine the other day when I decided to see how fast I could make the new Koenigsegg go on our test track in Surrey.Mr Koenigsegg is a completely bald inventor from Sweden who decided one day to make a supercar. Ferrari and Lamborghini should be afraid. Very afraid.Sweden's odd like that. Only 172 people live there, but when they turn their attention to something the world tends to notice. Sweden produced one of the greatest Wimbledon champions of all time and one of the biggest-selling pop acts. Sweden is where you go for your self-a.s.sembly furniture.Anything anyone can do, the Swedes can do better. Only a few years after someone failed to a.s.sa.s.sinate Ronald Reagan, someone shot the Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme. And, unbelievably, they still haven't caught him.So, what's the new car like? Well, it's almost the same weight as a McLaren F1, it is a little bit more aerodynamically efficient, and with 655 bhp in the boot it's a little bit more powerful. The result is, quite simply, the fastest road car in the world.They're talking about a top speed of 240 mph, and that's about 30 mph faster than Michael Schumacher drives when he's at work.My limbic system was impressed. And it was even more impressed when I came back from my first speed run to say the front was feeling a little light. 'No problem,' said Mr Koenigsegg. 'We will jack up the back of the car a bit. And do you mind if we put some gaffer tape round the windscreen?' Wow. It's risky enough to drive any car at more than 170 mph, but to do it in a car that's been jacked up a bit and has a windscreen held in place with duct tape... There were so many chemicals coursing around my arterial route-map that if you'd cut me I'd have bled pure acid.Eventually, I got it up to 174 mph, 4 mph faster than I'd managed in any other car on the test track. And then the dopamine came. Speed kills? Maybe, but it doesn't half thrill as well.So does the Koenigsegg. It's an absolute beast, as hot as the centre of the Earth and as noisy as a foundry. It's like working out on the footplate of a steam train, but the rewards are huge.Pile up to a corner, change down on the ridiculously narrow-gated gearbox, brake hard. Already your clutch leg is aching from the effort. Now turn the wheel. There's power a.s.sistance, but not much. Your arms are straining to hold the front in line, so you apply some power to unstick the back end. Grrrrr, goes the 4.7-litre V8. Weeeeeeeeee goes the supercharger. And eeeeeeeee go the tyres as they lose traction.Whack on some opposite lock to catch the slide. Whoa, it's still going. More lock needed. More effort. Your arms are really hurting now and you're desperately trying to balance the throttle, to find the sweet spot that will hold the back end in check.There. There it is. Smoke is pouring off the tyres now, but the car is powering sideways and under perfect control through the bend. Inside, you have sweat in your eyes, you feel like you've been arm-wrestling a mountain all morning, but with the dopamine coming you don't notice a thing.Welcome, then, to the world of the super-fast supercar. They are utterly stupid, of course. Just like the people who drive them. Us.Sunday 6 July 2003Don't Stop Me Now

Caterham Seven Roadsport SVThe week before last, during that mini heatwave, I left work at about eight o'clock and cruised, top down, up to the traffic lights under the A40 flyover in west London.A right turn would take me back to my flat, a superheated box with neither garden nor air. Then I'd be forced to lie awake all night long, stuck fast to the sheets, listening to policemen tearing up and down Westbourne Grove while testing their sirens.A left turn, however, would take me to the tranquillity of the Cotswolds and my family. Here I would be able to sleep with nothing to wake me save the shush-hush of the barley and the pitter-patter of tiny foxes nibbling at the chicken run. And that's why I went left.It was a good decision, too. Because after some 40 minutes I turned off the motorway and, with the sun a six-inch coin of brilliant scarlet light in an utterly clear, deep-blue sky, I mashed my foot into the SL's thick, velvety carpet...... and went absolutely barking mad. I braked hard into each corner, nudging the gear lever once, twice and sometimes three times to keep the revs right up, until I hit the apex of the corner, and buried the throttle once more.The tarmac was hot and sticky, and it crackled slightly as the new Michelins cut through it like waterskis on a windless lake. And rising above it all, as wave after wave of power and torque surged down the prop shaft, came the hard-edged, machine-gun, staccato roar of that supercharged Mercedes V8 engine.It was enough to make a man quite chubby with excitement. And with the sun beginning to kiss the western horizon I remember thinking, 'Well, if I hit a tree now, I'll at least be going out on a high.'It was a wonderful drive home. Me and the machine, not just singing in perfect harmony but fused in a bout of gaily abandoned man-love. This was the raw, undiluted pleasure of driving almost for driving's sake.Except, of course, that's rubbish, because it wasn't raw or undiluted at all. The Mercedes puts up a firewall comprising about a million gigabytes of silicon between the driver and the business end of things. It's got a braking a.s.sistance system and computer-controlled air suspension, along with traction control, power steering and a fly-by-wire throttle. I was driving a fascimile of a car, rather than the real thing: it moaned and groaned and twitched and flinched just like the true item, but in my heart of hearts I knew that I was making love to little more than a hologram.All modern cars isolate you from the road, they coc.o.o.n you in a safe, quiet world of velour and Radio 2 and air-conditioning. The wind that ruffles your hair in a modern convertible isn't wind at all, rather a gentle breeze that has been ma.s.saged by an aerodynamics engineer somewhere in Frankfurt. And the nice rorty little rasp from your exhaust at 5,000 rpm was in fact put there by someone in an anechoic chamber in Stuttgart. So when you're in a car, you're really in the Matrix.In the past I've never been able to get out, to smell real air and hear real engine noises. I was never able to do the Keanu Reeves thing because at 6ft 5in. I've always been much too tall to fit into a Caterham Seven.Now, though, there's a longer, wider version available for the chap with the fuller, longer figure. And last weekend I gave it a whirl.b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l Fire and Holy Mother of Christ: apart from being bigger, it was a whole lot more powerful to boot. In fact, it offers up 442 bhp per ton, and nothing else on the road gets even close to doing that. A Ferrari 575, for instance, produces a figure of only 298 bhp per ton, while the Lamborghini Murcielago manages 319 bhp per ton.At first you'll wonder where the power has gone. But that's because you'll be changing up when the noise and the vibrations become intolerable. But don't. In fact, you change up when blood is spurting out of your ears and your right foot has been shaken clean off your ankle. Then you discover where the power is hiding its ma.s.sive bulk in the uppermost reaches of the rev band.Go there and, no matter what you happen to be driving right now, you'll be surprised at the punch it delivers. I know I was.What's more, you can actually see the suspension working, and the brakes too, and when you turn the wheel the road wheels move, right in front of your eyes. You can place this car bang on target every time. Not just near the white line, as you would in a painfully slow Lambo or a pedestrian Ferrari, but bang on that line.I've always a.s.sumed that a car like this would feel like an extension of your hands and feet, but it's the other way round.I felt like a part of it: an organic component, but a component nevertheless.You use a normal car to take you somewhere, and it tries to make that journey as pleasant as possible. But you would never use a Caterham as a means of transport, because this is driving for the buzz of it, and as a result you're not a pa.s.senger. You are there to do a job, which means you are no more and no less important than one of the pistons or the windscreen wipers.This is the real deal. Everything that happens happens because it happens. Not because some German in a white coat thinks it should happen. The marketing department has not created the noises, the jolts and the acceleration. They're there because this is a light, powerful sports car and these are the characteristics you must expect of such a thing.I didn't like it. Partly because I still don't fit properly the steering wheel sits on my thighs, which means I simply could not apply any opposite lock in an emergency. Also, while Caterham will build a car for you, it's designed to be a kit that you build yourself. That's why it bypa.s.ses regulations on noise, safety and emissions. Great, but I'd never fully trust anything I'd built myself: I'd always a.s.sume that a wheel was about to fall off.Most of all, though, I didn't like the Caterham because it was like camping. The roof looks so terrible that you can't possibly drive around with it up. But then again, it's so fiddly that you can't possibly drive with it down either. Plainly, it was designed by a man who likes to sleep out at night, possibly with some Boy Scouts, far from anywhere, with just a thin layer of canvas between him, the boys and the rain.And then there's the business of what you should wear when driving the Caterham.This is the only car that demands a trip down to Millets before embarking on even the shortest journey.You need a woolly bobble hat, an anorak and some Rohan trousers. There's an almost wilful lack of style to this kind of motoring, you see. A. A. Gill described his run from the station in my wife's Caterham last year as 'the worst five minutes of my life'.The problem here is that we are in the very furthest corner of motoring enthusiasm. And, as is the way with all hobbies, things go off the rails when people start to take them too seriously.Everyone likes to dangle a worm in the water from time to time. But the Caterham is the equivalent of getting up at three in the morning and sitting in the rain, on a ca.n.a.l bank, until it goes dark again.Everyone looks up when Concorde flies over, but the Caterham is the equivalent of flying to Greece to snap some Olympic 737s. Would you risk getting locked up for your love of this car? Man at Millets would.I'm interested in motor racing but I don't want to be a marshal. I find stamps pretty but I don't want an alb.u.m.I like music but I'm not going to build my own instruments. And I like driving but I'm far too old, rich, soft and poncey and still slightly too big for what, without any doubt, is the ultimate driving machine.Sunday 27 July 2003Don't Stop Me Now

Lamborghini GallardoSuppose you had a priceless Ming vase, you wouldn't use it as a dice shaker or a vessel for serving punch at Boxing Day parties.In a similar vein you wouldn't use a racehorse to hack out, and you wouldn't use a pearl-handled b.u.t.ter knife to pick a lock. So it's faintly ridiculous to suppose a supercar can co-exist in the real world alongside young men from Kazakhstan in Nissan Laurels and even younger men from Albania on pizza-delivery mopeds.So what is it for then, exactly? Getting down and growly on the world's racetracks? Well, yes, obviously, but even here things can go awry.Just recently I attempted to see how fast the new Koenigsegg supercar could accelerate from 0 to 60 mph. But as I let the clutch in, one of the many belts that drives something important in the engine bay shredded and I was left in a world of noise and smoke, going nowhere.Last week I attempted a similar test with a 320,000 Pagani Zonda, and again it all ended in tears. As I floored the throttle and the 7.3-litre Mercedes V12 engine girded its considerable loins for an a.s.sault on the horizon, the clutch shouted, 'For G.o.d's sake,' and exploded. There was a lot of smoke. Hence the tears.Lamborghinis are especially good at this. Once, to amuse the crowds at Goodwood, I decided to do a ma.s.sive wheel-spinning start off the line. But this was a Diablo, with four-wheel drive and tyres bigger than the rings of Saturn, so the only thing that could possibly spin was the clutch. It did. And I had to drive up the hill with the V12 tearing its heart out, but only doing four or five miles per hour.It has always been thus. I once drove the world's first supercar, a Lamborghini Miura, but I cannot tell you how fast it went since it oiled its plugs at every set of lights, and stalled. And there wasn't enough juice in the battery to get it going again.A friend recently described his old Bentley as being like a middle-aged man, oohing and aahing its way through life because bits of it which worked perfectly well yesterday had suddenly decided to give up the ghost today.Supercars, on the other hand, are like athletes, forever suffering from hamstring injuries and groin strains.No, really. My wife goes to the gym every morning and as a result is permanently broken in some way. The bathroom cabinet looks like Harry Potter's potion store. Whereas I, whose only exercise is blinking, am never ill at all.So, if you can't go quickly in a supercar, and you can't use it for everyday ch.o.r.es like shopping and taking the children to school, what can you do with it?Go out for dinner? Oh puh-lease. Where are you going to leave it? In the street? In a multi-storey car park? And what shape do you suppose it will be in after you've finished your Irish coffee and mints?I once parked my old Ferrari outside a restaurant, with the roof off. It didn't seem like a problem, since I was in the Cotswold village of Deddington where the crime statistics talk of some scrumping in 1947 and that's it. But when I came back, the interior had been used for what I can only a.s.sume was the world champions.h.i.+p gozzing compet.i.tion. I have never seen so much phlegm.Sure, you can take such a car to a friend's house for a party. But then, how are you going to get home? Driving a bright yellow Lamborghini at two in the morning is as obvious as weaving down the street with a traffic cone on your head.Of course, one day you'll be in your supercar on a wonderful, sweeping mountain road, and suddenly all will become clear.But not for long, because pretty soon you'll round a corner to find a party of ramblers or cyclists, or maybe both. Do you think they're going to (a) point appreciatively at your car or (b) shout obscenities?And later, when you have broken down, or smashed the low-riding front end clean off on a dip in the road, do you think they'll (a) stop to help or (b) laugh at you until they need hospital treatment?Buy a supercar, and your neighbours won't like the noise. Your wife won't be able to climb aboard in a short skirt, your friends will be jealous, and other road users will make signals. It's hard to think of any group or body that likes a man in a supercar; small boys, perhaps. But is that what you want? Probably not, I suspect.None of this, of course, stops us wanting supercars, so I was therefore intrigued by the new Lamborghini Gallardo. Unlike all the previous Lambos, there is no rear wing big enough to land helicopters on, and no air vents that slide out of the side when the going gets hot.Yes, it looks sporty, but it's not like rocking up for work in a gold lame jacket and tartan trousers. In a dark colour you might even call it discreet.Inside, there's been another break from Lamborghini tradition. I fit. And the air-conditioning works, and you can see out of the back window, and there's a stereo that you can hear.Oh, the engine makes a noise all right, but it doesn't prompt the sort of purple prose I normally use for cars of this type. There's no spine-tingling howl. It doesn't sound like Brian Blessed on the verge of an o.r.g.a.s.m or Tom Jones making man-love for the first time.There's a very good reason for all this. Italian politicians may think their German counterparts are humourless, strutting n.a.z.is, and the Germans may have responded by taking their towels off the beaches of Tuscany this year. But all is well between the two nations in the world of car-making, because Lamborghini has been bought by Audi (itself part of the Volkswagen group), who have brought a dollop of common sense to the most lovably idiotic carmaker on earth.As a result, the engine is an Audi V8 unit with two extra cylinders welded on to the end to create a 5-litre V10. It drives all four wheels via a six-speed gearbox, but you don't need to be a man-mountain to control everything. The clutch is light. The steering wheel moves easily. And you can change gear with one hand! Normally I have to get my super-fit wife to drive the Lamborghinis that we have on test. But even I, with arms like pipe cleaners, could manage the Gallardo.I liked it, too, hugely. I liked it even more than the Ferrari 360 because it's better balanced and easier to control at the limit. It changes direction like a fly, grips like a barnacle and goes like a jet fighter on combat power. At one point I saw 175 mph on the clock, and there was plenty more where that came from.It is a technological tour de force, a genuinely very good car, even if it is a trifle pricey at 115,000. But it left me feeling under-whelmed: there was no sense of occasion, like I felt when I first stepped into a Ferrari 355, or a Diablo, or a Zonda even.This is important, because supercars appeal to the small boy in us all. We may hate the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who have them and we may know they make no sense at all, but that doesn't stop us wanting one. And there's the thing: I don't particularly want a Gallardo.As I stepped out of it after a two-day stint, there was no pulsating desire to get back in again, and keep going. Although this may have had something to do with the fact that, after three hard minutes on the test track, the clutch was a thin veneer of dust on the main straight.There we are, then. The message remains the same. If you want to go really, really fast, buy a plane ticket.Sunday 21 September 2003Don't Stop Me Now

Mazda RX-8When women crest the brow of middle age and start on the high-speed, unstoppable plunge to an osteoporotic, alopecia-ravaged death, there are many ways to pretend that it isn't happening. b.r.e.a.s.t.s, ravaged by gravity and babies, can be re-upholstered. Tummies distorted by pregnancy can be vacuumed away. And shops such as s.p.a.ceNK and Boots sell exotic creams that soothe wrinkles and cellulite.I have watched Joan Collins walk into a restaurant and noted how all the women stare in open-mouthed wonderment. Here she is, aged 70, and she doesn't look a day over 58. You certainly wouldn't give up your seat on a bus, were she to step on board with some heavy bags.Now, compare and contrast the fortunes of Ms Collins with the plight of Barry Manilow. We hear he's had plastic surgery and what do we think? Poof. Mickey Rourke is said to have had Botox put in his face. Poof. Jay Kay wins a prize for most stylish man. Poof. A. A. Gill. Poof. Paul Smith. Poof.Men who wear 'product' in their hair, whatever the h.e.l.l that is. Poofs. Men who put on suncream in England. Poofs. Men who have combs or hairdryers. Poofs. Men who wash their cars. Poofs. Men in sandals. Poofs. Men who go to the dentist when they don't have toothache. Poofs.Men who take vitamin tablets. Raving poofs. And backs to the wall, everyone: there's a jogger in the room.Any attempt, whatsoever, to delay the visible signs of old age is met with a torrent of barracking and cruel jibes. And rightly so.I wear clothes so that people cannot see my genitals. I have a stomach like a s.p.a.ce Hopper because I like eating food. My teeth are yellow because I drink 100 cups of coffee a day. My hair is cut with scissors. My bathroom scales are broken. I haven't combed my hair since I was 12, and I last washed a car in 1979.I'd like, therefore, to say that I'm all man, but in my heart of hearts I know this to be untrue. Because a huge hole has appeared in the back of my hair and it's driving me insane with worry.Baldness is bad enough when it appears from the front, but when it starts at the back, creating a big pink crater, it looks stupid. And what makes it worse is that the mirror lies. It tells you that you still have a full rug. It tells you that all is well. Your hole is as invisible as the hole in the ozone layer, but you know it's there all right, like a huge crop-circle, amusing people who sit behind you in cinemas.Last weekend, a girl at a party tried to rea.s.sure me, saying that bald men smell nicer than those with a full crop. To demonstrate the point, she sniffed the s.h.i.+ny pate of Shaun Woodward, who happened to be near by, and declared the aroma to be 'lovely'. Whereas what's left of my curly top, she said, was 'horrid'. So much for the morning-pine goodness of my jojoba-tree shampoo.I wasn't fooled, though. I know that baldness has to be masked. But how? I could go down the Dylan Jones route and give myself a number one. But then Dylan is editor of GQ magazine, and as such must be a poof.Nothing works. Have a hair transplant, and you end up with something that looks like a Scottish forest on your head. Go for a sc.r.a.pe-over and you're marooned in your house every time there's a light breeze. And as for the wig? Forget it. Elton John has all the money in the world, and he still looks like he has a Huguenot carpet tile on his bonce.If men were women, someone from Alberto Balsam would have thought of a cure for this terrible affiction. But we're not. So they haven't. I have, though. Simply hide your barnet under a car.Plainly, if you're the sort of person who worries about hair loss, there is a trace of vanity, a hint of poofery in your make-up, so it needs to be something with a bit of panache and pizzazz. Though, obviously, it can't be a convertible.A coupe, a car that puts style way above substance, is perfect. Not that long ago there were many from which to choose. Volkswagen did the Corrado, Nissan the 200SX, and Honda the Prelude. And there was the wonderful Fiat Coupe, a raft of cheap Porsches and the 6-series BMW. But one by one they all died away. Killed off, as people began to realise they were paying more for what was basically a saloon car in a funny hat.Now, though, they're coming back. Joining the ancient Alfa GTV, the Toyota Celica which is very good, incidentally and the Hyundai Coupe which is even better will be the Chrysler Crossfire (a Mercedes SLK in a fairly pretty sh.e.l.l) and the Nissan 350Z, which is better looking but a bit of a pig to drive. It's just so wearing. Best of all, though, is the new Mazda RX-8, partly because of its rear doors, which open backwards to create a hole in the side of the car as big as the hole in the back of my head, and partly because it is so much fun talking about its w.a.n.kel rotary engine.You've no need to explain how this works, because after you've said the name people are usually too busy laughing to be listening.In essence, though, you get a sort of triangular-shaped 'piston' which spins round in a vaguely circular cylinder. The upside is uncanny smoothness a buzzer sounds when you're up past 9,000 rpm to warn you that a gear-change might be in order but the downsides have always been thirst and unreliability.The problem is that the tips of the triangular 'piston' spinning round in the cylinder 9,000 times a minute have to be as tough as diamonds, but obviously not as expensive. I have no idea what Mazda has used the residue of a Weetabix that's been left in a cereal bowl for a week, probably. That's the toughest substance I've ever encountered.Whatever, Mazda says it has addressed all the problems in its new car, and that's good, because the upsides are better than ever. It may be only a 1.3-litre engine (in normal engine terms) but the power it delivers is astonis.h.i.+ng: 231 bhp. And it just gets better and better as the revs begin the climb. Get past 7,000 rpm and it's like you've pressed a hypers.p.a.ce b.u.t.ton.It handles, too. Unlike most coupes this one sends its power to the proper end of the car the back. So the front does the steering, the rear does the driving, and you sit in the middle wondering why all cars don't feel this way; so balanced, so right and omiG.o.d I've just gone past 7,000 rpm again and it's all gone blurry.As a practical proposition: well, it's not a people carrier, but you do get a decent boot and two smallish seats in the back. And with those doors, even the fattest children in the world can get in.The best thing about this car, though, is the price: 22,000 is remarkable value for money, especially as my car had an interior that was not only nicely trimmed but also equipped like the innards of Cheyenne Mountain.This is a very good car with an exceptional engine. But the whole point of a coupe is to bring a bit of style to your humdrum hairdo with its big hole at the back. It has to be a toupee with tyres, a weave with windscreen wipers, a syrup that can go sideways.And on that front the RX-8 is a bit questionable. It's as though they had a styling suggestion box at the factory, and every single idea was incorporated. It's not ugly, and it's certainly not plain. But it is messy.There is, however, an upside to this. People will be too busy examining the curved front, the striking back and the endless detailing, to notice the driver's a poof.Sunday 14 September 2003Don't Stop Me Now

n.o.ble M12 GTO-3RThe Audi TT has had a pretty undistinguished life so far. I thought, when it was launched, that it was as cute as a newborn lamb but that its steering was as woolly and as vague as a sheep. It turned out to be worse than that. After just a few months it began to emerge that on motorway slip roads the Pretty t.i.tty, as I like to call it, would spin round and slam into the nearest solid object.That was fixed, but worse was to come, because the redesigned cars, identifiable by their tail spoilers, were bought by young men who care just a little too much about their hair. So while it might not be quite so h.e.l.lbent on actually killing you, it would murder you socially by making you look like an estate agent.To try to inject some new life into what's quite an old car now, Audi recently fitted the 3.2-litre V6, which is a good thing, and two gearboxes, which makes it rather jerky around town.The idea is that when you select, say, third, the second gearbox prepares fourth, making the change almost seamless. Apparently each s.h.i.+ft is done in something like 0.001 of a second, saving you 0.03 of a second every time you change gear.Now you might think that it's an awful lot of bother, fitting an extra gearbox just to save a thirtieth of a second. But after this week I'm not so sure.Last Sunday I caught an afternoon flight to America and spent until 1 a.m. filming in Detroit. Then I drove west for 100 miles to be ready for a dawn photo-shoot.After that was over, I filmed the new Ford GT40 for Top Gear it's very, very good and caught the overnight flight back again.On Tuesday morning I raced home from Gatwick, wrote 3,000 words, quickly, because there was a school meeting that night, and on Wednesday I needed to write two television scripts, before flying to the Isle of Man for three filming days. I could have done with more time, but on Sat.u.r.day night I needed to be in Berlin ready for a Sunday appointment with the new Porsche Carrera GT.Next week things get really busy, with two overnight shoots, three columns, two features, two commentary records and trips to Surrey, London and St Tropez.Never have I needed a fast car more. So, of course, the Mercedes broke down. The gearbox has decided it wants to be a ball gown or a potato, anything but a bucket of cogs, and naturally the spare parts have to come from Germany. I mean, it'd be far too much to expect Mercedes in Britain to clutter the place up with replacement bits and pieces. It might look ugly in the profit-and-loss accounts.That's why I've been in the Audi, and on balance I must say I like the new gearbox(es). To h.e.l.l with the horrid steering and the cherrywood cha.s.sis and the estate agent Bauhaus styling; every second counts, and if I can save one after just 30 gear-changes, good.It is for this reason that there are currently men in the house fitting some kind of wireless transmitter device that allows me to access our new broadband connection.Just this morning I needed to know when high water was in the Solomon Islands. Now, in the past, that would have necessitated a trip to the library, in a car with only one gearbox, but then along came the internet and suddenly you could get the answer in 10 seconds. But now, 10 seconds is an aeon. With broadband I can get the Solomons' tidal charts in one, leaving me time to download Gerry Rafferty's new alb.u.m and have a spot of virtual s.e.x with a young lady in Kiev.At work I'll take the stairs rather than use a lift that has no 'door close' b.u.t.ton. Standing there for three seconds waiting for them to shut automatically will make me late for the next appointment and the one after that until, eventually, I'll miss the heart attack I have scheduled for 2005.On the roads I don't curse speed cameras because of the civil liberty issues. I curse them because they slow me down. Every time a traffic light goes red I want to get out and smash it up. On Monday I glowered at a poor woman whose horsebox had turned over on the M25. 'I don't care about your horse. I've had to swerve round you and that's cost me 3.27 seconds.'But I reserve my special level of hatred, my mental Defcon 4, for people who drive up the A44 at 40 mph. I don't think we should be allowed to kill people who drive too slowly; it is never right to take a life. But I do think we should be allowed to torture them a bit. Saw their legs off, maybe, or shove a powerful air hose up their jacksies. Forty may have been all right in 1870, but it's simply unacceptable now. If all the world did 40, it wouldn't work any more.This week, however, I found a woman coming up the A44 at 30 and I went beyond incandescence into a semi-catatonic state of pure rage. My blood turned to acid and fizzed. My heart was filled with hate. I very nearly followed her home, just so that I could burn it down. But there wasn't time. And, to make matters worse, the Pretty t.i.tty didn't quite have the oomph to get past. Oh, it had the right gear in a jiffy, but the 3.2 wasn't enough of a heavyweight to exploit the gaps. G.o.d, I wanted my Mercedes. Or, better still, the new n.o.ble M12 GTO-3R.This doesn't accelerate when you press the pedal. It explodes. In the time it takes an Audi to select a gear, or the SL to gird its considerable loins, the lightweight n.o.ble has added 10 mph to its speed, your eyeb.a.l.l.s are fastened to the back of your skull and your left kidney has come off.It may only have a 3-litre Mondro engine, but the addition of two turbochargers means it will accelerate from 0 to 60 in, oh, I don't know, four seconds. Maybe a bit less. And you'll reach the end of the road long before it reaches its top speed of 170 mph.Speed, however, is only part of the fruit c.o.c.ktail. The best thing about the old car, with the old 2.5-litre V6, was its handling. It simply didn't understand the concept of understeer, gripping like an American in Hurricane Isabel, and then oh so gently allowing the rear to slide in a glorious bout of power oversteer.The new one is ever so slightly less good. Because there's so much more grunt from the extra half a litre, it's hard to get the throttle position just right. And it only takes your big toenail to grow a little and oomph, the rear wheels light up and you wind up going backwards in what feels like the smoking room at Detroit airport.There's another problem, too. The new engine, and the addition of a six-speed gearbox, has pushed the price up to more than 50,000, and it's hard to justify that. Yes, it does appear to be well made and you do get leather trim, but there are no luxuries at all, apart from air-conditioning. You even have to wind your own windows down.Sure, it's faster than a Carrera 2, and more fun as well, but it's not a Porsche, and you can never quite get it out of your head that it was built from plastic in South Africa and a.s.sembled on an industrial estate in Leicesters.h.i.+re.I sort of don't mind, though, because it is just so very, very fast. And very, very pretty. And who cares if it doesn't handle quite as well as the old car. Coming second to that would be like coming second to Tom Jones in a singing compet.i.tion.The boss of TVR has referred to the n.o.ble as 'the South African three-wheeler' ever since its suspension broke in a recent Autocar test. But that shows he's worried about it.And rightly so. TVR has been doing its thing for 10 years and n.o.body has thought to help themselves to a slice of the cake. Now n.o.ble has come along and taken the icing and the cherry, leaving only the sponge.In a world obsessed with image, you can't beat a Porsche. But in a world obsessed with time, a Porsche is a library. A TVR is the internet. And the n.o.ble is broadband.Sunday 28 September 2003Don't Stop Me Now

TVR T350CWhenever an actor is asked to slip into a toga he sees it as an excuse to go all swivel-eyed and bonkers. When it comes to the Romans, no speech defect is too preposterous, no gait too far-fetched.We've had Derek Jacobi with his club foot and his stutter, and Malcolm McDowell helping himself to every bride, groom and farmyard animal in Rome. Oh, and let's not forget the one with the funny mouth who stabbed Russell Crowe in Gladiator.If you believed everything you've seen about Rome on the silver screen, you'd wonder how on earth they managed to find the lavatory in the morning. Let alone work out how such a thing might be flushed and how the effluent might be carried away in a sewerage system, the like of which wasn't to be seen in the world again for another 1,800 years.But it is an unwritten law that all empires, whether the Borg, the British, big business, or even the BBC, are bad. Fuelled by greed and policed with violence, they wreak havoc on the pipsqueaks, raping, pillaging and forcing them to eat genetically modified suppers while watching programmes like Britain's Worst Toilet.So I wasn't expecting the Romans to be portrayed in a particularly rosy light in Boudica on ITV last Sunday.And sure enough, in boinged Nero wearing lipstick. We didn't actually see him gnawing on a panda's ear and then using a slave's severed head to wipe away the goo, but the hint was there all right.Meanwhile, back in plucky old England, Boudica was busy delivering speeches about freedom and democracy. She was the Afghan farmer whose poppies have been devastated by Monsanto. She was Nelson Mandela, William Wallace, Che Guevara and Gandhi all rolled into a one-cal, bite-sized Sunday evening, Charlie Dimmock-style glamourpuss.Unfortunately, in real life she was none of these things. She was, in a word, British, which is just a whisker away from Brutish. The Romans may have brought peace, along with their baths and their roads, but behind the cloak of civilisation and poetry we were still a nation who loved to get our swords dirty.When the Romans left, we reverted to type. As Simon Schama says in A History of Britain: 'War was not a sport; it was a system. Its plunder was the glue of loyalty binding n.o.ble warriors and their men to the king. It was the land, held in return for military service that fed their bellies, it was the honour that fed their pride and it was the jewels that pandered to their vanity. It was everything.'In other words, the Brits love a good sc.r.a.p. And it's still going on today. While the rest of the world hangs its head in despair over Iraq, Tony Blair comes out from behind the health-food counter and shouts: 'I'm proud of what we have done.'Most countries, except perhaps France, will fight to protect their borders or their way of life. But Britain will fight to protect someone else's borders and someone else's way of life. Poland. Kuwait. Korea. Don't worry, we'll be there, fists flying.What's more, we're the only nation that likes to fight in its spare time. You'll see more brawls on a British high street in one night than you will in the whole of Italy in an entire year.I went out the other night with a bloke who freely admitted that he likes nothing more than to finish off the night with a fight. While chaps elsewhere in the world hone their chat-up lines, hoping to go home with a girl, he has developed a range of provocations so that he can go home with a chair leg sticking out of his arm.Think about it. If someone in Italy says, 'Are you looking at me?', you're on for some rumpy-pumpy. If someone says it in England, you're on for a ride in an ambulance. And have you ever heard a Frenchman say, 'Est-ce que vous upsettez mon vin?'We are supposed to be a pot-pourri of Saxon, Goth, Roman, Norman, Celt and Viking. But actually we're just thugs and vandals. When the Romans went home, we pulled down their buildings, ripped up their roads and settled down for 400 years of bloodshed and mayhem known as the Dark Ages. Those were the days, eh?And they're still going on. In Birmingham recently I encountered a group of lads pus.h.i.+ng one of our television cameras along the street.'Where are you going with that?' I asked.'We're going to push it into the ca.n.a.l,' they replied, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to do.Beauty and love have no place in Britain. Which is why we are responsible for the most brutal and savage car of all: the TVR. An Alfa Romeo will try to woo you with poetry. A TVR will bend you over the Aga, rip off its kilt and give you one, right there and then.A Volkswagen will make you a lovely shepherd's pie and light a fire to make your evening warm and cosy. Whereas a TVR will come home and bend you over the Aga again. A TVR would nick the lifeboat charity box on the bar, empty it, then shove it up your jacksie. A TVR would fight for its life, its honour, its family and, most of all, its pint.Put a TVR on Desert Island Discs and it would take a flamethrower and a selection of hits from Wayne County and the Electric Chairs. Then it would bend Sue Lawley over the mixing desk and make animal love until it broke wind.You don't get paint on a TVR; it's woad. And instead of being made from steel or aluminium, it's wattle and daub. It's an Iron Age fort with a Bronze Age engine. It's Boudica, only with less femininity and more rage in its heart.And look at the names TVRs have had over the years: Griffith, Chimaera, Cerbera all terrifying mythological creatures with goat heads and seven sets of teeth.That's why I'm unnerved by the latest version, the T350C. What kind of a name is that? It makes it sound like an electric toothbrush. And while a toothbrush has a revolving head and bristles, it's not as scary as, say, a hammerhead shark. Could this mean, then, that the new car has lost some of its bite?Two things back this up. First of all, it's a coupe with a boot and a hatchback, and I'm sorry but I just don't equate the concept of TVR motoring with all this stuff. It's like trying to imagine a Saxon despot in a cardigan.Then there's the handling. Push any of the other TVRs into a corner too fast, and in an instant, with no warning, you're in a world of smoke and hate. Getting your entry speed wrong in a TVR is as dangerous as spilling a Glaswegian's pint. But the toothbrush just understeers, like a Golf or a Focus.There's other stuff, too. For all the racing heritage and volume of a straight-six engine, it simply doesn't sound as terrifying as a V8. And this is the first TVR I've driven in ages with a substandard interior. In recent years we've become used to all sorts of swoops and oddities, but in this one it just doesn't work. It feels daft for no reason.And yet, by some considerable margin, this is the best TVR I've ever driven. With its integral roll cage it feels stiffer and more together, like all four corners are working in harmony, rather than in discord. And the brakes are just astonis.h.i.+ng.So's the power. You may only get 3.6 litres and no forced induction, but you end up with a better power-to-weight ratio than you get from a Lamborghini Murcielago. That means it is seriously, properly, eye-poppingly fast.And because it doesn't try to bite your head off every time you make a mistake, you can use more of the power for more of the time.Finally, there's the question of money. To get this kind of performance, you have to be looking at a Porsche GT3 for 72,000, or a Murcielago for 163,000. Even the n.o.ble I wrote about last week is over 52,000. But the TVR is just 38,500. Plus another two if you want lift-out roof panels.So what we have here is a TVR with all the savagery of the olde worlde coupled with the practicality of a usable boot and a soft ride. It's an ancient Briton with Roman overtones, and as a result Alan Rickman wouldn't be able to play it properly in a film. He'd be too mad. Think more in terms of Alan t.i.tchmarsh a little bit raunchy, but actually a little bit not.Sunday 5 October 2003Don't Stop Me Now

Porsche Carrera GTThere have been a handful of scientific breakthroughs in the past few weeks that I suspect may have slipped under your radar.A couple of Dutch boffins, for instance, have developed a new kind of fabric that could be used as a television screen. So pretty soon you'll be able to watch Matrix Reloaded on your tie.Then we have the British satellite that can spot rainfall and vegetation growth in Algeria. As a result, farmers there will be able to bring some shock and awe to the locust breeding grounds before the insect s.e.x even takes place.Or what about the vibrating shoes that have been developed in America? Apparently these compensate for a loss of balance in the elderly and will cut the number of falls and broken hips.Best of all, we have the 2580 service on your mobile. Dial the number, hold the phone against a speaker and within 30 seconds, for just 9p, you'll be sent a text saying what the song is and who it's by.So now you can wave goodbye to the misery of trying to find out what it was you heard on the radio by attempting to sing it to your friends. 'You must have heard it. It's brilliant. It goes ner-ner-ner de-dum-dum on the beach.'Even China is riding the techno wave. We were told this week that the sheer weight of skysc.r.a.pers being built in Shanghai is squas.h.i.+ng the rock on which the city is founded.And we mustn't forget that extraordinary dam that will provide limitless power for everyone until the end of time, or their rocket, which next week will keep the red flag flying in s.p.a.ce.Nearer to home, scientists have developed a heat-resistant plastic which they're using to make a light that goes on in a handbag every time it's opened. Wonderful. No more standing around on the doorstep for 15 minutes while our wives rummage for the keys.And then there's the world of computers. Seismologists have been able to work out just how big the tidal wave will be when Tenerife splits in half and falls into the sea. Very, seems to be the answer.They've even been able to determine why tortoises on the Galapagos Islands are all mental. It seems there was a genetic bottleneck 100,000 years ago when a volcano went off, and only the biggest, daftest tortoises survived.It's astonis.h.i.+ng. We can trace a tortoise's family tree without trawling through parish records and looking at gravestones. We can watch moving pictures on our clothes of locusts 'd.o.g.g.i.ng', safe in the knowledge that our mothers have not fallen over while we weren't looking.And there's so much more. We can genetically modify crops, we can measure the smell of cheese, we can track stolen cars from s.p.a.ce and teach our television sets to skip the adverts. We can do anything. We are invincible. And yet we are still being propelled from place to place by a series of small explosions.It doesn't matter whether you drive a McLaren or a McDonald's delivery van, you are still relying on exactly the same technology that was dreamed up more than 100 years ago. In some ways this is a good thing, because when change is slow there's a chance for engineers to plane away at the rough edges, leaving you with something close to perfection.If there had been a completely new type of technology invented every 20 years or so, none would have been refined to the same extent as the internal combustion engine we have now.And the most refined, most planed-away, most astonis.h.i.+ng engine I have ever encountered is currently to be found sitting in the middle of Porsche's new Carrera GT. This is 100 years of human achievement crammed into three cubic feet of t.i.tanium, magnesium, aluminium and raw, unadulterated, visceral, screaming power.You're told, before you set off, that in no circ.u.mstances should you apply any throttle at all while engaging the clutch. The mountain of torque, apparently, would catapult you and your 320,000 hypercar into the nearest piece of foliage.The Porsche engineers talk about the clutch pedal as though it's the trigger for a nuclear bomb. It may as well be.The engine started out as a 5.5-litre V10 that was all set to be used in the back of a racing car at Le Mans. But a last-minute rule-change favoured smaller turbo units, so the programme was sc.r.a.pped.Nearly. In fact, Porsche's racing division handed over its stillborn engine to the road-car people, who had to worry about emission regulations. That meant adding a third piston ring, which meant fitting longer pistons, which took the engine up from 5.5 to 5.7 litres.But the ceramic clutch remained. The Skunkwork stealth materials remained. The racing power remained too, all 612 brake horses of it. And you should hear the noise this thing makes. It's like driving around with the b.a.s.t.a.r.d love child of Jaws and Beelzebub in the boot.Strangely, though, it's not the engine that impresses most of all about the Carrera GT. It's the weight. Unlike any other road car ever made, all of it the body