Twenty-five miles per hour. On a derestricted national road. That’s how fast
the little Peugeot was going. Queen Victoria would have called it slow.
There were tribes in pre-human Ethiopia that would have called it slow. On
the Beaufort scale, twenty-five miles per hour isn’t even classified as a
light breeze.
Naturally, there was a huge snake in the Peugeot’s wake. Trucks. Vans.
Bicycles. Oxen. People going to work. And me, on my way to Birmingham
airport. If I’d known I was going to be travelling so slowly I’d have used a
horse.
To begin with I was mildly irritated, mostly by my children in the back who
wondered out loud and quite often if we were going to miss the plane. “Miss
the plane?” I sneered. “At this rate we’ll probably miss the end of the
world.”
But after 15 minutes the irritation had become rage. “Why,” I shouted,
“doesn’t he just commit suicide.”
After half an hour I was incandescent. If I’d had a knife and fork I’d have
forced his car to the side of the road and eaten him.
Finally we reached the motorway, and as I tore past I noted he was a hundred
and forty twelve, a walnut-faced osteoporotic and grey shadow of his former
self. I should have felt remorse that I’d harboured such unkind thoughts
about a man who’d served his country in the Crimea and in the Spanish war of
succession, and probably at Hastings too. But instead I gave serious
consideration to ramming his Peugeot into a bridge parapet.
Later I was at the airport check-in desk. “No. I haven’t allowed anyone to put
any explosives in my bag.” “Yes, someone could easily have loaded a pair of
scissors when I wasn’t looking but I’m buggered if I’m going to admit that
to you.”
And then, out of nowhere, another double-centurion shuffled straight past the
queue, arrived at the desk and announced in a voice that sounded like the
rustling of dried straw that he’d lost his boarding pass.
So we waited 20 minutes while it was found, in the top left pocket of his
jerkin, and then began what can only be termed a sprint to security, where a
man, who actually remembers the story on which Mel Gibson’s new film is
based, walked straight past the ticket checker, straight past the queue and
straight through that x-ray machine customs men use for looking at women’s
knickers. It didn’t buzz so much as explode.
And again the whole business of catching a plane ground to a halt as he took
off his shoes, and his anorak, and his hearing aid, and emptied his bag of
knives, Denture Sure, cream, potions and all the other million things Mr
Blair thinks could be converted into a bomb.
So then we’re on the plane waiting for just two more passengers. And waiting.
And eventually on they came, with their combined age of a million. And by
the time they’d been bent into the sort of shape that would actually fit in
an airline seat we’d missed our slot.
And I began to decide that there must come a time when really old people are
not allowed out in public.
Of course they must be looked after and fed, but going out? No, because behind
the wheel someone of 90 is as much of a nuisance as someone of nine. And
would you let your children loose on their own in an airport? Of course not.
So why think for a moment that your parents will fare any better? It’s hard
enough trying to forge a path through life when we are beset on all sides by
Romanian beggars, Bulgarian hitmen and government-sponsored extortion
schemes.
But it’s doubly difficult when your passage through the Cotswolds is blocked
by King Herod doing 25mph.
Of course chaining old people to their wingbacks will never happen. In fact
things will get worse. New drugs will give the elderly a sense that all is
working, even though they are going out with their spectacles in the fridge
and a pair of onions balanced on their nose.
The only solution, then, is to buy a car with so much power that no matter how
small the gap you can always get past. This, of course, brings us to the
door of Mitsubishi’s new Evo IX FQ-360, which is not to be confused with
either the IX FQ-400, or the IX FQ-340, 320 or 300. And though it may look
the same as the old VIII MR FQ, it isn’t the same as that either.
Like all modern technology, the Evo’s nomenclature is deliberately designed to
confuse the elderly. Anyone who grew up with the Austin 7 is going to be
driven screaming from the showroom by the sheer complexity of all those
letters and numbers.
The car, too, is designed to terrify those whose bones are brittle and whose
minds have lost the ability to deal with mini-roundabouts or clearly marked
signs saying “Queue Here”.
It doesn’t glide or fly, this car. It darts. And it doesn’t purr or snarl
either. It shouts. Honestly, I’m amazed it doesn’t come with an electronic
ankle bracelet and a Burberry roof.
The Evo is now in its ninth incarnation. The shuffle from one to the next has
been subtle, like the movement in one of Gromit’s ears. Only if you compare
the ninth to, say, the fourth do you see a perceptible advance.
In essence they’re all staggeringly brilliant. Hard and uncompromising and
loud, yes. But capable of such immense speed, especially round corners, that
anyone who likes driving even just a little bit is always left gasping for
breath. My wife, who uses an Aston V8 as her everyday car, says that the Evo
is her idea of absolute and utter motoring perfection.
There was one mistake, though. The Evo 400. Instead of shuffling forward, the
engineers tried a giant leap and failed. Yes, they squeezed 400bhp from the
2 litre engine — an amazing 200bhp per litre — but the turbo lag was so bad
and the speed so great that bits of the body peeled away if you even
attempted to go flat out. It was a horrid car.
So for the 360 they’ve taken the idea of the 400 but reined it all back a bit.
Disappointing? Not at all. It’ll still get from 0 to 60 nearly a full second
faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera S, but it’s all so much more driveable
than the car it replaces. Actually, it’s much more driveable than pretty
much anything.
At first it’s scary, but as you get to know it and you start to realise that
it won’t fly off the road, everything — the grip, the handling and the
unbelievable, seamless barrel of torque and power — becomes almost
hysterical.
Better still, behind the spoilers and the wheelie bin they use for an exhaust,
it has a big boot, four doors and all the luxuries you could reasonably
expect. And it only costs £35,539. Or £34,500 if you decide to do without
the leather trim.
A car like this, then, is almost never caught out. It works in city centres
because yobs love a yob and ecomentalists don’t know what it is. It works on
the school run. It works on the track. It works, thanks to four-wheel drive,
in the gymkhana car park. But it works best of all when you’re on the A44
and the bastard in front is doing 25mph.
Vital statistics
Model Mitsubishi Evo IX FQ-360
Engine 1997cc, four cylinders
Power 366bhp @ 6900rpm
Torque 363 lb ft @ 3200rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel 21.6mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 33.4g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 3.9sec
Top speed 160mph
Price £35,539
Rating 3/5
Verdict Loud and proud
