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The Ford Focus ST with tweakage by Mountune. Available on new and used STs, the Mountune St receives engine tuning – the chassis remains unfettled. A larger intercooler, new air filters and electronic map push power up form 222bhp to a mighty 256bhp and the torque swells by 59lb ft to 259 lb ft – and all for $1120 plus two hours of labour. The result is knockout 5.9 sec 0-62mph sprint but, more importantly, a vast amount of real-world performance form the charming, warbly turbo five cylinder engine. Few cars overtake like the Mountune STi; turbo lag and gear selection simply aren’t an issue. Just prod that right pedal and go. Indeed the Sti chassis copes with the extra horses with aplomb. Torque steer is only a problem when exiting slow corners and traction on the exit of medium speed bends is greater than the type-frying but similarly powered Astra. The Focus is a ‘softer’ driving experience compared with other cars, but it’s this squidge (technical term) that affords the Focus a degree of feedback when grip turns to slip.

In contrast when the Astra breaks traction it’s often sudden and you have little choice but to back off and wait for the chassis to regain composure; with the Focus you are aware of the limit approaching and you can power through it or adjust your trajectory with an accurate lift. Grumbles are few. The seat is too high, the gearshift vague and some may find the STi overall refinement unbecoming of a 256bhp hot-hatch. In fact, at the end of our test some wondered if the Focus’s character was more suited to the next class up.

Posted November 30, 2009 Comments(0)

The Evo X may have come over all urbane with its new sheetmetal, but don’t be fooled- its still raw, an incorrigibly edgy handful that feels truculent ay any speed below flat-out. Get into the Mitsubishi and you instantly feel genetically programmed to set new speed records. Around the track, both cars are eye-wideningly brisk but it’s the 354bhp Evo that easily feels the faster. That engine may be new from crank to camshaft, but nothing has changed because its still muscular and rangy-and still coarse and gruff. There’s no red-line aural treat, but that matter less when there’s so much muscle to spear along the track. The X has that on-the-go stance no other car can match- that of being both tied down and on tiptoes, riveted to the road but ready to change direction with neck-straining immediacy. And it’s just so fast. Don’t underestimate the entertainment value of a tinny family car that can breathe hotly on the collar of a Porsche 911. Like the Impreza, the Evo feels like a precise machine, with many parts- positive gearshift, powerful brakes, superb steering- working seamlessly together. But while the gearshift quality is sweet and precise, who the hell wants to lash out more than 35 grand on a car with just five forward gears? Even a Vauxhall Corsa comes with a six-speed ‘box for goodness’ sake.

That final gear wouldn’t be so badly missed if the five in there weren’t so short- brilliant at keeping the engine buzzing at its 6500rpm power peak around Anglesy, not so brilliant when an 80mph motorway cruise equates to a raucous 4000rpm. The Evo has all the Impreza’s lightning pace and sublime dynamics, but it also has the ballsy presence and attitude to suit- and you will spot what the Impreza lacks every time one drives by. That’s why Mitsubishi wins.

Posted November 29, 2009 Comments(0)

The Impreza’a biggest crime is its styling. Previously STi may have been ugly but their grotesqueness was part of their allure. They had charisma, the appeal of their ballistic pace heightened by their visual oddness. The Impreza is impossibly bland. Even in fahkinhell 296bhp type UK spec it looks eminently forgettable. And, after the Impreza lineage that went before, many will find its generic hatchback style almost insulting. Let’s hope the man who signed off the design has since had his hands flattened by a stemroller to prevent him form ever going near a marker pen again. This mundane styling is a pity because the STi goes damn hard and fast and still possesses that ability to cover ground for more quickly than seems physically possible. Around Lahore, it feels just like a fast Subaru should. The disconcertingly light steering that initially feels vague and detached is anything but, its pinsharp and talkative-not as chatty or as attention seeking as the EVO’s agreed, but its still the next best thing to putting your hands on the road. The boxer burble may need a cupped ear to be heard but that’s incredibly smooth and relentless elastic band snap of acceleration the catapults you forward is still there, allied to a chassis with superb balance and grip.

Punt the Scoby into the a tight bend, get on the juice early and you can feel the torque sensing electromagnetic centre differential working with the front and rear limited slip diffs to haul you out of the corner and onto the next as quickly as possible. At the speed there’s a lovely machined feel to put the gearshift, the firmly damped suspension is ideally calibrated, the pedals are perfectly placed for fast footwork, the brakes are whole package feels honed and integrated. And, of course, form the driver’s seat you can’t see how drab it looks. It’s also refined, comfortable and smooth enough to make motorway travel a doddle.

Posted November 28, 2009 Comments(0)

Traditionally the scariest car in any given supercar group test is the Lamborghini, but not today. Today it’s the bulging Porsche 911GT2 that’s has my nerves tensed so tight I hear a creaking noise every time I move my arms. It’s the GT2 that seems me so hesitant on the pedals its giving me in growing toenails. In the pouring rain, driving as fast as I can, this car feels sensitive, severe, analogue and pure. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it—I love the way it steers, the way you feel so much road surface through your fingers. You’d have to kneel down and lick the tarmac to get more details. There’s a huge pleasure to be had, just feeling the front wheels unravel a corner into a straight. But the 911’s delicate steering is connected by some kind of German voodoo to the throttle pedal, and on Anglesesy’s fast, sweeping, corners, the slightest change in the position of your right foot—I mean, the merest whiff of a millimeter of travel—and the nose will suddenly widen, tighten, widen, tighten. Its like a lesson in 911 chassis dynamics, exaggerated for the sake of classroom clarity. And its that sensitivity, combined with the film of water on the track, that makes you pause for thought before you go long with your right leg, and extend the 3.6 liter twin turbo flat six and its 522bhp. There’s no stamping or yanking today—it is all about fingers, tippy toes and buttocks.

But I always felt the GT2 was one teensy indiscretion away form the barrier while hot lapping. I just felt fearful. Yes, elevated, intense, wide eyed, and happy, but nervous enough to drive back to pits after just a handful of laps. All this to the detriment of any joy you might derive form the steering, the perfect gearbox, the mind blowing acceleration, the handling; all these things you notice is a lesser Porsche. The GT2 might be the ultimate 911, but give me a GT3 any day.

Posted November 27, 2009 Comments(0)

The lower slung, conventional looking RS6 is a more obvious track contender, but its outrageous 10 cylinder engine has a lumpen effect on the front end. Even Usain Bolt would lose a few tenths if he had to run with Phill Jupitus sitting on his shoulders. So the Audi, unsurprisingly, understeers on the track, through it says something about the most powerful Audi production engine ever (571bhp) that Fahad Majidi got the RS6  round in 1min 6.3sec-faster than Evo X, STi and all the hatches. The X6 (1min 10.4 sec) was slower, but still brushed off the pesky Astra and Focus—food for thought for the future encounters with hot hatch wielding yobbos (no, not you, Hammad…) at the lights. The road meanwhile reveals the Audi to be an intercontinental weapon, a sort of MIG fighter fitted with leather chains and a telly an ($800 extra). Like the MIG, it flies in a straight line with impossible urgency, it verse organized by Quattro and six-speed tiptronic ‘box, which is suited to gentle power inputs rather than the Cossack stamping technique favored by yours truly. Its appetite for the job is unstinting but, sorry to say, it’s an experience less emotional than stamp collecting. A chuckle free zone.

They told me X6 is a revelation on the road, but here’s an odd thing—it isn’t. After its perfect ten on the track, the undulations camber atrocities and unfathomable lines of Snowdonia revealed an awkward truth—the car is too quick to be this tall, too eager for its own, or my own, good. The absence of active steering, which admittedly we have largely rubbished until now, is a missed trick here, leaving you at the mercy of a helm that’s way too light and offers a tenth of the feedback you need to enter corners at these rates.

Posted November 27, 2009 Comments(0)

Just one corner, that’s all it takes. The BMW X6 hurtles towards it with a kind of rock off a cliff momentum, obeys the dab of slow pedal and then makes a hefty lurch for the turn in. you imagine its going to loll and further like an SUV should on a racetrack, an impression magnified by the fact that you are sitting so high up a niftily punted Lotus 2 Eleven could pass under you. But the result is startling. Grip, extra turn-in more grip, more throttle, no lean, no wander. You are out and flooring it, not so much grinning as chuckling. Clearly this much desired SUV meets coupe mash up actually works. But on earth is it doing here, crashing the Gumpert/ Lambo-fest with as much hope of success as a giraffe in dark sunglasses trying to blag his way into a polar bears only golf club? Its here because its designed to perform. Not only that, its designed to do that thing no SUV has yet properly nailed going round corners. Using something called Dynamics Performance Control it dishes torque form wheel to wheel, maximizing grip and thus stabilizing the car, even when you are off the power. This, plus BMW’s awfully good X-drive four wheel drive system and the use of ‘efficient Dynamics’ (brake energy regeneration, a clever alternator and low friction) make a compelling case. Love it or not, it deserves its chance, even in boggo 3.5i petrol form.

But we couldn’t find a group to stick it in, until our eyes alighted on Audi RS6, sitting quietly  in the corner, trying to avoid awkward questions about its vicious price tag.(that’s 80 grand to you, fahad—unless you’d prefer an X6, a Clio Cup and three grand in change?).Okay Audi is a different beast, but it shares with the BMW an avowed determination to overcome a massive weight problem and still perform like a stick thin athlete. These two cars at just over 2000kg each pack roughly the same heft. Together all the fat jokes.

Posted November 25, 2009 Comments(0)

I have two early Volkswagen golf memories. When a student in the early 1970s I had a tutor whose house in North Wales I used to visit. Quentin Hughes was an architect polymath, conservationist, soldier, bon-viveur-a big influence. He introduced me, in no particular order, to the Wine society, to Eames chairs and to the clean design of bang and Olufsen hi-fi. One day in 1974, while strolling through the harbor at Criccieth we came across a small, bright green car of outlandish aspect. At the time, Morris Minors were still a familiar sight not just in rural Wales, but London too. This feature alone seemed a token of serious Ubermenschheit. Each was Volkswagen Golf…one of the most significant cars of all time. The success of Dr Porsches’ ur-volkswagen almost ruined its parents. As late 1970 it was still the company’s single most important product. It sold very well, and made US importers rich, but it was pitiably retardataire compared with Europe’s best and increasingly the Japanese too. Every day 5000 beetles were made, but this was as embarrassing as Ford building the same number of mid 1930s model as in 1969. the Beetle might have inspired Doyle Dane Bernbach’s magnificent contrarians, knowing and sly advertising, but it was poor advertisement for a culture of buzz-cut technocrats with a rapidly rising Deutsche Mark to support.

So Golf had to retain traditional VW values but, be emphatically new. Thus it was born out of Wagnerian management wranglings, procrastination and fretting about the families and fate and destiny. The 1973 Passat was the first new tech VW, but the Golf was more significant, the production that signaled VW’s reinvention, eventually powering the company to its present dominant position in Europe—one likely ever to be challenged.

Posted November 24, 2009 Comments(0)

The two really cleverly packaged small cars of recent years the Mercedes Benz A class and the smart both performance a weird visual trick after you have parked them and climbed out. Having spent sometime in the cabin and become used to its airiness , you look back at the car’s interior and cant believe how tiny it is, and how much unused maneuvering space you had around you in the parking bay. The effect don’t wear off, I owned a smart for a couple of years and still did the double take on a weekly basis. But the effect is stronger in the Toyota iQ than in the other two. Like the A class it has two rows of seats, but like the smart it is less than three meters long and the styling gives no clue that there are decent sized rear seats in there. Climb out of the back of an iQ, look back at it and you will swear you steeped out of something different. The iQ has been greeted with a little cynicism. Toyota bills it as a radical, innovative city car, but it comes only with conventional petrol and diesel engine and at a premium price.

Toyota is keen to stress that the iQ is more a showcase for its new small car strategy than the a model in its own right, and it was the inevitable, almost unintentional result of six design and engineering idea that will appear in other future Toyota, making them smaller and lighter and more economical. It sounds like an excuse to relieve enthusiastic early adopters of more money for less car, but a sit back seats was enough to scupper my skepticism.

Posted November 23, 2009 Comments(0)

Its time to say goodbye to our hard riding high revving little red rocket, we have had it for a year and nearly 11,000 miles and that time it defeated its category rivals in the last year’s performance Car of the year, won a seemingly unwinnable battle against Subaru’s new turbocharged, four wheel drive Impreza and impressed all with its resolute handling, strong braking and, of course, that engine. After running in (torture, said fahad majidi) the type R was off its leash. The surge above 6000rpm we enjoyed, but the 142lb ft of torque (puny compared with blown rivals) made overtaking frantic. Not bad, just different. On the whole, we loved the handling too. Ben Barry summed up the Honda’s dynamics when he said its all about the front end. It goes where you point it…with pinpoint accuracy’. However, the type R was a little too planted for some, lacking the adjustment that makes a mini so playful. Brakes, gearbox and drive by wire throttle proved accurate, strong and response and the quick rack made the steering enjoyable direct, if not massively feelsome. Our Honda came with the $1000GT pack (dual climate control, foglights, cruise, folding mirrors and a glovebox cooler). We liked all these features, but the $1400 navigation pack with voice activated Bluetooth phone provided frustrating. Nothing wrong with the sat-nav, but you cant dial out from a Bluetooth enabled phone nor transfer phone contacts.

The Type R impressed when it wasn’t being a Type R. we loved the vast boot and fold flat rear seats but the front seats refusal to return to position after letting in rear seat passengers caused many a swear word, as did the vision splitting tailgate. Despite these niggles we adored the Type R and, bar a sporadically flickering oil, we experienced absolutely no problem either. A gem.

Posted November 22, 2009 Comments(0)

Restorative justice is forcing a criminal to apologize to his victim. And I am in the dock again, with prosecutor Chilton accusing me of kerbing without due care and attention. His memory is much longer than he is, because this rap dates back to a nibbled alloy on his long-gone MX-5. The day he got it, the latest case involves my 335i, whose 19 inch wheels resemble Swiss cheese with specks of black mould. So I am bundled off to Pristine Alloy Wheels in Bedfordshire, to get them refurbished and learn the error of my ways. The firm’s MD, David James, directs my patience. The 67 year old golf nut (the game, not the car- he drives Aston Martin) began alloy wheel repairs in the late 80’s. He noticed customers at his Fred the Tread tyreshop had crumbling alloys, with corrosion in once hot brake dust or a kerbside skirmish breached the protective lacquer. So James branched out into the wheel refurbishment and, two decades on, has 60 staff and 400 agents nationwide feeding in work. Door to door, the process takes three years to four days. As soon as I arrive, the 335 is inspected. One of the rims is badly gouged, and will need an aluminum weld to build it back up.

It will then follow the other three alloys onto a computerized lathe, where a diamond cutter slices off threads of aluminium like strands of silver hair, until the rim is back to its original profile. First the rims are prepared, shot-blast and doused in chemicals, to remove grime or corrosion. After brushing, they are machined on lathe, and then cleansed in demineralised water. The wheel is then pre-heated to dry it and to remove any internal gases. My repair cost $352 before VAT and the $465 rims look as good as new again.

Posted November 22, 2009 Comments(0)