Stick on the Human League and set sail for the Falklands - it's 1982 all over again

IT’S brightly coloured, perfect for TV car chases, evocative of the Eighties and a great promotional exercise for Audi when it arrives later this year. You guessed it - I’m really looking forward to the next series of Ashes to Ashes.

Clever clogs have probably already worked out I’m a bit of a fan of Gene Hunt’s tyre shredding antics (after all, this column is named in its honour) and among the highlights of any couch potato year should be watching a bright red Audi Quattro going far more sideways than its four wheel drive system ought to allow it. Alex Drake might be gorgeous and Gene’s a chauvinistic genius, but the four-ringed wonder’s still the star of the show.

But now Audi themselves have got on the nostalgia train – although probably not back on the rally stages – with a Quattro revisit all of their own, called the RS5. I was going to save them the shame of comparing it with the icon that made them a household name, but when the firm itself announces it with the headline “Audi RS5 coupe debuts in Geneva on 30th anniversary of Quattro”, it’s openly inviting comparisions.

The 450bhp coupe’s a bit of a fatso compared to the spindly original, but can you honestly say you weigh less than you did during the days of Duran Duran and bad haircuts? It also isn’t going to have the Group B rallying pedigree of its predecessor, but after the rave reviews the RS4 and R8 attracted, chances are the Germans have got another great motor on their hands.

Would Gene Hunt drive one? I reckon he would if it didn’t cost £58,500, which is about the same as an entry-level 911. As much as I’d love to see the RS5 smoking its tyres in pursuit of baddies on BBC One in about twenty years, I reckon it’s still going to be a merchant banker’s toy rather than the wheels of a foulmouthed TV cop.

With Britain smarting from a nasty recession, fresh quarrels over the Falkland Islands, and even Spandau Ballet back on tour you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s 1982 all over again. I just hope Audi’s efforts prove just as exciting this time around.

Motoring vs Man flu

WHICH is more embarrassing; walking down your local high street in your pyjamas, struggling to find first gear in a V8-powered Cobra replica, or trying to speak over a snotty throat on regional radio?

You can find out about the first two by clicking on the links above, but to hear my third interview on Martin Hovden's Live From Studio One show on Dune FM just click the icon above.

It's about Toyota, by the way...

The Italian Job, with a difference

Mini SOD announcement for SHOWING OF THE ITALIAN JOB WITH MINI DISPLAY AT THE PICTURE HOUSE, PARBOLD

Mini Southport and Ormskirk District has just had confirmation that permission has been given to host a classic Mini display before a showing of a classic Mini movie at the Picture House, in Parbold, has been booked for Sunday, May 16!

The showing of The Italian Job will begin at 7pm, but we've been invited to put on a Mini display outside from 6pm, before being invited in to see the movie on their big screen (tickets cost £3 per person). We have also been given use of the venue's car park to put on the display, and are allowed as many as 30 Minis. I'm also planning to have a group meeting up at The Scotch Piper from 5pm, which will head in convoy to Parbold.

I'm also going to put the word in to both North West Minis and Leyland Minis to see if anyone there is up for this one-off event, but the Picture House organisers have told me that it will be branded as a Mini SOD event in their own publicity, so please let Brett Gibson, Mini SOD president, or myself know as soon as possible if you want to take part.

There will also be a piece in The Champion in the next fortnight to let people know about the event, so it should be a big success and a great way to watch The Italian Job as you've never seen it before.

To find out more or to confirm you'd like to join in, contact David Simister by email on david.simister@hotmail.co.uk or leaving a message on Life On Cars.

See you there!

Fire up the...Cobra

I ALREADY know what you're about to ask: is it a real one?

That's what people always ask if you're anywhere near one of the most iconic sports car shapes ever crafted, but I reckon this is much more appealing than other AC Cobras. This is muscle car motoring with a British Leyland twist!

The AC Cobra, first introduced in 1962, was one of the more enduring results of our special relationship with America; we sent them the AC Ace, and they beefed it up into a Ford V8 powered rocketship of a roadster. The hairy-chested originals are now worth millions and hugely sought after, but why worry when you get a rorty reinterpretation for a lot less?

Peel the skin away on the beautifully-crafted replica I've just driven and some of bits might seem more than familiar; the engine's still a V8, but it's actually Rover's 3.5 litre lump. As in the one you know and love from legions of Range Rovers and an entire generation of the swish saloons your dad used to drive. Even the transmission is lifted from Rover's SD1 Vitesse.

My dad still has an Eighties Range Rover and after years of being driven everywhere in them I reckon the sound it makes is actually music to the ears; okay, it's not exactly Lady Gaga in the pop stakes but it's still burbly and melodic to listen to, like Oasis on one of their earlier albums. The point is, I think as engines go the Rover V8 makes easily the nicest noise, and wrapping it in something as gorgeously glamourous as a Cobra with a sports exhaust is like playing your favourite CD in a Bang and Olufsen stereo. Sublime, in other words.

Even in my brief, ten minute blast I could tell the car's a charmer, and not just because of the wonderly woofly noise it makes. I'm used to driver's cars being light, twinkletoed things that dart from corner to corner, but the Cobra was loud in a laid-back way, as if its creators have somehow found a way of reviving Barry White as a car. People say the original Cobra's a scary thing to handle, but with a British Leyland twist it's like hanging out with an old mate, only one who's been given a megaphone.

So no, this blend of Sixties style with Engineering isn't a real Cobra. It's much better than that.

The next Peugeot 607?

IF you're one of those people who spends hours awake wondering what the Peugeot 607's replacement might look like then worry no more, because this could be it.

The Five By Peugeot is the latest in a long line of concept cars from the French firm as it tries to reinvigorate itself as a maker of sporty cars with streaks rather than dumpy curves, but peel away the shiny bits and chances are what you're looking at is a successor to the unloved 607, launched way back in 2000.

It follows on from the SR-1 coupe, unveiled last month, and shows a bold new styling direction for the company which promises a focus on returning to the days when Peugeots were renowned for being driver's cars.

So that's what Peugeot's luxury cars are probably going to look like, but I'm still holding out for a reinvention of the mad 306 Rallye.

H stands for...

… hot, hardcore, hip hop, hairy, and hi-energy in the case of this 911. Almost certainly a little bit horny. But you probably didn’t guess it also stands for Hybrid.

The Porsche 911 GT3 R, unveiled last week and coming to a racetrack near you later this year, is one of those effortlessly gorgeous GT racers you’re just glad to know exists, like the Aston Martin DBR9, Ford GT40 and D-Type Jaguar. I can’t wait to hear what it sounds like screaming down the main straight at Le Mans, but I hope it’s a racing noise and not a hybrid one.

Can this really have come from the same way of thinking that came up with the Toyota Prius, the Lexus LX450h and the Honda Insight? We’ve already had the electric sports car, the diesel Le Mans winner and the Porsche off-roader, but is a hybrid 911 a step too far?

Of course not, because if eco-friendly cars are really going to catch on they have to be things we want, with style and panache alongside green credentials. So far only Tesla’s really proven you can be environmentally-conscious in something that you’d proudly power down a country lane in, so the idea of a hybrid 911 is an utterly brilliant one.

The fact it looks stunning and has 480bhp at its disposal is a handy bonus.

Feature: Driving improvement, Lancashire style

THIRD gear is my new best friend, I've learned out on the roads of West Lancashire.

This is one of the handy tips I've picked up by taking part in Drive On, a series of car and motorcycle courses aimed at helping to cut the region's accident rate by giving residents the chance to sharpen their skills. Lancashire County Council, the programme's providers, say it will help you improve the way you drive, but what I wanted to know is whether it works.

That's how I found myself heading through Halsall at exactly 30mph - no more, no less - with talented instructor Mike Hesp keeping a careful eye on exactly what I was doing, which was using fourth rather than third on the clearer bits of road.

Even though it seemed second nature to me, it got me a stern “requires attention” in Mike's books. It's amazing how much worse your driving can be compared to what you believe it is, no matter how many years of crash-free commuting you can claim.

More depressing still was a simple test Mike got me to do to test my reaction times once I'd parked up - he'd drop a marker card between my hands, and all I had to do was catch it. No matter how hard I tried, my fingers clasped the “slow” marker every time, meaning that out on the open road I'm closer to Driving School star Maureen Rees than Michael Schumacher.

“The aim is to give individual drivers the opportunity to address their own particular driving concerns and be able to address these effectively, safely and to build confidence,” a spokesperson for Lancashire County Council said during the launch of the course.

“At the end of the course drivers should have received appropriate training and information to help them deal with their own particular concerns.”

The course, which costs £65, takes place over two hours with an approved driving instructor at your side, but for a change there's not an L-plate in sight, and the lessons are largely dictated by what you want to learn. For me it was mainly about trying not to charge through the busier bits of the borough at slightly optimistic speeds, but whatever your driving worry is, the county council reckons its scheme could help you.

Does it work? Only if you take what the instructors say into your own drive home, but if I found car parks painful and motorways miserable, I'd rather take advantage of their tips than get it wrong the hard way.

For more information about Drive On contact Lancashire County Council's road safety group on 0800 328 1635 or visit the group's website at www.lancashire.gov.uk/roadsafety.

Don't go on about your Toyota, just get it mended

THE sky is falling. Climate change will kill us all. We’re all going to get swine flu. Oh, and if you drive a Toyota you’re going to be wiped out in a high-speed inferno.

If you saw the front of either The Daily Mail or The Times chronicling Toyota’s safety recall earlier this week you would think getting behind the wheel is about as safe as gargling wasps or bungee jumping with the wrong rope, but as a paid-up media man I actually feel sorry for Toyota. Hysteria doesn’t cover it.

The coverage of the safety recall has been so disproportionate that you’d think it’d be best not to venture outdoors at all, for fear of a runaway Yaris with its throttle jammed open wiping you out. I can just see The Runaway IQ or Avensisageddon becoming a bad movie later this year.

Toyota’s head office actually told me this morning that the fault, which involves sticky accelerators on the Aygo, IQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, and Avensis, as well as the (Toyota based) Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1, only affects a very small number of vehicles, and that they’ve had to recall so many vehicles to be on the safe side.

Motor makers recall lots of cars every year, but the press seem to cherry-pick a handful and go mad with their keyboards. The last time any car got this much coverage was the Audi TT in its original, slightly slippery state, but there’s been far worse – and far quieter – recalls since.

Even if you are one of the very, very unlucky ones who gets caught out by a dodgy pedal, it’s really not hard to bring it to a halt. Most cars I’ve driven – even the ones with jammed throttles – have a brake and clutch, both of which slow you down. Even automatics can be asked nicely to glide to a stop, by braking and getting the gearbox to slow you down.

There will be a full feature in The Champion designed to allay readers’ fears (and it’ll be on here in the next few days too) but if your Toyota’s accelerator jams, stick the thing into neutral and get it sorted by your friendly local dealer.

And then stop going on about it.

Actually, I'm a rubbish driver after all

I THOUGHT Al Gore's truth was inconvenient but the Institute of Advanced Motorists were right after all; old drivers are better than younger ones.

You might remember I'd been invited to take part in Lancashire County Council's Drive On Course, which would give me a chance to sharpen up my driving skills, and one of the most frustrating parts was being asked to catch a strip of card over and over again when it was dropped through my hands by a driving guru. I was sure it would show me up as the next Schumacher, but I was wrong.

The card in question is dotted with markers designed to show just how quick my reactions weren't, and no matter how hard I tried, my clammy digits clasped the “slow” line every time, proving that any thoughts I had of being able to tame TVRs and catch Caterhams through tricky corners are way off the mark.

I've always grown up with this Biggles-esque impression that speed belongs to the young, which is why you never see jet fighters being piloted by pensioners. Forty in the world of Formula One is getting on a bit. But if I were to take any Saxo, 206 or Clio for a cross-country blat, insurance statistics say there's a good chance it'll eventually end up being depicted on a badly-edited community website in a crumpled heap. That's because - and I hate to admit it - us Yoofs just aren't very good at driving.

I always thought charging the poorest drivers the most for insurance was a rotten deal, but after being driven by a mate who thought tailgating on a snowy M6 at 110mph was a skilled and safe way of getting about, I can understand exactly why so many of the cars mates of mine own get totalled. I'm not exactly holier-than-thou either; I might be collision-free but that doesn't make me a wonder at the wheel.

Charging drivers who barely remember the '90s more is never going to work - it just means they'll skimp on brakes, which come in handy when you're driving. Make the driving test harder for starters, and then insist that all new drivers are issued with four-wheel-drive Subaru Imprezas to eliminate their chances of sliding off a slippy road. Naturally, city bankers will fund it.

One of this column's readers - yes, it has some - told me that age and experience will always overcome youthful exuberance. As much as it annoys my inner Le Mans winner, he's right.

The full feature on my drive with Lancashire's advanced instructors will be published on Life On Cars and in The Champion later this week.