[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.’ And then they steal his milk, and rightly so.Because despite the wild claims of Diesel Man, diesel cars rarely average more than 35mpg.If he says he’s getting 50 or 60, you can tell him from me that he is a liar.And then punch him in the face.Alfa Romeo has done its level best to enliven the concept of diesel motoring, droning on and on about its new five-cylinder turbocharged 2.4-litre five-cylinder engine.But the simple fact is this: at 4000rpm, when a normal Alfa would be rolling up its sleeves for an all-out, spine-tingling assault on the upper reaches of its bloodcurdling rev band, the diesel version is out of puff and begging for a gear change.Yes, the diesel has torque, but where’s the power? Where’s the zing, zing, snap, snap, whoa-that-was-close excitement of a Twin Spark.Or the would-you-listen-to-that bellow of the V6.Where’s the fun?You sit there, on your Recaro seat, clasping a Momo leather steering wheel, gazing over a carbon-fibre dashboard, listening to an engine that belongs in a bloody tractor.They say it’s eight decibels quieter than a normal diesel, but that’s like saying Concorde is quieter than a Harrier.It’s still noisy enough to give you a nosebleed.And at £20,300, it’s not cheap.The Twin Spark 2.0-litre version is £100 less and completes a double whammy by being about a million, billion, trillion times better.PS.Oh, and before I go, A.A.Gill wants to buy an Alfa, so if you have one for sale drop him a line.Doesn’t matter what model.He can’t tell them apart.Yes, you can cringe in comfort in a Rover 75I’ve just finished reading this month’s edition of GQ, which is a style magazine for men, and it seems 1970s kitsch is very much in vogue at the moment.Beanbags are back, and so are lava lamps.Then we find page after page of furniture that is made from black leather and brushed aluminium, such as you’d have found on an old Akai tape deck.Or wood, which is so dark and so heavily grained it actually looks like Fablon.So, if the 1970s are in, then the new Rover ought to be the car of the moment.It’s even called the 75, to remind us of a time when 10CC were not in love, and it is festooned with all sorts of natty throwback styling details.If this car could have its hair done, it would probably go for an Afro.Seriously, it’s actually very handsome and, though it’s big, it’s not at all tank-like.No more than a tank top anyway.But, strangely, this is an acutely embarrassing car to drive.Maybe it’s me.I’m the first to admit that I don’t like Ben Sherman shirts or those new shoes which look like punts.I buy into fashion only when I’m absolutely sure it isn’t fashionable any more.I can’t abide the idea that I might be setting a trend because – who knows? – it might be a trend nobody else will follow, and I’ll be left out there with a halibut on my head and big pink kneepads.Well, that’s how I felt in the new Rover.Idiotic.Out of step.Not sure whether I was Dr Finlay or Dr Feelgood.Did I want milk or did I want alcohol?The problem is simple.The 75 has been on sale for months, and I have not yet seen one.The new Jags, which are a deal more expensive, are everywhere, but nobody is buying the 75.So people were looking at me, and that’s unnerving.I think I see why Rover has taken on Sophie Wessex to help get the nation ‘on message’.According to Brian Sewell, the art critic who was used in commercials for the 75, she will get high-profile, trendsetting opinion-formers into the car, so the rest of us will breathe a sigh of relief and follow suit.But I fear it won’t work.Sewell cites A.A.Gill as a prime target for Sophie, but I know he’d rather pay for an Alfa than be given a Rover.And when you look at all those smiling faces at GQ’s Man of the Year party, you can’t help thinking: How many of you lot would buy a Rover.Jamie Oliver? Johnny Vaughan? TPT? Not a chance.Above all, you see, it’s Rover, and that is just about the least cool badge in the business.At best, it is associated with tweedy doctors in Harrogate; at worst, it conjures up visions of Red Robbo dancing like a Cossack in Lickey End.Rover, the name, is a dog.But what of the car? Mine came with a 2.5-litre V6 that went with the automatic gearbox about as well as a marriage between Harold Pinter and Scary Spice.Do not think this is a fast car and you will still be disappointed.It is woefully lethargic, unwilling to kick down, and, even when it does, a lumbering barge.Then there’s the interior, which is even more wrong.I liked the piping on the seats.I liked the seats themselves, and I liked the creamy dials.But why have they put ultramodern LCD displays alongside ancient LEDs and set them all against a wood ’n’ leather backdrop?That said, my car had every conceivable toy, which caused me to guess its price at £35,000.In fact, you could buy such a thing for just £25,000, and that’s good value.Good, but not amazing.The handling, however, is neither good nor amazing.I suspect BMW ordered Rover’s engineers to stay away from 3- and 5-series sportiness and, as a result, we’ve been given a wheeled suet pudding.But because of this the Rover does have one trump card.After a hard day at work, when your head is pounding and the traffic is awful, there is no better car in this class for getting you home.It is as comfortable as a Rolls-Royce, soaking up Mr Prescott’s speed mountains like they’re just not there.And it’s eerily quiet, too, so that as you get on to the motorway and hit the cruise control, you simply cannot believe you’re in a machine that goes head to head with a BMW 3-series, let alone a Ford Mondeo.So if you’re in the market for a car that drives like a candlelit bath, the Rover 75 should be your first choice.But, of course, if you’re in the market for such a thing, you are almost certainly old.With Volvo out of the way, and Nissan now importing the Skyline GTR, Rover has a clear run at the Saga louts.75? It should be the minimum age limit for buying one.Don’t you hate it when everything works?I’m writing this on a new computer, which has decided that all ‘I’s shall be capitals and that occasionally it’s fun to type the odd word in Greek.So I’ve spent most of the day on the phone to a man who explained, with a lot of sighing, that it’s all very simple.And I suppose it is, if you’ve spent the past 14 years in an attic.Even now, the Internet isn’t working, there’s a new machine on my desk which apparently does nothing, I can’t send e-mail and, every time I ask the computer to print something out, it says I have performed an illegal operation and will shut down.What I should do, of course, is take the whole damned thing over to Seattle and shove it up Bill Gates’s arse
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]