MY WEEK IN CARS
MONDAY
An interesting snapshot of modern media at work. There I was, driving along in the Audi with photographer Jack Harrison snapping routine at-the-wheel pictures for an Our Cars report (see p54). On a narrow, steep road behind the South Downs, with no warning at all, an ultra-rare Aston Martin Valour, one of the latest 705bhp, £1 million-plus, limited-run hypercars, burst out of a tight corner ahead, coming fast towards us.
In a flash, Harrison dropped his regular camera, pulled out his phone and snapped a perfect picture of the Aston, a car we reckon must have been liberated from a customer test day at nearby Goodwood. Within minutes, the image was on social media. By the evening, it had garnered 40,000 views.
It also completely changed my view of Harrison, who I’d previously viewed as a friendly, smart but essentially normal bloke. Turns out he has the fingers of a brain surgeon and the hand speed of Wyatt Earp.
TUESDAY
Pangs of regret when the bloke came today to collect the Renault Zoe I’ve been driving for a ‘goodbye’ story that we’ll run soon. It’s making way for the new Renault 5 EV that’s due to be unveiled at Geneva next week. It struck me (again) that for multi-car households like ours, a Zoe-like incumbent is the best solution. It lets you embrace EVs without pain. This little car (a steal on the nearly new market) would make a zero-emissions job of nearly all of our motoring while we use ICE alternatives for rare long journeys. It seems the perfect solution while we wait for big EVs to acquire reliable long ranges and for public charging infrastructure to make intercity travel truly carefree.
WEDNESDAY
Friends who don’t love cars the way you and I do need to replace their 100,000-mile Volkswagen Golf diesel. They would like to pollute less but don’t want to plug in. My answer is a Toyota Corolla, which of course has an excellent, Priusdeveloped, ‘self-charging’ hybrid system.
We’ve had a Corolla on the Autocar fleet for ages, and without being rapid, noisy or super-agile, it has become a favourite. It’s smooth, simple, comfortable and quiet. It also reliably yields 60mpg (my gold standard after two years’ Dacia Duster diesel ownership) and is reputed to have achieved 80mpg in the expert hands of our road test editor, Matt Saunders.
Given that my friends’ local Toyota dealer “seems a nice bloke”, I reckon they’ll d
