Steve Cropley
Relishing Mustang’s 10-spd auto ’box
SUNDAY
To Silverstone for the World Endurance Championship, driving an Orange Fury Ford Mustang rag-top its maker had kindly put my way. I was keen to try this pokier 2019 5.0 V8 Mustang 10-speed auto (a recipe that struck me as overkill, in a nice way), and it was duly brilliant. In Drive, the inscrutable computer in its bowels swaps ratios imperceptibly, keeping the engine percolating at 2000-2500rpm anywhere between 10mph and 70mph. In Sport it holds lower ratios longer, often leaving out the top few. And if you operate your gearbox via the nice-touse short-throw paddles it becomes impressively responsive, although the gaps between ratios are so small and you’re pulling left and right so often that you soon default to a self-shift mode.
What about the racing? Good fun witnessing Fernando Alonso’s star quality on the pre-race grid, and the racing itself was interesting if inconclusive. The road-reminiscent Astons, Fords and Ferraris took most limelight and we saw lots of close-shave overtaking involving cars radically different in performance. The two Toyota LMP1 hybrids, the closest to automatic winners you’ll ever see, were disqualified for grinding away too much of their underbody skid-blocks for the postrace scrutineers to tolerate. That made a mockery of the man-hours, miles and millions expended on Toyota’s race campaign and was hardly an ideal outcome, but any fool could see they were the winners. People kept saying rules were rules but the decision seemed puerile in the extreme.
MONDAY
Some consoling news lands: an online appeal for the family of Henry Hope-frost, muchloved Goodwood commentator, father of three and former colleague who died in a motorbike accident on his way home from work, has raised £110,000. That’s three times the £38,000 target initially chosen – ‘38’ because H was widely known for his ‘fever’ over anything fast, loud and automotive, and 38deg C is the body temperature at which humans are deemed to have a fever. Nothing lessens the extent of this tragedy, but it’s fantastic seeing people rally round.
TUESDAY
A barmy chief constable is in the news. I’m tempted to wonder if Shropshire-based Anthony Bangham’s half-baked proposal to nick people for going 1mph over the limit is a helpful invention for the holiday-starved news industry, but, sadly, he is real. As both he and anyone else who ever drove a car knows, his proposal is as unworkable as it is trivial. You have to wonder how an individual so lacking in common sense can become Head of National Roads Policing. Guess no-one else wants it. I’ve known some well-placed coppers in my time, always with a right-thinking but essentially practical outlook. Let’s hope this zealot gets shouted down and that people with sense (plus workable ideas for curbing the speed abuse that does exist) are appointed.
Any fool could see the Toyotas were the winners
WEDNESDAY
My request a couple of weeks ago for your help identifying insurers capable of making the whole fraught business viable has resulted in a storming win for NFU Mutual. Its recipe of using handpicked local agents prepared to deliver personal service while plugged into a muscular national organisation is the one most of you are happy to recommend. I also heard quite a bit from people who deal with obviously well-run brokers.
But just as I was reading your helpful replies a nicely turned letter from the local NFU rep fell through my Gloucestershire letterbox (was this a coincidence?). If I can work out how to transfer my business without losing several shirts in the process, I think I’m going to give them a go.