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Simply clever? What makes a good car ad

April 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I’m not sure why, but the advertising industry appears to harbour a massive disparity of talent. At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got the inspired and visually spectacular, if occasionally esoteric stuff from the likes of Guinness and Cadburys. The kind of adverts that command your attention during that thought vacuum between TV programmes called  the commercial break. Ads that plant the seed of brand awareness in your mind. You know they work because when it’s your round, you’ll order a pint of the black stuff even if you don’t like it.

At the other end is the contrived, toe-curling stuff, crafted without subtlety or depth of imagination. For some reason, lots of car ads fall into this category. Take the recent Skoda Rapid advert ominously dubbed ‘dad skills’. No seriously, take it. I don’t want it.

Now that the fatherland has lent it some chrome door handles and soft-touch interior plastics, Skoda as a brand has finally rid itself of the eastern bloc stigma. But are their ad men really trying to undo that by peddling the cool dad line? The strapline says ‘simply clever’. Our survey says ‘no’.

Then you’ve got car advertising’s equivalent of fingernails being dragged down a blackboard. The Aston Martin Rapide ad.

It’s definitely a hit and miss affair, car advertising. Some ad agencies are adept at capturing the zeitgeist like VW’s ad men did in the 80s with the Mk2 Golf GTI, Paula Hamilton and a fur coat. Meanwhile others are adept at squandering multi-million pound budgets on campaigns that land very wide of the mark.

But few have got it quite as spot on as BMW did with ‘The Hire’. A series of short films directed by the likes of Guy Ritchie and John Woo back in the early noughties, the films show the cars being properly driven – something you can’t really do on TV commercials. But put Clive Owen in an E39 M5 and get him to throw it sideways with a grumpy Madonna in the back and you’ve got something instantly cool, entertaining and memorable. A decade on, it still works. Which is why it’s a good advert.

The obvious limitation with creating ads like this is that the heads of Daily Mail readers would explode if an over-steering BMW filled their screens between episodes of Midsomer Murders. Just ask Toyota what happened when they dared show mild exuberance in the ad for its much-hyped GT86. A couple of joyless dullards complained so it was banned. Thankfully BMW’s campaign was internet-only, so no-one has managed to ban it. It’s a masterclass in how to do car advertising properly.

 

 

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The Ministry of Silly Names

March 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

For a while now, car companies have been quietly waging war on each other. Not the obligatory sales war, but a war of daft model names. A high-stakes game of who can saddle their new car with the most ridiculous moniker and not kill sales stone dead. We’ve had silly names before of course….

hyundai pony

…But not since the sight of my English teacher’s comically misnomered Hyundai Pony – never was a leather elbow-patched Lancastrian and his car less likely to appear at a gymkhana – have I felt the need to crow about car names. Until now.

Perhaps the car industry is fatigued with model names that evoke distant African tribes or exotically-named winds. Maybe the suits have said ‘enough of these logical engine-size linked hierarchical numbering systems, let’s get wacky’. Or perhaps the automotive power-mongers of our global car industry have been intimidated by over-zealous marketing types and their thick-rimmed spectacles. Let’s look at some of the evidence….

1. Vauxhall Cascada

Straight in at number 1, it’s Vauxhall’s confident and – I hope – not at all ill-judged assault on the premium cabrio market. But will the Griffin badged Audi A5-baiter be hamstrung by being named after a mediocre Eurodance act? Who knows, but the masters of motoring humour, Sniff Petrol had an amusing take on it.

Vauxhall Cascada

The Vauxhall Cascada

2. Vauxhall Adam

Giving a car a bloke’s name just sounds…odd. But then this is a heritage-driven move – the founder of Vauxhall’s European sister brand was called Adam Opel. Fair enough, but the personification of Vauxhall’s city car lends the try-hard Fiat 500 rival a whiff of a ‘please like me, I’ll be your best friend’. If other car companies had followed a similar logic when dreaming up names, we could have ended up with the TVR Trevor, the BMW Karl Friedrich, or indeed the Ferrari..Enzo. Right.

Vauxhall Adam

Fresh and funky? Or annoying? The Vauxhall Adam

3. LaFerrari

Which leads us on to the recently uncloaked Ferrari LaFerrari. It’s Ferrari’s new flagship, a ‘mild hybrid’ V12 hypercar that goes from 0-124mph in less than 7.0 seconds. And forces its owners to explain to their friends they haven’t developed a stutter, it really is called the Ferrari TheFerrari.

LaFerrari

The Ferrari TheFerrari. One more time?

4. Kia C’eed

How did the Koreans come up with this name? Why? I don’t understand, it’s silly.

Kia C'eed

The reasonable priced car with the unreasonably punctuated name

5. Smart Forjeremy

What happens when pocket-sized car manufacturer Smart teams up with flamboyant American fashion designer Jeremy Scott? A monstrously stupid name and this dubiously-attired motorised rollerskate. With wings don’t you know. Why didn’t Red Bull think of this first? Because they have eyes.

Smart Forjeremy

Smart Forjeremy. Forf*ck’s sake.

6. Volkswagen up!

Adding spurious and redundant punctuation to a car name just sounds camp, forcing one to utter this baby VW’s name with unwarranted enthusiasm. If I were in the market for a competent little city car, having to say up! in the manner of Barbara Woodhouse training a Labrador would certainly put me off buying the VW-badged version. I’d rather slum it in the more tastefully-named but identical Skoda Citigo thanks.

VW up!

What goes up…

7. Volkswagen e-up!

VW have just announced an electric version of the plucky and effervescent up! It’s called the e-up! Yes! Rumours of special editions aimed at customers in Yorkshire, including an e-up vetinary! and e-up lad! remain uncorroborated at the time of putting finger to keyboard.

VW e-up!

Thought I was joking?

 

8. Hyundai Scoupe

Thank goodness the Koreans branched out from equine-themed names to give us this early nineties creation, with a name evocative of those plastic poo-trowels beloved of dog owners. In the days when the Hyundai Scoupe Turbo SE prowled the streets, the Korean firm’s strapline was ‘prepare to want one’. I still don’t want a Scoupe, but I’d take a Veloster.

Hyundai Scoupe

Prepare to want one. The Hyundai Scoupe Turbo.

 

Thought of some more stupid car names? Let me know using the form below.

 

 

 

 

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MINI John Cooper Works Paceman – it’s a MINI abomination

December 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The MINI marketing machine has spawned another mutant. This here is the MINI Paceman John Cooper Works. The what now?

It’s ‘an extreme sports performance’ version of a ‘compact sports activity coupé’. Or to put it an another way, a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche. What we actually have here is BMW milking the MINI brand for all it’s worth, and then some.

MINI John Cooper Works Paceman

The MINI John Cooper Works Paceman

So how did we go from the elegant simplicity of the Issigonis-designed BMC original, to a seven-strong range which includes a high performance coupé version of a crossover-cum-SUV version of the vanilla MINI hatchback? A flowchart would help, but I don’t have the web-wizard skills, so I’ll explain.

In 2001 came the new MINI, a re-worked noughties take on the sixties icon, with the engineering and marketing might of BMW behind it. It wowed the early adopters and kept on wowing late adopters until well after it had turned from trendy urbanite’s accessory to obvious cliché. Then came the convertible version back in 2005, an understandable evolution in the light of other retro-modern efforts like the VW Beetle cabriolet. But when the second generation of BMW-era MINI arrived on the scene in 2006, things began to veer off course. The brand went on a bit of a MINI marketing adventure.

MINI Countryman

This is not just a MINI. This is a bloated Austrian-built 4-wheel drive MINI.

The Clubman of 2008 – so named because BMW never purchased the rights to the Traveller name which adorned sixties Mini Estates – wasn’t the major crime, far from it in fact. The Countryman of 2010 though, isn’t a MINI at all. It’s a longer wheelbase, jacked-up, four or two-wheel drive crossover-cum-SUV built in Austria by Magna Steyr. The Paceman, in turn, is a coupe version of the Countryman SUV. Yes, WTF indeed.

So the MINI John Cooper Works Paceman is the 215bhp 1.6-litre turbocharged version of that coupe crossover SUV thing, which itself had higher suspension than the standard MINI. Only because it’s sporty, they’ve lowered it back down again. It’s like a bunch of marketing people decided ‘lets break down the established norms and shake things up a bit’. Only the Paceman JCW is one ideas shower too far. I won’t mention the MINI Coupé – because despite being a fixed-roof car that looks like a convertible sporting a hardtop, it’s comparatively inoffensive when set against the controversial Countryman/Paceman (Pastryman?) dynasty.

Still, it’ll probably be okay to drive. And it’ll probably sell, even at nearly £30k, because it’s a MINI. Of course, you could choose to spend that £30k on another effort from the BMW stable, the utterly mesmeric M135i – a car designed by engineers, not Homer Simpson.

MINI John Cooper Works Paceman pictures:

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SMMT Test Day South

October 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Apparently there’s a North/South divide – I wouldn’t know. Being brought up in the south, but born in the north, I can tolerate both flat cap-wearing, whippet-fancying northerners and shandy-drinking southerners in equal measure. As if to illustrate my aversion to geographical stereotyping, I live in neutral territory – Birmingham, the Switzerland of Britain if you will. Only without the captivating Alpine vistas. Or cheese.

But the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) sees fit to split up the geographically opposed factions of motoring journalists – holding two regional ‘test’ days when car journos gather to drive important new machinery from an array of manufacturers. The SMMT South event happened on a very wet day in October, and I popped along to sample some un-tried metal. I’ve distilled my thoughts below.

2012 Bentley Continental GTC V8 Review

If a certain Tory MP were to choose his ideal car, I reckon he’d opt for this banana yellow Bentley, because it’s just the ticket for intimidating plebs* in lesser vehicles. On copping an eyeful of the boldly-hued behemoth in the rear-view, the great unwashed smartly move aside, allowing the big-deal-at-the-wheel to waft imperiously past. At least that was my experience as I guided the high-vis Bentley down the fast lane of the M3 – it simply parted the sea of Mondeos and Civics in biblical fashion.

Bentley Continental GTC V8

The magnificent Bentley Continental GTC V8

Of course, being a Bentley, it has other attributes as well as that colour (Aztec Sun, since you asked). Chiefly the twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 motor, which aside from sporting an ample 500bhp, is an aural extravaganza – hushed and muted but with latent menace when cruising on part throttle. Open the taps and it snarls like a Rottweiler which has just been punched in the nose.

The pleasure vs. pain equation that comes with big power and weight has been skewed too – clever cylinder shutdown technology means the engine is actually a V4 most of the time, so it’s not as if driving it is akin to holding two fingers up at Greenpeace. Which is nice.

2012 Bentley Continental GTC

2012 Bentley Continental GTC

The fact it monsters the 0-62mph dash in 4.7 seconds, despite weighing 2.5 tonnes is incomprehensible – but it feels every bit as capable as those figures suggest.

Then there’s the lashings of cow, chrome, aluminium and contrasting yellow stitching lining the beautifully finished cockpit. That combo may sound as tastefully restrained as a traveller’s wedding dress – but somehow it works. There’s also a sublime Naim sound system to make audiophiles dribble. I couldn’t resist the massive yellow Bentley’s anglo-german cocktail of garish opulence.

The verdict? As that bloke off The Fast Show would say – ‘brilliant’.

  • Need to know – 2012 Bentley Continental GTC V8:
  • Engine: 4.0-litre V8, twin-turbo, 500bhp
  • Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
  • Price: £136,250 (£171,000 as tested)
  • Performance: 0-60mph – 4.7 seconds, max speed – 187mph

2012 Vauxhall Astra VXR Review

Hot hatches have ceased to float my boat of late. Climbing the car ladder, I’ve left behind my Golf GTI and R32 owning days -  with AMGs and Ms usurping souped-up hatches as the objects of my car lust. The advent of the super-hatch has once again piqued my interest – and hatches don’t come much more super than Vauxhall’s latest effort – the Astra VXR.

Yet I still hopped into Vauxhall’s electric blue example full of preconceptions. Chief amongst which was the unfounded suspicion that spending time with this 276bhp front-wheel drive Vauxhall in monsoon conditions would be as relaxing as sitting next to a Buckfast-swigging Glaswegian on a train. I was wrong.

2012 Vauxhall Astra VXR

2012 Vauxhall Astra VXR

Turns out the VXR is surprisingly grown-up and sophisticated. Despite that healthy power output, the HiPerStrut suspension and trick front differential keep torque steer nicely in check. Given asbo-levels of throttle in wet conditions I could make it squirm – but for a car with 276bhp pulsing through the front wheels it does a damn good job of being both civilised and sodding quick – 5.9 seconds to 60mph is pretty impressive stuff from an Astra. The slightly synthetic wooshing sound when the turbo is on boost was less so – but given its other talents, forgivable.

The interior too, is surprisingly tactile and made the Focus ST’s dash feel a bit Tesco Value. Pushing the VXR button – which sharpens throttle response and makes the dampers a bit spikier – turns the dials a sinister red which is a bit naff, if I’m being honest. Which I am.

But those winged bucket seats deserve special mention -  hugging and gripping in all the right places, they make this hairy Vauxhall feel like a special place to sit. Ok – £27k isn’t cheap for an Astra, but it is bloody capable – and a real looker. Impressive stuff, thanks Vauxhall.

  • Need to know – 2012 Vauxhall Astra VXR:
  • Engine: 2.0-litre four cylinder turbo, 276bhp
  • Transmission: Six-speed manual, front-wheel drive
  • Price: £26,995
  • Performance: 0-60mph – 5.9 seconds, max speed – 155mph (limited)

2012 BMW M135i Review

And so, then I moved on to the BMW M135i. This Fisher Price my-first-M-Car sure is ugly, but it goes like the clappers.

Actually, the bonkers-fast 1-Series deserves more than two sentences – it was my drive of the day. Ambling up to it I couldn’t help thinking my initial summation of the baby Beemer’s looks remains spot on – it does look like a sloth from the front. But get inside and you just don’t care.

2012 BMW M135i

Hideously good – the BMW M135i

BMW’s test car was fitted with the optional eight-speed paddle-shift auto. Teamed with the Twinpower 316bhp 3.0-litre straight-six, this is one grin-inducing ugly duckling. The powertrain has a captivating combination of rifle bolt gearchanges and seemingly endless lag-free grunt on tap. It’s furiously quick for a humble 1er – smashing through the 60mph barrier in 4.9 seconds and all the while feeling like an utterly engaging and exploitable rear-drive companion. Partially disengage the DSC and it’s also willing to wag its tail quite nicely – as I found on the exit of a rain-soaked roundabout.

The M135i is a joy machine, so much so that I seriously considered running off with the keys. It’s also something of a bargain at under £30k. I don’t care about the looks, I’m having a whip round to see if I can buy one.

  • Need to know – 2012 BMW M135i:
  • Engine: 3.0-litre six cylinder turbo, 316bhp
  • Transmission: Eight-speed automatic (optional), rear-wheel drive
  • Price: £29,995
  • Performance: 0-60mph – 4.9 seconds (auto), 5.1 seconds (man), max speed – 155mph (limited)

*said Tory MP may never have actually used the word pleb.

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Milking the brand

August 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

A relentless stream of new AMGs have been splurging out of Mercedes’ tame tuning offshoot over the past few years. Rather than being overjoyed at the advent of yet more quad-piped German über-rods, it’s got me thinking. Are the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Audi taking a scattergun to their S, AMG and M badges and just firing them at anything that moves? I reckon they might be.

Recently, Mercedes announced that its largest and most carbuncular SUV, the GL-Class would be blessed with the AMG treatment. That follows the release of the madcap G 63 AMG, based on the pensionable G-Wagen, a car which continually evades the corporate guillotine despite its advanced vintage. A truly unhinged V12-powered G 65 AMG is also waiting in the wings – proof that the Germans do have a sense of humour after all.

Mercedes GL 63 AMG

The GL 63 AMG. A quad piped torque monster too far?

Then there was the news at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, that the forthcoming A-Class would spawn a proper AMG version to frighten off the Audi RS3. And lets not forget the R 63 AMG of 2006 – a disparate blend of luxury MPV and V8-powered 503bhp thrust. What’s that? Prefer your hot-rod in small roadster guise? Step forward, SLK 55 AMG. And SL, CL, C-Class, ML-Class, S-Class, E-Class – all available with a sinister torque monster under the bonnet and those three letters on the bootlid.

They’ll keep coming too. The news hailing from Mercedes’ special ops division in Affalterbach is that AMG will significantly ramp up production over the next few years, with ambitions to build 30,000 cars per year by 2017, according to recent press reports.

Mercedes isn’t the only one at it. Now Audi is plastering SUVs with their ‘S’ branding. The SQ5 TDI is by all accounts a pretty good specimen of its genre. That being the rather niche high performance diesel SUV genre, since you’re asking. But this all begs the question – how thinly can you stretch your brand equity before it becomes a meaningless shadow of its former self?

Audi SQ5 TDI

Vorsprung Durch Marketing - the Audi SQ5 TDI

And over to you, BMW. The purveyors of The Ultimate Driving Machine spilled a tin of M badges onto the X5 production line, but still decided to put the heroically pointless X5 M on sale. The same thing happened with the X6, and BMW gave birth to the Ultimate Posing Machine, the X6 M. Has it damaged the M brand irretrievably? Well it’s irritated the purists, riled a few motoring journalists – but aside from the pant-wettingly obscene depreciation these monsters suffer, no one seems too worried. Least of all BMW.

BMW X6 M & X5 M

The BMW X6 M & X5 M in a multi-story car park. Wrong on so many levels...

Yet both cars are about as far from the original and iconic E30 M3′s mission statement as it’s possible to be. Somewhere along the way, the ‘M’ moniker stopped standing for Motorsport and instead developed the unmistakable whiff of Money. More of it than sense that is.

And so what, you might say. Well on the one hand, it’s great that manufacturers have found a way to keep building these things in ever swelling numbers, rather than giving in to the legislators. Clever start-stop and cylinder shut-down technology mean that a 5.5-litre Biturbo V8 can deliver the kind of mpg that you’d expect of something with half the power a few years back. That’s progress. So is increasing production volumes in an automotive industry where wobbling demand make economies of scale essential for survival. Manufacturers need to keep inventing ways to grab new customers – and that’s why Merc is giving everything from crossover to convertible, family saloon to supercar, the AMG treatment.

The problem lies in brand dilution. Whilst Mercedes, Audi and BMW know they can splatter monster power SUVs with their performance branding and get away with it, the ‘specialness’ gets eroded when they become two-a-penny. The halo-effect so often used as a marketing tool to shift boggo C-Classes begins to diminish.

BMW M3 E30

M means motorsport. The E30 M3

AMG used to have a rare, bespoke flavour 45 years ago when it started as a niche tuner, fashioning Q-cars in the form of tweaked 6.3-litre 300SELs. Likewise BMW’s Motorsport sub-brand, born out of the M1 supercar and then properly commercialised with the E30 M3 – a car which boasted a bona fide touring car pedigree. In those days, the AMG or M badges were a mark of an engineering-led philosophy. That’s a strong foundation to underpin a performance sub-brand. Marketing isn’t.

What’s the answer then? How do you find new customers without damaging exclusivity?

Well actually, it doesn’t matter. Mercedes, Audi and BMW can milk AMG, S and M for all they’re worth, because there’s always the weapons grade stuff to satisfy the punters who want something more exclusive. The Black Series brand is AMG turned up to 11 – and it’s spawned some great cars, which are good enough – and pricey enough – to ensure relative rarity. Similarly, Audi’s RS brand has stepped in where the UR Quattro left off, fulfilling the wet dreams of Vorsprung Durch Technik fetishists. BMW may be swimming against the tide with the ‘M Performance’ range – a kind of Fisher Price ‘my first M car’ affair – but still, early signs are that the cars are good, and it leaves the M badge for the proper stuff.

C63 AMG Black Series

The answer? Invent a more upscale badge

Devotees of S and M – and AMG will benefit too, in theory. The more new cars that get the performance sub-brand treatment, the greater the supply trickling down onto the second-hand market. Simple fag packet economics would have it that supply of pre-thrashed high performance metal will increase and prices will therefore plummet. That’s surely good news for the fiscally challenged petrolhead. In that case, milk them for all they’re worth I say.

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Lotus – what now?

July 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Lots of trouble, undeniably serious. Excuse the bastardised cliché, but even glass half full types will have been watching the happenings in Hethel over the last few months through their hands from behind the sofa. With gritted teeth.

With this week’s news that Lotus have submitted a far more realistic business plan to Proton’s new owners and its ultimate parent company DRB-Hicom, many will surely harbour a strong desire to find sacked former CEO Dany Bahar and say ‘I told you so’.

Dany Bahar Lotus CEO

With Bahar ousted, does Lotus have a brighter future?

When his erratic and profligate stewardship of Lotus careered off the road, was anyone surprised? Sad for the Norfolk car builder, worried for its workforce – sure. But surprised? No.

That’s because anyone with a grasp of the economics involved in designing, developing and building one new car, let alone five clean-sheet sports cars, would have regarded Bahar’s five year plan as wildly ambitious. And wild ambition doesn’t dovetail too well with a world wallowing in austerity. Or a company which hasn’t turned a profit in a very long time and more than anything needs credible, core products to kick start things. Not a long drawn out, cash-sapping sojourn into markets and niches they’ll never tap.

And the gargantuan hiring spree of top notch car industry bods, whilst endowing Lotus with some impressive business cards, including AMG’s Wolf Zimmerman, ex-Ferrari designer Donato Coco, GM’s Bob Lutz and lightness legend Gordon Murray, can’t have been anything other than Bloody Expensive.

Still, the right tools for the job are important, especially with the herculean task that comes with launching five new sports cars complete with in-house engines and gearboxes. But then why involve the rapper Swizz Beatz? And why the tie-up with the ultimate purveyors of automotive bilge, Mansory? Because, it seems Bahar, a marketing man at heart, unfortunately had all the gear, but in the final analysis, no idea.

New Lotus Eterne

The stillborn Lotus Eterne. No. No. Thrice no.

Where did it go wrong then? Right at the beginning. Someone should have had a word in Bahar’s ear in Paris when he announced the outlandish five car plan in 2010. That was the point at which he needed to focus on spending Proton’s £770 million budget for the ailing carmaker a bit more carefully.

Forget the Aston Rapide rival, the city car and most of the other ones beginning with E. Concentrate on building two new cars – a replacement for the brilliant but ageing Elise, and a proper stab at a new Esprit supercar – the kind of effort that would give Ferrari and McLaren sleepless nights.

Lotus Esprit 2014

Build the new Esprit sharpish please Lotus

Unfortunately, Bahar seems to have been more pre-occupied with courting an entourage of celebrities. Vacuous endorsements from Mickey Rourke and Naomi Campbell at the outset of Bahar’s ill-fated journey were a worrying portent that the good ship Lotus had lost its rudder and someone should wrestle the captain from the helm before it was too late.

What Lotus needs now is brilliance with a two or three car model range to bring the company back to health – see Porsche circa 1997, reference Boxster/996.

With the refreshed Exige and Evora, the signs are that Lotus is still a company brimming with engineering magic and an innate understanding of how to build an excellent sports car. What’s needed now is the guiding hand of a CEO who doesn’t have his head in the clouds. And a world-beating Esprit, soon.

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I Want One: Mercedes 500E (W124)

January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

In the beginning was the AMG Hammer. It was good, and Mercedes saw that it was good. But it was too bloody expensive. Around 70% more than the first gen E28 M5 to be precise, so not many people bought one.

£50k was a heck of a lot of wedge to part with back in 1986 for a W124 Merc. So in the fight for ’80s city bonuses, the default 911/328GTB/SL won the day. Which was a shame, as the forerunner to today’s hotrod AMG saloons would have blown the pinstripes off many a stockbroker, had they seen fit to, err, put the hammer down with their Gucci loafers.

Mercedes AMG Hammer

image courtesy of Insideline.com: Mercedes AMG Hammer

The Hammer was a car that made me, as a child of the eighties, double-check the Top Trumps cards to see if the stats were correct – 5.6-litres (bored out to 6.0-litres if you threw a weighty brown paper bag at AMG), 0-60 somewhere in the mid-fives, and a top speed of 186mph for the ‘under-the-counter’ version. All this in a sober Mercedes saloon, confusing for a schoolboy whose staple automotive pin-ups wore prancing horse or raging bull badges. The subtle nuances of Q-car cool were lost on me back then. Wolf-in-wolf’s clothing was the only language I knew…

Which clumsily leads me on to the point of this post. The even more ‘Q’, innocuous-looking 500E of 1991. This V8 super-saloon, a divine collaboration between Porsche and Mercedes in the early nineties is oh-so-subtle, but to these eyes, massively desirable. And I Want One.

Mercedes 500E (W124)

No, not an airport taxi

Based on the W124 300E, it was hand-built in conjunction with Porsche and had a 5.0-litre V8 developing 322bhp squeezed under the nose. That saw it pass 60mph in 5.5 seconds in the hands of some motor mags at launch, earning it the ‘four-door Porsche’ label. And yes, today you could stick that label on any number of pumped up über-saloons, thanks to the relentless German horespower race.

Back in its day though, as a criminally understated, quietly brawny weapon, it was the kind of car that appealed only to those who knew their super-saloon onions and didn’t care if people thought it was an airport taxi. It’s an allure that appealed just as much to F1 drivers as Belgian arms dealers. And that well-known connoisseur of special metal, Mr. Bean.

Mercedes 500E

If it's good enough for Rowan Atkinson...

Fast-forward a bit, and the 500E still looks hard-as today. With its widened track and mildly flared arches, it doesn’t shout loudly, but it could definitely do you over if it felt like it. Riding on innocuous 8-hole alloys looking almost identical to a 300E’s, it’s the most successful demonstration of less being more that I’ve ever seen on a performance saloon. Paint it beige and it’d blend into a German taxi rank as well as a 300D. Actually, don’t do that, there aren’t enough left to mess about with.

In truth, the 500E only seriously arrived on my radar after seeing Luc Besson’s film, ‘Taxi’, in 1998. But it’s lodged itself firmly into the ranks of ‘must-have’ ever since, and now it won’t go away. It’s the car that I window-shop the online classifieds for, again and again. This obsession has spawned an ambitious new year’s resolution — to get my name on the V5 of a nice one towards the end of this year. By which time I’ll have worked out which of my vital organs I’ll miss the least.

It could be harder than I thought to find a good one though. Thanks to a £57k price tag in the UK, it found less than ten homes through official channels. There’s more in circulation, due to subsequent Japanese and European grey imports, but good ones are properly rare beasts. The hunt is on.

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Bentley Sunglasses prove popular

August 25, 2011 by 1 Comment

Bentley eyes up the high-end sunglasses market

Picture the scene. You’ve got the Bentley, you’ve probably got the diamond-encrusted Vertu phone. But what happens when you need a more compact statement of wealth than a two-tonne Bentley? In return for a wheelbarrow full of notes, Bentley Eyewear not only protects your peepers from the sun’s harmful rays, but provides a silent way of saying to the proletariat – ‘Out of my way, I’m dripping with money’.

Bentley Eyewear

Well, why not? You only get one pair of eyes, so why not cloak them in the most opulent ocular extravagance available. Bentley’s ‘Mulsanne’ range of sunglasses are handmade in Germany by high-end eyewear maker, Estede. Available in 18ct gold, silver palladium or platinum, the Bentley Eyewear range is, predictably, eye-wateringly expensive. Starting at 10,000 Euros for the gold aviators and rising to 31,500 Euros for platinum-framed versions, wealthy customers in China and Russia have already been queueing up to buy the natty shades.

Zeiss polarised lenses provide wearers with 100% UV protection, whilst an engraved Bentley ‘B’ emblem adorns the handcrafted frames. The perfect accessory to a pair of Bentley specs, is of course, a Bentley, which is why a hard case has been specially designed to slot neatly into the centre console of the Bentley Mulsanne. And furthering the opportunity for cross-selling, customers can have a leather presentation case trimmed in the same hide as their Bentley interior.

Find out more here – Bentley Eyewear

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Wilton House supercars 2011

August 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2011 Wilton House classic rendezvous and supercars event

On Sunday, the 18th Earl of Pembroke played host to the third annual supercar day at his country pile, Wilton House. A bit of a ‘Goodwood-lite’, Wilton House is a much smaller, less corporate event with modest ticket prices and a relaxed festival atmosphere. Whilst there isn’t the motorsport flavour or track-side ambience that makes the Goodwood Festival of Speed so unique, Wilton House offers a similarly stately setting, and the opportunity to get close to an eclectic array of exotica.

Wilton House Supercars Event 2011

Entry costs a tenner for adults and kids get in for a fiver, with proceeds split between a local hospital charity and the Wilton House Trust. Situated three miles outside Salisbury, the village of Wilton is not a hard place to reach – the main A303 is close by – but local roads struggle to cope with the volume of traffic. After a brisk 45-minute drive from Marlborough, I spent another hour crawling in traffic half a mile from the venue. If the event grows, organisers should look at alternative parking solutions, and avoid bottlenecking show traffic through one entrance onto the estate. At least the traffic jam was interesting – my Audi providing the filling in a 550 Maranello/Maserati MC12 sandwich. The sight of balmy August air shimmering with riot-grade heat haze from roasting V12s provided a welcome diversion from the boredom.

Once you’re finally in, is it worth the wait? Well there’s certainly more than enough on display to warrant the entry fee. E-types rub door handles with Koenigseggs, from the mundane to the sublime, classics mix with supercar. Yet despite the upscale setting it never feels like a snooty affair. The absence of roped-off corporate enclosures to shield the Veuve-Clique set from the camera-wielding enthusiast give Wilton House an accessible feel.

In front of the main house the ‘hypercar’ display starred an Aston Martin One-77, which attracted huge attention despite being flanked by an asbo-loud Ferrari Enzo, a Koenigsegg CCX, McLaren MP4-12C and a gold-on-black Bugatti Veyron. Car clubs were also out in force with a big turnout from the Aston Martin Owner’s Club, who sported some gems including a particularly striking signal red DB5.

Aston Martin DB5

Local dealers and trade stands also dusted off their wares, with Swindon-based Dick Lovett Sporting putting a brace of Ferraris on the front lawn, ranging from the contemporary 599 GTO and 458 Italia, through to the limited specials – Enzo, F40, F50 and 288 GTO. Mercedes also had an official stand with the SLS, and a C63 AMG on display, whilst Morgan’s Three Wheeler drew lots of positive attention. Forget the contemporary stuff though – standing out like a Constable original at an exhibition of Ikea prints, a gorgeous Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta SWB was the show-stopper for me.

Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta SWB

Wilton House is worth a look if you want to get close to a large array of supercars and classics in an archetypal, bucolic English setting. There’s an easygoing atmosphere to the day, with beer tents and live music jostling for attention against some exotic and rare metal and it’s certainly more of an occasion than your average car club meet. Bringing a picnic rather than relying on the onsite catering is a good idea though – queues for the burger vans were almost as long as the traffic jam outside the venue. The only worry with an event like this, is that because it’s good value, not overcrowded and relatively uncommercial, it’ll probably get busier in future years. As it is, it’s a pretty appealing way to while away a Sunday in sunny August. Just take some ear defenders with you.

Wilton House video: SLS AMG revving

Wilton House video posted on YouTube by KeithBrandy:

Wilton House Supercars 2011 pictures

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Hofmeister stink – the new BMW 1-Series

June 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I recall thinking that when the original 1 Series arrived around 2004, it was an unnecessarily offensive looking thing, an ungainly John Merrick of a car. Time, though, heals all wounds. Including the unsightly gaping wound that was BMW’s first flame-surfaced rear-drive hatch. As Munich’s A3-chaser became a familar sight on our roads, its ubiquity made the sight of it acceptable, normal even. And so it came to pass, that in M-Sport coupé guise particularly, the 1 Series morphed into a quirky, attractive baby Beemer. And then came the 1 Series M, a full-fat M-division wet dream.

New BMW 1 Series

BMW has just revealed the second-generation 1 Series, and to these eyes, it’s not so much wet dream, as wet fish. Sorry BMW (as if you care), but it stinks. What is going on in Munich’s styling department at the moment? BMW calls the new 1 Series’ styling ‘youthful’ and ‘lively’, but the only thing that was lively when I saw the front end, was my stomach. Honestly, I’ve seen my two year-old niece sculpt more appealing and dynamic designs with Play-Doh.

Okay, beauty and the beholder’s eye. Subjectivity, and all that. Try as I might though, I can’t muster the same restrained diplomacy that the car mags can. Words like ‘challenging’, and ‘divisive’ simply don’t direct sufficient venom at the uncensored, 18-certificated horror that is the junior BMW’s face. Just look at it, if you can bear to – it has the appearance of an Amazonian sloth with a BMW badge stuck to its forehead. And wandering around the back-end to hide from the gurning snout offers no respite from the visual calamity – the tail-light treatment is pure, undiluted VW Polo. Will any of that stop aspirational junior managers choosing it as their default conveyance? Did Ryan Giggs take sound legal advice? Hmmm. You decide.

 

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