COMMENT
2 1 AUGUST 2019 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 19
TUESDAY
As Tuesdays go, this one was a record-breaker. My
new wheels have arrived in the form of a Jaguar
I-Pace, one of the most interesting – and best –
cars on the market. Have done only nine miles as
I write, so even the long-term ‘hello’ story must
wait a couple of weeks. I’ve been in a few of these,
but there’s something especially instructive
about subjecting a new car to your own routines
and favourite roads.
Early impressions are of silky silence and
smoothness plus very low road noise. I’m
especially pleased about the last of those: most
cars on 22in wheels get noisier as they roll faster.
And this I-Pace will roll really fast. Another point
of amazement is the packaging. I’m riding in the
fi rst saloon(ish) Jag in history not to have a long
nose and a cramped cabin. I know they call it an
SUV, but my eye says it’s too sleek for that.
WEDNESDAY
Almighty change of pace: one of my mates has
a ‘secret’ Rover SD1 Vitesse, a near-pristine
car with its engine and suspension tweaked by
experts back in the day. The pair of us bunked
off today for a noisy, hard-riding, exhilarating
afternoon blast. Why is the car secret? My pal
stores it in a barn well away from home to protect
it from what he terms the slings and arrows of
family fi nance. Any closer to home, he reckons,
and it’d be a new bathroom by now.
So interesting to try an SD1 again. First, it’s
no longer big. Everything has grown around
it. Second, the power delivery of its pokey V
is positively antique. Having lived through the
diesel era, we’re well used to V8-like low-end
torque minus the drama. It’s great, but not
`
He stores his ‘secret’ Rover
SD1 Vitesse far from home
a
MY WEEK IN CARS
M e e t A n d y G r e e n , a n i m p r e s s i ve l y d e te r m i n e d
Gloucestershire
grasshopper who rode 50
miles around the Cotswolds
on the tail-light of our Kia
e-Niro last Sunday and
was still there a day later,
having travelled another
100 miles to London at
speeds up to 75mph!
AND ANOTHER THING...
feel in less peril of being T-boned by Uber jockeys
scanning pavements for punters, or one of those
private hire drivers especially recruited for their
skill at straddling lanes and ignoring whatever’s
in the mirror. It’s such fun, accelerating smoothly,
gliding about at ideal speeds and stopping
smoothly at red lights, rather than jinking about
as you must to maintain a modicum of progress.
Shame we don’t get more chances to do this.
FRIDAY
K e e p r u m i n at i n g on t he t r av a i l s of A s t on Ma r t i n
Lagonda, which fl oated a quarter of its shares
on the stock market at £19 a throw last October
and has seen them fall under a fi ver. The price
is especially depressed, pundits say, because
investment denizens keep betting on Aston’sfailure. I accept that once you join, you can’t
expect favours from the market. But having
tracked the fortunes of this thoroughly decent
British company for half a century – and written
ple nt y a b out A s t on s t h at on l y ju s t m a de it out t he
door but are now hugely valued classics – I fi nd it
deeply ironic that AML should be brought low by
back-room machinations when its best years seem
to be ahead. Mind you, those who okayed the fl oat
(a nd h av e s e e n t h r e e - qu a r t e r s of t he v a lue of t he i r
r e m a i n i n g s t a k e s v a n i s h ) p r o b a b l y h a d i t c o m i n g.
Jaguar’s I-Pace is a
cracking car – and now
Steve’s everyday steed
GET IN TOUCH
[email protected]^ @StvCr
Steve Cropley
strictly necessary. Still, the surprising balance of
the long-wheelbase chassis and the mechanical
appeal of the gearchange (we called it a “rifl e-
bolt” action) are still intoxicating. The steering’s
decent, too. Not the grip, though. Roads were
greasy and the combo of over-age tyres and
archaic tread designs meant you needed to be
Steve Soper or Jeff Allam on every roundabout.
THURSDAY
Every year I resolve to enjoy London’s blissful,
traffi c-free August weeks and this year we’re
around for three of them. I’ve been enjoying the
chance, by both car and motorbike, to get backinto the rhythm of city driving, simply because I
Aston Martin Lagonda shares floated at £19 but are now £