Even after shutting all the electronic nanny systems down, they came on again as soon as Jeremy re-started the car, leading him to a point where he just wanted the experience to end. Fortunately for petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson, whose hatred of family-focused hybrids such as the Toyota Prius is well documented, Maranello’s first efforts at electrification have been altogether different kinds of machines, with performance rather than fuel economy to the fore. The problem is he starts getting into specific cars. I love hearing about car lines, but hearing about how the "new" Honda CRX and their brand new NSX that they are coming out with. The NSX is only 10 years younger than me and unless you want to hear every minute detail about the original edition of the car, what's the point? After 5-6 of these specific articles in a row, I just had to stop. Clarkson claims that he doesn’t usually like “cars that produce more than 700 horsepower because they make no sense on the road,” but “this one delivers its power so smoothly and so righteously it makes you grin, not soil yourself.” And though it has four-wheel drive and a raised ride height, it didn’t occur to Clarkson to use it for transporting pig feed around his farm.

Global warming was invented by Margaret Thatcher as a blunt instrument she could use to bop Arthur Scargill and his sooty miners over the head.” Get under the skin of cars over months rather than days Extended test: Honda HR-V 2023 review Extended test: Skoda Kamiq 1.0 TSI Extended test: Dacia Jogger review › More here... But because the electrics started going wrong, including one incident when the driver’s seat kept moving forward on its own, crushing him against the steering wheel until he looked “like Stanley Tucci towards the end of that movie The Core,” Clarkson concluded he couldn’t trust the Merc and refused to drive it again. There are pure electric cars, too, such as the Nissan Leaf. But the less we say about those, the better. Because let’s be clear. They are interesting to write about, but . . . They. Do. Not. Work.”Jeremy hated all the electronic interference in the Genesis GV80 particularly the predictive suspension, but coming a close second was the lane-keeping assistance that he said just didn’t work on the narrow roads of the Cotswolds, wrenching the wheel hither and tither. And as we know from his review of the McLaren P1 for The Sunday Times (and one of his TV programmes, probably), if a hybrid system can be used to induce “’Oh my God’, sweaty-pawed, heart-racing, wide-eyed, hair-on-end, ball-shrinking terror” then he’s not entirely against the idea.

The most popular advice topics — we've got you covered 2035 petrol and diesel car ban: 12 things to know Advice It’s posh inside, too, and while he found the infotainment system annoying, Clarkson was quite taken by the comfortable ride and considerable off-road ability.

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The seats were perfect, the driving position was perfect, and you didn’t have to be Bill Gates or 12 years old to find your way round the infotainment system. The best thing about the Alpine A110, according to Clarkson, is that despite having the engine in the middle, it’s “not a plonker’s car”. This, he wrote, is because it’s so small, and therefore not threatening. “The young men of Abu Dhabi will not be going around Harrods till three in the morning in one of these, that’s for sure.” According to Clarkson this G82 M4 Competition M also has: “the best seats ever to envelop my nether regions”; 90% of the drama of early M cars with “10,000 times” the refinement; two “perfect” driving modes that you can switch between via a button on the steering wheel; steering so good “it’s like you’re being pulled around on God’s apron strings”; an infotainment system even he could operate; and rear seats and a boot that are genuinely usable. There is, of course, one exception to all of this. Mazda is poised, as I write, to unveil its new and much-hyped MX-5. The only true sports car made today. On its shoulders rests not just the future of the company, but the country that spawned it as an automotive giant. Clarkson starts this review by wondering if anyone has ever really dreamt of owning a Vauxhall, even the fast ones; the implication being they’re among the least desirable cars on the road. And the new Astra he was given to test had a three-cylinder, 1.2-litre engine that, in his words, makes it just about able to beat a Citroen BX diesel away from the lights.