Fire up the... Suzuki Kizashi (UK version)

PART of the problem with new cars these days is that what you see isn't usually what you get. Unless you pay for it as an optional extra, that is.

It's one of the car industry's worst kept secrets that paying for life's little luxuries can add hundreds - sometimes even thousands - of pounds to the price of your pride and joy, but Suzuki is offering an intriguing alternative for anyone infuriated by the confusing, expensive and downright mind-boggling world of the options list.

Put simply, the Kizashi doesn't have one. There's no messing about with gadgets and gizmos on this one - it's £21,995, take it or leave it.

Nor, by the way, is this an accidental reprint of a roadtest that's already appeared in these pages. Life On Cars did get to drive the Kizashi earlier this year, but that was very much a test model to see whether us fussy Brit buyers would go for the idea of a Suzuki saloon, whereas this one is the finished product, subtly retrimmed and re-engineered with the UK's motorists in mind.

That original test version got the thumbs up because it offered buyers things they couldn't get elsewhere and it's much the same story here, with a package that offers saloon virtues without the sheer size of say, a Mondeo or an Insignia. More importantly, while Suzuki's thumbed through the options list on your behalf they've been quite generous with it - the Kizashi's got full leather trim, plenty of toys up front to keep you entertained when you're not pressing on, and a 178bhp, four cylinder petrol engine when you are.

Yet I'd raise the biggest eyebrow of all at the transmission, because unlike just about any other saloon of its size you can press a button and a four wheel drive system comes to life, which should come in handy if you live off your local council's gritting routes. It's mated to a CVT automatic gearbox, and while you can change gear manually using paddles on the steering column, Schumacher-style, the car's character suits leaving it in auto and letting the technology do the hard bit.

The Kizashi then, is the perfect car for people who don't really like cars very much. If you're looking for a no-nonsense package which will get you where you need to be, in all weathers, take a look at one of the 500 Suzuki's planning on shipping over.

Jaguar builds a speedboat

EVER wondered what would happen if let Jaguar's style gurus loose on a speedboat rather than a car?

Well wonder no more because the shapely creation you see here, designed to help plug the launch of the not-exactly-ungainly XF Sportbrake, is what they've come up with. It's called the Concept Speedboat and is apparently inspired by the likes of Jaguar's original XJ6 of 1968.

Ian Callum, Jaguar's director of design and the man behind Jaguar's XF and XK, Nissan's R390 GT racer and the Aston DB7, said: “The Concept Speedboat looks powerful. It follows, in so many ways, the idea of a traditional speedboat but with the sleek and fast characteristics that you would expect from a Jaguar car.

“I hope our design inspires people to think about our products in a much broader sense, especially in lifestyle and enjoyment.  I have always had a passion to create such an object and it seemed fitting that we relate this to a lifestyle vehicle such as the Jaguar XF Sportbrake.  The two sit together perfectly.”

I, for one, think it looks fabulous. Jaguar, being a car company rather than a boat builder, has no plans to make a production version.

Maybe someone at Sunseeker should give them a ring?

Life On Cars Magazine issue twelve!

IT'S back!

If the miserable weather and the clocks going back is giving you the winter blues, then the latest edition of the Life On Cars magazine should help to brighten your spirits.

• Among the highlights of the November 2012 issue are:

• A look at the Paris Motorshow stars conceived, designed and manufactured in Britain

• A six page special looking back at some of the best shows across the North West this year

• What Life On Cars thinks of the long-awaited Toyota GT-86

• Driving thrills in North Wales with a trio of very different drivers' cars

• The latest news and reviews

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed making it...

Open publication - Free publishing - More carfest

Owning a Jaguar XJR is a stupid idea, no matter how cheap the insurance

THE woman from Confused sounded a bit, well, confused. When would I be interested in taking up insurance on a supercharged V8 Jaguar?

It's very nearly November, which in the Life On Cars household means enduring the expensive ordeal of insuring both a £300 Rover and a Mazda MX-5 at roughly the same time. With each year of driving around and not claiming for the cost of a crumpled heap of metal in a hedge my insurance has got a little bit cheaper, but I'm still paying more the cost of a year's insurance for the ancient Rover than the cost of the car itself.
Slightly depressed by that realisation, I turned to that opium of car enthusiasts, eBay, and immediately came up with a far more suitable banger. All 3.2 litres of a Jaguar XJ8, and mine for £750. I very nearly headed for the Buy It Now button, but then I clocked the wheelarch rot and a service history with more gaps than a jeans shop. So I moved on to the next offering.

Big mistake - I'd found a tidy T-reg Jaguar XJR, which back in the day would have set golfers back a cool £51,000 but was here, in the great Arthur Daley forecourt of cyberspace, for £1,750. True, it had 124,000 miles on the clock but it looked to be in good nick, and the thought of having 370bhp at my leather-lined, wood-trimmed disposal seemed tempting enough to look past the prospect of getting less than 20 to the gallon. It is, Jag people will know, a fabulous car; refined and graceful enough to wear the Big Cat badge with pride, but blessed with a 4.0 litre V8, beefy alloy wheels and sports trim and suspension for added zestfulness. Petrolhead heaven, basically.

Drunk with delight, I idiotically went to an insurance comparision website to find out how much it'd cost a twentysomething male working in journalism - which in insurance terms is about as dangerous a profession as they come - to make sure it was beyond my aspirations of automotive avarice. It wasn't. Someone as hamfisted as me could insure Coventry's finest, fully comp, for a shade over a grand, which unlike the Rover is less than the car itself cost.

I woke up the following morning and knocked the idea on the head, having realised in the cold light of day that having a supercharged Jag outside the house would be a stupid, expensive idea.

The only problem is, the insurance companies keep ringing me up now and suggesting otherwise!

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article included a picture of the special edition XJR 100 rather than the standard XJR. This has since been amended.

The sun sets on another summer of motoring fun

COULDN'T resist sharing this shot of the MX-5 bathed in evening sunlight, which I took by the beach at Southport a couple of days ago.

With the nights drawing in, the air getting chillier and the wet British summer set to turn into an even wetter British winter, it's probably one of the last times I'll be able to snap a nice, summer-esque photo of the bargain ragtop. From Sunday onwards, driving around after about five-ish is firmly a night time, lights on affair.

All of which neatly brings me to one charity's calls for us all to stop becoming accident statistics at this time of year.

Road safety charity Brake have said they're keen to help combat the annual trend of road accident numbers rising during the winter months by urging drivers to take extra caution when behind the wheel due to the lack of daylight during evening commuting.

Ellen Booth, the charity's senior campaigns officer, said: “We can all help to reduce terrible and needless road deaths and injuries in winter darkness, and drivers in particular can make big a difference by committing to slow down.

"Slowing down to 20mph in communities gives you time to stop quickly should you need to: particularly vital when visibility is low."

She also urged walkers, cyclists and joggers to help themselves avoid becoming part of the accident statistics, by wearing hi-vis clothing to help make it easier for motorists to see them.

Consider the advice noted. I might just go for one more roof-down blast before the clocks go back...

Fire up the... BMW 3-Series

THE problem with BMW's 3-Series is you don't really need to read a road test to decide whether one should take pride of place on your driveway. It's simple; you either want one or you don't.

That's why I thought I'd start this week not with the car, but Coldplay. Every couple of years, they release an album which goes straight to the top of the sales charts with almost crashing inevitability, and - being someone who doesn't want to follow the herd - you do your absolute darndest not to buy a copy. Then you hear one of the tracks on the radio and you realise, as much as you hate them for it, that they've recorded an absolute belter. Again. If Coldplay made a car, they'd make a 3-Series. That's why it now outsells both Ford's Mondeo and Vauxhall's Insignia.

You don't need me to tell you then that this sixth-generation car is larger than the old one, a little lighter and - this being 2012 - kinder to the environment too. In time you'll be able to buy it as a coupe, a cabriolet and a Touring estate, but chances are it'll be this saloon version you'll be seeing on driveways up and down the land in the next few months.

Even if the new 3-Series is awful it'll be parked on driveways up and down the land in six months time but - and it's a verdict I deliver grudgingly, through gritted teeth - it's really, really good. The styling, inside and outside, is still a little bland for my liking and at £28,000 for the 320D Efficient Dynamics version I tried it's not especially cheap either, but once you get in it's an absolute delight to drive. It's not just that it feels agile and well balanced, but all the controls are exactly where you'd instinctively expect them to be, and feel as though though they could withstand years of abuse. It's comfy too - an Audi this agile would land you an appointment with your osteopath, but in the 3-Series, even motorway speeds, progress is quiet and unruffled.

In this corner of the motoring marketplace the badge is just as important as the car it's glued onto, and I know full well that if you want a new 3-Series you're going to buy one anyway. It's good to know, though, that there is substance to back up the gravitas that blue-and-white propeller brings.

The new Mondeo will have to be unbelievably brilliant to coax buyers out of their Beemers. Watch this space...

Are big cars better than small ones?

THE Citroen DS5, for all its clever hybrid tech and avantgarde styling, is a big car. Which is exactly why the company's PR man reckoned I wouldn't like it.

He put it to me, as he handed me the keys for the French firm's largest and most luxurious twist on its DS range yet, that I'm a small car sort of person. Having clocked the tiny sports car I'd turned up in and read my various pieces singing the praises of the original Mini, the Renault 5 and the Suzuki Swift Sport, he suggested the DS5 was just too much car for me to love.

But there are plenty of bigger beasts - motoring's plus size models, in Daily Mail speak - I've developed a soft spot for. The Jeep Grand Cherokee, for starters, might be the size of my first student flat but it's got a charm to its character and plenty of comfort, while Jag's XF is all the executive saloon you could ever ask for.

Meanwhile, the largest motor of any kind I've driven, Ford's Transit, has a no-nonsense sort of vibe to it and a deftness of handling something of its size really shouldn't. I like it a lot. Equally, there's plenty of petite offerings that haven't floated my boat - Vauxhall's Corsa, despite being one of the best selling cars in Britain, being the prime candidate. I know loads you have got one and no doubt love it, but for my money the Fiesta, the Polo and now Peugeot's new 208 will run rings around it when quality, packaging and handling come into play. But, by and large, smaller, leaner cars are better than full fat ones, and I think the car makers no know it.

Why else would the new Range Rover have shaved half a tonne - that's a whole Caterham Seven in other words - off the weight of its predecessor? By contrast, the Land Rover Defender is a big car, but crucially, it's not an inch bigger or heavier than the nation's farmers need it to be.

The other thing everybody seems to forget is that you can make cars ever larger but the roads of Britain, save for a radical new Coalition iniative, will always remain the same size. Worth remembering when you're struggling to thread one of today's more bloated hatchbacks down a typical British B road. It's not the size that matters. It's how you use it.

All of which brings me back to the DS5, which I actually rather like. Keep an eye out for Life On Cars roadtest to find out why.

Happy tenth birthday* Top Gear!

MANY happy returns, Britain’s most watched motoring TV show. Many have tried to better your three-blokes-and-a-Stig format, but nobody’s really managed it.

Even though I was naive, 16-year-old college student at the time I remember that first programme of the reinvented Top Gear like it been shown yesterday rather than October 20, 2002. What I remember most of all was not being particularly bowled over by the studio, sparsely populated by members of the Subaru Owners’ Club, the tedious piece talking the viewers through their new track, and by Jason Dawe, who despite being a likeable bloke with a lot of knowledge on used cars never seemed to suit presenting the revamped show. No wonder he was quietly dropped after a single series.

But the calls by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman to give Top Gear an overhaul were well justified. Old Top Gear, as it’s now called, had slowly evolved from the dry, technical show of William Woollard’s day into a thoroughly entertaining thirty minutes of Thursday night telly. Even though I’ve always maintained it was the triple whammy of Tiff Needell’s balletic oversteer routines, Quentin Willson’s caustic commentary and Jeremy Clarkson’s genius quips, in terms of mass appeal it was Jezza who made Top Gear in the Nineties so watchable, and the drop in ratings after he pulled out in 1999 proved it. By the time the original was “rested” in 2001 it was regularly being beaten in the ratings by Channel 4’s excellent and much-missed Driven.

Top Gear of course, is a very different beast these days;  three knowledgeable petrol heads with a genuine on-screen chemistry, packed-out studios with waiting lists which run into years, the enigma of the Stig and some genuinely brilliant production values and novel scripting have made it into unmissable television not just for car lovers, but their long-suffering other halves too. Admittedly, even I get annoyed when it strays into the slapstick – like that caravanning piece, for instance – but the point is it’s memorable and put together by people who have a passion for the subject.

The pieces which have made me cringe are more than outweighed by the dozens of great pieces of film-making they’ve put together. Take the Aston Martin racing the TGV across France, for instance. Or Jeremy’s poignant Senna tribute. Or any of the lovely classic car pieces James used to do (more, please!). Or my favourite Top Gear film to date – the wonderfully funny and spectacularly unsucessful efforts to buy a mid-engined supercar for less than £10,000. All pieces which highlight exactly why TG deserves its place in the primetime Sunday night slot.

What Top Gear has left though – and I’ve said it before – is a gap, a void in motoring telly where the old Top Gear, with its enforced diet of sensible reviews of superminis and used car buying guides, used to sit in the schedules. Even though Driven was dropped shortly after Top Gear’s introduction many have tried; many of the old Top Gear crew went onto Fifth Gear, which is still entertaining largely for Tiff’s reviews but has increasingly tried – and failed – to mimic the Beeb’s format. Sky’s The Petrol Age had a scholarly feel to it and a great presenter in Paul McGann, but still felt a little too inaccessible for non-petrolheads just wanted straightforward pieces on cars old and new, while Five’s latest effort, Classic Car Rescue, has been given an absolute pasting for its obviously scripted performances. Top Gear, meanwhile, has pretty much the entire population divided; everybody either loves it or hates it, but all of them, without exception, are familiar with it.

So long live Top Gear, and kudos to the first production company who comes up with the first genuinely enjoyable car show to fill the gap it left.

*Top Gear actually celebrated its tenth birthday yesterday, but what's a day between friends?

Video: Confessions of a motoring journalist

AS mentioned earlier in the week, I made a video to show the nice people at the Institute of Advanced Motorists but things didn't exactly go to plan.

This, had the computer not said no, is what they would've seen - a sort of narrated slideshow, giving a glimpse into the world of roadtesting cars and the motors I both hate and rate. Instead, I thought I'd share it with the wider world, so the finished film doesn't go unseen.

Enjoy...

Fire up the... Chrysler Ypsilon

YOU'D be forgiven for thinking the fine lines of this city slicker have come from the delicately held pencils of an Italian artist. In fact, you'd be right, because while this new Chrysler's might have an all-American badge pretty much everything else is more Turin than Detroit.

That's because Chrysler, troubled by the credit crunch, sought solace in the support of Fiat, Italy's biggest car company, and the two have been sending each other's cars on a sort of automotive foreign exchange trip. That's why on the continent you can buy a Chrysler 300C with Lancia badges and why in Britain, the car known everywhere else as the Lancia Ypsilon is now - wait for it - the Chrysler Ypsilon.

Forget the badges though, because this supermini contender is one quirky looking little car no matter which company sells it to you. It's a riot of interesting angles and curves, with everything from the concealed door handles, the rear lights which creep into the side pillars and that imposing grille competing for your attention. Never let it be said that a small hatchback can't be a treat to look at.

The TwinAir engine, to my mind at least, isn't quite so endearing - it sounded gruff when I tried it in the Fiat 500 last year, and it sounds even more strained in this. It's award-winningly frugal and there are plenty of people who enjoy the offbeat patter the two-cylinder engine produces, but it's not one I enjoy. Luckily, if you loathe the TwinAir rather than love it, there are plenty of more conventional powerplants on offer.

In fact, the biggest problem with the £13,140 Ypsilon is that as a package it just doesn't quite gel - it's an interesting offering, but you can't help feel that in terms of interior quality, handling and ease of ownership a Fiesta or Polo would run rings around it.

Not that Chrysler and Lancia should hang their heads in shame, because I've driven another of their hatchback offerings and it's an absolute belter. Click here to find out why...

Plans for Skelmersdale karting track mooted by charity

PLANS are being revved up to turn a disused industrial site in Skelmeradale into the bigest indoor go-kart track in the north west.

The scheme, which has been submitted to the borough councill's planning department proposes turning a vacant unit at Pimbo Point, on Potter Place into a karting venue.

As well as for private and corporate users it will also be used for the training and education of young people.
The Mary Poppins Foundation charity are the applicants and intend to run the site on a non-profit basis.

The charity states: “The primary business of the company is to provide a brand new bespoke designed go kart facility.

”Our company will assist young people in education aged between 14–19 years old, and other local people of various age groups, with a view to helping them into future employment.

“Our company will also develop and deliver courses in conjunction with local community groups to help improve the quality of life for local people.”

“All machines will be brand new and our track will be the biggest indoor one in the north west region.”

The karts used will be four stroke, Honda 200cc 6.5 bhp engines, fitted with additional silencers and mufflers to help reduce noise output and improve CO2 emissions.

In addition, track ‘furniture' will help to minimise the noise heard outside the building during karting sessions. The charity would also use the venue as a training facility for young people in the town, aged between 14 and 19, with additional classroom and training facilities.

The proposals, if approved, would also create around 30 jobs.

Council planners believe the proposal will be given approval, particularly as it using a site which has been vacant since 2007.

In a letter to the foundation, West Lancashire borough planner Jonathan Harrison wrote: “Although the proposal is in principle contrary to Policy DE5 of the West Lancashire Replacement Local Plan and Policy EC1 of the West Lancashire Local Plan Publication Document, subject to a thorough justification being put forward it is likely that the proposed change of use would be recommended favourably and the benefits of bringing this vacant unit back into use would prevail.”

The application is due to be considered by West Lancashire Borough Council's planning department later this year.

How not to give a talk about motoring

THE projector was definitely taking the day off.

In a crowded hotel suite last night I was a picture of nervousness, because the technology rigged up to help me was doing exactly the opposite. It was the monthly meeting of the Sefton Institute of Advanced Motorists and I, as that bloke who does that column for The Champion, was the speaker. Or at least I was supposed to be, anyway.

Because public speaking definitely isn’t my sort of thing what I’d done is prepared a short film detailing my three-and-a-bit years of writing about cars for two different newspaper groups, aptly titled Confessions of a Motoring Journalist. The idea was to raise a few quid to help the Petrolhead Pub Quiz I’m holding next month, show the 35-minute film, and use the crowd as guinea pigs for one of the rounds of the quiz.

But, as is so often the case, it didn’t quite work out like that. The quiz element was going really well, but for whatever reason, the projector just wasn’t playing ball and taking a feed from the laptop we’d brought along.

The technical whiz helping me suggested I swap for his and once we did that, I thought we’d cracked it. It picked up the feed straight away, the film was ready to roll, so I gave the introduction to my speech. Lightning surely, couldn’t strike twice, but it did.

“Windows Media Player Has Encountered a Problem and Needs to Close”. The error message made my heart sink, and it wasn’t a one-off. Every time I tried, the film which had played perfectly on countless different computers was a no-go. All the while, a crowd of Sefton Advanced Motorists were waiting anxiously to see the presentation they’d heard so much about.

So I blagged it. I binned the laptop, the film, and gave a rather different talk. A talk with no notes, no autocue, nothing. It was just me, a crowd of people, and my best efforts to waffle through a subject I know rather well; motoring journalism.

Amazingly, I lasted the full hour and even got a round of applause at the end. How, to be honest, I’ll never know!

It did at least teach me a valuable lesson I’d forgotten since I’d sold my last Mini. Never rely on technology…

Confessions of a Motoring Journalist, the original presentation, will be available to view on Life On Cars later this week

Life On Cars presents The Petrolhead Pub Quiz

A FULL-THROTTLE competition to help raise funds for the National Autistic Society is being put on for petrolheads of all ages next month.

David Simister, Champion motoring correspondent, is holding a pub quiz with a twist - all the questions are motoring-related - to help raise funds for the National Autistic Society. If you reckon you know your Maseratis from your Mitsubishis, or you've got an encyclopedic knowledge of historic motorsport victories, or just know a thing or two about driving, then you could be in with the chance to win some great petrolhead prizes by showing off your automotive knowledge.

The quiz takes place on Sunday, November 18, at the Cheshire Lines Inn, on King Street in Southport, and starts at 7.30pm, and costs £2 per person to enter.

If you'd like to find out more about the event, or if you can donate any prizes to help make the quiz a success, send an email to david.simister@champnews.com or call 01704 392404.

It's Sportage versus Focus in the Champion family car battle

AFTER several months of of fruitless debates I'm finally able to put a longstanding argument at the Champion offices to bed. Focus or Sportage - which is better?

It all started earlier this year when one of the office petrolheads asked what's the best new car money can buy, provided you're a family man with roughly £18,000 to throw at your pride and joy. Easy, I reckoned. If you want a family car that's fun, comfy, roomy, good value and is either very good or brilliant at just about everything, then really Ford's Focus is the best bet. The end.

But I was met with a slightly exasperated look. How, the man from the Champion production department suggested, could I seriously reccommend the Focus over Kia's Sportage? Had I gone mad?

So it went on, but to be honest there was one very good reason why I couldn't suggest the Sportage - until this time last week, I hadn't driven one. That was until last week, when at a media test driving day in Yorkshire I finally got a go behind the elusive Korean contender and, for good measure, the clever new 1.0 litre Ecoboost version of the Focus too.

To be fair, the Focus and the Sportage are both very different beasts - one's a good ol' fashioned five-door hatch, while the other's a sort of pseudo-off roader - but if it's a straight cut question of which you'd splash your eighteen grand on, it's a much closer call than you'd think. The Sportage is never going to thrill you a windy road the way a Focus will, but it handles that side of things surprisingly well before pulling out its trump card - the sort of headroom, legroom, and boot space Focus Man would kill for, and it looks good too, in a slightly over-chromed, chintzy sort of way. It's a good car. Annoyingly, verge-of-argument-losingly good, in fact.

Not that I'm going to concede defeat that easily of course. The Focus scores highly on the sort of the things I look for in a car - ride, handling, comfort, gadgets and so on - but if you put style, value for money and a cavernous interior at the top of your shopping list, then the Sportage is the easy winner. Call it an honourable draw.

Obviously it's your call, but I know what I'd go for if I had £18,000 to throw on a family motor. The Skoda Yeti, come to think of it.

Great car, great road: tackling the Buttertubs Pass in a Mazda MX-5

NO WONDER I was a bit knackered. I had, after all, driven nearly 500 miles yesterday in my bid to get to Yorkshire, drive some new cars and then get back again.

But at least 50 of those miles I could have avoided, had I not insisted on going the long way home, and heading north up the A1 in a hunt for the Yorkshire Dales, rather than driving south in a vaguely homeward bound direction. When you're in North Yorkshire and you've got a sports car at your disposal, it'd almost be rude not to take it over what arguably is the most exhilarating stretch of road in this part of Britain.

The Buttertubs Pass.

It's a route I'm more than familiar with - once you're off the A1, you head to the picturesque village of Leyburn, and then dart over the tops of the hills past a tank training ground to Reeth, and then work your way west along the windy little road through the Swaledale valley, until you reach Muker. This is actually quite an enjoyable drive in itself - although at gone 5.30pm yesterday evening driving straight into the autumn sun made it surprisingly hard work - but it's only then you reach the start of the Buttertubs Pass, which takes you back over the hills towards Hawes.

It is an absolutely incredible stretch of road, and while I've enjoyed it before at the wheel of a Renault 5, a Rover 214 and - best of all - someone else's Suzuki Swift Sport, I felt yesterday as though I'd brought a car which was in its element. The MX-5 could have done with a bit more power on some of the steeper bits, but in terms of precise handling, communicative steering and open air thrills the little Mazzer was a joy. Big, big fun.

I came down - in more ways than one - from the thrilling Buttertubs Pass and pointed the Mazda's pop-up headlights towards the very-nearly-as-good Cliff Gate Road, which runs past the Ribblehead Viaduct towards Ingleton. It was getting dark. My hands were numb from the cold, wintry air rushing in from all directions. I was more than seventy miles from home, in a particularly remote bit of the middle of nowhere, and the effects of driving hundreds of miles in a string of different cars was beginning to catch up with me.

Not that I cared much. Piloting a great car over the Buttertubs Pass has got to be one of the best motoring thrills Britain can offer.

Test driving new cars at SMMT North 2012

 

THE residents of the pretty village of Cattal, about halfway between Harrogate and York, must have got fed up of seeing me driving past today.

I've just got back from SMMT North - a Yorkshire-based spin-off on the motoring media's annual speed dating event at the Millbrook Proving Ground - where I've put a dirty dozen of the latest automotive arrivals through their paces. Well, 13 cars actually, if you count the fact I drove two very different versions of Ford's Focus.

In a way, it's actually more educational than the Millbrook day because while you can't push the roadtesting envelope as far as you can at a private testing ground, you do get to find out how everything from Smart cars to Bentley convertibles actually cope with real roads in the real world. In fact, I always put the cars I'm lucky enough to get a go in through the same thirty minute route, because it combines a bit of everything; a blast up the A1(M) motorway, a sprint along some sweeping A-roads, a chance to show off in the handling stakes on some twisty B-roads, and a pootle through Cattal, presumably to the residents' chargrin.

I'll let you know over the next couple of weeks whether I reckoned the new cars I tried were up to scratch, but here's a round-up of some of the motoring snippets I've picked up:

• Good things come to those who wait. Regular readers might remember that I couldn't be bothered with the Alton Towers style queues for the Subaru BRZ but a twenty minute wait got me behind the wheel of its sister car, the Toyota GT-86. I'm now in a position to reveal whether it deserves all the hype it's had...

•  The Ssangyong Korando was a completely different animal. Although I drove one at Millbrook, it felt seriously out of sorts in the ride and handling stakes, so rather than write up a road test I decided to wait, take a different car out, and hope the problems I encountered on the test track were confined to just one rogue car. Luckily, they were.

•  Suzuki's Kizashi is the perfect antidote for any fed up with optional extras bumping up the cost of their new car. 

• Ford's Fiesta - the Life On Cars car of the year in 2009, don't forget - is no longer the best supermini you can buy.

• The Land Rover Defender, which I've been familiar with since childhood but never actually driven until today, is terrible at almost all the things I look for in a car. Yet I still stepped out of it with a smile on my face.

• I'm now able to resolve a motoring dispute which has raged for months in The Champion offices.

• Being spoilt by brand new cars always makes your own motor feel a bit old, slow and clunky - how did one of the best small sports cars of all time suddenly feel a bit lethargic and skittish when I got back into it? I had to go back home via the Buttertubs Pass just to make sure it still handled as brilliantly as I remembered it...

Road tests of all the cars I've driven today will be online here in the coming weeks.

A special thanks to the people of Cattal for their patience in the making of this feature

Bond's Aston Martin DB5 looks stunning in Skyfall

YOU always know from the amount of secret agent-themed ads on telly when there’s a new Bond blockbuster on the way.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave for the past year you’ll already know that 007’s latest adventure is called Skyfall, and will feature Daniel Craig in his third outing as the suave secret agent, once you’ve got through Adele crooning her way through the theme song. I also freely admit I’m very nearly as much of a Bond nut as I am a car nut – even though I’ll enjoy pretty much any movie which features explosions and car chases, I always reserve a particular fondness for the Bond films.

But what’s really whetting my appetite for the new one isn’t a sultry sidekick or a spectacular storyline. It’s those publicity shots of Bond’s DB5 on the spy’s trip to the Scottish Highlands.

The DB5 has always been a fabulously good looking thing but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the quintessential Bond car in a more breathtaking setting. There’s a moody, bleak beauty to the scenery while the car obviously gives the shot a very retro feel; the classic English GT eating up the miles through the stunning Scottish landscapes.

In fact, that’s pretty much what director Sam Mendes went for, and told national media earlier this year: “I felt it was a thematic thing. It's definitely about the old and the new. And there's something about the last part of the movie which deliberately, very consciously, could have taken place in 1962.”

The thing I love most of all about these pictures is that, in much the same way the Daniel Craig movies have tried to take Bond back to basics, devoid of CGI and gadgets, so these shots take the DB5 away from being a cheesy automotive cliché and remind car nuts what it really is and what it does best; it’s a classy, handcrafted GT car, designed to wind its way over mountain passes in speed and comfort.

Forget the race against the Ferrari F355 in Goldeneye – this is what a classic Aston is all about. Fingers crossed then, with Mr Mendes appearing to do the DB5 justice in these shots, that’ll he take good care of 007 himself in the new film.

Skyfall hits the cinemas later this month. I, for one, can’t wait.

Is stretching an E-Type altering an icon?

A CLASSIC car specialist in Shropshire is about to do what some enthusiasts would call the unthinkable by stretching a Jaguar E-Type.

Classic Motor Cars Limited, based in Bridgnorth, said it is about to start work on a project which effectively involves making a 1968 4.2 litre Series 1 Roadster, but while it involves altering one of the best known sports car shapes of all time the company say they are keen to keep the preserve the E-Type's essence while making it roomier and easier to live with.

Nick Goldthorp, the company's managing director, said: "This is something that we have never been done before. Our client wanted the interior leg room of a Series 3 V12 E-Type but the aesthetics of a Series 1 car.

"We are going to add four and a half inches to the floor pan, which will give the leg room of the V12 plus an additional one inch if required. The V12 was actually nine inches longer than a Series I but a lot of the additional room was behind the seats as storage and is not required on our project. By adding four and a half inches to the length of the car we will be able to retain the overall look of the Series 1 and also turn this E-Type into a unique car."

The project involves not only stretching the left-hand-drive car by four and a half inches, but also fitting the Sixties sports car with modern technology, including air conditioning, power steering, upgraded brakes, a new five speed gearbox, better suspension and handling upgrades among other additions.

Paul Branstad, the American client who owns the car, said: "The stretched E-Type I have conceived sits between the Series 1 and the subsequent vehicles produced after the merger and formation of British Leyland, when the design of the cars underwent several transformations as a consequence of cuts in production costs and the need for more space that resulted in the Series II 2+2 and Series III V12."

While classic car purists would argue against altering aerodynamicist Malcolm Sayer's original vision for the E-Type's shape, the sketch included here, Life On Cars reckons, is sympathetic to the Jag's original styling, and could actually provide the tempting prospect of the earlier E-Types's looks with the creature comforts of the later V12 cars.

The stretched E-Type is expected to be completed in September next year.

More training for young drivers is a good idea, but then so is cheaper insurance

WORDSWORTH might have written things differently if he were reincarnated as 17-year-old in 2012, trying to get fully comp on a secondhand Fiesta. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very expensive.

Impoverished young poets need not worry though, for help is at hand. That august body, the Association of British Insurers, has come up with some new suggestions to stop 17-25 year olds, who make up an eighth of Britain's motorists but of a third of those killed in car crashes. They're also, by and large, the most likely drivers to be a bit skint and yet the ones who get hammered the most by the singing man from the Go Compare ads.

In a nutshell, the ABI would like to ban intensive learner driving courses, insist that all youngsters spend at least a year at driving school, with the option to start at 16-and-a-bit, and that for the first six months they aren't allowed to take their mates out with them. Oh, and the amount of alcohol they'll be allowed to have their system will be absolutely none. Zilch. Not a drop.

Having vivid memories of being driven by a tailgating teenager in a cream-crackered Peugeot 206 down the M6 on a snowy day one winter, I can completely understand why the ABI are so keen on bringing in measures which effectively protect younger drivers from themselves. I'm old and wise enough to understand the benefits of things like defensive driving, but I'm still young enough to recall some of the extortionate figures insurance companies asked me when I tried to get a quote for a Mini 1000 which could barely crack seventy.

I reckon it's got to work both ways. Sure, I'm all for 17-year-olds learning more about their driving - in fact, chuck in a few Scandinavian-style lessons about car control while we're at it - but those who pass what'd be a far harder test should be rewarded with realistic premiums they can actually afford. To be fair to the ABI, they say they'd like to reward younger drivers with lower premiums, but really they should be actively encouraging it rather than passively saying how nice it'd be. Carrot, stick, and all that.

It'd be good to see new drivers spending the money they're spending now on ballooning car insurance on, say, decent tyres. The line "I understeered lonely as a cloud" doesn't really have a ring to it...

Fire up the... Chrysler Delta

ARE you the sort of person who needs a sensible hatchback but deep down has a burning desire to be different?

Then read on, because this is a very Italian answer to your question, albeit one delivered with a slightly American inflection. The Delta might wear a Chrysler badge but it's made by Lancia, the Torinese makers of some of motoring's most memorable machines. It's a family hatch from the people who brought you the Stratos!

Let's get one thing out of the way - despite having a name and a bit of heritage in common, this is not a sporty successor to the old Delta Integrale, which was pulled from UK showrooms nearly 20 years ago despite having six World Rally Championships to its name. No, this Delta is more about good taste and living luxuriously, something reflected in its restrained good looks (although I'm not too sure about the chrome grille up front).

Key to the luxury is that it's longer than, say, a Focus or Megane, and while you'll like the tasteful leather and suede trim inside your passengers are going to love the amount of rear legroom. It's also quiet and lavishly equipped, with a nice feel of quality to the instruments and switches.

But the real surprise is that - for a car aimed more at luxury loungers than rev-happy hedonists - the Delta is strangely good fun to drive. Like the smaller Ypsilon I've also tested, the Delta is based on familiar Fiat underpinnings, in this case the same mechanicals you'll find beneath the Bravo, but unlike its smaller sister the whole package seems to gel much better and inspire more confidence. You sit low and the steering is reassuringly talkative, and if you push it into a corner the worst you'll get is mild, reassuring understeer. As a companion through trickier corners it's unlikely to let you down.

Is the 1.4 MultiAir version I tested worth 22,000 of your precious pounds? For what it's worth, I think it'd be a little more evocative if it came with a Lancia rather than a Chrysler badge, and the likes of Hyundai's i30 will offer you more gizmos for your cash, but for class, refinement and style I reckon the Delta's a belter.

Skelmersdale - the Lancashire town designed with motorists in mind

THERE'S a cruel irony in efforts to reunite Skelmersdale with the nation's rail network. It is, for better or worse, a New Town made with motorists in mind.

I got thinking about this the other day as I drove one of the Champion's Renault Meganes towards the Concourse centre, where I'd be quizzing Maria Eagle, the shadow transport minister, on her support for a new town train station. Skem has many things to reccommend about it, but its transport links for non-motorists isn't one of them. The government of the day designed the New Town for the age of the car, and it shows.

In many ways it's brilliant when you're behind the wheel. There are, as far as I know, absolutely no traffic lights, the dozens of roundabouts are all well signposted and offer plenty of visibility, and thanks to the town planners' liberal use of bridges and underpasses there's very little risk of a zebra crossing getting in your way. It's also right next to the motorway network, meaning that unlike the residents of Southport, Skemmers don't have to drive through miles of farmland to reach the motorway.

But it's also the only place in the north west where I still regularly get lost, because once you drive in there's something weirdly disorientating about the road layout. Yes, there are plenty of roundabouts and wide, open roads, but when you're a non-native venturing about in a car which isn't yours it's all too easy to lose your bearings.

Yet the most obvious giveaway that Skem's New Town was designed in another era is when you pull into the multi-storey at the town's shopping centre, because it was clearly designed for a world when everyone drove around in Cortinas and Austin 1100s. The Megane's by no means a big car, but threading it through some of the building's tighter turns somehow transformed it into a Humvee with widened wheelarches.

It's weird; Skem has clearly been redesigned with the motorist in mind, yet driving around it always demands a fraction more concentration because it has a road network quite unlike any other in the north west. Next time I think, I think I'll leave the Megane parked up and get the train in instead.

Oh wait...