Škoda Superb Estate

It is not often you can endorse official fuel consumption figures. On a brim-to-brim test over nearly 400 miles, I came within a single mile per gallon of the Skoda Superb Estate’s combined 38.7mpg. Mostly motorways and dual carriageways, with a fair amount of Kent B-roads, it was an impressive return for a 1550kg (4317lb) spacious estate car keeping mostly although not obsessively to speed limits. The 1.8 TSI Elegance is smooth, quiet, roomy and at £23,550 restores the dignity Skoda enjoyed as a great industrial and armaments firm. It made cars in Edwardian times; fine sporting and luxury machines by Laurin & Klement. Restoration by the VW group restores it to world rank.

A Superb Estate could replace my faithful 4x4. It has space for the motoring dogs. A heavy duty tray for the 595l (21cuft) loading space costs £150. It is 1700l (60cuft) with the seats folded (they could go walkies; there is more room than any competitor). I could even have it with sophisticated Haldex four wheel drive, so clever it only drives all of the wheels some of the time and hardly ever all the wheels all of the time.

It makes up its mind which ones to turn, depending on circumstances. A cunning control unit counts up wheel speed, accelerator position, engine rpm and what the stability sensors say. If there is ten per cent slip it reacts within a single revolution, transmitting the requisite torque. On slippery going it consults the ABS, braking one front wheel while applying pull to the other.

This is relaxed economical six-speed tranquillity. Cruise control is included in the price along with Columbus touch screen satellite navigation, leather upholstery, which I could never do without, heated seats, different side air conditioning, buzzing parking sensors and clever detailing that includes an umbrella in the rear door.

Adaptive Front light System (AFS) also makes up its own mind, producing the right sort of beams for town, main roads or motorways. A rain mode reduces reflective glare, cornering lights point sideways and, amazingly, the driver can instruct the Maxidot computer to adjust the lights for left or right hand drive. No more black patches when you go to the ferry. The spread of brightness is superb. You don’t realise how effective and subtle it is, especially the swivelling beams, until you drive something else.

The Skoda Superb richly deserves the awards it has had. It is supremely confident, confers complete peace of mind. There is a bit of road noise and they say the diesels are not quiet even though they win prizes too. Yet it is so well made; the trim is carefully stitched and moulded, nothing has been skimped. The fit and finish would grace a BMW. It is an organised car that it is hard to fault. Elegance specification includes rear parking sensors, Bi-xenon headlights, chrome roof rails and a tyre pressure monitor making it a bargain in equipment. It may not have the emotional appeal of a BMW, a Jaguar, or a Mercedes-Benz yet Skoda is on the threshold of joining them among the classic European makes of car.

Fiat 500 Twin Air

With a facia like a Roberts radio the Fiat 500 Twin Air raises retro to new frontiers. Italian engineers at the press launch this week could not resist congratulating themselves on a conspicuous success. It sips fuel by the teaspoonful and has the lowest exhaust emissions of any production petrol engine. Even climate-change sceptics can not gainsay free entry to the London Congestion Charge zone, with 95kg/km of CO2 from the exhaust.

Pert, pretty and engaging, Fiat 500s have form. Remember 13bhp. The first 500 of 1936, the Topolino or Mickey Mouse, had a 569cc side-valve 4-cylinder at the front driving the rear wheels, independent suspension by transverse leaf spring, weighed 535kg (1179lb) and did about 53mph and 45mpg. More than half a million were made. Recreated in 1957, the engine was changed to a 479cc overhead valve vertical twin, put at the back and shorn of a transmission shaft its weight was reduced to 470kg (1035lb). It still gave only13bhp so it didn’t go much faster but it used less fuel; 50mpg against about 47mpg.
Like VW, with the born-again Beetle, the 4-cylinder retro-styled Fiat 500 of July 2007 shifted the engine to the front again, driving the front wheels. Safety equipment and crash protection made it heavier and now we have another vertical twin with a chain drive ohc to 4-valve heads. It is now 900kg (1984lb) but this little jewel of a car has a turbocharger, and with 85bhp and five gears will do 108mph and, on the extra-urban cycle, 76.5mpg.

At 60mph the new Twin Air burbles along at a restful 2,500rpm in fifth. Dr Lanchester’s clever balancer shaft hasn’t quite smoothed out the beat of the two cylinder engine but it is not an unpleasant buzz. You can’t call it swift at 11sec to 60mph and the gearshift is a bit woolly but what a little charmer. People smiled at in picturesque Berkshire, where the local authorities are speed camera-mad, obsessed with chicanes, road humps and so-called traffic-calming, outdated and largely discredited safety measures, which must do little for the residents’ peace of mind.
Veteran Fiat PR Peter Newton runs well-organised, informative launches, packed with information. Based at the splendid Forbury Hotel, cheek by jowl with Reading Gaol, well worth a Ballad.

The heart of rual autumnal Berkshire

BMW X1

Road testing cars for The Motor used to be objective. “Put yourself in the mind of a buyer,” they told you. It wasn’t a bad rule, ignored now by self important hacks who tell you what they think. Their experience can be sketchy. Mine was once.

It’s not always easy pretending to be a buyer, so I am being one. I am shopping for a replacement for the Terrano. Not just yet maybe. I bought it because I thought it would last a long time. In 12 years it has only done 70,000 miles because it I mostly drive other people’s cars. It could last a lifetime. It has been the most reliable car I have ever had.

The Terrano may be noisy but it is strong. I got it to pull number two daughter’s horsebox. No longer a cute teenager, more a yummy mummy, she is very green. She and Adam will borrow it for a holiday. Grand-Teddy will be safer in the big Terrano than in their little Clio. It may not go with her greenery unless she counts it recycled, which saves the planet making another one.

While I am making up my mind I can test cars subjectively. I can be myself. No more mealy mouthed objectivity. Here’s what I really think. A BMW X1 would be nice. It would pair up with my Z3 (see above). UK X1s are all diesels, which is fine; I like diesels. And I would want an automatic that is agreeably smooth and quiet with plenty of torque for overtaking. So far so good. The X1’s accommodation is fine and in theory would fill the bill, but the cheapest is £23,000. Four wheel drive, Sat-nav and leather upholstery lifts it into 3-series territory close to £30,000. It has 3-series underpinnings although 1.5cm narrower, there is not much room in the back and not enough for the dogs in the boot.


I didn’t find the steering crisp enough and the ride is turbulent. The wheels bump thump into potholes and steep cambers throw it off course. The inside is gloomy. It may be good quality stuff but is a bit severe I do like some luxury trim.

You spend a long time looking at the facia and it may be businesslike and efficient but it’s dull. The X1 is well proportioned from the side but upright and abrupt in front.

Road performance is exemplary. The X1 whisks along quietly, the 6-speed gearbox shifts seamlessly, it does 45-50mpg, so the 61litre (13.4gallon) tank would take you half the length of the realm, which I like. So, the X1 is worthy but not, I think, for me. BMWs should have charisma and this hasn’t. I suppose I am really looking for an estate car, 4x4 not really necessary in Lincolnshire, good ride essential, road noise unacceptable, probably diesel automatic with space for two Labradors.

AGE CONCERN

I could drive one of these at the SMMT Test Day.
One manufacturer in three must stop selling cars to drivers over 70. If industry publicists are agreed that three score years and ten is the upper age limit for drivers, it follows that it will become a cut-off point for salesmen.

Of 33 makes taking part in next week’s SMMT test day, 22 apply an upper limit of 70 or 75 for journalists. Alfa Romeo, Chevrolet, Honda, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Proton, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo will welcome older drivers who are, according to the RAC Foundation, amongst the safest on the road. Search Blogspot for Still Safe at 70.

Ford and Renault will allow older drivers into their slower cars. Audi and SEAT raise their disqualifying age to 80.

Of some 300 cars I have tested since I passed 70, all but one have been returned without so much as a scratch. The exception I am sorry to say was an Audi, on which I buckled a door sill on a low car park wall. I have driven Aston Martins, Bentleys, Audi R8s, Porsches, Jaguars and more but now, it seems, the PRs are imposing some kind of ageist apartheid. It can only be inferred that they will stop selling cars to anybody over 70.

I could, of course, easily fall off the edge of the Millbrook test track next week, if I go. Nobody’s perfect. But after something like two million accident-free miles (save for a couple of minor blemishes mentioned in the Blog) I hope to get away with it for a bit longer. The SMMT says the age limit is imposed by car companies’ insurers. My insurers find me safe enough, my licence is clean; I had some speeding misdemeanours when I was younger but I try and remain within the law nowadays.
Or I could drive one of these: splendid Jaguar engine at Geneva last year

JAGUAR XF

2010 JAGUAR 3.0 Diesel Portfolio

So Jaguar, it seems, was beleaguered the year the Berlin Wall came down. The XJ220 did not come out quite like the one I described in The Sunday Times on 10 December 1989. This was the year classic car prices peaked and convinced they were going to go on increasing, like art treasures, dealers were in a frenzy. I watched one sell a car in an afternoon, for £3,000 more than he had paid for it that morning. In the end all they were doing was selling cars to other dealers, only to discover that there were not enough “speculators” to go round, and the bubble burst. Even sober firms like Jaguar were tempted to join in, however, by the time the XJ220 got into production, with a turbocharged V6 instead of a V12, the price had gone up to £290,000. There was talk of a production run of 350 but only 280 were ever made.

Jaguar is still a bit beleaguered. Ford ownership came and went. The idea that it could go into the volume business against BMW and Mercedes-Benz came and went as well. Now it wants to compete at the premium end of the market with Porsche, all a bit of a change from when Jaguar challenged keenly on value, putting Armstrong Siddeley, Alvis and others completely out of the luxury car business. The answer to “How do they do it at the price?” was by reducing overheads; Sir William Lyons imposed strict control. Only the topmost executives actually got a Jaguar with the job. The Browns Lane car park was full of Ford Prefects and Hillman Minxes.

I have been driving the 2010 XF 3.0 diesel Portfolio at £41,500, half the price of a Porsche Panamera, but in driving quality surely a match. Swift, smooth, quiet, refined, Jaguar has long mastered the bugbear of so many competitors, road noise. Ruth thought there was a bit of rustle from the wind at motorway speeds but that was only because everything else is so quiet. Jaguars have been superior

The XF’s little ceremony when you press Start is engaging. The gear selector rises obediently out of the console, the air vents swing open, the facia display lights up and you feel at once in control. It is a bit of whimsy, yet part of a policy of lifting Jaguar into the 21st century after the misapprehension that customers wanted Jaguars to look the way Jaguars used to look. This did not give the engineering much chance to shine and I suppose that build quality and exclusiveness now compensates for the old bargain prices.

How astonishing that the E-type was introduced (inflation notwithstanding) for a basic £1550, or £2200 with tax. The XF’s naught to sixty in less than 7 seconds and top speed of 150 is about the same as an E-type, although not much else is remotely similar. The E-type did about 18mpg, the XF 42. The fuel tank size is about the same, 14 gallons against the XF’s 15.3, which gives the large 5-seater a range of 643 miles against the 2-seater’s 250.

If it keeps making cars like this, Jaguar will lift the beleaguredship.

VW Polo 1.2SE

VOLKSWAGEN POLO 1.2SE

Road tests in The Motor were essentially compiled by committee, although an author, by tradition anonymous, was responsible for drawing opinions together. This cloak of secrecy was set aside when Roger Bell, who wrote a less than flattering appraisal of the Mark X Jaguar, was hauled up before the management at Browns Lane to explain himself. Editor Richard Bensted-Smith had to make a contrite explanation although Roger, skilled and articulate, was perfectly capable of speaking for himself. His views were not only those of the entire team, they have been endorsed by experience.

The road test staff comprised the technical editor, Joe Lowrey, Charles Bulmer, Roger Bell and me. We were joined by Michael Bowler and Cyril Posthumus and worked from time to time with John Anstice-Brown, and the marvellously erudite Laurence Pomeroy. Generous, amusing and never patronising, Pom was occasionally theatrical yet one hung on his every word.

The principles of road testing at The Motor were carefully drawn. Cars were assessed from the point of view of a likely buyer. Personal prejudices were disallowed. We individuals preferred fast cars, slow ones bored us, but authors were prohibited from reflecting such narrow-mindedness. Objectivity was crucial. Some readers actively disliked fast cars and we had to take them into account. You described a car rather than set yourself up as a critic, we were compiling tests for likely buyers so we had to think as likely buyers and not young tearaways.

Judging by tyre-smoking pictures and jargon from racing drivers manqué it’s not like that now. I reflected how testing has changed when I was at the wheel of a 1.2 litre Volkswagen Polo SE this week. It is now safe to reveal that I was author of The Motor road test of another 1.2 litre Volkswagen in 1963, in which: “Cornering is accomplished with little roll but a certain apprehension as initial understeer gives way to a decided oversteer as the 41/59 weight distribution and swing axle rear suspension assert themelves.” This described the handling without exactly saying whether we liked it or not. The conclusion was perfectly clear. “Although economical the performance is poor for a 1200 and it is seriously affected by adverse conditions like a strong wind or a heavy load. Handling is suspect on account of oversteer, which asserts itself abruptly.” Nothing mealy-mouthed there.

What strides cars have made in 46 years. Top speed of my 1963 Beetle was 70mph, fuel consumption 26mpg, although we always included a “Touring” consumption, calculated from the steady-speed tests, since it took less account of the test staff’s fast driving. The VW’s was 42.75 (6.6l/100km) reflecting high gearing and low rpm. Maximum power of 34bhp (25.35kW) came in at only 3,600rpm, “at which the piston speed was only 1,510 ft per minute.” Pom was very big on piston speed.

The clever little Polo gives 69bhp (70PS) (51.48kW) at 5400rpm representing some 3,080 ft per minute, about twice what Pom would regard as acceptable. The difference is that the Polo is going 30mph faster, its little 3-cylinder engine spinning smoothly and faultlessly to give a combined mpg of 51.4 (5.49l/100km). The quality of VW finish and engineering has never wavered since the Beetle, and even though the Polo takes 14sec to reach 60mph, or about 4 sec less than the Beetle took to reach 50, it does not feel slow.

Putting myself in the shoes of likely buyers, they would surely approve.

I tried the diesel 1.6 TDI. It has a few extra horse power and a fourth cylinder, is just about as fast and should give 65.7mpg (4.3l/100km) but likely buyers might not enjoy it as much as the swifter-feeling petrol car.