Have you ever wondered what happened to all the engineers? Two hundred years
ago the world must have been full of men in frock coats inventing new ways
of doing everything.
Conversation at the pub now is terribly dull. “What did you do at work today?”
“Oh nothing much. Tried to look up the secretary’s skirt for a bit, then did
some filing.”
Imagine, however, what it must have been like in 1750. “What did you do at
worktoday?” “Well, I invented a steam engine and then this afternoon I
developed a new way of keeping time. You?” “Oh, same old same old. I came up
with a new way of tunnelling and then I designed the pressure cooker.”
All over the world there were people saying: “See how that sparrow makes its
nest, using its beak to intertwine the twigs? It has given me an idea for
something I shall call a washing machine.”
I’ve been watching Adam Hart-Davies’s new series on BBC2. It’s called What
the Tudors and Stuarts Did for Us and it’s been going on,
unnecessarily, for weeks. It seems the answer could have been given in two
seconds: “Everything.”
In the space of a gnat’s blink, we went from a species that ate mud to full-on
civilisation with blast furnaces, steam engines and new ways of making sure
the roof on your house didn’t fall down.
It must have been easy when the Victorians came along to look at what had
already been achieved and think: “Well, there’s nothing left for us to
invent.” But, unbelievably, they kept on going with their railway engines
and their iron ships and their electricity.
Even as the 20th century trundled into life, you couldn’t go for a walk on any
cliff top without bumping into someone who was muttering and making notes.
John Logie Baird, for instance. He started out by inventing self-warming
socks, then developed jam before, on a stroll through Hastings, deciding to
come up with radiovision — or television, as we now call it.
To us that seems incomprehensible. I mean, I went for a stroll this morning
and decided to design a time machine but I have no clue how I might go about
it. Baird, on the other hand, went into a shop, bought a hat box and two
knitting needles and hey presto, the next thing you know we have Robert
Kilroy-Silk.
Those were exciting times. The Victorians had the Great Exhibition of 1851 to
showcase their wares and their brilliance. They saw mechanical engineering
as the future of the world, the one thing that separated us from the beasts
and the flies.
Now we have electronic engineering which is not only stratospherically dull
but also fills us with fear and dread. Ever since 1968, when Hal went
bonkers and ate the crew of Discovery One, we’ve been brought up to be
frightened of it.
Computers, we were told by James Cameron in The Terminator, would one
day finish mankind, and Prince Charles agrees. He sees a time when
nano-robots will learn to push buttons and end the world in a nuclear
holocaust.
I’m not so sure. In fact, I have no fears at all about a robot the size of a
human hair climbing onto a table — how, exactly? — and pushing the erase key
because we can be guaranteed that either the robot or the computer will have
broken long before the bomb ever goes boom.
Think about it. Paddington station is still as beautiful and as functional as
it was when Brunel built it almost 150 years ago. Now compare that with the
mobile phone you bought last September. Ugly isn’t it? And where’s the
camera and the electronic diary and the video facility? Not that it matters
because it started out by not working in Fulham and now it doesn’t work at
all.
Have you still got the video recorder you bought back in 1985, or the camera?
Of course not. They went wrong years ago. And it’s the same story with DVDs.
I bought one of the first portable players for a monstrous £850 and already
it’s fit only for the bin.
And this brings me to the new Volvo S60 R. Apparently it’s a four-wheel-drive,
four-door answer to BMW’s M3. Hmm. A slightly optimistic boast when you look
under the bonnet and find the 2.5 litre turbo engine develops 300bhp. That’s
a lot, for sure, but if the M3 is your Gare du Nord, 300 is only half way
through the Channel tunnel.
And I’m sorry, but turbocharging is positively James Watt.
Volvo ploughs on, however, saying the S60 R has, and I quote, “the most
advanced chassis of any road car”. It’s called the Skyhook system because in
comfort and sport modes it feels as though the car is suspended from above
rather than propped up on such crudities as the wheels and suspension.
There’s more, too, in the shape of active yaw control, two traction controls
and a setting called advanced that, we’re told, turns the S60 into a pure
racing car.
It all sounded too good to be true. And it was. I borrowed one, drove it to
the Top Gear test track and selected the advanced setting that
unhooks the car from the sky. But way before I had a chance to decide
whether I liked it or not, in fact way before I’d got round the first
corner, the whole thing broke. A message on the dash said simply: “Chassis
settings. Service.”
Another car was duly delivered and I spent a day pushing buttons so that now I
have a definitive verdict for you. Comfort makes the car comfortable. Sport
makes the car less comfortable. And advanced makes it uncomfortable.
So far as handling’s concerned, it didn’t seem to make any difference what
setting I selected, so after much careful deliberation (three seconds), I
put the whole thing in comfort and went home.
That said, I rather liked the Volvo. In the past I’ve never really seen the
point of the S60. Buying one was like deliberately sleeping with the plain,
boring girl rather than her bubbly, pretty German friend, but the R version
with its new nose and big alloy wheels is pretty too.
Strangely, it doesn’t feel that fast. Oh, I’ve read the figures and I’m sure
they’re right but this is not a rip-snorting terrier, constantly surging up
to corners faster than you’d like.
All cars have a motorway cruising speed at which they settle when you’re not
really concentrating. Mostly it’s 80 or so, though when you get up to
something like the Mercedes S 600 it’s more like 110. In the Volvo, however,
I kept finding myself doing 60.
On country roads I’d remind myself that I was at the wheel of a turbocharged
four-wheel-drive sports saloon and overtake the car in front, with
consummate ease it must be said. But then, a mile or so later, it’d be up
behind me, its driver wondering why I was suddenly going so slowly.
As a result, it’s a relaxing car to drive. Certainly you have no need to worry
about being ambushed by a speed camera. Either you’re concentrating, in
which case you’ll see it, or you’re not, in which case you’ll be doing 3mph.
I loved the interior too. The seats are fabulously comfortable, the stereo is
as good as you’ll find in any car and I would never tire of watching the sat
nav screen slide out of the dash, as if installed by Q. It’ll break,
obviously, but while it’s working it’s wonderful.
What we have then is a comfortable, safe, well-equipped, well-priced car that,
if you can really be bothered, is quite fast as well.
As a thriller it misses the BMW by a mile, but as an ownership experience I’d
take the Volvo over the M3 every time. It’s so much less — how can I put
this politely? — plonkerish.
More importantly, however, it also misses the Audi S4. Like the Volvo, this
has a turbo motor, four doors and four-wheel drive. Like the Volvo it’s
quiet, comfortable and unassuming when you just want to get home. Unlike the
Volvo, when conditions are right, the Audi picks up its lederhosen and
absolutely flies.
Even though it’s a couple of grand more expensive, I’d buy the Audi, it’s more
mechanical somehow. But if you want the Bill Gates Volvo, don’t worry, you
are not getting a bad car.
Vital statistics
Model Volvo S60 R
Engine type Five-cylinder turbo, 2521cc
Power 300bhp @ 5500rpm
Torque 295 lb ft @ 1950-5250rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Suspension (front) MacPherson strut (rear) independent multi-link
Tyres 235/40 18Y
Dimensions 4,606mm length; 1,804mm width; 1,431mm height
C02 256g/km
Fuel 26.4mpg (combined)
Top speed 155mph (limited)
Acceleration 0 to 60mph: 5.4sec
Price £34,145
Verdict Volvo attempt at being fast and furious is actually very
relaxing
Rating
