The sinister conspiracy of the That's Not A Classic Club

Originally published in Classic Car Weekly, 23 October 2013

Top safety ratings for four new cars

FOUR new arrivals at showrooms across the north west have all been given a coveted European safety rating.

Crash test experts at the Euro NCAP programme have confirmed the new Jeep Cherokee, Mercedes-Benz CLA, Suzuki SX-4 and Peugeot 2008 have all been awarded its highest rating of five stars – good news for anyone thinking of buying one.

To find out how your car performed in the tests go to to the Euro NCAP website.

Winter is here. Thank God for Honda and its new small sports car

IT’S that time of year again – the bit where I’m dreading more motoring misery and driving home in the dark.

A flotsam of leaves have fallen from the trees onto an increasingly wet and windy north west landscape, the clocks have been wound back, and the predictable slew of automotive experts have been rolled out to tell us how we’re all going to have to concentrate extra hard to make sure we don’t crash in the dark.

The perfect time, then, to talk about small, open top sports cars.

Maybe I’ve spent too much time poking my nose around old MG Midgets and Triumph Spitfires this summer, but I’ve been keeping an eye on the more recent al-fresco offerings and haven’t exactly been bowled over. The Jaguar F-type, for instance, toyed with us for years with its promises of being a Boxster basher that’d make every Brit proud, but while it looks fabulous its £58,000 starting price isn’t exactly in tune with a nation worried about paying its next gas bill.

Toyota’s open-top version of the excellent GT-86, it’s now being widely rumoured, has been axed, while the problem with the rest of the small sports cars you can actually afford is that there simply aren’t any. The MG TF, Fiat Barchetta, Daihatsu Copen and Toyota MR-2 are all gone. Mazda and Alfa Romeo have teamed up to create two MX-5 based roadsters, but the finished product still seems a long way off. That is the only ray of faint sunshine in a winter utterly devoid of fun cars.

Or at least it was until Honda and Caterham got in on the act.

I smiled the smile of a chocoholic let loose at Cadbury World when I found out Caterham – who, don’t forget, have been a bit busy running F1 teams lately – have got back to basics and made a cheaper version of the Seven which goes back to its roots. The end result might not be the quickest thing the company’s ever created, but it costs the same as a low-spec Ford Focus and has skinny little tyres, a motorbike engine and next to no weight or creature comforts whatsoever. In other words, big fun.

But even that pales into comparision with what Honda’s been up to, on the other side of the world. While all the eyes at next month’s Tokyo Motor Show will be on the new NSX supercar, the boffins have also found time to create the S660, which is a tiny, mid-engined, open-top sports car.

Forget the technology and the snazzy styling – it’s the new Healey Sprite. Get making it, Honda!

Forget the Cygnet. Toyota and Aston should team up to make a proper small car

WHAT do you get if you cross Britain’s coolest brand with one of my favourite small cars? A sales flop in the making, apparently.

You might already know that Aston Martin, makers of James Bond’s motors of choice, have taken the axe to their smallest model, after just three years. It joins the Tickford Metro and the Panther Rio in the list of expensive-but-not-expansive relics that show why kitting out small cars with just about every extra imaginable just doesn’t work. I’m not surprised; given the choice between a Toyota iQ that’s had its price trebled or a shiny new Lotus Elise, I know which I’d take.

The Cygnet’s story of the ugly duckling not quite turning into the swan Aston had hoped is – if you’ve been reading the motoring magazines at least – well documented, but its demise has put a more important truth in the shade.

The Toyota iQ, the car the Cygnet’s based on, is an absolute belter.

I remember first driving one on the country lanes of North Wales four years ago and being amazed at how well what looks like a washing machine on wheels handles. Considering I’d just stepped out of an original Mini and hopped straight into the weirdly-proportioned baby Toyota, I remember being blown away by how surefooted it felt.

The big news back in 2009 was that the iQ could squeeze four people into the same space Smart managed to get two, although the tradeoff was forever having to choose between your mates and your luggage. It was – and, I reckon, still is – a very cleverly engineered little car which manages to fit an impossibly great deal of stuff into what should be an unreasonably small space. Not unlike what my beloved Mini managed all those years ago!

In fact, the reason why the iQ isn’t on every other driveway in the land – even though it costs a third of what the Cygnet did – is down to a problem of Toyota’s own doing. Wander into one of its showrooms and you can also buy something called the Aygo, which might not be as extravagantly engineered but it’s even more fun to drive, has room for mates AND luggage at the same time and costs less to buy. It’s a win win for the world’s biggest car company, of course, but probably not for clever cars that appeal to people like me.

Unless, of course, Aston and Toyota team up and create a small car that doesn’t have the oddball factor. A GT86 sports car with Aston trimmings and the badge to match? Yes please!

Aintree Circuit Club wins national award

The team behind the Ormskirk MotorFest have won a national award for their contributions to motorsport.

Aintree Circuit Club, who organised the motorsport-themed event in the West Lancashire town on August 25, have been awarded a £500 prize by the Motorsport Industry Association, who praised their efforts to boost the event’s appeal by hosting a series of autotest events in the town.

Members of Aintree Circuit Club will be officially presented with their award at the Autosport International Show at the NEC in Birmingham next January.

Find out more about Aintree Circuit Club by visiting their website.

My name is David and I'm a fuel economy addict

MY EYES light up as I get ever bigger readouts emerging from the dashboard. Over the past few weeks, the cut ‘n’ thrust of the morning commute has made a numbers junkie out of me.

Only it isn’t the need for speed or a readiness for revs and redlines that’s got me hooked. It’s the cheap-looking digital display – seemingly stolen from a Casio calculator – that tells me what I’m getting for my gallon.

Regular readers will know that earlier this summer I chucked a grand in the direction of a 51-plate Ford Mondeo. It’s a Ghia X which means it comes with electric everything, a feisty foursome of leather seats and the joys of cruise control, but by far and away its most impressive feature is the two litre beast which lives beneath the bonnet. While I’ll never get bored of its silky smoothness or the 148 Dagenham-bred horses which haul it along, it’s the fuel economy which proves so frustratingly addictive.

Every drive is a mission to eke another tenth of a mile to the gallon out of it. Thanks to a crummy digital readout between the speedo and the rev counter, I have inadvertently become the polar opposite of a boy racer, completely obsessed with fuel economy.

This, by the way, isn’t my attempt to get all politically trendy and jump on the cost-of-living debate. Fuel’s expensive whatever you’re driving, and the Mondeo is always doing somewhere in the region of 34 miles to the gallon. That’s exactly what my much lighter Mazda MX-5 used to get from its 1.6 litre engine, so for a thumping great two litre to get that from a far heavier saloon is, in my book, extraordinary.

But it’s never enough because that display compels you to try and beat your own record every time you go for a drive. Why do 34 to the gallon when you can do 34.1?

It’s ridiculous; it’s the fastest and most powerful car I’ve ever owned and yet every morning I drive it to work like an elderly parish priest, gently caressing the gas pedal and politely declining overtaking opportunities because of the cranial rush you get from being awarded an extra tenth of the mile to the gallon. On one afternoon, I actually got my photographer friend in the passenger seat to take a shot of that glorious moment when I got 35 whole miles to the gallon. For reasons I'm still not entirely sure of, it mattered.

The first step to dealing with an addiction is talking about it. I’m a fuel economy addict, but I guess it’s better than being hooked on speed.

For sale - Rover 214SEi

The Rover 214SEi which has appeared here on Life On Cars and on a number of occasions in Classic Car Weekly is up for sale.

This N-registered model is the 214SEi, and comes with features including electric front windows, alloy wheels and half-leather seats - making it one of the more luxuriously equipped models in the 200 range when it was sold new way back in 1996.

While the car isn't perfect, and will need attention on the clutch and gearbox in particular before its next MOT next August, it's long proven a reliable runner, and has never broken down in the three years I've owned it. In the time I've had it, it's travelled as far afield as Cornwall, the Norfolk Broads, North Wales and the Lake District, and always got there quietly, faultlessly and comfortably.

The car MOT'd until August 2014, taxed until January 2014, 75,000 miles, lots of history, good condition throughout, and has never broken down in three years of ownership.

If you're looking for a cheap runaround with plenty of Longbridge heritage behind it, feel free to make me an offer! Give me a ring on 07581 343476 or drop me a line using the usual Life On Cars contact details...