In just a few days' time, Jaguar will unveil the new XJ. We've seen the teaser pics, we've seen the photoshops, and within a week we'll have seen the finished article. And some aren't looking forward to it. The general consensus is that it looks like an XF that's been scaled up, and this is the root of the problem. Many do not like Jaguar's 'new and bland' design direction. I beg to differ, and would argue that the current cars are the most Jaguar-like since the XJ40. I'm not saying they're perfect Read more [...]

I’ve just seen pics of the next Aston Martin. It’s not, as you would be forgiven for thinking, a large and expensive GT car with a large V12. Instead, it’s the answer to a question nobody has ever asked. It would seem that Aston Martin have done some market research, and found that many of their customers keep a small car - a MINI Cooper for example - for town use. The Aston only comes out to play on longer distance trips and nice days. Fair play to the owners; petrol’s £4.68 per gallon Read more [...]

Tell me, where is Sloane Street's Kilimanjaro? Cheyne Way's Everest? the Ben Nevis of Swan Walk? They don't exist. So why do people need expedition vehicles for a trip to the shops or to pick up the kids? I'm referring here to what are known as Chelsea Tractors, the needless and wasteful piles of cow excrement such as the Porsche Cayenne and the BMW X5. They are huge, thirsty, and too tall to see through for dangers, should you have the misfortune to pull up at the side of one. Yeah, they go off-road, Read more [...]

As a response to blogs seen elsewhere, I've decided to make my favoruite historical era into a blog. And it's the 80s. The decade of Blondie, Ultravox, and Kraftwerk. The Thatcher years. Rover's SD1, the Audi Quattro, and the 205 GTi. I just like the lot. The cars that were around at the time (this would have included cars of the late 60s and the 70s) were from what in my opinion were the best decades for motors - we had the excellent Rover SD1, the Golf GTi, and Ford's XR3 for a kick-off. Read more [...]

As people of taste (you have to be to be be a reader of this column) I'm presuming that all of you have at least some awareness of who Gene Hunt is. The right wing, outdated, outspoken Regan-esque copper from Life On Mars, and more recently, Ashes To Ashes. Philip Glenister, who portrays gene, has said he doesn't want to take gene into the 1990s or beyond, nor does he want to really go any further back. But I have a theory, a way that we get to see more programming of this format without forcing Read more [...]