Recreation

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Thursday – White Bling Thing

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Jeremy The Swift Sport has just arrived and appears to have brought summer with it. Small, sparking white and rather cute, I get the feeling I’m going to get along fine with this lukewarm hatchback.

There is nothing spectacular about the styling of the Suzuki but it looks purposeful – like a little car that wants to be driven.

Inside, unlike the slightly overcooked Adam we tested last week, the trim is no frills and functional. There is plenty of plastic and the buttons and dials are more budget than bold. However, what it lacks in chic it makes up for in driving performance!

I’ve only driven the Sport a couple of miles and it’s already put a smile on my face – even though I don’t like white cars!

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Monday – Whippets on Board

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Jessica   This car is a winner, there are no frills and somehow it does not feel like a massive compromise and purely on aesthetic value this car stands up against the 4wD 7 seater competition. The comparison would be buying a coat in Primark which becomes a wardrobe staple and when you admit to admiring friends where you bought it they all express shock and stop to consider the vast amounts they have spent on lesser coats of their own. It does make you reflect on perceived  value and actual value.

That said the gear box is positively old school and there is some difficulty finding first gear at a junction.  The steering is a little loose and the dash board trim only just misses being tasteless with its wood look finish(although luckily in black).

The car was fully utilised this weekend with 6 people and a brace of whippets on a Bank Holiday outing to the nail biting last day of the Mitsubishi Badminton Horse Trials where the passengers reported the back seats have good leg room but the centre seats are better suited to smaller occupants ( should have put the whippets there!).  The Kia looked the part alongside other county vehicles in the vast rows of the car park and did not make us feel we had to slink away from it in embarrassment.  Overall it is a solid car with an outstanding warranty which the Badminton testers agreed would make a suitable family (with pets) car without breaking the bank or screaming we have a cheap car because we have to!

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Tuesday – Golfing Technology

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Jeremy I’m ticking off the hours until they pick up the Golf today. We are not quite on first name terms but a bond has been established between us. It’s like having your best mate on standby for every eventuality.

Instantly recognisable as VW‘s iconic hatchback, under the skin, this new Mk VII version is fully equipped with technology that would have been unrecognisable when the first model was launched almost 40 years ago. It helps make an already great car even more desirable.

The vehicle selected as World Car of the Year cossets the driver with every conceivable aid in GTD form. Electronic handbrake, stop/start engine, a range of engine modes for different types of driving, front and rear parking sensors – none of these would have been even dreamt of in 1974.

So, far from meddling with a successful product to create the Mk VII, VW designers have just raised the bar for all other hatchbacks to follow. Smoother, faster, lighter and better equipped, the new Golf is everything you would expect it to be. You just wonder what they will do with the Mk VIII…

 

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Monday – The Fun of Golfing

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Jessica Yesterday morning, as I drove through Stroud in my trusty 200,000-mile BMW, I passed the entrance to ‘Wheel Nuts 2013’. It’s a classic car rally where many beautifully preserved cars were trekking, with every owner happy and excited at the gate about the fun day ahead.

It got me thinking about how much we love old cars – cars that have character, cars that remind us of times and stages of our own. I think we love a design ethic to translate across the years and to find some nostalgia in a car that is available now. Somehow VW have managed this with the Golf.

If I think back many years to a pale blue Golf I had with go faster black stripes, I felt the ghost of the original as I started to drive CarCouture’s current Mark VII version. With all its modern features and no nonsense dashboard, it still has the fun, drivability and reliable feel that I remember  from my own Golf – just wrapped in a modern casing.

VW has developed the shape and embraced technological developments but the essence of this car, which has always existed in a special category of its own in terms of demographic uptake and no nonsense fun, is very much there.

It is sound on the road, corners well and the handling is excellent. So altogether, it is a  car you could take anywhere at any stage of your life and still have a little fun.
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Sunday – Golf, Lights, Action…

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Jeremy Eight months ago I went to buy a Mk VI Volkswagen Golf. I drove out of the dealership in a VW Beetle. Mid-life crisis? Maybe but in black, with a glass roof, cool wheels and the latest ‘squat’ look, I enjoyed a temporary moment of madness.

What really clinched the deal was the Beetle’s interior. Great seats, quality switchgear and illuminated door trim – neat lines of subtle light that ran along the length of the doors above the arm rests. A control on the dashboard could even change the colour ‘mood’ from blue, to red to white!

Last night, driving home in CarCouture’s Mk VII Golf was the first time I had taken the hatchback out in the dark. The cabin is a relaxed and refined place to be and VW has used the same door lighting fitted in the Beetle to brighten up the Golf interior.

Now, Golf drivers aren’t the sort of people who want to change their mood lighting at the flick of a switch – that would be a little racy for the benchmark hatchback. But the interior of the Golf is beautifully understated, supremely comfortable and, with features like the lighting system, you feel like you are travelling first class.

 

 

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Tuesday – Knickerbocker Glory

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Jessica I know it isn’t all about colour or indeed size, however, a Range Rover in cherry red that looks like it should be proudly sitting on top of a Knickerbocker Glory is somewhat of an anomaly.

Colour does matter and how the colour ranges are put together for any car manufacturer is a mystery to me, colour has its own visual language and interpretations, it speaks volumes.

Driving around in a red Range Rover Evoque was a little disconcerting, I didn’t feel a proud moment when I met it for the first time at the station en route to (rainy) Cornwall, I wanted to get in quickly and drive away before anyone would stop and wonder what I had been thinking when I chose that colour for that car.

Colour aside what does the Evoque evoke, what is it trying to be, is what I found myself asking.

Well, it’s sporty in an urban, I want a four wheel drive way, the lines are stylish and it does say Range Rover on the bonnet!  The price tag suggests a deep pocket so I found myself wondering on the target demographic …
Too small to fit a family and their luggage, too urban to warrant having one if you lived in a rural area where winters are a problem.  So that leaves a school run car for a 2.2 family or a weekend run around for a professional person or professional couple who want to play at sporty country pursuits (not polo as you would have trouble fitting the kit in!) still not really sure as the week comes to a close.
Either way it leaves me wishing that the handling on the motorway was more refined, although it drives well in town and on B roads, but the exterior does not fit with the driving experience for me and I would be prepared to bet that professional sporty types might want a more refined motorway experience too.
There was a rather strange rubberised covering on the dash area and sorry to mention colour again but red perforated leather look seats (not matching the exterior colour ) which although comfortable were looking a little worse for wear after only one week of use.
Overall, because the Evoque looks good so I  was very much looking forward to a dash down to Cornwall, despite the colour,  but for the £40,000 I found this Range Rover a little disappointing.
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Saturday – Evoque Illuminations

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Jeremy I’ve just returned from a horribly early, Saturday morning drop off at Bath railway station. It’s the first time I’ve driven the Evoque in the dark but two contrasting points have now surfaced.

The first is that I was flashed countless times on the trip by irate, oncoming drivers who though my headlights were on full beam. They were not but still worried that I might have my fogs on, I pulled over in the morning mist to check those too. If the wheels od the SD4 are blingtastic, wait until you see the lights! I feel like one of those juggernaut drivers who adorn the front of their cab with a spectacular display.

The second point is that the Evoque has the funkiest door tread plates I’ve seen in a long time. They illuminate in blue in the dark – brilliant!

And finally, have you ever seen larger door mirrors on a car? My neighbour’s young son has decided to call the Evoque  the ‘Range Rover Elephant’ because they look like giant ears. Not bad for a five-year-old.

CarCouture is heading off to Cornwall this afternoon, to an organic Dairy Ice Cream farm, near Tintagel. The lane to the farm should prove a good test for all those off-road buttons on the centre console…

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Tuesday – In The Mode

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Jeremy My 1972 Series 3 Land Rover has a lot of metal rods poking up from the floor. Apart from a rather vague gearstick, there’s one for overdrive, two for high and low ratio gears, with a handbrake position in a pretty awkward spot too.

I mention this because the Evoque has none – not even a conventional handbrake. Gears are selected via a rotating dial, the handbrake is push button, and to select different suspension settings, a selection of buttons is provided. It’s totally foolproof – provided you read the instruction manual.

This is all designed to make using the baby Range Rover on various terrains a much simpler process. Pressing a button is easier than wrestling with a stick but for some reason, it doesn’t feel as intuitive. Jump in the Evoque and you might want to know what everything does before attempting to go off-road.

Despite its short dimensions, the Evoque is comfortable on city streets in ‘Normal’ suspension mode but for more spirited driving, the ‘Dynamic’ setting is better. I imagine most drivers won’t even touch these buttons unless they are going off-road proper but the choice is there.

So far, the Evoque is proving the perfect vehicle for all driving conditions. Only Malin the Hungarian Viszla is finding the boot a bit small – but then he has been used to a Series 3 for five years…

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Monday – The Evoque Has Landed

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Jeremy Let’s face it, SUVs don’t often come out of the design studio eye-catchingly beautiful. The need for all-round ability means good looks often have to be sacrificed for load capacity and extra ground clearance.

Which is why the Range Rover Evoque has genuinely broken the mould. At last, here is a compact SUV that you don’t need children, dogs or an interesting sport involving Lycra to justify ownership.

Our Firenze red Evoque has just arrived and already I’m looking for excuses to drive it. Low, squat and purposeful, the slim side windows and low roof give this Range Rover a thoroughly modern appeal.

The contemporary shape makes other SUVs look positively old-fashioned by comparison. We also have some suitably bling chrome wheels on our test car – let’s see how they look after seven days of Wiltshire mud and dirt…

Not quite so sure about the red leather interior but I’ll let Jessica have her say on that later in the week.

 

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Sunday – A Car For All Seasons

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Jeremy It’s the last day for our 6 Series Convertible and, predictably, it’s raining! The soft-top has been down for about 20 minutes in ten days. What the hell happened to spring?

Despite the climatic challenges, this is the most accomplished convertible on the market today. It is an outstanding grand tourer, eating up the miles on our trip to Le Mans, as well as coping with cobbled streets and twisty A-roads en route through Normandy.

Big convertibles can look clumsy and awkward (just consider the Mercedes E-class) but the BMW is eye-catching from every angle. A sophisticated and elegant machine, can you think of a cabriolet that ticks quite so many boxes?

Jessica The BMW is so refined that for a convertible, you wouldn’t know it was a soft-top. The rear end is much prettier than the previous version, with a much more sculpted boot line. It’s a convertible that works on every level, with so much technology, refinement and style that it more than merits the price.