ROADWORK Issue 3

ROADWORK
Mercedes S 350 in the real world, Old Peugeot across
Europe, Fashionista’s Fiat in its natural habitat, a pair of Jolly
Jaguars, my first trip to watch the DTM, and a Citroen. All
photographed and written about by
Chris Haining
Third Edition

What Lies Within
ROADWORK
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Chris Haining
Salesman, Designer,
Driver, Writer, Customer,
Photographer, Trivia
Merchant and all round tall
bloke. He is responsible for
ROADWORK
ROADWORK is my occasional automotive
journal. It’s about cars, looking at them, driving
them, but most importantly how they make me
feel.
In this issue my home for eight days is
a fifteen year old Peugeot, I visit Brands Hatch
for the first time and analyse cars as disperate
as Mercedes S Class and Fiat 500. But, most
importantly, I relish every minute.
If you are reading this as a download, please
click on the images to be taken to each story
Please click on my
face to find out
more about me, or
to browse my C.V
introducing
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25
39
71
77

S: Still A
Class Act?
Words and Pictures by: Chris Haining
Once the default choice in the
uber-luxury sector, Mercedes
now faces tough new
opposition from Jaguar, Audi,
and BMW.
I spend an evening to
determine whether the S-Class
still has what it takes to
impress.
I had developed a migraine. We arrived
in Brooklands at about half past six,
slightly tardy but not unacceptably so,
and first on my mind was getting back
to that Tesco we had passed to buy
some Ibuprofen.
I'm playing chauffeur for the
evening, ferrying my passenger to a
special event for the great and the
good of Mercedes-Benz's highest
ranks. We travel tonight in his personal
S-Class, as I type this paragraph I'm in
the driving seat watching Bladerunner
on the dashboard display while he
probably knocks back Bollinger and
quails eggs at the expense of the
Germans.
The migraine stems from
three factors. Firstly, a fair chunk of the
journey was on the M25, a road that
gives me a violent allergic reaction
whenever I go near it. Secondly, my
Driven
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I

passenger is my boss's bosses boss, the Chief
Executive of the company. What is the protocol
for this situation? Do I act normally and engage in
pleasant conversation? Maybe I should make an
effort to impress him, dazzle him with my
intellect, wit and repartee? It's all very well
thinking about that now but I'm already halfway
through the evening and the damage is probably
already done.
My third reason for a headache is that,
for whatever reason, tonight I just can't seem to
drive smoothly and I'm pretty sure it's a problem
with the relationship between myself and the car.
The Mercedes S-Class has never really been
toppled from a position as the unquestioned
luxury car champion of the world, rippling with
technological muscle and an extraordinarily
comfy place to sit. So why am I having this
problem?
The answer, I think, is that with a VIP
cargo I can't drive for myself and myself only. My
natural driving attitude is to let a car breathe, to
move with it and allow it to flow, and to do so
tonight would be at the expense of passenger
comfort. I am having to put aside my needs as a
driver and temper my driving style in favour of
smoothness and, frankly, I'm not doing it very well.
I know this three-litre diesel is not a huge
engine for a fair old bunch of car, and you have to
know where the power is to make the most of it.
You drive it on the torque, the seven-speed
gearbox slurring the changes expertly and you
don't really miss the power. It's only when the rev
needle redlines flails uselessly above four
thousand when I get too ambitious with my right
foot that I wish for the linearity of a big V8 petrol,
or maybe another litre of diesel under the bonnet.
It's the same with the handling. The S-
Class is pretty wieldy as luxo-barges go, not as
overtly sporting as the current rash of stretched-
supercars but still pretty tidy. I quite enjoy
encouraging an S to party every now and again, in
fact I know a lot more about driving them hard
than at more ministerial speeds. As a result I
seem to lurch from lane to lane and wallow
around roundabouts despite the efforts of that
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talented chassis. I'm also making a right pigs ear of
braking, I'm trying to feather the brakes to a halt
without catapulting my passenger into the windscreen,
but I just can't seem to judge it right, I see his foot dive
for an imaginary pedal on more than one occasion.
So, I can't steer very well, my throttle control
is patchy and my braking undisciplined. I'm not offering
a very smooth journey so far, and the problem is
further exacerbated by the jumbo 20” wheels this
particular car is shod with. Fashion is the culprit,
everything in the Mercedes range has to look like an
AMG these days whether it's appropriate or not. It's
just tragic that the much vaunted incredible ride
quality doesn't seem to be there any more, indeed
when we first moved off I thought the Airmatic
suspension was set to sport mode. It wasn’t.
After four hours sat outside Mercedes-Benz
world at Brooklands, eating crisps, Danish pastries
and other blood-pressure boosting tasties, my
passenger returned. His evening of politely addressing
other senior management figures and laughing at
corporate in-jokes had clearly taken their toll and he
elected to sit in the back for the journey home where
he could have a little nap. From M25 junction ten to
rural Suffolk neither of us spoke, he slumbered and I
concentrated on driving properly. This time, with me
being a little more progressive with the controls, the
“.....tempering my driving
style in favour of smooth-
ness and, frankly, I'm not
doing it very well.”
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S-Class was a car transformed.
My gripes about the ride quality
evaporated, once at speed the car seems
to find its feet and settle down other than
for an occasional minor tremor from
potholes. I could detect a background
chatter from the undulating concrete road
surface channelled through faintly
ridiculous 275 section rubber, but you can
only hear it because this big diesel saloon
exhibits virtually no mechanical noise
whatsoever.
It’s eerie. License preservation
dictates my top speed this evening to
remain sensible, but with cruise set at 80
all the executive jet clichés are valid. While
the S350CDi can be made to accelerate
quite rapidly, it is at the expense of some
decorum and can't offer the kind of hush
demanded by a snoozing Chief Executive.
Instead it's best to massage the throttle
and accumulate momentum more gently,
once up to comfortably illegal velocities you
really are in Lear or Gulfstream territory.
Here, road defects feel like gentle
turbulence and tyre noise a distant jet
roar.
I'm up front enjoying this from the
cockpit where the ambient lighting bathes
everything outside my peripheral vision
with a soft orange glow. If a few more
option boxes had been ticked I could
benefit from the full avionics suite; night-
vision, radar cruise control, lane departure
warning and driver alertness monitoring
are all available. Without any of this
garnish the drivers environment is still
exemplary though, and the faux-analogue
speedometer and info screen balances
information and clarity to perfection.
On a moonlit motorway lesser
cars scatter as the S-Class looms up in the
rear-view mirror, with its can't-believe-it's-
not-
daylight xenons and slightly gauche LED
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running lights. Being overtaken by one of these
things, especially in long wheelbase format, is quite
an experience. It takes a period of time for all five and
a half meters of Mercedes to pass you and it leaves
its signature burnt into your retinas for some time,
so overbearing are the all-new LED taillamps. In
Obsidian Black metallic and with those big wheels our
car looked well and truly sinister, maybe cars were
darting out of the way lest they anger the Mafia
hitman lurking therein. It's a lot of fun and my earlier
migraine is now a distant memory.
Once back onto his crunchy gravel drive I bid
my passenger farewell and slump back into a
“normal” car. It feels like leaving the Ritz and stepping
into a Travelodge. A headache is once again visible
on the horizon as my engine booms annoyingly, and
the steering feels flimsy and cheap. And this is a five
year old Audi A4, which is a very nice car indeed. It
speaks volumes about the impact the big Benz had
on me in seven hours that my standards have been
raised so high. I begin to dread the spending the
remainder of my driving career in low-order cars and
remind myself to become wealthy and successful.
Objectively, I have little doubt that the S-
Class, all things weighed up, was the best car I've
ever driven. The fact that “rival” cars from Audi and
BMW don't even try to directly compete is quite
telling, the Munich car concentrates on driver
fulfilment and the machine from Ingolstadt appeals
to a much narrower, more image-led demographic.
Neither of those, though, are much good at being an
S-Class, a fact not lost on the thousands of
professional drivers who insist on Mercedes. This
generation is now five years old and its eventual
replacement promises to redefine the standard of
the class once more, as well as giving Porsche,
Bentley and Aston-Martin something to fret about.
Tonight though, with me at the helm, we
certainly established that the car was a lot more
capable than its driver.
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page 09 roadwork
What is it like to spend eight days driving, eating
and sleeping in a fourteen year-old Peugeot?
Chris Haining found out, so you don’t have to.

Adventure
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Part One
Postcards
Peugeotfrom a

We had eaten on the ferry, paying
the earth for the usual trucker-
friendly blend of grease,
carbohydrates and potato, and I
enjoyed it immensely but really
didn’t need that second slice of
fried bread. A substantial
breakfast, we thought, was
essential to see us through until
the end of the days driving todays
objective being to get through as
much of central France as we
could in as little time as possible.
I found myself, along with
my girlfriend Nicola, in Calais
having already been travelling for
over four hours. We had taken it
upon ourselves to go on a bit of a
holiday, not, of course, by plane to
somewhere exotic, but by car,
exploring two and a half thousand
miles of Europe. Last year, myself
and a friend had proven that four
thousand miles could be
dispatched by car in a single
week, and rather than being
scared off by such a daft
endeavour, Nicola wanted a piece
of the action.
Higher stakes this time
though. We would be travelling
for the next eight days in a 1995
Peugeot 306, Nicolas daily driver.
And we had no particular reason
to choose this as our favoured
transport, other than that we
owned it and it should be
economical. But the main threat
to our success was that, for the
last 18 months, the Peugeot had
been maintained solely by yours
truly. And it had suffered a recent
problem with overheating.
Better still, on the way to
Dover this morning a peculiar
noise had issued from under the
bonnet. A strange, grinding noise
which had apparently reared its
head before and then gone away
months ago, but which sounded
rather ominous at the beginning
of such a lengthy road trip. This
time, after a stop at a motorway
service station to stock up on
Red-Bull and Pro-Plus, the noise
had disappeared again. It left us
wondering whether it was serious
and would it knock our trip into a
cocked hat? Needless to say,
other than acknowledging that it
had gone quiet, neither of us
mentioned it again, possibly
preferring to pretend it never
happened.
My recent driving history
has left me rather sheltered and
spoilt. My working day sees me
driving posh new cars day in, day
out. I am insulated from the world
by advanced sound-deadening,
Harmon-Kardon sound and flush
glazing. The 306 is just fourteen
years old, but in that time there
have been two automotive
generation shifts, the 307 and
308, and they have each built (or
detracted from on some points)
on the development of their
forebears. I was intrigued to
know, in real world driving, how
different would the old car be
from todays cutting edge, and
could it really be called progress?
Would this whole episode be one
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I’d want to put behind me, or maybe there
would be a lesson somewhere for me to
learn?
We had come equipped with a 12v
coolbox, one of those peltier effect jobs which
keep its contents either incubated or slightly
chilled, and it was empty thus far except some
Spreadable Anchor butter. So it needed filling
with comestibles for the Journey, and I only
knew the confirmed existence of one
supermarket in the whole of Europe. This was
the Carrefour in the Citie-Europe complex
outside Calais, favourite of coach-drivers and
corner-shop proprietors across the UK.
A brief flurry of efficiency before departure had
seen me remember to bring a leaflet I had for
Citie-Europe, which had on it the address
details of the complex, so we stood some
chance of finding it. Which led us to the first
occurrence of a theme which was to repeat
itself throughout the trip, namely, how to use
our Sat-Nav system.
We had bought a Garmin system to
offer us navigational support over and above
that afforded by our Jumbo AA Road Atlas of
Europe, a shrewd move we both agreed. But
when faced with the mysterious address of
Citie-Europe, neither of us could figure out how
to enter it into the system. Postcode? Which
bit of the address is the postcode? Destination
not found? Bugger.
Fortunately, my vague recollections
saved the day, and it turned out to be on the
main road between Calais and Boulogne,
which happened to be where we were headed
anyway. We visited the hypermarket, stocked
up with yoghurts, bread, bottled water and
sweets (to supplement the crisps we already
had, Pom-bear and Tesco Value) and braced
ourselves for attacking the spine of France.
To demolish as many miles as we
could we would need to use fast roads, and in
France this invariably means tolls. We
maintained a comfortable cruise of between
60 and 70 and stopped occasionally to dole
out a handful of Euros at the Paeges. We were
by now navigating using the map, but with the
Garmin set up to keep us in roughly the right
direction.
We wanted to avoid Paris as it would probably
absorb more than its fair share of our driving
time, so we headed first in the direction of Le
Mans, then Chartres, then Orleans, then
Clermont Ferrand, where we would join the
final autoroute of the day, the magnificent
Adventure
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A75. The early stages of the trip disappeared with little drama,
the only hilarity being when the two-way adaptor we had to supply
volts to the Garmin and the fridge, got hot, and melted. It had
been cack from the beginning; a big, bulky affair that only just
fitted into the cars awkwardly placed lighter socket, and which
lost electrical contact with even the slightest movement.
It melted less than 3 hours into the trip, leaving us having
to alternate between running the fridge (to preseve our newly
acquired yoghurts) and having GPS. We figured that the Yoghurt
was the most important and so dismissed the Garmin from
duties, after having shown itself of some worth, guiding us safely
through the more industrial areas of Orleans.
It was when we elected to abandon the autoroutes,
whose tolls were already eating away into our Euro reserves, to
perhaps start to see a bit of French scenery, that we had our first
interaction with French society. Driving cautiously on unfamiliar
roads, from one identical French peasant village to the next, all
brown plastered houses, closed shutters and little or no sign of
life, I saw in the middle distance what looked like a trials-bike rider,
all black leather. I saw his bike, too, and that he was waving me to
the roadside. Maybe there had been an accident and he needed
our help?
That would be no, then. Instead, a man with glasses and
an amusing hat invited me to pull over, produce my documents
and sit in a van for a little chat. It was les Rozzers. His English was
a damn sight better than my French, I nonetheless attempted but
my Franglais wasn’t particularly well received, and he didn’t
awardme any leniency for trying. The fine for 80kmh in a 50kmh
zone was 90 Euros, and I gained a point on my French driving
license, something I never knew I possessed.
Once back in the car, I was annoyed. Stupid of me, surely
there had been signs advising that there was a 50 km/h limit,
surely I could have seen the speed gun and slowed in time. But
because I hadn’t been intentionally driving fast, this never
occurred to me. We were never likely to experience the upper
limits of anything much in a 1.4 litre 306, but this was always
intended to be a nice, sedate trip. It was a shame that the spectre
of the Gendarmes constantly on the look out for errant speeding
eengleeshs would render relaxation a little less easy.
With Nicola at the helm we pressed on, thinking it would
still be wise to bypass a chunk of toll and stick to the back roads
as far as Clermont-Ferrand while daylight remained. We were
struck by a wizard wheeze, our yoghurt having by now reached
absolute zero, to set the Garmin to keep us from straying onto
motorways. For a while all seemed to be going well when,
suddenly. it announced “prepare to turn left”, the left in question
appearing to be a tiny residential street, so we ignored it.
Displeased, it went on to demand we again turn left, this time
onto something that looked like a farm track. Mile after mile we
gave blatant disregard to the Garmin, with its preposterous
routing suggestions, which served not only to aggravate, but also
to instil fear and confusion into my poor girlfriend.
Nicola had never driven on the right, and tends not to go
on really long drives very often. One reason for our somewhat
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roadwork page 14
leftfield choice of transportation
was that it was Nicolas own car,
and she felt comfortable driving it.
But she could have really done
without the unease brought on by
the Garmin barking out silly ideas,
and me saying “No, ignore it!”. The
solution, in the middle of Clermont-
Ferrand, and after a particularly
ludicrous instruction from the
Garmin, was for it to be switched
off, and me to take over driving for
a bit. Nicola had done the last
couple of hours, it was now pitch
dark, and I would start the night
shift and drive as far as I could
before fatigue killed me for the
night.
The N75 is a fantastic
road, made even better by the
added mystery of night. I have no
doubt at all that the scenery it
threads through is astonishing, but
I didn’t get to see any of it. I recall
though huge numbers of roadside
eateries and illuminated hoardings
lining the tarmac as it sinuously
flows from valley to crest. In places
the gradients were deceptively
steep, and unless I kept 75mph
plus in the bank my speed would
soon dwindle on the ascent and a
downshift would be necessary,
along with joining the trucks in the
crawler lane.
I was enjoying the car,
though. I loved that it felt like I was
doing all the work, and I loved that
you could hear exactly what was
going on under the bonnet, feel the
gears meshing, the clutch biting.
The steering, devoid of any
hydraulic input, was just a linkage
from biceps to wheels. For the first
time in a long while, I was
participating in the sport of
momentum management, taking
overtaking opportunities wherever
gravity and traffic allowed, using
the throttle gently and never, ever
touching the brakes. To me, this is
the essence of driving. My
girlfriend could see how much fun I
was having at thoroughly legal
speeds.
It is such a shame that
the cars of today, irrespective of
price, mostly deny you these
simple tactile pleasures. I look at
the driver of a newish Mercedes
C-Class as he spears past; he’s
not driving, he’s steering but his
car is doing everything else for
him. I feel we have the moral
victory of the roads as we draw to
a halt at a service area outside
Severac-Le-Chateau.
Here, BP were to play
hosts for us for our first night of
European sleep. Night had truly
taken over and the pro-plus had
long since worn off, it was wise to
stop now lest fatigue and
grumpiness get the better of us.
Our accommodation for tonight
and the next seven, if all else wet
“.... a man with glasses
and an amusing hat invited
me to pull over and
produce my documents...”
Adventure

to plan, was the car. This meant a bit of
reorganisation to make the most of the
meagre interior space, the coolbox, maps
and belongings were all assigned new
homes for the night and the seats were
reclined to give some semblance of bed-
ness. The morning would tell whether the
plan was going to work, if we would make it
through the week without a major re-think.
It had been a day not without
drama, and a little misadventure. But the
car seemed to be in fine form, the earlier
questions seemed to have answered
themselves for now, and better still, we
were having fun. Burt now, sleeping bags
deployed, and on the edge of
unconsciousness, we closed our tired eyes
and slid contentedly into a deep, chilly,
slumber.
Sunday, 4th October, 2009.
Severac-Le-Chateau to Marseilles
We had been travelling deep into
the night, and had finally reached our limits
at a BP service station near Severac-le-
Chateau. The service areas in Europe offer
a legitimate place to spend the night on
long journeys, they are usually rich with
heavy trucks, the sort with curtains and TV
aerials, and rest is essential when travelling
page 15 roadwork

the long distances offered by the
interior of France. The question of
whether we would survive our first
night had been answered, but we
were thankful that we had come
equipped with blankets and warm
clothes. It had been a cold night,
but you never notice the cold until
you wake up, and then find it
impossible to sleep again.
When we did finally get
up, we were made fully aware that
we were definitely, properly, no
longer in England. What we saw
through our condensation heavy
windscreen was a proper view of
rural France. The whole hillside
village of Severac-le-Chateau was
presented in front of us, complete
with castle at its peak and looking
like a haven to all the possible
French stereotypes. We were
tempted to visit and look for signs
of a beret-toting unshaven man in
a blue striped jersey with a string
of onions around his neck, astride
a rickety old bike with a basket full
of baguettes. We made do instead
with using the facilities at the
service station and grabbing some
leaflets from the excellent tourist
information desk, noting how, so
far, European service stations
were better than English ones in
every single way.
We found ourselves in a
region known as Aveyron, famous
for lending its name to a certain
Bugatti, which is appropriate when
you take the roads in
consideration. They. Are. Superb.
One notable feature, of
course, is the Milau Viaduct, a
magnificent and world reknown
structure that piggybacks the A75
over the Milau Valley, a span which
prevents an otherwise 45 mile
journey. It was my second visit
here, and it still causes shortage
of breath when I see it, even on TV,
but to see it and to hear it is
another matter. After visiting the
thoroughly superb visitor centre,
which even provided the
occasional word of English if you
looked hard enough, Nicola drove
the Peugeot over the worlds
highest motorway bridge deck (at
a thousand feet, Canary Wharfs
One Canada Square would easily fit
beneath) while I excitedly squirted
the video camera around. Probably
unwatchable, but it felt necessary
at the time.
To be honest, the road
from Clermont Ferand to
Adventure
roadwork page 16

Montelimar didn’t really need embellishment with such
a grand structure, but it acted as an extraordinary
dressing atop an already inspirational salad. Carving its
way through sandstone landscapes, bridge and tunnel
takes you from one scintillating panorama to the next.
The autumn colours dance from the palette all year
round while the foliage scrolls through the traditional
seasonal spectrum. It was no surprise whatsoever that
I totally missed our turnoff. I was proving a terrible co-
pilot, my concentration quite rightly being stolen by our
surroundings.
Acknowledging my failings, I turned to the
Garmin to lead us safely into Marseilles, our next port
of call. The AA Atlas of France provided a (nearly
useless) street plan of the town, with only a handful of
street names, and I dialled one in which looked to be
pretty much where we wanted to end up. And here
began a battle of wills between Global Positioning
Technology and us.
At first I was very obedient, following the roads
that it suggested, until I got fed up with the autoroute
and opted for the coastal road into Marseille. After the
roads we had been on this morning, the flat landscape
and cohorts of trees and vines, all perfectly aligned,
were a marked contrast. Our first sighting of the
Mediterranean was a somewhat industrialised and
slightly unlovely one, and I handed control back over to
the Garmin.
There was a brief flurry of excitement when
my phone rang, it was my long-suffering best mate
expressing difficulty in getting hold of Glastonbury
tickets for Nicola and I. Bank account numbers
changed hands and cheers went up when all was well,
at which point we were slap bang in the middle of a
traffic strewn Marseille.
page 17 roadwork

As if to punish my
disobedience, the Garmin took it upon
itself to send us down all manner of
side streets barely wide enough for a
bicycle, let alone a car. Door mirrors
were in great peril as the streets
wound around the city centre, and all
too often we were sent the wrong way
in one way traffic, or onto streets
which had long been pedestrianized
with no vehicular access.
After one daft instruction two
many, I sacked the Garmin and took
matters into my own hands. Our end
destination (the marina) was actually
within visual range, and we were
headed the wrong way. So, skilfully
avoiding the trams, and one heart
stopping near J-turn later, we were
home and dry. We found a hugely
expensive place to park securely, and
sighed with relief.
Poor Nicola, though, was not
a well girl. The combination of
headache, heat and constant evasive
driving action had aggravated her
somewhat, and it was all she could do
to stand and walk. It didn’t help that
our initial impression of Marseille had
been lukewarm at best. Certainly we
felt it necessary to be protective of our
possessions, and I caught my Nikon
being eyed up on a couple of
occasions.
We didn’t make it any further
than the marina. We took it nice and
easy, a few holiday snaps and that was
that. I’ll gloss over how Nicola was
when we got back to the car, but she
was feeling much better when we
stopped on the promenade to watch
the sun setting over the
Mediterranean for the first time. After
the dramas of the day we had great
cause for relaxation and made plans to
head for our rest stop for the night, a
service area on the city’s outskirts.
Unfortunately for my precious
cargo, the last section of driving for the
day was unexpectedly arduous, the
road we took out of Marseille having
many sharp turns and manic drivers.
Such was the tailgating I suffered that I
was forced to keep speed up, and
Nicola suffered rather more lateral G
than I wanted to expose her to. After a
couple of mercy stops we finally made
it to the rest area, which was
substantially less pleasant than the
previous night, and had a go at eating
some fine food in the guise of
Alphabetti Spaghetti. I lapped mine up
on an empty stomach, not sure if
Nicolas went down quite as well.
It certainly came up well
again, though.
Adventure
roadwork page 18

Snails
Toast?
Eccentric cars for eccentric
people. Citroen were glad to
shed that image, or so they
thought. How nice after years
of design dullness to have
some of the old madness
back..
Chicken Tikka Masala is an oft-debated
foodtuff. Wikipedia tells us that, in a
survey of 48 outlets producing a
version of the dish, the only ingredient
they had in common was Chicken. It
also proves they didn’t visit the Chinese
I went to once in Coventry, where I’m
sure every dish had mammal content
of some kind. More relevantly, though,
it means that Chiken Tikka Masala is a
concept, rather than an actual recipe.
It is also the closest that a great many
people come to getting a taste of India,
it’s a curry and curries are Indian,
right?
Authenticity is a difficult thing
to market. I will tread lightly on the
subject of curries as I know less about
them than I do about Quasars, but
what I do know, or I’ve been told
anyway, is that there are hundreds of
page 19 roadwork
On

curries out there in Asia which simply would not
be palatable to our homogenized, bland European
tastes. As a result of this, your Indian Restaurant
on Ruislip High Street will be only too happy to sell
you any one of a great list of Westernised curries
which have proven popular over the years, and
the customers will keep flocking back. No doubt
the “proper” stuff is available too, but you have to
know what to ask for.
There are loads of foods out there which
don’t sell just because they’re too weird for
worldwide exceptance. How about the French,
with Escargot? In my 29 years my tastes have
broadened considerably, but I still couldn’t bring
myself to eat snails, regardless of the doubtlessly
orgasmic taste experience they offer. I’m
probably missing out on one of the all-time great
culinary sensations; the feeling of a fresh, lightly
sautéed mollusc as it disintegrates on my tongue.
They are typically cooked with garlic or parsley
butter, I say thank Christ for that, anything to
disguise the reality of eating a bloody snail.
So, suppose we accept that Escargot is
delicious. How to market this to a great
unwashed who feel daring when we order our
steak cooked medium-rare? Well, the taste
seems to be fine, it’s probably the texture that
throws up the biggest challenge. How about
snails on toast? Take the essence of Escargot,
reduce it to a spread (or pate, if you like) and
spread it thinly on a slice of granary. Bingo, the
best of both worlds, French eccentricity and good
old British stodge is a convenient, under
whelming package.
This is, essentially, what Citroën have
been up to recently with their cars. Formerly a
marque so bizarre in their visions of how cars
should be, you’d think their design team was
headed by Salvador Dali and Andre Breton.
Rotating speedometers were commonplace,
styling was retrofuturist by todays standards, and
all-encompassing hydropneumatic systems were
prevalent. The cars, where irksome in some
areas, were beloved by a great many enlightened
souls who revered their technology, ride comfort
and fuel efficiency.
page 21 roadwork

Mnay tears have been wept over the
years as Citroën spiralled down in a near-fatal
whirlwind of conformity, ending with the release
of cars as anodyne as the Citroën Xsara and
various re-badged people carriers. The
craziness had gone, hippy old Citroën was on a
come-down, and shaved off its dreadlocks and
plaits with the view to going into business as a
responsible adult. They had sold out, man. They
had changed.
And by and large, it didn’t work.
Citroën were nothing without their identity, and
in many ways lay in the shadows of their French
compatriots. They were beginning to be
perceived as a budget, family oriented brand,
and their sales figures were kept buoyant by
never-ending cashback deals. It seemed that
you could pick a Citroën up for as near as
dammit half price, just by clipping out a coupon
from the paper.
Citroën woke up with a start one day in
2004, suddenly realising that they had sold the
family silverware for a really terrible price. It
was time to right the wrongs of the last fifteen
years, they had a fresh new platform (shared
with the Peugeot 308) to use, and were free to
stoke up the boilers of that famous Citroën
“.....tears were wept as
Citroën spiralled down in a
near-fatal whirlwind of
conformity...”
Driven
roadwork page 22

Imagination. The car they created was the
C4, adopting the corporate nomenclature
that had already infiltrated the rest of the
range, bringing with it a more professional,
businesslike sounding roster.
In my humble opinion, they judged
the balance between playful Citroën
grotesquery and zeitgest targeting
competence with almost laser-guided
precision. Here was a car that looked
individual, was well equipped and
conventional to drive, and felt like it
wouldn’t collapse into a pile of very French
irregular polygons. The car I have before
me is a 1.6 C4, the presumptuously
named “cachet” special edition. This is an
’09 car, and the first C4 I’ve driven for any
distance.
First thing you notice is that the
driving position is identical to its Peugeot
stablemate, both cars have a cab-forward
stance resulting in a dashboard top you
could happily hold a snail race on. Unlike
the Pug, though, this is a dash of some
individuality. The major dials are digital and
centrally mounted, they hang there in mid
air and are translucent, letting daylight
shine through. It might surprise the
enthusiastic driver that Citroën have
chosen to site the rev-counter separately,
it is cowled into the hub of the steering
wheel, along with all the warning lights,
right in front of your very eyes. And of
course, there’s that steering wheel boss
which remains static when the wheel is
turned. A nice bit of theatre, that.
The cabin does nothing to
advance the art of ergonomics, but it is
fun, and that’s something that has been
sorely lacking in French cars for a
generation. The amusement continues
when you start the car and perfume
comes wafting from the centre vents,
there is a refillable vial into which you can
stick whatever odour you desire. WD40 or
Scrambled Eggs, if you like.
page 23 roadwork

Actually driving the car is a pleasant, if
forgettable experience. It drives very much like the
Peugeot 308, goes where you point it with a little
body roll, the suspension is firmer than gallic cars of
the past, but combines with soft seat springing to
make for well cushioned progress. I would be very
interested to try a C4 with a more powerful engine,
maybe a diesel, the 1.6 here seems a little lifeless
and breathy. All in all, it feels a step above previous
Citroën products; all vestiges of the dark days have
been removed.
What it doesn’t do, though, is upset the
class leaders. OK, it’s not priced like a Golf, it’s not
even priced like a Seat, but If they had just gone that
extra mile on the interior plastics, it could have been.
It is a real shame to think that, because you
can feel that the quality isn’t quite there, the C4
seems destined to be another “affordable” family
car mixing it with the Koreans and the Chevrolets.
Thank god the promise the C4 showed
wasn’t wasted, the renaissance continued after the
C4 opened the show. The C6 is widely regarded as
being “on drugs”, fans of the CX, SM and XM rejoice
for its return to concave rear screens and
spaceship proportions. Citroën have just launched
the DS3, the car they see as their MINI and Audi
A1 rival. Ambitious, but at launch the novelty factor
and perceived quality of the car was good enough
for the French to pull it off. It would be naïve to
assume the same can’t be done with a car one
segment higher in the pecking order, maybe a DS4
could find itself pitted against Audi A3 and BMW 1
Series?
The escargot reduction on melba toast that
Citroën served up in the shape of the C4 turned out
to be more like snail paste on mighty-white. We can
see what they were trying to achieve, and we
applaud their effort, but the ingredients just needed
to be prepared with a little more sensitivity. Heres
hoping that their next attempt will be automotive
foie gras with sauce perigueux, delicately drizzled
with jus de boeuf.
Driven
roadwork page 24

page 25 roadwork
Part Two
Where better to take a fifteen year old Peugeot
than that doyen of high-living, St Tropez?
Chris Haining continues the story
Postcards
Peugeot
from a

roadwork
Considering how the day before
had ended up, we both slept
surprisingly well. Tiredness
probably contributed to our
success in finding slumber, but
looking at our surroundings this
morning, and hearing the trucks
trundle past, we would almost
certainly have struggled to kip
under any other circumstances.
Now properly installed in
the South of France, the nights
were warmer and the sun shone
for longer. There was a different
quality of light on offer as well.
Everything somehow looked more
colourful (through these rose-
tinted holidaymakers contact-
lenses), no matter how familiar
they were. The turquoise of
Nicolas car seemed almost
iridescent in the morning sun.
Our breakfast was usually
a basic affair, and today was no
different. The butter we had been
keeping in the coolbox was doing
surprisingly well, it still smelt and
tasted as it should do. The bread,
too, had remained fresh and tasty,
and I finished it off today. The
apples we had picked up after
hitting France had been the real
success story, though, particularly
succulent, and providing a distinct
whiff of healthy eating to take the
edge off our roasted nut Tracker
bars. Actually, we were eating like
royalty on this trip.
After fresh coffee from
the cafetiere (oh yes, we had one
of those too!) we set sail for our
next port of call, St Tropez. Last
year I had stopped there only long
enough to see the lights of the
bay, and had passed through the
town centre with its restaurants
and pavement cafes only briefly
and at nighttime. More frequent
visitors would probably give St
Tropez a wide berth and leave it to
the tourists, but we wanted to

make our own minds up.
We would take the coastal route and try
and make as much of our time on the
Mediterranean seafront as we could. Yesterday,
as we approached Marseille we had been
reminded that, location aside, it was just another
town and had all the usual problems associated
with urban degeneration and overcrowding. Of
course, it was in Marseille where Le Corbusier,
renown architect, had built his Unit d’habitation,
which served as a prototype for high density living.
And the legacy was there, with monolithic
apartment blocks festooned with graffiti lining the
approaches to the city.
But what we were seeing today was
exactly what we held as our perfect vision of the
south of France. Yes, the tourist element had had
a considerable impact and bars and hotels were in
ready supply, but the look of the place was still as it
should be. Rocky shorelines give way to sandy
beaches; palm trees sway on lazy seaside
promenades. It felt a little peculiar knowing that
the little 1995 Peugeot 306 that we were
threading through this exotic scenery, would be
used for the everyday commute to work in Essex
in just a weeks time. Cars are amazing.
We found our paradise just outside
Cavallier-Sur-Mer, after musing on what it might
be like to live here, and the possibility of
returning for a hotel based vacation. We had
lost sight of the water and the road was a fair
way above sea level. It had broad shoulders to
allow space for parking, and it seemed that
several motorists had the same idea as us,
probably because there was access to a cliff-top
walk. So we walked it, and it led to us having big,
broad smiles on our faces.
The pathway,shared by us and a few ex-
pat looking, retired, sunkissed pensioners,
branched off towards the sea, leading downhill
under the shade of some gloriously healthy
looking trees, to a rocky peninsular and a
Adventure
roadwork page 28

sheltered beach. There was a family enjoying the little
beach so we thought better of intruding, but we found
our own space on rocks overhanging the endless,
aquamarine sea. The rocks were desert hues, yellows
and reds, with tiny crystals of quartz lending a
permanent glow to the landscape. Every surface had a
thin sheen of natural glitter, and the cloudless sky bathed
us with gentle, airy sunshine.
We sat, arms entwined, gazing at this new vista,
and time stood still for a moment. We all keep a
subconscious log of our favourite places, and this one
suddenly found itself in our top five. I secreted a small
piece of loose rock into the folds of my jacket pocket for
prosperity, to quell some strange desire to not just have
visited a place, but also to own some small part of it.
Maybe it’s something I’ll grow out of.
I also cursed my lack of camera skill to properly
record the scenery we had become a part of. I tried
manual and automatic modes, too much and too little of
each exposure and aperture, all in the hope that I’d get a
few half decent photos among the several gigabytes I’d
take. I maintain that it really isn’t an easy landscape to
photograph with limited equipment, the constant
sunshine and subtle colours lead to some washing out
and being nowhere near as spellbinding as an image
than you remember the real thing.
St Tropez was a little easier to capture. In place
of terracotta rockscapes and rampant cactus was white
fibreglass and glass smooth marina waters. Of course,
thousands bemoan how the magic has gone and mutter
about the rot setting in, but if you’ve never been before it
remains a fabulous place to visit. As we parked there
were dozens of teams packing up after competing in an
international Dragon sailing championship, the sleek
traditional keelboats seeming quite at home in this most
genteel community.
A stroll through the marina pretty much
damned my chance of affording anything; boats less than
thirty feet in length were rarities, and most of these were
probably tenders to much bigger vessels. Indeed, in the
most prestigious area of the harbour there sat quite the
biggest private sailing yacht I’ve ever laid eyes on, all
muscular and black in carbon fibre and white leather.
The harbour did display some signs of the
tourists having the upper hand, with T-Shirt mongers
rubbing shoulders with vodka bars and an exquisite
looking ice-cream parlour, which, price aside, rather
appealed to us. And then, once you’ve got past the
parade of shops you suddenly find yourself on a rocky
shoreline and nothing matters any more. There was very
little that could spoil my day as I sat with my toes in
warm Mediterranean water, watching the billionaires
frolicking on the waves.
Needing refreshment on the road out of St
Tropez, we guiltily sank our first McDonalds of the trip, in
page 29 roadwork

a shopping complex in Cassis, where we
restocked on bread and posted our hastily
written postcards. Well, five of them, I had
mistakenly asked for one too few stamps in my
appalling franglais. We then proceeded
through the affluent looking town of Frejus and
took the very pretty scenic route towards the
autoroutes, and eventually Italy.
There were three kinds of driving
today, slow and gentle as we took in the sights
of the Mediterranean, slow and precarious as
we negotiated hillside passes out of Frejus,
with its vertical drops and no provision for
crash barriers. And now, for the first time on
the trip, fast and mesmerising.
The autoroute from Cannes, along
the coast towards Genoa, marks another entry
in my favourite roads list. It is, for the most
part, several hundred feet off the ground, and
it is made up almost entirely of bridges and
tunnels, often carrying it over entire towns. As
an engineering feat it is pretty staggering, and
to drive on it, especially after dark, is a very
special driving experience. I’m not alone in my
thinking, we saw countless Maseratis and a
Ferrari Testarossa all having serious fun on
the Autoroute, becoming the Autostrada once
we penetrated Italy.
In the dark it felt like a hyper-realistic
video game, made more so with the
surprisingly tight radiuses of several corners.
We were driving in rain for a period, and
concentration was required (even at Peugeot
306 speeds) to avoid having a Playstation style
wipeout, but the roads became a lot more
roadwork page 30
Adventure

ordinary as we slipped deeper into
Italy, and gradually adrenaline gave
way to fatigue. It was a relaxing
end to a fantastic day of driving.
Eventually, about 30 miles
from Milan, after shelling out yet
more Euros at toll booths, and now
really, properly tired, we pulled off
the Autostrada and to our home
for the night. It was the car park of
an Autogrill service area, which
was a real period piece, spanning
the entire road on an overbridge. It
must have dated from the ‘60s
and you could imagine the car
park bristling with baby Fiats.
Today it is slightly faded but still
gave excellent service, as a
squadron of parked lorries
testified.
What we found
astonishing, as we sat there at
eleven at night, was how quiet the
road was. This was a motorway
close to Milan, and there were only
one or two cars per minute in
either direction. Sleep, it seemed,
wouldn’t be a problem. In fact
counting lorries would serve me
well as unconsciousness gathered
me up in its warm hands.
Next day.
Sleeping in service stations, while
not especially glamorous, has with
it certain advantages. There is
usually some sort of shop, in which
you can buy crap to eat or drink,
there may well be a restaurant so
you need not live, as we intended,
on tinned ravioli and apples, and
the toilets are usually several
steps up from doing the necessary
in a bush or a plastic bottle.
The Autogrill near Milan
helped us to remain civilised this
morning. We woke up to
increased traffic and a sun trying
to battle its way through thick grey
cloud. The building itself stood as a
great 1960s cathedral to a
golden age of Italian motoring, and
exploring it offered us somewhere
to pee and a shop full of tat. There
was also a grill, of course, and we
had to work hard to avoid the
temptation to eat hot meat this
morning. It wasn’t easy, but we
decided that a Tracker bar and
Cherry Coke would save us time
and money, and we could get
moving.
We were aiming to get to
Lake Como this morning and it
was Nicolas stint behind the
wheel. This meant she had to deal
with Milan traffic in the rush hour,
and she coped with it rather
better than I did. Navigating, while
tricky, was the easy part. The
challenge came from the Milanese
drivers who have the shortest
tempers and worst manners I
have ever encountered while
driving. This was especially true of
van drivers or anyone in a
Mercedes, and at one point, after
page 31 roadwork

roadwork
“.... as the altitude increased it
became obvious that some of the
82 horsepower had bolted...”

a spectacular piece of queue
barging Nicola had to swat my hand
away from the horn button. And
quite rightly too, for all the good it
would have done us.
From what we saw of it,
Milan was a lot like Birmingham. A
ring-road is never the most
flattering perspective to view a town
from, and the buildings surrounding
the city were not the best possible
advertisement for the town. There is
a mix of light industrial and high-
volume retail, identikit warehouses
and low-rise blocks from the
seventies, all presented in varying
states of repair. I can honestly say
that London’s North Circular road is
a more attractive place to be. The
centre of Milan is probably lovely.
The Tangenziale Ovest di Milano
isn’t.
There was amusement on
offer from the Garmin, which had
been allowed back on duty after
disgracing itself in Marseille, as it
made a right dogs dinner of the
Milanese street names. Some of
them took it around five seconds to
pronounce and we were . By the
time we had got through all the
traffic and the roadworks Nicola
would have had the right to be
reduced to a gibbering wreck. But
no, while a little shaken by the
experience she emerged emotionally
unscathed, and we were able to
continue to Lake Como.
Where we were set upon
by the Lecco Mafia! Pretty soon
after we arrived in the lakefront
town of Lecco in became apparent
that Nigerian immigrants were
operating some sort of cartel on car
parking. Every pay ‘n display machine
had a Nigerian ‘attendant’ by it, who
would stroll over to you after you
had parked and escort you to the
machine. After ‘assisting’ you to
remove the ticket from the machine,
you are then expected to buy
something (of literally no value) from
them. In our case we gave them two
Euros for a pair of woven bracelets.
They would use intimidation tactics
to get your money, and who’s to
know what would happen if you
refused.
None of this particularly
warmed us to Lecco. We had
chosen to visit as it is probably the
least famous of the big towns on
Como, and thus probably the most
unspoilt, but today, as we looked
over the lake towards the
mountains, without sunshine to lift
our spirits we lacked a little
inspiration.
We walked through the
town in search of something that
would wow us. Lecco seemed
pleasant enough, the old
townhouses typically Italianate and
the expected profusion of town
square Ristorantes. Nicola laughed
at me when ordering a coffee, I
asked if they speak English, they said
yes, and I asked for a cappuccino.
Silly sod.
There had been an idea of
us spending the night on the
lakefront, but we were increasingly
of the mood to get moving. We were
still a little uneasy about the security
page 35 roadwork

of where we had parked, and the
sun seemed like it could break
through a little in the direction of
the mountains, so it seemed like a
good time to make a run for our
next objective.
Last year, in my own car,
I had tackled the San Bernadino
pass, and made quite a big thing
of it with Nicola on my return. This
time, of course we had to do a
pass of some sort, and what
better than the biggie, the Passo
Del Stelvio.
The Stelvio pass is world
renown. Voted Europe’s Finest
Driving road by The Three
Comedians on Top Gear, people
worldwide are familiar with
images of the hairpin bends
coursing their way up the steep
valley sides. And here was our
chance to experience it first hand
in a proper car. What better
vehicle to tackle Europe’s Finest
Driving Road than a ’95 Peugeot
306 1.4?
It was a surprisingly long
drive from Lecco to Stelvio, and
took in loads of fairly remote
villages and farms, and we were
never short of interesting scenery.
We could see the architecture
turning gradually more Alpine as
we drove, and soon the roads
started to get more and more
demanding, and there comes a
moment when, suddenly, you know
you’re on the pass.
We paused at the shell of
a long abandoned building at the
base of the pass, drew a big deep
breath and went for it. With me at
the helm, the poor little Peugeot
was being asked to do things it
had probably never faced before,
and the stresses soon started to
show. We noticed a knocking
from the CV joint that we hadn’t
heard before, on full right lock
when negotiating a tight bend.
There was nothing we could do
about it, other than pressing on.
Geographically, at least, we were
on our way home.
I soon settled into a
rhythm, the bends are pretty
evenly spaced and second gear
was fine for most of the inclines. If
you take a corner fairly wide, you
are set up quite well for the next
and you needn’t twirl the wheel
quite so elaborately. The little car
was coping admirably, but as the
altitude increased it became
obvious that some of the 82
horsepower had bolted. First gear
was becoming necessary for an
increasing number of corners,
and a slight element of fear
started to materialise whenever a
standing start was required. But
after about half an hour of ascent
we came to a parking area and
were instantly rewarded for our
Adventure
roadwork page 36

efforts.
Spread out below us was the Technicolor, real-
time version of the view we had seen so many times.
You could almost see tripod footprints for the
thousands of people who had sampled this vantage
point, but that made it no less worthwhile. The line of the
road we had been following was so complex it was
virtually impossible to trace by eye, yet for all its height
the drops were surprisingly tame. There were fewer of
the Italian Job style vertical drops than I had expected,
and the mild October meant no snow. But still, the
appreciable drop in temperature and lack of vegetation
at this altitude reminds you of your achievement.
The driveable limit was a few minutes drive
away, and when we reached it the Peugeot breathed a
sigh of relief and was bought a Stelvio Pass Sticker as a
reward, which it would wear with pride from now on. It
was getting on for 5 o’clock, and the souvenir shops
were closing for the day. So we took photos, drank in the
silence and readied ourselves for the descent.
I would hazard a guess that we put several
thousand miles of wear and tear on the car on our way
off the pass. My driving technique had to be altered to
try and reduce the strain on the brakes, and the method
I settled on was to let gravity do its stuff and then scrub
off the gathered momentum into the bends, this or
constantly drag on the brakes which I’m sure would
have reduced the disks and pads to a nasty treacly
mess.
Even so, pretty soon the air was thick with the
richest essence of Ferodo, and the clutch was starting
to do the same as the engine carried out braking duties
as well. I needed three heads, one to judge clearances
on the vicious, dry stone walls, another to look forward
and judge braking distances, and the third to keep an
eye on the engine temperature gauge. I marvelled as an
appropriately driven Ferrari F430 Spider went rapidly
the other way, driver (bedecked in Ferrari overalls and
cap, probably famous) and female passenger grinning
insanely. The right car for the job, and assumedly the
right driver too.
There is no sudden end to the pass, the roads
just gradually calm down until you’re in a beautifully
framed valley passing through cuckoo clock villages. The
Architecture was properly Austrian now, and, if anything,
the roads had become even more driveable.
I question Top Gears wisdom in crowning the
Stelvio Pass as Europes Finest Driving Road. There is far
too much danger, too much traffic, and far too low an
average speed to hold that rank, in my opinion. To me,
fast driving is about flowing from apex to apex, judging
cambers and surprise road features to perfection. The
topography of Stelvio just doesn’t accommodate this, it’s
just accelerate, brake, corner, accelerate, brake, corner
ad infinitum. A lot of fun, and I enjoyed it immensely. But
page 37 roadwork

you wouldn’t design a grand prix circuit that way.
The roads which flow through this part
of Austria, however, are amazing. Creamy
smooth tarmac, wide, meandering turns and
some genuinely astonishing scenery. This was
my new favourite driving road; in the world. And
without getting too dewy eyed about things, I was
absolutely stoked about driving it in the company
of my girlfriend, who, it seemed, was enjoying it
as much as me.
All too soon we passed by the bright
lights of Innsbruk and into Germany. We were in
such a euphoric mood after all this enjoyment
that we probably gave the scenery more credit
than it was realistically due, Innsbruk looked
delightful at night, and the hills which welcomed
us into Southern Germany seemed to cup us in a
warm, safe embrace. By this point we were
counting down to stopping for the night, but,
such was our enjoyment, we kept extending our
drive and passed countless rest opportunities,
until finally giving in at a service area not far
from Munich.
And we dined richly at Burger King, a guilty
pleasure but oh so welcome.
Sleep came extremely easily that night.
Adventure
roadwork page 38

FashionVictim?
Fiats New 500 is surfing the crest of a very fashion-
able wave, Does the new Abarth model just add tinsel,
or can it begin a whole new movement?
Driven
roadwork page 40

I’m six foot five and there are certain cars I simply
cannot fit inside, a Renault Alpine, for example, and a
Lotus Exige. Both of these cars have something in
common; they were built for enthusiasts. Their
drivers would likely put up with a bit of discomfort for
the sheer joy of driving. I know I would, I have grazed
knees, bumped heads and pulled muscles to savour
the experience of a Lotus on a winding road.
Small, naturally fun cars can often be
surprisingly spacious. I have met numerous freakishly
tall folk who cut their driving teeth in original Minis, a
car where literally all the space inside was dedicated
to driver and passengers, and where impact safety
and bulky comfort enhancements were alien
concepts. Not just the Mini, though, this was true of
most small cars, including the Fiat 500. The smallest
car you could still call a practical everyday
proposition.
Developed to mobilize an increasingly
aspirational post-war Italian population, the Nouova,
or New 500 was inspired partly by the rear-engined
layout of the Volkswagen Beetle, but smaller and with
something of a Latin flourish to the styling. It was
immediately a massive sales success and was just
what was needed at such growth times, just as was
the case with Britain and the Mini.
There’s been a Nouova Nouova Fiat 500
since 2007, and naturally it has virtually nothing in
page 41 roadwork

common with its namesake. It has the same cute
little headlamps, the same cute curvy body and
even similarly shaped interior switches. They’ve
even concealed the air intakes for the front
mounted engine to emulate the grille-less nose of
the great original. It looks just like the '57 car
would after a million pies and simultaneously
contracting gigantism and mumps, because the
whole festival of retro is draped over the beating
heart of a Ford Ka.
We all know this by now, the
new Ka isn’t as fun to drive as the old
one, yada yada yada. Most of us also
know that the Fiat, whilst a little more
endearing to steer than the Ford, still
isn’t the most bella example of un auto
appassionato.
This car, the 500 Abarth, is Fiats answer
to this predicament. In recent years the name of
the Abarth tuning house has been treated with
some disrespect. Formerly the only name in Fiat
tuning, and with a long and proud motorsport
heritage, the scorpion badge could now be seen
smeared liberally along the sides of Fiat Stylos and
Bravos. The experts in getting the most out of
that ancient flat-twin 500 engine were reduced to
being a brand applied to showy bolt-on
aftermarket tat.
Fortunately, since the launch of the new
500 Fiat have suddenly awoken and remembered
that, since 1971, they’ve owned a fantastic name
that they’ve done very little with. Conveniently, this
renaissance has coincided with a frenzy of
interest in the hot-hatch market. Little, quick cars
are big business, and the Abarth is very little and
pretty damn nippy.
I was filled with glee, joy and
excitement when I heard that I was
to spend time with one. Sure
enough, when I arrived to collect it
my eyes were met by a very pert,
very purposeful looking car. Maybe
the Abarth badges were a little
overdone (I counted fourteen overall, inside and
out) but the car hunkered down over its little
Campagnola style alloys and gave all the right “tiny
but violent” looks. Inside, the seats were nicely
figure hugging and there were hints of “drive me
faster” everywhere I looked. I was a little mystified,
then, when I drove off in what felt just like any
other small hatch.
The sports exhaust announces the
“....not the most
bella example of
un auto
appassionato...”
Driven
roadwork page 42

turbocharged 1.4 litre engine’s intentions from some
distance to anybody interested but, at low revs and in
town traffic, it really feels no different to a base 500.
Or a Ka, come to mention it. But maybe that's a good
thing? Maybe around town the last thing you need is a
snarling monster ready to tear your face off on your
way to Tesco.
Driving around leafy Hammersmith I got so
used to all this normalness that, once back on the
Great West Road, the fun and games on offer in the
rev-counters second and third quadrants came as
something of a surprise, and frankly, a bit of a relief.
Give the accelerator a determined prod and the little
500 charges forward like a terrier on a postmen-only
diet. By Big Powerful Car standards the eightish
seconds that sixty takes from standstill won't rock the
establishment, but its flexibility and the ability to quickly
overtake the traffic that least expects it are key to the
Abarth experience.
As too, though, are a number of features I
would rather go without, and the first one is the ride
quality. Ok, it's rare that you find a proper sports car
with a featherbed ride, and handling is usually
enhanced when a degree of firmness is dialled into the
formula. But here I rather feel they've over-egged the
pudding. Not only is the ride (to my posterior at least)
excruciatingly uncomfortable, but I actually believe that
I'd have more confidence in corners if the suspension
had any semblance of give. Those sexy wheels and
tyres lend terrific grip on smooth corners, but hit a
bump mid-bend and the car can be sent scurrying
sideways like a drunken spider.
This could actually end up getting you into all
kinds of trouble, because of bugbear number two:- The
steering. Again, most of the great drivers cars have
steering with a bit of weight behind it, racing Go-Karts
have the heaviest, most direct steering and make my
shoulders ache like bastards. It is possible, though, to
have power steering that still has feel to it, BMW are
rediscovering the art lately after some time in the
wilderness, but here in the Abarth Fiat have tried to
create feel simply by turning down the power
assistance when in Sport Mode, and you can't just
conjur feel up from where there is none. All the
sensation through the wheel is served by the tyres
page 43 roadwork

and suspension, not the steering itself.
As well as toning your arms nicely, Sport
mode also further provokes the engine, allowing
more boost and slightly more top-end torque. Thing
is, I can't quite understand why there would be a
time that you'd want less torque. It's not as if the
engine is so powerful that it has to be reined in for
your safety. How about make it Sports mode
permanently, but without the stiff steering that just
feels like the hydraulic pump's knackered?
And finally, no out and out sporting car
would be complete without being intolerably noisy
inside, and here is the 500s crowning glory. The
Abarth should never, ever be taken on motorways
after a heavy night out, it will lead to anger and
migraines. The exhaust note is entertainingly
flatulent enough to have some novelty, but it is soon
joined by an equal volume of tyre noise and the
resultant cacophony leads to listening to the stereo
being a futile endeavour. Worst of all is that, once
on the motorway in your noisy, uncomfortable
Abarth you say to yourself “aha, now the car can
redeem itself with animal levels of power and
speed”. And then you feel a tidal wave of
disappointment when you realise that it simply isn't
as quick as you want it to be.
And that pretty much sums the car up for
me. Visually and sonically it shouts clues pointing to
a mischievous, highly strung personality, but it just
doesn't have the power to carry it off, let alone
justify that bone-firm suspension. I guess that Fiats
image-is-all clientele won’t care a jot.
To be fair to Fiat my car is the Abarth lite,
there are many packages available for many
thousands of quid, all building on the foundation this
car provides. More power, up to 180hp is available,
as is, mind-bogglingly, even firmer suspension.
What they can't offer me, though, is the 500 I'd
want.
My 500 would have the Abarth engine, the
base tune will be just fine, but would marry it to the
non-sport steering and have some more pliant
suspension. It would also have a massive injection
of sound deadening to create a quiet environment
in which to enjoy the characterful and well-built
cabin while travelling at speed. My 500 would then
be a quite superb small vehicle for covering
distances in. A 500 GT if you will.
I was expecting and hoping for the Abarth
to be a properly hardcore car. I was looking for
something mental, something unhinged. Instead I
got a headache from a car which was far more talk
than it was trousers. Earlier I remarked that I would
gladly trade a little comfort for some Italian brio. If I
must be masochistic I'd love Fiat to give me a little
more fun to enjoy while I’m in agony.
roadwork page 44

Indecent Obsession
The Jaguar S-Type, a retro relic from the late ‘90s, is
positively antique in the light of dynamic European rivals.
What possible, rational reason could I have for liking it?
Driven
roadwork page 46
Flaming Hot Monster Munch.
Never liked ‘em. I didn’t really like
any spicy food much, to be honest,
and yet now if a peppered steak
appears on the menu I’ll jump right
at it, and the nice, gentle Roast
Beef Monster Munch no longer hits
the spot.
It’s funny how we suddenly
take a liking to a taste, a sensation
or a product that we previously
held with disinterest or contempt. It
happens with music, it happens
with fashion, and it happens with
cars. And yesterday evening, it
happened to me with the Jaguar S-
Type.
Coming on stream in ’99,
the S-type marked a step
downmarket for Jaguar, intended
as it was as a both-barrels attack
on the BMW 5 Series and
Mercedes E-Class, models
traditionally seen as beneath the
Jaguar XJ’s portion of the market.
For the past two decades Jaguar
had been pretty much a two line
range, you had the XJS if you
wanted to go fast and the XJ6/12
if you wanted to go luxuriously,
though with hindsight both cars
were equally capable in either role.
In the 1960s the range
had been broader, the Gangsters’
favourite the MK2 ran at the same
time as the limousiney MK VIII, both
sharing that legendary 3.8 straight
six. And all the while the E-Type
stood as the sultry temptress at
the sporting end of the range. Wind
forward to ’99 and the XK8 had
the E-Type sector covered and the
XJ8 was capably filling the shoes of
the old Mk VIII. If only there was a
way Jaguar could tempt those with
a little less cash to throw around.
Enter stage left a platform,
codename DEW98 that Ford had

been developing for US brand
Lincoln. Eventually this would
underpin the Lincoln LS, the
Ford Thunderbird, and yes, the
Jaguar S-Type. Available at first
with Ford based AJ-V6 or a
home brew AJ-V8 engines. A
smaller 2.5, economical diesel
and somewhat special
Supercharged variants would
turn up in due course.
On launch to an
excited public at the
Birmingham Motor Show in
'98, the S-Type was met by
universal Oh's, raised eyebrows
and confused shrugs. A
bewildered press considered
that either Jaguar had brought
one of it's heritage fleet to the
launch “for a laugh” or that the
world and its contents had
been transported back to a
bygone age. To say that Jaguar
had piled on the retro touches
was something of an
understatement, long of
bonnet, short of boot and with
a drooping, saggy bottom like,
well, like Jags did forty years
ago. And so did Rovers, Singers
and Standards. Germany was
staggered just how far from
the Zeitgeist the English car
had fallen. Here was a new car
for retired middle class
accountants, not the thrusting
captains of future industry key
to the BMW heartland.
If the curiously
Victorian exterior was
surprising, the inside was
perplexing. For the first time
since the XJS in '75 Jag were
trying its luck with a non wood-
and-leather interior. Almost
universally rejected by the
press, Jaguar backtracked and
rectified things a few year later
with an interior very close to
that of the XJ and far more in
keeping with the restrained
nature of the rest of the car,
And that pretty much
summed things up. At a time
where repro Le Corbusier
recliners were popular, Jaguar
had released a wingback chair.
It became a familiar sight on
British roads, usually driven by
elderly types who wanted a car
like the one they had forty
years ago.
Could it be any
coincidence that I collected the
car in these photos from a
page 47 roadwork

seventy-five year old man? I fear not. This three
year old example, a 2.7 Diesel Sport model,
was being traded for a Mercedes E320 diesel
and I was in charge of delivery and collection.
Last week I had driven a tired, hundred
thousand mile '04 2.5 S-Type, and it hadn't
exactly turned me on. I handed the Benz over
to its new owner and sat behind the wheel of
the Jag, and somehow, ten minutes later, my
world was being torn apart.
I think firstly it was the engine that
impressed me. Previously I had only
encountered the V6 petrol engines which
didn't exactly feel special, my ride tonight
contained Jaguars 2.7 V6 diesel, smallish but
with extra whoosh from a pair of
turbochargers. And boy, do they give good
whoosh. A solid, thumping fist of torque but
hardly any commotion in the cabin. This felt
good.
Also good was the ride. Not the floaty
over-soft experience I swear I could remember,
but something far more controlled. Not hard,
just progressive. You can feel that you're
moving along an imperfect road surface.
My evening drive was in two stages. It
was dark when I left my Girlfriends house, back
in the Jag and, suddenly, the uninspiring
interior in my mind was replaced by an aircraft
cockpit. The dials, their graduations marked
sharply in bright green, are patrolled by bright
orange needles swinging fluidly about their axis.
The touchscreen Sat-Nav had defaulted to the
Jaguar logo screen, again a feature I was
familiar with, but tonight, for some reason, it
felt like it was trying to impress me. And it was
working.
Gently passing the coast road with
just the occasional burst of midrange
acceleration to wake me up, soon the
countryside welcomed my four ellipsoid
headlamps with a winding road I am on very
good terms with. This is my “testing” road, a
place where I try any car I have feelings for,
“ ....but tonight, for some
reason, it felt like it was
trying to impress me. And it
was working....”
Driven
roadwork page 48

just like Us and Them from Dark Side Of The
Moon when I'm trying a new HiFi.
I wasn't on a mission to find the
cars limits, I just wanted to see how far it
would go to entertain me. In full auto,
waftmatic mode, traction control on, I could
just stuff this big cat into any corner at
seemingly any speed and it would just track
through on its P-Zeros. My god, this is an
easy car to drive fast. Good brakes, too, with
a split personality allowing them great town
performance when you just dab 'em, but
feeling ready to offer the goods on full-attack
mode.
I arrived home facing an emotional
conundrum. I was enjoying the car far more
than I had a healthy reason to. I spent half
an hour taking photos of it in the dark on my
driveway, when I started to enjoy looking at
it I knew it was time to go to bed.
Next morning, bright and early it
was time for more driving. My unexpected
joy in the hands of the S-Type last night
must have been a blip, I was on an
emotional high from visiting my other half,
but this steering wheel feels really good in
my hands. Does it? Chris, snap out of it.
Fast corner up ahead, feed it in, yeah, loads
of grip there, where's the apex? Ah, got it.
CHRIS! Stop it. Ah bollocks, I like this car.
I really do. I stopped to take a few
daylight photos for your viewing pleasure;
through my viewfinder it no longer looked
daft and anachronistic, it looked superb. It
looked exactly like it does what it does,
spear a lazy driver rapidly around the
countryside in absolute comfort. On this
later specification it's the details that really
consolidate the whole design, those finned
multispoke wheels and serious Pirellis fill the
arches beautifully, the reinstated leaping cat
and slightly more pert rear lights are the
way they should have been from launch. Ok,
I'll accept that those are a strange bunch of
proportions in this day and age, but it
certainly doesn't want for personality.
Driving off again and forgetting my
seatbelt momentarily, I noticed that the
warning chime sounds like the opening bars
of For Your Eyes Only. I love that terrible,
page 49 roadwork

terrible Bond flick and again get the
impression that the S-Type was fed up
with me being scathing about it and was
trying to convince me. Perhaps it was just
the way I had the seat set up, but the
cabin felt great today. Sitting low behind
that nicely veneered dash, the matt-
chrome surrounded dials in their own
recess in the woodwork, it all felt very
sporting. Very like I wasn't expecting. The
only jarring note, in daylight, was that
central Touchscreen and HVAC stack, the
generic grey plastic buttonry has no place
in a cabin of this class. Oh shit, did I just
say that?
“A cabin of this class”. Oh deary
me, I'm buggered now. I've gone from
yesterdays feeling of the S-Type as a failed,
old fashioned design folly, to being a junior
Bentley were it not for being a few
microns of interior chrome shy. Pondering
this as I silently dart along the A12. I'm
still confused when I pull up at work and
am greeted by one of my colleagues, a
high flyer in the Mercedes sales army.
He grins, “You love that car, don’t
you?” I look at him for a few seconds, and
then hang my head in shame.
“Yeah, so do I.” He confesses. He
is a man who drives expensive German
cars on a daily basis, a man not afraid to
call a spade appropriately and who is
forthright in condemning cars that fail to
engage him. Here he is admitting to me
that the facelifted S-Type has a way of
getting under your skin and winning you
over. And it has. I'm totally smitten and I
may need to take professional advice on
the matter.
While I'm talking rubbish I'll
stretch to say that the S-Type's
replacement, the XF, has been with us a
few years now. On release there was
much talk of The Shock Of The New, and
celebration of Jaguar embracing the
modern era. To my eyes, now the novelty
has warn off, the XF is starting to look like
a Big Mondeo. I'm actually beginning to
wonder if the S-Type was launched fifteen
years ahead of it's time, I'm sure that the
market would be cock-a-hoop if a car was
launched tomorrow with that kind of
individuality.
I must stop typing now, I have the urge for
a really hot curry and I never used to like
those, either.
Driven
roadwork page 50

NotYour Dads
Touring Car racing has been missing from my life for
about a decade. Can a free trip to Brands Hatch
rekindle my long-missing passion?
Motorsport
roadwork page 52
C-Class

Not so long ago my bedroom walls were
plastered with images of Volvos. In an era
where Kylie Minogue was in her crisp-
buttocked element and Nirvana were
marketing misery to an appreciative pre-teen
audience, this sounds tragic. But these
particular Swedish meatballs were 850
Estates and they were dicing with Alfa Romeo
156s in the British Touring Car
Championships. This was the early 90’s and I
had divorced Formula One in favour of
watching these heavily tuned proper cars
swapping paint on the track. The racing was
close and contact was frequent. But, best of
all, you could kid yourself that the car your
Dad drove was somehow related to the one
you’re watching on TV as it rounds Clarke
Curve one final time before taking the
chequered flag.
My Dad had a Ford Mondeo,
(slightly) like the one that Paul Radisich drove,
and my friends Dad drove a Vauxhall Vectra,
(a little bit) like the one John Cleland
frequently crashed. It was a Ford vs Vauxhall
battle between us two, but if your parents
were lucky enough to drive an Audi A4 or a
BMW 3 Series you could be in on the fight as
well. In fact virtually every major brand on the
UK market fielded a combatant, even
Peugeot and Renault with the 406 and
Laguna. They all had around 300hp and they
all used to fly off the track spectacularly at
the very slightest provocation. To me it was
the greatest racing series in the world.
Living in my cosy little pubescent
bubble I had little concept that the Germans
might have a racing series of their own. They
did, and it was called the Deutsche
Tourenwagen Meisterschaft, or DTM. It was
a similar set-up but with only three
manufacturers; Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz
and a particularly evil looking Opel Calibra. In
fact, because they weren’t limited by
conforming to FIAs SuperTouring formula,
they were even quicker and more exciting
than the BTCC. These were the Class 1
Touring cars. Our boring old UK stuff was
Class 2. The last laugh was mine, though, the
series effectively finished in 1996.
In truth, the future didn’t look bright
for either series. The DTM and then the
International Touring Car Championship it
evolved into eventually imploded in a greedy
blizzard of high costs, television rights issues
and poor event attendance. The BTCC, once
the preserve of mighty Sierra Cosworths and
page 53 roadwork

if you go way back, wide-body Jaguar XJ12C’s,
was later full of Seat Leons and Vauxhall Astras.
The Magic, for me, was gone.
I owe this story to the German fighting
spirit. There was No Way they weren’t going to
have their way and in 2000 a new DTM, the
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters was formed,
much freer of restriction and allowing
glorious V8 engines. In fact, while the
teams were keen on keeping
development costs down, it was still the
case that the cars were allowed to be as
competitively designed as possible. This
meant that the chassis were totally
unrelated to the vehicle each team was
supposed to represent, all cars were
Rear Wheel Drive regardless of the
layout of the production car.
In 2004 Audi gave up protesting that
they wanted to use Quattro and finally fielded a
monster in the vague shape of an A4, just in time
for Opel to pull out of the ’05 season citing cost
cutting as their justification. Since then,
notwithstanding any rumours that Alfa and BMW
could stage a comeback, that’s the way it has
been ever since. Audi has had a run of good form
which has only ended very recently. Currently,
Benz are Top Banana.
This is probably why I’m here, I’m on a
freebie from MB UK as a thanks for my continuing
support, or somesuch. MB are ahead in the
championship for once and they are keen to allow
their employees to bask in the reflected limelight.
The venue is Brands Hatch, a little
south east of London, most DTM
races are held in Germany but they
do occasionally make forays into
other territories and several current
DTM drivers hail from this moist,
complacent land.
Brands Hatch’s Indy circuit is
tiny, among the shortest on the UK
calendar let alone the European
scene. Nevertheless, the facilities grow steadily
more serious and it’s easy capable of playing host
to a world-class event. Todays procedings are
heavily suscribed, the Paddock Hill grandstand
heaves under the weight of Mercedes-Benz
employees from various corners of the network,
and there’s more than a sprinkling of the general
public wandering around too. A look towards the
infield parking reveals a high concentration of
“....to me, BTCC
was the
greatest racing
series in the
world..”
motorsport
roadwork page 54

enthusiasts, a late-spec Maserati Karif takes top honours
for obscure hoonability. Clothes are the other giveaway
towards the make-up of the crowd, rally jackets abound as
does race replica bikewear. And photographers, so many
of them going equipped with Hubble-telescope lenses to
put my puny 18-200mm Nikkor to shame.
The excitement in the air was palpable. There was
a C63 AMG doing hot laps, because he could, a
particularly horny sounding car if ever the was one, but
when the full cohort of Race-Spec Audis and Mercs
rumbled out of the pit lane for their warm-up session the
crowd became eerily hushed.
Listening to a DTM car at full chat is an
experience to savour and, of the two, the Merc is the more
visceral. That knife-edge tuned powerhouse has a split
personality, there’s still a vestigial, old-school rumble in
there at low revs, booming across the circuit every time
the driver grabs too high a gear or pulls into the pits. But
when on song it revs, and it revs some more until it yells
out a wail to rival or top anything to emerge from
Maranello. And there’s more drama too when the driver
lifts off, the overrun is characterised by a percussion solo
of bangs and spits as unburned fuel enters the exhaust,
the Mercedes spits sheets of flame when changing down
through the gears.
The Audi and the Mercedes sing a similar tune,
but the Mercedes is cranked to eleven, Double live gonzo,
Intensity in ten cities, Live at Budokan, all of Wayne
Campbells finest Album naming quotes are valid. The aural
assault comes from all sides, you’re waiting for the next
time a Merc comes past, screams on the brakes and
coughs down through fourth, third, second and then back
on the power to hear that symphonic battle-cry. It’s an
angry machine, wheras the Audi is almost absurdly
smooth and subdued. In fact, it’s an interesting parallel to
how the product feels, an Audi is amazingly efficient and
capable motor car, but doesn’t do a great deal to get
carnal with you. Not many Mercs do, either, but an AMG
rams its hand so far down your trousers you might step on
its wrist.
It’s odd, to look at the two race cars you might
think things were the other way around. The Mercedes is a
relatively sober looking affair except for the aerodynamic
craziness sprouting from all angles. But the Audi is a
bewitchingly complex thing to look at, the way that the rear
page 55 roadwork

doors have been cut away to create an amazing
venturi tunnel channelling hot air from the engine,
around the rear wheels to the array of diffusers at
the stern. It’s a design masterpiece and should be
awarded the championship for that alone.
From my Grandstand perch I could see
most of the track, but that wasn't going to be
enough. A Formula Three race before the main DTM
event gave me ample time for a photo-recce,
eventually concentrating my efforts on Hailwood Hill,
Druids and Graham Hill Bend. This mornings fun had
been lasted just forty minutes, the actual race would
be contested over 98 laps. Bruno Spengler (CDN)
heads the championship with Gary Paffett (GB) and
Paul Di Resta (GB) second and third. It's all to play
for, as they say, when the green lights go out.
The two most photogenic cars are Ralf
Schumachers chrome Mercedes and Martin
Tomczycks Red Bull Audi, and it's those two that my
camera makes a bee-line for, but the fun was to be
had watching some of the others. From the outset it
was obvious that Di Resta was going to be hard to
topple, unless there was some ridiculous
catastrophe he would extend his pole position
launch to an overall victory. Certainly, as the race
went on it seemed far less of a contact sport than
the BTCC ever was.
But sometimes the racing line isn't the
most spectacular thing to watch, for sheer
excitement you have to point your lens at David
Coulthard in his bright yellow Mercedes. From my
position after Druids bend, just where he would be
standing right on the throttle, I can observe his
heavy-handed and very entertaining technique as he
sends the revs soaring ready to climb all over the
brakes into Graham Hill. Bang, crackle, the full
orchestra of dramatic motorsport noises, none of
which sound remotely mechanically sympathetic.
I've never made the pilgrimage to Le Mans,
never found anyone willing to join me. But for the
interim before that happens, this is a slice of hi-
octane heaven. It combines something of the
exoticism of Formula One with a little bit of real
world relevance. After an hour of full-on, surround
sound savagery Di Rosta had scored the predicted
convincing win. There were a couple of retirements
and a very second-hand looking Audi after a gravel-
trap excursion, but generally everybody stayed
connected with the tarmac. A nice clean, loud,
efficient, spine-tingling, safe, mesmerising day of
entertainment.
I never expected the Germans to put the
passion back into Touring Car Racing. Boy, have they
managed it. I'm almost tempted to put a few posters
on my wall. What chance of Volvo having another
crack at racing?
roadwork page 56
motorsport

page 57 roadwork
How would semi-bohemian Gallic flair
feel in the centre of ultra-efficient
Bavaria? The journey continues.
Postcards
Peugeotfrom a
Part Three

Adventure
roadwork page 58
Part One

roadwork
Another morning, another amazing
view. Through the morning haze we
could make out the purplish hues of the
German Alps. We had been flanked by
valley sides for much of our drive from
Austria the previous night, it was so
dark that mountains merged with sky,
but occasionally the lights of buildings
high on the hillside had given away the
topography. Needless to say, Southern
Germany is home to some very big
scenery.
After our Burger King last
night we went self-sufficient for
breakfast, but made good use of the
excellent Sanifair facilities to re-
humanize us for another day of touring.
For the uninitiated, Sanifair are a
company who look after the toilet areas
of a growing number of service areas
across Europe, and how I wish they’d
take over duties in England.
A session in a Sanifair bog
might cost half a Euro, but you receive
immaculate surroundings, piped relax-o-
muzak, a choice of three wiping
materials, and a toilet that cleans its
own seat after every visitor. And you get
a voucher for your money back
afterwards! Nicola and I combined our
vouchers to gain a Euro of discount
from a bottle of water in the
sensationally overpriced shop; no
matter, we were refreshed, and clean,
and ready to throw ourselves at our
next port of call.
Munich was reasonably easy to
navigate to, which made a change. I had
a momentary fumble at a slightly
confusing junction on the way in to the

city, but we soon made it into the city centre and
safe parking in the Schrannenhall concert hall car
park. How nice it was to drive in a city where parking
was properly signposted.
Nicola and I loved Munich. From the get-go,
as we walked through a food and flower-market all
the way through the pedestrianised city centre, all
was clean and welcoming, and even the
architecture had a warmth that I didn’t expect to
see in Germany. We felt safe, and that the city
wanted us to be there. Indeed, the slogan we found
on our town map was “Munich loves you”, which,
sentimental as it sounds, seemed appropriate.
Furthermore, we were served Cappuccino
in Starbucks by a transsexual! Not one of the
convincing, gender dyspheria sorts in their early
twenties, but by a somewhat more Lily Savagesque
example of the breed, possibly called Jurgenita (ok,
I’m clutching at straws here). The most hilarious
part was how she announced the order “Zwei
cappuccinos!” in a voice sounding every bit like a
Monty Python sketch.
After spending a pleasant hour walking
through the leafy English Garden, and pausing for an
authentic Bratwurst at the food market, we made
for the car feeling fulfilled and with a sudden bout of
Germania. And I had a further treat in store, for
Nicola was letting me visit BMW World.
Not knowing the exact whereabouts of
BMWs global headquarters we had to do a fair bit
of navigational guesswork, and the ring roads of
Munich can be slightly bewildering, but when we
finally arrived we knew we were somewhere very,
very special, even for those unenlightened souls
without petrol fever.
A while ago I spent two years, fresh out of
university, as a BMW salesman. Of course, the
whole sales thing is a riot of highs and lows, but
from out of all the chaos I still carry with me a
strange emotional attachment to the brand. There
is something about a BMW that I specifically like,
and I’ve never been quite able to pinpoint it. I still
can’t today. But today, parking in the spotless
underground car park of BMW World, taking the
stainless steel elevator up to roof level and casting
my stare in awe at BMWs world statement, I
suddenly felt like grabbing a phone and badgering
some of my old customers.
The BMW headquarters in Munich has two
visitor areas, BMW World and BMW Museum. The
Museum is a lavishly considered, money-no-object
exercise in demonstrating where BMW have come
from, and where they’re heading. Historic models
from the lineage are presented either as the focus
in display rooms, or in some cases hung in vertical
stacks. You can then see every car from differing
Adventure
roadwork page 60

angles as you walk an informal spiral
through BMWs history, charting milestone
developments and taking in the motorsport
that so heavily influences BMW designs.
A biography of the BMW
motorcycle range lines one wall, with every
significant bike since manufacture began
being wall-mounted in shimmering glass
cases. There was also a BMW M Sport
exhibit with the various engines used in M
Cars through the years, along with high
quality sound recordings of the engines
themselves that you could take in through
Sennheiser headphones. Everything pointed
to the fact that BMW really care about how
cars make you feel.
All too often car museums are
stuffy or anorak-inclined; here, though, the
information is made available only if you
want it. You are free to “look at the
pictures” rather than digesting the entire
BMW history word by word. This has been
achieved by making everything interactive.
There are terminals throughout the display
areas which can be interrogated for as
much information as you like. One exhibit
charting the history of each of the individual
BMW plants, offers information from
interactive books, where every turn of the
page is accompanied by a friendly voice
expanding on the content you were reading.
It was all very, very clever.
And just as the BMW Museum
serves as a glorious epitaph to the past, just
across the road BMW World is a fitting
expression of how BMW sees themselves
today. Every model from the range is
showcased on motorshow style themed
areas that the public are able to browse
freely, without fear of a salesman pouncing
upon them if ever they happen to stop
moving for a nanosecond. The building itself
could have been a stark, practical oblong, but
no. This building is an event in itself, the
outside made from geodesic shapes forming
curves far too organic looking to have been
just “built”, but somehow managing without
completely distracting interest from the
shining new cars within.
We sat on the roof terrace
overlooking this fantastic structure, both
enjoying a crisp, cold beer (Paulaner) at the
page 61 roadwork

evocatively named M1 bar. BMWs
brand building exercise was clearly
working, in my head I was having
BMW ownership fantasies. BMW
World is where the lucky customer
who opted for factory collection
would take delivery of their new car,
and would get to drive it down the
long spiral ramp inside that
incredible building and onto the
German road network outside. And
then the lucky sods would get to
embark on their own special road
trip back to England. Not bad for a
maiden voyage.
In a bizarre way, it was
with some pride that we rejoined
the Peugeot deep in the bowels of
the underground car park. No, it
was no M6, but this little car which,
in the 1500 miles we had covered
so far on this trip hadn’t put a
wheel wrong, deserved every bit as
much worship as all those posh
fantasy-mobiles upstairs, and hey,
they were all just hunks of metal,
waiting to be recycled. A car needs
to have a proper life, like our Pug
was having, before you can properly
respect it.
Once back on the road, and with
gushing sentimentality out of the
way, it was time to address more
pressing issues. We needed to buy
supplies, mainly drinking water, but
a trip around a German
supermarket wouldn’t go amiss.
And could we find one? Could we
buggery.
The only method we could
think of was to set the Garmin to
find Grocery shops. The big
problem here being that we wanted
a nice big out-of-town megastore to
browse round, and surely there had
to be one somewhere in a country
as big as Germany. But all the
Garmin could offer us were little
grocers shops on busy high
streets. As it grew dark, and as a
long evening of driving beckoned,
our searching went up a gear and
twice we made forays into towns to
find supermarkets.
Firstly we visited
Pforzheim, a town I know only
because they have a famous
Transport Design degree course at
the Art School there. Alas, any
supermarket remained
undiscovered and we gave up after
directing ourselves into first a
military complex, and then an
endless residential area. “If we go
just a bit further…” was the
approach we used, just knowing
that the next corner would yield
some multi-aisled shoppers
paradise, but to no avail.
Eventually Stuttgart came
to our rescue, where from a traffic
page 63 roadwork
“....from some viewpoints it can
seem as if you’re looking down
onto an exquisitely detailed
model village”

jam we saw the distinctive
illuminated sign of Lidl. Pretty
close to the bottom of the barrel
supermarket-wise but at five
minutes to closing time, we had
no alternative. We bought
bratwursts and bottled water
from the surly tillkeeper, and got
back to mile munching. I must be
the only car enthusiast in the
world to have visited Stuttgart
and only seen a branch of Lidl.
We had worn the day
out by now, and resigned
ourselves to covering as many
miles as we could before fatigue
got the better of us. The
Autobahn traffic was the usual
mix of HGVs and flying
Deutchmen, giving us a choice of
either sitting at sixty with the
Scanias, or trying to join the fast
lane at ninety, not all that easy in
a heavily laden 306. Overall,
though fast, the German drivers
seemed well behaved, despite
obvious temptations when the
unrestricted sections came up. It
is a shame to compare and
contrast with the drivers at
home who, I fear, are dangerous
at any speed with the craze for
sudden lane changes, tailgaiting
and undertaking which is
currently sweeping the nation.
German drivers believe in
stopping distances, and extend
their courtesy if you act likewise.
A rastplatz several miles outside
Saarbrucken was the only place
we felt any real unease
throughout our time in Germany.
The rest area itself was fine,
slightly dowdier than we had
seen but still pretty good for free.
But what could have been
improved was the lighting; it
made us wonder what, or whom
was concealed in the shadows.
There was a moment where
Nicola felt that a man was lurking
in the vicinity of our car while she
was alone, only to scarper as
soon as I returned from the
toilets. I have long been
suspicious that these places are
favourite haunts of certain, less
favourable elements of society,
and sleeping in them in anything
less than a secure articulated
lorry needs some consideration.
Nicola knew that I had
no problem with us finding
somewhere else if she liked, but
we were too tired and frankly
page 65 roadwork

weren’t going anywhere. And
then we had to deal with the
cataclysmic news that we had
bought fizzy water by mistake in
that doomed visit to Lidl. Happily,
though, we discovered that
Coffee made with boiled
carbonated water seems to
taste marginally nicer than that
made with the ordinary stuff.
We quickly realised that this
made no sense whatsoever, and
that we were being hysterical
and hurriedly went to sleep.
Then, later than night....
“Oh, my god..” I thought,
from deep inside my sleeping
bag, “have we been robbed?”
Nicola was rustling through the
contents of the car
“I can’t find it…” she
continued searching.
“Find what?”
“The map”
“What map?”
“The map you just asked
me for.”
At that point waves of relief
rushed over me, releasing
calming hormones into my blood.
Everything was OK, Nicola had
just gone mental.
“Go back to sleep.”
At that, and after a quick
confused glance over to me, put
her head down and regained
unconsciousness. At some point
she had clearly dreamt that I’d
asked for the map, she had then
woken and confused her dream
with reality. She had then got
really annoyed when I no longer
wanted the map she was looking
for, the map that she had dreamt
I wanted. But she soon got back
to sleep, and we emerged
unscathed from sleeping in this
somewhat dubious roadside rest
area.
roadwork page 66

Breakfast and, as it
turned out, the sausages were
bloody horrible. On our way
through Germany we had
stopped at the only supermarket
we came across, a branch of
Lidl in Stuttgart, to pick up a few
essential provisions. We had
already discovered that the
water we had picked up had
turned out to be fizzy, which
annoyed us royally.
And now, as we cooked
the sausages for what should
have been a thoroughly
excellent, authentic German
breakfast, our hopes were
dashed as fat kept oozing out of
them. No matter how many
times we pierced the skin, or
how many times we flipped them
over to a hotter part of the pan,
the sausages were coated in a
thick, white fat with the
consistency of yoghurt.
Eventually they showed
all the signs of being cooked
through, were hot to the core
and had been on the gas for an
age. So we divided them up and
put them on plates. Nicola was
the first to give up, after eating
half a sausage. Myself, I was
clearly in denial, clearing one
and a half sausages and only
becoming nauseous with half a
sausage left on my plate, still
with fat oozing from them. The
taste was actually pretty good,
but the thought of that fat is
enough to have me considering
vegetarianism slightly.
Another fizzy coffee
later and we were ready to roll
again. We had already
dispatched much of West
Germany and were soon bearing
down on Luxembourg, our next
target. The scenery grew
greener as we approached the
border, the hills became more
rolling and the roads, if anything,
became smoother. It was tricky
to see where Germany ended
and Luxembourg began but
soon the signs showed we had
made it into our fifth principality
of the trip.
We entered
Luxembourg completely
unarmed with information or any
great game plan. The first
objective was to find somewhere
to park, and there were many
dot-matrix signposts denoting
plentiful parking places and how
“....Cherry Coke,
had become the
official soft drink of
our trip”
page 67 roadwork

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