It's called "the halo effect". A range-topping super model allegedly inspires punters to buy the low-end variant. I can't afford an M3, but I can buy a Compact, which shares the same engineering bloodline. I might not be able to get to sixty under six seconds, or lap the Nuremburgring in less than an hour, but hey, it's still a BMW!
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Posts By: Robert Farago
A pistonhead can no more resist a Ferrari's charms than a Labour party fundraiser can stop himself from accepting money from, um, anyone. The 360 Modena personifies the marque's appeal. The car's voluptuous curves and aggressive angles seduce pistonheads and innocent bystanders alike. When woken, the 360's flat plane crank unleashes a mechanical siren song of mythical proportions. To drive a 360, at speed, down a familiar road, is to surrender your soul to the Tifosi's embrace. Her screams still invade my sleep.
Hello, my name is Robert Farago and I'm a recovering Ferrari owner. I'd like to tell you about my first Ferrari…
I can just about change a tyre, but that's it. I don't mind admitting it here, but stranded by the roadside, I'm paralysed by automotive machismo. When Spanner Man sticks his head into the engine bay, points and says 'There's your trouble!' I nod. I have no idea what he's talking about. I'd rather clip a jump lead on my right nipple than admit my ignorance. Still, I'm not in denial. Something's wrong and someone knows what it is. All that's left is the hassle, delay and a hit on my credit card that makes filling a Murcielago with Super-Unleaded seem like a bargain.
I just wish someone could have warned me, you know, before. When it comes to performance cars, an ounce of prevention is worth 1120 kgs of immovable TVR. In fact, I reckon the government should force TVR to put a warning label on their product: 'Warning: This Car Breaks'. Not that it would work. Even a sticker proclaiming 'Driving this Car Can Lead Directly to a Tree' wouldn't put off members of The Cult of Unbridled Horsepower. Once they hear a TVR's burble and roar- a sound that will one day cough, splutter and die- they have less reasoning ability than an Irish Setter on heat.
There's an absurd scene in Goldeneye, where agent 007 races a hottie through the winding roads above Monte Carlo. Bond is behind the wheel of a DB5. The girl is driving a Ferrari 355. Guess who wins? Preposterous. That said, if you're not the type of person to take an informed view on the relative merits of Aston's straight six vs. Ferrari's 32-valve 8-cylinder power plant, or the handling implications of conventional vs. electronically damped suspension, the scene made perfect sense. Handsome Bond in beautiful car duels beautiful girl in gorgeous car. That's more than enough information for the average moviegoer.
Encountering a fully restored DB5 39-years after its screen debut (in Goldfinger) it's easy to understand the filmmakers' choice. The Aston still looks fast enough to take on a Ferrari – any Ferrari. Although Touring of Milan sculpted the shape, the DB5 is nothing like the delicately proportioned Ferraris and Maseratis of its day. Examined in detail, the Aston appears to be an automotive farrago, combining a 'smiling bulldog' front grille, muscle car front air scoop, mini-Cadillac tapered wings and Volvo-esque rear window. Taken as a whole, it's the automotive equivalent of a Saville Row suit: butch, yet infinitely elegant. Like Bond himself, the DB5's design somehow manages to combine infinite sophistication with unbridled aggression.
Strange people start cults. A science fiction writer who "discovered" that tomatoes feel pain created The Church of Scientology. A Dutch man convicted of mail fraud convinced millions that their ancestors had sex with astronauts. A talking salamander founded the Mormons. And a racetrack owner who decided to let complete amateurs onto his concrete playground created the Trakult.
Ask a Scientologist why they follow a doctrine created by man who ended his years on his own cruise ship staffed entirely by teenage girls in matching halter-tops and hot pants. You'll get a perfectly plausible explanation involving negative engrams (shouldn't it be "enmails" by now?), followed by a damn fine lawsuit. Ask a Member of the Trakult why a professional race circuit is a better place to drive fast than a public road, and you'll get an equally belligerent and self-righteous reply: safety. Trakultists argue that racetracks are the best—nay the ONLY place— for their speed-afflicted brethren to indulge their love of lateral G's.
On a clear day, it takes me three hours to drive back from Gatwick. I'll never forget the fateful day the journey required seven hours. Seven hours stuck in a car with the secretary from Hell. Seven hours listening to her bouncer boyfriend's [allegedly] successful battle against booze, fags, cocaine, speed, angel dust, in-bred in-laws, chronic unemployment, a nasty temper, asthma and a criminal record. The reason for this endless exploration of the existential maxim that "Hell is other people"? They closed the motorway. They closed the M25. There was an accident.
I have no idea how many people died that day, or how they met their Maker. God only knows what horrific scenes greeted the fine men and women of the police, fire department and paramedic squads on that bloody afternoon. I have nothing but respect for those who had to deal with the aftermath. And my heart goes out to all the people— mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, etc.—bereaved by this regrettable tragedy. But did they really have to close the motorway? At the risk of giving politically correct "safety campaigners" an apoplectic fit, why didn't they just shovel the wreckage to one side and let everybody else get on with it?
It's a shame. The E-Type is the most visually stunning car ever made. Allegedly. Forty-one years after its Geneva debut, the nose-heavy styling still stirs debate. Some consider the Series One E-Type Roadster a timeless classic, blending feminine curves with sporting intent. Others see it as the original 'sports car as phallic symbol', embodying the embarrassing hyper-sexuality of a severe mid-life crisis. Love it or mock it, you can't ignore it. Jaguar's first E-Type still has enormous presence, and perfectly judged detailing. From wire wheels to aircraft style toggle switches to the clearly labelled 'cigar' lighter, you wouldn't want to change a thing.
Someone at BMW decided to put ABS braking on a motorcycle. How better to showcase the capabilities of the then new Automatic Braking System? Luckily, The Boys From Bavaria had just the bike for the job: the K100, or, as it was fondly called by the biking fraternity, 'the flying brick'. One of my mates got one. At a meet, he delighted all assembled by doing full-lock stops on gravel. Wow! Later, after the machine was serviced, he discovered that the ABS hadn't been working.
Don't read that the wrong way. My friend's "all-hands-on-deck" gravel stops were a testimony to his riding ability, rather than the stupidity of ABS. It shows what a rider with real skill can do with a road machine— no matter how basic the technology. UK Petrolheads may diss their American cousins for the foul-handling beasts they call muscle cars, but there is a real skill in driving one of these ancient behemoths over 30 miles per hour. Or around a corner. It ain't pretty, but it IS impressive. In fact, many drivers actually prefer this untainted "man vs. machine" driving experience. Which brings us to the question of the day: how much electronic help does a 'true' enthusiast need?
Driving a go-kart is something of an acquired taste. You sit on a dinner tray, a few inches off the ground. You get a steering wheel, an engine, four tiny tyres, rudimentary suspension and… that's it. At speed, the forces of acceleration, de-acceleration and lateral G's are unfiltered, and vicious. Nannies have been jailed for shaking babies less violently. But if you love to drive, a go-kart unleashes a flood of adrenalin-crazed endorphins that makes it hurt so good. After haring around in a go-kart, driving a 'normal' car feels like, um, nothing.
I'm sorry, did I say go-kart? I meant to say 'Lotus Elise'. Read the above paragraph again, substituting the word 'Elise' for 'go-kart'. The differences between the two are both obvious and unimportant: size, doors, roof, gearbox and top end. The similarities are startling. Ride height low enough to scare a limbo dancer. A tiny engine with a narrow but brutally effective power band. Steering and suspension so direct you wonder where the machine ends and your nervous system begins. Put it all together, and you've got a road car that you can drive like a go-kart, using your entire body to aim the machine with zero-delay, laser-guided precision.
On one hand, we have the Lotus Elise. It goes like stink, stops on a 5p piece, corners like a roller coaster, sits lower than your shins, rides harder than a tea tray surfing down a mountain of medium-sized rocks, and is harder to get into than a Latin textbook. It's the automotive equivalent of tequila slammers. On the other hand, we have the Lexus SC400. J D Power's poster child is more car-coon than car— cosseting its occupants in so much luxury that discussing "handling" and "braking" seems churlish. It's a vodka martini, stirred, not shaken.
So, is that our lot? Must we choose between performance cars that punish us for our passion, and luxury cars where passion mandates indecent exposure?
Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money. "Niche" cars serve the same divine purpose for automobile manufacturers. Porsche's foray into the SUV market is only the most topical example. Volkswagen, renowned makers of the "people's car", are preparing to pit their £60k Phaeton against Mercedes' S-Class. On the other end of the scale, once exclusive BMW will soon offer runabouts to badge-aspiring plebs (1 Series). Audi is messing about with bullshit, I mean, Lamborghini. And Ford is still fiddling with Wilton-clad off-roaders (Range Rover).
You know things are getting out of control when The Big Boys start dabbling in the manufacturing equivalent of freebasing: reviving an old marque. Bringing back the old sub-brands may look like a noble attempt to recapture lost heritage, but it's actually a reflection of boardroom boredom, designed to give bored boffins and their marketing chums a challenge. Bugatti: can a passenger car have as much horsepower as a Spitfire? MG: can a staid Rover sedan be tuned to Fast and the Furious standards? MINI: how do you get new money for old engines, Brazilian style?
David Icke believes that blood-drinking lizards from the fourth dimension secretly rule the world. Owners of the Subaru Impreza Turbo believe their car is attractive. Uh sorry, but no on both counts. Still, there's no arguing with some people. Once they get an idea about their car's physical appeal stuck in their head, even a steroid-crazed Marine drill sergeant couldn't brainwash it out. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but some beholders are as mad as the government's nominal transport policy.
As I lowered myself into the new BMW 7-Series' micro-perforated, climate-controlled, buttock massaging passenger seat, I noticed that my diminutive driver seemed a bit, well, lethargic. He had the half-lidded laid-back look of the seriously pampered. Not what you'd expect from a professional race driver about to hurl 1945kg's of somebody else's luxury car around a racetrack. One chicane later and I shared his complacency. The new 7-Series can be driven at maximum velocity with no more drama than an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Which is to say none at all, then a bit, then not at all. Hell, you could phone it in.
Or perhaps not. That depends on whether or not you know how to remove the sim card from your mobile phone. To use the 7's on-board telephony, you have to extract your sim card, open the phone drawer, take out a tiny plastic holder, fit your sim card into the holder and insert the holder into a small slot. Then, and only then, you can you use BMW's detachable 'portable' phone, or the new iDrive controller, or wheel-mounted buttons, or a separate (and miniscule) keypad, to phone a friend. I don't think the police would call the process 'hands free'.
The first time the lorry locked-up its wheels, I was entering the 'u' in 'Weston Super Mare' into the satellite navigation system. The second time, I was trying to switch the suspension from 'comfort' to 'sports' mode. The last time, I was splitting my attention between the 'Entertainment' screen and the road ahead. So I was free to watch the eighteen-wheeler's back end swing gracefully into the opposite lane- where it missed the front of an oncoming car by inches. God knows what would have happened if I'd been driving.
Would you buy a Land Rover sports car? What about a Porsche off-roader? Now think carefully. Sure, the Porsche Cayenne will be the worlds fastest and best handling 4X4. So what? The Sultans of Stuttgart will have answered a question no one asked: how do I get a truck to lap the Nurburgring faster than a Nissan Skyline GT-R? Here in the real world, the biggest question vexing MPV drivers is this: what time does Janie's football practice end? Considering the cataclysmic damage these lumbering behemoths inflict on lesser vehicles at a walking pace, the average MPV driver needs less speed, not more. Put Mum in a Porsche off-roader and it's only a matter of time before the entire soccer team is goading her to blow off the jerk in the Merc.
Safety aside (as always), the Cayenne will sell. Plenty of posh Porsche posers will love seeing their Cayenne and Carrera snuggling together in a darkened garage. I find the concept incestuous and redundant. Stick snow tires on a Carrera 4 and you've got a four-passenger car that makes normal sedans seem like Ice Capades rejects. The Cayenne adds elevation to the equation, but it also introduces mass. Drivers will be able to see into next week, but they'll constantly be out-handled by smaller, lighter machines. Still, as a capitalist cheerleader who once owned a TVR, I can hardly begrudge buyers a car they need like they need satellite-controlled headlights that swivel to follow the road. I'm more concerned about the Cayenne's effect on Porsche.
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