Italy
"Italian cars were always a bit like Italian tempers. Easily broken. But
the new Punto has a substantial feel, a sense that nothing’s going to fall
off or come loose. The steering wheel is so fat you can barely get your
fingers round it and the gearlever is the sort of thing that you’d expect to
find on an American muscle car or a 19th century railway locomotive" Read
the Fiat Grande Punto review
"In essence, then, Alfa has always understood what makes driving a
thrill. But it has never been able to make a car. Well, not a car that a
rational, normal human being might want to buy.Think of them as underground
German art films. Great for serious-minded critics but not quite in the same
everyman league as Bruce 'BMW' Willis on an asteroid" Read
the Alfa Romeo 159 review
France
"The 407 is like one of those French films you sometimes find on FilmFour
in the middle of the night. It promises much and it delivers plenty of pubic
hair. But somehow that isn’t really enough" Read
the Peugeot 407 review
"Of course, a French car is built by disgruntled and uninterested
Algerians in a factory with a floor made out of mud, so it’s not going to
last very long. But then it’s a statement more than a car really. I mean, a
French car shows other road users that you loathe Tony Blair, that you
disapprove of his stance in Iraq and that you prefer a quail’s egg to a
burger any day of the week. The problem is that while the French are very
good at mushrooms and shooting pigs, they’ve been in an automotive oxbow
lake since about 1959" Read
the Citroën C4 review
Japan
"Like all cars, it has doors, seats, pedals, a steering wheel and lights
at the front and the back. But how can this be, when it comes from a people
who are baffled by a spoon? How do they make something so instantly
recognisable as “a car” when they can’t eat mashed potato without vomiting?"
Read
the Lexus GS430 review
"Once, many years ago at a Daihatsu driving event in Japan, I stuffed a
Charade into a bank of earth, tearing off the entire front end and writing
it off completely. The man from Daihatsu wasn’t bothered, though. When I
apologised to him, he said: “Don’t worry, we make one every 23 seconds.”
There was no sense then, and there’s none now, that Daihatsu makes cars
because it loves them. It makes cars to make money. Unfortunately, with the
exception of Honda, this is the Japanese way and it’s the main reason their
cars are so soulless" Read
the Daihatsu Terios review
"Over the years Honda has tried and tried to give itself a youthful
appeal. It has injected its cars with Botox, collagen and testosterone. It
has even slotted 190bhp engines under the bonnet of a Civic, but this was
like fitting a spoiler to a plastic hip. All it did was increase the speed
the old lady was going when she hit the tree" Read
the Honda Accord Tourer Type S review
Australia
"The Australians go to work in shorts and that’s a good enough reason to
hate them. Also, they have cookers in their kitchens but choose to cook
their prawns in the garden. And the only invention to have come out of
Australia, ever, is the rotary washing line" Read
the article
"Sure, we’ll buy colonial wine and we’ll concede that they’re good at
sport, but that’s chiefly because they plainly do very little else"
Read
the Vauxhall Monaro review
America
"In America everyone wants to be a part of the great outdoors. They like
the idea of cutting down trees and shooting critters in the spine. Even the
most sockless preppy from Georgetown DC is able and willing to slip out of
his loafers at a moment’s notice and into a hairy shirt for a weekend under
canvas in the woods. What’s more, in America everyone wants to be a factory
worker. They seem to find manual labour and engineer boots rather noble.
Bruce Springsteen has more money than God but unlike Britain’s rock gods,
who wear tweed and Armani, he dresses like he’s spent all day up a telegraph
pole. Only in America could there have been a song called Wichita Lineman.
An ode to a man who spends all day long driving around a useless state, in a
pick-up truck, looking for broken telephone wires" Read
the Volkswagen Transporter review
China
"There are certain countries at which you are allowed to poke fun.
Germany heads the list with America and Belgium in hot pursuit. But Israel
is right out and so is anywhere in Africa, anywhere in the former eastern
bloc and so is China. And that's a problem because this week's car is the
Skoda Superb which hits two of the four no-go areas. It is built in the
Czech Republic using a chassis that was designed for China. Can I "do"
China? Oh, what the hell. I went there once, back in 1986, and it was
without any shadow of doubt the worst place in the whole world. Think of
Greece without the cooking and you're on the right track" Read
the article
The Pacific Rim
"Things I’d rather do than own a Korean or Malaysian car include
French-kissing Bill Oddie. Pacific rim cars are made to prop up the
economies of Third World countries. They’re for African taxi drivers, a
rival for the moped and the mule. And I bet the people working in the
factories over there simply cannot believe that 10,000 miles away people in
the world’s fourth richest country are buying them too. They must think
we’re insane" Read
the article
"There’s something I’ve found out as well. If you buy a Hyundai, or any
car from that part of the world, you will be seen as a bore. Invitations
will dry up, your kids will refuse to speak to you, your wife will sleep
with your friends and you may end up committing suicide" Read
the Hyundai Accent review
Belgium
"If you thought the last Passat was dull to behold, you really ain’t seen
nothing yet. This new one is sculptured ditchwater. It looks like it was
styled by someone who was either in a big hurry to get the job done or who
was having sex at the time. As a result, it is the motoring equivalent of
Belgium: something you simply won’t notice" Read
the Volkswagen Passat review
India
"In Pakistan, bandits have been known to kidnap foreigners. In India it’s
the roads themselves that are the country’s murderers: 164 people die on
them each day and a quarter of the world’s bus crashes occur here"
Read
the article
Germany
"This is the problem with the Germans. They like to analyse, with flip
charts, every single detail of every single part of the car. That’s fine,
but there is a downside, which is plain for all to see on the new 6-series
BMW. It’s as boring as hell. Advertising men will tell you that when it
comes to cars they need to attach a single word to the brand. So if you want
a 'safe' car you buy a Volvo. If you want a 'reliable' car, you buy a
Volkswagen. And if you have a small 'penis' you buy a BMW. It’s not just
brands either. There are single words that describe the national
characteristics of a car too. A German car is 'engineered'. A French car is
'soft' and an Italian car is 'exuberant'." Read
the Aston Martin DB9 review
"Over there, in the Fatherland, 95% of adults belong to at least one
club. There is even a popular society called the Appreciation of the Irish
Postal Service which meets once a month for tea and stamp swapsies.
According to my friend in Cologne, this clubbiness is born from a German
fear of free time. 'We don’t know what to do with it,' he explains. 'We must
have structure and order in our lives, and being in a club gives us that.'
Aaaaaaaargh" Read
the Ferrari 575m review
"The price, then, of having a car that feels like German granite is that
on the motorway it sounds like a German prison guard. GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Off
the motorway it feels French again. There’s a looseness to the controls that
you just won’t find in, say, a VW Polo or even a Ford Fiesta. The gearbox
feels more baggy than a sack of bubble wrap and the steering’s all wobbly.
It’s weird, gazing out over a Teutonic view and then finding the undersides
are not hard at all. It’s like one of those liqueur chocolates. You gird
your jaw to tackle the outer shell and then find the soft centre has
dribbled all down your shirt" Read
the Renault Clio review
Sweden
"Anything anyone can do, the Swedes can do better. Only a few years after
someone failed to assassinate Ronald Reagan someone shot the Swedish prime
minister, Olaf Palme. And, unbelievably, they still haven’t caught him"
Read
the Koenigsegg CC review
Britain
"The fact is that Britain, right now, is a jolly place to live. Tony
Blair is going. Everyone’s house is worth a million pounds. And the summer,
thanks to a few dedicated souls like me and that chap at Ryanair, is likely
to be warm. That’s why we do the conga at two in the morning: because we’re
happy. And that’s why others don’t like us: because they’re jealous"
Read
the article
