Geneva brings out my inner middle-aged petrolhead

GENEVA’S a great place to pretend you’re rich and middle-aged.

Not only is it full of banks and infused with a sense of order and tidiness, but it’s also just about the only place in Europe where you can broaden your already sagging waistline with entire shops dedicated to Toblerone. Oh, and once a year there’s a show stuffed with shiny new supercars too.

I’ve just jetted back from my first ever visit to something that ought to be on every car fan’s bucket list. The Geneva Motor Show is where you go to take the pulse of the motoring world because so many manufacturers use it to launch new cars, and it’s where the European Car of the Year gets announced (congratulations Vauxhall, by the way).

Really I ought have been sensible and reported back faithfully to your Champion-reading chums what the new Renault Scenic’s like – but I failed because I got distracted by the shiny supercars. You would too, given the choice between a Scenic and the new Porsche 911 Turbo S.

So I ended up pretending to be rich, middle aged and with just one question – which one car would I forgo the Easyjet flight for and drive back to Blighty? One of the show’s big stars – the Bugatti Chiron – is out straight away because its makers have wimped out of making it the world’s fastest production car by limiting its top speed to (just) 261mph. It’s 11mph faster than a Golf GTI and nearly seven times as powerful – but when it comes down to it it’ll still lose you a game of Top Trumps.

Ford’s GT gives just as much visual theatre for a fraction of the price but the mid-engined arrival that really won me over was Honda’s new NSX. Not only does it use clever hybrid technology to go fast in a vaguely eco-friendly way, but it looks stunning in the flesh. The Nineties original might have been a flop here, but I really hope this one does better.

The NSX is an amazing bit of kit – but the one car that really won me over was a small sports car made not by robots in Japan, but craftsmen in Worcestershire. Morgan’s EV3 might only be a one-off show car for now but I really hope they make it; it’s essentially the slightly bonkers Threewheeler, but with an electric motor rather than a tuned motorcycle engine. Not only does it look completely unhinged and promise to be on the fun side of terrifying to drive, but it’s also the most compelling argument I’ve seen yet for people like me – the petrolheads – to take up eat-your-greens electric motoring.

Count me in.

Originally published in the 9 March issue of The Champion

Why the Citroen Spacetourer is a breath of fresh air

SOMEONE at Citroën is clearly a kindred spirit. They know what it’s like to grow up as part of a larger family – and they’ve come up with a solution.

Growing up with lots of brothers and sisters has all sorts of problems. For starters they eat into the parental funds that should rightfully be reserved for the BMX and games console of your choice, and getting ten minutes in the bathroom in the mornings requires the sort of planning that’d give the scientists at CERN sleepless nights. Growing up in that brief period of history with dial-up internet connections made it even worse; I vividly remember the rows over who got access to the one computer and the looks I’d get when a squawking modem would disconnect my sisters’ phone calls.

But worst of all was having to cram into the back of my parents’ Land Rover, because that was one of the few vehicles that had the requisite eight seats. Every childhood holiday involved sitting on side-facing benches in the back of a bouncy old 4x4, but at least Land Rovers are vaguely fashionable; just about the only alternative was sourcing a Ford Transit minibus, which would have killed my passion for cars stone dead at the age of nine.

Even today getting more than eight seats in your wagon’s tricky. At the last count I found just four on offer; Ford’s Tourneo Custom, Mercedes-Benz’s Vito Tourer, Volkswagen’s Transporter Shuttle and the badge engineered, virtually identical twins that are Renault’s Trafic and Vauxhall’s Vivaro Combi. The anoraks among you will already spotted what they’ve got in common. While none are especially nasty to drive, they’re all based on vans rather than cars.

Which is why Citroën’s new Spacetourer will be a breath of fresh air for over-productive parents and taxi firms specialising in airport runs and picking up groups of plastered partygoers from Liverpool city centre. It’s got nine seats so it’ll be able to heave each and every one of your offspring about, but rather than being a van with more windows and seats it’s basically the same as the Peugeot 308 underneath. So it’s 2014’s European Car of the Year with an extra four seatbelts.

Which is great. Someone on the other side of the Channel has realised parents who have more than five children might want to drive something other than a Transit van with some seats bolted into the back – and that hopefully will encourage other car makers to offer up rivals to the Spacetourer.

It hits the showrooms later this year – if you are looking for something vaguely interesting to cart your six children to school in it, it’s well worth thinking about.

You love the NEC Classic Motor Show - here are some other great classic car shows you won't want to miss

LAST weekend I joined 68,000 of you in getting up at the crack of dawn so they can join a traffic jam just outside Birmingham. It was worth it – the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show is one of those automotive pilgrimages everyone should do at least once.

Even petrolheads I know who think anything south of Crewe is ‘a bit far’ will happily head down the M6 to see 3000 classic cars – whether it’s an Austin Maestro van or an Aston Martin Vanquish that floats your boat, chances are you’ll have found it in Birmingham’s halls of automotive dreams.

It’s also the place where you can see Mike Brewer and Edd China finish a three-day resto miraculously close to kicking-out time on the final day and where just about every spare part imaginable will be at the bottom of a box on an autojumble stand.

It’s great fun – but it’s also where most petrolheads’ idea of a weekend outing stops.

The NEC show is great despite having to visit Birmingham on a dreary weekend. Auto Retro, on the other hand, is an excuse to persuade the other half to catch some winter sun in Barcelona – and it’s only a budget flight away from Liverpool or Manchester. If you’re staying overnight Barcelona’s hotels cost roughly the same as Birmingham’s – and whichever way you cut it, you’re more likely to persuade your other half with Gaudi’s basilica than the Bullring shopping centre.

It’s the same story with Germany. I love the Silverstone Classic, but book your plane tickets now on the cheap and you could just easily go to the Nürburgring in the height of summer for the AVD Oldtimer Grand Prix. Forget the language barrier – it’s worth going just to see all those BMW M1s and Porsche 911s going to war on the world’s scariest race track.

Then there’s the Irish National Classic Car Show in Dublin next March – a whole day of motoring fun and an evening of knocking back pints of Guiness, less than an hour from John Lennon airport – or the AutoMotoRetro show in the shadow of the old Fiat factory in Turin. Then there’s the behemoth that is the Essen show next April – if you think your feet get a bit tired after a day after tramping around the NEC then you’ll have no idea just how enormous Europe’s biggest classic car show is. You could spend weeks wandering around in there!

The NEC is great and as a show it belongs to 'us' - the classic car nuts. But just remember there are so many other shows just waiting to be discovered, and they’re only a cheap flight away.

Adios, amigo. See you in Barcelona!

Read more about the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show in today's issue of Classic Car Weekly

Transatlantic 175 set the template for Liverpool car shows

AT LAST. After what feels like an eternity, Liverpool’s had a proper car show we could all enjoy!

I know that Transatlantic 175 – as a celebration of Merseyside’s maritime, rather than motoring, heritage – encompassed a weekend of events focusing on lots of things other than old cars. If you’d wandered down to the waterfront over the weekend, you’d have been greeted with music, vintage fashion and – rather more impressively – the imposing sight of the Queen Mary 2 looming over Liverpool’s waterfront.

But for me (and it seems, a couple of thousand others) the real highlight was seeing 200-odd cars, ranging from Austin Sevens to Aston Martin DB5s, dotted around in front of the Three Graces. Not only was it a wonderful sight to behold, but something long overdue.

For years, it’s been accepted wisdom that car shows are seas of Sunbeam Rapiers and folding chairs held in the grounds of stately homes and on village greens. Events like the ones at Tatton Park, Cholmondeley and – on a smaller scale, last weekend’s Lydiate show – are great are pulling in some very diverse old cars and the band of merry enthusiasts who support them (I should know – I’m one of them).

But big car events held in town and city centres have a different pull altogether – the power to draw huge throngs of car nuts onto the high streets. It’s the sort of thing that’d make Mary Portas don a set of driving goggles and hop into a vintage Bentley – thousands of people who love cars going to look at Astons and Ferraris, and then spending their hard-earned cash in the nearby shops afterwards.

The Manchester Classic Car Show, now in its third year, brings more than 9000 car nuts within a stone’s throw of the Trafford Centre. Bradford’s annual event – held in front of its Grade I-listed city hall – is a bustling event now in its tenth year. That’s before I get to the Regent Street Motor Show and how it conveniently gets thousands of shoppers onto the London thoroughfare just before Christmas. There was only one question I heard all the classic car owners asking at the Pier Head over the weekend. When’s it all happening again?

Transatlantic 175 set a template for something the powers-that-be should have done ages ago. Liverpool is a wonderful venue with a lot of car-making heritage – let’s have more of this sort of thing!

For more pictures from Transatlantic 175 see the 8 July 2015 issue of Classic Car Weekly

This year's NEC Classic Motor Show was overwhelming but brilliant

PETER Capaldi probably should have landed his TARDIS in the middle of one of Britain’s biggest car shows last weekend.

The National Exhibition Centre might be all the way down in Birmingham but it’s also one of the few shows outside the North West good enough to draw in petrolheads in significant numbers.

Even though I’ve only just got back from four very long days at the NEC, I’d urge anyone thinking of going next year to start planning now. One of Britain’s biggest car shows, I’ve discovered, has an annoying knack of corrupting time and space.

For starters, even though the venue itself isn’t an inch bigger than it was 12 months ago this year’s show somehow managed to squeeze an extra 100 cars in, almost all of which were bathed in the unsettling orange glow you only seem to get from 1970s tungsten lighting. The show itself was also populated by thousands of humanoid beings trudging between the Ford Anglias and Triumph Dolomites; they looked and sounded human, but plenty of them had an unerring ability to talk for hours on end about kingpins and trunnion bearings. I should know, because I’m one of them.

Worst of all, however, is that by depriving you of natural light and overloading you with cars to look at the NEC Classic Motor Show completely screws with your perception of time. The show’s eleven halls had the ability to shrink entire ten-hour days into what felt like twenty minutes, and then to spew out all that vacant time into the period you spend queuing for a Subway meal deal outside. 

Three days to look at 1,800 cars in even the briefest of detail just isn’t enough, which is why if you’re planning on going next year – and if you love cars, you really should – get booking those hotel rooms rather than in 11 months’ time. No matter how blistered your feet end up after wandering around those halls, it’s worth it because of what you get to see.

Despite time and space being utterly warped in this alien, orange-tinged landscape I managed to find plenty of cars to fall in love with. There was, for instance, a one-off Rover P6 rebodied by Zagato, a Ford Capri convertible – a car Ford itself never actually produced – and an utterly wonderful Maserati Sebring I desperately wanted to just drive off the stand and take home. 

Best of all, however, was an unrestored Jaguar XK120, which I could have bought had the NEC’s distortive qualities somehow expanded the tenner in my pocket to £57,000. Maybe next year!

Audi confirms new TT

THE first new Audi TT in almost a decade will be unveiled at next month’s Geneva Motor Show, it has been confirmed.

While Audi is remaining tight-lipped until the show about the prices and specification of the new car, a teaser sketch released by the German firm reveals elements of the car hark back to the original TT of 1998.

The new car will replace the current version of the TT, originally introduced back in 2005.

Walking around the NEC Classic Motor Show? There must be another way

Originally published in Classic Car Weekly, 27 November 2013

Passion for Power Classic Motor Show 2013

YOU can check out everything from souped-up Minis to brand new McLaren supercars at a celebration of classic and performance cars taking place in Manchester this weekend.

The Passion for Power show at Event City, a stone's throw from the Trafford Centre, takes last year's North West Indoor Show, expands it by about a third, gives it a slightly more full-throttle flavour and then invites classic car clubs from right across the north of England to show off what they've got to thousands of enthusiasts.

Life On Cars took these pictures at the show today:

Passion For Power continues throughout tomorrow (April 7) at Event City, in Manchester.

More pictures and a full report on this weekend's show can be found in the next edition of Classic Car Weekly, published on Wednesday, April 10.

The real world stars of the 2013 Geneva Motor Show

YOU'D be forgiven for thinking the Geneva Motor Show has been packed with millionaire motors, given the amount of shiny new supercars that have been grabbing the headlines.

The Swiss show is one of the biggest dates in the car calendar for new models and announcements, and while the Alan Sugars and Kanye Wests of this world can gorge themselves on a smorgasboard of new Ferraris, McLarens, Porsches and Astons, there's also scores of stunning new arrivals which are aimed firmly at real world motorists.

Take, for instance, the new estate - sorry, Tourer - version of Honda's Civic, which you'll like because it's reliable, roomy and reasonably priced but I like because I think it looks as good as it does. There's also confirmation there's a new Civic Type R on the way, which is great news for hot hatch fans who aren't taken by the new VW Golf GTi, which was also unveiled at the show.

Renault, meanwhile, are eyeing up a slice of the sales cake currently enjoyed by Nissan's Juke, with the new Captur proving to be a high-rise, smartly-styled spin on the firm's recently reinvented Clio. It'll have tough competition, however, with Peugeot trying a similar trick with its new 2008 model.

Ford are hoping to find their feet at the show with the Ecosport, a small off-roader which uses the company's clever Ecoboost engines and slick styling which the Blue Oval are hoping will help it repeat the success the model has already enjoyed in South America.

There's also a lot of fans of al fresco motoring which has been newly unveiled too, including the convertible version of the Toyota GT86 Life On Cars touched on a few weeks ago, and the Cascada, a full-sized four seater which Vauxhall are hoping will win plenty of fans.

Oh, and there's the new V8 version of Jaguar's F-Type, the most powerful Rolls-Royce ever produced, a replacement for Bentley's Flying Spur, McLaren's successor to the F1, the imaginatively-titled P1, a new Porsche 911 GT3 and the LaFerrari, the fastest, most powerful Ferrari to date.

Not that any of you real world motorists would be interested in any of THOSE, of course...

Qoros to launch new saloon at Geneva

ANYONE remember our exclusive piece on the talented designer from Merseyside who landed a job helping a Chinese firm to create its latest cars?

Well, this is that company's first European model - the Qoros 3 saloon, which is being officially launched at the Geneva Motor Show next month.  The company hasn't given much indication of how much involvement Alex O'Brien, from Thornton, has had in the design, but did say it's the first in a series of a models which will draw on young automotive talent from across the globe.

A spokesperson for the company said: "The new range of Qoros models is being designed and engineered by an international team of experienced specialists and new, young automotive talent, and has been developed with the support of internationally-renowned suppliers.

"Rapid expansion of the model range will be achieved thanks to an innovative modular vehicle architecture developed in-house at Qoros.  The clean, elegant styling direction – drawing heavily on contemporary European themes – has been developed to give all Qoros models an unmistakable brand identity."

Qoros, which is based in  Changshu, China but already has several facilities both over there and in Europe, says it is keen to launch a new model every six months.

For what it's worth I reckon it's not a bad looking car, and definitely better than its Chinese counterpart, the  Geely Emgrand EC7 which completely failed to win me over this time last year. What do you think?

Toyota in convertible GT86 shocker

IT WAS only a matter of time. Toyota is considering putting a convertible version of its fabulous GT86 into production.

The Japanese car giant will unveil what it's calling the FT-86 Open at this year's Geneva Motorshow in a few week's time, and while it's calling it a concept car I wouldn't be fooled; if the original FT-86 concept coupe was anything to go by, I'd put my money on an al fresco version of the rear-drive enthusiasts' favourite being in the offing.

It's one of two concepts the company's showing off in the Swiss city - the other being what's billed as Toyota's response to the Renault Twizy - and while the official line is that it'll only decide to put the FT-86 Open into production if the public likes it, chances are it will. What's not like about the inevitable but inviting prospect of one of the great drivers' hits of the past decade?

The coupe version of the GT86 is a bit of a Life On Cars favourite, blending sleek coupe proportions, keen pricing and old fashioned rear-wheel-drive, oversteer-happy dynamics to create something that offers as much fun as some sports car costing two or three times its £25,000 price.

The initial impression I got when I drove it last year was that it's a Mazda MX-5 on a 1.5 times scale with metal rather than fabric over your forehead but that's selling it short. It's somehow meatier and more challenging, but more thrilling too.

Of all the cars I drove last year, this was by far and away the one I had to fight my way past other journalists to get a go in, and I can understand exactly why. I can also also understand exactly why Jeremy Clarkson said the GT86, of all the four billion cars he drove last year, was his favourite. In an automotive landscape where everything is anodyne and the loudest sound you're likely to hear is the chime of a seatbelt safety warning, the GT86 is a motor with a sense of mischief. It's a laugh.

Throw in open-top thrills (without ruining too much of the coupe's dynamics) and I reckon they'll have a bit of a roadster hit on their hands.

Get set for a year of great motoring events in 2013

A SUMMER of motoring fun is just a few months away, if the list of exciting events across the north west and further afield is anything to go by.

Fans of classic cars and bikes will be spoilt for choice when a host of events get underway, with draws including the Ormskirk MotorFest - now in its third year - on August 25, the Lydiate Classic Car Show on July 7, and the Bank Hall show in Bretherton on July 28 among others.

It's also hoped that the Woodvale Rally, a longstanding favourite with car and bike fans, will return to its traditional home at RAF Woodvale for 2013, after concerns about asbestos at the site prompted a change of venue to Victoria Park last year. The show's organisers are still awaiting confirmation, but the event is provisionally set for the weekend of August 3 and 4 so keep an eye on their website at www.woodvalerally.com for any further announcements.

A little further afield there's the return of the North West Indoor Classic Car Show, after the inaugural event proved to be one of last year's surprise hits. This year's show takes place at EventCity in Manchester - a stone's throw from The Trafford Centre - so make sure you've got the weekend of April 6 and 7 in your diary.

A couple of other big draws to make a note of are the Classic Car Spectacular, due to take place over the first weekend of June at Tatton Park in Cheshire, the Classic, Vintage and Sports Car Show at the same venue on August 17 and 18, the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power between June 14 and 16, the Gold Cup at the Oulton Park race circuit over the August Bank Holiday. There's also word that CarFest - a motoring event organised by Radio 2 DJ and Ferrari nut Chris Evans - will get the green light for a 2013 event, so while there's no official dates yet don't bet against it being hosted at some point in August or September.

There's also - if you're prepared to hop in the car and venture even further - all manner of national events being held at Goodwood, the NEC, Beaulieu, Silverstone and Santa Pod to name just a few, but even if you can't it looks set to be a vintage year for automotive outings.

If you're organising a motoring event or show why not share it with Life On Cars? Get in touch with David Simister, our motoring correspondent, by sending an email to david.simister@hotmail.co.uk or leave a comment below.

The Footman James Classic Motor Show was enormous but enjoyable

CLASSIC cars in industrial quantities. That's what you would have got if you'd joined me and thousands of others at the NEC last weekend.

Anyone familiar with the Footman James Classic Motor Show will know it's a big deal - it is, arguably, the only show that caters for fans of all things a bit old and oily on a national scale - but this year the organisers, freed from the constraints of having to share a gig with Top Gear Live, really pulled out the stops to make it bigger and bolder than ever before. It was massive.

Simply getting in is quite unlike any other show I've been to. You park up and get on a bus, which takes you to an elevator, followed by a Heathrow Airport-style moving walkway that seems to go on forever, which leads on to a labyrinth of corridors which in turn brings you to the back of the queue for tickets. This, I think, is deliberate; it's to prepare you for the sheer amount of walking the show itself involves.

Last weekend was a giddying array of just about every vaguely old vehicle ever made - yes, there were Hillman Imps and Ford Anglias at one end and Astons and Ferraris at the other, but if you're the sort of person who lies awake at night dreaming of owning a Vauxhall Nova then you were well catered for too. But our party must have walked miles checking out the seemingly endless sea of classic cars. If anything, it was slightly overwhelming. I stopped taking photos after the 175th click out of sympathy for my camera, but one classic car buff I spoke to had taken hundreds of shots.

I emerged seven hours later with cream-crackered feet and weighed down with bags of freebies, and with the prospect of the long drive back from Birmingham to look forward to. If I'd known just how big it was going to be I would've made a weekend of it - one day for the cars, another for the autojumble - because just the one day is nowhere near enough to take it all in.

It's great to think that even in an age when Britain's turned its back on national motorshows, with the motor makers favouring Frankfurt and Geneva instead, we can still put on an automotive extravaganza on this sort of scale. I'll just make sure I bring comfier shoes next time.

Footman James Classic Motor Show 2012

THOUSANDS of motoring fans will be making the trip to Birmingham this weekend to check out one of the nation's biggest classic car shows.

The  Footman James Classic Motor Show, held at the National Exhibition Centre, attracts scores of traders, clubs and enthusiasts from all corners of the country to see classic cars and bikes of all ages, in a show guaranteed to have something for just about everyone.
  
Life On Cars took these pictures at the event:

 

The show continues tomorrow (November 18). For more information visit the show's website.

Tatton Park Classic & Performance Car Spectacular 2012

DAMP weather hasn't done anything to dampen the spirits of the hundreds of classic car fans who've been visiting Tatton Park this weekend, to visit one of the biggest shows and autojumbles in the north of England.

Tatton Park has long been a petrolhead favourite but this year showgoers are being treated to three days rather than the usual two, on account of the show being held on the Diamond Jubilee weekend. Street party or the chance to check out millions of pounds worth of stunning old cars - which would you rather take up?

Because journalists still have to work on the Bank Holiday Monday, Life On Cars went up earlier today to check out some of the best automotive attractions, and took these pictures:

 

The Classic & Performance Car Spectacular is also on tomorrow and Monday at the Tatton Park estate, near Knutsford, and is open between 10am and 4pm. Tickets cost £7.50 for adults, and car parking costs £5. For more information click here.

Life On Cars has had a whopping 4,000 online visits over the past month and to celebrate has something a little special on the way. Keep an eye on here over the next few days...