CRAIG DAVID
The UK garage sensation on what’s been in his actual garage
When I was younger my mum drove a Fiat Uno. I was just getting into DJing at the time and she would come and pick me up from clubs at 2am with the car packed full of record boxes. My dad on the other hand had a few cars, but one in particular that I’ll always remember was an immaculate Ford Sierra Cosworth.
At 17, I failed my driving test first time. It was a schoolboy error... we were coming up to a bus lane and I didn’t check the times you were allowed to be in there, so I panicked and automatically tried to swerve out of the lane. We nearly smashed into the car next to us, so I knew I’d failed, but when we got back to the test centre the instructor said: “You do know you could have just carried on going straight.” But yeah, passed second time and I was on the road.
My first car was a little Peugeot 206 which served me very well. Then I swapped into the cabriolet version – the 206 CC – and jumped up a couple of engine sizes. Both had manual gearboxes and definitely helped me learn.
After that, I was fortunate enough to get a black BMW X5. I modified it quite a bit and thought it was cool at the time. I went for 22-inch chrome wheels, low-profile tyres and a brand-new Pioneer head unit with a graphic equaliser and subs in the back. It actually ended up being the car I’d drive whenever I left the studio with a new song. If it passed the car test, then we were in a good place; if it didn’t, then we had to go back to the studio and start tweaking. We were moving into the second album at that point, so it would have been for songs like ‘What’s Your Flava?’, ‘Rise and Fall’ and ‘Fast Cars’.
I had the X5 for five or six years, then I moved out to Miami. Having played OutRun as a kid, I definitely had that dream of driving a Ferrari along the beachfront, so I went to a place called Prestige Imports and ended up buying a red F430 Spider. That car was on another level from what I’d experienced before. I felt like the little kid who’d been putting pound coins in the machine at the arcade and then all of a sudden I was like: “Where’s the coin slot? This can’t be real.”
I had that for a while, but it didn’t like the Miami weather and had loads of issues. Then the clutch went and, especially with the F430 being a slightly older model at the time, getting parts was a nightmare. Eventually I sold it and moved on to a Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Spyder.
That car was beautiful. My whole thing at the time was having these house parties called TS5, which was the name of my apartment, so I tried to make the car look similar to the house. It was cookies and cream, white on black, and I changed the exhaust on it for slightly more horsepower – not that it needed it. I changed the doors too because I loved the Aventador, so I got the scissor doors that opened upwards.
The funny thing is that now I’m back living in London, having sold the place and cars in Miami, I’m driving a little Mini Cooper S and just loving life. It’s a nippy little car and perfect for London.
I think what I’ve realised is that Miami was a wonderful location to have those convertible supercars, but I also felt the attention they brought was so extra, that even something as simple as going to the petrol station was an event. Plus, if you were parking them up somewhere, you almost always used the valet. If you left them in a normal car park, you’d come back and someone would be sitting on the bonnet taking selfies.
About time Alfa Romeo got in on the lightweight special game. This is the Giulia GTA and the want is strong. New side skirts, an active front splitter and a bigger rear diffuser all increase downforce. Plus, there’s a centre-exit Akrapovič titanium exhaust. The front and rear tracks have swelled by 50mm, so the new 20in rims are contained in new wheelarch extensions. Underneath, there are new springs and shocks.
Choose between a ‘standard’ ducktail spoilered Giulia GTA, or the even more hardcore GTAm with the bigger wing you see here, which ditches the back seats, adds a roll cage and helmet holder, includes race harnesses, and even swaps out door handles for fabric door pulls.
Both versions employ carbon fibre for the driveshaft, bonnet, roof, front bumper, front wheelarches and rear wheelarch inserts. The GTAm swaps its glass back
window for Lexan polycarbonate, too. The GTAm weighs in at 1,520kg, saving 100kg over the standard Giulia QV.
Whichever version of the Giulia GTA you get, the engine will have had a tickle. The 2.9-litre bi-turbo V6 has been boosted from 503bhp to 532bhp. It’ll do 0–62mph in 3.6secs. Only 500 GTAs will be made, and though prices are still secret, it’s unlikely you’ll be seeing much change from £100k.
Not so long ago it was considered rude to look at your watch too often. If you were having lunch with a friend in the Nineties, looking at your watch was a sign of boredom. Checking the time meant you wanted a way out. The world of 2020 is very different. The idea that anything as simple as a watch might interrupt you is laughable. No matter where you are, or what you are doing, almost everyone is more or less permanently tethered to a smartphone.
Before the 20th century, hardly anyone wore a wristwatch, and the handful that existed were pieces of bejewelled finery. If you suggested to a man in Victorian Britain that he wear a wristwatch, he would be very much affronted, good sir. Then in WW1, officers strapped pocket watches to their wrists so they could send men over the top in tidy waves. This made the wristwatch into a tool, and, by the time WW2 came around, only an eccentric soldier or civilian would wear a watch anywhere other than the wrist.
Although the wristwatch is still young, it has been around long enough for us to learn one important thing: watches want our love, but they don’t want to take over our lives. They measure our lives, rather than try to create new ones for us. The same cannot be said for the smartphone. With the speed at which they are getting cleverer, it won’t be long before everyone’s idea of a perfect day is 10 uninterrupted hours enraptured with their device.
Thankfully, some people have realised it is becoming a bit much. We need to spend time interacting with beautiful, tangible things. A dog is good. A faithful watch companion is good and less needy. The watch industry is booming, long after it is supposed to have been killed off. Across Switzerland, Germany, the Far East and – we are happy to report – Britain, countless teams of skilled people are locked away in immaculate factories crafting ever more ingenious ways to make people fall in love with watches.
Watches tell you how long it is since you last looked up, and remind you that it is good to unplug yourself from the matrix every so often. On the opposite page we have a lovely selection to suit all budgets, with a digital detox thrown in for free. And the good news? It is no longer rude to stare.