Clarkson on Cars

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The problem is he starts getting into specific cars. I love hearing about car lines, but hearing about how the "new" Honda CRX and their brand new NSX that they are coming out with. The NSX is only 10 years younger than me and unless you want to hear every minute detail about the original edition of the car, what's the point? After 5-6 of these specific articles in a row, I just had to stop. Toyota is suffering from much the same problem. Yes, it makes the excellent GT86, but where are the Celicas and the Supras? What happened to the days when it made a special rear-wheel-drive version of the Corolla simply so youths could do skidding? And what about that four-wheel-drive coupe that had a nostril? Why do none of its cars have nostrils any more? Noticing the proliferation of USB ports around the cabin, including in the sides of the front seats, he concluded: “This … is a car where everyone can be connected, so who cares that it takes about a year to get from 0 to 60?”

Audi A8: “When you select reverse, the radio turns itself down. Is this so you can hear when your dog’s head bursts? Surely it’s too late then.” Jeremy Clarkson has been driving cars, writing about them and occasionally voicing his opinions on the BBC's Top Gear for twenty years. Miscellaneous: “There are now many crossover 4×4 family school-run SUV MPV whatever you want to call them vehicles, and for the most part they are all absolutely terrible … I’d rather be friends publicly with Piers Morgan than friends with someone who has a crossover car.” After only a very short period of time I’d developed a frothing hatred for this new car, and at this point I hadn’t even delved into the control system, which is displayed on a screen the size of a council house television in the middle of the dash. Unfortunately, it's niche stuff, and Japan has never been very good at that. Japan was always about the bottom line, and the truth is, there's more money to be made selling a billion Areolas than there is to be made from selling half a dozen fire-breathing V10 LFAs.

The steering is vague, the engine is coarse, the gearbox is constantly confused, the wind noise is laughable and the interior looks like a Sanyo music centre from the late 1970s.” 3. Cupra Formentor

There are pure electric cars, too, such as the Nissan Leaf. But the less we say about those, the better. Because let’s be clear. They are interesting to write about, but . . . They. Do. Not. Work.”A man called Swampy had taken up residence in a tunnel just outside Newbury in Berkshire and started talking about something called “the environment”. Now there had been lots of anti-state, anti-system Swampies in the past, shouting about workers’ rights and peace and communism, but none had gained any traction with the middle classes. [Now] Leninism had a new face. It was the face of a drowning polar bear. And everyone seemed to like it.”

Even after shutting all the electronic nanny systems down, they came on again as soon as Jeremy re-started the car, leading him to a point where he just wanted the experience to end. While he didn’t really like the looks of the new model or the interior touchscreen that “baffles and annoys everyone over the age of twelve,” he found it powerful, good to drive and, as has always been a characteristic of the Golf GTI, just as comfortable on a hard B-road blast as it is for sedate, everyday driving. But Clarkson said there was a significant caveat: because the hybrid power is really there as a result of government policymakers, he said, “Ferrari didn’t build [the 296 GTB] to be the best it could be — but built it to be the best current political thinking says it can be.”

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I once bought a Scirocco GLi because Car magazine said it could do the 0 to 60 sprint in 8.1 seconds, which meant it was better in every way than my mate’s Chevette HS, which took 8.2 seconds,” he wrote. “We’d argue about that tenth for hours because we knew that the faster your car accelerated, the better and more attractive you were as a person. I don’t have a clue what’s caused the change in attitude, but no one seems to want fun from their family cars anymore. They just want USB ports.” We buy more convertibles in Britain than any other country in Europe. And we are certainly the only country where you will find people going to work dressed as Scott of the Antarctic simply so they can get the roof down. We are all mad.” You may think the reason people spit at 4x4s these days has something to do with Greenland’s blanket of ice. It isn’t. It’s because you’re well off. And that’s not allowed.”