Steve Cropley
MONDAY
Guess what? I’ve bought a Ford Ranger Raptor. Not any old Raptor, though: I now own the very same machine, coloured Code Orange and with 13,000 miles on the clock, that has been in the benign ownership of fellow columnist and pod-jockey Mr Matthew Prior for the past few months as a long-term test car. In this very magazine he writes a poignant goodbye (it’s on p54), although for him it need not now be so final. He can borrow it any time.
Some time ago I reckoned our household deserved a fourth car, something a bit off the wall. I fell in love with Raptors long ago and drove one a lot last Christmas. I love the shape and size, the indestructibility and the Fordness (I was practically born in the back of an Aussie Ford Falcon ute). Most of all I love the Raptor’s surprises: the yowl of the twin-turbocharged V6 on song, the smoothness of the 10-speed auto, the near-silent off-road tyres, the cruising refinement, the steering, the brakes, the damping. I have already had it a few weeks (magazine scheduling can run a bit behind reality) and am delighted. A few puzzled people don’t understand my choice, which has caused me to frame a new definition for true friends: they’re people who understand and accept whatever car decision you make.
TUESDAY
I spent the morning writing about the impressive Renault Scenic, driven for the first time on our roads and emerging with honour (see p31). However, for me the big feature of the car is a solitary button, coming soon to all Renaults. Scenics have no fewer than 30 forms of electronic driver protection (ADAS if you prefer) as standard, grouped under the Safety Shield title. EU law requires these gizmos – lane departure, speed limit bongs and all the rest – to start journeys in a working state. But Renault has come up with a single button that lets you configure all these systems as you want: you push it once as you start and get your preferred electronic recipe. As it happens, the Scenic’s systems are far less annoying than some, but it’s that button I like. It’s going to start a revolution.
WEDNESDAY
A recent report on BEV progress from the House of Lords committee gets my attention and makes blindingly good sense. It exhorts government and industry to come up with a simple, uniformly understood battery health standard for used EVs. Apparently concern about battery condition deters used EV buyers and attacks the cars’ residual v
