Tena Lady

To many, the lasting memory of Paris 2010 will be of Naomi Campbell vacantly smiling at a Lotus Esprit like it was a child with one eye. Baffled, almost sympathetic – but generally indifferent. To us though, even the A-list weirdness of new-era Lotus is forgettable. What’s clinging to the inside of our skulls is driving there and back in a Focus RS500. The big black Ford is a horrendous bastard of the highest order… and it’s totally fucking brilliant.

But also tinged with sadness. Dressed entirely in black, the RS500 mourns the demise of the Focus RS and its gargling baritone of a five-cylinder engine. For a mainstream model, the RS was actually pretty controversial. ‘Pah! It won’t be able to handle the power! The torque steer will give you tennis elbow!’ yelped car fans with sheltered lives; ‘it’ll amputate your arms and storm off into a ditch’ they continued, ignorantly. And that was just about the standard 300bhp car. The RS500 has another 45bhp, not to mention 15lb ft more torque. Only 500 will be made and it costs an almost unbelievable £35,000. Yet it’s still brill.

Picture the scene. You’re at Beaconsfield services, in the rain, at 11pm and all you want to do is reach a warm bed in Maidstone. Car brimmed, you approach the M25 entry slip. Because you’re bored, not to mention curious about how 345bhp could possibly be applied to damp tarmac via two front wheels, you check the mirrors and stop, right at the start of he slip road. Then, with traction control optimistically switched off, you nail the best getaway possible. Like you’ve just robbed a Post Office.

Bwaaarpp-ba-ba… tsshh… Bwaaaaaaaaarrpp… tsssh… bwaaaaaaaaaaaaarp… you’re doing the speed limit. 0-62 in 5.4 seconds. Apart from the judder of axle tramp (which incidentally, is no worse here than in a DSG equipped Golf GTI), and a swerve through the lorry ruts it happens cleanly, smartly and without a hernia. Of course, just like even a rear wheel drive car with over 300bhp, you can’t just hoof the throttle and slam the clutch without ultimately looking like a bit of a tit – but the RS500’s extra turbo boost, bigger fuel pump and fatter exhausts haven’t made it undriveable.

What they have done is make it disgustingly quick. Through 3rd, 4th and 5th, it’s M3 fast. Unhinged, nobs turned up to 11, laugh out loud even on the M20 at midnight fast. Its stability is phenomenal too. While at town speeds the steering could benefit from a quicker rack, at velocities where the RS500 beggars belief, it’s perfect.

Micro-adjustments in the fast lane are second nature. You never actually consider how much input the steering needs to change lane or tackle a sweeping bend, you just turn the wheel and it moves instantly and gracefully. No twitching, no nervousness, no delay – just great steering with a natural feel.

When you get off the motorway and stop marvelling at the speed, steering and stability, the RS500 shows off its talent as an urban magnet for admiration, camera phones and ‘rev it’ hand gestures… even from surly Parisians. We parked it right in front of the Eiffel Tower and a tourist actually asked to have his picture taken next to the car instead of the iconic French landmark.

Through the horrendous jam that is La Peripherique, it’s just as easy to drive as a standard RS, which in turn is just as forgiving as any other Focus on sale. A light clutch, progressive brakes and lots of windows to see out of. It even treats you to parking sensors and a reversing camera, to help avoid scuffing the matt black wrap when parking at the Porte de Versailles.

Then a motorshow happened. Lamborghini released a fake car we thought would be real. Porsche showed a car with spinal curvature. Ferrari took the roof off a 599. Jaguar made the world’s first fictional hybrid with jet turbines. Ford showed off a four cylinder Focus ST that makes the RS500 look even more special. And Brian May made five very similar looking new cars from Lotus all smell off hairspray. After all that, it was time to drive back. Paris back to Brum.

Most of the return journey was a blur – but we can’t talk about it for legal reasons. Some toll booths. Darkness. 20mpg. Driving from full to empty without stopping. A tunnel. A game of Angry Birds. The M20. A panini. The M25. The M40. The M6. And then, coming off a junction early for Birmingham at 1:30am. Brilliant.

If you ever drive to the middle of Birmingham from junction 5 of the M6, you might have already discovered the series of roundabouts that start at Castle Bromwich, go past Fort Shopping Park, through Nechells and into the City centre. If you’re a cock with a Saxo, you’ll already go there every Sunday night to compare neon lights with your dickhead mates. These are the best urban roundabouts in the country… and at 1:30am there’s nobody else to bother you.

First, you’re forced to stand on the brakes as you hit the left-hand exit slip-road towards lights that are always red. Sit. Wait. Then tackle the wide roundabout, right at the top of second gear. Half throttle pulls a tight line, 3/4 throttle forces the front wide with inside wheel scrabbling. Take the third exit, grabbing third gear after the apex. Heading back under the M6 now, towards the Spitfire roundabout and Jaguar plant… there’s a tight left after the hill has crested. If you don’t know it’s there, you best phone the paint shop.

Take it in second, again finding the inside wheel’s traction point and breaking it just for fun. Now a blat to the top of third as you pass Fort Dunlop. The wall is high to your left, and the car sounds frightening and awesome. Straight over the next roundabout at the Bentley dealer, in third. Up the hill, hoping the lights at the next roundabout are green. They are. Entering with a slither of brake pressure, the back is firmly tied down… jolt on some more lock, feather the throttle, lift off to try and provoke some tail swinging action – but the RS500 is having none of it.

The next roundabout is on the crest of a hill, and a very easy one to get violently wrong – as we came very close to experiencing in an R33 Skyline GT-R last year. Full throttle would see any car crash… so we give it as much as we dare and it sticks. Change direction quickly to take the exit, the front snuffling for grip as wet tarmac turns into rough, damp concrete. Grip increased, the throttle touches floor mat for just long enough to see third gear… and a speed camera. Brakes on, fun over. The last trickle into the city is taken with a heart rate far quicker than our speed.

Yes, a normal RS could have covered the ground very nearly as quickly and would have required less concentration to do so. But the times where the RS500’s massive power is a glorious pleasure far outweigh the occasions where it’s unusable or a burden. It’s expensive, ridiculous, tacky, does less than 30mpg and looks like the type of character who’d draw a cock and balls on a gravestone. But that’s exactly what it should be – a tribute to the RS, with a personality that’s a caricature of what makes that car so great. The RS500 is the naughtiest epitaph ever written.

Car manufacturers make a big deal about their heritage. VW stitch chequered patterns into the seats of brand new Golf GTIs to invoke the ‘spirit of the original’, Peugeot have the nerve to badge a gawpy faced shopping trolley as an S16, and BMW even hi-jacked someone else’s heritage when they celebrated the original Mini’s 50th birthday as their own. But why bother? What does such Tony Robinson history gazing actually prove?

Two things. First, that car companies were more innovative and interesting in the past than they are now. And second, that they think people don’t like change. So when the mk5 Golf GTi came around with a radical new double clutch gearbox, proper handling and 200hp, VW didn’t say ‘it’s completely different’ they said it was ‘the original, updated’. Despite the fact it was totally new. Apart from the pattern on the seats, obviously.

The point of such comforting, stylised references is to encourage brand loyalty; ‘don’t worry, your new car will have all the things you like about your old car… but it’ll be better’. We don’t ever really feel the past seeping through a car’s controls and dynamics – we’re just told it’s there. In the DNA. Invisible, intangible… but there. Outside of seat fabric semiotics though, it’s largely bollocks. Marketing, not engineering.

Which makes the Mazda CX-7 a massive surprise, because it’s the exact opposite: a car without heritage, that somehow manages to feel like its busting at the seems with DNA. Not just any old gene strings either, but straight from their most iconic, heritage packed car – the mk1 MX5. It’s because of something we’re going to call mechanical continuity – the tiny but tangible feats of engineering that give a car its character, and that can make different machines genuinely feel related. A sense of mechanical continuity is exactly what the badge engineered new Minis and Peugeot S16s lack. There’s no tangible relationship to the cars which apparently inspired them.

Drive the CX-7 and MX-5 back-to-back and, despite the enormous differences in their purposes, the similarities are more striking than the differences. Not because of some flaky reference to the spirit of open-topped motoring either, but because of an impression of genuine ancestry. The gearchanges, for instance, could have been made on identical factory lines. Snicky, short, mechanical, deliberate and satisfying – each car’s box rewards a precise left hand.

The steering too, has a closely related manner. Over-assisted around the dead-ahead, quick to react, detailed under load and linear… both systems feel like they’ve come from the same engineer’s workshop. Light, sharp clutches which punish lapses in concentration. Brakes which bite with little effort but can be modulated easily. Interiors with circular vents, clear dials and stubby gear levers. Bodywork that doesn’t feel as if it’s got class leading torsional rigidity. The cars are separated by 15 years, 750kg, drivetrain layouts, transmissions, purposes and even number of seats… but there’s a clear ancestry pinning them together.

So why don’t Mazda say call it ‘the MX-5… but off-road’ or something? Why don’t they peddle the past to sell the future? They’d got reasonable grounds to do so after all – the CX-7 feels more closely related to an MX-5 than a 207 S16 does to a 205 S16 after all. They could have given it pop-up lights and everything.

It’s probably because they think the car buying public aren’t stupid. They don’t expect us to fall for the marketing spiel… they know that seat fabrics don’t give a new car the spirit of an old one. It’s a commendable, respectable way of dealing with car buyers. Treating them respect, and an assumption that we’re not all susceptible to pretty pictures and break dancers with Gene Kelly’s head. And when was the last time you saw a CX-7? Exactly. Never. We’re too stupid to give it a chance. If it was called the MX-4×4 they’d be all over the place.

When the Leon was born, Cornish people still spoke Cornish, the mk5 Golf was in the prime of its life, the Astra was rubbish and the previous shape Focus was King. Now though, the mk6 Golf exists, there’s a new Astra which isn’t rubbish and the Focus is still King. So… what have SEAT done to keep the Leon relevant? Paint it orange and give it black wheels of course! Wicked tings!

Obviously, that’s not all. It’s also had a minor redraw inside and out – and more importantly, can now be had in sporty FR spec with VAG’s gratuitously torquey 168bhp common rail 2.0TDI motor. This isn’t just a five-year-old hatchback. This is a five-year-old, facelifted, bright orange diesel hatchback that’s a bit feisty. So, is it still relevant? And does a 168bhp diesel engine make it hot enough?

In terms of relevance, it’s impossible not to start with the price – £19,490. Nearly five grand cheaper than the identically engined Golf GT TDI. The SEAT’s tweaked interior isn’t a patch on the Golf’s rubbery fetish den, and neither does the Spanish car carry the same Waitrose car park clout… but £5k is a lot of money. Enough money to overlook the dip in perceived quality. Enough money to ensure the Leon is still very relevant.

But relevance is nothing if it’s a little bit shit. Let’s not forget that the chassis is a generation-old – even family cars like this see big leaps in quality with each new model. The Leon might be so dynamically outdated that even its cheap price is a waste of cash.

The first thing you notice when you sit in the thing is how snug it feels – short windscreen, dark rooflining and decently low seat. The second thing you notice when you sit in the thing is that it sounds just like a diesel. But once you spool it up and let the low profile tyres contribute their own racket, the diesel drone dies off and it all starts to sound sportier – as well as feeling tightly sprung, firmly damped and actually quite good.

Some ECU magic must have been worked on the engine, because unlike the vast majority of diesels, there’s actually a point to revving it past 4,000rpm. With the peak 258lb ft of torque available from just 1,750rpm it’s easy to just ping yourself around at low revs, but there’s enough genuine power at higher revs to allow a more petrol-minded gear changing style… you don’t just leave it in 4th and lumber out of corners, you stick it in third and let the power pull you out.  A 0-62mph time of 8.2 secs might not sound scintillating… but through the gears, and regardless of revs, it pulls like a kicked donkey.

The chassis doesn’t mind bucking about either.  It’s quite nose-led in the way it snuffles round tighter corners, but in faster corners the Leon’s more neutral and happy enough to shimmy a tail – adjustable, grippy and fun. The steering feedback’s good too, and while the ride is firm it doesn’t ricochet off bumps with so much force as to make you slow down. The only real quibble is the over-keenness of the ESP to grab an outside front wheel if it thinks there’s a bit too much yaw going on – you can’t fully switch it off either.

Let’s not forget that the backdrop to the Leon’s speed and agility are figures of 53.3mpg and 139g/km of CO2 – the economy and emissions of a brand new car, not a five-year-old one. So, while the nuts and bolts are getting on a bit, and the interior is showing its age, the Leon FR TDI is actually a very convincing, excellent value package with a chassis that feels fresh. It’s still just right for anyone who wants to find a happy combination of bright orange corner hooning, low price and real-world fuel saving… there’s a few years left in it yet.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Volkswagen announced a new in-house performance brigade, Volkswagen R GmbH, who’ll make their quick cars. Vauxhall introduced new threadbare ‘Expression’ and ‘ES’ spec levels to its range, dropping starting prices by up to £3,675. Honda announced the recall of 412,000 cars in America because of ‘soft brakes’. And there were more suggestions that the drink-drive limit could be lowered.

MISS – Nissan Micra

As frog faced and squidgy looking as the current Micra is, and as much as that might have scared away some core grannies, surely the Nissan Micra should look more interesting than this?

HIT – Skoda Fabia vRS

There’s something unpretentiously desirable about a quick Skoda – especially when it’s running the same 177bhp twincharger engine as the excellent Ibiza Cupra. There’s even going to be an estate version of this £16k hot hatch.

MISS – Alfa Romeo Giulietta

A lot of people were making inappropriate sexual noises as they walked passed Alfa’s new Focus rival – we can only assume it was because of the models. Promises of Golf rivalling quality aside, we think the Giulietta looks a bit awkard. Like a pigeon with piles.

HIT – Vauxhall Meriva

Now based on the Zafira, the Meriva has gone posh with a smart interior and trick suicide doors. Gimmick or not, Rolls Royce style entry apertures are what car buying humans like to show off to their mates – it’s a smart move.

MISS – Every Porsche Panamera There

So many naff tuning firms decided to further butcher the Porsche Pigs Ear it actually got a bit funny. A personal favourite was the hilariously named ‘Fab Design’ who accidentally shat all sorts of glass fibre pebble dashed mess all over the place.

HIT – Mini Countryman

There. We’ve said it. The Mini Countryman wasn’t that bad in the flesh – not perfect, but not an complete face disgrace. In real life it looked quite muscular and chunky, and, as you’ll note by the amazing photo below – there’s room for a human with knees in the back.

Knees, fitting in behind our own 6ft driving position. Never seen before in a Mini.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Pics of Alfa Romeo’s Bertone styled Pandion concept car which will be shown at Geneva leaked out. Bentley released details of their Continental Supersports convertible which arrives this Autumn: 621bhp, 590lb ft of torque, 202mph and 3.9secs to get to 60mph. And VW announced a smaller, duller, slightly cheaper version of the Golf GTI – the 177bhp, £18,000 Polo GTI.

Owners of the last shape Mazda3 MPS spent just as much time defending their cars against cynical mates as they did driving them. Banging on about the 256bhp power output, 6.1 second 0-62mph time and 155mph top speed, they were adamant that because it had better stats than a Golf GTi, the MPS was a better car. Sadly, their mates knew otherwise. The old car looked bland, felt synthetic and squirmed its power away with embarrassingly premature wheelspin. So, perhaps this new one can redress the balance and give its owners some more sophisticated grounds to argue on.

Encouragingly, all the key numbers have stayed exactly the same. Power, acceleration and top speed benchmarks are all identical to the last one, from the same 2.3 litre turbocharged four cylinder engine. All the work has gone into making it lighter and more rigid. So, in not worrying about making it look more impressive on paper, have Mazda made it more impressive on tarmac?

Being based on the current Focus, it’s got a crisp balance, a well-judged blend between roll control and pliancy, and decently chatty steering. It feels better resolved, more sophisticated and smarter than the last one – but it’s still not as accomplished as a Megane, Golf or Focus hotty. The better ride and awesome speed do mean we’d have an MPS over a Civic Type-R though.

And there’s still no getting away from the insanity going on at the front wheels. Any camber, rut or grease will be sniffed out and followed like a hunting hound to fox piss. On dry country roads it’s fun chasing the car down the route it wants to take, but on anything damp it’s a pain – even on what look like straight roads, you’ll be tugging against the torque as the boost comes in at 2,500rpm. Despite having limited torque output in first and second gears, and despite an LSD and torque-sensing software that adjusts the grunt depending on your steering inputs, it too often shows exactly why Ford invented Revoknuckle.

But the new MPS doesn’t rely on paper stats anywhere near as heavily as the previous car – despite the common faults, it comes closer to feeling like a well-rounded, controllable and dynamically talented hot hatch than before. Add an enormous kit list with parking sensors, bi-xenon lights, a cracking Bose hi-fi, leather everything and sat nav to a low £21,500 price and it starts to look like a sensible buy. The looks, even though it’s only available in practical but uncool 5dr, finally do the frenetic power delivery justice.

So, while even new MPS owners will need to defend their car to their mates, they’ll be able to put up a much stronger argument. It’s still no class leader, but offers incredible value, is incredibly quick and  much of the time frantic fun. If you’re the type who likes to end an argument with an arm wrestle, it could be just what you’re looking for.

After much dithering around with name changes, Alfa Romeo have finally released details and piccies of their new Golf rival – it’s officially called the Giulietta. Or Giullieta… no, Giulletta. That’s not right. Julietta? Joolyetta? Balls to it. It looks like this:

It’ll be revealed to the British public at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June 2010, as part of Alfa’s centenary celebrations. Only available as a five door, the Giulietta will come with two petrol and two diesel engines at launch – the 120bhp and 170bhp 1.4 petrol units seen in the Mito, as well as 105bhp 1.6 and 170bhp 2.0 turbodiesels. Later, a 230bhp version of the 1750Ti engine recently seen in the 159 will be introduced.

Alfa say the Giulietta runs on an all new platform but don’t go into specifics, other than stating she’ll be fitted with the DNA drive control (tigthens throttle and steering response, adjusts the ESP) and the electronic Q2 diff. If you regularly fill the boot to the brim with bottles of water, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s 350 litre luggage area is just as big as a Golf’s. Prices are TBA, although if the Mito is anything to go by, it shouldn’t be too steep – probably undercutting the rival VW.

So, without anything else to report, you’ll just have to ponder the looks… we’re not sold on it yet. Perhaps too many shapes and textures at the front, not that pert at the rump… but nice shoulders and cracking wheels.

To make Toyota feel slightly better about missing out on the Car of the Year paperweight, we’ve put together a man-friendly list of the worst ever winning cars – because it’s not like the judges haven’t got it wrong before. See this as a best of the worst – a thoroughly British way of celebrating mediocre shitness. So, in reverse order…

5. Simca 1307 – 1976
An odd contraption, built in France and owned by Chrysler – with the type of ergonomics you’d expect when French quirkiness meets American bad sense. A big deal was made of the practicality of its front wheel drive, hatch-back design… despite the first VW Passat doing the same a couple of years previously. The biggest joke is how a car running on push-rod engines managed to push the SOHC E21 BMW 3-Series into second place.

4. Fiat Bravo/Brava – 1996
Let’s get the positive out of the way with; the back lights on the Brava (that’s the 5dr one) were cool, and the seats were comfy – but other than that, both the Bravo and Brava were rubbish. The electrics would only work on the second Tuesday of the month, they plain refused to go round corners without leaning on their wing mirrors, only got a two star EuroNCAP crash rating and came near the bottom of every quality/satisfaction/reliability survey they were entered in.

3. Vauxhall Insignia - 2009
The wound is still fresh on this one. The Insignia isn’t a bad car, but come on… it’s not even the best in its class, never mind the best car released all year. It may have only pipped the thoroughly excellent Ford Fiesta into second place by a single point, but there’s rarely been a more misleading point in COTY history.

2. Alfa Romeo 147 – 2001
This is the other ‘victory by a point’ travesty, but the calibre of the cars it beat makes this an even bigger misnomer than the Insignia. Remember how amazing the mk3 Mondeo was when it was released? Well, according to the 2001 result, it’s not as good as a flimsy Alfa Romeo 147. Pretty? Yes. But an intelligently designed, high quality, durable product? Don’t be daft. The cherry on the cake is how the Toyota Prius was pushed down into third… hybrids may be leading us up the garden path, but at least it was trying.

1. Fiat Uno – 1984
If you conducted a group test between the newly released mk2 VW Golf, the Peugeot 205 and the Fiat Uno, which one would you expect to win? The debate between the Pug and Veedub could run forever, but it would never ever be the Fiat. So, how did the COTY panel justify handing the Uno victory, above the Golf in 2nd and 205 in 3rd? Because ‘its basic version still keeps the veteran OHV 903 cc engine from the 127′. That’s right – the Fiat Uno is better than a mk2 Golf because it uses a 0.9l engine from the mid 70s. Brilliant. Next time you see a mk2 Golf soldiering on into it’s second decade on the road, go see what the owner says when you tell them they should have bought a Fiat Uno instead. Their response will sum up the relevance of the whole award.

Digesting the news… then spewing it out in 60 words

Tesla were shocked to receive positive press about their car’s battery life – 313 miles on one charge (set by some bloke in Australia), is a new electric production car record. ‘How much?!’ echoed loudly around the globe when VW admitted their Golf R will cost £29,000. And Mitsubishi clutched at straws, saying their 2010 SUV will have Evo X undergarments.

Ever since a colour blind VW executive invented the Polo Bluemotion, green-leaning economy cars have been swanning around with the fresh air of superiority. They’re made to a simple formula; energy saving tyres are combined with longer gears, before being mixed with slippier aerodynamics and garnished with a badge that’s either green or has a leaf on it. The result is a few less grams of CO2 and a handful of extra mpgs – commendable stuff, but such eco-friendliness costs extra. Like organic food.

The Kia Cee’d EcoDynamics is the latest of the breed, but it’s a bit cheaper – still organic, but from Lidl. At £14,195, it’s four grand less than a Focus EcoNetic or new Golf Bluemotion – and even though you have to fork out for ESP and electric back windows, you can’t find it in you to moan. Organic food for poor people; it’ll probably extend the nation’s life expectancy. But is it actually good value?

Like the rest of the facelifted Cee’ds, the EcoDynamics has an anodyne face that won’t scare the kids, enough space to sit in and an interior that rarely inspires you to moan about scratchy plastics like they do in magazines. The main quibble maker is an over-firm ride that makes it feel a bit hollow as it bonks across sunken manholes.

Annoyingly, the hard ride is highlighted when you try to make the most of the Cee’d’s USP. The EcoDynamic is the first ever Kia to have a stop/start system, which they’ve called ISG (Intelligent Stop & Go). Do less than 3mph, knock it into neutral, release the clutch and the engine will switch off – clutch down to select a gear and it’ll switch on again. It works perfectly, and you’ll only select first gear before it starts if you’re trying to prove point. All this deliberate stalling makes the EcoDynamics an excellent city car, with the quoted urban mpg figure of 60.1 smashing the Focus EcoNetic’s 51.3 into the nearest coal mine. But its do-good nature is hampered by the fact that the ride is at its worst in town. What you gain in eco-friendliness you lose in pothole lumpiness – not ideal.

Happily, out on proper roads the Cee’d settles down. Extracting just 89bhp through tall gears does require some pre-emptive pedalling, but 173lb ft is enough grunt to punt it around with a decent rhythm. The steering is direct too, although it avoids any chitter-chatter in favour of just doing its job. It’s all entirely acceptable, although without any aerodynamic tweaks, frisbee hubcabs or slippy gearbox oil it’s not as green out of town as it is in it.

Overall then, it’s a car that feels at odds with itself. An engine made for the city, with suspension that prefers life in the sticks. As if that wasn’t already a tedious enough quandary to be in, bear this in mind: for the exact same price, you could buy the 113bhp Cee’d – it lacks the ISG, but still manages a combined mpg in the 60s. Unless you spend all your time struggling for breath in heavy traffic, that’s the better car. So, while the Cee’d EcoDynamics is still a good buy for those looking to mend the world on a shoestring, it highlights one thing – buying cheap organic food can give you a sore arse.

Numbly Fraudulent