Sky Motoring - Car Spy Blog

2010 Chevrolet Camaro: We have no idea what we're missing

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:32:35 GMT

Let’s face it – a large majority of American cars are ugly, uneconomical and slow. But walking down the street in Chicago the other day I saw a new Chevy Camaro. And I loved it.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one ‘in the wild.’ It was the rear end that got me – in fluorescently lit show halls it looks flat and dull, but with the sun bouncing off the subtle convex curve over the boot, I realised just how good it really looks.

Sadly I didn’t get the chance to hear its 6.0-litre V8 burble into life as I was forced to move on before the owner finished his skinny latte (and he drives a muscle car, pah!).

Chevrolet is allegedly sending 1000 left hand drive Camaro SS models to the UK. Join the queue and if you're lucky enough to get one, please give me a lift.

Schumacher on the Ferrari 458 Italia - great car, crap video

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:15:14 GMT

So the Ferrari drip-feed on the gorgeous new 458 Italia continues in the run-up to Frankfurt, this time with a video hosted by some German guy in a camp T-shirt and even camper necklace.

What’s that you say? He’s former F1 world champion Michael Schumacher? Really? He needs to spend some of his millions on a stylist. Badly.

So after wading through more layers of cheese than a lasagne, the one bright spot in the video is that we get to see the 458 in action. It looks great belting around the Maranello test track and is almost enough to make us overlook the promotional film’s many shortcomings.

Because the script is dreadful. Schuey speaks pretty good English, but here it seems he’s been forced to read random car-related words from an autocue, written by an Italian whose understanding of our tongue is a little on the sketchy side.

Now, as a rule, I don’t like to criticise non-English speakers who attempt to use the language: it’s not easy to learn and, beyond my A-Level French, I’m hardly a cunning linguist myself, so who am I talk? But you’d think that Ferrari – a company that pays a lot of attention to detail in all the cars it builds, whether for road or track – would have been sufficiently switched-on to get a native speaker to script and help Schuey with its delivery.

And it’s a shame, because Schumacher was involved with the development of the car, so he could have given us some interesting insights on its development. Instead we get nonsensical platitudes about how the steering “has increased precision and accuracy by tremendous amount” (sic), how the “driving activity is very comfortable” and the braking system “has such a performance I have never seen before”.

Oh well, I don’t suppose anyone will really care. The car’s the star of this minute-and-a-half-long video and I’m sure the quality control of the finished car will be better than this shoddy piece of marketing.

911 Sport Classic makes us hanker after more retro Porscheness

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:52:46 GMT

We're loving the new, limited edition Porsche 911 Sport Edition and in particular its 1970's-style Fuchs alloy wheels. It got us thinking about what else we might like to make a comeback from Porsche's history books.

And the answer is this: a Cayman S (in Macadamia brown, obviously) with 356 chrome dome rims and whitewall tyres. Come on Porsche, do the right thing and make it for us, pleeeease!

Let us know what you would like to make a comeback below...

Nissan 350Z Goes Drag Racing

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:40:04 GMT

Ever wondered what a Nissan 350Z Drag Racer would look like? Well wonder no more, peeps. Project Zed (pictured) actually started life as a Nissan 350Z, though all that’s left in converting this road car into a dragster is the 3.5-litre V6. Oh yeah, and even that’s been cranked beyond all recognition to produce 1900bhp. The car's owner John Bradshaw says performance has been substantially improved from the standard car with a new 0-60mph time of just 1.2secs. We can't help but think the whole package would look a little more gnarly if John hadn't bothered with the fake teeth, demon eyes and Sanyo sponsorship...

Good honest fayre - motoring style

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:34:56 GMT

You know the feeling when you've spent too long in a fancy hotel and you start to long for a plate of simple grub? You want chips and egg, not quail with a red wine jus and an avocado reduction. Sometimes the motoring world can be the same. Last night I drove home in a Mitsubishi L200 4 Life, borrowed to serve as a production vehicle for a filming project.This isn't the most basic L200 - you get air-con and electric front windows - but it's still by our normal standards a utiliarian truck. And it's great. I love the solid white paint job and steel wheels. It has a refreshing honesty that's missing from other, tarted-up L200's and most of the cars we drive. This is a truck with integrity.

Best driving songs? Crashing bores, more like

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:11:11 GMT

A new survey – OK, it’s the August silly season, but bear with us – of the UK’s fleet drivers has come up with the nation’s top 10 best driving songs.

They’ve also given us the 10 worst – the usual suspects of Agadoo, Birdie Song, etc – but to be honest, the 10 best is just as bad.

These things are obviously subjective, but you have to wonder about who they asked when this is what you get.

1. Bat out of Hell – Meatloaf
2. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
3. I Drove All Night – Roy Orbison
4. Don’t Stop Me Now – Queen
5. Ace of Spades – Motorhead
6. Mamma Mia – Abba
7. Born to be Wild – Bruce Springsteen
8. Summer of 69 – Bryan Adams
9. Road to Hell – Chris Rea
10. Poker Face – Lady Gaga

Five pieces of predictable crap; one decent (if still predictable) Springsteen song; a Motorhead track that will subliminally encourage you to set off every speed camera on your route; an Abba track for the laydeez; and Lady Gaga as a tokenistic attempt to be ‘down with the kids’.

If this is representative of the taste of the UK’s fleet drivers (anyone who drives for work purposes), you really wouldn’t want to be stuck in a car with one of them. Talk about the road to hell.

Personally, I like to put together a new playlist for the car every couple of months and burn it on to an MP3 CD, so my favourite driving songs change all the time. But in the name of putting my musical taste where my mouth is, here’s a current top 10 (not in any particular order).

1. Black and White Town – Doves
2. We Are the People – Empire of the Sun
3. Buttons – Sia
4. Superhuman Touch - Athlete
5. Rock ‘n’ Roll Train – AC/DC
6. Nature Boy – Nick Cave
7. My Delirium – Ladyhawke
8. Great Things – Echobelly
9. Hip Hop – Mos Def
10. Mercy – The Third Degree

I’m not sure if that’s representative of my taste – and I clearly don’t have my finger on the pulse – but I think it’s a lot more interesting than the outdated tosh coming out of the survey.

Anyway, I’m sure you guys could come up with some better suggestions. Go on, let us know what you drive to and help us compile an alternative Top 10 to show the old farts what real music is.

Daddy cool

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:50:27 GMT

As a dad, I’ve always hoped that I was at least a little bit cool.

It was all very different when I was growing up. My dad would have raised his eyebrows and tutted at the concept of being cool: for his generation, it was all about working hard to provide for the family and doing everything you could to help your kids to maximise their potential.

Obviously, being a good father is still very much about that, but these days we have to be more than that. We need something else. An edge. An angle. A schtick (and no, that’s not a stick in a comedy Sean Connery-like voice).

Take me. I’m a motoring journalist, so I have access to some pretty cool cars at times. I’ll never forget picking my two daughters up from a childminder in a bright yellow Porsche 911 Turbo, with another parent standing outside the house, looking agog. Or the delighted expression on eight-year-old Daisy’s face when I briefly gunned the new BMW Z4 a few months ago with her sitting in the passenger seat (on a booster, obviously).

But of course one should never aspire to coolness. That just isn’t cool.

And the concept of cool itself is as evasive as Lord Mandelson in a swimming pool full of jelly. It’s always entirely subjective, but we all think we know it when we see it.

So our new Sky Motoring microsite to find Britain’s coolest dad should prove to be fun and a good source of debate. What makes a cool dad? What do the kids nominating their dads consider to be cool qualities? Is coolness even important an important attribute to help make a good father?

Whatever your views, why not get your kids to nominate you (a banker-style pocket money bonus might help them get over any feelings of embarrassment they might harbour towards you) or just check out the other dads and vote on how cool you think they are.

Ah, but what’s in it for you, you’re no doubt wondering? Only the chance of a family holiday to Barcelona.

Now how cool is that?

World's biggest digger turns car wash [w/video]

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:28:04 GMT

Your Ford Escort estate needs a good wash but you’re too busy operating the world’s largest excavator, the gigantic Liebherr R9800. Hang on, what if you multitask and just fill the 43 cubic-meter bucket with water…?

Ducking and driving? Not any longer

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:19:46 GMT

The launch of BMW’s armoured 7-Series High Security model brought back a couple of memories.

The first one was of being shot at.

Now I’m not trying to get some ‘props’ (as I believe the young people say) for living in my south London ‘hood. No, I just happen to have spent an afternoon operating the targets at a rifle range, back in my days as a teenaged air cadet.

Believe me, the sound of bullets whistling past and ricocheting about your head is not one you forget in a hurry.

The other memory was driving Mercedes-Benz’s armoured S-Class limo, the S-Guard, a few years ago in Stuttgart.

It was a pretty impressive car. Despite being nearly four tonnes in weight, the S-Guard drove just like the S-Class. It was quick and manoeuvrable, and coped easily with a coned handling course that had been set up for us to drive around. Until it was time to brake.

I found at the first corner that, although it felt just like an S-Class, the extra weight meant that you had to slam on the anchors earlier than normal. Cue the death of a few cones.

While I was there, I also got to see the car being built and, more excitingly, see the in-house sniper in a long basement room under the factory shooting random samples of the reinforced steel and glass used in its construction. Seeing high-calibre bullets shattering on contact with the metal was great fun, even if it was a little loud in there.

So if BMW’s standards are anything like its German rival’s – which they no doubt are – and I were in the market for a tank/limo hybrid, I’d be more than happy to relive that afternoon at the rifle range while sitting inside a 7-Series High Security.

I don’t think my air cadet uniform will fit me any more, though.

Once, twice, three times a numpty

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:58:44 GMT

Kia has just conducted a survey that suggests that a half of all drivers are potentially unfit for the road. If anything, I reckon that’s a pretty conservative estimate.

Take, for example, the guy I drove past on the M3 the other day, who took being unfit for the road to a whole new level.

He was driving in the inside on a two-lane section of the motorway, pulling a caravan. So far so good – apart from the caravan, obviously. But let’s not open that particular can of worms just now...

But then, after a junction, the M3 expanded back into three lanes. Did he pull over to the inside lane? No chance. So there he was, hogging the middle lane, towing a caravan, with faster cars on the inside lane passing him.

This went on for at least a mile. Eventually, the traffic in the outside lane started moving a bit faster, so I overtook him. As I passed, I looked across at him, and couldn’t help but notice that he was looking at his mobile phone, not the road.

Now I don’t want to be judgemental, but the man was clearly a moron. Hogging the middle lane while towing a caravan is bad enough: but to compound that with using a phone is lunacy.

So if you see a balding, bespectacled fortysomething man in a silvery blue Ford Galaxy, towing a beige-coloured caravan, give him a wide berth. When he has his accident – and one day, he will – it’s going to be pretty spectacular. And you don’t want to be anywhere near him when it happens.