Even within the Kingdom of the Professionals there is no such abstraction as objectivity. We are all built upon our cultural presets and experiential resets.

ii.

My name is Tim Smith. I am a white, middle class, heterosexual male. I was grown in the Cotswolds. My accent is neutral middle England. I find I like to walk fast.

iii.

We cannot get very far into machine culture without mentioning Top Gear.

iv.

My favourite machine is neither real nor possible.

v.

In my note-book this proposition is crossed out.

vi.

Our ideas of what we like in a machine are as much informed by its aesthetic as of its actual substance.

vii.

I will always remember the sound generated by the fuel injection pump on my Father’s Audi Coupe.

viii.

At school, in Tetbury, our German teacher  was a Rugby man. All of his metaphors involved teams or games or pitches. I frequently use technology as a metaphor. I am comfortable with this.

ix.

All of the machines I own are on a five-year cycle. Until recycling techniques become truly worth it and our machines are truly efficient I will avoid buying anything new.

x.

This part is here because it seemed right to have ten propositions.

xi.

This part is here because sometimes we like to turn it up to eleven. Touches like this give a machine or technology its character. Go to the BBC iPlayer. Choose a programme. Adjust the volume. See what I mean?

SIT REP:

So I’ve got a couple of reviews lined up but due to changing the cover on my insurance and generally loosing all faith in all things those sorts of reports are numbered. Or in short I’ve got not much.

Most of the reports I will be filing will be situation reports regarding the PanzerWagon, or, for the uninitiated, my 155,000 mile Audi 80 2.6E Avant. Here’s a short list of the developments that are upcoming:

• - Rust,
• - Rattles,
• - Wrangling with the wheel arches.

And some more:

• - Sunroof,
• - Stalling,
• - Seagull shit.

And how about these?

• - Tyres,
• - Testicles,
• - Trips to motorway verges

Are lists not great? Almost like little poems. The testicles bit may just be a lie. Or maybe not. Can’t decide just yet. In the mean-time here’s a picture of some kittens:

Awwww, look at thier little faeces, I mean faces. I Said FACES.

So, I’ve been away. I get it. It’s me not you. I know. There’s been plenty to write about, I just haven’t been around. It all went wrong around the time of my short experience at Car Magazine, a colourful and informing document I still love, but now a little less. So I’m gonna take it slow. We’ll see how we go…

Bespoke Bentleys and time travelling Deloreans minus flux capacitors but plus the build quality that broke them in the first place. Unwieldy sentences aside even Marty Mcfly would have been at home in amongst the old and the new of the Gloucestershire motor show. Our man the Morgan Man had been buzzing around like a broken fridge for twelve months meeting this and fixing those. He had advised a small team who had brought together some of the great and the good of this green counties motoring nut cases. Witness the Ferrari owners club with their baseball caps and jackets. Being stuck in a lift with these otherwise (probably) lovely human beings wouldn’t be top of my list. Worse still was the solitary Nissan turbo thing that is no doubt a complete pain in the arse to drive and without a hint of the craftsmanship of all of the usual penis extensions I so lovingly lust after. Perhaps I’m being a little too cynical. Perhaps I should reach for another cider.
Anyway;
This is the future, after all. With the British Motor show all but sent through a smoke stack as its relations get drunk and wear black at a wake it has fallen to Goodwood and the aristocracy to rescue what’s left. Enter stage right (definitely right) the provincial shows. This is of course, a great idea. I’ve always been slightly disappointed by the museum like quality of under cover shows. I want to hear those cars move, spin and breath, and although that part was sadly missing from this particular show (although I feel it should be on the way) it was certainly good to see these cars loved. Not under dustsheets or hidden away, but out, being driven and still living. There was also a level of interactivity with a simulator and car that kids could draw on. More of that in the future please. Highlights? The afore mentioned Bentley, the Pimms tent and possibly the red head on the Mercedes stand. If my dad wasn’t a fireman and I hadn’t seen it almost 20 times before I would have loved the demonstration of our rescue services cutting someone out of a car. It certainly drew a crowd. In fact the whole show (despite familiar insecurities) was a success. Top banana and congratulations to the team. We’ll see you next year for the following instalment.

That damn Frontera with its flat tyres (but dust caps replaced) has sat big and wasteful in the building car park for a month. A comment by Clarkson about ‘eco-mentalists’ letting SUV tyres down woke me up. Perhaps this is what had happened? they’d left the Pipe Smokers Vitara alone though. And the PanzerWagon. I’d put money on both producing equivalent CO2  to the lumbering, currently immobile, sleeping Frontera.

This is all speculation though. Spread generously across the Vauxhall’s body are the logos of a local removal company. It could well have been a disgruntled former employee.

Who put the dust caps back on.

Consciencelessly.

Right.

Enough rambling though. Wait. That would be the end of this piece.

Right.

More rambling then.

I’d rather taken a fancy to an E28 5-series the other day. Thought I’d see whether I could find one on AutoTrader. No. Such. Luck.

I could blame the scrappage scheme, so I will. The Figures Man recently announced that it was a success, pointing to the reduction in the UK’s CO2 emissions. Sure, we’ve given in our  smokey old gen engines for mostly Korean, cleaner EU4 approved next gen engines, but how much energy have we used making these clean machines? What was emitted in the use of this energy? Does it trade off with the long term use of older, already manufactured, dirtier goods? Personally I don’t know. What I’m asking is that you search for the truth and act on it.

Image follows…

Flat tyre Frontera

Transmission Ends…

My mind was taken back to an overcast day. The air was cold and the coffee was hot. We were racing along at a fair clip, the big, transplanted 2-litre engine easily hauling us in a tiny Corsa. The mechanic had done all his own work on the humdrum normalcy of Vauxhall’s under-par B sector car. I’d scoffed at his fascination with, what was in my view, a washing machine with wheels. He’d ploughed on though. He’d lowered it, ICE’d it, given it big wheels and rebuilt the gearbox. He’d let the original 16v Lotus developed 1.4 breath better, given it a huge exhaust before getting obsessed with ever bigger engine transplants. 1.4 gave way to 1.6. Then, when he’d found the right block , a 2-litre had been squeezed under the bonnet. Through his toiling, dirty fingernails, scuffed and bleeding knuckles, he’d created a car with boisterous soul.

To damn hard though.

As we clipped along my coffee could not sit in a cup holder. The suspension would spill it all over his well kept interior. I had to hold it, arm up, arm supplying softer, easier undulations to the crashing nature of his track-focused suspension.

“Not very practical” I’d commented, spilling yet more insult on his baby.

Whilst it is certain that the Focus RS’ suspension is well sorted, every so often I would be reminded how hard it is. Both myself and Morgan Man were experiencing bad guts. Bad guts from too much drink and the excesses of a weekend of good food, good company, too much worry and too little sleep. Potholes would remind us of this. The RS is not a car for the fragile.

Still;

It is impressive. 300bhp through the front wheels should not be possible outside of the BTCC. I was surprised at how well it dealt with it. I was endlessly entertained by the engine. The muscular turbo five sounds good. Great chunks of torque haul you up any incline in any gear. The RS is totally dominated by its engine. As you drive it you feel like someone who has spent too much time in the gym. You bump along streets and muscle your way past slower traffic out of town. Everything else looks small or fat or inferior. The psychological effect is similar to driving a Transit van. I almost felt like buying a copy of the Sport and laying it, folded half, on the dashboard. In traditional Focus style the steering is nothing short of brilliant, the chassis talks to you, it feels alive. This is something I look for in all machines. I couldnt help thinking though, that the RS is half finished. With no second driveshaft running to the back wheels it can’t really be classed in the same league as the rally weapons Evo and Impreza. That leaves it sat uncomfortable in the hot hatch sector. It’s too hard to call it practical. It’s probably too expensive to run to call it hot-hatch cheap.

So what is it?

Don’t get me wrong. The Focus RS is great, but I was taken back in time  to Rockingham as the head of Mugen poked and prodded Car magazines long-term RS. True, Ford are broke and the RS was developed with next to no money in the pot but as Hiro Toyoda said,

“Good for the Money”

…images follow…

Transmission Ends…

I had spent too long pouring over diagrams and Ferrari family history, but I was still no closer to what I’d seen.

Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Although a steam engine or V8 are not  beautiful in the classical sense, either of these forms can make a grown man weep. When Morgan Man had shown me what was easily the star of the local classic Hill climb I had rediscovered what makes my fascination with machines tick. A tiny Ferrari 340MM with a perfectly formed 2-litre V12 barely filling it’s engine bay struck my very being. MM stands for Mille Miglia. This was more than just a car. This was a purpose built racing grand tourer.

Purpose in yowling through the Italian countryside.

Purpose in keeping its driver safe and informed.

Purpose in firing its tiny twelve cylinders in perfect order.

I could feel its latent busy energy in the Sunday Autumn air.

So why the family history searching? Turns out, from what I can make out, the little Ferrari has the wrong body for the engine.

OR

The wrong engine for the body. The engine  marked it as an earlier 166MM. The body identified a 340MM. I’m currently awaiting a reply from Morgan Man on the matter.

Coma-inducing sadness aside, what else was there? Well, as a clanging hangover had driven me and The Business Man to Prescott, as I’d crunched the gears on the PanzerWagon, as the official on the gate had looked on in horror, Morgan Man had met us at the gates. We parked up, walked up the field car park. The smell of unburnt petrol seared my nostrils. There was no mistaking it. We’d parked near a pack of TVRs.

Crossing the bridge to the infield (so to speak) revealed row after row of classic metal, plastic and rubber. Here a Type 51, there a Lotus Cortina. Here, the most immaculate Healey 3000 in the known Universe, there some students with a tiny single seater powered by a screaming superbike engine.

We were drunk on the fumes, the colours, the sounds. We were re-drunk on a couple of pints. Further staggering found an excruciatingly rare Aston martin DB7 Zagato.

“It is beautiful” I slurred,

“but then it is an XJS underneath”. Tact, as most things, goes out of the window when your blood is flooded with Guinness. Luckily, the owner wasn’t around, luckily someone laughed.

unfortunately, as my benefactor, Morgan Man, pointed out, this was the to be last hill climb of the season.

Fortunately Morgan Man promises a full season next year. By that time AutoEclectic may have made the leap to video.

…Images follow…

Transmission Ends…

It should be noted that the transmission received by this station and as follows this interception was written by an exhausted, ill and over worked sub-standard agent. Please forgive the slightly lack lustre nature of this weeks transmission from Sol System. That is all.

…admiralty code attached…

Original transmission follows…

Transmission begins…

Although it would be easier to keep the little Abarth 500’s turbo on the boil with a paddle shift auto I can’t help thinking it would be less fun. The Abarth 695 Tributo Ferrari may look good and go well, but really? An auto on a super hot 500? Really? Really, really?
Oh well.

Ferrari’s own 458 took allot of the attention. It’s certainly prettier than the 430, more efficient than the 430 and quite a bit quicker (in standard form) than the 430. Who’s betting the new McLaren will be just as good though?

And now for a question.
Can you think of a single car that’s looked better post-facelift? I can’t. The Punto Evo certainly looked better pre surgery, pre-Evo badge. Kia’s Ceed (verging on the good looking) definitely looked better last year. Why do they do it?
Oh yea.
Consumerism.
The need to have new stuff on show without doing too much work.
Yea. That.
Anyway;
Audi, terminally boring as they are, have released yet another sub niche car. Welcome in Audi A5 Sportback. The product of mixing A5 and A4 genealogy, we have Audi’s answer to royal style genetic barrel scrapping. How long before Audi’s product children become disfigured and stupid is anyone’s guess…

From the ridiculous to the sublime, I’m gonna go out on a whim and say the Lambo Reventon Cabriolet is better looking than the coupe. Somehow it just fits better. Seeing it in the flesh (if I’m lucky enough) could change my mind, but really, even the Reventon is irrelevant. What I’m really waiting for is next years Mercielago replacement. My eyes are watering in anticipation just thinking about it.

From the sublime to the sober, it can be said with certainty that EV’s or electric vehicles dominated this year’s show. Audi unveiled what amounted to corporate bullshit mock-up pictures of an EV R8. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great idea, but drawings do not a show car make. Much more promising was Ford and Volvo’s electric Focus and C30. Indeed neither showcased impressive figures but what they do show is that at long last Ford is on the road to electrification.

Albeit with the conventional drive-train, Mercedes also showed its new electric car. The new Gullwing will get full EV status by 2012 but in the mean time it stands as easily the best looking car Merc have made for ten, possibly thirty years. It maybe unashamedly retro but the Gullwing was right first time in the 50’s. No need to argue with that.

All of this though, all of this pales into insignificance. All of this is just the turning of cogs in the march towards consumer ideals. What’s the best news of the show? What mattered to me most?
I’ll tell you.
Come in close, now.
I’m going to whisper this very slowly.
Lotus.
Are.
Coming.
Back.
To.
F1.

Amen.

Transmission Ends…

It’s an undisclosed date, time and place.
The trees are still and the air heavy. A Renault Sport Clio Cup 172, driven by The Mechanic, bites hard on the English air. We overtake desperately…

“Let me take you round the lanes” he’d said.

I’d had a short go in the 172. I’d found it to be a revelation. I could actually feel the front axle moving around in my hands. The steering was brilliant, the engine, eager and sonorous. I’d feared an over rated, uncomfortable cardboard box. True, the Renault is no solid German but it’s better then you think. True, the last Clio I’d driven had felt odd, somehow perching you on top of the car instead of inside it.
But the 172…
The 172 was comfortable, the ride wasn’t too hard, the gearbox, although slightly vague didn’t suffer from French pudding syndrome. In other words it didn’t feel like I was stirring porridge. Even though it didn’t have ABS or any sort of electronic aids I was sure we would be ok.
Thus;

Rule No. 002 – Safety Is Absolutely Coupled To Feel

After promised lanes an over eager exit from town had met a 330d in police livery coming the other way. After I’d sent my friend down a dead end drive way we’d exited and cooled off. We’d turned back and got on it again. We’d met the 330d again. The 172 providing the extension to his strength, The Mechanic had hurled us down the road towards lanes unclassified.
“We’ll be fine” I’d assure.
“We’ll be reported” I’d schizophrenically added.
Later, the Renault ticking at the side of the road, I’d asked the more mundane questions. The answers, 35-40 mpg, no major trouble, totally reliable, had told me all I needed to know. I want one. I want one badly. Perhaps not badly enough to get chased around though…

Transmission Ends….