thinkCAR

I, like many others no doubt, cringe when I see myself appearing on home video footage. As a result of this natural reaction, I have never expressed a desire to film myself doing anything (whether that be in private or in public :p )\\n\\nSince I\\\’ve started doing trackdays however, this attitude has chaged a little bit. There is a very high level of appeal to me (especially on those dark, cold and wet winter evenings, where the track day season feels so many, many months away), of being able to access a library of trackday memories. It\\\’s not a substitute for the real thing, but I can tell you what an excellent accompaniment it provides when inviting your trackday mates over for a fw beers and to mull over the forthcoming annual blats to South east Germany and various other outer reaches of the UK. \\n\\nUntil recently, I had no ambition whatsoever for this digital film library to be anything other than a collection of entirely amateur, unpolished and unedited content. That was until, I realised the wonders of Windows Movie Maker :)  and unfortunately, the inordinate amount of time “…you seem to be wasting dear, on that computer” it takes to compile even the most brief of edited clips. What I\\\’ve been waiting for, is a run of lear days at home, where I can shut myself in my batcave and merge the other side with some kind of Top-Gear esque moody clip of a trackday.\\n\\nMy séjour last year on gardening leave has provided me with the perfect opportunity. Firstly, how can I capture the video footage? Oh, I need a firewre cable and a firwire expresscard. OK, oh? What\\\’s this? 30 mins of footage is…..HOW BIG? 2.9Gb? You are kidding?\\n\\nDuring my gardening leave last year I found the time - switched on my laptop at about 8am, ran my daughter to nursery and set about editing one of over 30 hours of footage from Cadwell, to Silverstone, to Castle Combe, to the \\\’ring……This one was filmed at Mallory Park some years ago (when I used to own an Evo, in fact)\\n\\n

My daily schlep into work (50 miles each way) was painless this morning. The schools go back on Monday so I only have another 3 journeys to look forwards to until the roads turn into an attachment to the office namely: a wholly unsavoury and, avoid-if-at-all-possible affair. 

 It did give me plenty of opportunity to admire some very attractive machinery on the roads. I am wondering whether the gathering of car owners blatting up and down the M40 and M25 this morning are all childless - there seemed to be a noticeable incidence of coupe’s and sports cars. I saw x2 Gallardo’s, a 997 GT3 RS and a 599.  Exotic cars.

It was a white C220 CDi Sport which caught my attention the most. It’s the first time I’ve seen the new model on the roads. What a pretty car. If I was in the market for a 4 door saloon (which I may be in late summer this year) that would be it. I wouldn’t even bother walking to the BMW or Audi showrooms. With the sport kit it is hardly discernable from the AMG version either (pictured). Great if you own a C220 Sport, but not if you paid another 40-odd grand for the AMG version….

Max. Things are getting pretty bad aren’t they? 

There’s next-to-no overtaking and, before Lewis arrived, TV audiences were dropping; fans were turning off - sick and tired of watcing processional races.  2007: The McLaren-gate saga. The Renault decision. And now, the decision to sue Martin Brundle for daring to write this article in The Times newspaper some months ago.

You are suing someone, for daring to express an opinion? It’s reminiscent of times past, times past not in a sport but in governments which have long since been dismantled. Dismantled by the power of the people. The people - the fans - seem to be voting with their feet in this petition to have you removed (1,700+ votes at the last count).

So, thank you for the HANS device, the uncompromising focus you have had on safety. For everything else, well….it’s not really worked out has it?

**Footnote - It’s heartening to see that Martin is sticking up for himself - and all of us - in his latest article )

I’ve been reading the motorsport press the last couple of weeks and it appears that Flavio, Pat and Bob are in for a bit of an ar*e reaming from the FIA; Legionnaire style. Moreover, it appears that none of the broadsheets who were so quick to condemn McLaren have even registered the potential enormity of the court hearing on Dec 6th

In short (all info gleaned from autosport.com and autocar mag):

- It is claimed that some 30+ separate files of McLaren-owned infomation (all stored on over 40 floppy discs) containing some total of 40+ MB of data were loaded onto Renault’s IT system in September 2006
- The data includes, but is not limited to: 700+ drawings of the technical blueprints of McLaren’s 2006 and 2007 cars (incl gearbox designs and weights, suspension dimensions and loadings, etc etc)
- These files were allegedly then loaded onto 10+ individual Renault F1 user account systems, and discussed by more than 15 senior Renault personnel.

Is it possible that this data played ZERO part in the design of Renault’s 2008 challenger (as Flavio would have us believe)? Oh pleeeease…..
If this is all true, then Ron’s *mere* $ 100M fine looks a paltry pile of “merde” compared to the enormous Eiffel Tower of poulet-poop that potentially faces Flavio and his crew. How will Carlos (tighter than a knat’s chuff) Ghosn feel when he gets whacked with a fine big enough to pay for a million new Laguna’s? I do seem to remember “Ze fraaaanch createurs des automobiles” pulling out of F1 on occasion in the past if it suits them.

But…..as severe as the potential penalties could be; (this may sound strange btw) I can’t help but feel sympathy for Renault and McLaren (huh?)
One one hand, they are/were *technically* in posession of intellectual data from another company.

But….

…on the other, in the context of a sport, does it really warrant civil litigation and monumental big_company fines? I think not. I have a book upstairs which regails readers of early day F1 antics: cars being sabotaged the night before a race in the pits: mechanics arriving the morning of the race to find wheels, brake discs and even engines missing. Did anyone blub about it or go to court? Nope. they just got on with it. Bring back the gladiators I say; Hunt (RIP), Lauda, Colin Chapman RIP, Ken Tyrell RIP - THAT is what the sport was founded on. Poor old Frank and Patrick (whom I would class with Ken, Niki, James et al) must be choking on their Veltins (as is Ron, poor chap). The whole current situation is glib, totally arbitrary and sh*te

And it’s all Ferrari’s fault.

No….seriously. (stop laughing)

Think about it - they’ve done a quite masterful job of covering the fact that:
a) They were cheating (with the flexible floor thing) ((and in fact escaped punishment) and…
b ) They had some employees who were clearly prepared to blow the whistle.

After all, it was hardly as if McLaren hired a team of crack commando’s to absail down the walls of Maranello at nightfall; overcome the guards, steal a CD “Mission-Impossible” style before escaping in a vapour of ninja dust is it?  It’s company/civil litigation and company-law being applied to a *sport*.  I mean, imagine if we take this to it’s logical conclusion - then teams wil start patent-ing designs so no-one else can use them. Wheels, wings, so on and so forth will not be able to be used by other teams. Can you imagine where we would be if Lotus did that with ground-effect?  It’s ridiculous.

It’s a shame really….and proof if ever needed that F1 whilst being a thrilling spectacle, is no longer a *sport* and is just a an enormous extended ad break for all of the glib sponsors (who wouldn’t dare say boo to a daring advert), during which some cars go round a track. I still love it, I just wish someone would take these annoying little prats like Todt to a far-off forest and give them a good shoe-ing.

</rant over>

I turned up in Brighton yesterday morning for the handover of my new (well, new to me) BMW 535d M Sport Touring.  Having ploughed through an Olympic breakfast just North of the city, I was ready for whatever japes lay in store.  I’m starting to think it’s just me, but every skirmish I seem to have with dealers these days ends in farce.  Deep breath. Click the pics for hi-res versions

Found the car in the car park easily enough.  I couldn’t resist having a quick look round the outside before seeking out the sales guy.  I had agreed to buy the car based on their description of it, with a get-out clause if I didn’t concur.  So I was nervous that they’d oversold it’s condition.  Externally at least this wasn’t the case.  Couple of stone chips, a tiny nick by the rear window and a small scuff to the base of the front splitter.  It’s two and a half years old and has covered nearly 30,000 miles.  It’s unreasonable to expect it to look like new.

Read the rest of this entry »

Following on from last week’s test drives of the Audi A6 3.0 TDI Le Mans, Volvo V70 D5 SE and BMW 530d M Sport, today I had the chance to spend the day with a Mercedes Benz, namely the 224 bhp E320 CDI Sport.

Discounting the Volvo on grounds of poor engine, the Mercedes would on the face of it have an uphill task against the Audi and BMW.  I’ve never considered a Merc before, viewing the brand alongside Jaguar - for older guys - whereas BMW and particularly Audi are marques that appeal to the younger chap (ahem).  The purpose of our next car is fast, comfortable and economical family transport.  Not a sports car (we’ve got the Mini Cooper S).  So I’m interested mostly in fitness for purpose.  I’d prefer a keen drive, a car that handles well in the bends, but if you want a car to throw around the corners, this is the wrong sector.

Let’s deal with the looks first.  The Merc is obviously the most reserved of the three.  Externally I think it’s more handsome than the BMW (certainly in estate form), but not really a patch on the Audi which is my clear favourite.  The E class would have to be the Sport model though.  It’s fitted with 18″ alloy wheels which are a must on a car this size.  Inside, the design is very austere.  Again I prefer the Audi,  but the Benz is not hampered by the large, easily-scuffed centre panel that I complained about last week.  In terms of fit and finish, I don’t think there is a lot to choose between any of them. 

The design of the E class dashboard seems a little ergonomically challenged - both the BMW and the Audi have the Sat Nav screen high up on the dash, whereas the Mercedes’ screen is lower down, just above the gear lever.  This makes it hard to divert your eyes while driving, though the navigation instructions, current street name and compass heading are displayed on a small monochrome screen between the speedo and rev counter. The map quality is as good as the A6, and far better than the spidery cartography in the BMW.

One interesting point I want to make about the Mercedes is that in Sport trim, it is supplied with seats upholstered in “Artico” - a man made synthetic leather.  I’d read this in the brochure and assumed that it’d be necessary to spec the proper leather.  After all, who wants leather substitute on a £40k car?  I now have to eat those words - the car we borrowed has Artico and you really, really can’t tell it’s not real leather.  An easy way to save almost a grand.  Mark (the sales guy) reckons that for resale it is not an issue (and he told me this before I offered my opinion!).

The front feels more spacious than the BMW, though subjectively I think the Audi has the most space.  In the rear I think it’s neck and neck between the Audi and Merc, though the backs of the front seats are scalloped in the E class which gives a little more legroom.  I can’t back these opinions up with hard facts, just my impressions.  My wife thinks the view out of the Merc is the best, though I found it fine on all three.  I think her opinion is skewed by the light grey roof lining of the E class, it does make the interior seem more airy.

Our car came with 4 zone climate control, two temperature controls in the front (fairly common these days) and two in the back.  This is one option I would not want.  My six year old daughter complained continually about the temperature, and as she could not reach the control I had to reach behind me to fumble with the buttons blind.  When I returned the car I noticed that one side was set to 12 degrees C, the other to “max”.  No wonder she was bleating!  The standard fit trim is “bird’s eye maple” which is a black/grey wood veneer.  It’s not too offensive, in fact I preferred it to the gold/silver sparkly plastic in the Audi.  The Piano black trim in the BMW was nicest.

So to the drive.  Let’s get this out of the way now:  at low speeds, both the Audi and BMW handle better than the Mercedes.  Where the Merc comes into it’s own is high speed ground covering.  It doesn’t feel floaty, the ride is supple but extremely comfortable.  I drove over a variety of roads, but on the way home gave the car a real test over the fenland roads between Holbeach and Crowland.  These are very bumpy B roads, mainly long straights separated by tight turns.  You can carry truly massive speeds along the straights, but due to the bumps it can get a bit hairy, more than one of my past cars has run out of suspension travel along here.  The Merc simply lapped it up.  Composure and comfort are high on it’s list of positive attributes. 

The brakes too, deserve merit.  They are up their with the Audi’s superb stoppers, a cut above the typical lack-lustre BMW brakes.  The E class Sport is supplied with proper-looking anodised calipers and drilled discs.  Such things impress me!

Now onto the Merc’s real party piece:  the drivetrain.  On paper the cars are all pretty similar, though the Audi is down on torque.  On the road the Mercedes engine feels notably stronger than even the BMW.  I’ve never been a fan of automatic gearboxes, but you have to be realistic in this sector.  Almost all examples you can find are autos.  Happily the Merc’s box is a cracker.  It has 7 ratios and 3 modes:  Comfort drive, Sport drive and Manual.  Comfort drive is just like an ordinary auto, changing up at around 3500 rpm.  Sport drive changes up at around 4100 rpm.  Manual mode allows control of the gear changes via the steering wheel-mounted paddles.  In general this pseudo-manual operation is excellent, but as with all tiptronic boxes it changes up for you when it thinks you’re revving too high (always at 4100 rpm).  Also it sometimes refuses requests for downchanges which is a little annoying.  I’m also confused about the manual mode since you can tap the left paddle to take over responsibility for gear changes even if you’re in one of the drive modes.  These foibles aside, it’s easily the best auto I’ve tried.  The speed with which it changes gear is far in greater than either the BMW or Audi and the changes themselves, especially upchanges, are almost imperceptible.

So overall I find myself preferring the E class.  It’s more comfortable and has the most powerful engine and easily the best gearbox.  Harking back to fitness for purpose, these attributes would seem to be more important to me than whether it takes roundabouts flat.  I am supposed to drive the 5 series for a day in two weeks and who knows, maybe I’ll prefer it.  For now my money would appear to be heading towards Mercedes.  I had a quick chat with them about figures.  They quickly offered £5000 off the £45,000 list, but even so I’d be looking at £760 per month over 3 years, albeit with a respectably low balloon payment of £18000 and paltry £3000 deposit.  An 18 month old, lightly specced car in the low to mid thirties would be better I reckon.

Spent much of yesterday test driving, some brief(ish) thoughts. I’ll probably edit it, for now it is just a brain dump.   Apologies if it’s not coherent - I only had a few minutes to type it all in, it’s my little boy’s birthday today.

V70 D5 SE

Local Volvo dealer was holding an “open day” for the new V70 launch. I had a one hour slot first thing in the morning. The car they’ve put on the road was a bit disappointing, it was a manual SE (fake leather). It was ok to drive, rolled a bit, the 185bhp engine lacks power and is unrefined - you could feel it rattling through the steering wheel. Ride quality very good. In the showroom is a top-spec SE Luxe. It has cranberry (dark red) leather and “modern wood” which is obviously the genuine article. In this form the interior is fantastic, a cut above the other cars here, including the Audi. Leather and Xenon lights are standard at SE Luxe level. If you add metallic, sat nav and auto gearbox it’s about £35-36k.

Audi A6 3.0 TDI Le Mans The local Audi dealer offered me a 4 hour un-accompanied test drive. Turned up with the W&K and was initially a bit disappointed that the car they’d organised was a saloon, rather than the Avant. Still it would give us a good idea about the car.  I can’t see there being too much difference between the saloon and avant, but I’d drive the estate anyway at some point just to be sure. The car was fitted with the MMI and Sat nav. The MMI seems very easy to use and the map is beautifully rendered, though I was surprised to see no 3D option - if it’s available on all the £200 after-market systems, why not on an OEM unit costing ten times as much? The car had the media interface which enables connection of an iPod (among other things). Amazingly they refused to give us the cable to connect our iPod - apparently they go missing - so I was unable to test the BOSE stereo except over the FM radio. This left a slightly bad taste - I can understand the need to be careful if people steal the cables, but surely all the sales guy needed to do was check the presence of the cable at the end of the test drive!?

Jean Todt and Ferrari by all accounts, are “furious” about the FIA / WMSC’s decision in Paris this week, not to punish McLaren for the whole Stepney/Coughlan thing.

According to Luca De Montezmolo, many Ferrari fans have written letters to Maranello, expressing their disgust at the decision. Personally, I’m enjoying watching the little frenchman squirm. Read the rest of this entry »

Rather like nightclubbing, the whole trackday experience has a finite lifecycle (in my mind at least). To start with, it’s an exhilarating experience; taking your car to levels of grip and lateral cornering forces you simply cannot replicate on the road. But, like clubbing, after a while, the drinks, the girls and the venues all slowly stop being as appealing. To keep the “buzz” you need to go to a bigger club, better music, prettier birds, and better cocktails. 

I still adore trackdays. It’s just I want something else. Racing appeals. 

The additional reason for the appeal of racing is fellow thinkcar blogger Carl and I are in a similar situation: trackdays are exclusive to us, in that they exclude our families. I’ve enough commitments with work to keep me away from my 3 girls but, to come home, prep the car and disappear off to North east lincolnshire for 48 hours once a month really grates.  Competing in some form of low-level amateur racing would offer the opportunity to include the family in my hobby. Some would take this as being selfish but I see it as being creative

Anyway, this is blog #1. We are at “conceptual” stage ie: “What series to we want to compete in?” and, “What do we want out of it?”; is the first consideration.

A friend of mine and a couple of acquaintances race in the Lotus Elise Trophy - 2007 is it’s inaugural year and they are racing to packed grids. There’s a real appeal to me to racing in this series as:

a) I have an affiliation with the concept of the car(s)

b) I know a fair few of the drivers from Lotus-On-Track trackdays and…

c) I have experience of driving my own car against them at or near to, or (on rare occasions) “the limit”(ahem).

But, the grids are packed this year. And, it looks like VX’s will be excluded from the series next year, simply because of regulations. I could compete but, it would involve selling the VX, buying a S1 Elise and prepping that. I guess that’s still an option but, it would most probably exclude Carl from the experience as he doesn’t fit into an S1 Elise (his helmet protrudes - arf).

 So, for us both to get involved in a car share - after all I’m not ready or able, to commit to a whole series, I think the main criteria are:

1) Low cost of: car / entry and; running costs

2) Calendar

3) Is it more of a “gentlemen’s club racing” (favourable for dipping the toe in the water as a rookie) or a “dive down the inside and let’s have an accident” series (unfavourable)

The front runners for me so far are:

1) Production BMW Championship: this is now part of the “Classic Touring Car Racing Club” and has a good range of venues. Cost of acquiring a pre-raced car is anything from £5k to 10K and the series for a year will cost under £1,500 entry + tyres. The cars are all Pre-1993 318’s or 320’s; and the regs say you have to run control dampers, tyres and brakes, with no mods allowed to the engine. You can take as much weight out of the car as you like though, up to a point.  I’ve made an enquiry to the organisers and there’s a couple of “rent-a-race” drives later in the year which sound interesting.  

Venues:
Includes Donington, Thruxton (!), Mallory, Castle Combe, Silverstone.
http://www.classictouringcars.com/pages/dates.asp

Drivers Deal Pack:
http://www.e30motorsport.co.uk/e30motorsport/PBMWbulkdeals.pdf

Technical Regs
http://www.classictouringcars.com/pages/tech_regs/BMWSeloc2007RegsVer01.pdf

2) Mazda MX-5 racing - Similar to the BMW championship, this is designed as a low-cost series with a good range of venues, from mallory to Oulton, Snetterton and Brands. Cars are available for about £6K and are a lot of fun, what with semi slicks and rwd antics.

3) 750MC  - this is a growing racing series in the UK based on the premise that one-make series are too expensive. So, the cost of entries are the same across the board, and they race different grids (single seaters to hot hatches) at a range of different venues - pretty much the same as above.

A good place to start seems like the ”Hot-Hatch” or a “Stock-hatch“ class. It looks interesting and VERY low cost - the hot hatch series has much more freedom on parts such as dampers and tuning - that’s good but that also means additoinal cost :-/

4) Lotus Elise Trophy - This is still an option but, it’s totally up to Carl as to whether he’s interested.

The advantage of a low-cost other series (such as PBMW) is it would still be ”competable” in whilst enabling me to keep the VX, which would enable me to do a couple of nurburgring trips every year, as well as the odd trackday. Keeping the VX is important for me at this stage, because I’m not sure whether racing is definitely for me yet (which is why the LOTRDC initially appealed - I could sell the car and for the same price, buy an S1 and put a Honda in it - see if I enjoyed the racing and if I didn’t I would still have a highly capable trackday car.

Next stages

Find out more about each series and the cost of competing.  The very first thing we’ll both need is to get our ARDS licence as well. It would be interesting to hire a race car in PBMW but I guess we would need experience of it on track ahead of the event - cost may be prohibitive in this respect. Will update as we go along.

It goes without saying that, if anyone has any advice for Carl and I, I will be highly receptive and grateful

**Initial impressions: the Hot-Hatch 750MC series has a tiny grid (less than 10) - is it struggling? - Also the lap times look rather ominous: a 306GTi is lapping in the low 1min 40 sec bracket round Cadwell…..surely not? This is proper fast.  Maybe they are doing a different circuit to the one I do.

The Mazda MX-5 racing series looks appealing: there’s x3 cars for sale at or around 6k and the grids look quite big, which is encouraging for next year.

It would seem that once again sharpness and love for cars has become my next stave off technique to avoid the inevitable. Read the rest of this entry »