So what, exactly, is God’s most stupid creation? The pink flamingo, the
avocado pear, Stephen Joseph from the pressure group Transport 2000? There
are many choices even before you get to the koala bear.
It sleeps for 18 hours a day, only waking up to gorge on eucalyptus leaves,
which make it stoned. So stoned in fact that whenever it sees anything that
isn’t a eucalyptus tree or another koala, it becomes so frightened it gives
itself chlamydia.
This can’t be much fun. Sitting around in a tree all day, in a big fur coat,
in Australia, with a bent mind and a sexually transmitted disease that you
caught without actually having sex.
Mind you, I’ve just come back from a couple of weeks in Barbados where I had
plenty of time to study something even more mad. The cicada.
Finished in brown and green, this small insect is so completely camouflaged
when sitting in a tree that not even the most eagle-eyed predator would
stand half a chance of spotting it. So why, you may be wondering, does it
make such a monumental din? I mean, if you’re hiding from certain death it’s
best not to bellow. This is the main reason why snipers, for instance, don’t
crawl through long grass with ghetto blasters strapped to their backs.
And yet the virtually invisible cicada has been equipped with such a powerful
voice that it must fold its own ears away before letting rip.
Scientists will tell you that this is because the poor thing is so well
camouflaged it would never be able to find a mate without shouting. But come
on. Moles manage. So does Steve Davis.
No, the real problem is that, contrary to the popular view in travel agency
brochures, hot tropical nights are noisier than the opening of a new Las
Vegas hotel. You’ve got the constant pounding of the surf, the frogs, which
sound like a million wonky paddle fans, and the monkeys, who could give the
Grateful Dead a run for their money. To be heard above this lot you need to
have a 400-watt mouth.
And now, to make matters even worse, the people of Barbados have started
buying cars. Except that over there they are not really seen as cars as
such. They are horns, which can also be used for moving people and stuff.
I have not seen a copy of the Barbados Highway Code, but plainly no one is
told to mirror, signal then manoeuvre. There seems to be a commonly held
view that you can do whatever you like, at whatever speed takes your fancy,
so long as you are leaning on the horn at the time.
This means, of course, the cicada is safe from predators. No airborne hunter
can hear it any more. But then neither can its potential mates, which means
that from now to the end of its truncated time on the evolutionary cycle,
the poor thing will be reduced to a life of onanism.
Interestingly, this brings me on to the new Peugeot 1007, which, for legal
reasons involving James Bond, cannot be called the one-007 and must be
referred to as the one thousand and seven.
The first and most striking thing about this car are its doors, which do not
open in a conventional fashion. Instead, when you press a button they slide
backwards on runners.
It’s hard at first to see why this should be a good thing. Being French
they’ll be badly made and will therefore shoot backwards every time you
accelerate. Though to counter this my test car had such a weedy 1.4 litre
petrol engine and a power-sapping sequential gearbox that 0-60mph took 18
seconds. This means there is no G force at all, and as a result of that the
doors won’t fly off the handle.
Fine. But then there is the problem of knowing which button on the key fob
opens which door. There is absolutely no way of telling which one does the
left and which one does the right, and in the same way that toast always
lands butter-side down, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll hit the wrong
one.
So you’ll be standing there, trying to look cool in front of all those pretty
school-run mums, while electronically opening the wrong door.
We’re told that electric sliding doors mean children can scamper into the back
without having to fold the front seats forward, and this may be so, if your
child was created by Lowry. But in these days of PlayStations and
lard-burgers most kids wouldn’t have a hope in hell.
Of course, where the one thousand and seven’s funny doors really do pay
dividends is in narrow parking spaces.
If I lived in Paris I’d have one like a shot because there, where you’re
allowed to park anywhere so long as it’s stylishly done, Starship Enterprise
docking ports would open up a whole new range of possibilities. You could
park on pavements and still be able to get out. Hell, you could even park
between the tables of your local patisserie. I’d like that.
But I don’t live in Paris. I live in Britain, where we have out-of-town
superstores with clearly defined car parking spaces and city centres that
are rigorously patrolled by Nigerians to make sure that no one parks at all.
We therefore simply don’t need those doors in the same way that we don’t need
a 4m-decibel horn, because we’re too polite to use it, and we don’t need
diesel engines because, unlike the Romans, we don’t need massive torque for
physically shoving other cars out of a parking space that’s rightfully ours.
This is what I love about the world of cars; that we can see national
characteristics oozing out of every rivet and every weld. Indian cars have
huge back seats because all the nephews and nieces will want to come too.
Italian cars have a buzz. American cars wobble. German cars are resolute.
Swedish cars have bigger wheels for the deep snow. And so it goes on. It’s
why there has never been a truly global car. And it’s why, when we look at
the Peugeot one thousand and seven we have to completely ignore those doors,
I’m afraid, and concentrate on the rest of it.
Well, that was my plan but the doors, I’m afraid, kept cropping up, partly
because they make the little Peugeot very expensive — at £12,000 it’s £1,000
more than its closest rival from Renault — and very heavy. Not only does
this result in the woeful acceleration — I think it’s the slowest car from
0-60 on the market today — but less economical than it should be, too.
Then you have problems with practicality. Unlike, say, a Honda Jazz, which can
accommodate five, the Peugeot is strictly a four-seater. And while the rear
bench can be moved hither and thither in a number of amusing ways, the boot
is never what you’d call generous. There’s also a high sill over which all
your shopping must be humped.
On top of this, it’s about as much fun to drive as a smallish bus, leaning
badly in the corners and never ceasing to amaze you with its complete lack
of grunt.
Good points? Well, it scored very highly in the big independent safety tests
and you can change various bits of interior trim if someone is sick on them
or if you’re bored with the colour. They’ve even produced one version with
interior trim designed by Sadie Frost and Jemima French, which I’m sure
would be great, if you had the first clue who these people were.
The 1007, then, is the motoring world’s cicada. Blessed with only one notable
feature which, at best, is useless and at worst isn’t notable at all.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Peugeot 1007
Sport 1.4 2-Tronic
Engine 1360cc
Power 75bhp @ 5400rpm
Torque 88 lb ft @ 3300rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual
Fuel 45.6mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 147g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 16.6sec
Top speed 102mph
Price £12,100
Rating 2/5
Verdict A brave attempt, like the very first fax machine; needs a
lot of refining
