Life On Cars highlights of 2013

2013’s been a petrolhead year defined largely by three words for me – Classic Car Weekly.

Thanks largely to landing my dream job in full-time motoring journalism back in April, most of the motoring experiences Life On Cars has encountered have involved blasting into the past in cars which are usually older than I am. This year’s been an incredible automotive adventure, taking me everywhere from the Scottish Highlands to the southern coast of Spain in search of classic car stories. I can reveal, however, that the issue which got Life On Cars readers talking the most this year was rooted firmly in this blog’s home in the North West; the ongoing saga of whether the Woodvale Rally will ever return to RAF Woodvale.

Some of the highlights from a year peppered with petrolhead moments you might be familiar with – others, unless you’re a regular reader of Classic Car Weekly, you probably won’t be. Here are ten of the moments I’m not going to forget in a hurry…

1) Discovering it’s never too cold to drive with the roof down

January is normally a time for wrapping up warm, snuggling up on the sofa and nudging the thermostat into firmly toasty territory. It definitely isn’t the time for heading into a totally deserted corner of the North Wales countryside and dropping the roof on a (much-missed) Mazda MX-5. The temperature, indicating by the mate’s Saab 9-3 following closely behind, was a chilly -1 degrees Celsius.

Not that I cared, because the MX-5 on those roads was a blast. If you’ve got a convertible, wrap up warm, drop the hood, and get out there!

2) Blasting across the New Forest in a Jaguar XK150

Considering it was only my second day at Classic Car Weekly, this was definitely the sort of motoring journalism small boys dream of – a classic Jaguar with lines so fluid you could almost drink them, empty roads to enjoy it on and an incredibly beautiful bit of England to soak up at the same time.

To be honest, I was expecting another Jaguar I drove that same afternoon – the first E-type I’d ever experienced from behind the wheel – to be the highlight, but it was the simpler charms of the older XK I’ll never forget. The howl of the XK straight-six as I nailed it through the New Forest is something that’ll stay with me forever.

3) Listening to this engine

 

Regular readers will already know I’m well acquainted with the charms of the MG BGT. You might also know that – thanks to a childhood spent in the company of old Range Rovers – that I’ll never get tired of listening to the lumbering burble of a Rover V8 engine.

Seeing and hearing the two in the same package for the first time, however, was a treat for the eyeballs and eardrums alike. Hit play on this short video I made, and see what I mean…

4) Finding out the only way is Up!

An ongoing joke at Classic Car Weekly is that I’ve driven the VW Up pool car not just more than anyone else, but probably more than I have my own cars this year!

While I found myself behind the wheel of Wolfsburg’s 1.0 litre wonder for all sorts of trips to cover shows in the North West, for ferrying colleagues to the Goodwood Revival and – for reasons I’m still not entirely sure of – for a slightly mad return trip to Cornwall, I’ve always enjoyed the fizzy personality of VW’s smallest offering.

For every moment its lack of outright oomph, its tiny boot and its impossibly small fuel tank frustrated me, there was another when the bark of its three-cylinder engine and entertaining handling proved utterly captivating. Put it this way – it is the sort of city car that doesn’t feel outclassed on the Cat and Fiddle pass.

5) Finally trading up in the repmobile stakes

This time last year, I was lauding the vaguely indestructible qualities of the 1995 Rover 214SEi, which I bought back in 2010 for just £300, and I’ve been treated to more of the same throughout 2013. While it’s gone everywhere from Peterborough and London to Bristol and North Yorkshire without so much of a whisper of breakdown – and with a bit of newfound fame in Classic Car Weekly.

The increasingly noisy transmission whine and the quietly creeping onset of rot, however, showed that after three years the old dog, which I’d only ever bought for smoking around Southport in, was beginning to feel the strain of its new life of shooting across Britain.

After two final missions, visiting Classics On The Green in Watford and the Severn Valley Railway’s classic car day in Kidderminster, I finally traded up to its thirstier-but-faster replacement – a 2001 Ford Mondeo Ghia X.

Finally, I’d put my money where my mouth was and bought the big saloon I’ve always recommended to anyone who’d listen. It’s superb.

 6) Thundering up Blackpool seafront – in a Chevrolet Corvette

If Blackpool is Britain’s answer to Las Vegas, then surely the ideal classic for experiencing the Illuminations is a big, all American classic with a big V8 and an open roof. Cue a 1980 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, even if getting it to the resort meant conquering left-hand-drive first by thundering across the Pennines from Harrogate to get it there.

It might have had an appetite for Esso’s finest and drive up a cold, rainy seafront involved never venturing past 25mph, but it was the most enjoyable bits of motoring I’ve ever done. Raucous, traditional and just a little bit showy – a bit like Blackpool, then!

7) Driving an Aston Martin for the first time

While it might not have been the car I enjoyed driving most in 2013 – take a bow, Suzuki SC100 ‘Whizzkid’ – there is a certain pub brag factor about getting behind the wheel of an Aston Martin for the first time. Particularly if it’s a Timothy Dalton-era V8 which uses its 5.3 litre V8 to play a never-ending game of tug of war with the horizon. After doing my best not to get distracted by the James Bond connotations, I found myself truly enjoying its burly demeanour and its thunderous engine note. 2013 also saw me driving my first Rolls-Royce.

Maybe 2014 will be the year I finally get to pop my Ferrari cherry?

8) Seeing Life On Cars printed in a national publication

 Since its launch way back in 2009, Life On Cars has been limited to this humble motoring blog, a series of online emagazines and a weekly column in The Champion series of newspapers in the north west. Seeing a column from Yours Truly printed in Classic Car Weekly back in August, then, was a particularly proud moment. It’s also been great to continue contributing my views to The Champion on a weekly basis, even if a lot of the time those reflections have been e-mailed in from deepest Cambridgeshire!

9) Dressing up in a silly outfit at the Goodwood Revival

I already knew the Goodwood Revival is an unashamed nostalgia trip into the high-octane era of motor racing in the Fifties and Sixties. What I didn’t know, however, was how much fun it is, or how seriously the period charm gets taken. Luckily, I’d donned my best tweed in a semi-successful attempt to look like a period newspaper reporter, as you can see from the not-at-all disturbing shot, and spent three days lapping up the best-before-1966 feel of it all.

Weirdly, thanks to the rigours of helping to produce a bumper report on the show, I didn’t see a single race during a weekend of historic motorsport, and yet I still fell in love with the event. In fact, the only thing which ruined it slightly was the minority of visitors who chose to turn up in tracksuits and trainers. Ban them!

 10) Finding out Petrolhead is a universal language, wherever you go

Until now, my passion of taking pictures and chatting to people at car shows has been limited largely to the North West, but this year my show visits have spanned the nation – and further afield. By far and away the bit of being a car nut I love most is chatting to people about the classics they own, and finding out why it is they love the cars they do. It’s a passion which car lovers, whether they’re in the Scottish Higlands, the North West, the heart of London or tranquil towns in the West Country, have all shared.

It even works abroad too, as a trip to Barcelona to cover Auto Retro proved. Even if the people there, while fluent in Petrolhead, had virtually no grasp of English. Ooops!

 Look out for more of David Simister’s motoring mishaps in both Classic Car Weekly and The Champion throughout 2014. Life On Cars wishes both of its readers a happy New Year

It's all over for the Life On Cars Rover

Click the image to see a larger version of the feature. Article reproduced from the November 13th edition of Classic Car Weekly. All rights reserved.

Online auctions are a used car nightmare

SECONDHAND Rovers are about as desirable as secondhand socks. That’s one of two lessons I’ve learned this week. 

The other’s a bit of a cautionary tale when it comes to flogging cars. It’s the third occasion I’ve cast my net into the deep, murky waters of cyberspace, and it’s the third time that the only catch I’ve landed are buyers who prove to be a nightmare.Why did I ever abandon the calm waters of The Southport Champion’s classifieds? 

This sorry story started on a still summer’s afternoon, when my trusty old Rover sailed through its third MOT. Yet even I knew the old dog couldn’t last forever, as the increasingly noisy gearbox in particular proved. With that in mind I put her up for sale, sure that a Rover fan out there somewhere – and I know, because I am one – would want to give it a good home.

I might as well have been flogging a pair of Victor Meldrew’s old Y-fronts, as it turned out. The classic car people, despite my best pleas, were unmoved by a cheap Rover, while a stint on a Facebook forum specialising solely in cars for less than £500 attracted precisely zero enquiries. As the weeks drew on and the prospect of the insurance running out loomed, I turned to the dark side and listed it on an online auction site. 

It sold in less than ten minutes, but I was about to relearn a valuable lesson. In online auctions, you have to deal with whichever punter puts up the money first. 

Any noble thoughts of the Rover “going to a good home” quickly vanished – this was a guy who didn’t want to pick up the car tomorrow, but “tomoz”. Or rather, it would have been had “tomoz” not been a day that constantly got moved back to suit his schedule. Eventually, a car breaker from Brum showed up a week later – and was completely disinterested in the pile of paperwork I’d spent three years accumulating. All he wanted to do was get his dirt-cheap car onto the back of his low-loader. 

The chap got his car and I got my money, but I couldn’t help but recall the bloke who refused to buy a scooter from me years ago because a scratch was bigger in real life than he’d interpreted it to be in the pictures, or the man who spent ages playing a hugely stressful game of will-he-won’t-he over whether to buy my MX-5. The internet is great for all sorts of things, but it’s also full of idiots who want automotive perfection for less than £500, and will happily throw all the grief your way if they don’t get it. 

Some things are better done the old-fashioned way. Flogging cars is one of them.

For sale - Rover 214SEi

The Rover 214SEi which has appeared here on Life On Cars and on a number of occasions in Classic Car Weekly is up for sale.

This N-registered model is the 214SEi, and comes with features including electric front windows, alloy wheels and half-leather seats - making it one of the more luxuriously equipped models in the 200 range when it was sold new way back in 1996.

While the car isn't perfect, and will need attention on the clutch and gearbox in particular before its next MOT next August, it's long proven a reliable runner, and has never broken down in the three years I've owned it. In the time I've had it, it's travelled as far afield as Cornwall, the Norfolk Broads, North Wales and the Lake District, and always got there quietly, faultlessly and comfortably.

The car MOT'd until August 2014, taxed until January 2014, 75,000 miles, lots of history, good condition throughout, and has never broken down in three years of ownership.

If you're looking for a cheap runaround with plenty of Longbridge heritage behind it, feel free to make me an offer! Give me a ring on 07581 343476 or drop me a line using the usual Life On Cars contact details...

Can a Nineties Rover be called a classic car?

Originally published in Classic Car Weekly, 28 April 2013

Future classics - my top ten tips

SUPPOSE you’ve got motoring’s equivalent of Mystic Meg’s crystal ball. What do you reckon it’d reveal as being the classic car stars of tomorrow?

One of the most fascinating pieces I’ve written for Classic Car Weekly so far is a rundown of what the secondhand experts at CAP have chosen as their candidates for automotive investments, which is as intriguing for what didn’t make the cut as the 20 modern motors which did. Everyone’s got their opinion as to what’ll be the stars of shows up and down the land in 10 or 15 years’ time, and with the article done and dusted I can finally get a few of my own favourites off my chest...

1) MAZDA MX-5 (1989 – 1998) The fact no less than four of the Classic Car Weekly team have owned one – including Yours Truly – speaks volumes about this ultra-reliable, ultra-fun and, for the time being at least, ultra-cheap rear-drive ragtop. Consider my shoes eaten if this isn’t a mainstay of the classic movement in 15 years time.

 2) PEUGEOT 106 GTI/RALLYE (1997 – 2004)Brilliant fun, perfectly packaged and already becoming increasingly sought after by hot hatch hunters. In fact, it’s looking increasingly likely the MX-5-shaped void in my life might get filled by a 106 GTI. Should I? Shouldn’t I?

3) ROVER 75 (1999 - 2005) I’ve already written that Rover’s swansong is tomorrow’s P6, and I still reckon a well-looked example – or its sportier sister, the MG ZT – is as cheap as it’s ever going to be. There’s plenty on offer right now for under a grand, but give it a decade and good examples of these gentle giants will be sought after.

4) FORD RACING PUMA (2000) You could argue the little Puma is tomorrow’s Capri, in which case this is the ultra-rare Tickford (in fact, just like its turbocharged Capri ancestor, the Racing Puma is a Tickford creation). Prices are already much higher than the standard Pumas, but with the rarity of the Racing Puma and the loyal following it’s already attracting, there’s only one way prices will go.

5) RENAULT WIND (2010 - 2011)  I might have enjoyed the French firm’s Twingo-based two seater when it was new but the Great British Public didn’t, so while it’s a bit of a flop now its rarity should count in its favour. Quirky styling and fantastically simple flipping metal roof are bonus points on a car that, even now, you don’t see every day.

6) PEUGEOT 406 COUPE (1997 - 2004)Italian styling house Pininfarina worked wonders with the Parisian repmobile favourite to create a striking beautiful coupe. Best spec is the 3.0 V6 but 2.2 HDi versions are already proving popular with fuel-conscious enthusiasts.

7) FIAT COUPE 20V TURBO (1995 - 2000)As above, but with added Italian flair and loopy amounts of punch from the five-cylinder turbo beneath the bonnet. Any car that manages to make Fiat Tipo underpinnings look this good has got to be in with a shout.

 8) SUBARU IMPREZA TURBO (1994 - 2000) The original, four-door versions of the Scooby Pretzel are cheap now – you can, if you look carefully, pick them up for less than £1,500 – but it won’t be long before they’re being coveted as classics. Escort RS2000s, remember, were cheap and plentiful a long time ago...

9) BMW 8-SERIES (1990 - 1999) CAP’s list included no less than three BMWs, but they missed out this one, which price-wise is where the original 6-Series was 15 years ago. Not that I could afford to run around in a secondhand 850CSi, of course.

10) VOLKSWAGEN POLO G40 (1990 - 1994)  Only 600 imported into the UK originally and they’re rare, characterful pocket rockets now. Worth seeking one out for the addictive whine the supercharger makes. Plus, they go like stink.

Feel free, however, to disagree...

The full feature on CAP’s tips for future classic investments can be found in this week’s edition of Classic Car Weekly, published Wednesday, April 24.

The idiot and the cripple - a cautionary mechanical tale

MECHANICAL maladies, to trot out an old cliché, are like buses. You spend ages untroubled by them and then a stack of them all arrive at once.

The Life On Cars fleet normally consists of my cherished old MGB GT, the Mazda MX-5 for when I'm in the mood for a B-road blast and a Rover 214SEi for all the mundane, everyday tasks. However, while I can expect the MG, which was built at British Leyland factory in the 1970s, to be a bit temperamental, in the past week I've suffered a coolant leak on the MX-5 and starting problems on the normally faultlessly reliable Rover. 

All relatively minor problems for anyone with even the slightest bit of mechanical nous, but a talented engineer I am not. Normally I'd entrust such tasks to my long-suffering dad - who is a talented engineer - but because he's suffering from back problems I thought I'd do something dangerously unprecedented in my petrolhead life thus far.

With all the parts already ordered in, I thought I'd have a go at mending the problems myself.

It was a great plan. I'd set off at the crack of dawn this morning in the MX-5, pick up some spark plugs for the Rover, and appoint my dad as project manager while I changed the MGB's candle-in-a-jam-jar headlights for some halogen jobs. With this simple job out of the way, I'd then switch the cracked hose on the freshly cooled MX-5 for a new one, swap it for the Rover and treat that to a new distributor cap, leads and spark plugs. I had all the bits I needed, a full Saturday to do it in and a talented engineer - albeit one who couldn't, thanks to a spot of sciatica, do anything involving physical labour - to advise me.

Sadly that's not exactly how it worked out.

For starters, the MX-5 decided it wasn't going to play ball, and decided at the exact moment of me pulling into PartCo's car park that the my pre-mend bodging wasn't up to scratch. As the man behind the till passed me the Rover's leads and plugs, he looked past my shoulder and out of the window, at the increasingly sick-looking Mazda.

After giving me a slightly worried glance, he asked: "Would you, by any chance, be needing any K-Seal as well?". 

"Yeah, it might not be a bad idea," I responded, before he gave his diagnosis.

"Your car looks like it's about to explode."

Half an hour, a bottle of K-Seal's finest and three miles of automotive limping later and I was ready to crack on with the first of the three tasks - swapping the MG's lights over. It should've taken, at most, half an hour, but everything that could possibly have gone wrong did go wrong. We blew fuses. We rounded screws. We ended up getting endlessly frustrated by impossibly fiddly bits of wiring which could only really be solved by suddenly sprouting a second set of arms. Worst of all, we'd underestimated that dark force of the UK's classic car scene; British Leyland electrics. All the coffee, minor injuries and swearing in the world can't beat that one!

Several hours later and the idiot/cripple team had to throw in the towel, when the talented-but-injured member of our double act found it just too painful, literally and metaphorically, to carry on. Frustratingly, even after all that grafting I'm at the exact same point I was this morning, with an MG with a single working headlight, a Mazda that thinks it's a kettle and a Rover which refuses to start if the weather's being a bit British. 

Naturally, there's only one way to deal with this humiliating defeat on a trio of relatively simple mechanical tasks. Have another go tomorrow, of course...

2012 has been a year of great motoring moments

STRANGER things, I guess, have happened, but I’ll share it with you anyway. As the clocks chime midnight and drunks everywhere usher in a New Year, the most popular Life On Cars piece of 2012 was about the Raleigh Chopper. Which isn’t a car at all.

Still, there were plenty of proper motoring moments – you know, ones involving cars – which I’ve enjoyed over the past 12 months. Here’s ten of my favourites:

1) Doing an advanced driving lesson... in a Lotus Evora S 

2012 marked the year when I took the plunge with the Institute of Advanced Motorists and did their advanced driving course (thoroughly recommended, by the way). I did all of the lessons in my Mazda MX-5 – which was fun in itself – except for the one week when I had a supercharged Lotus Evora S at my disposal. There are probably more sensible choices for what’s basically a driving lesson than a mid-engined supercar, but I used it anyway. Big fun...

2) Setting a blisteringly fast lap time in a Wigan cotton mill 

Literally, as the sharp pain in my hands – shot to bits from fighting furiously with a tiny steering wheel – proved for hours afterwards, but a karting race organised a birthday treat for Yours Truly was well worth it. If you’ve ever fancied flinging a go-kart around a two-storey track crafted from an old cotton mill, give Elite Karting in Wigan a bell. Then again, the three seconds my mate shaved off every lap over mine meant he lapped me twice in our 40 minute race. He still hasn’t let me live that down...

3) Driving a Rover which refuses to give up 

The MGB GT and the MX-5 are undoubtedly the glamour models of the Life On Cars fleet, but when the going gets tough it was always the ancient Rover 214 that’d be called upon – and it delivered, time after time, without a whisper of complaint. In February, it drifted its way across a Cumbrian snowdrift which had defeated a much newer BMW 1-Series, a MINI and a SEAT Leon. Then it sailed right the way across the country to deliver two people and a week’s worth of camping gear safely in Norfolk, and got back again, without a hiccup, and only last month it freed a far heavier Mondeo Estate from a muddy campsite. Not bad for a car costing £300. Rover and Honda engineers of the late Eighties... I salute you!

4) Pitting sports cars against hot hatches in Mid Wales 

We took four performance hits to the utterly wonderful A44 and found four very different ways to get your motoring kicks. Given the choice between a Volkswagen Polo G40 (ultra rare hot hatch from the people who brought you the Golf GTI, with added supercharger whine), a Rover Metro GTi (affordable, rev-happy and goes like stink), a Mazda MX-5 (slowest of the bunch but the only one with rear-drive and the option of driving al fresco) or a Ford Racing Puma (pretty, rare, quick and controversial – see number nine) which would you pick?

5) Going back in time 

Obviously not literally but on the few occasions when I brought the MGB GT to the right road, on the right day, it really was like driving in a simpler bygone age. This heady blend of high-octane petrol, 20w50 oil and Rostyle wheels - which proved a big hit at this year’s Ormskirk MotorFest – provided a nostalgic treat, which is best expressed in moody, monochrome pictorial form. Like the shot you see above.

6) Discovering that you don’t need four wheels to make a great car 

 A couple of people have already asked me how a three-wheeled car with a 1920s body, skinny tyres, a motorbike engine bolted to the front and an absence of any doors, windscreen, windows or roof can possibly be good enough to be named as the best thing I’ve driven in a year that’s produced such hits as the Toyota GT-86. But it just is. Take a Morgan Threewheeler out for a blast down on a country lane on a sunny day – in fact any day, come to think of it – and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

7) Capturing the moment at the Ormskirk MotorFest

The special online magazines made by Life On Cars are, by and large, quite well received (which, given it was only ever meant to be a one-off originally, is a good thing). The edition I wrote with the cooperation of the Ormskirk MotorFest organisers, however, went a bit further than that, being read not by a few dozen or even hundred people, but by thousands of people. I just hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did researching, writing and producing the thing!

8) Driving Britain’s best roads... in an MX-5 

 The Buttertubs Pass is great in any car but when you’re in something as delicately balanced as an MX-5 it feels a little bit extra special (although the bright evening sunlight didn’t help). But even that wonderful moment couldn’t top the occasion when what seemed like a farm track in the middle of nowhere eventually brought us out onto the road between Pentrefoelas and Ffestiniog, which is one of the most spectacular bits of tarmac I’ve ever encountered. To have discovered it any car would’ve been fun but it was even better being behind the wheel of a great little sports car.

9) Discussing whether the Ford Racing Puma deserves its classic-in-waiting status 

Just one of the many pub arguments I’ve had with the small-but-dedicated group of petrolheads who hold Life On Cars’ automotive assertions to account. Other topics to get The Farmers’ Arms treatment include whether or not off-roaders are stupid and pointless, whether a Toyota GT-86 is better than a top-of-the-range MX-5 and if in cash-strapped 2012 MPG was more important than MPH. For these endless hours of entertaining discussion, I thank this small group of people who know who they are.

10) Raising £126 for charidee

Finally, there was the night when Life On Cars and the region’s petrolheads came together to help support a very good cause by taking part in a pub quiz with a difference – all the questions were motoring-related. Even though there was a broken sound system, a very drunk Nigel Mansell fan and a slight mistake in a motorbike question to deal with, the night still managed to raise £126 for the National Autistic Society. You never know, there might even be another one in 2013...

Make no mistake, 2012’s been a great year for motoring moments and Life On Cars will continue giving you a petrolhead perspective throughout 2013. Happy New Year!

Rover to the rescue in the Lake District

THE glamorous motoring missions don't usually get thrown the Rover's way.

While the MX-5 gets tasked with tackling the tricky mountain roads and the MG gets to strut its stuff at shows, my 1995 214SEi is usually doing the dowdier jobs, trundling to the shops and taking bits of unwanted furniture to the tip.

Yet on a weekend away in the wilds of Cumbria, it's more than proved its worth.

Having decided to spend a night away with a few friends in a camping pod near Ullswater (well worth a try, by the way) I pointed the Rover's square-rigged nose north up the M6 for the dash up to Cumbria. When I tried exactly the same journey in the MGB earlier this year it was genuinely hard work - not only was it slurping a gallon of premium unleaded every 25 miles, but it was noisy, heavy and, thanks to a firing problem, not all that fast either. The MX-5's motorway manners are far better but its tiny boot meant it was a no-no for the camping trip, and, still haunted my memories of a hairy moment with it on the wet Cumbrian roads this time last year, I decided its tail-happy sense of fun and country lanes covered in mud and wet leaves made no good mix.

Not that taking the £300 Rover was a bad bet, because what it lacked in excitement it made up for in comfort, its parsimonious take on drinking petrol and its sheer determination to plod on, no matter what I threw at it. I threw it at mountain roads. I forced it up steep hills. I caked it in mud. I loaded it up with clothes, clobber and camping gear. Not once did it complain.

I knew it wouldn't - this being the same Rover that refused to be beaten by snow in Grasmere, the Evo Triangle in North Wales or the enduring feat of getting to Norfolk in back in baking sunshine - but by far its finest hour was last night, when a mate's much newer, much heavier Mondeo Estate got stuck in the mud on a boggy campsite. Even though there was a Land Rover Defender parked nearby, nobody was around to drive it, so it was down to an ancient, front-drive Rover to tow the stricken Mondeo out.

Even though the Rover's clutch gave off a distinctly evil smell and the tow rope eventually snapped under the strain, the £300 hatch eventually managed to free an estate car weighing nearly twice as much and save the day. We toasted our success of a few pints of the local brew in the campsite pub later that night, but we couldn't have done it without the plucky little Rover which refuses to give up.

Great car.

Rover engines that (don't quite) go bump in the night

FOLLOWING my poking fun at one BMW’s less than finest moment the other day, I breathed a sigh of relief at not having to deal with a rather more British breakdown before!

My Rover 214SEi might not be the most exciting bit of motoring ever made but it has a special place outside the Simister household because it does all the things the clapped out old sports cars don’t; it always does upwards of 30 to the gallon, it’s quiet, comfy and by and large lives a largely breakdown-free existence.

Considering it cost just £300 it’s definitely been one of my better buys, getting me everywhere from the Scottish borders to Bedfordshire, from the furthest reaches of Snowdonia to the church spires of York. In fact, just last week it managed to make it all the way to a campsite in the Norfolk Broads crammed with camping gear, and get back again. It’s a car that’s earned my respect by doing what it does brilliantly.

Aside from the well-publicised head gasket maladies long suffered by Rovers powered by the company’s K-Series engine, its biggest Achilles heel is that it struggles to start if you leave it standing for days on end in damp conditions. Given this week’s weather forecast and that it refused to play ball when I got back from my trip to Germany last year, I decided to play safe, leave it at my parents’ place and let them look after the old dog for a few days. A better bet than risking it, leaving it in downpours for days on end and then expecting it to miraculously burst into life.

Famous last words, and all that.

It was on the train heading back from Manchester Airport that I got the call. My dad, keen to make sure everything on the Rover was up and running, popped down to the local petrol station, popped a few quid’s worth of petrol in....and then discovered he couldn’t start it. Even the starter motor wouldn’t turn. Zilch. Nothing.

It’s hard enough dealing with a kaput car at the best of times, but when you’re over an hour away on the train and unable to do much to help it becomes that bit more stressful, and the mental images of a peeved-looking parent leaning under an open bonnet rain became too much to take. In desperation I rang Gaz, my long-suffering mate in the mechanic trade, to see if he could drive the five minutes up the road and take a look at the stranded Rover.

Which I’m glad he did. It turned out the reason why my old man, more familiar with cars from the Seventies and Eighties, couldn’t get the Rover going was because he couldn’t get its admittedly unfathomable immobiliser switched off. Naturally, as soon as it was the leather-lined Brit burst into life without so much as a cough. A close call!

I touched the (plastic) wood on the dashboard. My Rover’s back to its reliable old self!

How to pick up a classic luxury Rover for peanuts

YOU DON'T park a Rover P6. You dock it, like a luxury liner.

A luxury liner, as it turns out, that my mate's just sailed into port for less than a grand. He was going to buy a brace of Triumph Spitfires long past their sell-by-date as a job lot, but decided at the last minute he'd rather go for the leather-lined barge from the Sixties instead. I don't blame him, because what the old girl lacks in sportiness and open top thrills it makes up for in style and caddish character.

Naturally, at that sort of money it needs a bit of work but it was still in good enough nick for me to take a pew in the leather-lined captain's chair and fire it up, treating both us to one of motoring's greatest soundtracks - the baritone burble of Rover's 3.5 litre V8. The car door Vinnie Jones used to such brutal effect in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels was a P6's, so Guy Ritchie obviously agrees with me that the old Rover's got a geezerish swagger to its style, but that engine note and the laid-back performance it brings is undoubtedly the P6's best feature.

It's also the reason why I wouldn't - no, couldn't - buy one, because one of my all time favourite saloons has also got an unquenchable thirst for the jungle juice. The only P6 I'd ever want is the V8 version, but because I can't afford to run something that struggles to get 15 miles to the gallon the ocean liner Rover is out of the question. Helpfully, the Government's agreed to suspend its plans to raise fuel duty, but for P6 perusers it just isn't enough.

I hopped back into my own Rover, the rather more realistic 200 Series of Hyacinth Bucket vintage, and quickly realised there is a way to blend the reliability (don't laugh) of the later cars, engineered with BMW and Honda help, with the Midsomer Murders looks of the old ones. You might laugh now but the Rover 75 is motoring's bargain of the moment.

It's got all the style and comfort of the old P5s and P6s but thanks to Rover's turbulent tumble towards extinction and the car itself having all the street cred of a pensioner's bus pass good 75s can be readily picked up for less than a grand. Trendy it isn't but it's a lot of car for the money.

More importantly, the 75 is tomorrow's P6 - I'll eat my own shoes if collectors aren't fighting for the good ‘uns in 15 years time. Get yours now while they're still peanuts...

Why everybody (still) loves a Land Rover

"OFF-ROADERS are stupid and pointless," a friend suggested as we shot along the M6 somewhere near Stafford a fortnight ago. "You just don't need them."

All you need in an everyday car, he reckoned, is something cheap, comfortable, easy to look after and equipped with a healthy bit of oomph. Something, he reckoned, that's a lot like his turbodiesel Citroen Xsara. Anything with four wheel drive or knobbly tyres is just unecessary and expensive.

Seeing said mate utilise this argument - and win - hurt because I've always had a soft spot for 4x4s, and I don't mean the blinged-up, over-imposing "lifestyle" efforts from BMW and Audi either. I mean the off-roaders of the old school, the Jeeps, Isuzus and Shoguns with their unpretentious styling and obligatory Ifor Williams trailers. I especially like Land Rovers, particularly the proper ones which look like they've been styled on an Etch-a-Sketch. But having a soft spot wasn't winning an argument in the mildest winter we've seen in years.

Lukily, I found the answer I was looking for last weekend, when I ventured beyond my usual stomping ground into a place best known as The Countryside. There, there are hills and rivers and windy little lanes made muddy by the near-constant flow of tractors among them. Out there almost every house has a proper off-roader parked outside it, and when it suddenly started snowing I realised why.

After just a few hours The Countryside was no longer green and pleasant; it was like being trapped inside a Christmas card, only with more BBC Look North crews telling you off over the airwaves because you forgot to pack Ray Mears and a shovel into the boot. Naturally, I'd forgotten to bother with either.


With seven inches of the slippery white stuff to tackle my trusty old Rover did alright but I still wished it'd had the word "Land" in front of its name. Certainly, any Land Rover would have been better than the 11-reg SEAT Leon half a dozen of us had to push out of trouble, or the MINI Cooper which struggled to get over a humpback bridge without spinning its wheels, or the BMW 1-Series at the side of the A591 next to a driver who'd just given up trying.

On this cold, slippery, unforgiving day in The Countryside, nobody wanted the Porsches or BMWs the tourists had brought into the village the night before. But absolutely everybody wanted the 25-year-old Range Rover which was darting around the village completely unaffected. Like the local council's rather scabbier Defenders it was untroubled by the conditions, but it also exuded class in a way a brand-new X5 doesn't.

So off-roaders - proper ones at least - aren't stupid and pointless. Just ask anyone who lives in The Countryside.

Driving delight in Dolgellau

THE line of vintage lorries taking on one of Snowdonia's steepest mountain passes were putting my own efforts to shame.

I honestly thought, with the Rover's engine note rising from its usual simmer to an urgent third gear hum, that I was doing well. The A470 just south of Bleanau Ffestiniog is a bit of a desolate place at the best of times, packed with challenging corners and tricky inclines, and I summised that I done rather well there on what was a wet, cold and windy morning in the wilds of Wales.

Then I saw the parade of ERFs, Scammels and Cammells chugging faithfully up the other side (albeit rather more slowly, and presumably on their way to a show somewhere). The same road that broken me into a sweat was no problem at all for lorries older than my parents. Still, that was the only downside of two days of being let loose on the wonderful, empty roads of one of my favourite parts of the world.

I love driving in Wales for all sorts of reasons. There is, for example, the cerebral joy of pulling up in places with names like Cwmllecoediog, and the frustration of trying to pronounce them properly. Then there's the food, the drinks and the people you come across on your travels, all of which are second to none. But best of all are the miles and miles of empty roads which wind their way across some of Britain's most rugged scenery. Some of the best ones, like the famed Evo Triangle, are little pieces of petrolhead heaven less than two hours from Liverpool and Manchester.


Usually, I'd head towards the Horseshoe and Llanberis Passes but this time a journalistic assignment in Dolgellau gave me the chance to discover some equally cracking driving further south than I'd usual venture, but it's well worth a try. If you ever find yourself in Dolgellau with a couple of hours to kill, enough money to pay for 100 miles of motoring and even a vaguely nice car then I can happily reccomend the following; the A487 to Aberystwyth, A44 as far as Llanidloes, the backroads past the beautiful Llyn Clywedog reservoir, hit the A470 at Llanbrynmair and then blast yourself over the mountains back to your starting point.

View Larger Map

It's hard work, but you'll love it. I just wish I could drive roads like these more often...

David Simister's review of his destination in Dolgellau - the charming Cross Foxes hotel - will appear in the next issue of GR8Life Magazine.

Maxing it at Millbrook again

IT was somewhere near Milton Keynes that my right foot finally, after 13 hours of near constant-driving, began to throb.

The easiest and quickest way to get from the Millbrook Proving Ground, where I've just spent another day speed-dating cars, to the bit of the north west I call home is to head up the M1. Unfortunately, a nasty accident meant it was shut, so my photographer and I ended up snakng through the nation's favourite New Town instead, through what must be the world's longest traffic jam. But I didn't care, because it ended a day of motoring moments I'll never forget.

In true Life On Cars tradition, there'll be full road tests of each of the 15 cars I tested appearing on here in the coming weeks but for now I can tell you that:

• I've finally found an electric car I like, after driving the remarkably unremarkable Citroen C-Zero.

• The car everyone was itching to get a go in wasn't a Bentley or a Jag, but a Vauxhall. After finding out what the VXR8 (pictured) feels like under full throttle, I now know why.

• The Audi A1 is one of the year's big surprises, but probably not for the reasons you might expect.

• Suzuki could have a hit on its hands with its first ever big saloon, the intruiging Kazashi.

• I don't understand why there aren't more Infinitis out there, after I discovered the G37 Convertible is not only a cosseted cruiser, but surprisingly good fun to drive.

• Peugeot, the people who brought you the cracking RC Z last year, are still on a roll. The 508 is a motorway machine par excellence.

• I think, after much searching, I've found the true successor to the slightly loopy Bond Bug of the Seventies.

• The Citroen DS3 Racing, which is one of my favourite cars of last year fitted with an enormous turbocharger, an absolute blast to drive. So much so that one of the other journalists crashed it.

But the real star of the day, unbelievably, was the Rover 200 I'd used to get there. Sure, it doesn't have the polish, the precision or the punch of any of the new cars I drove but it didn't complain once, munching up hundreds of motorway miles quietly and comfortably.

I'd set off from Southport at 4.30am, snaked through traffic for hours on end in Bedfordshire and covered more than 400 miles, but when I finally rolled up at 11 'o' clock last night I was unruffled, relaxed and full of praise for the Rover. On a day where I'd had all sorts of shiny new cars at my disposal, it was a comfy cruiser which impressed endlessly.

Not bad for a car that cost £300.

Classic cars make financial sense. Honest

THIS week, I'm contemplating starting my midlife crisis at least a decade early. How young - or old - do you have to be to own a flash convertible?

Ironically, I've been pondering this dilemma, pint in hand, because the cost of driving a family hatchback around is soaring. Petrol, the last time I looked, was a scary £1.36 a litre, but the real rise is the one which doesn't get reported very often. The cost of car insurance, whisper it quietly, has rocketed over the past two years.

There is method in the madness, and I know this because I already own one old sports car. A year's fully comp in my everyday runaround, an elderly Rover 200, is £700, which is twice what I paid for the car. Logically, you'd reason the cost of me running around in my MGB, which is faster, more valuable and infinitely more treacherous on a wet roundabout, would be in the thousands for a dangerous twentysomething like me. But it isn't. It's £150 a year.

Why? Because the MG's covered by a specialist classic car policy, which limits me to 6,000 miles a year (what I'd usually drive anyway) and classic car owners are considered by the insurance industry not to be throttle-happy hedonists, but careful drivers who lock their toys away in garages and trailer them to shows. The upshot is that the cost of normal car insurance has shot up and classic insurance hasn't.

Because I've made the mistake of being young, insurance is the single biggest car expense I have, so the idea of saving money to keep an old classic on the road rather than the Go Compare tenor on the telly is wickedly tempting. I would love, for instance, the idea of an original Mazda MX-5 in the garage, which is both old enough to be considered a classic and reliable enough to actually get you to work.

It's not even as if you need it to be a two-seater sports car either, because there's no reason you couldn't get the likes of a Golf GTi or an original BMW M5, which you can just about pretend are practical family cars, if you've got dogs or kids to haul around. Even the very first Renault Espaces, which are now well over 25 years old, can get classic cover if you ask the insurers nicely enough. Sure, they might cost you more than a knackered old banger to buy, but in most cases a carefully-chosen classic will go up - not down - in value.

All you need now is some cheap petrol to run them around on. Oh wait...

Prepare to fire up the... MG 6

AN ICONIC name from Britain's motoring past is making a comeback - and no, it's not the old sports car currently in the Life On Cars garage either.

The MG 6 is the first all new car from MG, now in Chinese ownership, since the MGF sports car of 1995, but the latest model's a five-door hatchback which the company's hoping will bring a bit of upmarket cachet to the small car sector.

“This is a milestone day for the iconic MG brand and for the UK automotive industry. MG has begun the international launch of an all new model that has been designed and engineered here in the UK, for the global automotive market.”

“Currently we only build and sell the mid-engined MG TF sports car here in the UK, but we can now look forward to expanding the range of MG products,” Guy Jones, Sales and Marketing Director for MG Motor UK said.

MG is a fondly remembered name with British car lovers, and is best remembered for its MGA and MGB sports cars of the Fifties and Sixties, the MG Metro and Maestro hot hatches of the 1980s and more recently for taking on Mazda's MX-5 with its mid-engined MGF.

But the company, as part of MG Rover Group, went into administration in 2005 and is now owned by the Shanghai Automotive Industry Cooperation, who revived the badge on the MG 7, a revised and sportier version of the Rover 75, and the the MG TF, the latest version of the longstanding sports car. The Rover name, which was passed onto Ford by previous licence holders BMW, is now owned by Tata as part of its Jaguar Land Rover group.

The new model, a distant relation to the old Rover 75, is currently built by MG's owners in China but will be made in the UK later this year, and is powered by heavily updated versions of Rover's K-Series engines. The 6 is also expected to be followed by a smaller supermini, the MG 3, later this year.

It's a brave move into a tough market for MG's owners, but with a prestigious badge and patriotic appeal on its side the company might just pull it off.

The key to really enjoying your next car

EVEN though it's unlikely I'll ever drive the Huayra, the latest unaffordable, unpronouncable supercar from automotive pornography purveyors Pagani, I'm fairly certain of its best feature.

The key, it seems, to this millionaire motor is the key itself. It's actually a carefully sculpted scale model of the Zonda supercar's replacement and the latest proof that a long-held theory of mine is actually true; that the keys for your car are so much more important than being just tools to start it up each morning.

Take the Suzuki Swift Sport I've just spent a week with. This cracking little car is one of the best hot hatches on sale today, as you'll read elsewhere on Life On Cars, and - being both a riot to drive and small, cheap and kind to the environment - the perfect car for Cameron's Britain.

It's just a shame that the apologetic slab of plastic that serves as a key, distinguished only by the company's ‘S' logo and two plipper buttons, gives you no clue to the character of the car itself.

My Rover's even worse, because while there's no car logo to give away what you drive, people would guess it's something cheap and plasticky because that's exactly how the keyfob is. A regal and refined old car, with distant allusions to the glorious P6 of the late Sixties, has been ruined by a rubbish key.

Aston Martin keys, on the other hand, are beautiful crystal affairs, which you place carefully into a crevace in the dashboard as though it's a plot device from an Indiana Jones film, but you don't have to own a supercar to get yourself a superkey. I have, for instance, never been a fan of the current Vauxhall Corsa, but it does at least have in its favour a beautifully made key that's strangely enjoyable to use. This is important consumer advice, honest!

Admittedly the key is just one of a mountain of parts used to make your motor, but I reckon more manufacturers should follow Pagani's lead and show a bit more flair with it.

Now, if only I could tell you whether the Huayra is as good as its key...

Battling the Welsh weather? Choose your weapon...

A FAST Ford, a classic Mini, a regal old Rover and a vivacious Italian supermini. Given the choice and a wet weekend in the wilds of Wales, which would you take?

It's not a question you've ever needed to answer before but - in the noble interests of Life On Cars research - a few friends and I have ventured over the border and battled with flash flooding, high winds and twisty roads strewn with rocks and tree branches, so you won't have to. Oh, and sampled a few of the best roads in Britain while we were at it.

Our mission for the weekend was to head to Llandudno to meet up with an annual parade of old Minis which meet up on the town's promenade for a special display, but given only one of our party was actually in one we decided to give the official route a miss and head over the mountains and through the valleys. If you fancy giving it a go yourself tap some of the following phrases into your computer; Horseshoe Pass, Evo Triangle, Llanberis Pass, accident recovery.

I've always enjoyed a good road as much as a good car, making the route we'd chosen a sort of petrolhead's paradise; twisty, challenging, and blessed with stunning scenery instead of traffic. Thanks to the miracle of Google Street View you can even check out these captivating roads long before you reach them.

The four machines we'd brought along, I wager, were all brilliant in their own particular way and yet none were really perfect either for the job of providing hours of fun and frolics on narrow, twisty lanes while surviving torrential rain and battering gales.

The Ford Mondeo ST Estate, for instance, was the fastest and comfiest, but more than once it struggled to get round some of the tighter bends on account of it being so big. The Fiat Punto a friend had brought along and the Rover 214 I was travelling in could, but you always got the sense they were designed for stages smaller than the testing terrain of a really, really challenging road in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, the one car I was coveting the entire trip was the Mini in my mirrors, because having owned one I know its pin-sharp steering and bouncy suspension would easily have made up for the shortfall in the engine department. Well, I coveted it right up until it refused to start the following morning, helping me to remember that they don't make 'em like they used to. They make 'em better.

The answer is that doesn't matter which of our unlikely foursome you take to the thrilling mountain passes in this captivating corner of Wales. You'll be enjoying yourself so much, it won't matter.

It's snow joke when you're not actually a rally driver

MY apologies to the annoyed-looking man across the road.

Regular readers will be delighted to know that my battle to get my No Claims Bonus recognised by the Rover's insurers has finally been won, after they finally accepted the mountain of paperwork I'd sent through as proof of me being a careful driver.

A reputation hard earned and very nearly ruined by tonight's weather.

Regular readers will also know that the idea of driving on snow doesn't terrify me as much as it probably should; in fact, I actually relish the challenge of ploughing through it, because it's a great excuse to practise your car control skills. That and secretly pretend you're about to win the Rally Sweden.

The old Life On Cars Mini was, as you'd expect, utterly brilliant on the white stuff, being light and nimble and perfectly balanced, which in turn meant when you did lose grip at surprisingly slow speeds it was an easy slide to catch. This could, I wager, be part of the reason why the original Mini Cooper S was a three-times Monte Carlo rally winner.

You might have forgotten the Renault 5's got rally pedigree too; true, all the high-profile victories might have gone to the mid-engined 5 Turbo but the front-engined one, which is far more closely related to my old £100 banger, actually proved quite a capable hot hatch in the handling stakes. While it was never as nimble as the Mini, it was a lot more reassuring.

So it's a shame the Rover 214, a bigger, heavier car which focuses more on opulent trim than opposite lock, hasn't quite passed the snow test. It's comfy, don't get me wrong, but it's also not a six-year-old schoolchild of car that wants to come out and play whenever it snows.

Put simply, I spun it. Sorry...

A problem that'll take two years to solve

I HAVE a revelation which will shock number-crunchers everywhere; 24 months is no longer the same length as two years!

With the house gaily decorated, presents underneath the tree and the weather outside on the wintry side I know it's that special time of year again; the time when I get annoyed with the car insurance industry. This year, it's over the idea that 24 months and two years aren't the same thing.

I insured my Rover knowing I have one full year of No Claims Bonus from 2009 on the old Mini, 11 months on the Renault 5 this year and another six on another policy covering the Mini, which overall, is more than two years' worth of driving, during which time I haven't made a single claim.

Fairly enough, the Rover's insurers wanted proof of this, and although I haven't had all the paperwork to hand I've sent details of the NCB proof I have to hand right now - the two from this year - which both they and the previous company agree counts as one years' NCB between them. I am also in the process of sending the policy on the Mini which I had in 2009, which when it arrives in the post, will confirm a second 12 months of not claiming.

What I'm worried about is that the Rover's insurers won't see it that way, in which case I owe them £115 for the privilege of redefining how long 24 months is.

What's worse, the warning letter they sent to me on November 28th gave me ten days to sort my affairs out, which I would have done had one of my relatives not decided it was his post, ignored it, come back to it and then told me more than a week after he'd got it that I "might want to sort it out". So essentially I'm running the risk of being penalised to the tune of £115 because someone else had picked up my post and neglected to mention it.

I'm not the stereotypical Yoof who cost the car insurance industry millions by just not bothering at all; I insure all my cars fairly, squarely and honestly, I drive safely, I pay their ridiculously high premiums on the dot and - most importantly for them - I don't ring them up with those bothersome "claims" they're always moaning about. Yes, I'm a petrolhead, but I'm one who doesn't break the law.

Maybe, when I'm older and wiser, I'll share this story with my children in 20 years' time. Oh no, wait, make that 240 months...