The new Porsche Boxster

IT MIGHT still feel like the dead of winter outside but that hasn't stopped Porsche announcing a new version of an open-top sports car favourite.

The Stuttgart supercar makers said the third generation of the Boxster will go on sale this spring with an all-new body, a completely revised chassis and a range of new flat six engines, and as with its two predecessors is hoping to be the keen driver's choice of convertible.

A Porsche spokesman said: "The styling of the new Boxster clearly signals the unique driving experience on offer; with shorter front and rear overhangs, significantly forward-shifted windscreen, a flatter silhouette and expressive edges. Inside, the passengers are enclosed by a new fully electric hood, which now dispenses with a compartment lid for the convertible top when stowed.

"The interior design offers the driver and passenger more space and reflects the new Porsche outline, while the distinctive centre console – originating in the Carrera GT – further improves ergonomics."

The Boxster goes on sale on April 28, with the basic version starting at £37,589 and the Boxster S starting from £45,384.

The old Renault 5, not the new one, is the perfect car for Cameron's Britain

TORIES and Liberal Democrats, look away now. The buzzword I’ve heard most since the establishment of Cameron’s Britain is “austerity”.

Blame who you like but austerity is everywhere, from the library that shut down six months ago to the vacant shops dotting the town centres. The TV screens are awash with anarchic imagery of Greek people burning things and news correspondents looking confused, unsure of which political party or city banker to blame it all on. Everyone knows these are austere times. Except Renault.

The French, you see, are reckoning on a reinvention of the iconic Renault 5 as a way to light up the supermini market in the way the latest Clio and Twingo haven’t, but they’re making the mistake of tilting it squarely at the Citroen DS3. This, in Cameron’s Britain, is a mistake.

I like to think I know a bit about the Renault 5 because I owned one and absolutely loved it. While the fact my very ropey Campus model cost just £100 helped, it really was the archetypal austerity car. Due to the fact it came with absolutely no equipment at all the engineering effort went into making sure the few bits you did get worked perfectly, and even after 120,000 miles it still started on the button every single time. I suspected it’d survive everything up to and including a light nuclear blast.

It was also much, much quicker than an ancient 1.4 hatchback had any right to be and easily the most spacious car I’ve owned. Both, I suspect, down to there being absolutely nothing in the way of luxuries to weigh it down or clutter it up. Prison cells come better equipped these days than the old 5 did.

But the new one, if predictions are right, won’t be a car for peasants and paupers, but a posh one with all sorts of unnecessarily bourgeois equipment like cruise control and electric windows and central locking. In the old one, you were lucky if you got a working heater!

What Cameron’s Britain of spending cuts and soaring unemployment needs isn’t a Renault 5 that’s weighed down with pricey electrical equipment that’ll only break anyway. It needs a real replacement for the old warhorse, which offers cash-strapped families a five star Euro NCAP safety rating – another Renault tradition, don’t forget – and absolutely nothing else so that they too can afford a brand new car.

Then again, even if Renault does bring out a new and rather more decadent reinvention of the 5 it won’t reach us until at least 2014. Maybe they know something about an economic recovery the rest of us don’t?

Charge up the... Mia Electric

THE ingredients would make for a mouth-watering supercar. It is rear-engined and rear-wheel drive, like a 911. The driving position is in the middle, just as it is in a McLaren F1. And it’s all put together by a small French specialist – just like the legions of Venturis, Alpines and Matras car enthusiasts love.

But the recipe is for a small electric van that’s full of surprises.

The Mia – which Life On Cars is one of the first publications in the region to test drive – is a battery-powered load lugger which Brit buyers will be able to order as either a car or a van, and the Franco-German firm which builds them are hoping a warm response over here will help them hit their production target of 10,000 cars a year. The van I tested was small and upright in the vein of, say, the Bedford Rascal beloved of small businesses back in the Eighties, but clock the smooth contours and you realise that’s where the similarities end.

Once you get used to that central driving position you realise the interior’s got all the gadgets you’d expect but is still sparsely laid out – if anything, it reminded me of the Lotus Elise, which also has a dashboard limited to a simplistic bar running across the cabin. It might not have been the last word in luxury, but I liked it.

Yet what really impressed was the way it drove, which is far better than you’d expect an electrically-propelled city slicker to manage. The steering was a little on the light side but I actually enjoyed the oomph offered up the little Mia, while the easy-going ride and the tidy handling will keep your passengers on either side happy. You almost forget that you’re limited to a top speed of 60mph.

Admittedly, it costs £20,000 – the same as a decently-specced Ford Transit – and only does 80 miles on a charge but I get where the Mia is coming from. If you’re one of those small businesses who raved about the Rascal then I reckon you’d love one of these, because it offers up the same sort of cargo space, it’s cheap to run, a doddle to park and makes other motorists look because it’s cute. If all you do are deliveries around town then the Mia’s a capable and eco-friendly contender for your cash.

It’s also – with the going rate for a secondhand McLaren F1 soaring into the millions – probably the only middle-hand-drive car I’ll ever test.

2012 Ormskirk MotorFest wins backing of councillors

A 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest is one step closer to revving into action after West Lancashire councillors voted tonight to give it their support.

At a cabinet meeting at West Lancashire Borough Council – situated a stone’s throw from the MotorFest street circuit route – plans to support another event and to grant it funding to the tune of £17,500 were given the green light, paving the way for hundreds of classic cars and motorbikes to visit the market town for a second time.

Ormskirk councillor Adrian Owens, the borough council’s deputy leader, said at the meeting:

“I fully support the idea of another Ormskirk MotorFest. As an Ormskirk councillor, I saw that it was a great success.

“Here is an event which brought 10,000 people into the town, and while we should look for additional sponsors to help cover the costs of such an event I believe it is one the council should fully support.”

The £17,500 funding will be provided by the council to Aintree Circuit Club, who organised last year’s MotorFest and are keen to build on that event’s success for 2012.

Although the council has now lent its support to the Ormskirk MotorFest being held again a definite date has yet to be announced, although provisions have already been put in place to hold the event on the August Bank Holiday weekend, similar to the inaugural event last year.

Life On Cars, which in August 2010 was the first motoring website to reveal details of the inaugural MotorFest, produced an offically-backed magazine to help accompany the event.

What do you think? Let us know if you’re looking forward to a 2012 Ormskirk MotorFest by leaving a comment below.

Fear and fun on The Horseshoe Pass

IT WAS with a particularly potent blend of apprehensiveness that I approached one of my all-time favourite roads yesterday.

On the way to the Mini show in Llandudno I ventured onto the wonderful bit of winding tarmac that is the Horseshoe Pass, which after an agonisingly long climb from the picturesque town of Llangollen takes you to one of the most stunning bits of scenery you'll find anywhere in North Wales. Only this time, I was more than a little nervous.


Only days earlier it'd been the scene of a tragic accident in which two people had been killed, which served as stark reminder that while a good road is great fun, it's deadly in the wrong conditions at the wrong speeds, and with it being such a cold day the threat of black ice was never far away. Nor was my weapon of choice for tackling it the best for a greasy winter run; while my MX-5, on new tyres, was no longer scarily skittish, the relative unfamiliarity meant I'd be taking it very easy on the way up.

Yet taken properly I can understand why the bikers love the Horseshoe as much as they do; it really is an awe-inspiring journey. With the Mazda behaving itself I could drop the roof, take in the crisp mountain air, and enjoy what really is some wonderful scenery.


Every year I always pull in at the same spot at the top for the obligatory, badly-taken smartphone snap, and it amazed me how different conditions at different times of year can completely change the same setting. Twelve months ago I ventured up there in my old Rover and was met with wet 'n' wild weather on a dark, grey day, while a few months before that I was in a brand new MX-5 and pulled up in a scene from The Italian Job. Yesterday, in my much, much older Mazzer, the steely blue skies and relentless low sunlight made for a different atmosphere again.

It is an endlessly enjoyable part of the world if you love cars and driving but as I pointed the MX-5's pop-up lights towards Ruthin I couldn't shake the feeling that that car and those roads had so much more to offer.


Roll on summer...

Mini Wirral to Llandudno Run 2012

SCORES of small car fans descended on North Wales this weekend to show off a host of classic Minis in the seaside resort of Llandudno.

Life On Cars wrapped up warm, headed for the seaside and took these pictures of classic Minis galore for you to enjoy....
















Have you got a classic car event you'd like to promote? Get in touch with Life On Cars at david.simister@hotmail.co.uk

Prepare to fire up the... Dacia Duster

YOU'D be forgiven for thinking the small, no-nonsense off-roader is a dying breed, but at least one company's determined to bring it back.

Rewind the clock back 20 years and there were plenty of options for anyone needing to head into the countryside without the budget for a Land Rover, but the likes of the Suzuki Samurai, the Daihatsu Fourtrak and the Lada Niva are long gone. Dacia, however, are banking on bucking the trend with a modern alternative to spearhead their return to the UK market later this year, and are hoping hardy rural tyes are going to reckon their Duster 4x4 is rugged enough for the rough stuff.

A spokesman for the company has said that since its launch on the continent two years ago its carved a niche for itself, and said:

“Since its launch in April 2010, Dacia's off-road model – the sixth model in the Dacia line-up – has enjoyed tremendous success in all the countries where it is marketed. It is available with 4x4 or 4x2 transmission and combines unbeatable cabin space for its price with genuine off-road ability, while the model's diesel versions are particularly CO2-efficient.

”Dacia Duster is as much a functional buy as it is a leisure purchase, and it has lost no time carving out a real market for itself since launch.“

The Romanian company is owned by Renault and is marketed as the French giant's budget brand, in much the same way that Skoda already offers us Volkswagen know-how in a cut-price package. In fact, it's Skoda which is likely to present Dacia with the Duster's biggest challenge, with the Czech company's Yeti already offering similiar off-road ability on the 4x4 versions.

However Dacia could pull it off if the predicted £11,000 entry price proves right when it arrives in Britain in October, which is half what you'd pay for an entry-level Land Rover Defender. The Duster isn't going to win any prizes for prestige or originality, but if a no-nonsense off-roader at a no-nonsense price would make perfect sense for plenty of rural motorists.