Boy racer

Flicking through the various glossy Ford brochures one peaceful afternoon (yup, it’s that quiet) I was struck by a performance enhancing optional extra available on just one specific model within the range. The brochure reads thus:

Eibach suspension-lowering kit: The Eibach suspension-lowering kit enhances driving performance and handling as well as giving a more sporty appearance. Lowers the car by approximately 30mm.

See if you can guess which shining example of Ford’s dynamic range of motorcars might attract the sort of buyer who would be particularly interested in enhancing the looks and dynamics of his vehicle, so interested in fact that Ford deem it worth offering such an option as this?

Wrong, it’s the Ford Fusion!

I’m just off to replace the needle of my Bizarrometer, it seems to have got bent when it went off the scale…

Modern technology

Cruising to The Blonde’s in my almost but not quite top spec Fiesta Zetec I decide to give her a quick call, let her know I’m on my way. Maybe she’ll put the dinner on. Time to employ a little technology, Ford style. I extend a digit and touch the voice control button on the indicator stalk that controls the radio, CD player, and the in-built hands-free car phone that links via Bluetooth to my mobile phone. This is properly trick kit. The radio mutes and the car emits a polite “bleep”.

“Phone” I intone, solemnly.

The current format does not support the command “track”.

What!? I said phone, not track! I press the voice control button again.

Bleep.

“Phone”

Phone

That’s better.

“Dial name”

Store name

“No not store, dial!”

Name please?

G’aahh!! “Cancel”

Command cancelled.

Bleep.

“Phone”.

Command please.

“PHONE!”

Phone.

“Dial name”

Store name.

“CANCEL!!”

Command cancelled.

Deep breaths. Calm, calm… Press button again. Bleep.

“Phone”

Phone.

“Dial name”

“Store name. Name please?”

No no no no NO! “CANCEL!!!”

Command cancelled.

Count to ten. Breath in through nose, and exhale.

Bleep.

“Phone”.

Phone

“Dial. Name.”

Dial name. Name please?

Yes, yes, YES! Now we’re cooking.

“Blonde home” (yes I really do have her as that on my voice dial).

Blonde mobile

Nooooooo….!

“CANCEL!!” You stupid stupid thing!

Command cancelled.

Unclench fingers from steering wheel and flex them gently. Control breathing. Press button.

Bleep.

“Phone”.

Phone

“Dial. Name.”

Dial name. Name please?

“Blonde home”

Tom home

AAAAARRRRRGGHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Bleep.

“P H O N E !”

Phone

D I A L. N A M E.

Dial name, name please.

B L O N D E. H O M E.

Blonde home. Confirm yes to dial?

Yes. Yes yes a thousand times yes!!

Dialling.

Brr brrr… brr.. brrr… click.

Hello The Blonde speaking (No she doesn’t really say that but you know, client confidentiality, Hippocratic oath, Date Protection, all that nonsense).

“Err, hi, it’s Charlie, just ringing from the car to let you know I’m on my way.”

“Hmmm… but you’re on my drive, I can see you.”

“Yes I know that, but I wasn’t when I started dialling you!!”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, look, never mind never mind.”

“You seem rather flustered and you appear to be phoning me from my drive, is everything ok?”

“Yes yes, it’s fine, absolutely fine.”

“Riiiiight. So are you coming in?”

“Yes yes, I’ll be right there.”

“Oooakay. I’ll put dinner on then shall I?”

“Good plan, see you in a sec.”

“Rightio, bye then.”

“Goodbye.”

The Blonde looks at me quizzically through the window as she hangs up and I climb out of my car.

Bloody technology, I’m calling from home before I leave next time!

The Breakfast Show

I glare balefully at my “Breakfast Bundle”. It had seemed such a good idea at eleven thirty last night when I was offered it on arrival, cornflakes and milk, a croissant, an orange juice, perfect, just the thing for a 5:30am start. The reality, however, isn’t quite living up to expectations. A soggy limp piece of pastry about the size of my little finger, no butter just a tiny pot of jam, a plastic tub of unidentifiable cereal with UHT milk, and a small carton of orange juice. The only thing remotely palatable is the orange juice. I crack open the top and take a swig. No, not even the orange juice. I set it down on the side next to the rest of the abandoned “Breakfast Bundle”, take a last glance around the clean but spartan room that reminds me of a Swiss prison cell (no idea why, I’ve never seen a Swiss prison cell), and head for the door, the corridor, the stairs, and finally the cool crisp damp morning air of the car park.

I love very early mornings, although ironically I really hate getting up early, which means I rarely get to see them. There’s a stillness and a sense that you’re all alone and getting a head start on the slumbering world that I find invigorating. I make my way to the fly splattered Fiesta Zetec, plip the central locking, dump my bag in the boot and drop into the driving seat. 30 seconds later I’m nosing out of the car park and urging the sat nav to get a fix so I know which way takes me to the motorway. John Cleese is as sleepy as me so I take a guess and swing right, out onto the main road, and call up all of my trusty Fords rampant 96 horsepowers, I’ll soon find out if I’m wrong. Two minutes later I spot a sign telling me to take the next left for the motorway, at that very moment John Cleese bursts into life “take the left left in 300 yards” he intones. Perhaps he saw the sign too.

I love motorways when they’re quiet, almost as much as I hate them when they’re busy. Hence the five o’clock kick off this morning. The Fiesta is far from the fastest car I’ve ever driven, but it settles into a comfortable 80+mph cruise and is recording 40mpg on the trip computer, figures I’ll hopefully be living with for the next 300 miles and four hours. As the sun rises and the countryside flicks by I ruminate on the past week and the reason for my double length of the country trek.

With the pressures of the new job on both time and energy, to my shame The Boychild hadn’t visited Croker Towers for almost a year. I’d (we’d) been to see him of course, but that’s never the same. So with school holidays looming The Blonde and I had managed to synchronise holidays and the school timetable and arrange to pick him up and run him back for a few days R&R chez moi.

We’d combined the run to get him with a visit to Bristol where we’d stayed in the excellent Bristol Hotel and spent a pleasant day catching up with an old friend of The Blonde for lunch and exploring the dockside. What they’ve created is very impressive, most cities with a river running through talk of regenerated docklands, vibrant cafe culture and living the urban dream, but in Bristol there’s a real sense that they’ve actually achieved it. The Blonde and I liked it there very much. That evening we dined in the excellent restaurant of the hotel, had a good nights sleep and then hit the road again. Boychild duly collected it was a late evening run back home sharing the driving.

Rekindling fatherhood each time The Boychild arrives is never easy. Each visit brings fresh challenges. In the early days he’d awake late at night crying hysterically for his mother until the early hours, refusing to be placated until he wore himself out, only to awake the following morning to a frazzled me without a care in the world. Once we were over that hurdle we went through the needing to be constantly stimulated and entertained stage, every activity spurned within half an hour in a constant quest for fresh endeavours.

Now we’ve hit teenage years he’s better able to keep himself amused, but the new challenge is connecting with him at all, as everything becomes “boring” and all he really wants to do is to immerse himself in Facespace and Mybook. I have to tempt him outside into the fresh air with a combination of blackmail and bribery. The first couple of days he was down it was abundantly clear he wanted to be anywhere but, counting off the hours till he could return home. Heartbreaking. Half way through the week, aided and abetted in no small part by The Blonde and her sons The Two Non Blondes, we had a bit of a breakthrough and fun was clearly seen to be being had. We even coaxed him into a long walk home after a fun afternoon out, a new world record in Boychild mileage.

The Blonde couldn’t make the return trip due to other commitments, hence my late evening run and overnight in the Swiss Travelprison, and my painfully early start.

It was paying off though, fiesty Fiesta hoovering up the motorway network as the traffic slowly begins to build. I just had to get through the madly busy sections before 8am and I’d be home dry. I keep the pressure on, dodging down lane three past dawdling middle lane hoggers, signalling left and cutting back into the empty lane one immediately ahead of them, they never get the message though.

Just as it seems that I’m through the worst and about to enter the last easy couple of hours disaster strikes, an overturned lorry on my side 100 miles hence. Only one lane open according to the traffic news, police on the scene, recovery in progress. Time to start thumbing through the options in my mind, ease off and hope it clears or keep the speed up and hope to get in among the inevitable traffic queue before it gets too long? Stick with the motorway and inevitable delay or try and cut off round hoping the time lost in diversion will be less than the time stuck? I keep the speed up, getting closer and closer, playing exit roulette. Do I swing off at the next one or hope to make it further down the far more direct and faster motorway before taking another exit?

I try and figure exactly where it is and how long the queue is by the traffic reports, one more junction, one more junction. I’m bearing down fast, maybe 30 miles away, when the news comes through, obstruction removed, three lanes open again, traffic moving but still big delays. Good work guys! I stick with it a bit further, services coming up, I must be nearly on it but is it clear yet? The radio has gone very quiet on the subject.

I take the slip road up to the roundabout and off into the services for a comfort stop, a break and a think. I don’t have to rejoin here, I can take a different route off the roundabout and attempt to head round it. My GPS has a route block avoidance program, I can use that. But am I going to drive miles at low speed to miss something that isn’t there? Decisions decisions. As I leave the services I spy a couple of big screens showing the Highways Agencies web site detailing all hold ups. I check the motorway I’m on, no delays. Decision made I’m back in the car, round the roundabout and straight down the sliproad and back up to speed. For about three minutes until it all comes to a complete standstill. Bugger. Wrong choice.

I stop start crawl for forty five minutes, cursing the Highways Agencies and their stupid map all the way. Traffic reports are filtering through again, apparently there’s a hold up about where I am. Really? Eventually I break through and the rest of the trip proves uneventful. I slide the Fiesta back onto the drive next to my pretty little MX5 and climb out. Job done till next time, now for a proper breakfast…

Kicking aRSe

It was in the car park when I arrived at work, all hunkered down, fat wheels barely contained by swollen arches., exaggerated wings, scoops, vents and spoilers leaving no question as to the seriousness of its intent. The intent to cover ground absolutely as fast as anything this side of a Porsche 911. The Ford Focus RS is no shrinking violet, it’s unashamedly a wolf in wolf’s clothing. I walked around it twice before making my way into the showroom.

Turns out the sales manager had got it in for a customer, we had it for a couple of days, “want to give it a run up the road” he enquired airily? Are bears Catholic? The only thing potentially faster than an RS that morning was the whilrwind of me scooping the keys from his desk and making a beeline for the Performance Blue beast outside.

I plipped it unlocked and swung open the door to be greeted by a full race style Recaro bucket seat, the sort of thing that’s actually painful if you don’t quite land squarely in the middle of it. I lowered myself gingerly in, this thing was properly serious. Taking in my surroundings, the first thing that struck me was just how incongruous the slightly cheap grey Focus dash looked in such weapons grade machinery, almost as though something amazing had been built, A Team style, out of bits of an ordinary car. Which I suppose wasn’t that far from the truth. I dropped the keys into the cup holder in the centre console (you don’t need them for starting, one of them just has to be in the car), racheted the all embracing seat into a position that suited, dipped the clutch and thumbed the Power Button that kicks the motor into life.

A few stats for you, dear reader. The Polite Hatchback produces a healthy and more than adiquete 105hp from its 1.9 litre turbo diesel. My lean, lithe, and really rather rapid little MX5 roadster punts out about 160hp. This most focussed of all Foci offers up over 300 horsepowers. That’s The Blonde’s car, my Mazda, oh, and half a Ford Fiesta worth. All in one medium sized hatchback. Which is why it’ll pass sixty miles an hour from a standing start in five and a bit seconds, on it’s way to a horizon headbutting 163mph. Twice the UK speed limit. Plus a bonus 23mph for good measure.

Which is why I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the two up-swept large bore tailpipes that jutt aggressively from the rear diffuser of the car. Probably a noise that might indicate (or maybe cause) seismic activity, Norse Gods gargling nails, that kind of thing. What I got was something rather polite, yet with a distantly menacing undertone, kind of like an SAS soldier in top hat and tails at a wedding, unassuming, but potentially deadly. I pointed the nose out past the showroom and down to the main road, turned right and headed out of town.

Second impressions were pretty much what you might expect from a shopping trolley turned interstellar hot rod. Direct steering, hard ride, grumbly tires, and a feeling of serious potential under the right foot. I picked my way out toward the dual carriageway feeling my way about the car, noticing the fluids were already warm from its recent delivery to our garage. Good.

Turning onto the beginning of the ring road I found myself on a long uphill straight melding into dual carriageway in the far distance, no junctions, dry clear conditions, couple of cars half a mile up the slope ahead of me. I did the only right and proper thing I could do in the circumstances, I short shifted into second, gripped the steering wheel firmly, and floored it. It’d have been rude not to.

Having trodden firmly on the lion’s tail I hung on grimly, half a widening eye on the rev counter, the rest scanning the road ahead. The lion roared, the Recaro seat made a determined effort to pass straight through me, the steering wheel made less effort to escape my grasp than I had expected, and what felt like half a second later I was grabbing third and doing it again. The cars ahead reversed sharply toward me and I discovered the middle pedal fortunately echoed the kind of performance the right-hand one had. My speed fell swiftly back below three figures (kilometres an hour, obviously. Ahem…) cars ahead stopped reversing and hung a sensible gap ahead, and the road fed us smoothly onto dual carriageway. I moved out and pressed the hyperspace pedal again and the cars in lane one reversed smartly past my passenger door and disappeared over the horizon behind me. The car was fast. Properly, radically, insanely fast.

At the top of the hill I turned off and punted it round a couple of roundabouts before zig zagging off down a B road or two, the car performing fairground ride sensations, physics suspended for the moment. That experiment over, I brought the car back up to the dual carriageway further along and hyper-spaced back toward the dealership, arriving possibly slightly before I left. It’s timewarpingly fast the RS.

Back at base I sat in the now inert vehicle, silent save for the ticking of cooling metals, trying to make sense of the previous half hour, make sense of this ultimate hot rod of a car. But I couldn’t. The problem is that, hugely deeply impressive though the performance is, the car asks for too many compromises to be made. It costs nearly thirty thousand pounds but you’re surrounded by the interior of a car half that price. I’m not sure the seats would be comfortable over long distances, the ride is way too fidgety, and it’s too overt, it’s an idiot magnet for every pre pubescent Kev’d up Saxo driver within a five mile radius. Yes it’s face re-shapingly fast, but how often can you, dare you use that level of performance? As an every day car, is it worth the cost, both financially and practically? So as a car to cover all the angles it fails. As a fairly spectacular Boy’s Toy, on the other hand, it’s epic. But if that’s all you want from it, why buy a hatchback, why not a TVR or a Lotus Exige or a Vauxhall VX220 Turbo or a Mitsubishi Turbo Nutter IV, all serious performance machines but without the compromises of being a front wheel drive Ford Focus hatchback?

Ultimately this ultimate Ford makes a great halo product, a great showcase of what Uncle Henry is capable of building, but as a purchase proposition it misses the mark as clearly as the lesser ST version I reviewed in March hits the bullseye. If you’re paying as well as playing, that’s the real steal of a deal.

Zoom Zoom

“Feel the difference” is Ford’s current strapline, the marketing banner under which all advertising media is placed. Peugeot sail under the flag “Emotion in Motion”, Mazda weave “Zoom Zoom” through their promotion and BMW brand themselves “Joy Machines”.

The thing is, it’s not obvious what exactly we’re supposed to be feeling when we’re searching for the difference, there doesn’t seem to be much emotion in a 207, a Mazda CX-7 is more “screaming kids” than “Zoom Zoom” and I can’t imagine your average sales rep finding much joy in his base model 318i stuck in another ten mile tailback on the M6 on a wet and miserable Monday.

All of which leads us to the obvious and hardly revolutionary conclusion that most marketing buzzwords and power phrases are just bollox really, a nonsense dreamt up by an overpaid advertising exec to convince his client that he is “on message” with their product and can create a new and exciting Zeitgeist for the entire product range with one catchy slogan.

Which brings us spiralling in the general direction of the Mazda MX5, perhaps the one car that could actually live up to its marketing tag, the exception, perhaps, that proves the rule. I’d fleetingly considered one during my varied and random thoughts toward a fun toy for the summer, an idea quickly discarded due to vague prejudices about Japanese blandness, an Oriental attempt at a faux British roadster. Trouble is, there’s no discounting the logical argument that they are (comparatively) cheap to buy, (comparatively) cheap to run, reasonably quick and with a terrific reputation. So when a tidy low mileage three year old MK3 example came in at a sister dealership in part exchange, and since The Blonde and I were passing on our way to Southampton anyway, it seemed worth giving it a quick punt up the road just to dismiss it once and for all.

We rolled up at the dealership mid morning and my colleague showed us to the car, gave us a quick demo of the hood (prod a release button, flick the catch back and drop the whole lot back behind the seats, five seconds flat), passed me the trade plates and left us to it. There was no denying it was a pretty little thing, more so still with the top down and we climbed in (well, fell in, MX5′s are a long way down the first time you get into one) to be greeted by a minimalist and stylish interior, comfortable supportive seats, and a proper sportscar driving position, all low slung, stubby gearshift and sporty wheel. It had a feeling of rightness to it, a feeling of, well, a feeling of Zoom Zoom.

We got comfortable (we’re tall people and the MX5 is a small car, we fitted, but only just) and I twisted the key, the 2.0 litre twin cam engine firing into life with a throaty bark. Palming the short little lever into reverse I backed it out of the line of cars on display and wound it out of the sales lot. We bimbled down the road getting used to a car quite different in character to either my company Fiesta or The Polite Hatchback.

Out of town I gently increased the pace, feeling the wheels pattering along the road surface telegraphing the topography straight through to us through firm (but never harsh) suspension, steering almost telepathic in its accuracy and directness, seeming to turn the car almost before I moved the steering wheel, placing me easily and eagerly on trajectory. Slotting up and down the gearbox was a joy, the short shift having an almost military precision to it. My prejudices melted into the roof down open air breeze. Snick snick, Zoom Zoom.

Warming more and more to the happy little car I pointed it at the dual carriageway and gave it some revs. As the gutsy engine barked some more and the speed piled on disaster struck. Even with the windows up, once we passed 45mph it just got too windy, buffeting us from all sides, The Blonde in particular suffering from a strange sensation of being beaten firmly over the head by some weird aerodymamic force, severe enough that despite slowing down and pulling off at the next exit she suffered a headache from it that lasted the rest of the day.

Deflated, we turned and soft pedalled the car back to the dealership at low speed, nice try but a non starter, if we couldn’t travel any distance with the top down it was simply a no go. Unaware of the fail, the little car continued to zoom zoom, but more quietly now as we crept back and reluctantly raised the hood and returned the keys.

And that was that.

In theory.

The trouble is that Zoom Zoom is infectious, it gets under your skin and into your blood. The desire to Zoom Zoom again stays long after the car has gone. And after our holiday and after returning to work and normality, the Zoom Zoom continued to gently but persistently itch. Along with a memory of what a huge difference the wind deflector (a large mesh grille that fits directly behind the front seats and kills the backdraft vortex effect of air whipping over the screen and straight to the back of you head) made in my old Audi Convertible of a few years ago. I hit the Internet and the MX5 sites, had anyone fitted a larger deflector, and did they have much effect? A few replies, mainly positive. Maybe it would work. Was it worth the risk?

I thought about it a while more, and a couple of weeks later, since I happened to be in the area with friend James on the way back from another adventure, we swung by for another drive. My colleague tossed me the keys and went to find the trade plates, he didn’t seem surprised to see me back. We punted back out along the same roads and James tried holding the price board up between the seats as an experimental makeshift deflector, did it help? A little, it was hard to tell. I swung off the dual carriageway and took a B road detour back to the garage. The Blonde likes to travel the way she seems to glide through life, serenely and gracefully, and I mollify my driving to suit. James on the other hand has a fire breathing chest beating rolling thunder of a TVR, he clearly has no such reservations. I snick snicked down from fourth to second and gave the gutsy little car it’s head.

Zoom Zoooooooooooooooooooooooommmm!!

Now the car is causing me mild discomfort around my head, my face aches from grinning. I no longer just want this car, I need it.

That night I talk with The Blonde some more. I look at different wind deflectors, read more reviews, get insurance quotes, everything stacks up and I’m sure we can overcome this turbulence issue. Hopefully.

The next day I talk to the dealer and a deposit is placed, the day after that I visit the bank and raid my savings. I arrange a service and for a proper Mazda full sized clear perspex wind deflector to be fitted and we sort out the paperwork. But they can’t get the job done for a week, dammit!

The following day sweet nothings are whispered in the ear of the service advisor, strings are pulled, queues are jumped and two days after that my gorgeous little gunmetal grey sportscar is delivered to my dealership. It’s beautiful and it sits in the carpark winking amiably at me whenever I look out of the window at it. Which happens a lot. “Zoom Zoom” it winks, “come on, zoom zoom”. I leave early, I take the long way home, I grin, a lot.

That night I collect The Blonde. Roof down, wind deflector firmly in place, we sidle through the quiet evening out of town, heading for the dual carriageway. We’ve pressed the gamble button and the reels are spinning, will they land all cherries? Only one way to find out, I point the nose up the sliproad and ease on the power, snicking through the gears, fingers tightly crossed on the short stubby lever.

Thirty, forty, fifty, I glance across, we’re at discomfort speed but The Blonde squeezes my hand “it’s ok” she says, “so much better”. I press on, sixty, sixty five, hardly daring to go on. I hold my breath and ease it up to seventy, if it’s working now we’ve cracked it. I look across and she smiles, “no problem” she says, “it’s breezy but it’s absolutely fine, I can’t believe how different it feels”. I breath out, my relief is palpable and just briefly I gun the cheery car up to seventy one. Ish. We’ve cracked it! Phew!

I back off and slide off down the next slip road, pulling into a quiet turning and switching off the engine. I kiss The Blonde and hand her the keys before climbing out and swapping seats. It’s her turn to go Zoom Zoom. She runs the car smoothly and with ever increasing confidence down to the next town and we stop for some photos for the album. Then back to Blonde Towers where I give The Two Non Blondes (her sons) a ride out each. They approve. I run the car home late that night, roof down in the cool dark air, park it and pull the hood back into place before standing briefly and looking at it. It winks at me again, “good choice” it says. I have to agree.

Next day it’s back to reality and back to the Fiesta for the short commute to work. I can’t really take the Mazda in I’ve decided, we’re a Ford dealership, and anyway I’m saving it for high days and holidays, the Fiesta is for mundanities, commuting, shopping and general running about.

Five minutes later I’m halfway to work, the hood is down and the engine is growling happily to the tune of my right foot, a big silly grin plastered across my face.

Zoom Zoom!!

A happy anniversary

I sat in the cool quiet reception area of the spa and healthclub in a contemplative mood. The Blonde was still getting changed after our early morning swim to work up an appetite for a big cooked breakfast after a night of unmitigated luxury at the Devere Grand Harbour Hotel in Southampton. We’d escaped for a couple of days break, well earned after a frankly manic March of car sales (March being the first month of the new registrations, this year 10 plate). The Blonde, on the other hand, is always flat out busy so deserves a break any time of year. I reclined slightly in the comfy chair as I considered the fact that, coincidently, our five star getaway came almost exactly a year after I was made redundant.

Those that have been with The Blog from the very beginning will appreciate the gulf between job centres and job seeking that began at that time, and the sumptuous surroundings I now found myself in. It’s funny how life twists and turns, and it feels very much to me that one enjoys the up’s far more as a result of experiencing the downs.

The previous evening had been spent in the exemplary company of good friends at the Jolly Sailor, scene of the eighties-tastic Howards Way, and we had a clear day ahead of us before joining more good friends that night in Dorset. A tour of nearby Ikea beckoned, before we headed off to Portsmouth and Port Solent, a wonderful complex of shops, restaurants and houses set around a large marina. A sad reminder of the economic times awaited us however, as probably a third or more of the units of this once bustling oasis of leisure and retail stand silent and empty. We’re a long way from the edge of the financial woods yet, despite politicians and estate agents desperate efforts to talk up the market. All the talk in the world doesn’t create hard cash or financial liquidity, the lifeblood of the world of commerce.

Leaving Port Silent behind us we headed back along the M27 and up into the beautiful picture postcard countryside of Dorset, complete with achingly pretty villages and chocolate box cottages. Another evening of good food and great company, a comfortable night in their wonderful old farmhouse, and we were off again the following morning, stopping off at Shaftesbury to walk down Gold Hill, scene of the famous Hovis “Bike” advert, “T’was like taking bread to the top of the world, t’was a grand ride back though”.

Clarks retail outlet village in Somerset was the next stop, where I made out like the proverbial bandit, The Blonde finding it somewhat less fruitful unfortunately, coming away only with an admittedly fetching summer hat.

Then it was the long run home and a quiet night in before back to the reality of work and the real world the following day.

T’was a grand break though, and a world and a half away from life just twelve short months ago.

Bentley Boys

Look at that! Look. At. THAT!! I bounce excitedly from cheek to cheek in my seat jabbing a finger at the screen. The Blonde wanders across from the kitchen where she’s preparing dinner to the dining room where the computer lives at Blonde Towers to indulge this weeks obsession. Squeezing my shoulder affectionately she gracefully feigns interest as I excitedly reel off the stats. “Royal Ebony Metallic with contrasting magnolia leather with black piping, six and three quarter litre turbocharged engine, full service history, and only 75,000 miles”. I flick through the photographs of the immaculate looking Bentley Turbo R, “that is so much car for eighteen grand” I enthuse as I lust after the thick Connolly leather and imposing walnut dashboard. The Blonde leans down and kisses me gently on the cheek “you don’t have a spare eighteen grand” she murmurs in my ear “and it won’t fit on your drive”. She has a point, to be fair, but I’m already gone, driving that Bentley across the Europe of my mind, The Blonde by my side, matching luggage in the boot, heading for an expensive hotel in Portofino where the doorman will nod appreciatively at my motor before reverently taking the key as The Blonde and I alight relaxed and fresh from several hundred miles of high speed transcontinental travel, Grand Touring the old fashioned way. I slip a fifty into his hand (I’m very generous with imaginary cash), “park the old girl somewhere safe” I tell him.

The Blonde is getting used to the flitting butterfly of my automotive obsessions. Only a month ago she was reading a text sent direct from the last Ford Capri ever made, parked inside the Henry Ford College last time I was there. As I sat in the car it instantly transported me to the bright yellow Capri 2.0S of my teenage years and that text confirmed that I had to have another. The Capri followed swiftly on the heels of a burning desire for an MX5, the ultimate in hassle free top down summer pleasure, eventually discarded for being too digital, I want something with more soul.

There was the Saab Aero Convertible that never was, and more recently a Volvo C70 Convertible that came closer to reality than you’ll ever know. A month of agonising over a near perfect low mileage one owner example that potentially came my way via a contact in the motor trade. GT spec it had everything I wanted, Pro logic hi fi, full leather, air conditioning, heated seats, cruise control, and on and on. Head fought heart and heart battled head, it was a cheap car, a good car, a well historied car. A car that could have provided wonderful summer cruising, top down, stereo on, chewing up the miles and transporting The Blonde and I to fresh adventures and nice hotels across the country. Eventually I had to concede that the timing was wrong, it was too soon, too risky. Buying it wasn’t the issue, potential expensive problems were, with a commission based income I’m just not reliably earning the kind of cash to shrug off any costly issues that crop up. Yet.

Of course now I’m middle aged a rich vein of dream cars of my youth swing dangerously into focus. The very first properly fast car I ever went in was courtesy of my parents next door neighbour, a BMW dealer at the time. Mid grey 635CSi, all shark nosed, delicately pillared and perfectly proportioned. They don’t make ‘em like they used to. The honey smooth savagely insistent urge of the 3.5 litre straight six engine and the incredible feeling of being firmly squashed back into the soft leather upholstery as the speedometer needle raced around the dial was one of the first experiences that really turned me on to cars in my formative years. Now that impossible dream of my youth teases me from the Pistonheads Classifieds with a full service history and BBS alloys, all for under ten grand.

A Porsche 928S, the ultimate Croker childhood fantasy, winks at me at £10K also. Spaceship styling, German build quality, 5.0 V8 performance and That Badge, how can anyone with petrol running through their veins possibly resist? But for all the reasons that apply to the Volvo, times ten, the Porsche stays securely on the pages of Pistonheads. A gorgeous Mercedes 500SL holds similar stock.

Yet I’ll never stop dreaming, and one day it will have to become a reality. Life’s too short and far too interesting to be sensible all the time. One day I’ll crack and The Blonde and I will move off the highways of my mind and onto real ones, heading south in search of open roads, warm sunshine, and fine hotels. As a very close friend and mentor has been known to opine, you’ve got to waste a little money sometimes. With a Ferrari F355, Porsche 911 Carrera 4, and Jaguar E Type (amongst others) tucked quietly away, he really ought to know.

In the meantime the trusty Fiesta rattles me happily (and financially painlessly) back and forth, The Blonde continues to indulge this weeks latest pash, and the current edition of Classic Car provides inspiration on my coffee table.

I’ll keep my powder dry for now, but the radar continues to turn…

Managing expectations

My new manager has pulled a bit of a blinder on my company car front. Well aware of my displeasure in recent Fusion motoring he was gently “encouraged” to steer acquisition of my new steed firmly in the direction of a Fiesta, ideally with a decent (read Zetec) spec, bigger engine if poss, and the Bluetooth handsfree phone connection would be a bonus. Wrap it up in a nice shade and he can colour me happy.

It took a few weeks but he did it. It sat outside, dark smokey metallic grey, the more powerful (that’s more powerful, not actually powerful) 1.4 engine, Zetec spec giving air con, alloys, computer thingummy, interior lighting pack (footwells, submarine lighting and so forth), bits of chrome trim and whatnot. And it came fitted with the all important Bluetooth, which automatically adds a much nicer central dash display, rear stereo speakers, and voice activation and dialling (touch the button on the indicator stalk and say “phone”, “dial number”, “Blonde” and I’m talking to herself in moments). Seems recent sales success hasn’t gone unnoticed, or unrewarded (quite apart from the increased commission payments).

The irony of it all is that barely two years ago I was cruising a beautiful Audi A4 convertible, midnight blue, Bose hi fi, heated seats, the works. Had anyone suggested then that a Ford Mondeo would be the order of the day I’d have been distraught. Now I’m eying up my new Fiesta and it feels ok.

Partly it’s down to changed circumstances. Back then I was using my car to go places for work, and had to look the part when I got there. Now I use the Fiesta to drive ten minutes to work in the morning and it sits round the back till it’s time to drive ten minutes home again, or fifteen minutes to Blonde Towers.

But it’s more than that, it’s all to do with expectations. Back then I was dealing with some financial heavyweights, most of those customers drove cars four times the price of that Audi, and often had something even more expensive tucked away for high days and holidays. It’s funny how the cars of those around you go toward setting levels of aspiration. Now I’m surrounded by new and used Fords and have customers rolling up in £200 scrappers in the forlorn hope of cashing in on the end of the scrappage scheme (now ended). Against that backdrop a new mid range Fiesta feels a perfectly reasonable steer.

It’s not just a matter of prestige however. That Audi was a seriously high quality piece of kit and, all questions of value, worth, or prestige aside, it was something I took great pleasure in running. It was a car I’d drive when I had no where to go just for the sake of enjoying the drive, and trips became as much about the journey as the destination.

But times have changed as have, for the moment, aspirations and expectations. And to that end the Fiesta is fine. It’s a looker (far nicer than any mainstream shopping trolley has any right to be), it’s a decent drive, goes ok, and has just about enough toys to keep my interest. In these new times of austerity it more than does the job, and to my own surprise I’m happier with it that I ever thought I could be.

Da Management

The big news at the dealership is a change of management! The previous manager decided he’d had enough of targets and paperwork and quit quite suddenly. A minor company game of management musical chairs ensued, and the manager of a smaller provincial dealership arrived a few days later to take the reins.

Young, keen, earnest and professional, this guy is chalk and cheddar to the outgoing manager, like-able chap though he was. Suddenly we’ve got someone who’s always there, always helping, always supportive. He’s taken some of the admin workload weight and he’s very much there to help us do business. And the difference is immediately apparent, my personal sales are up a good fifty percent, this last four weeks being my busiest ever by some margin on used cars (which, oddly, seems to be where the money is to be made rather than new).

I’m also starting to see some decent money from this, always a strong motivator.

As to the job itself, well I’m half a year in at the end of this month, remarkably. The paper-trial doesn’t get any easier (albeit helped slightly by the new boss) but I feel on top of it as regards used cars, and definitely getting there with the new stuff. However the ease that knowledge and ability bring is offset by the quantity brought on by increased sales. And Motability sales remain a black art of form filling, computer inputting and organisation that I’d rather steer well clear of for the moment.

So the overview halfway through my first year is one of a continued building of success, very much aided and abetted by the change of boss. The mechanics of the job are not too difficult once grasped, there’s just so very much of it and the skill seems to be in the juggling of it all and making everything happen on time which can get a little stressful. All in all though, it’s a positive vibe and we’ll see how the summer pans out.

So far, so good then, and with the support I’m now getting I believe it can only get better.

Hidden talents.

You may recall my mention of a Focus ST on a track in the hands of a professional racing driver recently, an experience that left me stirred, but not shaken.

So when a bright red second-hand (used Fords are always second-hand, it’s only Bentley’s that are “previously cherished”) example rocked up at the dealership for a customer to try I had to borrow the keys and take it for a sprint up the road.

Now the Focus generally is a perfectly reasonable car. It does what it does, is comfortable, handles neatly, is reasonably equipped and looks nice enough. It may lack the obsessional surprise and delight tactility of some of its German rivals, but it inevitably sells for a bit less used or new (ignore the list price, there are deals) so everyone is happy. It’s not the second-best selling car in Britain (behind the Ford Fiesta) for nothing. I’ve been running one for a few days whilst I wait for my new company car to be delivered (ordered but not yet arrived) and it’s a pleasant and comfortable if unremarkable way of getting around. But it’s not the sort of thing you can obsess over, it doesn’t impart a warm glow (unlike the Polite Hatchback, especially with those heated seats), it simply does the job neatly and efficiently.

The ST, however, is something else. Driving the ST is like watching an old lady break dance well, there’s a delicious unfeasibility to it, a sense that it just shouldn’t be possible.

On the outside the car is a fairly standard if slightly Barry’d Focus. There’s some wings and big wheels and whatnot, but nothing Baz and Daz wouldn’t buy from Halfords and bolt to their 1.6 base model. Inside the only giveaways are a pair of deeply bolstered and supremely comfortable Recaro seats and a set of auxiliary gauges atop the dash (just like Ford used to fit on hot Cortina MK2′s back in the seventies, albeit there were no turbo boost guages in them days). Under the bonnet is where the big news lies, in the shape of a five cylinder two and a half litre turbo charged petrol engine imported from Volvo. This is the Red Bull that gives the Focus ST its wings, this is the hub, the powerhouse, the heart and soul.

Slip into the Recaro and you’re in a world of ordinariness. Sure, the seats are fab (and orange in the car I drove) but you’re sat on them so you can’t see ‘em. The extra dials give a nod to the performance cred, but that’s about all. Fire it up and it’s smoother than a normal Focus, but it doesn’t shout, you can barely hear the engine. Slot into gear and toddle off down the road and if you’ve driven a lot of Foci you’ll notice a slightly firmer ride bit it’s not hard, and never crashy. All in all it feels like a nice normal Focus with better seats, a bit smoother engine, and a fractionally firmer ride.

Right up until the point where you hit a fast road and nail it!

Big engines give you torque. Turbochargers give you torque. And torque is twist action, pull, grunt. It’s what gives you that unrelenting neck straining never ending catapult of acceleration that you feel in a fast jet aircraft on takeoff. The ST has a big engine and a turbo charger, hence there’s 236lb/ft of the stuff available from just 1,600rpm, giving great big velvety unburstable effortless wallop, any gear, any speed. Drop the hammer and the car just lunges, no lag, no waiting for the revs to build, floor it and the car charges like Ocean Finance. And all to the accompaniment of a fabulous sonorous warble that segues into a hard edged yowl as the tacho sweeps round the dial as smoothly as the second hand of a Rolex watch. It’s just epic! We’re talking proper junior supercar performance here, sixty miles an hour from a standing start takes just over six seconds (think about that, each 10mph increment takes about a second), and it’s a full fat 150mph flat out.

And the good news doesn’t end there. The Focus has always been best in class for ride and handling and the ST is no exception. The ride quality at speed is excellent, smooth and planted, steering precise and accurate, and cornering without wallow or roll.

It’s a car that urges you on, each snick snick gearchange bringing a fresh double cream slug of noise and power. It’s addictive.

But best of all is the sheer unlikeliness of what lies beneath the surface. It’s like buying an Amstrad hi fi and discovering the innards are Bang and Olufsen, like buying a ticket with Ryan Air and finding yourself in First Class, like ordering a Maccie D and finding a Goucho Grill steak between the buns. It just shouldn’t be this good.

For sure, there will always be a whiff of Essex about any fast Ford, a touch of Burberry, a dab of Addidas. But you can buy these things at three years old with sensible mileage for about ten grand. That has to make it the performance bargain of the century.

I’d de-Barry mine and stick a 1.6 Zetec badge on the back. And go BMW hunting…