Of course, you can walk somewhere when your car breaks down, or if you’re too
drunk to drive it. You can also walk if you’re only going a very short
distance — to the bar, for instance, in a pub. But the notion of walking for
fun is just risible.
Nevertheless, every weekend perfectly normal families go for a stroll to walk
off their lunch. Others don beards and brightly coloured anoraks so they may
be as one with someone else’s piece of nature. As a result, the medieval
peasant art of walking is now big business. And because it’s big business
the techno nerds have arrived.
For my recent Top Gear trip to the snowy wastes of Norway I packed a
pair of old leather boots that have served me well over the years. Oh sure,
they’re a bit skiddy on wet rocks and have the weatherproofing
characteristics of tissue paper. But they’re manly and comfortable and
stout.
The production team, however, assuming I’d have no outdoor shoes at all,
bought me some modern alternatives. And God they were horrid. Big, orange
and festooned with badges. The sort of thing you might expect to be murdered
for in a Los Angeles jail.
Fashioned from Gore-Tex, which is apparently 25% more breathable — than what,
I don’t know — they come with something called an advanced chassis and
semi-automatic crampons, and have a preposterous name like the GTXX or
V-Max. I might have put them on if you were holding my family hostage. Or if
I woke up one morning to find I’d inadvertently become embroiled in a So
Solid Crew video.
But the thought of voluntarily wearing something on my feet that had
apparently been built on the same principles as a motorcycle was just
laughable. No way would it happen.
But it did. You see, after just one hour my stout old leather shoes had become
soaked. I was wet. I was freezing. And I had no alternative. Begging the
cameraman to steer clear of my feet I slipped into my new GTXX
semi-automatic, extruded chassis Salomons.
The first problem was that to fit all the technology into the soles meant my
height shot up from 6ft 5in to about 8ft 3in. But there was no second
problem. These shoes were a revelation. Light, waterproof, grippy in all
conditions and with lots of ankle support to keep me in one piece when I
fell over on the ice. Which, in my old shoes, had been about once every half
an hour.
What’s more, my daughter says my new shoes are cool. So even though I now hit
my head on doors, ceilings and even overhead power cables, I won’t take them
off. They’re my new best friends.
If only all technology were so impressive. But it isn’t. Take digital cameras
as a prime example. With film, an astonishing library of the 20th century
sits in everyone’s kitchen drawer. But with digital it sits in a computer’s
hard disk waiting to be lost when the damn thing crashes. Which it will,
sooner or later.
Then you have flat-screen televisions. They’re elegant and cool when they’re
turned off but switch them on and they don’t work at all. The lip synch on
mine is so out of kilter, I only hear the news 10 minutes after the
subsequent programme has begun.
And of course some of the technology in cars now is just ridiculous. I
recently swapped a Mercedes SL 55 for an SLK 55 and, yes, in many ways it’s
a big step backwards. The smaller car feels much cheaper, it lacks a
properly usable boot, and while the performance figures appear to be the
same on paper I do miss the urge of the supercharger when I’m in a real
hurry.
But in one crucial respect the SLK is much better. It doesn’t have air
suspension.
And that means it doesn’t do a little hop, skip and a jump every time it runs
over a nasty little ridge or pothole.
In Norway I drove the new Audi Q7 off road, and while I shall reserve judgment
until I’ve driven it somewhere more normal, I can tell you this already. The
air suspension is rubbish. It turns all surfaces, no matter how smooth, into
washboards.
Air suspension was developed because it gives backroom computer geeks a chance
to fiddle, which they can’t with a traditional mechanical set-up. With air
they can make the car go up and down and they can fit sensors to ensure it
stays level in the corners. They can tap away all night, writing programs
that will make them look good at the next wiring conference in Palo Alto.
And that’s fine. But all they’re really doing is making our lives just a
tiny bit less comfortable.
And that brings me nicely on to the Mazda MX-5.
The old model was a phenomenon. The best-selling sports car the world has ever
seen. Probably because it always felt just a teensy bit gay. Yes it was a
modern-day and reliable incarnation of the old MG — they even recorded and
then copied the sound of the British sports car’s transmission whine — but
you just knew that given half a chance this little car would be off to the
gentlemen’s public lavatories with its friends George and Michael.
That’s why we all liked it so much. It wasn’t threatening. Oh sure, some
people said Mazda should fit a more powerful engine, but not me: I always
wanted a detuned 1.3 litre — the Barbra Streisand version. A stripped-out,
slowed-down, steel-wheeled alternative.
That, emphatically, is not what we’ve got with the new version. With its wider
body and flared wheelarches it looks a bit more beefed up, as though they
haven’t evolved the old version so much as sent it to the gym. It now looks
like it means business, like it might be more of a “serious” sports car. A
rival perhaps for the more grown-up, more heterosexual Honda S2000.
What’s more, Mazda says that following customer demand for space in the back
to transport “beverages”, the boot is now bigger. Oh God, no. They’ve made a
car for people who say “beverage”. This doesn’t look good.
But it is. Yes, it has all sorts of new-fangled techno nonsense like side
airbags and traction control and an onboard computer. But this is installed
simply to eke the last horse of power from each drop of fuel without
upsetting every single EU noise and emission rule in the process.
In other words, what we have here is the automotive equivalent of my new
shoes. Technology that works, hidden away behind a screen of good, solid
engineering. It’s digital but it feels analogue.
What’s really brilliant is that despite the stronger body and the greater
number of toys it weighs only 45kg more than the old one. Computer geeks
didn’t do that. Engineers did.
And it was engineers who did the roof. Oh I’m sure there was pressure to fit
an electrically operated soft top but this would have added weight. And when
you power your roof down in traffic jams it makes you look like a berk. So
what you get is a canvas top that can be raised and lowered, using just one
hand, from the driver’s seat. Power roof? You just don’t need it.
And because they’ve kept the weight down the new car still feels gay, in both
the new and the old sense of the word. The balance, the poise, the
gearchange, the exhaust note; they’re all spot on.
And the 2 litre model I drove was not so fast that it was scary but not so
slow that if felt like a toy. Everything about the new MX-5 is perfectly
judged so that what you end up with is a slightly more practical, slightly
better looking version of something you loved anyway.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Mazda MX-5 1.8i
Engine 1798cc, four cylinders
Power 124bhp @ 6500rpm
Torque 123 lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission Five-speed manual
Fuel 38.7mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 174g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 9.4sec
Top speed 122mph
Price £15,600
Rating 4/5
Verdict Hairdressing just got butch
