Your views A Simca specialist writes
Seeking clarity
As a subscriber to your magazine and avid 63-year-old petrolhead, I always look forward to receiving the latest edition. Imagine my disappointment upon seeing that although you weren’t testing yet another SUV (whatever happened to good old saloon cars?), but you chose to test a car that you can’t buy unless you are “moving to California” (Honda Clarity FCV road test, 12 July).
Sorry, but I fail to see the point. At least we won’t have to look at the damn awful thing – unless we happen to be in California.
On a more positive note, I loved the Volkswagen Golf GTI article. We have all made bad car-buying decisions. Mine include partexchanging an eight-valve Golf GTI Mk2 with big bumpers in Royal Blue metallic for a Fiat Seicento Sporting in a particularly strident Broom Yellow. Oh well. David Staveley Via email The opportunity to conduct a full road test on a vehicle equipped with a hydrogen fuel cell system that could prove to be ahead of the curve was too good to pass up, David – MB
Tyre talk
When I lived in Orlando, USA, I was fortunate to own and drive every day a C5 Corvette. This car was initially fitted with Goodyear run-flat tyres. I was not impressed with the harsh and noisy ride quality, nor the tendency to ‘tramline’ or follow surface contour changes.
When I came to change these tyres, I opted for Goodyear non-run-flats and was amazed to find the ride had become supple and quiet.
On returning to Europe, I ran a BMW 520d (E39) with run-flats and again suffered a harsh and noisy ride (for what was supposedly a luxury car). On suggesting I change to nonrun-flats, I was told the suspension was optimised for run-flats and the vehicle’s computer would refuse to recognise a change of tyre type. I found this curious since the car had a spare wheel well, but I accepted the
advice so it remained on run-flats.
After a few years, I changed to a 530d M Sport (F10). It was an amazing vehicle, almost as fast as the Corvette and as economical on a long journey as the 520d. On 19in runflats, the ride is far superior to the 520d’s and clearly has been optimised for run-flats. However, there has clearly been a compromise between the damping needed for a good ride and that for body control, which in my view is somewhat lacking.
I like to take this car to the Alps for skiing and so I have fitted 17in run-flat Blizzaks, which proved their competence climbing up to Alpe d’huez in 100mm of freshly falling snow when many other motorists were stopping to fit chains.
The interesting fact is that there seems to be no difference in ride quality between the 17in winter tyres and the 19in summer ones. I attribute this to the need to have a stiff sidewall on a run-flat tyre to cope with the uninflated condition.
Anthony Lunt Saint-pons-de-mauchiens, France
On the limit
The revamped M3 ‘smart motorway’ now has four good, smooth lanes from J2 to J4a and back. There is no sign of any further work going on, but still there is a 50mph average speed restriction. It can’t be to do with safety, so the conclusion has to be the purpose is to take speeding fines from drivers for another few weeks!
John Wallinger Upton Grey, Hampshire Signs on the M3’s roadside state that the 50mph limit is still in place while ‘testing and commissioning’ is carried out, John. Whatever that means. Will we ever see 70mph on that stretch of M3 again? I’m not sure – MB
Qash isn’t king
It frustrates me that Autocar (and indeed everyone else) seems to think that the Nissan Qashqai invented the crossover sector. It was, in fact, the Suzuki SX4.
This is a highly underrated car and was launched in 2006, a year before the Qashqai. This does not mean the Qashqai is a bad car, and it was the first large crossover. Overall, though, the inventor of the crossover segment was indeed Suzuki.
Josh Dawson Via email The Qashqai came to define the breed by getting the recipe just right. You could trace the origin of the species way back to the 1948 Willys Jeep – MB
A good sport
Why is it that manufacturers of ‘sports’ cars feel the need to tell us it’s a sports car when we can clearly see it is?
My case in point is the new Jaguar F-type 400 ‘Sport’ (First Drives, 12 July). As Lotus has done in the past, Jaguar has taken what is clearly a car with sporting intentions and applied boy-racer badges that wouldn’t look out of place on a 15-year-old Clio with a big aftermarket exhaust.
I think Jaguar would have been much better off saving the tenner
it spent in Halfords and simply calling this new variant the ‘400’.
Are friends electric?
I was surprised at how accepting Claire Evans was about the autonomous emergency braking system on her Audi Q2 long-term test car cutting in at inappropriate moments (Our Cars, 12 July).
This is why I shudder at the thought of fully autonomous cars, programmed as they will be by fallible human beings. Despite always trying to read the road ahead assiduously and keeping my distance from the car in front, it is now apparent that I must consider the possibility of rear-ending one that might do an emergency stop for no obvious reason.
What sort of antics will we have to be alert to when fully autonomous cars are plying our roads?
Michael J Bacon Towcester
Spirit of 75
Take another bow, car designer Richard Woolley: your classic Rover 75 has been reincarnated from the front wheel back on the new Audi A8 (News, 12 July).
Michael Duggan Adare
Miss the marks
Why no Mk3 or Mk4 GTIS in your comparison of Volkswagen Golf GTIS past and present (12 July)?
I’m very disappointed for the owners and fans. You included the Golf R model for comparison reasons but forgot that car’s predecessor, the Golf VR6 Mk3. Surely that qualifies the Mk3 for inclusion?
My enduring memory of a GTI 16v (Mk2), circa 1986, is an awful rattly engine that sounded in need of tender loving car and which my dad declined to test drive. It was another hot Ford Escort for us.
Ben Marshall Liversedge, West Yorkshire As Andrew Frankel pointed out in his feature, neither car was up to the standard of the earlier or later variants – MB