Saintor
05/06/2007, 18h33
From Times Online
May 31, 2007
Clarkson's Dirty Dozen
Twelve delicious pearls of literary wisdom from the keyboard of Jeremy Clarkson. If you own one of these cars, we apologise in advance
12 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano
"There, right in the middle of everything, is a quartic steering wheel. Yup, quartic, as in square, as in Austin Allegro. And worse still, it's half carbon fibre and half leather, and it's got all sorts of Formula One-style buttons on the bottom and then, along the top, a series of red lights that come on to tell you when to change gear. Unfortunately they are so bright you think you've been caught in the fearsome glare from a Martian spaceship.
"So you don't change gear. You crash."
11 BMW 645Ci
"If you were to buy a 6-series, I recommend you select reverse when leaving friends' houses so they don't see its backside."
10 Volkswagen Jetta
"I’d love to meet the man who styled the exterior, to find out if he’d done it as some sort of a joke. But mostly I’d like to meet the man who simply didn’t bother at all with the interior. Because looking at that dashboard gives you some idea of what it might be like to be dead."
9 Aston Martin Vanquish S
"This is the last of the old-school Astons. It was built in the Newport Pagnell factory by men with body odour and hammers, rather than on the computer- controlled production line of the new Gaydon plant. And it shows. The car costs more than any other Aston yet is no quicker; its paddle shift gearbox is hilariously bad and its interior looks glued together from the Ford parts bin. It is the equivalent of opting for a rusty saw and leeches in the age of laser-guided brain surgery. Who is Aston kidding?"
8 Cadillac SRX4
"This is a very ugly car. So ugly in fact that you’ll want to get inside it and shut the door as quickly as possible. But sadly when you are inside it’s even worse.
"If it were a creature, it wouldn’t be a lion or a praying mantis or even a chimp. No, I think it would be a wasp — useless and hateful in equal measure"
7 MItsubishi Warrior
"'What,' I exclaimed, 'in the name of all that's holy, do we want one of those for?' We're European. We were sipping tea while the Americans were shooting Indians. We've had 2,000 years to get used to civilisation, not 20 minutes. We're advanced, we're slim, we're at the cutting edge of evolution. We think that shooting bears is daft. Budweiser gives us a headache and we think George Bush is an arse.
"So why in God's name do we want to drive around in a car made from a hen house and two bits of railway track?"
6 Peugeot 407 Coupé 2.7 V6 HDi SE
"It has the zip of a chairlift. With plodding performance and steady-as-she-goes handling the only thing this car will make you feel like is a cup of Horlicks with a splash of hemlock. Empty-nesters should buy a PlayStation instead, and spend the afternoon shooting crack *****s."
5 Perodua Kelisa 1.0 GXi
"This is without doubt the worst car, not just in its category but in the world. It has a top speed of 88mph but takes so long to reach it that no one has ever lived long enough to verify the claim, the inside is tackier than Anthea Turner’s wedding and you don’t want to think what would happen if it bumped into a lamppost.
"Also its name sounds like a disease."
4 Land Rover Defender 90 Td5 Station Wagon
"Often fourth isn't enough to get you up a hill, so you drop down to third and it feels as though you've been hit in the back with a wrecking ball. All of a sudden you're doing 35mph but your eight-ton suit of armour, making a noise that sounds like the birth of the universe, has come to an almost dead stop.
"What's more, there still isn't enough room behind the wheel for anyone with shoulders or legs, there are still sharp edges, it's as bouncy as a small dog at suppertime, and as a result it's about as much fun to drive as a punctured wheelbarrow. And it's not like the misery is short-lived, because each trip to the shops can, and does, take two or three weeks."
3 Kia Rio
"You may have seen The Fly II, in which a scientist attempts to teleport a dog. In one of the most gruesome scenes I've seen in a film it arrives at its destination completely inside out. Well the Rio is uglier than that. Inside, things get worse.
"Small wonder Kia's importer in Britain is sponsoring the Pedestrian Association's Walking Bus scheme. The idea is that parents take it in turns to walk a group, or "bus", of children to their school in a morning. After three days of being transported in the Rio, my kids thought it was a brilliant idea to walk instead. Even though their school is 18 miles away and it was blowing a gale directly from the Canadian tundra."
2 BMW 1 Series
"I’m choosing the words for my conclusion with even more care than usual. So here goes. The 1-series is crap."
1 Maserati Quattroporte
"In a list of the five most rubbish things in the world, I'd have America's foreign policy at five. Aids at four. Iran's nuclear programme at three. Gordon Brown at two and Maserati's gearbox at number one. It is that bad."
May 31, 2007
Clarkson's Dirty Dozen
Twelve delicious pearls of literary wisdom from the keyboard of Jeremy Clarkson. If you own one of these cars, we apologise in advance
12 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano
"There, right in the middle of everything, is a quartic steering wheel. Yup, quartic, as in square, as in Austin Allegro. And worse still, it's half carbon fibre and half leather, and it's got all sorts of Formula One-style buttons on the bottom and then, along the top, a series of red lights that come on to tell you when to change gear. Unfortunately they are so bright you think you've been caught in the fearsome glare from a Martian spaceship.
"So you don't change gear. You crash."
11 BMW 645Ci
"If you were to buy a 6-series, I recommend you select reverse when leaving friends' houses so they don't see its backside."
10 Volkswagen Jetta
"I’d love to meet the man who styled the exterior, to find out if he’d done it as some sort of a joke. But mostly I’d like to meet the man who simply didn’t bother at all with the interior. Because looking at that dashboard gives you some idea of what it might be like to be dead."
9 Aston Martin Vanquish S
"This is the last of the old-school Astons. It was built in the Newport Pagnell factory by men with body odour and hammers, rather than on the computer- controlled production line of the new Gaydon plant. And it shows. The car costs more than any other Aston yet is no quicker; its paddle shift gearbox is hilariously bad and its interior looks glued together from the Ford parts bin. It is the equivalent of opting for a rusty saw and leeches in the age of laser-guided brain surgery. Who is Aston kidding?"
8 Cadillac SRX4
"This is a very ugly car. So ugly in fact that you’ll want to get inside it and shut the door as quickly as possible. But sadly when you are inside it’s even worse.
"If it were a creature, it wouldn’t be a lion or a praying mantis or even a chimp. No, I think it would be a wasp — useless and hateful in equal measure"
7 MItsubishi Warrior
"'What,' I exclaimed, 'in the name of all that's holy, do we want one of those for?' We're European. We were sipping tea while the Americans were shooting Indians. We've had 2,000 years to get used to civilisation, not 20 minutes. We're advanced, we're slim, we're at the cutting edge of evolution. We think that shooting bears is daft. Budweiser gives us a headache and we think George Bush is an arse.
"So why in God's name do we want to drive around in a car made from a hen house and two bits of railway track?"
6 Peugeot 407 Coupé 2.7 V6 HDi SE
"It has the zip of a chairlift. With plodding performance and steady-as-she-goes handling the only thing this car will make you feel like is a cup of Horlicks with a splash of hemlock. Empty-nesters should buy a PlayStation instead, and spend the afternoon shooting crack *****s."
5 Perodua Kelisa 1.0 GXi
"This is without doubt the worst car, not just in its category but in the world. It has a top speed of 88mph but takes so long to reach it that no one has ever lived long enough to verify the claim, the inside is tackier than Anthea Turner’s wedding and you don’t want to think what would happen if it bumped into a lamppost.
"Also its name sounds like a disease."
4 Land Rover Defender 90 Td5 Station Wagon
"Often fourth isn't enough to get you up a hill, so you drop down to third and it feels as though you've been hit in the back with a wrecking ball. All of a sudden you're doing 35mph but your eight-ton suit of armour, making a noise that sounds like the birth of the universe, has come to an almost dead stop.
"What's more, there still isn't enough room behind the wheel for anyone with shoulders or legs, there are still sharp edges, it's as bouncy as a small dog at suppertime, and as a result it's about as much fun to drive as a punctured wheelbarrow. And it's not like the misery is short-lived, because each trip to the shops can, and does, take two or three weeks."
3 Kia Rio
"You may have seen The Fly II, in which a scientist attempts to teleport a dog. In one of the most gruesome scenes I've seen in a film it arrives at its destination completely inside out. Well the Rio is uglier than that. Inside, things get worse.
"Small wonder Kia's importer in Britain is sponsoring the Pedestrian Association's Walking Bus scheme. The idea is that parents take it in turns to walk a group, or "bus", of children to their school in a morning. After three days of being transported in the Rio, my kids thought it was a brilliant idea to walk instead. Even though their school is 18 miles away and it was blowing a gale directly from the Canadian tundra."
2 BMW 1 Series
"I’m choosing the words for my conclusion with even more care than usual. So here goes. The 1-series is crap."
1 Maserati Quattroporte
"In a list of the five most rubbish things in the world, I'd have America's foreign policy at five. Aids at four. Iran's nuclear programme at three. Gordon Brown at two and Maserati's gearbox at number one. It is that bad."