Au revoir, Renault 5!

A MOMENT'S reflection for the most reliable car I've ever owned, which finally reached the end of the road today.

Regular readers might remember how excited I got when I paid just £100 - the price of a first class rail ticket - for a Renault 5 earlier this year. Since then it's been as far north as Dumfries, as far south as London and along some of the country's most challenging roads in between, and in 11 months and just two oil changes it has never broken down.

Unfortunately, even two weekends' worth of welding wasn't enough to stop it failing its MOT earlier this week, and the news was far worse than I'd feared. To repair the rot beneath the front wings would take weeks and cost far more than the old girl's worth, so after 16 years and 123,000 miles it's finally reached the end of its working life. As sad it seems, she's off to the scrapyard.

I won't miss the clattery old engine or spartan interior but I already miss lots of things about it, including its ridiculously spacious interior and its surprisingly sporty handling. But most of all I'll miss it as a bargain buy; £100 for almost a year's worth of malady-free motoring is going to be hard to beat.

Not that it won't stop me trying, of course, and today I've been down to Liverpool to draft in its replacement.

I won't reveal exactly what the newest Life On Cars bargain basement car is but I will reveal some tantalising clues; it's a hatchback with a bigger boot than the tiny Renault's, it's got five doors rather than three, it's packed with Japanese technology but it's been proudly made in a British factory.

Oh, and it cost just £300, meaning I can now climb up the ladder into the opulent world of immobilisers, electric windows and half leather seats. All will be revealed tomorrow...

Morgan's 1920s three wheeler is the perfect car for 2011

MORGANS. You either get them, or you don't.

Why, when you can get your sports car thrills from a poised Porsche Boxster or BMW Z4, would you want a car crafted from wood by chaps in the Malvern Hills, topped off with a Thirties throwback body and lashings of chrome? Well, I would for starters.

I was lucky enough to drive one last year, and I loved the utterly alive steering feel, the grunt of the exahust note and the evocative view down the bonnet, and it seems, given the length of the firm's waiting list, that so do lots of you. But to condemn the century-old carmaker as a company which just forgot to take its older models out of production is to dismiss what I reckon could be one of next year's most exciting driving experiences.

As much as I love the evocative idea of Morgan's factory being a glorified garden shed full of plucky British craftsmen nailing old cars together over a cup of tea amid a mist of timbery smells, I know the reality's a lot more space-age than that.

They've not only developed the LifeCar, which blends state of the art aerodynamics with trendy hybrid technology, but also equip their more expensive models not with any old engines, but sophisticated BMW Motorsport powerhouses designed by white-coated scientists in Germany.

But it's their decision to take their oldest design of all - the three-wheeler from the Twenties - and put it back into production that I'm most looking forward to, because when it does go on sale next year it will be the world's wackiest take on making smaller, greener cars.

The aptly named Morgan Threewheeler will weigh half a ton and will keep Greenpeace happy because it has a 1.8 litre motorbike engine, but more importantly it'll look and drive unlike any other car on the market. It's a car that looks like a cross between a Sopwith Camel and a vintage Grand Prix racer, minus a back wheel.

Stirling Moss, who owned one of the originals, said his was “a great babe magnet”. I rest my case.

Fire up the... Renault Wind

RENAULT'S decidely dinky little two-seater isn't a Wind so much as a breath of fresh air.

The company's choice to take its Twingo city car, chop off the top and replace it with a folding metal roof unlike anything you'll have seen before wasn't exacty something you would have been expecting when they announced the new arrival earlier this year, but it does offer the ideal option for cabriolet fans daring to try something different.

Not only is it suitably more stylish than the urban runabout it's based on, but it also looks unlike any of the other open-tops on offer for less than £20,000, thanks largely to a folding metal roof that's rather different to its rivals.

Taking an idea last tried by Ferrari, the roof doesn't dissapear into the boot, but instead sits on top of it, meaning that whether you're travelling al fresco or not you'll always get the same 270 litres' worth of space for your shopping. It's not only a clever USP, but it means the Renault isn't blessed with the frumpy proportions of its Coupe-Cabriolet competitors.

You'll also like the cute proportions and the way the hidden door handles help to keep the Wind's lines clean, but you probably won't be as pleased with the interior, which is livelier than the Twingo thanks to its leather seats but still looks more obviously plastic than the likes of Peugeot's 207CC, another French flyer for a similar price.

Out on the road the 133bhp powerplant - swiped straight from the Renaultsport Twingo - is lively enough, producing a sweet sound, but it's obvious it doesn't have the same get up and go as its hard-top cousin, largely due to the common cabriolet problem of having to carry extra weight, dulling the performance.

But chances are you aren't going to mind, because what it does is take on the mantle of the old MGF by blending distinctive looks, sporty if not spectacular handling and an undeniable fun factor, which should mean that come next summer there'll be plenty speeding away from the company's showrooms.

It's not the sharpest open-top for the money but for something which sets its stall out not as a sports car but as a cabrio with a difference, it's as invigorating as the breeze in your hair.

As published in The Champion on November 3, 2010

Licensed to thrill

FOUND a spare £3 million stashed somewhere behind your sofa? If you're planning on blowing it on the world's most famous car, you've missed your chance.

The Aston Martin DB5 used by Sean Connery to chat up girls in Goldfinger and Thunderball has just been flogged off at auction for a cool £2,912,000, and word is it's off to Ohio to become the centrepiece of a privately-owned collection there. So it means another iconic bit of our movie-making heritage is being shipped away from British shores.

Don't worry though, because if you do what I've just done and pay a visit to the picturesque town of Keswick, you can clock not one, but two spot-the-difference DB5s sat in museums up there. Anyone who's ever been up to the Lakes on a rainy day is probably already familiar with the one sat in the town's Cars of The Stars Museum, but it's the much newer Bond Museum, a ten minute walk to the other side of the town, that's really worth the visit. If you've ever seen a Bond film - and I know of only one person who hasn't - it's an absolute gem.

Obviously you get a silver DB5 thrown in - it is THE James Bond car - but you also get to see the aquatic Lotus Esprit once used to transport Roger Moore's eyebrows around, the invisible Aston from Die Another Day (although this particular gadget wasn't working that day) and just about every other prop Pinewood Studios had lying around.

But my own particular favourite had to be the actual car used to escape from some annoyed Czech police officers in The Living Daylights, even though I was convinced it'd been blown up as part of the car chase across a frozen lake. It is the real star from my favourite Bond film of all, even though Timothy Dalton was also the best actor to play Bond. There, I said it.

Whether you're a petrolhead or not, if you've ever enjoyed any James Bond film you're going to love this museum, which is well worth the visit on your next walking holiday in the Lakes.

Complaints from Sean Connery fans to the usual address, please.

Mountains, museums and motors

AT one point, on a particularly gridlocked M6 near Lancaster, I actually thought going on another driving adventure was a bad idea.

Some of you might have spotted something I'd planned called The Mountains and Museums Run, which had it not got cancelled thanks to no promotion whatsoever, would have last weekend been the first ever Life On Cars event. It got shelved because most of the classic car nuts (rightly) decided that October's just too wet and wild to take their pride and joy out, but - given that I'd booked a few days off - a few mates and I decided to go anyway.

Designed to be done in just two days, it's a cracking route through the countryside, taking in two counties, two National Parks, three motoring museums and one pub with very tall ambitions. More importantly, it mixes some of Britain's most demanding roads, including the Buttertubs and Kirkstone mountain passes - to make the motoring extra memorable.

With the Mini long gone and the MGB nowhere near ready, it fell to the £100 Renault 5 to get me to the fells, and as soon as I got there it became instantly obvious that it was far faster than either of the two Minis my mates had brought along. For a car I bought originally as something to keep me moving while my own Mini was in winter hibernation earlier this year; it's really grown on me despite the dowdy styling. As well as being endlessly reliably, it's got far more poise and precision than any 1.4 hatchback really ought to!

What I did learn from my lessons in the Lakes? Firstly, that The Mountains and Museums Run can be done in less than two days with stops at Cars of the Stars, The Bond Museum and the Lakeland Motor Museum to spare. The route's here in all its glory, if you fancy giving it a go yourself, but I am planning on doing it as a proper event, when the weather's better, sometime next year.

But more importantly I've reminded myself that it doesn't really matter what you're behind the wheel of (though it helps), as long as you've got a group of mates behind you and a few miles of challenging mountain passes ahead. You might have to put up with a few gridlocked motorways on the way there, but it's worth it.

The smiles are back.

Fire up the... Suzuki Swift

UNDERESTIMATE this innocuous-looking little scamp at your own peril, because for all its supermarket-run styling Suzuki's Swift is the unlikely driving hit of the year.

You might struggle to spot the difference between this and the outgoing Suzuki supermini - thanks to the mildest of aesthetic updates, the two do look VERY similar - but the slightly frumpier proportions and the larger lights let you know this is the latest in a long line of small cars from the Japanese company. Whisper it quietly, but I actually preferred looking at its predecessor!

Part of the new look is a boot lip that's unusually higher than its small car rivals, which shouldn't bother the trendy younger buyers it's aimed at but could prove a problem if you're a pensioner struggling to lift a week's worth of shopping into the boot. It doesn't give off the same feeling of quality as Ford's Fiesta either; don't worry, the Swift's screwed together superbly, but it just doesn't show it off in the same way.

But put all that behind you and give it a go anyway, because on the road the Swift is far more fun than you'd ever expect it to be. It's balletic rather than ballistic and relies more on its finely-balanced suspension than its 1.2 litre engine to put a smile on your face, but the charming rasp from the exhaust and the wonderfully communicative steering egg you on into every corner.

One of the best things about is its flick-of-the-wrist gearchange, easily the most enjoyable of any car this side of Mazda's MX-5. Admittedly, the feel of the gearchange isn't going to be high up your list of priorities when you're looking for your next new car, but the difference between a duff one and something as smooth and rifle quick as this one can completely change the feeling from behind the wheel.

Amazingly, it's very nearly as much fun to drive as Citroen's DS3, a much more powerful motor costing almost twice the price.

Get past your small car prejudices and there's a hot hatch hit screaming to get out of the little Swift, and you'd be an idiot to overlook it.

As published in The Champion on October 28, 2010

A fond farewell

SO that's it then. After almost two years and a string of anecdotal incidents, the Mini is gone.

Even now, more than two days after I finally sold my very first motor, I'm still getting calls from Champion readers, who I'm having to disappoint because they're now among the hoardes of hopefuls who haven't just bought a bargain starter classic. In the end, the first person who saw the 1983 Mayfair offered me the right price - in cash - for it, and as you read this it'll be sat solemnly somewhere in Skelmersdale.

Why did I do it? Because the Mini - well, that particular Mini - is a very hands-on kind of car, which rewards fastidious sorts of people who like to fiddle and fettle with it constantly. I'm a petrolhead not because I enjoy messing and mending with motors but because I enjoy driving, and I struggle to see the point of a car, even one as good as a Mini, if it spends more time with its tyres in the air than tearing up the tarmac.

Naturally, I've been told by my mates at Mini Southport and Ormskirk District that I've got to get another example of the 51-year-old design classic, and I will...eventually. But to fill the oil-stained space the Mayfair's left it'll have to be a Cooper in Britpop spec (red, white stripes, Union Flag roof) and much, much better condition.

My own Mini was like Friends - endlessly entertaining, but littered with unfortunate incidents everyone laughs at it but aren't funny for the people involved. I'll never forget The One With The Ten Hour Breakdown Recovery, The One With The Annoyed North Wales Police Officers, The One With The Overheated Engine or even the one Mini adventure I still get asked about more than any other... The One Where The Wheel Fell Off.

The Renault 5 which usually comes to my rescue, conversely, cost a quarter what I paid for the Mini originally and has never broken down. So rather than face the battle of trying to repair a car that's rusting away faster than my long-suffering friends can repair it, I decided to sell it to a proper classic car fan, someone who enjoys that sort of suffering because they call it "a project".

Naturally, the sensible thing to do now would be save the money up, spend it on something like a Honda Jazz and enthuse endlessly about how much more reliable the Japanese machine is compared to the Mini, but that'd be the boring option.

What I've opted to do instead is to invest in an another British-made motor with a slightly suspect reliability record, because it's my classic car project.

Damn...