Yes, you can still buy classic sports cars for £200

ANYONE who remembers what happened when I spent £100 on a set of wheels might want to look away now, because I've just doubled the stakes.

Regular readers might recall the Renault 5 I managed to blag for the price of a train ticket earlier this year, and I got lucky because - aside from a broken heater which makes West Lancashire permenantly feel like the West Indies - the ancient hatchback's become one of the most reliable things I've ever owned.

But even I couldn't believe myself when I spent twice what it cost on an old sports car that's spent the last ten years of its life stuck inside a garage in Cumbria. Yep, I've just bought an MGB that doesn't work.

Like the original Mini that's always at the top of this column, it's from an era when strikes at British Leyland dotted the TV news bulletins every day and as a result anything that came out of MG's Abingdon factory around that time is going to be crushingly unreliable.

In normal circumstances I wouldn't even bother with the MGB because I've never particularly liked it, but this one's different.

Eagle-eyed readers are going to spot that it's the far more stylish MGB GT, and swaps the soft top for a swoopy bit of steel roofline, the gorgeous Rostyle steel wheels and something called a Webasto sunroof, which is basically a clever bit of folding canvas which looks like it cost about 30p as an optional extra. Other features unique to this particular version are doors way overdue a replacement, decade-old engine oil and brakes which are seized solid. Not quite the £200 bargain buy I was expecting, then?

Of course it is - it's a classic sports car for the price of a long weekend on the continent, and it's got a solid shell and stashes of paperwork thrown in. As a commuter car it's failed already because it's broken, but as something I can imagine swanning around Southport in next year it's packed with potential.

The MGB roadster, the open-top one you always see at classic car shows, has been hogged by CAMRA members desperate to drive them to quaint village pubs you only ever see on Heartbeat, but the B GT is better because its somehow more subtle in its style.

It's The Shadows rather than Cliff Richard.

Happy Birthday, Life On Cars!

TIME flies when you're having fun.

It's been exactly one year since Life On Cars first went live, with a short, shouty piece about why BMW's attempts to revive the Mini Mayfair name wouldn't work. As it turns out the trademark reliability of the original Mayfair - or the lack of it - has become a bit of a running joke ever since, but at least it gives me something to write about!

The story of my very own Mini Mayfair kicked off Life On Cars on July 28 last year, and since then the blog's grown way beyond the web-based rant I started off to keep my toe in the deep end of the motoring pool after I'd ended my stint as a writer for the motors page for the Daily Post in North Wales.

Alongside the blog there's now the weekly column in The Champion newspaper, the increasingly popular Fire Up The... road test section and a monthly spot on the Live From Studio One show on Dune FM, which is off-air for the moment but will be back in September. All this from a chap with a penchant for clapped-out classic cars which break down a lot.

How best to celebrate? A cake would have been a bit too obvious so I've gone with what several people suggested; create my very own car magazine! Both my readers, I'm sure, will be delighted with the work that's gone into creating Life On Cars Magazine, which you can browse through below.

Read it, enjoy it, and let me know what you think. I might even make another if Life On Cars is here this time next year...

Open publication - Free publishing - More southport

When Audi's A5 is just too small

AUDI is inviting coupe connoisseurs who reckon the A5 just isn't accomodating enough to try out an all-new model it announced earlier this week.

The A7 Sportback, which carries over the slinky four door coupe formula from the smaller A5 Sportback but on a much larger level, is hoping to steal sales from the Mercedes-Benz CLS when it goes on sale in the UK next year, starting at a little under £43,000.

“The sought-after Audi Sportback formula can now be enjoyed on an even grander scale in the all new A7 Sportback, which in a similar vein to its A5 namesake discreetly integrates saloon car versatility and hatchback practicality into an elegant premium coupe silhouette,” said a spokesperson for Audi UK of the new arrival.

“By reinterpreting the concept for the larger executive class, the A7 Sportback will project the Vorsprung durch Technik brand into yet another new segment when it joins the UK range.”

Audi will bring the familiar Quattro four wheel drive system along to the party when the A7 Sportback arrives in the UK, along with a choice of two petrol and two diesel engines, and a sleek bodyshell that's longer, lower and wider than the A6 saloon.

Skoda's having the last laugh now

IT'S been a while since I've made a car joke, but I'll have a go anyway. What do you call a Skoda with an open sunroof? Expensive.

If I'd tried 15 years ago I could have nonchalently just said “a skip” and brought the house down, but there's the rub; Skoda just don't make joke cars anymore.

This is just one of the things I've worked out after spending a week with a Yeti, which sounds like an elusive snowman but is in fact what happens if you were to stick an SUV in the wash on too hot a setting. It looks, sounds and acts like a much smaller Land Rover Discovery but absolutely everyone who came across it loved it.

I got it instantly; it's a car for taking dogs to the countryside. Much like a Discovery then, but much, much cheaper.

It's the same story with Skoda's other cars; step out of Carlisle railway station and hail a cab and it's almost always a white Octavia that'll pick you up, because the drivers and taxi firms swear by them. When I was lucky enough to sit alongside a North Wales Police traffic cop on a high speed chase along the A55 last year, it was an Octavia vRS they entrusted with the task. And it's amazing how driving instructors favour Fabias over Fiestas for a spot of low speed kerb-clipping.

In fact the only problem with Skoda is some of the silly options pricing, which meant with all the bells and whistles the particular Yeti I drove was a £22,000 car, with most of the money going towards a spectacular-but-silly sunroof and a £1,400 satnav system which you don't need. In fact, I'd rather throw the money at the four-wheel-drive system and make it a proper off-roader.

If I were sensible I'd buy a Skoda tomorrow, but I'm not, which I've wasted my hard-earned on another clapped-out classic.

Tune in next week and find out what it is...

Check out the blog for an online-only treat on Wednesday, July 28.

Fire up the... Peugeot 5008

IT'S never fun driving in a downpour but trying it with six of your nearest and dearest in Peugeot's latest people carrier is going to be a problem.

The 5008, launched earlier this year, has a third row of seats which cleverly rise from the bottom of the boot, but if your friends try clambering into them they're going to find the plastic bar where the parcel shelf lives blocking the way. Remove it and you'll find that - as it's almost as wide as the car itself is - there's nowhere for it to live. So your friends and family are going to end up holiding it all the way home.

Head behind the seats to the boot itself and you'll find a luggage net designed to stop your shopping bags sliding about, but load something heavy onto it, for instance luggage, by mistake and there's every chance you'll break the flimsy plastic clips holding it up.

As flaws go they're fairly fundamental ones, but they're shared by similarly-sized rivals like Ford's S-Max and not enough to ruin what's actually a pretty and poised effort from the French car giant, who are determined to bridge the ancient 807 and the five-seater 3008 with something sophisticated enough to cut it at the sharp end of the family marketplace.

Both inside and out you get the reassuring feeling that the 5008's a family car with seven seats rather than the van with windows too many MPVs make the mistake of being, and despite offering acres of space it still drives and handles just as crisply as any of Peugeot's other models.

I'm not sure what sport they had in mind with the Sport version I drove, but the 1.6 turbo petrol engine pulled very well, and while it's not as openly engaging as the S-Max through the corners I preferred its emphasis being calm and comfortable. In fact, I wondered why you'd buy a turbo Sport at all, as it's a car born to impress as a diesel with an auto box.

The 5008's good looks are well worth looking into more, but it'd be better still with the annoying niggles sorted out.

As published in The Champion on July 28, 2010

To Infiniti and beyond

A CAR company new to the UK is hoping luxury car lovers will go to Infiniti and beyond with their latest model, which it announced prices for this week.

The Infiniti M37, a Japanese take on the likes of BMW's 5-Series, Audi's A6 and Jaguar's XF, will cost from £35,150 when it goes on sale in British showrooms for the first time later this summer, but for that you get a silky V6 engine sending 316bhp to the rear wheels, a safety feature designed to spot vehicles in your blind spot and the knowledge that almost no one else in the company car park will have the same car as you.

Infiniti, a Nissan-owned company operating in a similar way as Lexus does under Toyota's wing, was only launched in Europe two years ago but has proven a sales hit both in Asia and America, where their saloons, coupes and off-roaders have been sale since the 1990s.

The petrol-powered M37 will be followed by a diesel-driven M30d, arriving in October, and a hybrid M35h next spring.

Why I grew out of being a Mod

A QUIET night in with Quadrophenia instead of messing about with old cars hasn’t changed anything. I’m still not convinced by scootering.

Anyone who hasn’t seen this film really ought to expand their DVD collection but for your sake, I’ll explain that it’s essentially The Who’s exploration of the Mods/Rockers clashes that got the tabloids in a tizzy in the mid Sixties. To this day it’s still used as inadvertent advertising for the joys of riding an old scooter, but don’t be fooled. Being a Mod isn’t cool and rebellious. Being a Mod is rubbish.

I know this because in the heady days of 2005 I was one, and I did all the things you do after getting drunk on too much Quadrophenia. I bought a parka and a three-pin suit. I listened to The Kinks a lot. And one day – after almost no research at all – I stumped up an exorbitant amount of money on something called a Vespa PX125. All I didn’t buy was the t-shirt.

Maybe I was blinded by sun bouncing off the chrome and the mirrors but it was brilliant bit of kit, even it had electrics with a mind of their own and a top speed of barely more than 55, although you were never sure because the speedo was always breaking. It’s still the least reliable thing I’ve ever owned, but I loved it.

Even now I’ll still look longingly at a Lambretta if I see one parked in the street, but then I remember why I got rid of mine in the first place. Being a Mod isn’t about youthful rebellion. It’s about money and being middle aged.

All the Mod meets I went to didn’t have a Jimmy or Ace Face anywhere, but they did have plenty of people who’d taken their Vespas there in trailers towed by BMWs and Range Rovers. The scooterists who’d rode theirs every day I could count with one hand.

What I reckoned Mod was all about – being modern, liberal, fun – just wasn’t there with these guys, who turned their noses up at anyone who didn’t wear a very specific style of suit and didn’t dig Northern Soul. It was like being knocked back on a night out.

In the end I reckoned the slogan on Quadrophenia’s cover sleeve was right after all; it is, as it so eloquently puts it, A Way Of Life.

It just wasn’t the one I was expecting.

Fire up the... Vauxhall Meriva Turbo

EVERYONE'S switching to smaller motors at the moment, and now it seems even Daddy Cool has downsized.

You might remember Daddy Cool as the star of a series of Vauxhall adverts from a couple of years ago, when an otherwise ordinary dad decides to demonstrate just how sporty his school run chariot can be by sticking some Boney M on the stereo and driving like his kids are late for school. It was fun at the time, but we live in an age of austerity now.

Daddy Cool's old Vauxhall Zafira GSI was a cracking people carrier but I reckon if he got revived in another slightly cheesy TV campaign he'd probably be driving the new Meriva, which in 1.4 Turbo form is probably the unlikeliest driving hit I've ever come across.

Whisper it quietly, but a car designed for the North Circular rather than the Nurburgring is an absolute joy to drive.

Vauxhall's second generation of the Meriva might be an upright MPV rather than a hot hatch but, particularly in the sporty Turbo spec, it has a manic sense of urgency, and is beautifully balanced on both the bumpy and the bendy bits of the school run.

It's also joined the select group of cars that have suicide rear doors, which sound dramatic but basically open backwards rather than forwards to make getting in a little easier. Mazda's RX-8 and the Rolls Phantom have pulled off the same trick in a bid to pull off spectacular rather than spacious, but on the Meriva it means you can get into an interior that feels very well screwed together a few seconds faster.

The Meriva's a small MPV and by definition not the sort of thing to set your pulse racing, but whoever made the Astra, Insignia and Tigra look so stylish has managed the same trick with what should be a be a boxy shopping wagon.

It's not the kind of car you want to warm to but the Meriva's magic stems from being a hugely practical and good looking little car which just happens to go like strink when you least expect it.

Daddy Cool, I reckon, would definitely approve.

As published in The Champion on July 21, 2010

Loving the classics of Lydiate

CLASSIC car connoisseurs got the chance to show off some of the region's most memorable motors while raising funds for Cancer Research at a show in Lydiate last weekend.

Owners of MGs, vintage cars and fast Fords were among the many motoring enthusiasts who travelled to Lydiate Parish Hall, on Southport Road, for a full-throttle gathering last Sunday (July 11, 2010).

“We raised over £1,000 and it was a very successful event where everyone was happy and enjoyed themselves, so much so that we're already making plans for next year's event,” said Shirley Brown, the event's organiser.

“What people liked about this show, unlike other car shows in the region, is that you're not boxed off into sections depending on what car club you're in. You can turn up, mix with your mates, and have a good time.”

The event follows on from a similar event in Formby last hosted three years ago, but has moved to the new venue in Lydiate in order to allow more enthusiasts to show off their cars.

All proceeds raised went to Cancer Research UK.

Greece needs money more than Bugatti does

MY other half, who's German, is infuriated that her country is having to pay for 53-year-olds in Greece who've just retreated to a retirement of yachts and Ouzo.

The Greek economy is knackered, and there's almost nothing the Berliners, the Frankfurters and the Stuttgarters can do about it, although I do have a suggestion. Borrow some cash from the country's largest car company, because they've obviously got loads of it.

How else do you explain the news that - while you were queuing at the Job Centre - they've reclaimed the title of world's fastest supercar? The Bugatti Veyron Supersport might be built in France and named after a Gallic engineering genius, but the funding that made it happen is all Volkswagen's. It's where the money they made on that Polo you've just bought went.

Building an even faster version of a car that already did 253mph just to reclaim a record just seems a trifle tasteless at a time when entire countries are going bust, but they've gone and done it anyway. Bugatti - or rather Volkswagen - make a loss on every one they sell, so they're throwing money away at 268mph. Money which could have been spent on Mr Papandreou instead.

I'm not one of these road safety bores who argues every car should do 70mph and no more - otherwise we'd all still be driving Ford Anglias - but why not make Bugattis the late Ettore, the company's founder, would have been proud of? Cars with epic engineering, no question, but ones which excel on roads and racetracks rather than one endless straight at the VW test track. It'd cost less than a Veyron or a villa on the Greek coast, that's for sure.

If you're reading this and you're eight years old you might think owning the world's fastest car is a fine idea, but it is't. Even though I've never driven the big Bug and probably never will I'll happily wager that anything even slightly less surreal - even the Lamborghini Gallardo or the Audi R8, which are also VW products - will be much more rewarding on real, tangible roads.

And anyway; Volkswagen now sells a stupendously quick car which even Greek pensioners might be interested in. It's called the Porsche 911.

Fire up the... Honda CR-Z

HONDA'S latest hybrid might get you seeing red when you're hurtling it around your nearest city centre, but it's for all the right reasons.

The dials on the CR-Z, the Japanese firm's first truly tiny coupe in more than a decade, have a fantastic feature which allows them to glow blue, green and red depending on how economically you're driving it, which works both ways. You CAN go green if you're on a bid to beat the taxman by using the power of prudence, but I find it's much more fun to get glowing red by driving as furiously as possible.

It's an invitation to sample two extremes of driving and quite possibly a first in motoring; a hybrid car someone interested in driving might actually want to buy.

Obviously, Honda are hyping up the ‘H' word as much as possible, but not nearly as much as the really rather obvious links to the sporty little CR-X of the ‘80s and ‘90s, which the new model clearly mimics. So it's an eco activist which chooses to wear running shoes instead of sandals.

You'll find the CR-Z has the same dinky stance as its petrol-powered predecessor, but it's carried over a few nods to the original a little more quietly, like trimming the back seats in a different colour to the fronts, although most people won't notice because they won't get into them. I know it's a coupe, but it's still a bit of squeeze back there!

Normally getting just 122bhp from a car costing £20,000 would have me worried, but Honda's blend of petrol and electricity will impress even the most heavy-footed drivers, while appeasing the eco-minded ones. The fact it still manages to make a fantastic noise is a handy bonus.

If you've got lots of kids and dogs the CR-Z is simply too small, but for fun while keeping your conscience in check the little Honda's nailed it. I'm not sure whether Honda has realised the impossible dream its adverts are always going on about with the CR-Z, but they have made a hybrid to hanker after in the process.

As published in The Champion on June 30, 2010

Voluminous V60 also goes for coupe curves

THE days of Volvos being boring and boxy are a step closer to being banished forever after the Swedish firm launched its latest estate earlier this week.

Looking more like a curvaceous coupe than the likes of the angular Volvos of old, the V60 is the latest in a long line of load luggers to emerge from the Gothenburg factory, but the company are hoping to impress buyers with style and a sporty drive as much what it can carry.

“From the design viewpoint, the focus was on making the car as close to a coupé as possible, while retaining that handy extra space at the rear. Our sports wagon does not aim to compete with the traditional estate car. For the customer who wants a lot of load space, there is our V70 or XC70,” said Örjan Sterner, the car's head of exterior design.

“The dip in the middle of the double wave visually pushes the car down. This enhances the stance and makes the car look sleeker and lower. The sculpted bonnet and the short overhangs front and rear also emphasise the sports car feel.”

The company are also claiming it'll be a class leader when it comes to safety - it's a Volvo - and that rather than concentrating on giving buyers a cavernous boot, it's aimed more at buyers impressed with the S60 saloon's style but insistent on having the extra space of an estate.

Anyone looking to impress their fellow IKEA customers is being urged to head to Volvo dealerships in the autumn, when the V60 arrives in the UK.

Getting stung by stretch limousines

ACCORDING to the scientists bees might be on the brink of extinction but I have absolutely no worries for wasps. They have no purpose other than stinging people.

Usually these pesky creatures go straight to the top of my annual chart of summery things I find immensely annoying, but for the first time since I got stung on a camping trip a decade ago they've been knocked off the top spot by a type of vehicle you can't move for at this time of year.

Stretch limousines.

If you've been out on the roads over the past few weeks you might have seen them out and about, and in isolation they're harmless enough, but stuffing them with noisy Prom night students and then sending them out in fleets of three or four at a time is about as sensible as unleashing a herd of elephants into a city centre. Both are noisy, excessively large and somehow - although I know I'm going to get a bit of stick for saying it - just not suited to Britain's crowded highways and byways.

More than once I've got stuck behind one of these things in either Ormskirk or Southport town centre when the driver realises he's taken a wrong turning, and needs to perform the sort of three point turn which would take but a femtosecond in the miniscule machines us non-limo drivers are used to. But in a Ford Excursion the size of Florida, the manouvere seems to take the rest of time.

When everyone keeps telling us to buckle down and get ready for an age of austerity, manouvering around town centres in a Hummer that's thirty feet longer than its creators intended just smacks of the slightly cheesy consumption you only ever get on hen/stag nights and high school prom nights, which ironically seem to provide most of today's stretch limo passengers. You don't look like Lady Gaga getting out one of these things. You like someone who's wasted their money.

If you need to flash the cash, go for a Jag, a Rolls or anything that doesn't need an aircraft runway to turn in. If you need to carry lots of people somewhere, hire a minibus.

If anything had to be on the endangered species list, I'd rather it be limos than wasps.

Forget the innovations, this car is our Olympic hope

THE man who brought you the McLaren F1 has managed to come up with another motoring marvel; a car surely designed to confuse traffic wardens!

The T25 City Car is being hailed as the most radical small car in years but while it's promising all sorts of innovative features, it's bound to cause local authorities all over the country a right headache. No matter what you make of it, you can park three of them into a normal parking space.

Not that this is a new claim of course; Smart made the bold claim when it launched its very first car that you could squeeze two of them into a parking space, by parking them nose into the kerb. But in over a decade of them tooling around our towns and cities, I've never once seen anyone actually trying it out.

The problem isn't that a traffic warden is going to get confused and slap a ticket on your tiny T25 if you try out the new sport of triple parking, although I'd love to see the headlines if one did. It's that - unless the new arrival is wildly successful - you're never going to get a chance to have a go in the first place.

For triple parking to work you'd need to have another two drivers who just happen to also own the three-seater city slicker, and need to park in the same place as you do at just the right moment. Unlikely if you're in a hurry to get to work and just need to stick the car somewhere where it isn't going to get clamped or nicked.

Don't get me wrong, I like small cars immensely but I get the sense that the latest creation from Gordon Murray - who also brought you the Rocket sports car and the Mercedes SLR - is going to have to be wildly successful if it isn't going to be viewed by snotty British car buyers as the next Sinclair C5.

But I hope it is a success, because I reckon triple parking is a sport we could be world leaders at. London 2012, anyone?