Life On Cars: Car of the Year 2009

RATHER than the usual motoring fix, I’ve launched the inaugural Life On Cars Car of the Year Awards to honour the good, the bad, and the Susan Boyles of the motoring world.

For 2009, I’ve decided to start with a recurring joke in The Champion office…

The Austin Mini Award for Least Reliable Vehicle goes not to my Austin Mini, which requires you to mend it as you drive it, but to the Vespa scooter it replaced. I know it’s not a car, but any machine badly built by someone with no understanding of electronics means a truly scary reliability record.

The Toyota IQ Award for Best Toyota IQ goes to the Toyota IQ. I absolutely loved the fun factor of this tiny Japanese tot, which lets you get four adults into something no bigger than a Smart. Blend nice dynamics and zany looks and you’re onto a winner.

The Impending Accident Award for Best Road has to go to the Llanberis Pass, which I discovered while popping out for a coffee one morning in North Wales. My brakes probably didn’t appreciate its climbs, dips and bends, but I’m still waiting for my next fix.

The utterly alive sensation from the Morgan 4/4 means it wins the award for Best Drive of 2009, although the sheer speed of BMW’s Z4 and the sprightly handling of Volkswagen’s Scirocco earn them honourable mentions.

The Lady Gaga Award for Questionable Style goes jointly to the Australian-built Skelta, which has looks to scare small children, and the Toyota IQ For Sports, which takes one of my favourite cars and ruins it. Luckily, neither are on sale over here yet.

Best Motoring Event of 2009, for me at least, was the banger race which saw teams from across the North West crucify caravans in the silliest motorsport spectacle in ages. The Woodvale Rally was fun, but it didn’t make me laugh as much.

I could have plumped for the scintillating Ferrari 458 as the Car I’m Most Looking Forward To, but for all its stunning styling it isn’t gracing my computer screen. That honour goes to Jaguar’s upcoming XJ, pictured above, which I reckon I’m alone in thinking looks great.

And last but not least, the not-at-all stunning Life On Cars Car Of The Year Award, which goes not to 2009’s best car but the one I liked the most. It’s a toss-up between the IQ and Ford’s Fiesta, and on the basis that I might have to carry things as well as people, the Ford, pictured below, just snatches it.

Normal service will resume next week, I promise. You can go back to sorting out your New Year’s resolutions now.

The ultimate Christmas movie

A NIGHT spent watching Liam Neeson shooting his way through the Parisian underworld has just proved one of my favourite pet theories.

All good car chases follow a formula.

It’s like knowing that Nicholas Cage has starred in lots of good movies but never a truly great one, or that the best Bond was actually Timothy Dalton (but you’re not prepared to admit it). All the best car chases are in continental thrillers.

Take, er, Taken. It’s a gritty movie which sees Neeson play a quietly-spoken American who spends most of his time shooting criminals, cheesing off the Gendarmes and generally destroying Paris at the helm of an Audi A8. Just like Robert de Niro did ten years earlier in Ronin, arguably the best car chase film of all time.



Almost any film I can think with a truly brilliant car chase involves egging some executive express through the narrow streets of a continental city, preferably Paris in an Audi. I’m beginning to think A8 sales in France are almost exclusively led by film directors.

The legendary C'était un rendez-vous puts you behind the wheel of a Ferrari charging its way through – you guessed it – Paris, but the actual car doing the driving is the director’s Mercedes. It goes with the theory perfectly.



British car chases have the action but not the exotic locations, as the A59 towards Preston is hardly the prowling ground of quietly spoken assassins with names like Jean-Claude or Jacques. Cold War thriller The Fourth Protocol looked promising with several good chases, including this great sequence with St Pancras station and a Rover Vitesse, but unfortunately using a Ford Transit as the main motorised star lets it down.



Bullitt and The French Connection fly the flag for Hollywood, but it doesn’t detract from the movies themselves never quite matching up to the hype. And having a car chase as the entire movie (that’s you, Vanishing Point and the original Gone In Sixty Seconds) doesn’t make up for it.

Nope, the best car movies are still the gritty ones placed in Paris, as long as you forget Roger Moore, Renault and Grace May in A View To A Kill.

Forget It’s a Wonderful Life. Forget Miracle on 34th Street, and even forget The Great Escape.

Rent Ronin instead and bore your loved ones this Christmas with the greatest car chase movie ever made. You won’t regret it. Much.

Not your usual Christmas gift

DON'T worry if you're struggling to find a present for the family petrolhead, because a Lancashire council has got into gear to create a gift with a difference.

Lancashire County Council's road safety team reckons its driving courses will make a great Christmas gift with a difference, and is calling on anyone keen to sharpen up their motoring skills to get in touch."

"Christmas shopping can be hard, especially when you are searching for a gift for the family member who has everything. If you would like to give them a unique gift, Lancashire County Council's Road Safety Group may have the answer," said a spokesperson for the county council.

"So whether you know someone who is not comfortable driving on the motorway, have a friend who has lost confidence on the road or just know somebody who would like to learn some new driving tips, the voucher will make an ideal Christmas gift."

The driving assessments, which last two hours, cost £65, and the voucher can be redeemed at any time, meaning they can be used as Christmas presents for motorists hoping to improve their techniques in 2010. Lancashire County Council believe the courses make an ideal gift for anyone with an interest in driving, or those who may feel uncomfortable with situations such as motorway driving.

The council is also offering a course to motorcyclists, which in an effort to reduce the number of bikers killed on the county's roads it is offering free of charge to anyone interested in getting involved.

If you'd like to take part in either of the courses or know someone who does, contact the Road Safety Group on 0800 328 1635 or email roadsafety@lancashire.gov.uk.

I actually think the course sounds like a great idea, so I've asked Lancashire County Council if they're prepared to let me have a go, purely in the interests of journalistic research of course.

I'll keep you posted...

I am a good driver, oh yes I am

AMAZINGLY, that’s not an arrogant thing to admit.

In my first full year of motoring I’ve taken to the wheel for my Pass Plus, an afternoon with the Institute of Advanced Motorists, shopping trips, weekends away and blasts over the deserted backdrops just for the hell of it. I’ve survived breakdowns, locking up and slides on slippy roundabouts. I’ve driven everywhere from Carlisle to Caernarfon, in everything from the Ford Ka to the Morgan 4/4, and still I haven’t crashed.

Once my head had shrunk from the gravity of this achievement, I started thinking about my hard-earned, newly-won No Claims Bonus. And discovered to my horror the nice people in the world of insurance want to charge me more.

What? At no point in this article will I pretend to be the next Button (well, not much anyway), but I’m still struggling to see the sanity of charging a driver with No Claims Bonus – even one single, measly year of it – more than a newly qualified one. It’s madness. It’s the product of a damaged mind.

I like to think I'm au fait with most things motoring but car insurance – a legal requirement, don’t forget – just seems to have disintegrated into a world of meerkats and opera singers and talking telephones which sound suspiciously like Stephen Fry. You might not have to be posh to be privileged, but you do need an evening on the strong cheese to make sense of it all.

Tax is a trip to the post office. The MOT is a trek to the garage. Yet insurance, probably the most important part of staying safe and legal, is a minefield of stupid advertising jingles, call centres thousands of miles away and wacky websites insisting you compare them all. Someone really ought to invent a comparison site to compare all the comparison sites, and then see how that compares.

Naturally, my crime in all this is being male and under 25, so I accept that no matter how carefully I drive it’s going to be expensive. But I still don’t understand quite how a driver with a year’s dint-free experience is considered riskier than a brand new one.

With all the weirdness, the endless quotes, comparisons and follow-up emails, the only thing that’s likely to crash is my computer.

The full Monte

THIS week I've come to a depressing conclusion. The great rallying legends that were Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Makinen and Rauno Aaltonen were all economical with the truth.

Anyone with a nerdier disposition and innate knowledge of how camshafts work will already know what these three chaps have in common; they all won the Monte Carlo Rally, and they all did it in a Mini. Unfortunately this fine pedigree in Europe's most famous rally might give you the impression that Minis are made for winter motoring. This is wrong.

Regular readers will already be bored with my ongoing infatuation with Britain's best-selling small car, and how I'm happy to forgive it no matter how many times its distributor/brake cylinder/steering (delete as appropriate) stops working.

I've also explained to my other half, who is German and therefore doesn't understand the point of owning something if it doesn't work, that inventing things but making it badly is somehow the British way, like eating fish fingers or secretly wondering why Brookside got cancelled.

It's a fantastic car, but it still seems impossibly far removed from the idea it could win a rally on the icy roads of Monte Carlo not once, but three times. I've no doubt it could handle the Col de Turini, but what good is that when you can't get the windows demisted?

Every morning I squint through the windows and see the Mini's been given the white roof treatment, but it's always layers of icy frost rather than the Mini Cooper upgrades I actually wanted. And even though I've invested in a new heating system, it's still no better than getting an asthmatic to blow through a straw.

By the time the windscreen's cleared up again, your times on a rally stage would be so bad you'd have been better off walking it, so I can only guess that the 60s stars did it using a blend of pace notes and balls.

I did want to borrow one of the original Mini Cooper S rally cars to prove this point, but as they're now worth around £100,000 I don't think I'll be finding out any time soon.

Paddy, Timo, and Ruano weren't liars then. They're legends because they probably couldn't see anything.

Check out classic cars for charity

A NORTH WEST charity is calling on classic car fans from across the region to get geared up for a motoring extravaganza set to take place in Formby in May 2010.

Jospice, which raises funds for St Joseph's Hospice, based in Thornton, Merseyside, said last Friday (December 11) that it is gearing up to hold a motoring show at St Duke's Park, and is calling on petrolheads old and young to get involved and help create cash for the charity.

"It's early days yet, but I've been encouraged by the positive response of local classic car and bike clubs in the Liverpool and West Lancashire area so far," said Roger Blaxall, Jospice community fundraiser.

"I hope the event, with its 'Best of British' theme, will prove a popular addition to the local classics calendar."

The show, titled Wheels4Jospice, is scheduled to take place in the town on May 3 and according to Jospice has already caught the imagination of car and motorcycle enthusiasts from across the North West.

Mr Blaxall said that among the supporters of the event so far was a club catering for MG owners from across the North West, a collection of owners of Swallow sports cars, which ceased production in the 1950s, and a group of owners of the BSA Bantam motorcycle, produced in Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s.

However he is hoping to make the show a big success in order to generate as much funding for the charity as possible, and welcomed involvement from any clubs who were keen to display their own cars, motorbikes, or other vehicles.

The event has also gained support from a number of the town's residents, including Sean Brady, Formby parish councillor.

"Jospice is so close to Formby that a lot of people here feel a sense of ownership, and I have to declare my own personal interest in the charity's work, as my daughter works as a doctor in palliative care," he said.

"I fully support charities in organising events like this, and welcome anything that can increase support and raise funds for Jospice."

For more information on the show, or to get involved yourself, contact Jospice fundraising on 0151 932 6026, or e mail roger.blaxall@jospice.org.uk.

Fire up the...Ford Fiesta

A version of this review appeared in the Daily Post in June 2009



FORD’S big seller has gone from chunky to funky in its latest iteration, which sees the sixth model in the Fiesta family opt for swoopy curves.

The car it replaces did a job in a sensible but stodgy way, being fun to drive but boring to behold, giving the prettier Punto and Corsa the edge in the style stakes. This new model comes not a moment too soon.

What it does take on from the last few Fiestas is the same reassuringly brilliant driving feel, which encourages you to push on without getting things wrong. It’s a great base for creating a hot hatch along the lines of the outgoing ST150 or the old XR2s of Fiestas gone by. It’s a shame that Ford currently has no plans for a go-faster version.

Yet it'll also impress go-slower drivers with its ample improvements to the space and quality in the cabin. The cowled dashboard is a big improvement, although it could prove a pain for driving instructors hoping to check their pupils' pace. The zany control system for most of the car's features are also bound to annoy more than impress.

The Fiesta’s a car that not only improves dramatically on its dull predecessor, but also has the measure of its rivals in the supermini market.

Can we have a faster version now, please?

Top Gear, this one's for you

ANYONE who saw James May violating an airport in an airship probably knows by now it never happened for real.

The latest in a series of Top Gear stunts was outed by the nationals this week as being a complete set up, with everyone at Norwich International completely clued up on why a caravan was drifting over their heads. But did it make it any less of a laugh to watch?

If anything, I think it’s an opportunity for Jezza, Hamster and Captain Slow; why not use the media attention to massage the Top Gear brand a bit more? We’ve already had Top Gear of the Pops and Top Ground Gear Force, plus umpteen books, DVDs and CDs covering their adventures, and I’ve a few more ideas for Auntie’s Great Top Gear Expansion.

Tap Gear could be used to replace the truly dreadful Strictly Come Dancing (surely no one watches that) with sprightly Stigs doing most of the dancing. There’s also scope for Top, Gear, Action, a police car chase show with Jeremy bestowing the benefits of safer driving, before blowing up another caravan. And James May's partnership with wine bore Oz Clarke could easily become Top Beer.

Stig Brother is another great show in the making – I’ll leave you to dream up your own format – but my ultimate favourite would be Have I Got Top Gear For You, a topical quiz where comedians and politicians can crack jokes about all the week’s breaking Top Gear stories.

You’d have to be a complete tool to think Top Gear isn’t at least partly staged, and once you get that and your longing to see a road test of the Renault Scenic out of the way the show’s still a thundering hour of Sunday night telly. I just wish the tabloids would stop ruining it for everyone else.

I’m such a dedicated Top Gearist that I even defended Jeremy Clarkson live on air once, but part of me still yearns for simpler times when balding men called Quentin would make driving a Daewoo through Dewsbury on a damp Thursday seem entertaining.

However I am quite sad, which probably explains it.

Image copyright of the BBC

If you voted for this car, you're wrong

IT’S like seeing Jedward winning The X Factor.

That’s how I felt this morning when I found out that Volkswagen’s Polo, the imaginatively named replacement for the Polo, had won the coveted title of European Car of the Year 2010.

Naturally – and in keeping with the contest’s fine tradition – the wrong car won.

European Car of the Year is a stupid idea because what works in Germany or Norway doesn’t necessarily work on our roads, and because all too often the winner is granted to something which is boring and unworthy and usually French.

For every Ford Focus or Alfa Romeo 156 there’s a Talbot Horizon or Peugeot 307 that’s somehow wafted its way into the top spot, and the last time its 59-strong panel of judges let themselves go and voted for something soul-stirring was in 1977 (Porsche 928, in case you’re wondering).

Usually I don’t care but this year, the car that should have won lost by just a few points.

Autocar’s Steve Cropley, who led the UK’s judges this year, said:

“The Polo is a very complete, very refined car which delivers all the consistent qualities VW has become so well known for. However, given its unusual layout, controversial looks and premium price, the iQ did amazingly well.”

The IQ didn’t just do amazingly well, it should have won full stop, and taken its place alongside the Rover P6, NSU Ro80 and, er, Fiat Punto as an innovative piece of engineering that genuinely moves motoring forward.

Given that I’m right and 59 of Europe’s top motoring writers are wrong, I’ll be featuring my own Car of the Year award on this very site later this month.

And I promise John and Edward won’t win it.

Fire up the... Morgan 4/4

A version of this review appears in the December 2009 edition of GR8 Life



IF YOU or I were 100 years old, chances are we wouldn’t be anywhere near as quick, agile or downright good-looking as Morgan’s motors.

In fact, if the Malvern manufacturer’s series of sports cars had aged like the rest of us they’d no doubt be fighting off wrinkles and middle age spread. Instead, they’re fighting off the cream of the sports car world with a blend of space-age mechanics and bygone styling charm, and that’s part of the reason why so many people fall in love with them.

Morgan is just one of those motor firms that seems shrouded in mystique built up over decades of defiantly refusing to change the look of its products; the waiting lists that run into years, the cars lovingly made with bits of wood, the TV documentary where industrialist Sir John Harvey Jones urged to it to modernise or die.

Yet for all the mystery, the company’s still soldiering on a century after it constructed its first cars.

Anyone doubting Morgan’s ability to modernise is in for a shock if they visit any of the company’s showrooms, including Lifes Motors, in Southport.

In 2000 the Aero 8 challenged car fans with its unconventional looks but its utterly modern mechanics made it a rocketship roadster, still proving popular almost a decade later.

Yet the cars the company is still best known for are the traditional roadsters, which have faithfully followed the same stunning lines since the early Sixties. Not that many people know the shape’s actually registered as a trademark - and that’s a distinction it shares not with other sports cars, but design classics like the Coke bottle.

With its swoops and curves and lashings of chrome on the bumpers, grille and windscreen, machines like the 4/4 I’ve been driving look like they’ve escaped from a birthday card. Even before you get in it’s busy evoking images of quaint village pubs dotted across miles of empty country roads, in an era long before traffic jams were invented.

Unfortunately, it’s 2009 and losing my Morgan virginity meant threading it through Southport town centre, at roughly the same time as every child in the region finished school. Taking any unfamiliar car out can be a little daunting at first, but the thought of stalling a bright red, open-top sports car on Lord Street is on a whole new level, and somehow terror began to permeate the leather lining 4/4’s cabin.

I managed to avoid that embarrassing fate, but somehow I felt that even if I hadn’t, nobody would have been bothered anyway. Van drivers honked their approval and pedestrians waved as whooshed by, on our way out to quieter roads. It’s clear I wasn’t the only one falling for the 4/4, but the countryside was calling.

Admittedly, the Morgan I’ve always wanted to drive is the Plus 8, which from its introduction in 1968 melded those molten good looks to the rorty sound of the Rover V8, an engine which for decades has scared small children when used in generations of British sports cars.

The 4/4’s Ford unit is a couple of rungs further down the ladder, but it still gives you a surprising stream of speed as it throbs and burbles beneath that long bonnet. Morgan don’t make it in this guise anymore but the 2009 twist on the formula, the 4/4 Sport, starts at around £26,000.

The sensation you get when you finally reach the first sweeping bend is about as far removed from tinbox motoring as you can imagine, but somehow it feels alive!

It’s the not the sort of machine you can master in a day, with its unique umbrella-style handbrake proving a particular challenge, but it’s all the more endearing for it, and a feature you’ll easily get used to.

In fact, the main challenge during my time at the wheel was the wheel itself; it’s a beautiful carving of the finest wood, but a little large for my liking. Not that you’ll mind too much, as the feel for the road it gives you is superbly communicative.

The same goes for the ride, which you’ll either love or hate. It’s firm and fidgety – though not uncomfortable – but it does at least let you know exactly what those pretty wire wheels are doing.

The 4/4’s not the sports car for everyone, but it is an experience in its own right, and well worth a try if you’re bored of Boxsters and tired of TVRS.

I love it, and I can’t say that about many 100-year-olds.

The '80s are back, and it's terrible

I’VE been invited to a party!

Unfortunately, this year’s Champion festive bash is an ‘80s-themed-do, meaning chances are I’ll have to go in fancy dress, and the problem is most '80s characters tend not to just drive cars, but wear them like part of their outfit.

Most people boring enough to hire a car for their Christmas do usually go for a Hummer that’s lined with five miles of mini-bars and cheap lighting, but I usually try – and fail – to do things a bit more tastefully.

I tried once for months to get a Jag XJ12 (Google it) at my disposal for a party, but ended up giving up and going for a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow instead, before the hire company changed its mind. My grand arrival that night was courtesy of Merseyrail, so I’m determined to do it properly this time.

Anything too flashy is out for starters, so Knightrider, the Ferraris from Magnum P.I, Ferris Bueller’s Day Out and Miami Vice and anything Roger Moore drove are an expensive no-go area. I quite fancied Gene Hunt’s Audi Quattro but the thought of drunken thirtysomethings screaming “Fire up the Quattro!” at me is just too much.

I could go all Bodie and Doyle and handbrake-turn a Capri for the night, as I know a friend with several, but the resort’s roads are a bit slippy at this time of year. Chances are I’d spend my Christmas party in someone’s front garden, having powerslided off a wet roundabout. Just like the old days.

The best ever fancy dress costume I resorted to was Darth Vader – I had a really bad throat that night – but despite my ambitions to win something for the second time in my life I think turning up in an X-Wing Fighter might be a tad ambitious.

There is always the opposite end of the ‘80s spectrum, but that would mean dressing up as Morrissey, arriving by bicycle and spending the entire night pretending that I’m a vegetarian with a girlfriend in a coma. No thanks.

I think my only option is just to give up, take my own car into town, and pretend I’ve gone dressed as whatever 80s screen star it happens to project onto my Christmas-weary self.

That means I’ll be going as Mr Bean, then…

My far more tempting scrappage idea

THOU shalt not be led into temptation.

I appreciate the authors of that particular statement didn't have the scrappage scheme in mind when they came up with it, but it's a temptation all the same, and one I'm going to resist.

In what other world is a banger you bought for less than £500 suddenly worth four times that? It's mighty tempting to take the bait and get a cool two grand off at whichever dealership's nearest to your house, but chances are you'll be killing off a future classic with years of life left in it.

For those of you who haven't been living in a cave since the scrappage scheme started and later got extended, some background. In a bid to bring new car sales back to pre-credit-crunch levels, Generous Gordon can give you £2,000 off your next new car, but only if you give him a decade-old one to get rid off. Worryingly, it doesn't matter whether it's a Mondeo or a Maserati - anything given in gets the crusher treatment.

I actually thought about taking my motor around some showrooms for a laugh, just to see how many salesman I could get to salivate at the prospect of chopping it in to boost their sales figures. Yes, I know I've got too much spare time on my hands.

The only problem is that I'd be led into the exotic world of cars that actually work properly, where Fiat 500s and Ford Kas would stare seductively at me with their promises of three-year warranties and NCAP safety ratings. Before I know it, I'd be £8,000 and a classic car down, and all because some smug salesman offered me a free cup of coffee.

What especially annoyed me was Hyundai's proclamation this week that they've saved a Morris Minor Traveller from the scheme to help raise funds for Children In Need, but it's drop-in-the-ocean stuff.

The way I see car makers getting their sales up is by actually making things people want to buy, and giving us poor petrolheads some money to help keep bits of our heritage from disappearing altogether.

£2,000 for anyone who keeps a cherished classic going? It's a tempting offer.

Reader involved in M1 accident

A LIFE ON CARS reader has been involved in an accident on one of Britain’s busiest motorways.

John Pugh, MP for Southport, got in touch to say that he, his daughter, and her boyfriend were involved in a collision on the outside lane of the M1 yesterday, in which the Ford Fiesta in which they were travelling was badly damaged.

You may remember his earlier piece on here, in which he revealed he was a keen supporter of some of the resort’s older cars – and an opponent of seeing them destroyed in the Government’s scrappage scheme.

More information on the crash will be featured in The Southport Champion on Wednesday (November 25), but I’d like to wish both he and his family a speedy recovery from the effects of a terrible accident.

At least this facelift's better than the Fiat Punto...

AS PROMISED, here’s the interview I did with Dune FM’s Martin Hovden to plug Life On Cars, broadcast on November 6th across Southport and West Lancashire on his Live From Studio One Show.

You might also have noticed a few changes on here lately; that’s because – in order to tie the site in more with the sister column in The Champion newspaper – it’s just been given a facelift, including this snazzy logo which both newspaper and website have in common.

I just hope it’s a better facelift than Fiat (Multipla), Mercedes (SL) and Hyundai (Coupe MK1) can manage…

Don't throw Mervyn's money at the banks, spend it on cars instead

BRITAIN'S beleaguered bunch of bankers and business tsars really ought to stop ruining the economy and move into classic cars instead.

This is just one of the conclusions I've learned from a weekend traipsing around the Classic Motor Show, an annual gathering of beards, Brummies and old Bristols at the National Exhibition Centre, just outside Birmingham.



Sure, the sight of Alan Sugar sprawled underneath a Sunbeam Tiger is about as likely as Richard Hammond running Northern Rock, but I honestly think the world of classic cars could do with a little quantative easing.




Lots of you have probably been to these shows - our very own Woodvale Rally does a great job of showcasing Southport's older motors - but the telling thing wasn't actually the acres of polished panels adorning the show's entrants.

It was actually the suspicious number of car-sized trailers parked just outside, some probably costing more than their cargo. I wager that not one of the wheeled wonders at the show actually arrived under its own steam, which gives naïve visitors the wrong impression.



The best bits were undoubtedly the dream classics nobody could afford to run - apart from Sir Fred Goodwin, perhaps - but away from all the D-Types, Astons and Ferraris was a procession of MGs, Singers and other sad machines that spend their lives in lock-ups and had been ushered into the show on trailers like diva celebrities. Even Mariah Carey doesn't get that sort of treatment.

Don't get me wrong, the show was fantastic but too many of the machines just seemed the subject of Mervyn King-style investment. And there I was thinking the £5,500 my flatmate's just spent on another Ford Capri was a bit much.



In fact the real star of the show was in fact the lone Triumph Stag parked next to us in the car park, which had all those lovely telltale signs of actually being used on a daily basis. Away from the endless array of too-clean Cortinas and money-no-object Morris Marinas, this was a refreshing shot of reality.

The chap who owns it is clearly a sensible soul who knows how to spend money properly. I think he should be our leader.



Revisit Life On Cars later this week for more pictures from the show.

Life On Lawnmowers

I KNOW this blog’s called Life On Cars and therefore should only cover cars, but this week I’ll make an exception, mainly so I can post this gloriously cheesy picture.

As part of a new Champion series called Movers and Shakers I’ve met up with Brian Radam, the man behind the National Lawnmower Museum, based in Southport (no, really).

Among the seemingly millions of mowers proudly on display in Brian’s collection is one of Chaz and Di’s wedding presents, the latest robotic lawn monsters, and some speedy racing mowers, like this 300cc beast I took a liking to.

It turns out that we used to lead the world when it came to lawnmowers, with such illustrious names as Rolls-Royce, Velocette and, er, Wilkinson-Sword making machines your gardener could be proud of.

Shame that Britain’s lawnmower industry went the same way as the car makers, although the idea of them all joining forces to create a grass-cutting conglomerate – probably called British Leylawn – would probably have been a step too far.

We could have ended up with a world-class mower with razor-sharp blades, motorbike handling, and the engineering quality of a Rolls Royce. Or the Austin Allegro.

Anyway for mower information keep an eye out in The Champion for my piece on Mr Radam, or check out the museum’s website.

Old cars: brilliant but rubbish

IT’LL be all over by Christmas, apparently.

This isn’t just the mantra of governments waiting for wars to end – quite poignant at the moment, given it’s Remembrance Sunday – but of scores of people across the region who’ve started a classic car project. And still haven’t finished yet.

Take this Range Rover, for example. My dad bought it as a quick project nine years ago, when my biggest worries were GCSEs and figuring out how girls worked. Despite threatening to pass an MOT for at least half a decade it’s still loitering around his garage, sulking whenever someone tries to start it.

I’m a big fan of saving motors from meeting their maker, but just think what’s happened in that time. We’ve been in and out of Iraq, entire world economies have collapsed, and Oasis have split up. Most worryingly, the price of the jungle juice this V8 beast drinks daily has rocketed, meaning running around in something that struggles to get 15 miles to a gallon isn’t exactly fashionable anymore.



My Mini – fresh from a ribbing live on Dune FM last weekend – isn’t quite so severe, but the problem’s the same. It’s finally back in business after a broken braking system sentenced me to three weeks on the buses instead, but even now there’s a list of things that need sorting out. There’s always things always need sorting out.

It is possible to mend the eternal list of problems, but given that most normal people have other things to keep them occupied – like lives – any repairs are confined to the weekends, when anywhere that might sell you the spare parts is closed. This is the main reason why all those old cars you see on people’s driveways never move.

Look, if you really want to take on a rapidly decaying piece of our automotive heritage, please make sure you’ve got a car that actually works as well.

I suppose old cars are a bit more amusing than spending every night watching whatever Jedward is, which I doubt will still be annoying us in nine years’ time.

That’ll all be over by Christmas too, apparently…

Live On Cars

I’M A young Jeremy Clarkson in the making.

At least that’s according to Martin Hovden, who presents the Live From Studio One show at Southport-based radio station Dune FM, where I was invited to talk not just Life On Cars, but live on cars.

Among the highlights was having to defend my Mini live on air, explain why the worst cars you can buy today are the boring ones, and profess my love of Jags, Astons, and TVRs.

I’ll upload the broadcast properly as soon as I get it, but for the next seven days you can hear it on Dune FM’s website by visiting the Dune On Demand section and clicking “Martin Hovden – Live From Studio One”.

You’ll enjoy it. Honest.

Small children, look away now

JUST been sent a press release on a late entry for 2009's Ugliest Car Of The Year Award*.

The Skelta, pictured, is the Australian automotive industry's latest export to UK shores, and encompasses the open-top Spyder and the G-Force, a coupe with Mercedes-style gullwing doors.

It follows in the footpath of some magical motors - notably the Vauxhall VXR8 Bathhurst S, a rebadged Holden - but couldn't they have made just a bit prettier?

It's also worth mentioning the idea for this car was conceived while listening to a Beatles track (Helter Skelter, hence the name), which might go some way to explaining the slightly trippy styling.

I'm sure it's brilliant at scaring Ferraris, Porsches and Nissan GT-Rs on both road and racetrack, but it takes effort to come up with something this, er, challenging.

I'd still like a go though.

*The Ugliest Car of the Year Award doesn't actually exist. Yet.

A Champion of classic cars

SOUTHPORT'S MP has spoken this week of his bid to help save some of the town's most cherished classic cars from the UK-wide scrappage scheme.

John Pugh said on Monday (November 2) that although he could see the benefits of the scheme, which was extended in September in an effort to boost new car sales, he believed many classic cars were being unfairly destroyed.

"The other day I was lobbied as Lib Dem Treasury spokesman by representatives of the motor trade to back an extension of the 'successful' car scrappage scheme, and yes I saw the arguments for keeping the wheels of industry going, employment up etc but I have to say there were speaking to the wrong guy," he told Life On Cars.

"Backers of the scrappage scheme will tell you solemnly that these cars are not that fuel efficient but precisely because these cars are loved and cherished they are not driven much and therefore pollute less.

"They could actually be the green choice. Maybe the owners use public transport or bike a bit more because they clearly are people who think motoring should be an experience not a daily grind."

Dr Pugh, a keen reader of the Life On Cars motoring column in The Champion newspaper, said that he had seen many classic cars while canvassing in the town, including Triumph Stags, Ford Capris and Rover P4s, which he believes could be at risk of being lost forever if scrapped by their owners in order to get discounts on new cars.

A number of petitions and Facebook groups have been started by motorists opposed to the scheme, which gives new car buyers a £2000 discount if they scrap old motors more than a decade old.

However both the Government and the Society of Motor Manufacturers support the scheme, saying it helped boost the automotive industry in a time of recession.

"This is an extremely important decision that will inspire consumer and business confidence," said Paul Eviritt, SMMT's chief executive.

He added: "The additional 100,000 vehicles should help to counter the likely negative impacts of a return to the higher rate of VAT and the introduction of first year VED rates."

Dr Pugh, who drives around in a 1995 Toyota, is not among the 250,000 UK motorists who have taken advantage of the scheme.

Read more in The Southport Champion, published on November 4.

Farrari: Taiwan's greatest sports car

JUST last weekend I was offered a glimpse into a strange and exciting new world; one of someone who wasn't into their cars!

I know this because my friend - who, at the tender age of 23, is facing a midlife crisis - has decided she's got to start saving up for the ultimate Italian sports car. Yes, she wants to ditch her ageing Vauxhall Corsa for a Farrari.

A what, sorry? I thought it was Ferrari, with an 'e', that petrolheads the globe over get all misty-eyed over, but apparently no more. Lexus proved years ago that you can make a far-eastern motor that closely mimics a Mercedes - and still sell - so the idea of a cheap, knock-off Ferrari doesn't seem so far-fetched either.

Like Guccy watches and Nikey trainers, all Farraris would be made not by skilled Italian craftsman, but by small children in Taiwanese workshops, and then sold for £14.99. Compared to the £143,000 needed for the California, the real Ferrari's entry-level model, it's a bit of a bargain.

All Farraris would get plenty of power from their evocative two-stroke scooter engines, but then they'd need it to see off tough competition like the Porch 911 and the Lamburgini Murky Lager.

Luckily Farrari's fine racing heritage gives it a great pedigree and a following like no other. It might not be in F1, mind, but where better to showcase your sporting credentials than in the village cricket championship?

It's just a shame some of the models wearing that evocative prancing bull badge aren't quite up to scratch. The newest model, the 458 Ital, is clearly a minicab repainted in Italian Racing Red, while their entry-level roadster doesn't even have wheels.

As car firms go, I don't think Farrari's a bad one. Its cars might be a little lacking in some of the more important aspects - such as working - but five minutes of illustrious and imaginary heritage can't be wrong.

Once I'd finished my pint, I got back to the rather more pressing issue of cars that actually exist, and asked my co-drinker if she had anything else in mind.

"Definitely," she said sagely.

"A Kia Sedona would be lovely"...

An illuminating experience

TO ANY of you who saw me running like a nutter down Blackpool’s seafront at around 9pm last Wednesday night; I’m sorry.

Members of the Southport and Ormskirk District Mini Club had journeyed up to the see the resort’s world famous illuminations, and because my very own Mini is currently on strike, I was their designated photographer.

The resulting photos are very arty (by which I mean rubbish):







And a few more highlights from a true Mini adventure...









If you would like to see your classic event feature in Life On Cars, get in touch by emailing david.simister@champnews.com.

Drive a convertible? Don't be afraid...

DID you know that we Brits buy more open-top sports cars than the French, the Germans and the Spanish put together?

Racy roadsters are big business these days, so I was glad to get taken for a spin last week in one of my favourite British sports cars; Mazda's MX-5. I appreciate that it's actually made by robots in Hiroshima, but in terms of its concept it's about as English as cramming sausages, bacon and eggs onto the same plate.

I like the little MX-5 a lot - and given that it's the world's best-selling roadster, so do lots of you - but the whole wind/hair experience got shattered by one of my co-driver's comments. As much as we both love the MX-5, he reckoned it made us look like a gay couple.

Why? I've got lots of gay friends, and as far as I know, none of them drive MX-5s, or any other convertible for that matter. Yet it's still one of the most tired clichés in the motoring world.

Top Gear viewers probably remember a piece a few years ago trying to find the manliest sports car (Triumph TR6, if anyone's wondering) but I really don't know why anyone actually cares. I know convertible connoisseurs often care more for image than engineering, but how can a car possibly reveal anything about your sexual orientation?

I love open-top sports cars for the traditional thrills they give you, so the last thing on my mind is whether I look like a prat or not. As long as your choice of wheels does what you want it to and keeps you happy, even in a humdrum, it-gets-me-to-the-shops sort of way, surely that's all that matters.

There's been lots of occasions when I've actually looked at getting one of the original MX-5s outside my home, and that's simply because I think it's a cheap car that'll give you a thrilling time on a country lane without breaking down, and not because of how it looks or what it says about me.

My girlfriend, I reckon, probably agrees with me.

AA, eh?

I MET a cyclist once who managed to get from Merseyside to Carlisle in twelve hours.

I mention this because I've just completed the return journey, but I had a broken car and some breakdown trucks instead. Despite having the M6 and the fourth emergency service at my disposal, my ride home took ten hours.

Admittedly the cyclist in question was made almost entirely of Lycra and bits of string but I'm still dumbstruck how it took the AA team just slightly less time to rescue and recover me.

While I'm not exactly a stranger to breakdown crews - my car is almost three decades old, after all - I'm used to the boys in yellow being a smiley service, who send you texts to keep you updated and apologise profusely if they're more than a minute late.

In the adverts they even sing, with some poor soul in a dead Vauxhall being serenaded by the company's entire workforce (although curiously, you never saw the car getting mended).

But last Sunday they sounded more Simon Cowell than Susan Boyle, with their lorry arriving four and a half hours after that first phone call. Even then, the car wasn't going anywhere, because the poor driver had just clocked off and needed a cuppa. That'll be another 45 minutes, then.

Yet what wound me up most of all was that we weren't even going to Southport - we were headed for a service station, somewhere on the M6, where I'd have to change trucks. I'm used to changing at Lime Street station, but between two yellow lorries somewhere near Charnock Richard is something else. Naturally, the second driver had just clocked off too.

I don't blame the truckers - in fact they were really were soldiers of fortune - but the rest of the AA-Team failed their mission this week. The dead motor eventually croaked onto my driveway at 8.30pm, a depressing ten-and-a-half hours after I first called them.

I think I might take the Raleigh Chopper next time.

Are friends electric?

IN an odd move for a journalist, I'm actually thinking I might sue the entire motor industry for harassment.

Why else would almost every single carmaker bombard me with press releases about electric cars for weeks on end? I wouldn't mind normally, but until (Flash) Gordon Brown sorts out the infrastructure, vehicles that run on volts rather than V8s are about as relevant as inflatable dartboards.

I've actually got to the point where I'm bored of reading about them, and long for the day someone revives TVR or reinvents Rover as a maker of big, beefy cars. I know these cars aren't exactly PC, but at least they don't take sixteen hours to recharge.

However, the carmakers think differently, and are determined that you read up on all their upcoming electromobiles. I've done just that, so you don't have to:

Mitsubishi I Miev: Amp-happy version of its quirky supermini, but police version (pictured) not exactly a hot tip for high speed car chases.

Peugeot iOn: As above, but with Peugeot top 'n' tail treatment. Am not convinced.

Audi e-tron: Electric version of the R8 supercar presumably tailored for Bladerunner remake.

Volkswagen E-Up: Version of Up concept car presumably tailored for Yorkshire.

Chevy Volt: Actually quite-nice-looking 'leccy supermini that's crucial to GM's future.

Think City: Electric Smart-a-like which has been threatening to go on sale in Britain for ages, but still hasn't yet

And so the list goes on, but I'm still wondering why - after years of failing to get us to go electric - so many firms are determined that we will buy these cars. Admittedly, they're a lot better than they used to be, but there's no way of escaping that they're still not as good as petrol ones.

The last thing I'd want is be accused of is the heinous crime of Global Warming Denial but until you can drive 600 miles on an electric car and then fill it up at an electricity station, I wouldn't buy one.

I dread the next pro-electric press release...

Everybody loves a Morgan

FEW things are more embarrassing than stalling, but I think I've found one. Stalling a bright red sports car - with the roof down - on a busy high street.

Luckily, it's a fate I've just narrowly avoided.

Morgan's 4/4 is a sports car from the old school and - thanks to a blend of luck and being annoyingly persistent - I somehow managed to blag a road test for GR8 Life, the glossy sister magazine of The Champion.

I won't go too much into what it's like to drive - you'll have to read the write up to find out - but it's about as far removed from family hatchback motoring as you can imagine, especially in some of its quirkier charms.

The indicators being on the right (i.e. wrong) side you'll get used to, but what I found trickiest of all was the endearingly unique handbrake, which took me pretty much the entire drive to master.

Taking any unfamiliar motor out onto the streets can be a little daunting at first, no matter how much you revise the controls beforehand, but threading a scarlet red roadster which you only clapped eyes on 20 minutes earlier is in another league.

But I don't think anyone cared, because they loved the 4/4. Other drivers get aggravated if you're in other flashy sports cars, but become a Morgan man and they're suddenly prepared to forgive anything.

I'm just lucky stalling on Lord Street wasn't one of them...

Read my thoughts on the Morgan 4/4 in next week's Champion and in the winter edition of GR8 Life, due out in December.

MiniAid

YOU could almost imagine Bob Geldof and his buddies singing songs to save cars like the one I’ve just driven.

Unfortunately, I can’t see the next re-release of Do They Know It’s Christmas being used to help rescue rotting old motors, so us mere mortals had to step in instead when it came to stopping this two-decade old Mini from meeting its maker.

And do you know what? I feel proud I’ve played my part.

Admittedly, it’s familiar territory – I already own one – but beneath £100’s worth of rot and rust is actually a perfectly good car, which if a few mates and I hadn’t stepped in to save would have been heading to a scrap yard this Friday.

People go on about saving puppies and small children but they never stop to think about the forgotten machines hiding behind hedges and in garages – machines that are part of our culture and heritage, yet are being squandered as part of the Government’s scrappage scheme.



I’m not going to deny that this 1989 Mayfair model’s not going to need a lot of TLC, but on a quick test drive it felt exactly the same as my own Mini. It’s not a rust bucket, but someone’s pride and joy that’s been cruelly forgotten.

The new owner’s one of these James May characters who already has two Ford Capris, a Golf GTi, a Metro, and a Ford Racing Puma, which already probably constitutes more cars than anyone could really need (and two don’t even work). But he’d bleed Castol R if you cut him, so he happily breached a self-imposed ban on any more motors to give an unloved Mini the care it deserves.

And even if he hadn’t stumped the £100 asking price, I probably would have just to make sure it’s got a loving home. You might worry about attaching so much sentiment to a machine, but the Flying Scotsman or Concorde wouldn’t be allowed to wither away either.

Forget Animal Hospital and trendy charity records. Do something really remarkable by rescuing an old car instead…

Toyota IQ: now Fast and Furious

I'LL get straight to the point on this one; I hate this car.

It's a bit of an odd conclusion to reach, because chances are Life On Cars readers are getting bored of me going on about how brilliant the IQ is. Of all the new cars I've driven so far this year, Toyota's tiniest is still by far and away my favourite.

At around £10,000, it isn't exactly cheap, but what you do get for your money is quite possibly the smallest four-seater ever made, and it's full of clever engineering touches. How can a car the same size as a Smart carry you and three of your mates in comfort?

Yet what surprised me more than anything when I road-tested it earlier this year was the way it drives. I've heard lots of analogies comparing the IQ to the original Mini - which I know very well - but I wasn't expecting the similarities to stretch to the way it handled the tricky roads of North Wales. I can't help but admit it: I love the IQ.

Sadly, what you're looking at is not an IQ.

It's the snappily-titled IQ For Sports, and - if it gets the nod from fans of Fast and Furious - it should be in showrooms next year. Which is a great shame, because it takes the brutal beauty of the original, and makes it look like something you might see parked on Southport's Esplanade on a wet Friday night.

Toyota is clearly trying to give it a bit of the Max Power treatment, but all it does is ruin the point of the original. In fact, the one thing it reminds me of is the Mini Clubman - either the 70s original or BMW's remake - because it just smacks of taking a successful small car and making it worse.

Maybe I'm just getting old and am losing touch with the connoisseurs of cruise culture, but I just can't see a generation more used to be-winged French hot hatches taking to a tiny, lime green city slicker.

Toyota's created a true landmark motor with the IQ, and I'm begging them not to ruin it.

Going clubbing

I BEGIN this week with a confession; I’ve joined a car owners’ club.

It’s not the sort of thing you tell The Champion’s 108,774 readers lightly, because it often seems in 2009 the only thing you’re allowed to be an enthusiast of is football, mobile phones and a spot of light fighting. Admitting to being such a car nut that you’ve actually joined a band of fellow fans is no easy thing.

Part of the problem, I reckon, are the people who join them. I say this as a car person myself, but far too many clubs are filled with people who have far too much time for carburettors and not enough for getting out more.

The problem is that I’ve been brought up with Trainspotting rather than train spotting, so even though I still get slightly giddy whenever a TVR roars up Lord Street, the idea of talking about its cylinder heads for hours on end in a country pub just doesn’t come naturally.

There’s also the trouble of owners feeling they have to play up to whatever image their car projects; Capri owners going all Bodie and Doyle on you, that sort of thing. Naturally, you’d expect any Mini club to just be full of people who’ve seen The Italian Job too many times.

Yet the club I’ve just joined isn’t too bad. Yes, most of the owners do turn up to country pubs in Minis, but the conversation actually covers things that belong at the bar, not the garage.

I also don’t have to make the unmistakable sound of someone pretending to be interested, which I usually have to when I’m forced to watch a football match. I’m sure the FA Cup makes for hours of interesting conversation, but you can’t blast it down a country lane on a sunny evening.

I’ve been to some unbelievably boring car clubs before but having found one with a sense of fun, I’ve realised it’s not the car, it’s the people.
A convert to car clubs? Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.

I'd rather have one of these than a BMW Z4

I KNOW it’s a risky thing to say, but it’s true.

It’s something I discovered yesterday doing that most dangerous of things; driving to IKEA. Anyone who’s ever tried this and then failed to get the flat-packed wardrobe home has already discovered that almost every car, from my Mini up to and including the latest in BMW’s long line of glitzy sports cars, is suddenly useless.

Having actually driven the current Z4 I can testify that it’s fabulously fast, very good looking and really rather nice to drive, but there’s no way you could own one as your sole vehicle because furniture will defeat it. I actually imagine the only reason why you never saw any missiles firing out of Bond’s Z3 in Goldeneye is depressingly simple – there wasn’t room for any!

What Britain’s top secret agent actually needs for his missions into Swedish territory, as ridiculous as it sounds, is a Ford Mondeo ST TDCi Estate.

It might have been overtaken by BMW’s 3 Series as the rep’s car of choice but I’ve always liked the Mondeo, and this particular version is the one for the job. It’s made for trips to IKEA, yet because it wasn’t made by IKEA, it’s solid and more than capable of handling a heavy load.

To be honest any extreme estate will do the trick, but unless you’re prepared to scratch the precious materials that line a secondhand Audi S4, Ford’s finest will have to do.

Porsche’s Boxster might have two boots, but neither of them are as cavernous as the Cologne Catheral space in the back of a Mondeo estate, and it’s even sort of nice to drive. You might think the petrol ST 220 is the way to go but for once diesel is the engine of choice; it’s all but identical until you get to the pumps.

It depresses the Z4-owning purist in me but if meatballs and shelving units are part of your life, the best car in the world is a fast estate.

Rumours I work for Ford remain unfounded.

VW goes Northern Soul

HATS off to Volkswagen this week for coming up with something no manufacturer has ever managed before; a car aimed at Lancashire and Yorkshire!

How else would you explain a hatchback clearly named after a chirpy chunk of dialect used mainly in these parts of the world? Personally, I thought the people behind the Lupo and Scirocco might have gone for something vaguely exotic, but instead it's called its latest city star the E-Up. No, really.

Luckily, it's only an electrically powered concept car doing the rounds at the Frankfurt Motor Show, taking place this week, so chances are it'll get vetted by Volkswagen's Northern Dialects Department long before it hits the showrooms. Yet it still got the proud Northern bloke in me thinking; what if there was a car just for us?

Any Volkswagen Eh Up - we don't hyphenate our greetings Up North - would have to abandon satnavs for starters. Most of us went to Scout meetings and therefore know how to read a map, so a giant Ordnance Survey scrolled across the entire windscreen will do nicely instead.

Spec levels would be set out according to precise patches of the North, with Red Rose and White Rose editions only ever sold on either side of the Lancashire/Yorkshire border. VW would also have to ditch the iconic GTI badge for the performance version, with a new YI moniker instead to boost sales in the North East.

Naturally the stereo would only be able to play trendy indie bands, although chances are it could stop working and split up altogether after several years, to give owners a feeling of regional reassurance.

Eh Ups would also be a bit blunter to drive than their rivals - they say what they mean - but in their defence they're honest, friendly and know a good real ale when they come across one.

Car companies have made some truly tragic naming mistakes before, but as anyone who's ever tried to buy a Toyota MR2 in France or Mitsubishi Pajero in Spain will testify, some still get through the net.

The E-Up's fun looks and clever propulsion system are bound to make it a sales success, but I'd rather have an Eh Up instead.

A Champion top ten

CHAMPION readers looking for my top ten ways of squandering someone else's £10,000 can find them here.

This beautiful Jag XJ is one of the motors I'd rather buy than a campervan, but what would you go for? Don't forget to leave your top ten in the comments section!

It's scrap, if you ask me

COULD you condemn a classic like this to the crusher?

It's a question which has got that little bit harder since the Government's scrappage scheme swung into action earlier this year, and - while it's done of sterling job of shedding the number of Nissan Sunnys out there - it's led to all sorts of glorious machines going to their grave.

Since the scheme was introduced in May I've heard tales of dozens of perfectly good cars being towed into the sunset, with the one of the most depressing being an ugly but practically unused Ford Scorpio which could have given a credit-crunched motorist years of joy.

But the worst case has this to be this 1958 Morris Minor with just 36,000 miles on the clock - that's an average of less than 800 miles a year - which the DVLA dealt an earlier death earlier this week.

Even the car's current owners (a certain Hyundai UK) couldn't bring themselves to kill a classic. As the car's already been issued a death certificate, it can never be legally driven on the road again, so they're searching frantically for a museum to save it. The trade-in, in case you're interested, was a Hyundai Coupe.

I know the scrappage scheme's got its plus points in a world ravaged by recession, but could you buy a knockdown Kia if you knew it would kill off an Austin-Healey for good?

I know I couldn't...

Saab's new 9-5

HERE'S a worrying thought; if you'd had a son at the same time this car's predecessor was launched, he'd be 12 by now.

So old was the original SAAB 9-5 that most executive car buyers had either forgotten it existed, or just stopped caring. When it was launched in 1997, John Major was still Prime Minister and Hanson were considered a cool pop band.

Sure, it's a Gothenburg tradition to keep its car in production for seriously long periods - witness the 15 year gestations of the original 900 and 9000 - but right now the Vauxhall Vectra underpinnings of the outgoing model are getting very outdated.

That's why the latest version, being launched at this month's Frankfurt Motorshow, comes not a moment too soon for the GM's troubled Swedish branch. It's a smart looker and yet still distinctive enough to set it apart from the BMW, Mercedes and Audi models customers usually go for.

But will it mean a revival of SAAB's old turbo tradition? Watch this space...

Ten ways to wind your girlfriend up

I OWE my girlfriend an apology.

Nothing too worrying, of course; it's just that she's mentally saving up for an iconic motor of the Sixties, and already I've squandered her imaginary money on something far worse that isn't going to work properly.

She's a travel writer and - predictably - wants to buy a Volkswagen Caravelle, something which in this country is usually seen parked up on stormy shorelines in Cornwall while fans of The Cure desperately look for somewhere to surf.

I do like camper vans, in a passing, pleasant sort of way, but so detailed is her interest in it that she's actually nailed it to the exact model and colour scheme. It's got to be a Type 2 (pictured above) in green or orange, or she isn't interested.

Given that I'm male and stupid, I've therefore decided her money would be much better spent on a secondhand Alfa Romeo, which will drive brilliantly...when it works. I love motoring that's brilliant in an on/off sort of way, because it makes you appreciate those few flawless moments more.

In fact, I could spend hours trawling eBay looking at cars well past their sell-by-date. People often go on about their perfect ten car garages if they had a blank cheque, but that's far too easy.
Give me the price of a new Fiesta - £10,000 - instead and I'd use it to stock up on rusty old Rovers, jetlagged Jags and other useless machines that have been to the moon and back.

You might get classic insurance and a tax exemption on most of them, but whichever way you cut it, you can't go on a surfing trip to Cornwall without breaking down.

Here's my top ten of rubbish classics for less than a grand, in no particular order:

1) Austin Mini - £1000 won't stretch to a decent Cooper model
2) Jaguar XJ6 Series III - Knackered at this price but beautiful
3) Alfa Romeo 156 Sportwagon - The world's least useful but best looking estate
4) BMW 635Csi - Probably the only truly cool BMW
5) Range Rover Classic - Cheap but no garage complete without one
6) Mazda MX-5 (original) - Bargain open-top thrills
7) Ford Transit (any generation) - Handy for bank jobs
8) Fiat Cinquecento - I just like them, okay?
9) Rover P6 - Gloriously old school motoring
10) Fiat Coupe - Way overdue a comeback

Alternatively, there are plenty of charities in the North West that could probably do with a £10,000 donation, and chances are they'll still be working properly this time next week.

That or spend it on a camper van.

Suggest your own top tens as comments...