RED-HOT COLD CURE
DOES AA Gill review a restaurant when he has a cold? Surely, when your eyes are streaming and your head is full of hot mercury and your nose is like a leaky tap, it must be hard to tell whether you’re eating fish or chicken.
I have a similar problem when I have a cold and I have to review a car. No matter how comfortable it is, it’s not as comfortable as being in bed. And even if it can get from zero to 100km/h in two seconds, I will fume because that’s not good enough. We are not allowed to drive a car after we have consumed alcohol or if we are using a cellphone. But we are allowed to drive while we have a cold. And that’s odd. Because — and I’m sure I’m not alone in this — when I have a snotty nose and a heavy head, I am a madman.
Take a recent a case. Shepherd’s Bush Green in west London was closed for roadworks, which meant everyone was using the Hammersmith flyover. So obviously some bright spark closed that too. Normally I’d simply sit in the resultant jam, accepting that the people in charge are morons. But because I had a cold, I set off on a hate-fuelled charge through the back streets, hurling insults at everyone.
Had the dithering minicab driver in the Camry actually heard what I was saying as he sat there for an age, making no effort to turn right, I’d be in prison now for breaking all sorts of modern-day laws. I squeezed by on his left, which meant I may have accidentally popped a couple of wheels on the pavement. And moments later a police officer knocked on my window. Before he had a chance to speak I let rip, telling him that the pavement was too wide, that the minicab driver was an idiot and that if he wanted to speak to someone, he should talk to the halfwit who’d shut both main roads into west London at the same time. I then drove off.
The next day on the M1, while running late for my daughter’s school play, I didn’t do as normal and sit behind the stream of Peugeots doing 80km/h in the outside lane. I just overtook them all on the inside, muttering like a homeless drunk. There was mayhem, rage and misery. But there was one crumb of comfort: the car I was using. An Audi R8 V10.
Normally, when the roads are full of idiots and your head is full of mucus, the last place you want to be is in a low-slung, super-wide, Lamborghini-engined two-seat supercar. All the things that make supercars great on sunny days in Tuscany make them pigs in a dark and wet London. They steam up. They pop. They bang. They won’t fit through gaps. And they’re uncomfortable.
The R8, though, has always been different. It feels normal. The cockpit is big. Everything is where you expect it to be and it all works. It can traverse speed humps without leaving 40% of its undersides behind. It’s quiet. It’s unruffled. It lulls you, cossets you, soothes you. Which is why you are always surprised when you put your foot down and it takes off like a Ferrari.
It grips well too. And when it’s raining, and the motorway slip road has tightened unexpectedly, and you haven’t noticed because you’ve been sneezing for the past 50km, you’ll be glad of the four-wheel-drive system.
There’s something else — thanks to its starring role in Iron Man, the R8 is a popular car. People like it, and by association they will like you for driving it. But there has always been one problem: the gearbox. You could have either a manual that came with a lever from a Victorian’s signal box or a semi-automatic that was as refined as a hen night.
Well, now you can have a seven-speed dual-clutch system. The EU is demanding that engines produce fewer emissions, and gearboxes such as this help. They’re fitted to tick a bureaucrat’s box, not because they
THE CLARKSOMETER Engine: Power: Torque: Transmission: 0-100km/h: Top speed: Fuel consumption: CO2: Price:
5 204cc, V10 386kW at 8000rpm 530Nm at 6500rpm
seven-speed S-Tronic 3.6 seconds (claimed) 314km/h (claimed)
13.1l/100km (claimed combined) 305g/km R2 017 500 make life better for the driver. This is a point you will note at low speed in town. Go on. See a gap and try to exploit it. You can’t. Because the box is either too slow or too jerky — put your foot down and the R8 sets off like you’ve never been in a car before. Of course, out of town they’re great. The gear changes are fast and smooth and can be done either manually with flappy paddles or automatically. On balance, then, I’d say it’s a damn good car. It really is. And that from a man who’s spent a week hating everything else.